“Probably the most prominent of which is we started with this really strong commitment to free speech.”
As a guest on Joe Rogan’s Podcast, Substack Founder and CEO Chris Best shared why and how he created the currently most popular writing platform. Immediately, Best contributes his foundational yearning to create the platform from beliefs instilled early in his life:
“And I've always thought that what you read matters like it shapes who you are, it shapes how you think it creates, like who you are as a person. And so great. Writing matters a lot. Right? I mean, in my other life, I do software, software is this magical thing where you can run write a piece of code, and it does something for a million people, if you write a great essay, a great book, a great thought, you can change who a million people are. And so great writing is this valuable thing.”
He then continues to describe events that made it possible to start the development of the platform:
“… I took a sabbatical from a company that I'd done, I was like, I should be a writer, that would be good, like, how hard could it be? These guys are doing good things; I started writing what I thought was going to be like an essay, or a blog post or a screed or something, outlining my frustration with the state of the media industry, the state of incentives on the internet, basically complaining, where social media is breaking our brains, you know, this kind of shit. And I sent it to my friend Hamish, who's really a writer. And he told me, like, anybody can complain about this stuff. You're not as original as you think. All of my friends who are writers know all of this stuff. The more interesting question is if all of this is true, what could you do about it, and that be that turned into substack. And what year was 2017.”