Good morning. Tough news for the creator world this weekend: Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has passed away from cancer at the age of 56. Wojcicki worked with YouTube parent Google from its earliest days—the founders used her garage as their first office in 1998.

Often described as the “Mother of AdSense,” Wojcicki led the product teams for Google’s advertising services before becoming YouTube CEO in 2014, pushing for more generous revenue splits for creators and spearheading the launch of YouTube Music and Premium.

— Hannah Doyle & Nate Graber-Lipperman

CNN Reporter Oliver Darcy Takes the Creator Route

The details: Last week, Darcy quit his job as a media reporter at CNN, where he wrote the network’s popular Reliable Sources newsletter. Darcy’s next gig? Becoming a creator with his own beehiiv newsletter called Status. 

• Status will publish news briefings five days a week, with subscriptions starting at $15 per month.

• Another Status subscription package that includes perks like private Zoom calls goes for $595 a year. 

Darcy told The NYT that he’ll supplement subscriptions with sponsorships, and he secured an advertising partnership with entertainment business media company The Ankler.

Context: Darcy joins a handful of institutional media vets who have started their own media companies in the last year, including Mehdi Hasan, Tucker Carlson, Don Lemon, and Joss Fong and Adam Cole. “People are craving alternatives to what they’re getting from cable news, print press, and cable media outlets,” Mehdi Hasan told us earlier this year. 

Darcy, like Hasan, is betting on the popular creator ethos “people follow people,” even as the B2B media space becomes more crowded by outlets like Puck, The Ringer’s “Press Box” podcast, and Semafor’s “Mixed Signals” podcast.

Platform Roundup: Is Imitation Really Flattery?

Over the last week, top creator platforms have taken inspiration from their competitors by implementing similar-looking initiatives—here’s the rundown.

• YouTube announced a new experimental feature in June that allows users to drop “notes” under videos. The tool is intended to encourage YouTube viewers to provide context when a video either presents information incorrectly or needs more clarification, similar to X’s “Community Notes” program. Last week, YouTube users began to notice that notes were popping up on the platform.

• Snap introduces a “Council for Digital Well-Being.” The group of 18 American teens has met several times to discuss and advocate for online safety policies such as parental tools for underage users, according to a Snap blog post. The move resembles TikTok’s “Youth Council,” an initiative the platform launched in March.

• TikTok teams up with Amazon. TikTok users will now see Amazon product recommendations pop up as ads on their FYPs. The twist: As of last week, users can link their Amazon accounts and purchase products without leaving the TikTok app.

MrBeast Orders ‘Full Assessment’ of Company Culture

Last week, Jimmy Donaldson (aka MrBeast) called for a “full assessment” of his company’s culture. In a memo sent to staff, Donaldson outlined his plans to hire a chief human resources officer and require employees to undergo sensitivity training, according to the Associated Press.

Context: The internal probe comes amid several controversies for MrBeast, including…

1. Reports of poor conditions on the set of his upcoming Amazon Prime Video show

2. Allegations that longtime collaborator Ava Kris Tyson sent inappropriate messages to minors

3. Old clips that have resurfaced of Donaldson making racist and homophobic comments

Worth noting: Gaming streamer Ludwig Ahgren said that he asked Donaldson to respond publicly to several of the allegations last week—and pulled out of a $100,000 partnership with MrBeast’s chocolate brand, Feastables.

👀 Creator Moves

• Joy of Missing Out is hiring a podcast producer to manage the show and publish episodes weekly.

• Tom Lynch, a rower starting to vlog his training, is hiring a part-time video editor.

• Mythical is hiring an e-commerce manager to market and sell apparel through Shopify and Amazon storefronts.

Looking to bring on new team members? You can post opportunities on our (free) job board here.

🔥 Press Worthy

• Lily Hevesh sets a world record in toppling 100,000 dominoes.

• YouTube is experimenting with comments (instead of views) as the metric users see under videos when browsing.

• Minted New York collaborates with running shoe brand Saucony.

• Food creator Meredith Hayden is coming out with a cookbook.

• Addison Rae releases a single called “Diet Pepsi” in her major label debut with Columbia Records.

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