Twitter co-founder and Block CEO Jack Dorsey isn\u2019t just vibe-coding new social apps, like Bitchat<\/a> and Sun Day<\/a>, he has invested $10 million in an effort to fund experimental open source projects and other tools that could ultimately transform the social media landscape.<\/p>\n These efforts are funneled through an online collective called \u201cand Other Stuff<\/a>,\u201d formed in May, whose team includes Dorsey; Twitter\u2019s first employee, Evan Henshaw-Plath; \u201cCalle,\u201d creator of the e-cash platform Cashu<\/a>; Alex Gleason, former engineering head<\/a> at Truth Social; and Jeff Gardner<\/a>, the fourth employee at Intercom.<\/p>\n The group originally met through collaborating on Nostr<\/a>, an open, \u201capolitical\u201d social networking protocol that has been receiving the bulk of Dorsey\u2019s attention since Twitter\u2019s sale to Elon Musk<\/a> and his stepping down from social network Bluesky\u2019s board<\/a>. However, the team will experiment with other tools, too, like ActivityPub, the protocol that powers the decentralized app Mastodon and others, as well as Cashu.<\/p>\n In recent years, Dorsey has been more critical<\/a> of how social media platforms have evolved, saying that Twitter should have never been a company<\/a> and that Bluesky seemed to be repeating the mistakes<\/a> he and others made at Twitter. <\/p>\n As a result, the team at \u201cand Other Stuff\u201d is determined not to build a company but is instead operating like a \u201ccommunity of hackers,\u201d explains Henshaw-Plath. Together, they\u2019re working to create technologies that could include new consumer social apps as well as various experiments, like developer tools or libraries<\/a>, that would allow others to build apps for themselves.<\/p>\n For instance, the team is behind an app called Shakespeare<\/a>, which is like the app-building platform<\/a> Lovable<\/a>, but specifically for building Nostr-based social apps with AI assistance. <\/p>\n The group is also behind heynow<\/a>, a voice note app built on Nostr; Cashu wallet<\/a>; private messenger<\/a> White Noise<\/a>; and the Nostr-based social community<\/a> +chorus<\/a>, in addition to the apps Dorsey has already released.<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<\/span> Developments in AI-based coding have made this type of experimentation possible, Henshaw-Plath points out, in the same way that technologies like Ruby on Rails, Django, and JSON helped to fuel an earlier version of the web, dubbed Web 2.0<\/a>.<\/p>\n Related to these efforts, Henshaw-Plath sat down with Dorsey for the debut episode of his new podcast, revolution.social with @rabble.<\/a> (Henshaw-Plath\u2019s handle on X is @rabble<\/a>.)<\/p>\n \n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/andotherstuff.jpg?w=680\")
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/shakespeare.jpg?w=680\")
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 27-29, 2025<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n