(Note: this is the english version of Interview mit dem Schweizer Toni Schneider, CEO von Bluesky: «Werbung wird nicht unser Hauptgeschäft», translation partially done by Kagi Translate)
Initially, the position was only ad interim, but since July 2026, Swiss native Toni Schneider has been the CEO of Bluesky (the famous Twitter alternative).
In the Verge interview with tech podcaster Nilay Patel Schneider describes his vision for the next ten years: Bluesky shouldn’t grow as a closed product, but as a gateway to an open ecosystem, the „ATmosphere“. He sees the Bluesky app as a kind of lobby or entry point into the ATmosphere that attracts people and shows them that there is much more there than just the app itself.
We met Toni Schneider – who lives in California – for a short conversation via video call; it is the first German-language interview with the new CEO. In addition to his ideas regarding the ATmosphere ecosystem, he explained how Bluesky will fund itself, why they hold hardly any data and would never hand it over to authoritarian states. Furthermore, Schneider says why Switzerland has opportunities for smart regulation in the digital competition and can position itself well in the geopolitical turmoil – not least because Bluesky is setting up its Core Identity Server in Switzerland.
In the blue sections, you will find brief explanations of the most important terms. Those who want to know more can find details in our Deep Dives from December 2024 (Bluesky — The technical perspective, Bluesky — User Experience). The criticism expressed there has since become partially outdated (especially regarding the sole dependence on Bluesky as a company), but the technical description remains accurate.
Bluesky always seems to have a strong Swiss connection. First Jay Graber with Chinese-Swiss roots, now you. How did this change come about?
Jay was CEO of Bluesky for six years – it was clearly time for a change for her. The public attention that comes with the role of CEO wasn’t that important to her. She wanted to focus more on AI and the possibilities of AI for the Atproto protocol, ATmosphere and Bluesky.
ATproto (the Authenticated Transfer Protocol) is the technology behind the social network Bluesky and various other online applications such as the blogging platform Leaflet; the slightly less technical term ATmosphere describes the entirety of ATproto and the apps based on it.
With conventional social media (such as X, Threads or even Facebook), the data as well as the access rules belong to the respective provider, who sets all the rules. ATproto handles this differently:
– Your data belongs to you: Your posts, followers and your profile are not stored in a company-owned „basement“, but in an open format that you can theoretically control yourself. Your identity is like an ID card that you can take with you everywhere.
– Openly accessible: The protocol is publicly documented. Anyone can build their own apps for it that work with the same network. Different apps can therefore exist side-by-side – a minimalist one, one with videos, one for text only – all storing their data together on the same server in a publicly documented format.
– Selectable feeds: What you see is not necessarily decided by a platform’s secret algorithm. There can be many different „feeds“, and you choose which one you subscribe to – like different newspapers at the same kiosk.
In short: ATproto is an open blueprint for social networks in the broadest sense—not just for short messages like Bluesky, but for all types of information where people interact online (this could include blogging platforms or distributed source code repositories). Bluesky is the most well-known app built on it, but in principle, anyone can join in.
I was already involved as an investor in Bluesky. Originally, I even helped Jay look for a successor. But the more we talked about the role and the direction, the clearer it became to me: this is something I want to do myself. So, I eventually stepped in.
And then we are setting up the Core Identity Server in Switzerland [Editor’s note: A central directory service that verifies and maps which digital account (identity) belongs to which user – comparable to DNS on the web, which resolves domain names to addresses..]
What do you mean by that?
We are currently working on separating ATproto and Bluesky more clearly. Specifically, this means we want to establish a separate organisation in Switzerland to manage the Core Identity Server – as a non-profit, independent of Bluesky as a company. In the first year, this organisation would still be funded by Bluesky, but after that, it should be self-sustaining through donations. We are using the Ethereum Foundation, which is also based in Switzerland, as inspiration.
The fact that the identity server is being established as a non-profit in Switzerland wasn’t actually my decision – that was already decided before I became CEO. I was asked as an investor at the time, and I thought it was a good idea. The Ethereum Foundation is a great model for an open system that scales and works, backed by a Swiss foundation. Switzerland is a good place for such things; it’s been a major advantage, especially given the political climate of the last two years.
You’ve lived in California for a long time and are active in the open-source scene..
Yes, I’ve lived in San Francisco for over 35 years now. In recent years, I’ve primarily been active as an investor, with around 10 to 20 per cent of my investments going to Europe, including Switzerland. Before that, I spent over ten years at WordPress, deeply rooted in the open-source and open-publishing world.
For me, ATproto is like the next stage of this evolution. Open publishing systems were the first step; open protocols are the logical next one. I’m aware that this takes time—such shifts don’t happen overnight. But I’m convinced: it’s coming.
How is Bluesky funded?
The investor money will last for a few more years. All data in ATproto is public; anyone can view it by using the open version of the Firehose and the PDS. However, we now also have a new version for companies that want to work with us – essentially the enterprise version. We’re already getting enquiries, and we’re going to monetise those. It’s a bit like Amazon’s AWS, but for the ‚Atmosphere‘ instead of the web: PDS hosting, the Firehose, and there will be more to come.
Technically speaking, ATproto consists of PDS (Personal Data Servers), relay servers that distribute the data, user applications, and so-called ‚labellers‘ (which generate metadata for moderation and ‚attach‘ it to accounts and posts).
PDS are the databases of the Atmosphere, containing user accounts and user data (such as Bluesky posts and follower relationships). The vast majority of PDS are currently operated by Bluesky itself; for example, the new providers Eurosky and W Social each have their own PDS. Tech-savvy users can, in principle, also run their own PDS.
A PDS is useless without an infrastructure that collects data from all PDS (all the Bluesky posts, follower info, likes, etc.) and makes it available to applications via the so-called Firehose. Relay servers are used for this (think of them like a postman who collects new posts from all PDS and redistributes them). The Firehose itself is primarily the term for the data stream accessed by applications (such as the Bluesky app on a smartphone).
In principle, Bluesky currently provides these systems free of charge. However, for commercial providers in particular, it can be advantageous to keep their own data in their own PDS.
On the consumer side, meaning within the app, we are seeing commercial business models emerging in the network: people doing fundraising, selling newsletter subscriptions, or selling independent games. This is proving very successful, precisely because there is no advertising on our network. We send millions of clicks to various publishers every day – and that’s already happening organically.
That is where we want to step in and make it easier to buy and sell things on the network. It will take a while, but that is our next goal. We will take a percentage, similar to an app store model, but much less than the usual 30 per cent. And it will be an open system: not just our payment system, but several, usable not only in Bluesky but in all apps across the network. Content purchased in one app should also be usable in others. So it’s never just about one company or one app, but always about being part of the entire network.
We aren’t ruling out advertising, but we don’t want it to become our primary revenue model. It also doesn’t work well in a decentralised system; most apps don’t want ads. There are a few companies developing open social ad systems – if those work, we would give them a try, but we aren’t working on that ourselves.
What does the future look like beyond microblogging?
In the initial phase, it was about providing an alternative to Twitter and Threads, and the apps are all very similar but work together – which is good because it’s now an open system. However, we want to see many more apps emerge that aren’t just for microblogging. The next chapter of this story involves thousands of different apps and communities that all stay connected but no longer just focus on microblogging.
We are already seeing this every day: games, event apps, group apps. The latest part of the protocol is called ATProto Spaces, and it’s about private data and private communities. This is the number one request from our users and developers: not always being on a public app where everything is visible, but moving back towards private groups. That is actually the original idea of social networking, which doesn’t really exist on social media anymore.
About two weeks ago, this was released as an alpha version, and we are already seeing dozens of new apps trying it out. The Bluesky app itself will continue to grow, but we also want to bring in all the other apps that offer new forms of social networking.
What exactly does „private“ mean here – non-public or encrypted?
Non-public. You can create a Space and control access. The fundamental idea of ATproto is that user data belongs to you: there isn’t one database per app, but millions of small databases per user – the PDS, or Personal Data Server. It belongs to you, you can host it yourself, and it works with all apps.
For private data, you can create a dedicated PDS for a Space that belongs to the people who create it. Only those in the group can see the data. This could be for publishers who want to sell articles, or for a private group chat. The important thing is: everything remains user-owned. The app is just a „lens“ – as Bluesky, we don’t actually have control over the data itself.
If an app disappears from the market, can I still access my data?
The idea is that there are multiple apps for every type of data. If Bluesky disappears tomorrow, you can use another app, such as one from Eurosky, or someone can build a new one – which is even possible yourself today with AI. The schema definitions, known as Lexicons, are always public for this purpose, ensured via the IETF [Editor’s note: IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) is the international organisation that develops and maintains open technical standards for the internet – such as protocols like TCP/IP or HTTP.]. When you develop an app, you look at the Lexicons to know what data exists and how to bring it into your app. The system is designed so that you have immediate access to all this data, instead of starting from scratch and trying to get users to enter their information.
You can think of ATproto or the Atmosphere as a database for any type of data. One data type might be a „social media message“, another a „blog post“. Metadata is also stored as such, Data types starting with your own identity (i.e. the account) through to follower relationships or (in the case of online publications) subscriptions. The descriptions of these data types are stored in public available Lexicons locations. This has several advantages:
– If different apps work with the same data types, data compatibility between these apps is automatically guaranteed. You can see this in practice, for example, with the Atmosphere-based blogging and publishing platforms Leaflet and Offprint, which are both based on the same data types for blog posts/publications.
– Apps in the Atmosphere can be extended to suitably integrate new data types. For example, Bluesky can display the title and a link to the text for blog posts written with Leaflet, without the blog author having to do anything extra. All their followers will then receive a notification directly in their Bluesky timeline for every new blog post.
– As mentioned in the interview, the publicly visible definition also prevents the creation of data silos. On the one hand, data is not really hidden at all (as its format is defined), and on the other hand, anyone can build tools to read and reuse any data types.
How do you handle moderation costs as the ecosystem grows?
Moderation is more expensive than the technical costs. Development is almost free today because of AI, and hosting is extremely cheap – people can even do it as a hobby for hundreds of thousands of users. But as soon as it comes to moderation, you either need volunteers or you have to pay. For many social apps, this quickly becomes a problem: development is easy, but then suddenly stuff starts running that you might not want.
At the moment, many people do this on a volunteer basis. The great thing about the system is that moderation isn’t just one single company, not just us – anyone can do it. My favourite example is MedSky, a group of 10,000 medical professionals who exchange ideas and, as volunteers, check medical information on the network for accuracy. This data is then available to everyone building something in the Atmosphere – every app can decide whether they want to use these labels.
Alongside this, an economy is now emerging: there are people who want additional information – is a post trustworthy, who is the user – and would be willing to pay for it. So you can set up your own moderation service with the relevant expertise and resell the ratings. Moderation as a Service will become a business because it’s needed. That’s not our business, but it’s necessary – instead of just doing nothing as long as nothing is illegal, like other social networks.
Of our Bluesky costs, I’d say it’s about fifty-fifty between moderation and technology. We have five million posts a day and thousands of user reports. We have automated tools, but you also have to look at it yourself. Hosting, on the other hand, isn’t that expensive once it’s up and running – we designed it to scale easily.
How do you deal with different international laws?
That’s one of the reasons why it’s expensive and difficult for small companies to get into the business. We have two lawyers on the team; Meta has thousands. It’s particularly difficult with age restrictions – every country, every state has different rules that are constantly changing. On top of that, there are the various data privacy regulations, which are especially complicated in Europe, and with more AI in products, it’s going to get even more complex.
In our case, it’s different in that the app and the data aren’t in the same place. When it comes to deletion or information requests, it’s less about moderation and more about the system we have in place for it.
And requests from law enforcement agencies?
They happen all the time; it’s been that way for years, and it’s relatively stable, especially in America and Europe. We also reject a lot and have transparency reports – but because it’s been running for a while, it’s a fairly established process.
What about requests from authoritarian states – for example, data on journalists or dissidents?
We would certainly say no. We have very little data; the system is designed that way. If a PDS is hosted elsewhere, such as on Eurosky, we have zero control over the data. Direct messages are private with us, but not encrypted – not a good system for very sensitive content. If someone needs that, we say: someone else should develop it. For example, there is Germ, a system that enables encrypted direct messages on ATproto without having to reveal your phone number. Bluesky has already integrated this; you can communicate via a button directly through it.
Jay Graber said the system is „billionaire-proof“. Would you repeat that?
Yes, so far it is. If we sell Bluesky tomorrow, the rest of the system – the protocol – is independent. Realistically, other projects would have to step in to take over certain services that we provide for free today, such as the Firehose. There are already smaller projects doing that. We’ve had two major DDoS attacks in the last two months that paralysed our network for hours – other projects like Black Sky continued to run completely normally, independent of us and yet one hundred per cent interoperable. Unlike Twitter under Elon Musk, users could immediately switch to another app and carry on without anyone noticing.
Eurosky and WSocial have launched in Europe and are building on ATProto – how are you observing this?
Europe is very interesting at the moment because everyone is looking for alternatives – even more so in Europe, because America has isolated itself in recent years and European companies feel they now have to do it themselves. Data sovereignty is a major topic, especially in social media, and we are seeing extreme interest there.
We are an American company and we support other projects doing this from Europe. Eurosky was first and is doing a great job: non-profit, part of the open system. WSocial is the second; they take a more traditional approach with a private company that has raised over 20 million euros, and they bring people in more through marketing.
For us, both are very good; we support both and hope they work together – and that there will be even more, because it takes more than just two.
How are you making ATproto suitable for the mainstream?
We are increasingly using the term „Atmosphere“ instead of „ATproto“ – „ATproto“ is too nerdy and technical; mainstream users don’t need to know it at all. The community coined this name, and we are adopting it: my app is in the Atmosphere, I have an Atmosphere account, and it works with all apps. There are already Atmosphere conferences that we sponsor, and several Atmosphere non-profits promoting the term. The idea is similar to WiFi or Bluetooth compatibility: you see that a product is compatible with the Atmosphere. Hopefully, we will have the term firmly anchored in our apps by the end of the year.
What exactly is your criticism of European data protection rules like GDPR?
What is difficult for us is the reporting. As a smaller company it’s still manageable, but as we grow, we’ll need employees who do nothing but data reporting. The reporting overhead is extremely high. The idea of data protection is good, but the implementation involves an extreme amount of paperwork.
Are you also active as an investor in Switzerland?
In Europe, we mainly invest in Finland, England, and Switzerland. I am currently on the board of three startups in Switzerland, and we are constantly looking for more. This has been very successful for us – not the main part of our portfolio, but 10 to 20 per cent goes to Europe, with Switzerland as a focus.
What is your view on the state of digitisation and digital legislation in Switzerland?
I think Switzerland is in a very interesting position. I keep telling Swiss politicians who come to San Francisco for fact-finding trips: Switzerland has a huge advantage in the situation where Europe is separating from America, but at the same time has all these complicated regulations. Switzerland makes digital regulations simpler – they already showed that with crypto, with manageable regulations.
Switzerland can work with other European countries as part of Europe, but at the same time create its own simpler digital laws – for startups or for data hosting outside of America, accessible to Europeans without the highly complicated EU regulations. I find Switzerland very interesting as a place for the next wave of innovation and startups, also because of its special reputation as a neutral place for new things.
