He confirmed that while former CEO Jay Graber has moved to a Chief Innovation Officer role to focus on AI, the company is prioritizing the expansion of the AT Protocol—the underlying technology that allows different social apps to connect and share data.
This leadership shift matters because Bluesky is attempting to prove that a decentralized social network can achieve mass-market success without the "walled garden" approach of competitors like X or Meta.
Schneider argues that by making moderation "pluggable"—allowing third-party developers to create their own safety labels and filters—the platform can avoid the high costs and friction of centralized censorship.
This infrastructure context is vital as the company prepares to introduce private data capabilities, which will enable the creation of closed, member-only communities similar to subreddits or group chats.
To sustain this growth, Schneider revealed that Bluesky will begin generating revenue this year, likely through an affiliate-style model rather than traditional ads.
This mechanism would involve taking a percentage of transactions or subscriptions that occur when the app sends traffic to publishers or creators.
Furthermore, the company is actively divesting control of its core technology by handing the AT Protocol specification to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), an organization that develops internet standards, to ensure the network remains independent of any single corporate entity.