Jack Dorsey, co‑founder of Twitter and CEO of Block, has injected $10 million into a newly launched nonprofit collective called andOtherStuff, aiming to empower open-source, decentralized social media initiatives. The collective, shaped by engineers and developers – including Evan Henshaw‑Plath, Twitter’s first employee – intends to incubate experimental projects and protocols that can reshape online communication platforms.
The nonprofit evolved from Dorsey’s earlier support of the Nostr protocol, backed by his donation of approximately 14 BTC and involvement via OpenSats. Now, with this bolstered $10 million donation, andOtherStuff will explore not just Nostr and ActivityPub but a broader spectrum of decentralized technologies.
Unlike corporate tech ventures, andOtherStuff is structured as a community of open-source innovators. It will build everything from experimental apps to developer frameworks, including projects like Shakespeare (a Nostr‑based app compiler), the voice note service heynow, and the private messaging client White Noise . Jack Dorsey and Evan Henshaw‑Plath emphasize that their goal is not to commercialize a platform but to create tools that others can adopt, extend, and use – typifying their desire to move away from centralized, ad-driven models .
Ultimately, Dorsey’s nonprofit is a calculated step in his ongoing mission to reimagine social media – shifting away from centralized platforms toward open, decentralized systems that champion user agency, interoperability, and innovation.
