Chris Best
Chris Best is the founder and CEO of Substack in Founder Mode: Chris Best, Founder & CEO, Substack. The episode presents him as a technical founder who moved from frustration with internet media incentives into building a paid newsletter platform for independent writers and creators.
Best’s origin story starts with reading and culture. After leaving his first startup, he wrote about how internet platforms had damaged older cultural business models and pushed media toward attention-maximizing incentives. Hamish McKenzie challenged him to move from critique to solution, leading to the manifesto and first version of Substack.
Best’s founder-mode case centers on long-term conviction. He argues that Substack Notes and the mobile app were not ordinary tests but products the company believed had to work because Substack needed its own discovery network. In his account, that conviction also shaped the decision to launch a Twitter-like product despite Elon Musk objecting and Twitter / X later restricting Substack references and links.
Connections
- Substack, Hamish McKenzie, Bill Bishop, and Sinocism - company, co-founder, first user, and first publication case.
- Founder Mode and Strategic Must-Work Product Bet - leadership pattern Best attaches to Substack’s app and Notes work.
- Creator-Owned Audience and Platform Dependency Risk - media and distribution themes in Best’s account.
- Y Combinator, The Social Radars, Jessica Livingston, and Carolyn Levy - YC offsite source context.