Alex Lieberman co-founded Morning Brew out of a University of Michigan dorm room in 2015 and grew it from 40 campus subscribers to 4+ million before selling a majority stake to Axel Springer's Insider Inc. for ~$75 million in 2020. Since stepping back as CEO at 28, he has reinvented himself as a multi-company builder, launching Storyarb (a B2B content agency hitting mid-7-figures), Tenex (AI strategy for enterprises), GrowthPair (marketing talent), and Distro (an AI content platform), while hosting the Founder's Journal podcast and building one of the most transparent creator brands in business media.
Austin Rief co-founded Morning Brew in 2015 as a college sophomore after cold-emailing a classmate about a PDF newsletter. He helped grow it from a campus PDF to a 5-million-subscriber media company with $70M+ revenue before Axel Springer bought it outright. He served as CEO from 2021 to 2025, then stepped back to Executive Chairman while building Oceans Talent (an offshore staffing platform at $15M ARR) and Rief Ventures, a seed fund with 16+ investments including enterprise AI unicorn WRITER.
The no-fluff guide to building a newsletter people actually open. Published by YesPress, it aggregates expert insights, case studies (Morning Brew, Lenny's Newsletter), and statistical trends to help creators start, grow, and monetize email lists in 2026.