Azeem Azhar

We're just seeing a market segment in different ways.

And, you know, I think the conservative commentators are incredibly strong on YouTube relative to, you know, progressive or liberal commentators.

And I think, you know, within Substack, it's hard to know because algorithms hide, you know, the full spectrum of what's going on.

One of the real powers of Substack has been

that it drives subscribers to you.

So I forget the number, but it's certainly a majority, or if not a majority, approaching a majority of all of our new free and paid subscribers have already been on Substack and are already subscribed elsewhere.

And I think that that's a really powerful engine and a discovery engine that exists within Substack.

And people break out, they'll write a great essay, they'll have

1,000 free subscribers, that SA will get 800 likes and reshares and they'll see themselves hit that 10,000 number very quickly.

So there's something about the network effect within Substack, the discovery and its ability to drive traffic, which is something that

media organizations used to provide writers.

So why would you write for The Guardian or The Times?

Well, you'd get a salary, but you'd also get read, or at least you'd get distributed.

And I think it's quite impressive the way they have figured out how to get eyeballs in a way that doesn't feel like you're being algorithmically filtered to other writers, other essays.

Yeah.

There will be a business school case study on third-time successful founders getting into this business and competing against first-time founders, which some of the Substack people were.

But I think there's something else that is going on, which is connected to the

The shift from institutional trust to personal connectedness.

And I was talking to Jasmine's son, who was an early Substack product manager, and she's now gone off on her own.

Absolutely brilliant.