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There is a very common inflection point in companies where the CEO needs to be about maintaining what is built instead of growing forever. You cannot, for insta

by hinkley 8mo ago

There is a very common inflection point in companies where the CEO needs to be about maintaining what is built instead of growing forever. You cannot, for instance, when you have 60% market share expect the company to keep growing linearly. The people who do end up stooping to questionable means to grow new markets they have no business growing, like for instance children. Some orgs will go through three, from founder, to growth, to sustaining.

tcbrah 8mo ago
The WordPress analogy is actually pretty apt here given Toni's background. Automattic went through exactly this - Matt stayed as the visionary/product guy while bringing in operators to handle the scaling side. And WordPress is arguably one of the most successful open source projects in terms of actual mainstream adoption. The tricky part with Bluesky is figuring out which phase they're even in. 40M signups sounds like growth phase, but the retention numbers tell a different story. They might need a sustaining CEO before they've actually finished growing, which is an awkward spot to be in.