About Chris Best
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.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Chris Best's recent appearances.
Browse all interviews →
Transcript (11 segments)
I
Interviewer0:02
Responding accordingly. The newsletter publisher Substack is taking a stand against what it calls soulless slop on the internet. It's giving users access to a new AI detection tool that can scan notes, replies, comments, and posts to see how much of it was actually written by artificial intelligence. My next guest, the co-founder and CEO of Substack, writes, quote, '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.' Chris Best is joining me live from San Francisco right now. Thanks for being with us. Chris, is AI creating an essentially existential crisis for writing?
C
Chris Best0:59
I don't know if it is yet, but, you know, Pangram did a study of how much of the text you read on various internet platforms is generated by AI. And on some platforms like LinkedIn, the number was almost 40%. I think it was 40%. And you know, that number is changing quickly. And so I think at minimum, you can say there's a huge change in what you read online.
I
Interviewer1:25
You're using a tool, you just mentioned it called Pangram. What is that exactly? How does that work?
C
Chris Best1:32
It's a tool that can look at a piece of text and make an estimate of whether that text was written by a human hand, or somebody using ChatGPT or Claude, or one of these AI tools. You can't tell sort of the thought that goes behind the text, but it can look at the text itself and kind of tell whether it was a human or not.
I
Interviewer1:54
Do you see irony in using AI to detect AI?
C
Chris Best2:00
I think it's technically not AI, but I don't think that people need tools to tell what's real and have some transparency in what they put into their minds.
I
Interviewer2:15
You write about the fact that you basically want to give people an option to make an informed decision. So you know what you're reading from what you see. Do you find that people actually care if the text is written by AI or humans? And do some humans actually prefer the AI?
C
Chris Best2:33
You know, this is very important. We're not setting a rule of what you can and can't do or can and can't publish or read on Substack. We're just saying people should be allowed to make these choices for themselves. And the feedback we're getting is that some people care a lot. Some people have really strong reactions when they, especially when they read something that they think is written by a human, but then realize that they're actually reading AI text. You know, that violation of expectations. We call that 'cloud phishing,' where it's sort of you're just not getting the thing that you expect. But people have widely differing, some people don't mind at all. Some people don't mind in one context. It's like, hey, I might read some information over here, but if I'm getting something that is supposed to be a comment from a person, that feels different. So we're just starting with, you know, we think people should have the information and be able to decide for themselves.
I
Interviewer3:23
I want to give you some credit because you with Substack were way ahead of the game in identifying a need. And Substack is now a place that people have turned to as traditional media has changed. And frankly, a lot of people have turned away from traditional media and headed to Substack. You were able to see that coming and create sort of a new future. Put on your futuristic mind now. What's coming next? What's the next thing in media in light of the AI that we're all experiencing now?
C
Chris Best3:59
You know, I wrote this post a couple of years ago that talked about the two futures of media. And I think you're going to see two futures emerge at the same time. And 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 feel a certain way. And I think that, you know, the new technology has already made it and AI is going to make it even more powerful, even more compelling, even more addictive. But I also think you're going to see a culture future of media where as the technology gets more and more powerful and as there's more noise everywhere, people turning to human voices that they trust will get even more valuable. And that's the future that we are building for at Substack.
I
Interviewer4:52
You're certainly doing that. And in terms of the drug, I recently had an experience where I was on a 12 hour flight and they didn't have Wi-Fi that worked. And at the beginning of the flight, I felt like I was actually twitching like a drug addict who was going through withdrawal because I was so not used to something like that. Yeah. Eventually, like it felt really good. But we are addicted to those phones and much of the content on Substack is a constructive way to use your phones or your computers. Congratulations on all you've accomplished. And thanks for joining us.
