GoKawiilThe next era of social media might not be defined by a platform — it could be written by a protocol. That’s the bet Bluesky is making, and at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, two of its leaders steering that bet will make their case in person.
Toni Schneider became Bluesky’s permanent CEO after leading the company on an interim basis since March. He’s joined by COO Rose Wang, who has been with the company since 2021, for a Disrupt Stage session on whether social media can start over and where Bluesky fits into that potential reboot.
For founders building consumer products, the stakes couldn’t be higher. If social media is entering a new era, it creates opportunities for entirely new products, business models, and communities to emerge.
This discussion — among many others, as well as a wealth of networking opportunities and front-row access to the Startup Battlefield competition — can be seen only in San Francisco from October 13-15 at Moscone West. And no matter your role within the startup community, we have a ticket option to match. Act swiftly before prices rise later this month!
Why this moment matters for Bluesky, and the social web
Bluesky, along with many of the scrappy platforms that reemerged or were established in the wake of Twitter’s transformation into X, is in a transitional moment. As the incumbents have entrenched themselves, Bluesky and similar platforms remain a test of whether networks built upon open protocols can retain communities and potentially claw market share away from competitors.
To that end, Bluesky’s founding CEO, Jay Graber, recently pivoted toward becoming chief innovation officer, saying Bluesky needed “a seasoned operator focused on scaling and execution.” Enter Schneider, who took on full-time CEO duties following a four-month interim period.
“We’re at the very beginning of this story, with a decade of exciting work ahead to build an open web that reflects the full richness of how people connect, communicate, and build livelihoods together,” he wrote in his announcement post. At Disrupt, we’ll see how the first steps toward that decade are progressing.
Rose’s perspective, informed by having been with Bluesky since late 2021, along with a past role leading customer experience at Forethought AI, is that a focus on users is a part of that rebuild.
She asserted at SXSW London earlier this year that there’s an increasing need for human-to-human connection to return after a deluge of AI-filled feeds. And that shift in user need gives Bluesky an opportunity. “Facebook and Twitter are huge, and they have tons of users, so for them to turn the shift is really difficult. Also, they’re basically AI companies at this point,” Rose said.
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