Good morning. Ever wished you could see your favorite movie for the first time again? A Dutch theater is running an experiment where guests are hypnotized to forget a movie, then get to watch it with fresh eyes.

I know I’d pick Twilight just to see the baseball scene again.

— Syd Cohen

Today’s lineup:

With 21.3M YouTube subscribers, The Diary of a CEO (DOAC) just dethroned The Joe Rogan Experience as the most-subscribed podcast on the platform.

DOAC is on track to generate $60M in revenue this year, but Steven Bartlett’s ambitions extend well beyond the show. 

We spoke with Bartlett about how he got here, the future of podcasting, and his plan to build the next major creator company.

On reaching 21M subscribers: Bartlett credits incremental improvements and consistency over viral moments.

One example: translating DOAC into more than 20 languages. The initiative took nearly three years to develop, but Bartlett expects 30M–40M people to consume the show in languages other than English over the next year, with retention rates exceeding those of its English-speaking audience. 

On the future of podcasting: Bartlett believes AI is making information abundant, increasing the value of human connection. 

He predicts the return of vlogging, this time with documentary-level production, calling the next era of podcasting “lifecasting.” 

On building a creator company: Bartlett believes the traditional creator business model is broken. As creators grow, they often sign separate deals with agents, publishers, distributors, and production companies, each with competing incentives.

His answer is Steven.com, a platform that helps creators with production, sales, partnerships, and other business services under one roof. The goal is to give creators more control over their businesses while helping them grow.

Steven.com now has 150 employees and an eight-person C-suite. Bartlett isn't shy about his ambition:

"Steven.com will be the definitive company in the creator economy. I have no doubt about that."

Big picture: Bartlett isn't trying to build the next Joe Rogan. He's building the company that he hopes the next Joe Rogan will want to work with.

Read our full interview with Steven Bartlett →

Including why he believes creators should resist big distribution deals, what most podcasters get wrong, and how he's building Steven.com for the next 20 years.

Two major cybersecurity incidents made headlines in the past two weeks, exposing risks for anyone running a business online.

For creators who host a website, collect emails, or use AI in their workflows—this is a problem worth paying attention to.

What happened: Two weeks ago, two critical vulnerabilities were discovered in PHP, the programming language powering most of the world’s websites including WordPress. The vulnerability means attackers anywhere in the world can run malicious code on your system, just by viewing your website. 

Then, last week, hackers reportedly stole an estimated $6.3B from cryptocurrency exchange Binance in what could be the largest crypto heist on record. An initial investigation pointed to a compromised employee laptop, through additional security breaches were subsequently identified.  

We spoke to cybersecurity creator Ed, a vulnerability researcher with 10+ years in cybersecurity and creator behind YouTube channel Low Level, about what happened and why it matters for creators:

“As creators we not only maintain records of our personal information and intellectual property on these systems, but also the information of our audiences,” Ed told us. “If you use WordPress to host a course site or lead magnet, compromise of that site could leak information, delete information, or have other malicious effects.”

Why AI makes it worse: Ed says AI introduces two risks—data security and agent autonomy.

“Any information you give to AI is being put somewhere that you don’t control or understand completely,” Ed said.

Uploading audience demographics or video ideas to an AI model means uploading that data to a server you don’t own, potentially with AI agents who need supervision.

“There have been several instances where, due to a syntax mistake made by the AI, the AI accidentally deleted someone’s entire hard drive or database,” Ed said. “You need to strike a balance between total automation and supervision.”

What creators can do: The PHP vulnerability was reportedly caught by AI, which means the same technology creating new risks is also becoming a tool for finding them.

But as creators add AI to their workflows, every new tool is a new door to vulnerabilities. AI can catch what humans miss, but it can also leak or delete what humans never would have.

Ed’s advice is to understand the technology you’re using and decide if the risk is within your tolerance.

“Make sure you define the ‘blast radius’ of what can go wrong, and make sure you have defenses put in place if that happens,” Ed said. 

Tomorrow, Americans head to the polls for the midterm elections. Over the past few years, we’ve seen Democrat, Republican, and Independent candidates embrace creator-forward campaign strategies to reach their voters. With 59% of US adults getting news from social media, platforms are one of the most crucial channels for political communications.   

Here’s how that’s showing up this election cycle →

Clipping is now a campaign strategy. Politicians like Michigan US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed have launched clipping hubs, encouraging supporters to distribute short videos across X, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. The approach borrows from creators who use clips to reach audiences beyond their existing followers.

AI is on the ballot. This is the first election cycle where AI regulation and data center construction is a top-reported voter issue. As AI and tech companies deal with trillion-dollar child safety lawsuits across several US states, social platforms will likely cozy up to politicians who vote for less regulations, while parent groups fight for the opposite.

Creator companies are expanding into election coverage. Jubilee, the media company behind political YouTube formats like Surrounded, will host live coverage of election results for the first time. While the concept of an election livestream isn’t new, Jubilee’s follows its recent partnership with CNN—where the two organizations co-hosted a town hall interviewing Texas US Senate candidate James Talarico. 

By moving beyond its usual long-form formats and bringing a bipartisan creator duo on as hosts, Jubilee is experimenting with how to cover breaking political news for its audience of 11M.

Bottom line: About one in four US adults say creator content has influenced their voting habits, according to a study commissioned by Business Insider.

From campaign clipping hubs to election-night livestreams, the tools and formats creators use to build audiences are becoming part of how politics is communicated and covered.