Chris Best

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.