Joe Rogan Experience #1855 - Chris Best

Narrator 0:00 (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.

Chris Best 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music)

Joe Rogan 0:12 What's up, Chris? How are you?

Chris Best 0:15 Good.

Joe Rogan 0:15 What's going on? (laughs) Have you done podcasts before?

Chris Best 0:19 Uh, nothing like this. I've done a few.

Joe Rogan 0:21 Yeah? Okay, cool. Um, so tell me... First of all, tell me, what was the inspiration to start Substack? Like, how did it, how did it come about?

Chris Best 0:32 I've always been an avid reader. Uh, my dad was an English teacher growing up. We had books around the house. And I've always thought that what you read matters. Like, it shapes who you are, it shapes how you think, it creates, like, who you are as a person. And so great writing matters a lot. Right? I'm a- s- I- in my other life I do software. Software's this magical thing where you can run- write a piece of code and it does something for a million people. If you write a great essay, a great book, a great thought, you can change who a million people are. And so great writing is this valuable thing. And when I took s- a sabbatical from a company that I'd done, I was like, "I should be a writer. That would be good. Like, how hard could it be? Um, these guys are doing, doing good things." And I started writing what I thought was gonna be, like, a essay or a blog post or a screed or something, outlining my frustration with the state of the media industry, the state of incentives on the internet. Basically, complaining, uh, "Wah, wah, wah. Social media's breaking our brains." You know, this kind of shit. And I sent it to my friend Hamish, who's really a writer, and he told me, like, "Anybody can complain about this stuff. You're not as original as you think. All of my friends who are writers know all of this stuff. The more interesting question is, if all of this is true, what could you do about it?" And that bec- that turned into Substack.

Joe Rogan 1:54 And what year was this?

Chris Best 1:56 2017.

Joe Rogan 1:57 It's really perfect timing for when everything started getting really heavy in terms of censorship and also the, the chaos that came about because of the pandemic and journalists getting canceled. And th- there was so much weird stuff in terms of what you were allowed to write about or not allowed to write about. And then, of course, the Hunter Biden thing, the laptop. Like, all that stuff, like, came about in the first few years.

Chris Best 2:24 A lot of the best writers in the world, in my estimation, were getting kind of tissue rejected from the places where they would have been before.

Joe Rogan 2:32 Tissue rejected?

Chris Best 2:33 Like, uh, it's an, uh, an analogy. Like, they're getting... Like, an organ transplant that fails-

Joe Rogan 2:38 Oh. Oh.

Chris Best 2:38 ... kind of thing. They're getting sort of pushed out from the, the places that would have been their home and where they could have done the thing that, that mattered f- to them before.

Joe Rogan 2:47 What happened? How did, how do you think that... Like, what, what steps fell into place that caused all this?

Chris Best 2:55 My theory on this is that it's a combination of natural human affairs. Right? Like, there's human nature. People act in certain ways. There's dark tendencies that come out when you get people together at scale colliding with the consequences of the first generation of the internet revolution, basically. The way that the first generation of the internet played out was this massive land grab for human attention. So first of all, the computer, and then even more so the smartphone, kind of gobbled up all of this slices of people's lives that were just sitting there. People used to get bored, and then the smartphone came along and that just didn't exist anymore. And in that phase, the things that won were the things that were the most efficient at gobbling up everyone's attention. And so you had this sort of com- The, the game that everyone played was like get everyone's eyeballs, and the things that you do to, to win at that game create an incentive landscape that drives everyone crazy.

Joe Rogan 3:55 Yeah. The, the way to win at that game is be outraged or get people outraged.

Chris Best 4:01 Yeah. The way to win at Twitter is be bad in a lot of ways. And if you don't want to do it, somebody else will.

Joe Rogan 4:06 Be bad?

Chris Best 4:08 Well, I mean, bad in some, like, be outrageous, be the, the, the ultimate tweet, as I've found out (laughs) myself sometimes, is not the thing that everyone agrees with or even the thing that everyone hates. It's the thing that maximally divides people, the thing that most separates the people that are in your tribe on your side and makes them kind of like cheer, and at the same time spits in the face of, of the other people. That is the, the recipe for a successful tweet because that's the incentive landscape that makes Twitter succeed.

Joe Rogan 4:41 Yeah, it's just... I go on Twitter once a day, maybe twice a day, just to see what kind of shit the monkeys are throwing at each other.

Chris Best 4:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 4:49 That's... It seems like a, like a mental institution sometimes. I see people arguing over things and things that are trending that have zero impact in my life, and I, I don't understand why people are putting so much attention to it. But it seems like the recreational outrage that comes about wh- for... because of Twitter is one of the most addictive things I've ever witnessed people take part in. I mean, I say people. I've, I took part in it a little bit for a while, but now I don't engage at all. I d- Literally, I don't read my mentions. I, I occasionally post things, and then I just get the fuck out of there. I, I just think it's too... It's just too poisoned.

Chris Best 5:30 Yup. You're a wiser man than most.

Joe Rogan 5:34 Well, I just see it. I see it in other people. I see what it does to people, you know? I, it's just... It, it's very strange, because I never thought Twitter was gonna become that. I always thought Twitter was just, like, some innocuous thing when it first came around. It was silly. A lot of comedians loved it, 'cause it was a great little, uh, because the, in the beginning it was only 140 characters. That's great to keep your jokes succinct in little short little blurbs and try to fun, find fun, funny things to say. But then it just became...... some, some strange way for people to expose their mental illness.

Chris Best 6:09 Yeah. And none of that stuff is new. None of the, the bad things that people do on social media are a new facet of humanity. It's just, it amplifies it and it creates this, like, false reality that everyone sees that slowly drives us crazy.

Joe Rogan 6:24 So how difficult was it to, A, start Substack, and then B, get journalists to come on board?

Chris Best 6:31 The hardest part of starting Substack was convincing ourselves that it could work. 'Cause it started as, I was literally writing this essay, and Hamish and I were talking and we just came across this idea of like, "What if we let writers go independent themselves? What if we let you start your own thing, you get the email addresses, you own everything, people can pay you directly. Now you're getting hired and fired by your readers." It's this super, it, it sounded too simple to possibly work, where like if this thing could work, somebody would have done this already. It seems stupid. But we kinda talked each other into it. And, you know, I'm a tech nerd, I'm a product guy. Hamish is not that. He's a writer, he knows that world. And we kinda both thought that it could work, and so we just sort of, like, slowly talked each other into it. He had a friend who was a writer who, like, needed it right away, basically. Um, had wanted something like this and became our first customer. Uh, a guy called Bill Bishop writes Cynicism, it's a newsletter about China that everybody in business and government reads.

Joe Rogan 7:26 Why did he need it right away?

Chris Best 7:28 Well, he, I mean, he ... So he'd had this newsletter that he'd been writing for free and paying for the privilege of sending that was just like, "What the hell is actually going on in China for anybody who needs to actually know." And, you know, lots of business people, government people all over the world would read it, and he's been like, "I should char- instead of paying to send this thing out, I should charge people for this, obviously." But I couldn't figure out how to get the, you know, wire up the payment with the sending, and the, like, he just needed someone to handle the details of it. And we were like, "Great, we'll do that for you. We'll, like, we'll do everything for you except the hard part."

Joe Rogan 8:05 And then, so, you got him, and how did you get the word out? Like, how did it, how did it start to really become a player?

Chris Best 8:14 A lot of it was we started with Hamish's friends, like people he, who he knew, and we would just go and talk to them and ... Especially early on, a lot of it was just telling people about this, why we were doing this thing and what we thought was wrong, and how this fairly simple platform we were building could help. And if people bought the s- like, believed in the things we were saying, then they would s- think, "Oh, maybe I'll try this." And it really started with just great writers that Hamish knew or that people that we brought on knew, and we just were like, "Here's what we're doing and why."

Joe Rogan 8:53 Do you guys get resistance? 'Cause I, I know there were some people that were writing bad things about Substack or saying that Substack is a bad idea. What, what was the argument?

Chris Best 9:06 There's been a f- there's been a few. I mean, one that comes up a lot is (laughs) well, there's been a few generations of it. At the very start ... You were asking how we started. The argument was like, "No one's gonna pay for anything, you idiots."

Joe Rogan 9:18 Right.

Chris Best 9:18 Right? It's like, you know, writers on the internet, social media's bad. Yeah, all sounds good theoretically, but I'm never gonna pay for anything, never gonna work. Good luck. And the ... I had this parlor trick where I'd run on people. I'd just be like, "Well, who's your favorite writer?" After they just told me they would never pay for a writer. And then I'm like, "Who's your favorite writer?" They'd say, "Oh, it's so-and-so." I'd be like, "Would you pay five bucks a month to like get their stuff directly?" And they'd be like, "Yeah, I probably would, but that's different. It's that person, it's this thing." And so we sort of ... There was this weird thing where nobody thought it would work in the abstract, but it worked once you had something that you cared about. Um, so we kind of crossed the like, "It's never gonna work," thing, and then immediately got into the, "It's working and it's bad," time (laughs) for a bunch, for a bunch of things. Uh, probably the most prominent of which is we started with this really strong commitment to free speech. If we think that we're making a platform for writers that is, you know, can, can be a positive force in our intellectual climate, we just think that's table stakes. That's something that's an important principle. And we came up in a time that not everyone believes in that at all. Um, we took a lot of shit for a bunch, a bunch of different times for, "Well, why do you let this person send emails to people that want to get it from them?"

Joe Rogan 10:30 Like, what, specifically, like, can you say like what writers were problematic?

Chris Best 10:36 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 10:36 Or would you like to avoid that?

Chris Best 10:38 Um, I'd-

Joe Rogan 10:38 We could avoid that.

Chris Best 10:39 I don't, I don't wanna put anyone on blast. I'll tell-

Joe Rogan 10:40 Okay, let's just talk about like subjects.

Chris Best 10:42 Sure.

Joe Rogan 10:42 Like, what would you do? Like, here's a question. What if you had ... I mean, I think Substack is like ... How many, how many people do you have on it right now?

Chris Best 10:49 How many people? There's-

Joe Rogan 10:50 In term- in terms of writers.

Chris Best 10:52 How many people? There's like, tens of thousands.

Joe Rogan 10:54 Wow. That's pretty cool.

Chris Best 10:56 It's going.

Joe Rogan 10:57 Yeah, it's wild. It happened so quickly. Um, what if you got ... s- like, a Holocaust denier starts publishing stuff on Substack?

Chris Best 11:05 We ... So we have a Terms of Service that we set out that has a couple of like, really strict, really, uh, tightly construed things.

Joe Rogan 11:13 Mm-hmm.

Chris Best 11:13 Most of it's like, you can't spam, you can't do these things. Um, we do, I mean, we, we do have a couple things, like there's no porn. Um, you're not allowed to, like, advocate for literal violence. Uh, there's a few things that, that are sort of just like bright lines that are intended to be kind of like a really high bar and allow for space where there's a lot of shit on Substack that we ourselves disagree with and find awful. We try to take ... You know, we think that sign of the old school ACLU approach on this-

Joe Rogan 11:42 Mm-hmm.

Chris Best 11:42 ... is correct, right? Where they're protesting to like help the Nazis have their free speech rights.

Joe Rogan 11:47 Right.

Chris Best 11:48 Um, not because we think those things are good, but because we think that airing them, uh, is more valuable and in the long run better than trying to solve the problem by censoring them.

Joe Rogan 11:58 So there are people that are on Substack that everybody sort of agrees are gross.

Chris Best 12:04 I mean, I don't know if there's anybody that everybody agrees are gross, but for-

Joe Rogan 12:08 Like you guys?

Chris Best 12:08 ... for any individual, I think anybody that exists could find someone on Substack that they think is the greatest thing ever, and they could find someone on Substack they think is terrible, and we take that as a sign that we're doing it right.

Joe Rogan 12:19 So, eh, no porn. What about, what are the other ones?

Chris Best 12:24 ... I'd have to look it up. It's like ... Yeah, no, I think there's a doxing thing, there's like, uh, advocating violence. There's a few, like, kind of things that just break the edges.

Joe Rogan 12:34 Do you allow erotica? Like if someone-

Chris Best 12:36 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:36 ... published, like, Bigfoot porn-

Chris Best 12:38 Yeah, we kind of, we do-

Joe Rogan 12:39 Do you ever read those?

Chris Best 12:40 Our, our, our genius, our genius take on this is that we disallow porn, but we allow erotica. And it turns out-

Joe Rogan 12:45 Hmm.

Chris Best 12:45 ... that's like a, (laughs) that's a non-trivial thing. But the intention is like, look, there's already OnlyFans. If you're just doing that-

Joe Rogan 12:52 Right.

Chris Best 12:53 ... there's a, there's a place for you. Um, and we're not, this, this, you know ... I don't even think, I don't have a problem with it. I don't think that's wrong, but that's just not the, the thing that we're trying to serve.

Joe Rogan 13:03 Right. But so, but people are allowed to do that. They're allowed to, like, write ...

Chris Best 13:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:08 Yeah. And so when, when it comes to, like, controversial things, like, uh, I'm sure a big controversy, I know, uh, Alex Berenson was a controversy because he was publishing a lot of, uh, negative studies and things on, on COVID vaccines that a lot of people didn't want him to talk about. And this is how he got kicked off Twitter, and this is how he wound up suing Twitter and actually winning and getting back on Twitter, which is pretty fucking crazy.

Chris Best 13:38 I could not believe they let him back on.

Joe Rogan 13:40 Well, he was right. The problem is he's citing-

Chris Best 13:43 Right.

Joe Rogan 13:43 ... scientific studies, you know, from other countries that they don't like how, what the data represents. And there was also the CDC study where they were talking about boosters for 18 to 49 people, and they didn't want to release the data because they felt it would contribute to vaccine hesitancy. And he's like, "What the fuck are you doing?" And that kind of stuff, like publishing stuff that makes people uncomfortable but it is actually accurate, it's a big part of journalism, and he wasn't able to do that, uh, in these public forums like Twitter.

Chris Best 14:20 And I would, I would go a step further. I mean, I think publishing things that are true but uncomfortable are, is obviously journalism and there's-

Joe Rogan 14:26 Yes.

Chris Best 14:26 ... the, the value to that is obvious, and the, it's, it's ... History is exceedingly clear that you can't always sort out at the time-

Joe Rogan 14:33 Yeah.

Chris Best 14:33 ... which is which. And the thing that that leads us to is that even things that aren't, like, we don't want to be in the business of trying to adjudicate what's true. And so we don't even have, we're not like, "Well, you can publish things that are true that make people mad." We're kind of like, "Look. This is, you can publish things. This is your thing. People are trusting you."

Joe Rogan 14:51 Mm-hmm.

Chris Best 14:51 "You're not subscribing to Substack, you're subscribing to some writer." And we think that it's better to allow the stuff to be p- like, to have people have a platform and have freedom of speech and let that stuff get sorted out because all of the alternatives that sound really good end up in disaster.

Joe Rogan 15:12 Yeah. No, I couldn't agree more. I mean, a good (laughs) yeah, funny example is Trump's Truth Social, right? So he, he puts out this new social media platform, Truth Social, and then they start censoring people who talk about January 6th.

Chris Best 15:30 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 15:31 Like, apparently, they're ... (laughs)

Chris Best 15:33 Like, like, like you talk about it in a negative way.

Joe Rogan 15:35 Yes.

Chris Best 15:35 If they're like, "January 6th might not have been great," they're like, "That's, you're banned. You're not a-"

Joe Rogan 15:38 Well, I don't think it's that simple. I think when they start talking about people who, uh, either incited or were saying things or, uh ... F- let's find out, find out what ... 'Cause Truth Social does censor things on the January 6th committee and all the, uh, investigations that are currently underway. They, I don't think they want to shine a light on the fact that, you know, that not only did that happen, but there's some really troubling things about a lot of the people that were involved in it.

Chris Best 16:14 Yeah, and as soon as you get, as soon as you get to the place where you think your job as a platform, as a, as somebody that's making the things where people are publishing their ideas, is not to let people publish what they want and let it, let the market sort it out, but instead to push some narrative. Even if the narrative is right, even if you're like, you know, doing stuff, trying to push something that's unambiguously good and true, by trying to publish it through censorship and through forced conformity, you end up doing more harm than good, at least we believe.

Joe Rogan 16:49 Do you think that social media was the driving force for these ideologically driven journalists now? Instead of being a journalist that reports uncomfortable truths even if they don't agree, uh, e- even if the, the side that they're supposedly on, whether they're conservative or liberal, whatever tha- those uncomfortable truths are that fly in the face of whatever the narrative is that that side is pushing. Like, is, is it social media and the echo chambers and worried about the blowback from either followers or other journalists? Like, what caused that?

Chris Best 17:30 I think it's definitely part of it, and I think, you know, it's not a new thing, right? If you look in every a- in every age, people who are telling, saying things that are true and are uncomfortable to some dominant narrative, that's always, like people always take flak. There's always efforts to censor them. You can go back and look at, you know, people w- who were accused of being communists in the-

Joe Rogan 17:52 Yeah.

Chris Best 17:52 ... in the '60s and '70s. Like-

Joe Rogan 17:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Best 17:54 ... um, in every age, that thing exists. I do think that social media amplifies that impulse and creates a, uh, situation where a few people who are displaying being very upset can create a false sense of consensus.

Joe Rogan 18:14 Yes.

Chris Best 18:15 Right? There's this, there's, there's, like, the w- you know, Twitter and some of these platforms, you can get like 100 or like even like t- 30 or 40 people that are just really mad, can make it look like-... the whole world is coming down around you, and that everybody hates you and wants to burn you as a witch, um, even if that's not actually true. Even if that's- just a small fraction of people feel that way. And if either you aren't strong enough to deal with that or, more likely, if you're part of an institution that doesn't have the fortitude and the principles to push back against that, um, that's where I think that force can cause things to crumble in a way they ought not to.

Joe Rogan 18:53 Y- and that is what we're seeing. Yeah. And, and it is- Well, it's an increasingly growing number of people, but it was relatively small initially, and now it seems like there's these mobs of people that hop on any- any narrative to try to enforce, like- It's almost like they're just trying to get a win for the team, you know? And it's- it seems very strange that that- that's taking place in journalism. Because it- it's always disturbing to me that people don't remember the lessons of the past, and we have to, like, keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Like, the example that you used with ACLU, how they were literally defending Nazis and their right to free speech, because their perspective was free speech should be an absolute thing, and your in- their- the- the correct response to that is not to censor these people, it's to correct them with- with correct speech.

Chris Best 19:51 The optimistic take on this is that every generation has to learn this for themselves.

Joe Rogan 19:55 Yeah.

Chris Best 19:55 Like, they don't- people forget. They don't, you know- the- the lessons from the past don't feel real until you've lived through it. But that once we live through it, people will understand, right? That you start- I think people are starting to get a new appreciation for why free speech is a principle that matters. I think it's something we- you- if you come up taking that for granted and living in a world that you enjoy all the benefits of that without ever having to really, like, think about it, you can forget why it matters, and then as soon as that comes for you, it flips it back on. I think we'll see-

Joe Rogan 20:31 Yeah.

Chris Best 20:31 ... people will come in the other direction.

Joe Rogan 20:33 I think people are starting to turn in that direction now, I- and I think that's- it speaks to the success of Substack, that people are recognizing that you really do have to have some sort of a forum where someone can speak their mind and- and not have, uh- I mean, your fears of criticism, I mean, that's not- that's not the issue. The issue is being deplatformed, where you can't express yourself anymore because whatever you're saying troubles people.

Chris Best 21:02 Right. And then the- and then the, you know- the consensus reality is that these viewpoints, nobody is saying these things, uh, when in fact there are people that would be saying them if- if- if they hadn't been kicked out of the- kicked out of the thing. That's a- that's- that has been one of the things that we've deliberately, like, put our minds to at Substack. This is one of the things that was in- in my whiny essay that I wrote for Hamish (laughs) complaining about everything that's broken. But it's not even the whole problem, I don't think. I think it's one of the things that's gone wrong, and the other one is just, like, the way that we spend our attention at all and the way that we can value quality versus just time and entertainment has been eroded because of the platforms that have taken over, and these two things, like, go hand in hand. But having people read things that are smart and good by somebody whose incentive is to like, earn and keep people's trust, even if it's not- you know, even if it's not something they're gonna get canceled for, that stuff doesn't always exist unless you have a model that supports it.

Joe Rogan 22:08 And with Substack, do you have an algorithm, like say if you enjoy Bari Weiss's work, I recommend this?

Chris Best 22:18 So this- the way we do this is very thoughtful because on the one hand, we wanna have a network effect for the platform, right? We want it to be true that when you come to Substack, you know, yes, it's a great tool, yes, it's all these good things, it's free until you take money and then we charge you 10%, um, but we also want it to be like you're gonna grow, right? You're gonna find people who would love your stuff are gonna be able to find it, and by being here, you get more benefit than we're asking in return. On the flip side, all of the obvious ways that you would do that, if we were to copy the way that Twitter does this or the way that YouTube does this, um, we would just be recreating some of the things that we kind of like set out to- to fight against.

Joe Rogan 22:57 Mm-hmm.

Chris Best 22:57 And so as we build those features, we do have a thing that introduces you to recommended writers. The difference is it's not Substack or Substack's algorithm that it's recommending, it's the writer that you already subscribed to that's recommending.

Joe Rogan 23:09 Oh.

Chris Best 23:10 Um, and so-

Joe Rogan 23:10 Well, I like how Bari uses her page because she uses her page to promote other journalists and other writers.

Chris Best 23:16 Yeah. Yeah, and we also have that- she has the guest post and she's sort of like- the same way that people coming on here can be like a career-making thing, like people going on Common Sense can be like a major turning point, and she can bring somebody into the world that the world needs.

Joe Rogan 23:29 The- when I say the pushback against Substack, like has- have there been major critical articles written about Substack?

Chris Best 23:37 Yeah, I mean, we've had a few. Uh, th- there's been a series of fun ones from the New York Times. Um, there was one that was like, "Is the Substack economy bad for democracy?" Um, which we thought was good. There's been a few critical ones and my s-

Joe Rogan 23:51 What was their argument? How could you be bad for democracy? That's a f- first of all, what a loaded thing to say.

Chris Best 23:57 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:57 Is it bad for democracy? Is it the end of human civilization?

Chris Best 24:01 Yeah. (laughs) Will Substack kill us all?

Joe Rogan 24:03 (laughs) Yeah, that's- that's it. That's it.

Chris Best 24:05 Subscribe for the next year to find out.

Joe Rogan 24:06 That's the boiled-down headline. (laughs)

Chris Best 24:10 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:10 You know, like YouTubers do that? They'll have like a- like a title to the video that's just pure clickbait-

Chris Best 24:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:16 ... with a crazy photo on it? Like-

Chris Best 24:17 Well, it's- You know Betteridge's law of headlines, which is if the headline a- asks a question, the answer is just always no.

Joe Rogan 24:23 (laughs)

Chris Best 24:24 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:25 Right. Right.

Chris Best 24:26 UFOs, are they real and among us today? No.

Joe Rogan 24:28 Uh, probably.

Chris Best 24:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:29 Maybe. (laughs)

Chris Best 24:31 (laughs) Yeah, maybe- maybe I picked the wrong example there.

Joe Rogan 24:33 Maybe in this room.

Chris Best 24:34 I mean, look, the-... we knew what we were getting ourselves into when we set out to build this thing, right? We're like, "Hey, we're making something that is aimed at the heart of the culture war. We're making something that we think can make some small positive difference in the forces that are tearing things apart and breaking things down." And there's, if we are successful at that, there's no world where we get to do that where we don't have to take a lot of heat.

Joe Rogan 25:02 Yes.

Chris Best 25:02 Um, you know, we're gonna make people... There's no way to do that without making the, the people in the existing places mad. And I think that's, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't listen to criticism. That doesn't mean if people, if we're wrong about stuff and people point it out to us, we should, like, cover our ears. But the correct amount of skeptical press and skeptical attention that Substack gets is, is never gonna be zero.

Joe Rogan 25:24 Yeah. No, I think it's good. I mean, I think in, in a way, they're advertising for you, for sure. I mean, not in a way. I mean, they, they're definitely doing it. They're, what they're doing by complaining about you is sort of the same thing that mainstream media does about podcasts. They don't-

Chris Best 25:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:39 ... understand what they're doing.

Chris Best 25:40 It's how Trump got elected.

Joe Rogan 25:41 Yeah. And th- they... Yeah, exactly how Trump got elected. They were talking about him constantly, and it gave him press. And the thing about what's happening with Substack that parallels with, uh, mainstream media and podcasting is that they're bringing about their own demise by their very format. By what they're doing is sort of highlighting the strengths of what you guys have been able to accomplish, and that... One of the, the parallels in podcasting is, you know, the, the... Like, a show like CNN is never going to be able to truly compete with a show like Breaking Points, Breaking Points on YouTube with, uh, Saagar and Krystal Ball.

Chris Best 26:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:22 The, the reason why they're not gonna compete is that, first of all, they're captured by whether it's executives or the corporations that run them. They're not independent, and so they have to have a slant on whatever particular thing that's in the news that whatever interests n- m- need them to have a slant on, you know. "Brought to you by Pfizer." I mean, we see these things over and over and over again in mainstream media to the point where people have lost their faith that this is objective journalism. And so these other shows thrive, like The Jimmy Dore Show and all these shows that highlight real problems. And the real journalists of the world, like guys like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi, like, those g- people flock to them now. Like, "Surely, there's got to be a rational take on this. Where the fuck do I get it?" And then boom, Substack is there.

Chris Best 27:16 Yeah. I think that's right. And, I mean, isn't your show 10 times bigger than the biggest CNN show?

Joe Rogan 27:24 Supposedly.

Chris Best 27:25 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 27:25 I'm skeptical that it's only 10 times bigger.

Chris Best 27:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 27:28 (laughs) I don't... I can't imagine anybody's really watching that.

Chris Best 27:30 Who, who's watching this stuff? It's all, like, TV screens in airports.

Joe Rogan 27:33 It is a lot of that, but I think they've kind of eliminated it from airports. Isn't that, isn't that true recently? Didn't they lose some sort of a deal with airports? People got tired of being bummed out at the fucking airport. It's, um... I mean, the format sucks, period. Like, the, the format where you, uh, have a conversation for five minutes, and then you have to let the person go, because there's a commercial break. And then right after that, you have another thing scheduled. It, it ensures that you're never going to get, like, a real deep dive into something, and we all know, as human beings, if you want to talk to someone about something, it takes time. If you wanna really find out what someone's opinions are, you have to have a conversation with them, and you have to find out where they're coming from.

Chris Best 28:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:12 What's your perspective? How did you grow up? Like, where did you form these ideas? Like, what was your, a major turning point in your, your philosophy and the way you view things?

Chris Best 28:21 And you have to want that in the first place.

Joe Rogan 28:23 Yeah.

Chris Best 28:23 You have to just be curious what people actually think-

Joe Rogan 28:26 Right.

Chris Best 28:27 ... rather than bring people on to be the avatar of some opinion you already want, like, you, the, the theme you already want the show to be about.

Joe Rogan 28:34 Exactly. And so in many ways, it's sort of ensuring the success of Substack, because the, the system appears... If, if it's not broken, it's on a really shitty foundation.

Chris Best 28:48 Let's hope.

Joe Rogan 28:49 Yeah. Well, I don't think-

Chris Best 28:51 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 28:51 I don't think you have to hope. I think it's happening.

Chris Best 28:52 Well, let's ho- let's hope that it's good for Substack. I don't, I'm not cheering for the demise of, uh, of anything really. I mean-

Joe Rogan 28:59 Oh, I'm, I'm not either. I mean, I'm still, I still read The New York Times and Washington Post and a bunch of other periodicals. I think that it's important. I think there's a lot of people that work for The Times and a lot of these other organizations that are much maligned that do great work. They're great journalists, but I think they're captured in some ways by the, the, the institution that they work for. And it's flooded with, uh, ideologically driven people and a very left-leaning, ideologically driven, uh, populist. It's, this is not, like, you don't... There's not a lot of, like, very popular, very influential right-wing publications that compete with all the left-wing publications. It's very unbalanced.

Chris Best 29:41 Right. And it's not like the right-wing outlets that do exist are bastions of, you know, free speech and independent ideas-

Joe Rogan 29:47 Right.

Chris Best 29:47 ... and not having a narrative. It's the, it's the same-

Joe Rogan 29:49 You mean OAN News is not awesome? (laughs)

Chris Best 29:50 It's not... I can't believe they're not. They're doing the Truth Social thing, right?

Joe Rogan 29:53 Yeah.

Chris Best 29:53 Where it's, it's, it's the same enforced narrative, enforced views, just from a different way and on the same mechanisms in a way that breaks the thing. And they've been... You know, we talk about the, the way the internet changed all this stuff. The internet changed all these businesses too, because they exist in a world where they're competing for a slice of people's attention with Twitter, with TikTok, with YouTube, with everything.

Joe Rogan 30:17 Yes. Yeah.

Chris Best 30:17 And so there's this, like, this game where you're, like, trying to grab people at all costs.

Joe Rogan 30:22 Yeah.

Chris Best 30:23 Uh, is just a tough game for the truth.

Joe Rogan 30:27 Mm. Yeah. It is a tough game for the truth. But isn't that sort of what creates the interest for your very business? Like, that's kind of cool for you. I mean, it's... It really is, like, kind of a perfect storm in many ways.

Chris Best 30:44 The thing that I, that I-... c- get the most excited about, uh, with Substack is getting to hang out with my heroes a bunch. Like, getting to meet people who are making things on Substack that I think matter for the world.

Joe Rogan 30:57 Who are your, like, some of the ones that you go to on a regular basis on Substack?

Chris Best 31:01 Who are some good ones? Um, you should have Ethan Strauss on here. This guy does House of Strauss. It's like a, he's like an ex- sports journalist.

Joe Rogan 31:08 Stress, stress?

Chris Best 31:09 Strauss.

Joe Rogan 31:10 Strauss.

Chris Best 31:10 Uh, S-T-R-A-U-S-S. And he ... This is just at the tip of my tongue. He was a sports journalist and kind of like left the, for a bunch of these same things. He kind of like got disillusioned with how things were going and just started a newsletter and a podcast on Substack. And it's just fas- ... I'm not even a sports guy, like I'm a, I'm a computer nerd. I don't follow sports. Um, but I read and listen to this guy, and it's just fascinating. Um-

Joe Rogan 31:36 You guys have podcasts on Substack?

Chris Best 31:38 Yeah, we added a podcast thing, so you can do-

Joe Rogan 31:40 Ooh.

Chris Best 31:40 A lot of writers wanna like ..........................

Joe Rogan 31:43 Interesting. Interesting.

Chris Best 31:43 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 31:44 Do you have video?

Chris Best 31:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:45 Oh.

Chris Best 31:46 Yeah, we had a video.

Joe Rogan 31:47 Mm-hmm.

Chris Best 31:48 Um, that's going pretty good actually. Um ...

Joe Rogan 31:52 That's great.

Chris Best 31:53 W- why do you ask?

Joe Rogan 31:54 Well, I mean, I, why do I ask is, I, I was very concerned with where podcasts were go- ... I mean, uh, Apple has been pretty cool. They, they never gave us a hard time. But YouTube, they, uh, gave us a hard time about, uh, a bunch of episodes, particularly during the pandemic when they didn't like having-

Chris Best 32:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:12 ... dissenting opinions and different scientists that had different perspectives.

Chris Best 32:16 There's one woman on Substack who's amazing, Emily Oster. She writes about, she wrote some books about pregnancy, expecting ... She's like an economist that writes about like the real ... There's so many crazy myths around pregnancy and raising kids, and she just writes like the real stuff. And she did some podcast episodes, uh, and a lot of it's like, like, "My kid's in COVID. Like, what do I do? How much should I worry about?" And she's like super good and mainstream and sensible about all this stuff. And I went to ... She does the podcast on Substack, but it's available on Spotify too. I went to Spotify, and like half the page has these warnings they put on there that's like, "Look out."

Joe Rogan 32:53 Yeah.

Chris Best 32:53 "If you, if you read this," like, "Don't believe anything that's in here. Here's the ma- here's the stuff you should believe," and it's links to like the official government sources-

Joe Rogan 33:00 Mm-hmm.

Chris Best 33:01 ... and a few news things. And it's ... I understand why it's there. I understand why people feel like having accurate information matters. I don't think that that's a ... You know, I don't think that they're coming from an evil place wanting to do that. But it makes me queasy. I don't think that it's the right ... I worry that we're losing our minds on that stuff, I guess.

Joe Rogan 33:22 Yeah. Well, the problem is oftentimes they're wrong. And a lot of that information that they say is disinformation or misinformation turns out to actually be accurate, and the place where you're getting misinformation is the mainstream reporting.

Chris Best 33:38 What's true is often very hard to sort out in advance.

Joe Rogan 33:41 Right.

Chris Best 33:41 Especially when something's like developing rapidly-

Joe Rogan 33:44 Yeah.

Chris Best 33:44 ... things are changing. It's the idea that, you know, you can have an official source that can just adjudicate in real time what's real and what's not is, is a c-, is a fiction, right? That, and I think everybody when pressed would admit that. Nobody thinks that there's one authority you could go to and say, "Yes, they're gonna have exactly all the answers." And yet when you get into the regime of saying, "Well, who's allowed to talk about this?" Um, you know, th- this is the thing people fall back to. Like, "Well, we'll just see, we'll, we'll see who the official things say are good." And it's even more complicated than that because, uh, individual people, the kind of thing that makes people interesting, and this is true in, in like science and technology as well, is the kind of like personality that makes you someone that can do exceptional things can also lead you to do crazy things. Right? I, I like the, the example of Isaac Newton, right? Who invented, co-invented calculus is like the v-, you know, invented a lot of the physics that engineers use to this day. And (laughs) it turned out that he al- he had a side hustle of like weird like Bible conspiracy theories/alchemy where he had this thing where he was like, like basically a lunatic, like a conspiracy theory guy.

Joe Rogan 34:55 Yeah.

Chris Best 34:56 And he did, like he did both, right? He, he had a crazy lunatic hobby and co-invented calculus and modern physics. And if you look at him and said, and this is a thing that could have happened at the time, uh, and said, "Well, this is heresy."

Joe Rogan 35:09 Mm-hmm.

Chris Best 35:10 Like, "This one thing you're doing is crazy. Like, you're canceled," um, you miss out on something.

Joe Rogan 35:15 Yeah. For sure. And Isaac Newton, wasn't he, didn't he also die a virgin?

Chris Best 35:20 I don't know.

Joe Rogan 35:21 I think he did. I think he was-

Chris Best 35:23 Checks out.

Joe Rogan 35:23 I think there was a thing about... I, I just think he was like averse to human contact-

Chris Best 35:30 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:31 ... which, I mean, he might have been on the spectrum, right? I mean, if you really think about it, if y- uh, the type of person that could develop y- you know, a, a theory of gravity when ... What d- what year was that?

Chris Best 35:44 I don't know.

Joe Rogan 35:45 I mean, what the fuck did they know? I mean, h- the alchemy, probably thought he was onto something.

Chris Best 35:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:49 You know?

Chris Best 35:49 I mean, it's like both of these probably seemed promising-

Joe Rogan 35:52 Yeah.

Chris Best 35:52 ... to him. Like to this s- guy that's smart enough to in- co-invent calculus was like, "All right. Bo- I've got two things going here. They're both pretty interesting."

Joe Rogan 36:00 (laughs)

Chris Best 36:00 "One of, one of these pans out, I'm set."

Joe Rogan 36:02 Yeah. Um, y- y- yeah, that is a thing about ... Look, I'm a giant Hunter S. Thompson fan. Uh, huge. But he was a terrible person in a lot of ways. I mean, a lot of the stuff he did and a lot of the stuff he said, and he's just constantly snorting coke and drinking and screaming at people and throwing things at them. And, and he ... There's a, a famous video of him having a gunfight with his neighbor.

Chris Best 36:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:27 Have you ever seen that video?

Chris Best 36:28 No. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:29 Okay., find that.

Chris Best 36:30 Literally a gunfight?

Joe Rogan 36:30 Hunter S. Thompson has a gunfight with his neighbor. Yeah, they're shooting at each other.

Chris Best 36:33 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:33 Yeah. Not only that, while there's cameras there. Like Hunter's like leaning around a corner and shooting at his neighbor. This is like Colorado in the, in the 1970s. Yeah, he was out of his fucking mind.

Chris Best 36:45 That's wild.

Joe Rogan 36:45 But also-Fucking brilliant. Like, and some of the things that he wrote, to this day, you know, I'll go over some of those passages, and they just ... Like, here.

Narrator 36:56 (footsteps) Try to shoot something beside. Bird shot, you asshole. (gunshots) The people who did this, uh, Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were, uh, good people.

Joe Rogan 37:07 How do you like this?

Narrator 37:08 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 37:08 Look at him. (footsteps)

Narrator 37:11 And it's a good place, like here we are in the middle of it, up, up on the mountain. And if this son of a bitch wants to bitch about his cows over here and shoot at me, well, it's our country. (gunshot) It's not theirs. (gunshot) It's not a bunch of used car dealers from Southern California. (gunshot) So obviously, you have to be a part.

37:28 (laughs)

Chris Best 37:30 I wish this guy was around to be on Substack.

Joe Rogan 37:32 (laughs) He probably wouldn't have wrote much, unfortunately. He was just too busy getting drunk and high at the end of his life.

Chris Best 37:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 37:39 We ... You could've caught him, you know, if you caught him in, like, 1966, '67, it would've been-

Chris Best 37:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:44 ... fun. You know? I think, uh, he would've been perfect for Substack.

Chris Best 37:48 I think Matt Taibbi, who's big on Substack, had the same job at the Rolling Stone that Hunter had.

Joe Rogan 37:52 Yes. Yeah, he did. Yeah. I, I love Matt Taibbi. I think there's, uh, there's room for a certain amount of chaos in individuals that have something to offer. Like, you, you just can't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Chris Best 38:10 And this is ... I think this is how you make progress, right? Like, you ... I- if you insist on having kind of, like, a low variance, and everything needs to be as safe and as good as, as possible, you might limit the downside, or how wrong things are. But inevitably, you also limit the upside. Right? If you, if you, if, if you prevent people from being, you know, doing something dumb that's against the consensus, you always prevent them from doing something that's genius that's against the, against the consensus.

Joe Rogan 38:38 Mm-hmm.

Chris Best 38:38 And it's that thing, there's, like, asymmetric upside there. It's that genius thing that moves the world forward. And so if you cut it off, it breaks, it breaks things.

Joe Rogan 38:47 And that's the argument for freedom, right? And that's the argument for freedom of expression, freedom of, uh, just freedom of speech and of thought, and the ability to be wrong, the ability to communicate in a way where you're ... You, you don't have to jump through hoops to get your thoughts out. And, you know, I think there's pros and cons that come with that, right? You know, you're gonna have some people write things that, "Well, boy, it would be nice if we had an editor to go over this." But it's also really nice when I know there's not an editor. I, when I love reading, like, Bari's writing-

Chris Best 39:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:26 ... that I know that it's coming from her. This is not fucked with, because I, I've talked to Bari about pieces that she wrote, where ... I mean, there was a thing she wrote about me for the New York Times, where they had to change ... They, they wouldn't let her say something that was, like, very innocuous.

Chris Best 39:39 Or they add a headline that's, like, suddenly different-

Joe Rogan 39:41 Yeah.

Chris Best 39:41 ... than the thing.

Joe Rogan 39:42 Yeah.

Chris Best 39:42 So editors can be good though, right? Lots of-

Joe Rogan 39:44 Sure.

Chris Best 39:44 There's people on Substack that have editors. The difference is, the writer hires the editor.

Joe Rogan 39:48 Yes, yes.

Chris Best 39:49 Right? So it's-

Joe Rogan 39:49 Well, it's a collaborative venture.

Chris Best 39:50 It's a collaborative venture. And ultimately, the person that you're subscribing to, the person that you're choosing to trust is the person that you're hearing from.

Joe Rogan 39:57 Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm not opposed to other people's contributions. I mean, with standup comedy, it's critical. We, we, we rely on the audience for their contribution. And we also rely on other comedians. Like, someone will say, "I think if you said it this way, it'll work better." And like, "Ooh, you're right. Oh, thank you." You know? It's like, you need other perspectives. But you also ... You know, there's ... I mean, I guess this is what you get from podcasts. This is one of the things that I'm so fascinated about Substack, is that I find real parallels with the way Substack is dealing with journalism w- versus the way, uh, podcasts are dealing with free-form conversations.

Chris Best 40:33 And there's a lot of similarities. You know, we t- uh ... In this world, where it's like, okay, the attention monster social media things are taking over everyone's attention. Everyone's got their phone now. People don't go to websites anymore. Everything has to be in, like, one of the f- apps on your home screen to be in your l- life. And it turns out that most of the apps on your home screen are controlled by one of these algorithms that's kinda working against you to just grab as much of your time as possible, with a few exceptions. One is the podcast app, where it's using this RSS format, where you subscribe to things. And then those things from the people you subscribe to show up.

Joe Rogan 41:07 Yeah.

Chris Best 41:07 And you're, you have this unmediated connection, where you can actually choose how to ... who you want to spend your mind and life with. And another one is the email app, where people can send you emails. And that, the, those last sort of, like, bastions of direct connection between people that are making things and people that care about them is the source of a lot of the power of the model, I would say. Um, this thing where you're ... You know, I'm, I'm, I'm subscribing to you on Substack, I'm listening to your podcast, because I trust you to curate a slice of my intellectual life for me. Right? If, if what I read or what I listen to is who I am, you're one of the people I want shaping who I am. That's a big investment. I'm not gonna hand that ... I don't ... We shouldn't be handing that off to what Twitter thinks will make me mad.

Joe Rogan 41:53 Yeah, for sure. What do you do, like, when you, when you guys have meetings, and you look at, like, "How do we make this better? What are our problems?" Like, what, what are the, the dilemmas that you guys encounter?

Chris Best 42:09 So the big thing we've done that's good is we picked a business model that aligns us with the pe- with the people on the platform, right? So it's free to publish. Once you start charging money, we take 10%. So if you're a writer, when you make more money, that's how Substack makes money. When you're a reader, when you find stuff that's valuable enough that you actually want to choose to pay for it, that's also how Substack makes money. And so th- that sort of, like, guides us in the things that we want to build. It's like, "Hey, we wanna do the things that help writers, which are the things that help readers, which are also the things that help Substack." And the dilemmas end up being, like, "Okay, how do we do that? And how do we do that in ways that don't, uh, erode the fundamental value that we're creating?" Right? 'Cause there's lots of, there's lots of sort of, like, short-term things that we could do that would seem like really great ideas. Like, why don't we just, you know, show you eight recommendations of, like, cool things to click on-

Joe Rogan 43:03 Right.

Chris Best 43:03 ... that the algorithm thinks are good? Or why don't we, like, start to erode the direct connection you have with the writers, because, you know, we could ...... do this more efficient thing. Um, but we know that the, the reason the thing works at all is because of the trust and because of the direct connection. And so it's sort of like, how are we, how can we do the thing that brings the power of the network, the power that all of these social media platforms has, have harnessed, but do it in a way that puts the people in charge, puts the writers and the readers in charge? There's not really a blueprint for that because that hasn't existed, I don't think, f- fully until now.

Joe Rogan 43:36 Yeah, what do you do other than an algorithm? And, and people are terrified of algorithms because they've seen the effect that it's had on Twitter and YouTube and, you know, it's, it's unfortunate but it does sort of highlight the worst instincts in human nature in terms of like accumulating information. You, you go towards things that are outrage oriented.

Chris Best 43:59 Yeah. And the algorithms, it's a, a bit of misnomer too. I'm, I'm a software guy and a, a nerdy by this stuff, and it's sort of like everything's an algorithm. It's like-

Joe Rogan 44:07 Mm-hmm.

Chris Best 44:07 ... are you using an algorithm or are you using electricity? Like, of course you are.

Joe Rogan 44:09 Right.

Chris Best 44:10 When we say algorithm we mean like something that is showing you stuff in a way to achieve some goal that it has.

Joe Rogan 44:19 Yeah.

Chris Best 44:19 That might or might not be your goal. And so I think the way to think about it is not like, do you have an algorithm or not, but it's like what is that algorithm trying to do? Right? If the algorithm is trying to get you to use TikTok for as long as possible every day, that's gonna have a different consequence than an algorithm that's trying to introduce you to a writer that you trust enough that you might wanna pay for them and care about them.

Joe Rogan 44:46 Right, but how do you do that? How do you, how do you find an algorithm that's gonna introduce you to someone that you would think would be interesting based on who you already think is interesting-

Chris Best 44:56 Well these are th-

Joe Rogan 44:56 ... other than creating an echo chamber?

Chris Best 44:58 These are the exciting, these are the exciting problems we get to solve. I'll tell you some of the stuff that's working really well so far is this principle of putting the writers in charge and putting the readers in charge. So with, you know, we added a recommendations feature and rather than say we're gonna figure out who you wanna do, we let the writers pick, and you don't have to pick anyone. You can say I'm not gonna, you know, if people come to me I'm not gonna send any- anybody anywhere. Or you can say, "Hey, if you're coming to me, one of the things that I can do for you is put you onto other things that I think are interesting, that I think are worthwhile, and I'm sort of putting my name on that as something that you would check out." Now, that's gonna be less efficient if you just look at the numbers of like how much engagement does that get. It's gonna be impossible to build something that is as efficient as like the YouTube page that's like, "I know what you want better than you do yourself."

Joe Rogan 45:46 Yeah.

Chris Best 45:46 But, as a reader, I'm gonna choose to spend my time on Substack around that stuff because it creates a real alternative, because I know that I'm not giving my mind to something that's kinda operating against me, and I know that if I'm seeing something, I'm, there's like a human being that I, that made that decision and I know who they are and I, it's sort of like about that trusted relationship rather than the algorithm, the scary thing.

Joe Rogan 46:13 Are you Canadian?

Chris Best 46:14 I am. Thank you for noticing.

Joe Rogan 46:15 Snuck it out.

Chris Best 46:16 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:16 A boat.

Chris Best 46:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:17 I heard it, buddy. You only had one.

Chris Best 46:18 It's been, it's been like slowly disappearing.

Joe Rogan 46:21 (laughs)

Chris Best 46:21 There was a period of time when I first moved where I, my ears accommodated before my voice, and so I sounded like I had a funny accent to myself, which was very unsettling.

Joe Rogan 46:31 I, I, I feel you 'cause I had a Boston accent for a while, and then I heard myself on television. I was like, "Ew."

Chris Best 46:37 Can you still do the Boston accent?

Joe Rogan 46:38 Oh yeah, if I get drunk.

Chris Best 46:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:40 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Best 46:41 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:41 Especially if I'm drunk with my friends from high school.

Chris Best 46:43 Nice.

Joe Rogan 46:43 Yeah, it'll come out 'cause they have it hard.

Chris Best 46:46 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:46 They still live there. Um, you, are you a public company?

Chris Best 46:50 No. Private company.

Joe Rogan 46:51 Uh, do you intend on staying that way? It seems like that's the only way you could avoid influence.

Chris Best 47:00 I'm not sure that's true. Um, I think there... I mean, the thing that, success for Substack looks like being an independent company, right? We're trying to bring this thing into the world that's new and we think that it's got a real business model that works. We think we're onto something important, and the way that we can best serve that is staying independent and running it ourst- ourselves and making it into the best thing that it can be.

Joe Rogan 47:22 Yeah.

Chris Best 47:23 Uh, and I think at some point, you know, you can go public and do that, and there's ways to do it that, that are not... Uh, don't subject you to the kinds of pressures.

Joe Rogan 47:34 How could you do that, though, if, if the whole business model is about... I mean, if, if, if it's a public company and people buy stock in the company, you have, uh, an obligation to your stockholders to make a maximum amount of money.

Chris Best 47:46 Yep. So the, and this is the, like, this is actually the, maybe at the core of how I think about Substack, right? One way you could say this is like, well, you know, eh, we have a choice. Either we can do the things that make us money or we can do the things that we think matter, and we're just gonna be really good, virtuous people and, like, ignore all that money and just do the things that matter. And I think a better solution to actually making change is to find a way to set things up so that in order to make money you wanna do the things that matter.

Joe Rogan 48:17 Right, like y-

Chris Best 48:17 And so we set... Oh, go ahead.

Joe Rogan 48:18 I'm, I'm sorry. You're offering yourself as this is, there's a financially viable solution, like you, y- there's obviously a market for this.

Chris Best 48:28 Yeah, and not just viable but, like, compelling.

Joe Rogan 48:30 Yes.

Chris Best 48:30 Right? There's ways that you can set it up where the things that we do to grow and the things that we do to be successful are also the things that make the ecosystem good and make the writer successful. One example of this is on Substack. As a writer, you own all your content, you own your mailing list, you have a direct building relationship with, with people, and if you want, you can leave. And people do leave, and it's terrible for us and we hate it.

Joe Rogan 48:54 People have left?

Chris Best 48:55 People have left.

Joe Rogan 48:55 And what do they do? They just leave and they start their own website and then they do it direct?

Chris Best 48:58 Uh, they start their thing as one of the other clones. Some of them eventually-

Joe Rogan 49:01 There's other clones?

Chris Best 49:01 Some of them eventually come back. Um-

Joe Rogan 49:02 I didn't know that, that there's people have cloned Substack.

Chris Best 49:05 Yeah, it's a-

Joe Rogan 49:06 You don't have to men- mention names, but how many of them?

Chris Best 49:08 Um, there's a handful. Twitter and Facebook both copied us very shamelessly, um-... which is, you know, one of these things that happens when you're making something.

Joe Rogan 49:16 Oh, yeah, you can subscribe to people on Twitter now, right?

Chris Best 49:20 Um ...

Joe Rogan 49:21 Is that real? Like, you can pay money to get better tweets or something?

Chris Best 49:24 I think, yeah, they have super followers. Anyway-

Joe Rogan 49:26 Super followers?

Chris Best 49:27 The point, the point of the-

Joe Rogan 49:28 Is that what it's called?

Chris Best 49:29 (laughs) Yeah, I think that's, that's-

Joe Rogan 49:30 Is that really what it's called?

Chris Best 49:30 That, that's a real thing they did.

Joe Rogan 49:32 (laughs)

Chris Best 49:32 Um, the point though, is that by tying our hands in this way, the fact that the people on Substack can leave means that the only way to make money and grow is to make it good enough that they choose to stay, right? Like, you know, other companies are like, "We'll lock you in. We'll make it so that you can't leave." And then, that's how ... That's great. But for us, we're like, "Well, you can leave. Therefore, we have to actually do the work to keep you."

Joe Rogan 49:55 Hmm.

Chris Best 49:55 And that means that in order to succeed, we have to, like, we have to do the right thing. And I think that's the way that you actually make change in business at scale, is not by, like, you know, being like, "We're gonna ... We're s- we're angels. We'll turn down the money. We'll do this, this nice thing." It's like, no, let's figure out a thing that actually works and makes financial sense and does something that matters.

Joe Rogan 50:16 Well, when you say turn down the money, your business model is entirely dependent upon people enjoying and subscribing to these-

Chris Best 50:25 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 50:25 ... journalists.

Chris Best 50:25 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 50:27 And you don't have advertising, which seems to ... That seems to be where the pressure comes in, is when advertisers d- either don't like content or they don't like particular points of view that people are espousing.

Chris Best 50:42 Yeah, and I actually think that advertising, uh, a particular kind of advertising, is the root problem that created a lot of these dynamics on the, the social media networks. Where it's, it's not just advertising but it's, it's, uh, uh, programmatic advertising, right? Where, you know, I'm not buying an ad on Joe Rogan necessarily, but I'm buying an ad to show to, like, Jimmy Smith, this person who I can target minutely.

Joe Rogan 51:09 Mm-hmm.

Chris Best 51:09 And so all of Twitter and Facebook and all these things, they sell these things that you can target down to the level of the person. And so, the f- the thing that the platform's ultimately aggregating is just a bunch of attention that maximizes how much of people's time that you have, and it doesn't actually matter what they were watching in between. Like, the advertiser doesn't know or care unless it's embarrassing for them and they wanna cause some stink. Um, but that, that dynamic, the, the fact that that business model works so well and then they're doing the things that make them money and it pulls in a bad direction is why we are the way they are. It's not like the people at Twitter are evil.

Joe Rogan 51:45 Right.

Chris Best 51:45 They're not trying to do bad. Like, they're not-

Joe Rogan 51:47 No, I think they-

Chris Best 51:48 ... you know.

Joe Rogan 51:48 ... think they're doing good. I, I, I genuinely do.

Chris Best 51:51 And they probably have done a lot of good. I'm not ... I don't wanna be so down on Twitter that we can't acknowledge that there's good things about it. There definitely are.

Joe Rogan 51:59 Yeah.

Chris Best 52:00 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:00 No, for sure. Listen, it gets out information. It's like, if you wanna find out what's going on, it's like the best place to go to immediately to find out, like, you know, some country got overthrown, some chaos is happening somewhere in the world. At least you're getting something. And you also ... You're getting various perspectives. You're getting some boots on the ground perspective. You're getting some official perspectives. You know, it's just ... The problem is, like, sorting it out. It's, it's not a good platform for sorting out what's accurate and what's not accurate. It's like you just get, okay, let's see how this plays out. Like, you get a little piece-

Chris Best 52:34 Yes.

Joe Rogan 52:34 ... of the information, like, "Okay, let's see what the real thing is."

Chris Best 52:38 You know, every, every new technology fucks things up, right? Every time we make something new there's also, like, terrible consequences that we have to grapple with. And like, when they came out with the printing press, it like broke the world. You got like, the Protestant Reformation. It was a, it was a whole thing. And I think we're just ... We're living through one of those things where we've got this like, for the first time very quickly, every human being in the world is wired together into one giant network and like paying attention to this thing. It's insane and we shouldn't expect that it, it ... That goes over smoothly and everything just works perfectly the first time. It's gonna make a mess and we're gonna have to figure out how to make it serve us.

Joe Rogan 53:16 It's kind of wild that there's really only one though. When the we're, uh, when I'm speaking about Twitter, it's kinda wild that there's really one place where people go to bitch about things.

Chris Best 53:28 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:29 You know? I mean, it really is. I, I guess people go to Facebook too, but I don't read that either. It's just ev- every time I go to Facebook, it's like these long diatribes and people screaming in the comments and-

Chris Best 53:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:40 It's kinda the same thing. It's ... But Twitter, in that short format of, you know, tweeting and, and quote-tweeting and, and that kind of thing, it seem- ... It seems like it's bizarre that no ... It's, it's also bizarre that no one has replicated YouTube successfully. Like, see, YouTube has a ... As much as you might not like the algorithm, it's fucking genius in that it-

Chris Best 54:02 Totally.

Joe Rogan 54:02 ... it really does captivate people. I mean ... And it really is dependent ... Like, uh, my friend, Ari, did a, a, a test once where all he looked up was videos on puppies. That's all he looked up and he goes, "And what do you know? My fucking algorithm is all puppies."

Chris Best 54:16 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:16 And he goes, "It's really ... The problem is not the algorithm. The problem is people."

Chris Best 54:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:20 And that really is ... I mean, if you go to my ... My YouTube feed is mostly nonsense in that it's mostly mindless things that I enjoy watching like professional pool and hot rods and stuff like that, mostly stuff that's non-consequential. Then occasionally some deep dive into some world economic forum conspiracy. I'm like, "Oh fucking Christ."

Chris Best 54:43 (laughs) It's not bad to have stuff that's fun though.

Joe Rogan 54:45 Yes.

Chris Best 54:45 We don't want a world with no puppies.

Joe Rogan 54:47 Yeah.

Chris Best 54:47 It just ... That shouldn't be the only way that we f- find out everything about the world.

Joe Rogan 54:50 But it's just fascinating that these algorithms ... Uh, I mean, you, you've seen The Social Network, the documentary? I mean, I think, um, what those folks have kind of exposed that worked in these social media companies is that they knew what these algorithms were gonna do and they did it anyway. And they know where this is going and it seems to be going in a terrible way that lo- looks like civil war or some sort of horrible divide of our country just based on human nature applied to this very disruptive technology.

Chris Best 55:27 Yeah. It's scary as shit. (laughs) Like-

Joe Rogan 55:29 (laughs) It's fucking-

Chris Best 55:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:30 ... it really is. I mean, uh-

Chris Best 55:31 This was, this stuff was going through my head when I did that stupid essay in 2017. And at the time, it was like, even saying that out loud, even being like, "There could be a civil war," was like, felt insane.

Joe Rogan 55:40 Insane.

Chris Best 55:41 But I'm like, but look at like, just play the movie forward. Like, what happens?

Joe Rogan 55:45 Tim Pool said that on my podcast years ago, and I, I thought he was being, I thought he was just going o- way, way too over the top. He said, "I think we're going to civil war." I'm like, "What the fuck? Come on, man. Relax." But now I'm like, "Ooh, maybe he was right." Um, I mean, it at least could-

Chris Best 56:00 Let's not, though. It would be better if we could-

Joe Rogan 56:01 No.

Chris Best 56:01 ... if we could not.

Joe Rogan 56:01 For sure. Let's not.

Chris Best 56:03 By a wide margin.

Joe Rogan 56:04 By a wide margin, let's not. But at least we are most certainly in some sort of, uh, a battle of ideas that is, uh, so uncharitable and, and so rigid in its, you, you know, its, its sides and its ideologies. It's, it fucking freaks me out. It freaks me... The lack of nuance and perspective and the lack of, uh, objectivity in recognizing the flaws of both sides. I mean, you see, obviously see that in politics, right? You're, you're, you're always gonna see that where the people that are in the positions of power, whether it's, um, the White House press secretary, they're always going to y- give you the best possible spin on everything they can. And when the questions get weird, they end the conversation, they leave.

Chris Best 56:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:53 They're just trying to propagandize, just trying to promote a certain thing.

Chris Best 56:57 The, the trap is believing that it's a battle between these two teams. It's like-

Joe Rogan 57:01 Yeah.

Chris Best 57:01 ... the left versus the right, and that the other team is so bad that whatever our team does to fight them is necessarily justified. That's the, that's the trap.

Joe Rogan 57:09 Right.

Chris Best 57:09 And the reality is, it's like everybody who's sane versus actually a tiny minority of people who are, who are nuts-

Joe Rogan 57:17 Yes.

Chris Best 57:17 ... but who have like massive amplified power because of the way these dynamics work and the way that institutions have played out in this, um, the whole thing.

Joe Rogan 57:25 Also, the things that they're talking about, uh, they're consequential. Like, the, the, when you have a small amount of people that are, uh, arguing about things or yelling about things, these things are consequential. And the- these are, these are these little battlegrounds that thing, that these ideas play out on. And they recognize the significance of these battlegrounds, and they put all their time into it. And then you have a lot of people that are just like genuinely mentally ill because of these platforms. I, I think it's ramped up anxiety at an unprecedented level. I mean, and there's some people that it carries over. I've... Some friends that are on Twitter too much, and then we'll go out to dinner and they carry Twitter out into the regular everyday life.

Chris Best 58:06 Right.

Joe Rogan 58:06 And like, you know, this is what's wrong with it. Like, here we are right now, it's Austin, it's beautiful, like, we're having dinner, we're having a good time, and you're freaking out about some argument that people are having about something that has literally nothing to do with you.

Chris Best 58:19 Yeah, you can... I, I find myself doing it, 'cause I'm sort of addicted to Twitter as well. I go through a phase where I, like, delete the app, and then I, like, get it on my browser on my phone-

Joe Rogan 58:26 (laughs)

Chris Best 58:26 ... and then I hate myself, and then I delete it again. And when you get into it, you can... You talk to someone who's just a normal person in the world, and you find yourself saying something about what's happening like it makes any sense. And you're like, "What the hell am I talking about?"

Joe Rogan 58:39 Yeah.

Chris Best 58:39 This is like, this is literally insane, and I couldn't, I couldn't realize that it was insane until I just talked to someone that just had no idea what the hell. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 58:47 But on the flip side of that, I felt that same way about all the, the woke chaos that was coming out of universities in like 2014. We were talking about it in 2014 and 2015, and people were like, "Why are you focusing on this? This has zero effect on your life." And my take was, this is gonna f- spill in. It's gonna... These kids are gonna graduate-

Chris Best 59:06 Why are you focusing on a virus that's only in one little Chinese city?

Joe Rogan 59:08 (laughs) Exactly. There's a new one to worry about now. Have you heard about the new one?

Chris Best 59:12 Which one?

Joe Rogan 59:13 Oh, the one just came out. Have you seen that, Jamie? I'll send it to you. Yeah, there's some-

Chris Best 59:17 New virus just dropped?

Joe Rogan 59:18 Yep, new virus just dropped. Good times. Here, uh, it's 35 people been affected by this thing. I'll send it to you right now, Jam.

Narrator 59:27 (zipping sound) The long, Langya?

Joe Rogan 59:30 Yes. Langya virus. China sounds alarm. Here, I'll send it to you. It is the Daily Mail. (laughs)

Chris Best 59:38 (laughs)

Narrator 59:38 No, that's on a... It's been reported by tons of places.

Joe Rogan 59:40 Oh, yeah, I'm sure it's real. Here it is. So it's from shrews. But what is this dude? Is it, is it like a monkeypox-type deal that sucks but it doesn't kill you, or is it a real problem? A virus known to kill up to 75% of cases. Okay, but of what? Shrews or, or of humans? None of the cases in two Chinese provinces so far resulted in people dying. That's what I wanted to know. So 35 people got it, no one's dead. Experts believe the virus is passed on by animals, including shrews. Doctors have raised the alarm over a brand new virus. My, uh, you know, I'm fucking terrified that we've been c- become conditioned now to start freaking out about every virus that comes our way, because we've always had swine flu and avian flu and-

Chris Best 1:00:25 Yeah, you pay attention now. You know what would be good, though, is if we actually took the lessons we learned from coronavirus and prepared correctly for the next thing.

Joe Rogan 1:00:34 Well-

Chris Best 1:00:34 Instead of just-

Joe Rogan 1:00:34 ... we need a Substack for medicine.

Chris Best 1:00:37 That would be a good idea.

Joe Rogan 1:00:38 I mean, y- obviously you have it, and there's some great doctors and, and, um, clinical researchers that do post on Substack. And I've, I've read a lot of their work and... You know, the problem is, there's great consequences in those industries if you step outside the lines and you talk about things that are unpopular. And that's one of the, the real positive things about Substack, is you, you do give people, uh, if they get cast out of these institutions, you give them a very viable and often better alternative. And, and now, because of the popularity of Substack, there's a real good argument that they wouldn't just reach the same amount of people, they'd reach more people, particularly if it gets... if, uh, these, these things get promoted by other people like Barry or other journalists that are very popular-

Chris Best 1:01:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:28 ... in Substack.

Chris Best 1:01:29 And there, you know, there is a cost to that, right? Sometimes people get cast out of places 'cause they're nuts and they're wrong and they're crazy.

Joe Rogan 1:01:36 Right.

Chris Best 1:01:36 Like, that-

Joe Rogan 1:01:37 Yeah.

Chris Best 1:01:37 That does happen, right? And so if you have a platform where people can publish, like, you're gonna get some, some, some crazy people. Um, but you're also gonna get the people who are cast out for the wrong reasons.

Joe Rogan 1:01:50 Yeah.

Chris Best 1:01:50 And this is why the thing where...... you know, choosing which human beings you trust on Substack, building a relationship over time with people, making your own guess of their in- integrity. And then, being able to find out, like, who's reading what, who's, like, sharing what, who's promoting what, um, I think is a better answer to how can we get- get all of the points of view out, um, even though it's still imperfect, right? There's still gonna be downsides to every- any tack you can take with this stuff.

Joe Rogan 1:02:18 What's the big dispute in the Substack office when you guys discuss these things? Is everybody on the same page?

Chris Best 1:02:26 I think mostly. I mean, one thing that we've done fairly carefully is that we've- we know what our stance is on these things, and we've written down... Uh, we've, like, written h- Hamish and I and Jay have written essays about, like... Excuse me. (coughs) We gotta-

Joe Rogan 1:02:48 There's a little cough button there too if you wanna use it. I love using that thing.

Chris Best 1:02:50 Oh, that's smart.

Joe Rogan 1:02:53 (coughs) Love the cough button. Makes me feel-

Chris Best 1:02:55 That's-

Joe Rogan 1:02:55 ... like we're a real show.

Chris Best 1:02:57 That's a genius invention. Um, you know, we wrote down this stuff, and we made it public, and we made it public before we had... We were in some controversy or people were mad at us. We sort of, like, take the time to think, like, "What do we believe? Why do we believe it? Why are we working on this thing? Why is it worth working on?" And then when people join the company, they know that stuff. And if you come to Substack and you're like, "Actually, I think you should, you know, not give people a platform and not put writers in charge and have this tight view of what's real," it would just be crazy, because it's just not the... Putting the work into something that's against what you believe in doesn't make sense.

Joe Rogan 1:03:33 Also, it would be kind of like managing at scale. Like, how could you when you have tens of thousands? So, that means you would have to have tens of thousands of people going over everyone's stuff, making sure that it's accurate and it- i- it doesn't promote some harmful narrative.

Chris Best 1:03:51 And those people end up making mistakes, and the mistakes are really unfair.

Joe Rogan 1:03:54 Right.

Chris Best 1:03:54 And like... And- a- and I think people have had this experience at this point. There's been lots of people that just have had, like, you know, uh, warnings or bans from Twitter for just... D- over dumb stuff that was... And then, the company's like, "Oh, yeah. That was a mistake." Like, it's just hard. It's not feasible to be an arbiter of what's true and what's good at scale. If it were, a lot of our problems would just go away.

Joe Rogan 1:04:14 Yeah.

Chris Best 1:04:14 But it- but it's not.

Joe Rogan 1:04:15 I- managing at scale... I try to explain this to people when they- they shit all over YouTube. I'm like, "Could you imagine being YouTube?" Just the sheer volume of videos that get produced every day is insane. The sheer amount of-

Chris Best 1:04:32 Like, how many hours of video per second are they getting?

Joe Rogan 1:04:34 It's pretty crazy. Jamie, what is the... Well, we could probably, like, just get, like, hours per day, the amount of hours per day that YouTube... And obviously there's multiple languages, and so you get into that and, like, good luck 'cause, you know, how many translators are you gonna have in all these different countries that are gonna read all these... Or, uh, watch-

Chris Best 1:04:57 (coughs)

Joe Rogan 1:04:57 ... e- either read transcripts or watch videos?

Narrator 1:04:59 As- (coughs) as of July 3rd, there is in- uh, 500 hours of videos uploaded per minute.

Joe Rogan 1:05:11 That doesn't seem like that much.

Chris Best 1:05:13 Per minute, though.

Narrator 1:05:13 Per minute.

Joe Rogan 1:05:13 I know. It- g- it adds up, obviously.

Narrator 1:05:16 500 hours, though.

Joe Rogan 1:05:17 I know.

Narrator 1:05:17 That's a lot.

Chris Best 1:05:19 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:05:19 Yeah, no, it's definitely a lot.

Narrator 1:05:19 That's a ton.

Joe Rogan 1:05:21 And what is it gonna be in five years? It's probably gonna be 10 times that.

Narrator 1:05:27 Yeah.

Chris Best 1:05:29 Do you read anything on Substack?

Joe Rogan 1:05:31 Do I read anything? I read Barry's, um, uh, I read, uh, Alex Berenson. I- I read ones that get recommended to me. Generally, it's by, um, clinical physicians or doctors or, you know, people r- reporting on, um, um, life extension stuff and health things and things along those lines. I love it for that. It's great for... Uh, it- uh, it's great for me because I really feel like I'm getting the perspective of the writer, which I really enjoy 'cause that's what I really love about podcasts as well is that I'm getting, uh, a- a clear...

Chris Best 1:06:04 (coughs)

Joe Rogan 1:06:04 I- I like when I know that it's coming from the person, that I'm g- I'm getting-

Chris Best 1:06:08 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:06:09 ... this individual's mind translated into words.

Chris Best 1:06:13 They might be right, they might be wrong, but at least you know what you're getting.

Joe Rogan 1:06:14 Yeah, but I'm getting it from them and, you know... Like with someone like Matt Taibbi, I love the way he writes. I just, I love the way his mind works. So when- when he writes, I'm getting his writing, I'm getting his thought process and his editing, and it's- it's a piece of art, you know? It's- it's interesting. It's an interesting form of art because it's an art that focuses on thought process and all of this person's life experiences and education and- and how it translates in them trying to, uh, broadcast this to people. It's cool. I- I think Substack is one of the most important things that's ever happened to journalism in- in my lifetime because it's- it's a free portal, a new- a new method of distributing content that, uh, just is very exciting when I first found out about it.

Chris Best 1:07:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:01 And then when Barry left the New York Times and went over there, I was like, "Ooh." I'm like, "This is exciting."

Chris Best 1:07:07 Yeah. One thing that's- that's new about it, I think, is... E- p- everybody thinks of the people, they think of Bar- Barry Weiss, ev- like, famous journalists that I know that left X and came to Substack, and that's the idea that people have in their mind of who's on Substack. But there's a growing set of people, um, that I think is much larger over time of people who weren't writers.

Joe Rogan 1:07:27 Mm.

Chris Best 1:07:27 Right? Who had something to give the world as a writer, as a thinker, um, but didn't see a path to doing that in the- in what existed before.

Joe Rogan 1:07:37 Right.

Chris Best 1:07:37 And so, but for Substack, would have, like, gone to law school like their parents wanted them to or whatever. And so you're starting to see people on Substack who become professional writers on the platform, and you start to get perspectives that otherwise never would have existed. I mean, you see this with some of the- the doctors that are very interesting. You see people from, like, other industries, and there's just people growing up that...... uh, like, have something to give the world and would not have been able to, like, write if they didn't have this.

Joe Rogan 1:08:04 Yeah, that's the parallel to podcasting.

Chris Best 1:08:07 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 1:08:07 Because the barrier to entry is so small, particularly for audio podcasts. It's so easy.

Chris Best 1:08:12 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:08:12 You literally can press the voice notes app on your phone and you could, bam, make a podcast.

Chris Best 1:08:17 Yeah. Which means there are a ton of terrible podcasts that no one listens to.

Joe Rogan 1:08:20 Oh, yeah. Sure.

Chris Best 1:08:21 But that's okay.

Joe Rogan 1:08:22 That's okay. I mean, it's the same thing with YouTube videos. I mean, how many people who make YouTube videos are literally just using their webcam and just talking to it? And they might have fucking five million subscribers. It's, it's pretty wild in that regard. There's... The barrier for entry is, is much lower, so you're going to have a lot more nonsense content, bullshit content. But you're also going to have people that maybe have something to offer and didn't really think that it was possible for them before, which is me. I mean, that's how I became a podcaster. I never, I never thought I was... anybody was gonna give me a fucking radio show. If I had to try to, to pitch the model of what the JRE is-

Chris Best 1:09:05 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:09:05 ... to some company, they would have kicked me out of the office a long time ago.

Chris Best 1:09:08 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:09:08 It's... There's no way. You know, I, I want to just have people I'm, I'm interested in talking to. I don't give a fuck if they're famous. I don't g- I just... What do I find interesting? Let's talk to those folks.

Chris Best 1:09:21 Do you believe in audience capture? Do you think about this?

Joe Rogan 1:09:24 Yeah, that's real. Uh, I've seen it with comedians, for sure. I've seen it with, uh, various, uh, people that are... You know, whether they're commentators or w- you know, o- opinion makers, whatever they are, they, they seem to find there's a thing where, uh, it gets them the most amount of juice, the most amount of traction, and they lean into that. They get love and support from s- I mean, I've seen people convert political ideologies because of it, because it seems like the right... The r- the right is pretty good at that. It's really interesting. Like, they've been... Like, Fox News has said more positive things about me than any left-wing, uh, you know, company. And I think that's, uh... That can be a problem for people is they do switch their ideology because of... They, they find they're getting, uh, a certain amount of love from one direction or the other.

Chris Best 1:10:14 I was reading a good Substack piece about this yesterday. This guy, Gurwinder, he wrote a... And he... The example he used was this YouTuber who was this, like, kinda normal kid. Um, s- and he has a picture at the start. It's, like, this skinny guy that made these videos and started... He s- he found this... found a niche, like, eating dinner and talking to the camera and people started to watch it. And over time, you, the f- the end picture is, like, years later, he's this famous guy. He's got millions of subscribers, making all this money. But he's, like, just destroyed. He's like this huge, morbidly obese, terrible health problems thing. And the, this post makes this convincing argument that the way he got there was this process of capture and it wasn't, it wasn't, uh, conscious. It wasn't like this guy was like, "I know I'm gonna become this horrible train wreck in order to make money and be famous, and that's a good idea, so I'm gonna do it." But it's the thing that happens where you get these subtle cues. It's kinda the same way that you become the average of the people you hang out with.

Joe Rogan 1:11:17 Mm-hmm.

Chris Best 1:11:17 And so you gotta choose who you hang out with intelligently-

Joe Rogan 1:11:20 Yes.

Chris Best 1:11:20 ... because you can't resist that. And when you're on a platform, you get... Even if you don't want to, you get these signals of, like, "What's working? What's making people watch this? What's making the comments? What are people asking me for?" And makes a pretty convincing case that that thing can, like, go really... You know, it destroyed this guy's life, I think.

Joe Rogan 1:11:39 Well, an, an argument against that is MrBeast.

Chris Best 1:11:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:43 You know, MrBeast is the biggest, uh, YouTuber and he could not be a nicer guy. And his whole thing is about figuring out what captures people's attention. But it's all super positive. He's very charitable. He, uh, he has these, like, uh, turkey drives where he gives away free turkeys for people for Thanksgiving and he makes this fun video about it. He, uh, runs a food bank. Like, he, he's... he does so much for charitable organizations. But yet, he's 100% driven in his ab- i- in his idea that, "I wanna make a video that reaches the most amount of people possible, so what can I do in terms of, like, editing? What can I do in terms of the caption? What can I do in terms of the image that I use?" And he's very meticulous about that, but yet is not... He, he... In fact, he's become more charitable, more nice-

Chris Best 1:12:44 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:12:44 ... more friendly, more happy.

Chris Best 1:12:46 It's almost like there's a good version and a bad version of it.

Joe Rogan 1:12:48 Yeah.

Chris Best 1:12:49 If you let yourself get captured by people who want you to be your best, the best version of yourself, that's good.

Joe Rogan 1:12:54 Right.

Chris Best 1:12:54 And if you're getting more charitable to be massively successful, that sounds great.

Joe Rogan 1:12:59 Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, if that... But I don't think that's even what he's doing. I mean, he just... He's a, he's a very interesting guy 'cause he's very young and very wise for a young guy, but also, like, silly, he's fun, and he's figured out a way to be successful and still maintain who he is. That's where it gets tricky with people, because some people don't have a rigid foundation. They don't, they don't really... You know, they don't have, like, a strict set of, uh, ethics and morals and, you know, a code that they live by. And so then anything that's successful, they gravitate towards that like metal filings towards a magnet.

Chris Best 1:13:38 And the irony of that, no pun intended, is that it's... You're probably less successful in the long run. Right? If you have the principles and you know what you're doing, ultimately, that's the thing that people... If you... If that thing is right, that's the thing that people will follow you for. That's the thing that people care about.

Joe Rogan 1:13:52 It depends on how you define success, right? If you define success in terms of popularity, there's a lot of terrible people that are popular.... you know, because they're, they're popular for talking shit or being mean, or they're popular for-

Chris Best 1:14:03 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:14:03 ... you know, causing fights and creating drama. And there's a real currency in drama, unfortunately. There's, uh, a lot of people that that's their main thing, is, uh, just being shitty. So, there's a bunch of different ways you could go, but audience capture, yeah, uh, it's real. And, um, I, I, I try very hard to make sure that I don't get sucked into any of that.

Chris Best 1:14:31 That's why you only go on Twitter twice a day? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:14:33 Yeah, I mean, if I go on, I go on every n- I, I go on for a couple seconds, y- really. I go on every now and then to check stuff and see what's happening, what's trending, and then I go, "Uh, let me get outta here before I read something about me."

Chris Best 1:14:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:14:49 (laughs) And it just, just, I just think that, um, you know, human beings are very malleable. You know, we're very, uh, easily influenced, whether we like it or not. That's why cults exist, you know? You just gotta be meticulous about the way you think about things, and also, you have to spend a lot of time alone thinking. Like, r- genuinely alone, no electronics, thinking about how you view life, how you view yourself, how you view all the, the various projects you have that you're doing, and, uh, w- what are you doing with 'em? Why are you doing it?

Chris Best 1:15:24 Right. The magic is not, "I'm gonna be immune to the influence of everything that I read and see." The magic is, "At some point, I control where I spend my time and attention."

Joe Rogan 1:15:33 Yes.

Chris Best 1:15:33 "I control whether I'm gonna go for a walk or whether I'm gonna, who I'm gonna