Nikita Bier has now built two things that got bought by companies bigger than his, and a third that he was hired to rebuild for someone else. All three ended the same way: he handed it off and walked away.
The apps were tbh and Gas — both anonymous, both aimed at teenagers, both acquired within months of taking off, and both dead within a year or so of the acquisition closing. The third thing was product at X, Elon Musk’s platform, a job Bier took in mid-2025 and left in August 2026, thirteen months later, on his own terms.
Two months to the top of the App Store
Bier co-founded tbh — an app that let teenagers send each other anonymous, upbeat poll results, like “who has the best smile” — in the summer of 2017. It found its market almost immediately: within about two months, it had climbed to roughly 2.5 million daily active users and 5 million downloads, and topped Apple’s App Store download chart, according to reporting at the time.
Facebook noticed. On October 16, 2017, TechCrunch reported that Facebook had agreed to acquire tbh and would let it keep running independently. The company never disclosed the price. TechCrunch’s own sourcing put it at less than $100 million — low enough, the outlet noted, that the deal wouldn’t need antitrust clearance. Lenny’s Newsletter, profiling Bier years later, described the same deal as worth “more than $30 million.” No public figure has ever been confirmed by either company.
The independence didn’t last. Facebook shut tbh down in July 2018, less than a year after buying it, citing low usage.
The second app, and the second buyer
Bier didn’t stop building. In the summer of 2022 — after a stretch at Facebook itself as a product manager — he launched Gas, another anonymous polling app aimed at teenagers, this one for sending compliments rather than rankings. It moved even faster than tbh had. By October 2022 it was pulling in more than 30,000 new users an hour and had knocked TikTok and BeReal off the top of the download charts, according to Bloomberg’s reporting on the acquisition that followed. By December, Bier said, Gas had generated $6 million to $7 million in revenue on roughly 7 million to 10 million downloads.
Discord announced it had acquired Gas on January 17, 2023. Terms were undisclosed. Bier marked the moment himself on X: “Sold my company 5 years ago to the world’s largest consumer app. Today I sold my company to the next largest one. Gas has been acquired by Discord.”
Discord shut Gas down that October, effective November 7, 2023 — about nine months after buying it, and the second Bier-founded app in a row to be acquired and then killed by its buyer.
What he says the pattern actually is
Bier has since built a public career explaining what happened in those launches, advising and investing in consumer apps including Locket, Citizen and BeReal, and appearing on Lenny Rachitsky’s product podcast in August 2024 to lay out what he calls a repeatable playbook rather than luck. “If you’re good at your job, you can make an app grow and go viral,” he said. “Over the years of building all these apps, I’ve accrued all these growth hacks that still nobody knows about.” He was equally blunt about the ceiling on that approach: “If your users aren’t inviting people to your app, you’re going to have to find another way to acquire them. And that most likely means ads.”
The call from Musk
In July 2025, X hired Bier — by then a venture partner at Lightspeed and an adviser to the Solana Foundation — as its head of product. He announced it himself, in character: “I’ve officially posted my way to the top.” Musk replied on the same post: “Welcome to X. LFG!!”
The job put a growth specialist known for building single-purpose apps in charge of product at a general-purpose platform carrying two decades of accumulated architecture, under an owner known for setting an aggressive pace. Bier later described the tempo in his own words: X, he wrote, rebuilt its Timeline, Android app, onboarding, notifications and chat, and shipped nearly 30 new products, “protecting the integrity of the town square,” over what he counted as 400 days.
Four hundred days, then a step back
On August 5, 2026, Bier announced he was stepping back. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to pass the torch and demote myself to my natural state: a poster,” he wrote, adding that he’d continue on as an advisor rather than leave outright. In a separate comment reported by TechCrunch, he was more direct about why: running the app, he said, was “a 24/7 job and it’s now time for me to take a breather.”
That line lands differently against Bier’s own résumé than it would from most executives. This is a founder whose entire track record is two acquisitions that ended in shutdowns within a year — proof, on its own terms, that he doesn’t stay attached to what he builds once the intense part is over. Thirteen months at X fits the same shape: he arrived, moved fast in public, and left again, this time with the product intact and someone else now running it.
The throughline
Two acquisitions, two undisclosed price tags, two apps that outlived their independence by less than a year. Then a job at the platform that owns more of the public conversation than either of his own apps ever did, taken at speed and given up at speed too. What connects all three isn’t the outcome — an acquisition, a shutdown, a resignation are three different things — it’s the operating rhythm: build or fix something fast, in public, and then, deliberately, stop.
Related founders
- Eric Baker Was Fired From StubHub. He Bought It Back. — another founder whose story runs through more than one company and more than one ending.
- $60B: What SpaceX Paid for Michael Truell’s Cursor — a different order of magnitude, same pattern of a product company being absorbed by something much larger.
- Founder Burnout: What the Research Actually Shows — the research behind the “24/7 job” line Bier used to explain why he stepped back.
The tbh launch numbers, its October 16, 2017 acquisition by Facebook, and TechCrunch’s reporting that the price was undisclosed but under $100 million are per TechCrunch’s original coverage of the deal. The “more than $30 million” estimate for tbh and Bier’s quotes on virality and user acquisition are from Lenny’s Newsletter’s August 25, 2024 profile and podcast interview with Bier. Facebook’s July 2018 shutdown of tbh is per contemporaneous reporting on Facebook’s app closures. Gas’s 2022 growth figures, the January 17, 2023 Discord acquisition, and Bier’s revenue and download disclosures are per Bloomberg’s report on the deal. Bier’s own quote on selling Gas is from his post on X dated January 17, 2023. Discord’s shutdown of Gas, effective November 7, 2023, is per contemporaneous tech-press coverage of the closure. Bier’s July 2025 hiring as X’s head of product, his “posted my way to the top” quote, and Musk’s reply are per TechCrunch’s July 1, 2025 report. His prior roles as a Lightspeed venture partner and Solana Foundation adviser, his farewell quote about the 400 days and nearly 30 products shipped, his “pass the torch” post, and his “24/7 job” comment are per TechCrunch’s August 5, 2026 report on his departure and his own post on X of that date. No official acquisition price for either tbh or Gas has ever been confirmed by the companies involved.
