Mastodon’s First and Next 10 Years, with Executive Director Felix Hlatky

As Mastodon celebrates its 10-year anniversary in 2026, the open source platform’s new Executive Director, Felix Hlatky, is focused on what it’ll take to make the next 10 years even more impactful.  That vision includes an overhaul in version 5.0, a new feature called Collections, and continuing its critical role at the heart of the fediverse.  Highlights of the conversation include: 00:56 What Felix is most excited about right now 02:11 Felix’s Mastodon history 04:16 Mastodon’s growth and organizational change 08:10 Getting set up for success 10:27 Collections — a major new feature 15:18 Lesson to learn from Bluesky 17:05 Weaponization, privacy, nuances around collections 19:35 Making social media more manageable  21:00 Groups  23:44 Power of building at the protocol level  25:40 Collaborations across platforms and protocols  27:27 Bridging technologies and standards work 31:15 Mastodon’s backend infrastructure 33:56 Funding and the EU 37:27 Governments use of Mastodon 40:05 The Forkiverse  45:05 Podcasts in the fediverse 47:14 Custom feeds on Surf, ex dotsocial.surf.social 49:58 Vibrant creator communities on the social web 51:20 Mastodon 5.0, FASPS 53:59 Entering a new era Mentioned in this episode: dotsocial.surf.social The Forkiverse 🔎 You can find Felix at @[email protected] ✚ 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/