Chris Best

And so we've sort of realized if we wanted to make the fullest version of this thing we were dreaming of, there was a piece that was missing.

There has to be a place where you can go and discover things in the world, where you can go and be part of a larger conversation.

That's a necessary piece of the ecosystem.

We were plugging into those pieces that already existed, and that was imperfect, and we wanted to make our own.

And we knew that was going to be a crucial thing to do.

We also knew it was going to be really hard to do.

It's like spinning up a new social network is famously difficult.

But we started working at it, and it took a few years, and I would say towards the end of last year, we sort of got it working.

When I say working, I don't just mean people are using it and looking at it and spending their time there, but it's generating massive growth and revenue.

People are discovering things that they love enough to pay for, and it's driving a large fraction of people's growth on Substack.

Yeah, that's right.

You know, there ought to be one network that serves the people using it rather than the other way around.

It does still drive and connect to the business model, though, because you asked about algorithms.

We got to the power of algorithms.

The problem of algorithms is that it's the same as the power.

They're good at whatever you ask them to do.

And so if you're a platform that has an algorithmic discovery feed and your goal is to get people to spend the maximum amount of time there, it can be very, very good at that.

And if you push that goal to the extreme, it'll end up being good at that in a way that is exclusive of...

You feeling like you're using your time well, or maybe staying sane.

And I think more and more people can feel, you described it as sensationalism, but it's sort of like it's acting against you, right?