From TBH to X – how Bier’s growth playbook hit a wall on payouts
After a 1.7M bot purge, Bier targets spammy payouts and ties rewards to premium engagement – sparking conflict with creators and Musk. Let's dissect the profile of X's Head of Product.
Nikita Bier spent years quietly building consumer-facing apps that grew fast without much marketing spend. His earlier projects with teens or social polling features caught attention, and a couple ended in big acquisitions. That track record built him a reputation for knowing how to design viral loops, launch quickly, and scale users in short periods.
Nikita Bier’s path before X
Nikita Bier started his career building consumer-social apps. Early on he created Politify, a budgeting / tax calculator app built during university, which went viral (millions of users). He then focused on teen-oriented social apps: in 2017 he co-founded TBH, an app where teenagers exchanged anonymous compliments or polls. That app was acquired by Facebook (now Meta) in 2017.
Later, he launched another app called Gas, which also focused on teens, compliments, social polling features. Gas grew quickly and was acquired by Discord in January 2023. Between those startups, he worked as product manager and later product lead at major tech companies: from ~2017 to ~2021 he was product manager at Meta Platforms. Beyond that, he became a venture partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners.
In March 2025 Bier joined Solana Labs (the core organization behind the Solana blockchain ecosystem) as an advisor. His mandate was to help grow the mobile app ecosystem on Solana — working with selected teams to launch and scale apps built on the blockchain.
That role put Nikita at the intersection of mobile/social product development and blockchain / crypto. Solana was pushing mobile adoption, including hardware (smartphone or mobile-first apps), so his background building viral social apps for younger audiences fit well with that ambition.
So by the time he joined X, he already had experience launching consumer apps, scaling product growth, working with venture capital, and advising on crypto / mobile / blockchain apps. That gave him credibility both in traditional tech / social product spaces and in emerging crypto ecosystems.
Bier’s direction inside X (formerly Twitter)
When Nikita Bier took on the role of Head of Product at X in July 2025, it felt like a culmination of a long-running quest.
Bier’s priorities seem to fall into two major tracks: refining core product experience, and scaling creator monetization / content. On product experience, he’s focused on building deeper integration between feed, timeline, notifications, and the AI assistant. The goal is to reduce noise and make content more timely, relevant, and useful.
On the creator side, he published a playbook: creators should pick a topic they know well, post one unique insight every day (under five sentences), for six months. He argued that consistent creators in a niche would gain an algorithmic boost, become recognized experts, and unlock monetization.
He responded to critics who said the algorithm still favors low-quality or superficial content (“slop”). Nikita countered:
Nikita’s strategy is clearly shaped by his earlier app / product experience. Bier has emphasized consistency, clarity, niche expertise, and everyday posting. He seems to want the platform to shift away from short-term virality or clickbait, toward more meaningful content that serves users and creators sustainably.
But just weeks into his new role as product chief, Nikita Bier sparked havoc with a blunt claim:
The backlash was swift: creators accused the system of rewarding low-effort, spammy posts, and the platform responded by overhauling its model to reduce engagement farming and tie payouts more directly to premium user engagement.
Payout X scandal and all the perspectives
When Bier announced that X had just purged 1.7 million bot accounts that were flooding replies with spam, it looked like a bold move to clean things up. The purge was framed as part of a larger push by Elon Musk, who owns X, to cut down on automated noise and restore authenticity.
But the backlash soon turned inward. Creators accused the platform of having a payout system that’s inconsistent, opaque, and easily gamed by low-effort content. Many said their viral posts earned almost nothing, while others seemed to cash in disproportionately.
Bier’s own statement – “At this point, I think creator payouts do more harm than good” – dropped gasoline on the fire. His point was that payouts, in their current form, incentivize spam rather than creativity. Yet for many small creators, that line sounded like dismissal of their only revenue stream.
X’s leadership moved fast to contain the outrage. Bier announced an overhaul of the payout model, saying rewards would be tied to “meaningful engagement,” especially from premium users, and that “small upgrades for power users” were on the way – “quick fixes that somehow fell through the cracks.”
Tension peaked when a creator’s viral post earned only a modest payout – until a sudden $10,000 bonus appeared. Of course, people labeled them as suspicious. It looked less like an algorithm giving fair reward, more like manual intervention or favoritism.
Tension peaked when a creator’s viral post earned only a modest payout – until a sudden $10,000 bonus appeared. Of course, people labeled them as suspicious. It looked less like an algorithm giving fair reward, more like manual intervention or favoritism.
As the backlash spread, someone pointed out that Bier also serves as an adviser to Solana, adding fresh fuel to questions about conflicts of interest inside X. Bier replied publicly that his Solana work was unrelated, and that his role there involved “helping launch consumer apps.” The argument blew up when Musk stepped in directly.
That blunt correction from the platform’s owner undercut Bier’s argument in front of millions. It exposed a rift at the top of X about what’s broken in the payout system — whether it’s creators gaming the rules, or X itself failing to pay fairly. Musk’s comment instantly shifted the tone: what looked like a policy tweak became a public disagreement between the two men running the product.
What's next?
The betting platform Polymarket is already accepting bets on Bier's dismissal. However, the probability of such an outcome is currently estimated at only 8%.
Author
Sebile Fane cut her teeth in blockchain by building tiny NFT experiments with friends in her living room, long before the buzzwords took hold. She’s driven by a curiosity for the human stories behind smart contracts — whether it’s a small-town artist minting her first token or a DAO voting on climate grants — and weaves technical insight with genuine empathy.
