Mastodon CEO steps down as social network restructures

Mastodon creator Eugene Rushko is stepping down as CEO of the open source, decentralized social network and X competitor, as part of the organization’s transition to a non-profit structure, announced at the start of the year. This change is the most significant overhaul of the Mastodon drive to date, and is designed to ensure the longevity of the Mastodon.

As part of the restructuring of the organization, Mastodon will be managed by a board of directors that today includes Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Karien Bezuidenhout, Esraa El Shafei, Mastodon Community Manager Hannah Aubrey (who is stepping down), and Felix Hlatky, who will assume the role of CEO.

Through renewal, Mastodon has the ability to expand its business, products and mission, without relying on the leadership of one person. It will also give Rochko a break, as he has been singularly focused on Mastodon for the past ten years.

Moving forward, Rochko will continue to contribute to Mastodon as a consultant. Rochko was also compensated with a one-time sum of €1 million, since he earned less than a fair market salary over the years while building Mastodon.

Other members of the new leadership team include Renaud Chabot as Technical Director, Andy Piper as Head of Communications, and Philipp Schroebel as Strategy and Product Advisor. In total, Mastodon has 10 full-time employees.

The CEO says fatigue was a factor in his decision

Rushko said he knew it was time to step aside because the mastodon had grown too big for him to handle on his own, and because he was also facing exhaustion.

“[Mastodon has] It becomes sort of synonymous with my identity. “I can’t look somewhere and see something about social media without thinking about how it will impact my business,” Rushko explained in an interview with TechCrunch. “I want it to succeed. This led to a lot of stress, and obviously eventually led to burnout.

“I think taking a step back, and realizing that this is no longer just about me — now other people are involved, other people are responsible for this — will allow me to regain some balance in my life.”

He also suggested others do the same if they are able to.

“I definitely think that investing all your time in work is not healthy, because after that, you won’t have anything left,” Rushko added.

This message contrasts with the new work-until-you-drop ethos that has infused Silicon Valley in the age of artificial intelligence, where founders embrace a culture of hustle and even the intense “996” work schedule in China (working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week).

What’s next: Nonprofit transformation

As a non-profit, Mastodon will be able to open up new funding opportunities, especially in Europe, new CEO Hlatky noted.

The organization has already transitioned to a non-profit in the United States but is still working on establishing a non-profit organization in Belgium, or AISBL, to replace the German entity, which lost its non-profit status last year. Once established, the Belgian non-profit will be the future home of the organization. Meanwhile, the US-based 501(c)(3)c nonprofit will own the brand and other assets.

To help with the transition, Mastodon raised funds from Stack Exchange founder Jeff Atwood and the Atwood family (who provided €2.2 million); Biz Stone; alternative app marketplace AltStore (€260,000) and the Chinese Global Digital Commons Association (€65,000); and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark.

Hlatky, who has a business and finance background in technology, had been providing pro bono consulting to Mastodon before the shift, having helped the organization establish its German non-profit.

Through his work, he says, he became disenchanted with the typical startup system involving venture capital.

“It works for outliers, but it doesn’t work for others,” Hlatky said. “I was bored with the system, and I didn’t see any sense in contributing to the system anymore.”

In his new role, Hlatky will engage in more conversations with industry and media stakeholders, and sees the opportunity to get politicians, political parties and journalists more involved on the platform.

He will also help oversee projects aimed at making Mastodon more financially sustainable, including new hosting and stewardship businesses. Other members of the leadership team will also focus on trust, safety, technical infrastructure and product issues.

One thing Mastodon won’t focus on is any kind of native interoperability between its platform, powered by the ActivityPub protocol, and other decentralized social networks like Bluesky — which runs on the AT protocol — or those running on nostr, a protocol favored by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey. Instead, Mastodon will leave interoperability to third-party project makers like Bridgy Fed and Bounce. (These different protocols are essentially competing technical standards for how decentralized social networks communicate.)

By restructuring Mastodon, Rushko believes the organization will maintain its status as a “billionaire-proof” social media outlet. This mission statement has also been adopted by Bluesky, a network that has outgrown Mastodon with 40 million registered users, compared to Mastodon’s 10 million. On both networks, fewer of these users are active on a monthly basis.

At Mastodon, the number of monthly active users has since fallen below 1 million, after a spike in 2022 that came after Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Rushko noted that before the deal was completed, Mastodon only had about 200,000 monthly active users; And then it jumped to 2 million.

This is believed to indicate demand for a platform not controlled by the billionaire.

“Threads, Instagram, Facebook belong to a billionaire. “Mastodon is one of the very few — if not the only — of these organizations and social media platforms — and I assume the federation as a whole — that is not subject to something like this,” Rushko said.