CEO & Co-Founder, Substack
Search every verified Chris Best interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Chris Best, CEO and co-founder of Substack, discussed the platform's approach to AI-generated content in a July 2026 interview. He described "slop" — content that "nobody believes in" — as "the foil for Substack," stating that the company exists to help people "make things they believe in and make money doing it." Best characterized the extreme use of AI to generate large volumes of content as "a denial of service attack against the public square." He noted that Substack had shipped an AI detection feature, and expressed interest in measuring for originality and perspective rather than simply detecting AI text. Best said that "anti-slop is a pro-AI stance understood correctly," and that he values AI tools like Claude for their own opinions but does not want humans to serve as "a thin wrapper on Claude." In a June 2026 conversation with Oliver Habryka of LessWrong, Best explored the nature of media in the age of AI, expressing confusion about the topic. He suggested that current AI systems may not be "quite smart enough" to produce essays that do not "suck," but speculated that this could be a temporary limitation. At Substack's Once and Future Media Forum in May 2026, Best argued that the value of media comes from "perspective" and "relationships built on trust," and criticized the idea that AI summarizing work for a few cents per use would be sufficient. He stated that over 100,000 publishers are making money on Substack, with the top ten collectively earning more than $100 million per year.
“When content made by no one takes over parts of the internet that are supposed to be human, it pollutes the commons and makes it hard to discover and hear human voices. Platforms that reward fakeness will create a race to the bottom.”
“I think you're going to see two futures emerge at the same time. And there's one set of there's a there's a way that people use media right now, especially on their phones. I do this, we're kind of using it like a drug. It's something that you're a little bit addicted to. You're glued to the screen. It's making you fee...”
“the extreme version just being, hey, Claude, write a thousand viral posts, make no mistakes, off you go. And the problem with that is it's effectively like a denial of service attack against the public square”
“it is really interesting to me that you don't see Sam Altman or Dario or the Anthropic engineering blog posting Claude slop. You see them writing a lot of really thoughtful stuff. And I think that's illustrative that you don't have to be anti-AI. In fact, I think anti-slop is a pro-AI stance understood correctly in my...”
“The first generation of social media apps built these amazing new tools for creation and distribution but broke the business models that supported media. I don't think this comes from malice. It comes from misunderstanding the purpose and value of media and from business models that don't align with it.”
“The other day I saw none other than Sam Alman suggest that in an interview that the future of media might be having AI like you know read your work and summarize it for people and to pay you a few cents for the privilege as if that should get you everything you need.”
“Today, there's more than 100,000 people publishers making money on Substack. The top 10 collectively make more than 100 million a year. We think we're still very early in this cycle. We think there's a lot further this trend has to run.”
“If you're the subject of kind of bogus defamation claims, we're going to come and kind of like put a lot of legal weight behind that and make that very costly for the people who are bringing those things. So, if Elon sues me, you got me.”
“To me, slop is not a thing that was made by AI. It was a thing that was made without intention. It's something that you're sort of tricked into consuming that nobody believes in.”
“I would love to be in a world where we are paying creators, we're helping creators make more than YouTube is helping them make. I would love to be in a world where like the culture like the economic engine for culture that we're creating is continuing to like foster the best and most interesting stuff on the internet.”
“Free speech and freedom the the freedom of the press is foundational to a free society. Um and I think that's true you know, in the press, it's true on the internet. I'm very proud of the stance we've taken on that.”
“I think there's a lot of people who would never want to work for Substack and that's an advantage for us. If you're somebody that, you know, isn't inspired by that, doesn't like that, there's lots of companies you can work at. There's lots of There's AI companies doing all kinds of things that are paying gobs of cash.”
“The core idea is that the writers and the people who make the culture are the heroes and they need independence in order to give the thing they have to give to the world. They need the freedom to make the things they want to make. And they need to be able to make money and not just make money incidentally, but to be ab...”
“The only way we make money is by taking a percentage. And so we literally can't make money without the people on the platform succeeding. And we felt like that and still feel like that is sort of like the core. The fact that the way you make money is this better way. The only way you make money is if the creator is suc...”
“I think free speech and freedom of the press are integral to a free society beyond even sort of Substack. I just think it's one of the necessary building blocks of a of a free society. And on Substack because this we've always had this value of independence of giving people the freedom to make the thing they want to ma...”
Substack CEO Chris Best joins to describe how the company is utilizing Pangram to make clear what's written by human authors...and what's not. He joined on CNN's "The Story Is with Elex Michaelson," which airs weeknights at 9pm pacific.
Substack just shipped AI detection, and I sat down with co-founder and CEO Chris Best to talk about what a detector can and cannot see in your writing. Full post: https://natesnewsletter.substack.com/... My Links 🔗 👉🏻 Newsletter: https://natesnewsletter.substack.com/ 👉🏻 X: https://x.com/natebjones 👉🏻 TikTok: / nate.b.jones 👉🏻 Instagram: / nate.b.jones What's really happening inside AI detection on Substack? The common story is that a detector tells you whether writing is real, but the real question is whether anyone meant what they published. In this video, I share the inside scoo…
Substack co-founder/CEO Chris Best and Lightcone's Oliver Habryka (who stewards LessWrong) sit down for a wide-ranging conversation about what media is for in the age of AI — and why both of them feel increasingly confused about it. Habryka frames the puzzle through his own reading habits: much of what he values in internet writing isn't the information but the encounter with another mind, which is why LLM-generated text lands so differently and why LessWrong has long had a controversial policy restricting it. They work through the idea, via Sasha Chapin's essay, that “books are subjectivity-m…
Chris Best, CEO and co-founder of Substack, opens the day with a talk on the future of media. Chris Best is co-founder and CEO of Substack, a new media app that connects you with the creators, ideas, and communities you care about most. Founded in 2017, Substack is building a new economic engine for culture by putting publishers in charge and enabling subscribers to support the work they deeply value. www.substack.com
Alex and Ellis sit down with Chris Best, CEO of Substack, for a live interview at the ACCESS launch party at Notion HQ in San Francisco. They get into Substack's growth, the future of media, and the ongoing debate around free speech and moderation. They also press him on the Substack creator exodus narrative, break news about the platform's upcoming AI features, and discuss what happens to independent media when AI rewrites the internet. Chapters: 00:00 Meet Substack CEO Chris Best 03:21 How big is Substack? 04:31 Why Substack was inspired by Tumblr 06:19 Are people really leaving? 09:28 Why…
Chris Best is a technology entrepreneur and CEO of Substack. In 2017, he co-founded Substack, the publishing platform that helped popularize paid newsletters and direct-to-audience media businesses for writers, journalists, and creators. Previously, he worked as a vice president of engineering at Kickstarter and earlier co-founded the social messenger app Kik. Under his leadership, Substack has grown into a major player in independent media, attracting prominent authors, commentators, and podcasters seeking ownership of their audiences and subscription revenue.
Chris Best is the CEO and co-founder of Substack, the platform empowering creators to build independent media businesses. In this fireside chat, Chris shares his founding story and discusses how to navigate controversy and why having strong values matters more than pleasing everyone. 0:00 - Substack CEO: Mission-Driven Startups Beat “Mercenary” Founders 2:08 - Origin Story: The Essay That Turned Into Substack 3:01 - Startup Hiring: How Values Create a “Polarizing Filter” (Culture Fit) 4:46 - Freedom of Speech on Substack: The Core Platform Philosophy 5:57 - Hard Question for Teams: Enabling C…
A recording from Chris Best's live video https://cb.substack.com/p/greenwald-returns-to-substack?utm_source=youtube.
Today in First Time Founders, Ed Elson speaks with Chris Best, co-founder and CEO of Substack. They discuss how the company stood out against competitors, why video has become increasingly important to its audience, and where the media industry is headed next. Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 01:13 - Interview with Chris Best 01:29 - How do people not trusting news outlets affect the way you run Substack? 03:23 - What was the inspiration behind Substack? 05:21 - How did you start Kik and how did that help you with Substack? 09:04 - What is the core idea of Substack and how does it make it different…
To celebrate 100 Sunday GOOD THINKING letters, Kirsten interviews me (Chris) about how the letter started and everything I've learned along the way. Enjoy!
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