Puck is a New York-based digital media company founded in 2021 that covers the four centers of American power - Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Washington, and Wall Street. It treats journalists like founders, giving its writers equity and a cut of the subscription revenue their newsletters generate, and reaches readers through email newsletters, podcasts, and live events.
Ben Casselman is the Chief Economics Correspondent for The New York Times, where he turns labor reports, Fed decisions and inflation prints into stories people actually read. A self-described 'unapologetic econ nerd,' he built his name on evidence-first, data-driven reporting at The Wall Street Journal and FiveThirtyEight before joining the Times in 2017. He shared a Gerald Loeb Award and a Pulitzer finalist nod for Deepwater Horizon coverage, is a frequent voice on the NYT podcast The Daily, and teaches economics reporting at the CUNY Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.
Derek Thompson is an American journalist, author, and podcaster best known for co-writing the #1 New York Times bestseller Abundance with Ezra Klein and hosting the Plain English podcast on The Ringer. After 17 years as a staff writer at The Atlantic, he left in 2025 to write independently on Substack, focusing on housing, energy, technology, and the decline of in-person social life.
Emily Brittain is a Senior Communications Manager at Microsoft, working within the Office of the Americas Markets & Industries President. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, she crafts the stories that shape how Microsoft's largest regional business - spanning Canada, the United States, and Latin America - communicates its vision internally and externally. A Northwestern University-trained journalist with over 11 years at Microsoft, she brought a multimedia storyteller's instincts to one of the world's most consequential technology companies, producing town halls, executive narratives, and brand messaging at scale.
Afar is a purpose-driven travel media company built around the idea that the best trips change the people who take them. Launched in 2009 from a chance trip to India, it now publishes a quarterly print magazine, a daily-updated website, podcasts, video, newsletters and travel experiences for a community of curious, conscientious travelers.
Chris Best is the co-founder and CEO of Substack, the subscription newsletter platform that has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars to independent writers. A systems engineer turned serial entrepreneur, Best previously co-founded Kik Messenger, scaling it to 300 million users before pivoting to rewrite the economics of media. Substack - which he launched in 2017 with Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi - has grown to over 5 million paid subscriptions, raised $213M in total funding including a $100M Series C in 2025, and minted more than 50 creators earning over $1 million annually on the platform.
Hamish McKenzie is the New Zealand-born co-founder and Chief Writing Officer of Substack, the subscription newsletter platform that has fundamentally reshaped how writers monetize their work. A former journalist and Tesla lead writer who wrote a book about Elon Musk's EV revolution, McKenzie pivoted from covering disruption to causing it - co-founding Substack in 2017 with Chris Best and Jairaj Sethi. Today the platform hosts over 50,000 earning creators and has raised $213 million total funding including a $100M Series C. McKenzie hosts The Active Voice podcast, delivered a TED2025 talk on the future of media, and is writing a book called 'How to Save the Media' due in 2026.
Kevin Lee is an executive at Substack, the subscription newsletter and media platform based in San Francisco that reached unicorn status with a $1.1 billion valuation in 2025 after raising a $100 million Series C. Substack has grown to host over 50,000 paid publications, with creators collectively earning more than $600 million annually and 20+ million monthly active subscribers on the platform.
Nina Perez is the founder of Project Fandom, an entertainment news and podcast platform she launched in 2009 that covers TV, movies, gaming, comics, anime, and books from a geek's perspective. Dubbed 'The Oprah of MySpace' for her uncanny ability to get readers hooked on almost anything, she is also a published author with three series under her belt, a Social Media Community Manager by day, and a lifelong Brooklynite who now calls Portland, Oregon home.
Substack is a subscription publishing platform that lets writers, podcasters, and video creators run paid newsletters and own the direct relationship with their readers. Founded in 2017, the company hosts thousands of paid publications, processes hundreds of millions in subscription revenue annually, and has become the default home for independent media on the internet.
Adam Ragusea is an American YouTuber, food writer, and former public-radio reporter who turned a kitchen-counter pizza video into a 2.6-million-subscriber cooking empire. A former journalism professor at Mercer University, he treats recipes the way a beat reporter treats a city hall meeting: with curiosity, skepticism, and a willingness to season the cutting board instead of the steak.
Stephen Findeisen, known online as Coffeezilla, is an American investigative YouTuber and crypto journalist who built a 4.5M+ subscriber audience by exposing pump-and-dump tokens, fake gurus, celebrity grift, and high-profile fraud cases including FTX, CryptoZoo, and Save the Kids.
Johnny Harris is an Emmy-winning American journalist, filmmaker, and YouTuber with over 7.5 million subscribers, known for visually-driven explainer videos on geopolitics, history, and international affairs. A former Vox senior producer and creator of the acclaimed 'Borders' documentary series, Harris left legacy media in 2020 to build an independent journalism operation that now employs 30+ people. In February 2026, he and his wife Iz co-launched Newpress, an algorithm-free creator journalism platform designed to give audiences a direct role in the journalism process.
Tucker Carlson is an American journalist, commentator, and founder of the Tucker Carlson Network, an independent streaming and podcast operation he launched in late 2023 after his exit from Fox News. He hosts long-form interviews on X, YouTube, and TCN, where his guests have ranged from Vladimir Putin to obscure scientists, mechanics, and dissidents - a deliberate pivot away from the cable-news format he helped define.
Jason Pontin is a General Partner at DCVC (Data Collective Venture Capital) in Palo Alto, where he leads communications and originates investments in early-stage computational biology and chemistry startups. A former journalist who spent 13 years transforming MIT Technology Review into a digital-first powerhouse and three years as Senior Partner at Flagship Pioneering, Pontin brings rare storytelling and scientific fluency to deep tech investing. He co-founded Totus Medicines, a chemical biology company targeting brain cancer, and sits on boards of companies working on DNA synthesis, AI-driven drug discovery, water purification, and lab automation.
Stewart Alsop is a veteran technology journalist turned venture capitalist who co-founded Alsop Louie Partners and, in 2024, TK MediaTech Ventures. One of the first journalists to become a full general partner at a major VC firm, he backed Twitch, TiVo, and Sonos, founded the legendary DEMO Conference, and spent 20 years shaping tech journalism at InfoWorld, Inc., and Fortune before pivoting to investing. A proud member of one of America's most storied journalistic dynasties - son of columnist Stewart Alsop Jr. - he now operates from Santa Fe, New Mexico, writing on Substack and co-hosting a podcast with his son.
Brian Morrissey is the founder and editor of The Rebooting, a 92,000+ subscriber newsletter and podcast business dissecting the economics of modern media. After a decade shaping Digiday into the defining trade publication of digital media, he walked away in 2020 to build something leaner and smarter - a one-person editorial operation that doubles as a lab for sustainable media models. He also co-hosts People vs Algorithms with Troy Young and Alex Schleifer.
Eric Newcomer is the founder of Newcomer, an independent newsletter and media company covering venture capital and startups from his perch in Brooklyn. A Harvard-trained philosopher turned tech journalist, he broke some of the biggest stories of the Uber era at Bloomberg before quitting in 2020 to build his own media business. His newsletter now generates over $3M in annual revenue, runs an invite-only AI summit called Cerebral Valley, and gives readers what he calls 'Your Seat at the Cap Table.'
Haje Jan Kamps is a Dutch-born journalist, serial founder, and pitch coach who turned a decade covering startups for TechCrunch into an AI-powered pitch deck review service. Best known for his long-running 'Pitch Deck Teardown' series analyzing real decks from companies that raised $125K to $500M, he now runs Pitch Guide - an AI tool that reviews startup pitch decks against 250+ criteria. A former hardware founder (Triggertrap), VC portfolio director (Bolt), and prolific author of 8+ books, he brings rare operator-journalist-investor perspective to early-stage startup fundraising.
Max Willens is a Principal Analyst at EMARKETER covering social media and the creator economy, with a career spanning journalism, research, and media strategy. A CUNY journalism graduate and Punch Sulzberger Scholar, he spent six years at Digiday rising from platforms reporter to Senior Editor of Research and Features before crossing into industry analysis. His work sits at the intersection of media business, social platforms, advertising, and the evolving creator economy, and he co-hosts EMARKETER's 'Behind the Numbers' podcast. He also publishes 'The Idea,' a newsletter focused on the newsletter and publishing industry.
Mehdi Hasan is a British-American journalist, broadcaster, and media entrepreneur best known as the founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief of Zeteo - an independent digital news company he launched in 2024 after departing MSNBC. A relentless interviewer and master debater who studied PPE at Oxford, Hasan has built a formidable track record at Al Jazeera, The Intercept, and MSNBC before going independent. His 2023 book 'Win Every Argument' became a New York Times bestseller, and Zeteo has rapidly grown to over 1.8 million YouTube subscribers and 450,000 newsletter subscribers within its first year.
Jeremy Caplan is a journalist, educator, and newsletter creator who built Wonder Tools into one of Substack's most-recommended productivity and AI tools newsletters, with 85,000+ subscribers in 201 countries. He is Director of Teaching and Learning at CUNY's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, where he also runs the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program. A Princeton and dual-Columbia grad, former Time magazine reporter, and one-time international concertmaster, Caplan has spent over a decade helping journalists and knowledge workers find tools that actually save time.
Wesley Lowery is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author, and media critic whose decade of reporting on criminal justice, race, and policing in America has made him one of the most consequential voices in modern journalism. Best known for leading the Washington Post's 'Fatal Force' database - the first real-time national tracker of fatal police shootings - Lowery has written two landmark books, built a distinctive independent newsletter, and become an outspoken advocate for objective, truth-centered journalism that refuses false balance. His career spans the Washington Post, CBS News, The Marshall Project, and academia, and his 2016 book 'They Can't Kill Us All' remains essential reading on race, protest, and the limits of American democracy.
Yashar Ali is an Iranian-American journalist, newsletter publisher, and social media powerhouse who built one of the most influential independent media presences in the US almost entirely through Twitter/X. Known for breaking stories that bigger outlets fear to touch - from Fox News sexual misconduct to Scientology cover-ups - Ali runs The Reset newsletter on Substack with over 61,000 subscribers. Time magazine named him one of the most influential people on the internet in 2019. His career is anything but linear: TV production assistant, personal cook for Kathy Griffin, political operative for Hillary Clinton and Gavin Newsom, and now independent journalist with a devoted following.
Max Read is a Brooklyn-based journalist, media critic, and newsletter writer who runs Read Max, a Substack publication covering tech culture, internet phenomena, AI, and digital media with acerbic wit and analytical depth. Former Editor-in-Chief of Gawker and founder of New York Magazine's Select All vertical, Read is one of the sharpest observers of how platforms reshape human behavior - a thinker who treats the internet with the seriousness of a literary critic and the irreverence of someone who has watched it eat itself alive.
Simon Owens is a Washington, DC-based media industry journalist, newsletter writer, and podcast host who runs Simon Owens's Media Newsletter on Substack. Known for deep-dive reporting on how publishers create, distribute, and monetize digital content, he has interviewed over 1,000 media entrepreneurs and built one of the most-followed independent media newsletters, with 38,000+ Substack followers and 61,000+ LinkedIn followers. His work covers the creator economy, subscription models, local news, and the evolving business of digital publishing.
Stephanie Palazzolo is an AI reporter at The Information and author of the AI Agenda newsletter, covering artificial intelligence startups, Big Tech, chips, cloud, and policy. A former Morgan Stanley investment banker who pivoted into journalism, she broke major stories on OpenAI, Anthropic, and the broader AI industry, and was part of a SABEW Best in Business award-winning team for coverage of the OpenAI CEO firing in 2023.
Timothy B. Lee is an independent AI journalist and newsletter writer who runs Understanding AI, a Substack newsletter with over 263,000 subscribers that explains how artificial intelligence actually works - minus the hype and minus the doom. Drawing on a rare combination of a computer science master's from Princeton, two decades of tech policy reporting at outlets like Ars Technica, the Washington Post, and Vox, and an instinct for clear, jargon-free prose, Lee has become one of the most-read independent voices in AI journalism. His superpower is translating complex machine learning concepts into accessible explainers that neither oversell nor undersell the technology.
Matthew Zeitlin is an economics and energy journalist currently reporting for Heatmap News, where he covers the intersection of policy, finance, and the energy transition. With bylines at BuzzFeed News, Grid, Slate, The Nation, n+1, Bloomberg Opinion, and The Atlantic, Zeitlin has built a career dissecting how money, power, and policy shape the energy grid. He writes a personal economics newsletter on Substack and is one of the sharper voices covering how the U.S. economy navigates decarbonization.
Amanda Mull is a senior reporter at Bloomberg Businessweek and one of the sharpest observers of American consumer culture. Writing the 'Buying Power' column, she dissects how everyday purchases shape identity, politics, and society - bringing a decade of retail experience and almost six years at The Atlantic to one of journalism's most under-examined beats.