We’re also seeing the emergence of new models that take advantage of Substack’s network-centric design and flexible features, including Katelyn Jetelina’s Your Local Epidemiologist, which recently sprouted local variants in California and New York, and spinoff publications created and funded by individual writers who have found success on the... See more

Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi started Substack in 2017, but their history dates back years before. Chris co-founded the anonymous posting app Kik during his third year at the University of Waterloo (2010). He spent the better part of eight years at the company where he met his soon-to-be co-founders. When Chris left Kik in early

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This last aspect will undoubtedly grow, in time – and the consumers will migrate. Indeed, while legacy outlets report declines in traffic (driven also by ChatGPT) — Forbes down 52%, CNN down 34%, Fox News down 25% — Substack’s grew 47% year over year in 2025. Revenue follows attention, and attention increasingly resides in the hands of individual... See more