Jay Graber

Lantian Graber was born in 1991 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to a mother of Chinese descent, an acupuncturist by trade, and a mathematics teacher father of Swiss descent.{{Cite news |last=del Castillo |first=Michael |date=April 25, 2023 |title=Jack Dorsey-Backed Decentralized Twitter Rival Prepares to Launch with One Million Users |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2023/04/25/twitter-hatchling-bluesky-emerges-from-its-shell/ |access-date=February 8, 2024 |work=Forbes}}{{Cite news |last=Robison |first=Kylie |date=July 31, 2023 |title=Inside Twitter rival Bluesky's first major crisis, as investors pressured CEO Jay Graber to speak out about racist incident |url=https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inside-twitter-rival-bluesky-first-205239947.html |access-date=August 18, 2023 |work=Fortune |publisher=Yahoo! Finance}} Her mother, who grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution and emigrated in the 1980s, named her daughter Lantian ({{zhi|t=蓝天}}), meaning "blue sky" in Chinese, as a wish for her to have "boundless freedom". The similarity between Graber's given name and Bluesky is purely coincidental; Jack Dorsey had chosen the name "Bluesky" for the research initiative before Graber became involved with the project.{{Cite web |date=2024-11-18 |title=The CEO of Bluesky's Actual Name Means "Blue Sky" in Chinese |url=https://futurism.com/the-byte/ceo-bluesky-name-blue-sky-chinese |access-date=2024-11-22 |website=Futurism}}

Graber enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania in 2009 and later graduated with a BSc in Science, Technology, and Society. During her senior year she won a grant to co-found a student time bank program.

In 2015, Graber began working as a software engineer for SkuChain in Mountain View, California. She then worked in a factory in Moses Lake, Washington, where she soldered bitcoin mining equipment. In 2016, she began working as a junior developer for the Zcash cryptocurrency. In 2019, she founded the event planning website Happening, Inc.

In August 2021, Graber became the first CEO of Bluesky, a microblogging social platform and public benefit company.{{Cite news |last=del Castillo |first=Michael |date=September 11, 2022 |title=Jack Dorsey's Former Boss Is Building A Decentralized Twitter |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2022/09/11/jack-dorseys-former-boss-is-building-a-decentralized-twitter/ |access-date=April 28, 2023 |work=Forbes}}{{Cite news |last=Heath |first=Alex |date=April 17, 2023 |title=Bluesky's CEO wants to build a Musk-proof, decentralized version of Twitter |url=https://www.theverge.com/23686778/bluesky-ceo-jay-graber-interview-decentralized-social-media-twitter-mastodon |access-date=April 28, 2023 |work=The Verge}}{{Cite news |last=Dang |first=Sheila |date=August 16, 2021 |title=A Twitter-funded company trying to build a new kind of social media taps its first leader |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/16/twitter-funded-bluesky-names-jay-graber-as-leader.html |access-date=April 28, 2023 |publisher=CNBC}} Bluesky had been conceived as a new initiative by Twitter's original owners in 2019, but evolved to become a competitor to Twitter following the 2022 acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk.{{Cite news |last=Campbell |first=Ian Carlos |date=August 16, 2021 |title=Twitter's decentralized social network project finally has a leader |url=https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/16/22627435/twitter-bluesky-lead-jay-graber-decentralized-social-web |access-date=April 28, 2023 |work=The Verge}}{{Cite news |last=Matney |first=Lucas |date=August 16, 2021 |title=Twitter taps crypto developer to lead 'bluesky' decentralized social network effort |url=https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/16/twitter-taps-crypto-developer-to-lead-bluesky-decentralized-social-network-effort/ |access-date=April 28, 2023 |work=TechCrunch}}{{Cite news |last=Belanger |first=Ashley |date=April 28, 2023 |title=Top Twitter influencers flee to Bluesky amid Musk's continued debasing |url=https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/twitter-rival-blueskys-popularity-surges-because-well-you-know-why/ |access-date=April 28, 2023 |work=Ars Technica}}{{Cite magazine |last=Klee |first=Miles |date=April 27, 2023 |title=Bluesky Becomes the Hottest Club Online as Twitter Users Fight for Invites |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/jack-dorsey-bluesky-twitter-alternative-elon-musk-1234724924/ |access-date=April 28, 2023 |magazine=Rolling Stone}} Her net worth is estimated at $5 million.{{Cite web |last=Allen |first=Joseph |date=2024-11-18 |title=Bluesky CEO Jay Graber Has a Relatively Modest Net Worth and a Low Profile |url=https://www.distractify.com/p/jay-graber-net-worth |access-date=2025-02-04 |website=Distractify |language=en-US}}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://elpais.com/ideas/2025-01-04/jay-graber-la-treintanera-que-creo-bluesky-a-prueba-de-milmillonarios.html "Jay Graber, la treintañera que creó Bluesky a prueba de milmillonarios" Profile by Ana Vidal in El País, January 2025]

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Category:Living people

Category:1991 births

Category:American technology chief executives

Category:American people of Chinese descent

Category:American people of Swiss descent

Category:American women chief executives

Category:People from Tulsa, Oklahoma