Bluesky adds Techdirt founder Mike Masnick to its board

by with No Comment Tech

blue sky with white clouds

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Decentralized X competitor Bluesky, a startup offering a social network where users can choose their own algorithm and moderation services, announced on Monday the addition of a new board member, Mike Masnick. Best known as the founder of tech blog Techdirt, Masnick is also credited with inspiring the Bluesky project through his paper titled “Protocols, not Platforms.“

According to a company blog post, the team was already leaning on Masnick for advice, so adding him to the board is a “natural next step” in formalizing their relationship.

Originally incubated within Twitter under founder Jack Dorsey’s leadership, Bluesky later spun out of Twitter (now rebranded as X under Elon Musk) and has charted its own path as an independent company. That includes raising a seed round last year and rolling out its first paid service for helping people set up custom domains on the decentralized platform.

Though Bluesky had the support of Dorsey in its earlier days, the former Twitter CEO later came to publicly criticize the startup for making the same mistakes he and others made at Twitter, especially in terms of how it handled some of its earlier moderation issues.

In May, Dorsey left his position on Bluesky’s board, and he now devotes more of his energy to Nostr, another decentralized network popular with Bitcoin proponents like himself.

With the addition of Masnick, Bluesky fills its board opening as the now 6-million-user-strong social network continues to develop its platform and policies, as well as the technology that powers its efforts, the AT Protocol.

The company says it will tap into Masnick’s expertise as a reporter, editor and publisher, in addition to gaining insights from his familiarity with policy, technology and legal issues it may face as it grows.

“Mike’s work has been an inspiration to us from the start,” said Bluesky CEO Jay Graber in a statement. “Having him join our board feels like a natural progression of our shared vision for a more open internet. His perspective will help ensure we’re building something that truly serves users as we continue to evolve Bluesky and the AT Protocol.”

“I’m excited to join the Bluesky board and to support its vision of building an open social network,” Masnick said. “Over the last few years, I’ve been thrilled to see how the Bluesky team has turned these ideas into reality, and I look forward to helping the company continue to build a better internet.”

Bodies of Autonomy founder Mike Lynch and his daughter recovered from sunken Bayesian yacht

by with No Comment Tech

Mike Lynch at TC Disrupt

Image Credits: TechCrunch

Grim news coming in from Sicily, Italy. Mike Lynch, the U.K. investor and founder of IT company Autonomy, has been identified as one of two bodies recovered from the Bayesian, the yacht that sunk off the coast of Sicily early Monday, according to several reports coming out of the country that cite the chief of Civil Protection, Salvo Cocina.

Lynch’s daughter, Hannah, has also been identified. Both are pictured on the right.

“The Lynch family is devastated, in shock and is being comforted and supported by family and friends. Their thoughts are with everyone affected by the tragedy,” a spokesperson for the Lynch family said in a statement. “They would like to sincerely thank the Italian coastguard, emergency services and all those who helped in the rescue. Their one request now is that their privacy be respected at this time of unspeakable grief.”

The news caps off a grim few days of events. The boat, registered to Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, quickly capsized in the early hours of Monday after it was struck by a tornado-like water column. Bacares was among the 15 survivors, but three bodies have now been found and four more are still being recovered from the wreck. Those yet to be found include the international chairman of Morgan Stanley bank, his wife, a lawyer from New York who worked with Lynch, and his wife.

As we previously reported, the Bayesian was on a voyage to celebrate Lynch’s acquittal in a criminal fraud trial in the U.S. earlier this summer. That trial also involved a co-defendant, Stephen Chamberlain.

In a tragic coincidence, Chamberlain was hit by a car last Saturday and died of his wounds earlier this week.

Lynch was one of the most well-known and colorful figures in the U.K. technology world — sometimes referred to as the “Bill Gates of U.K. tech.”

HP acquired Lynch’s enterprise technology firm Autonomy in 2011 for $11 billion — a major milestone for U.K. technology and one of the biggest tech M&A deals at the time. But it quickly turned sour, and HP sued Lynch and Autonomy’s director of finance, Chamberlain, arguing it was misled in the transaction.

HP claimed that the deal led to a $4 billion+ loss — money it then demanded from Lynch and Chamberlain. Lynch (pictured above, left) and his co-defendant long asserted that they acted in good faith and were being made into scapegoats over a merger gone bad.

That legal drama went on for more than a decade and involved a host of other thorny chapters, including Lynch’s extradition to the U.S. over the DoJ criminal suit (the one that only recently concluded with acquittal) and a lot of very bad publicity for him. It also included a second, civil case that took place in 2022 in the U.K., which Lynch lost.

The U.S. criminal case, where Lynch and Chamberlain were charged with 15 counts of fraud and conspiracy and could have spelled jail for the pair, went to trial earlier this year in San Francisco. Then finally, in June, Lynch and Chamberlain were acquitted.

In the interim years, Lynch built up a profile in the U.K. as a prominent investor, most prominently as the founder of Invoke Capital.

The VC firm was the biggest investor in cybersecurity firm Darktrace, a connection that was not without its own controversy. It also invested in Sophia Genetics, Featurespace and Luminance, among others. And it appeared that this is the route that he had been planning to continue to pursue.

“I am elated with today’s verdict and grateful to the jury for their attention to the facts over the last 10 weeks. My deepest thanks go to my legal team for their tireless work on my behalf,” Lynch said at the time of the acquittal in June. “I am looking forward to returning to the U.K. and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field.”

Our thoughts go out to Lynch’s (and Chamberlain’s) family, friends and colleagues. We have also reached out to Lynch’s spokespeople and will update this post as we learn more.

Bluesky adds Techdirt founder Mike Masnick to its board

by with No Comment Tech

blue sky with white clouds

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Decentralized X competitor Bluesky, a startup offering a social network where users can choose their own algorithm and moderation services, announced on Monday the addition of a new board member, Mike Masnick. Best known as the founder of tech blog Techdirt, Masnick is also credited with inspiring the Bluesky project through his paper titled “Protocols, not Platforms.“

According to a company blog post, the team was already leaning on Masnick for advice, so adding him to the board is a “natural next step” in formalizing their relationship.

Originally incubated within Twitter under founder Jack Dorsey’s leadership, Bluesky later spun out of Twitter (now rebranded as X under Elon Musk) and has charted its own path as an independent company. That includes raising a seed round last year and rolling out its first paid service for helping people set up custom domains on the decentralized platform.

Though Bluesky had the support of Dorsey in its earlier days, the former Twitter CEO later came to publicly criticize the startup for making the same mistakes he and others made at Twitter, especially in terms of how it handled some of its earlier moderation issues.

In May, Dorsey left his position on Bluesky’s board, and he now devotes more of his energy to Nostr, another decentralized network popular with Bitcoin proponents like himself.

With the addition of Masnick, Bluesky fills its board opening as the now 6-million-user-strong social network continues to develop its platform and policies, as well as the technology that powers its efforts, the AT Protocol.

The company says it will tap into Masnick’s expertise as a reporter, editor and publisher, in addition to gaining insights from his familiarity with policy, technology and legal issues it may face as it grows.

“Mike’s work has been an inspiration to us from the start,” said Bluesky CEO Jay Graber in a statement. “Having him join our board feels like a natural progression of our shared vision for a more open internet. His perspective will help ensure we’re building something that truly serves users as we continue to evolve Bluesky and the AT Protocol.”

“I’m excited to join the Bluesky board and to support its vision of building an open social network,” Masnick said. “Over the last few years, I’ve been thrilled to see how the Bluesky team has turned these ideas into reality, and I look forward to helping the company continue to build a better internet.”