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Decoder · August 20, 2025 · 55m

How Obsidian's Biggest Fan Became Its CEO

The story of how Obsidian's most passionate community member became its CEO, and what this reveals about community-led software companies in the AI era.

Canon

Obsidian's product development is driven by its community environment — user plugins, forum discussions, and emergent use cases — rather than top-down corporate strategy.
Obsidian's CEO finds meaning in the responsibility of building thinking tools — knowing that the quality of the tool shapes the quality of thousands of people's thinking.