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.
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.
Bari Weiss is the founder of The Free Press and, since October 2025, editor-in-chief of CBS News following Paramount's $150 million acquisition of her media company. A former Wall Street Journal and New York Times editor whose viral 2020 resignation letter made her a symbol of anti-groupthink journalism, Weiss built one of the fastest-growing independent news outlets in America - reaching 1.5 million subscribers in under five years - before landing the biggest job in legacy broadcast news.
Erik Torenberg is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), where he joined in April 2025 after a16z acquired his media network Turpentine. A serial founder and investor, he was a first employee at Product Hunt, co-founded Village Global (a $100M VC fund backed by Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg), founded On Deck (a fellowship network for founders), and built Turpentine into a leading tech media network before its acquisition. Known for his wide-ranging intellectual curiosity spanning technology, culture, politics, and philosophy, he now leads a16z's media and ecosystem efforts including the New Media Fellowship and the live news venture MTS.
Glenn Greenwald is an American journalist, author, and former constitutional lawyer who broke the world's most consequential surveillance story - Edward Snowden's NSA revelations - earning a Pulitzer Prize and an Oscar-winning documentary. After co-founding The Intercept and exposing judicial corruption in Brazil, he now runs 'System Update,' an independent nightly show on Rumble, where he delivers unfiltered political commentary captive to no institutional master. He lives in Rio de Janeiro with his two adopted sons and 20+ rescue dogs.
Heather Cox Richardson is a Boston College historian who turned American history into a daily newsletter phenomenon. Her Substack 'Letters from an American' has nearly 3 million subscribers, making it one of the most-read independent newsletters in the world. She connects current political events to historical patterns with a clarity that has made her one of America's most influential public intellectuals - all from coastal Maine, where she lives with her lobsterman husband.
Isaac Saul is the founder and editor of Tangle, an independent nonpartisan politics newsletter with 500,000+ subscribers in 60+ countries. A former newspaper editor who contributed to CNN, TIME, HuffPost, and Vox, Saul launched Tangle in 2019 to fight news polarization by presenting the best arguments from left, right, and center on the day's biggest political debates. He's a Shorty Award winner, TED speaker, and one of the most trusted voices in independent political media.
Kara Swisher is the sharp-tongued conscience of Silicon Valley - a three-decade veteran tech journalist who has interviewed every major figure in tech, co-founded Recode, written the bestselling 'Burn Book' memoir, and hosts the 'Pivot' podcast with Scott Galloway and 'On with Kara Swisher'. Known for her fearless, no-BS style, she's the journalist tech executives fear and secretly want to impress. In 2026, she launched a CNN docuseries exploring the booming longevity industry.
Matthew Yglesias is one of America's most influential political writers - a Harvard-trained philosopher turned media entrepreneur who co-founded Vox and then bet on himself by launching Slow Boring, a Substack newsletter that earns him over $1.4 million a year. Known for his contrarian, rigorously argued takes on housing, immigration, economics, and American governance, he occupies a strange and productive niche: too wonky for Twitter, too heterodox for legacy media, and too prolific for anyone to ignore.
Mona Charen is a syndicated political columnist, author, and podcast host who has spent four decades at the center of American conservative commentary. A former speechwriter for Nancy Reagan and one of the original Never Trump voices, she writes with unflinching honesty about the GOP's drift toward extremism. Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and host of The Mona Charen Show on The Bulwark, she is one of the few conservative commentators who has maintained intellectual consistency through decades of partisan turbulence.
Sharon McMahon is 'America's Government Teacher' - a former public school educator turned media force who built a nonpartisan civics empire from Duluth, Minnesota. Known for breaking down complex government topics with facts and zero spin, she went viral in 2020 with a kitchen-table explanation of the Electoral College, and never looked back. Today she hosts the top-1% podcast 'Here's Where It Gets Interesting,' writes The Preamble newsletter on Substack, authored the #1 NYT bestseller 'The Small and the Mighty,' and has raised nearly $14 million for charitable causes through her community of 'Governerds.'