Jack Dorsey's 'and Other Stuff' Team Builds Open‑Source Social Apps on Nostr

Jack Dorsey, co‑founder and CEO of Block, has recently developed new social applications such as Bitchat and Sun Day, and invested $10 million in experimental open‑source projects that could reshape social media.

The effort is organized under the nonprofit “and Other Stuff,” founded five months ago. Its members include Dorsey, Twitter’s first employee Evan Henshaw‑Plath, Cashu founder Calle, former Truth Social engineering lead Alex Gleason, and Intercom’s fourth employee Jeff Gardner.

The team initially collaborated on the open, non‑political social network protocol Nostr. Since Twitter’s sale to Elon Musk and Dorsey’s departure from Bluesky’s board, he has focused on Nostr, while also experimenting with ActivityPub (supporting Mastodon‑style decentralized apps) and Cashu.

According to the team, they aim to operate like a hacker community rather than a traditional company, developing new consumer social apps, developer tools, and libraries that enable others to build applications.

“and Other Stuff” community open‑source repositories: https://github.com/orgs/andotherstuff/repositories

One of their projects, Shakespeare, is an AI‑assisted app‑building platform similar to Lovable, designed specifically for creating Nostr‑based social applications.

The group has also created a voice‑note app called heynow, the Cashu wallet, a private messenger White Noise, and a social community +chorus, all built on Nostr.

Dorsey, who lives in Costa Rica, and Henshaw‑Plath, based in New Zealand, discussed Twitter’s history, its advertising‑driven business model, and the challenges of creating an open protocol that can support healthy, sustainable businesses.

Dorsey funded the development of an open protocol within Twitter that later spun out as Bluesky, but he believes Bluesky faces the same pressures as traditional social media, including venture‑capital funding, government compliance, and moderation challenges.

He emphasizes that an open, truly decentralized protocol would allow anyone to build robust businesses on top of it, free from advertiser control.

In upcoming episodes, Henshaw‑Plath will interview journalists and experts such as Kara Swisher, Taylor Lorenz, Yoel Roth, Chris Best, Tony Stubblebine, Cory Doctorow, and Renée DiResta, discussing the future of social media and technology.

The “and Other Stuff” team is also drafting a social‑media “Bill of Rights” outlining required standards for privacy, security, interoperability, transparency, identity, autonomy, and portability, aiming to help platforms like Bluesky remain accountable without external pressure.

Dorsey’s initial investment enabled the nonprofit to operate smoothly, and he contributed to early iOS app development, while others built Android versions, developer tools, and various social media experiments.

Henshaw‑Plath notes that more work is underway, hinting at exciting developments yet to be announced.