This is the best article about the recent rise in the fediverse I've seen! https://thenewstack.io/devs-are-excited-by-activitypub-open-protocol-for-mastodon/
And it opens with a quote by @evan and has several by me and even @blaine appears! Someone actually did their homework!
Relatedly, here's a lovely interview with @evan from just a few months back! https://thenewstack.io/challenges-of-creating-a-decentralized-open-source-twitter/