Chris Best

And the people that come to Substack and make lots of money, that was not surprising.

The other kind of cool effect that it's had though is that people at those institutions, even the ones that don't leave, they have a lot more leverage.

And so there's a lot of people who are making stuff who've gotten big raises, not because they've come to Substack, but because they could go to Substack if they wanted to.

The option of Substack, let's say.

The fact that you have this other, there is this other thing you could be doing that gives you this freedom, gives you the sense of having other alternatives is powerful.

A lot of professional gamblers started their career with a big winning streak.

And the reason, of course, is because it's a selection effect.

And if you start your professional gambling career with a losing streak, you often don't go on to become a professional gambler.

And I feel like that with that original Bill Bishop launch, like that thing was wildly successful.

And it kind of like, I would say, gave us a lot of courage.

We went and did Y Combinator, which is like a startup accelerator.

It was wonderful.

You walk into a room of a bunch of other people who have this frenetic energy to make something that they really care about.

And you get exposed to a culture where that's normal.

And not only is it normal, but actually maybe we could raise our ambitions.

Maybe there's a bigger version of this thing.

I actually think all of that stuff, like the cultural and sociological changes that it does are the main, a big part of the benefit.

It gives you an excuse to upend your life.

Like I've been living in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, building that initial version.

And it sort of gave me enough of an excuse to say, okay, I'm going to go move to California for three months and...