Can social media start over? Bluesky’s CEO and COO deliver their case at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026

1 day ago 6

The adjacent epoch of societal media mightiness not beryllium defined by a platform — it could be written by a protocol. That’s the stake Bluesky is making, and at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, two of its leaders steering that stake volition marque their case in person.

Toni Schneider became Bluesky’s imperishable CEO aft starring the institution connected an interim ground since March. He’s joined by COO Rose Wang, who has been with the institution since 2021, for a Disrupt Stage league connected whether societal media tin commencement implicit and wherever Bluesky fits into that imaginable reboot.

For founders gathering user products, the stakes couldn’t be higher. If societal media is entering a caller era, it creates opportunities for wholly caller products, concern models, and communities to emerge.

This treatment — among galore others, arsenic good arsenic a wealthiness of networking opportunities and front-row entree to the Startup Battlefield contention — tin beryllium seen only successful San Francisco from October 13-15 astatine Moscone West. And nary substance your relation wrong the startup community, we person a ticket option to match. Act swiftly earlier prices emergence aboriginal this month!

Bluesky, on with galore of the scrappy platforms that reemerged or were established in the aftermath of Twitter’s translation into X, is successful a transitional moment. As the incumbents person entrenched themselves, Bluesky and akin platforms remain a trial of whether networks built upon unfastened protocols can retain communities and perchance claw marketplace stock distant from competitors.

To that end, Bluesky’s founding CEO, Jay Graber, recently pivoted toward becoming chief innovation officer, saying Bluesky needed “a seasoned relation focused connected scaling and execution.” Enter Schneider, who took connected full-time CEO duties pursuing a four-month interim period.

“We’re astatine the precise opening of this story, with a decennary of breathtaking enactment up to physique an unfastened web that reflects the afloat richness of however radical connect, communicate, and physique livelihoods together,” he wrote successful his announcement post. At Disrupt, we’ll spot however the archetypal steps toward that decennary are progressing.

Rose’s perspective, informed by having been with Bluesky since precocious 2021, on with a past relation leading customer acquisition astatine Forethought AI, is that a focus connected users is simply a portion of that rebuild.

She asserted astatine SXSW London earlier this twelvemonth that there’s an expanding request for human-to-human transportation to instrumentality aft a deluge of AI-filled feeds. And that displacement successful user need gives Bluesky an opportunity. “Facebook and Twitter are huge, and they person tons of users, truthful for them to crook the displacement is really difficult. Also, they’re basically AI companies astatine this point,” Rose said.

To perceive that level of candor successful person, and to articulation the 10,000+ founders, investors, and technologists at Disrupt 2026 on October 13-15, grab your ticket today and guarantee you get the champion disposable price.