Substack: Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie

Guy Raz sits down with Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie to explore how two unlikely partners built Substack into one of the most influential platforms for independent writing.

The Kik Pivot

Before Substack, Chris Best was deep into Kik Interactive, the messaging app that exploded to nearly 300 million users. The experience taught him hard lessons about business models and focus. "We went through this at Kik where I think even after, like, I think we were always kind of unmoored," Chris explains. "Because we didn't have a business model, we were like, what are we going to turn this into?" That uncertainty eventually drove him to leave and look for something with a clearer path forward.

From Journalist to Platform Builder

Hamish McKenzie's road to Substack ran through Hong Kong, Washington D.C., and eventually a spare bedroom in Baltimore, where he pitched Elon Musk a biography while writing about Tesla for Pando Daily. When he met Chris, the idea was simple: give writers tools to own their audience. "With almost no technical skills, anyone could write an article, insert photos and videos, publish it to the internet, manage a mailing list, and accept payments all in one place," Hamish says.

The Getaway Vehicle

Substack's growth was slow until COVID-19 hit. Suddenly, journalists like Andrew Sullivan and Barry Weiss were pushed out of legacy outlets, and Substack became their lifeline. The platform grew six times in its first pandemic year. Chris framed it as a "getaway vehicle" for writers, urging them to fuel up and keep the engine idling just in case. When Elon Musk briefly blocked Substack links on X and even offered to buy the company, Chris declined. The platform survived without Twitter's traffic, proving that writers could build direct relationships with readers. Today, over 5 million people pay for Substack newsletters, and the company remains independent.