--- title: "The CEO of Bluesky’s Actual Name Means “Blue Sky” in Chinese" description: "Bluesky CEO Jay Graber's Mandarin name \"Lantian\" literally translates to \"blue sky,\" a wild coincidence. Or was it meant to be?" date: "2024-11-18" modified: "2024-11-18" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/ceo-bluesky-name-blue-sky-chinese" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "bluesky" - "elon musk" - "the digest" - "twitter" --- # The CEO of Bluesky’s Actual Name Means “Blue Sky” in Chinese ![Bluesky CEO Jay Graber's Mandarin name "Lantian" literally translates to "blue sky," a wild coincidence. Or was it meant to be?]() *\Image: Bluesky / Futurism\* ## Prophecy Foretold Twitter alternative Bluesky has [skyrocketed in popularity]() ever since Donald Trump was reelected as US president earlier this month. Over the last week alone, its user base doubled to 15 million users, then [blew past 19.5 million](). The small team behind the operation is racing to keep up with the serious influx. "We as a team take pride in our ability to scale quickly," CEO Jay Graber [told the *New York Times*]() in an interview. "But there’s always some growing pains." Interestingly, Graber was practically destined for the job. Her mother, who grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution and moved to the United States in the 1980s, named her "Lantian" in Mandarin — which literally translates to "blue sky." ## Bluer Skies In a [*Forbes* profile last year](), Graber recalled that her mother called her Lantian "because she wanted me to have boundless freedom. The opportunities she didn't have." The 33-year-old tech exec was already part of Bluesky's developer team when Parag Agrawal, who would go on to become the CEO of Twitter before getting fired by new owner Elon Musk, offered her the opportunity to lead the microblogging platform in 2021. The company, however, wasn't named *after* Graber. Bluesky founder Jack Dorsey, who also started Twitter, originally [came up with the moniker]() in 2019, two years before Graber came on board. The social media landscape has gone through some tremendous changes since Graber took over the reins. Perhaps the biggest wildcard came when mercurial businessman Elon Musk [acquired Twitter]() for a whopping $44 billion, quickly turning it into a largely unrecognizable [echo chamber of hate speech and disinformation](). Especially now that Musk has thrown his full weight behind president-elect Donald Trump, an unprecedented number of users are looking for new stomping grounds, including Bluesky. The exodus hit its peak the day after the presidential election, with [more than 116,000 people]() deactivating their X accounts in the US, setting a new record. Meanwhile, Bluesky feels more vibrant than ever before. For her part, Graber has prioritized coming up with new features that actually further the interest of average users, like sorting new content using custom algorithms — a far cry from X, where Musk has instructed staff to prioritize [his own tweets]() and [conservative content](). Even when it comes to generative AI, Bluesky appears to be putting the interest of users first, with the company [promising on Friday]() that it wouldn't leverage users' content to train large language models. That's a stark contrast to X, which went behind users' backs to reserve the right to use their tweets to train AI models — [whether they opt out or not](). "The state of most social platforms right now is that users are locked in and developers are locked out," Graber told the *NYT*. "We want to build something that makes sure users have the freedom to move and developers have the freedom to build." **More on Bluesky:** *[Half a Million Users Flooded to Twitter Competitor After Elon Musk Handed Creeps the Keys]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()