What do TikTok, Mark Cuban and Bluesky have in common? Skylight.
When the future of TikTok was thrown into question in January 19, 2025, Skylight CEO Tori White and her co-founder/CTO Reed Harmeyer saw a moment and seized on it.
But they took a new approach, one that puts creators in charge of their content, their audience relationships, and their reach. Giving creators all of the control and fun, and none of the uncertainty, fuels Tori’s mission.
Today, Skylight is a great example of the open social at work, bringing videos from across the AT protocol community into a single experience people can enjoy.
The conversation includes:
1:01 Skylight’s origin story
2:04 White’s background as a creator
4:45 How other creators reacted to TikTok uncertainty
6:41 Making the case to creators to join the social web
8:20 Building on AT protocol
11:27 Benefits of ecosystem collaboration, like live-streaming and feeds
16:31 What about the ActivityPub protocol?
20:22 What it means to cross-post, to win
22:36 White’s standout creators on Skylight
23:44 How creators are reacting to what’s happening on social web
28:01 What will be the tipping point?
31:06 Monetization models
35:30 What’s holding creators back from joining the social web?
38:45 What’s next for Skylight
39:50 Financial sustainability and decentralizing resources
🔎 You can find Tori at @buildwithtori https://www.buildwithtori.com/
✚ Connect with host Mike McCue at @[email protected] and @mmccue.bsky.social.
🌊 Catch the wave! Surf the open social web and create your own custom feeds at surf.social, a new product from the people at Flipboard. https://about.surf.social/