[karaterobot]

Here's how little I understand business: $45 million in revenue, earned by taking a totally fair 10% of subscriptions that other people do all the work to get, seems like it ought to be enough. If leadership is trying to scale up to be thousands of employees, or to go public, they are lunatics and deserve to fail. Why not just run a successful newsletter platform?

[danpalmer]

It’s interesting you say the 10% is fair. I think some disagree.

In short they are selling web hosting and card payments, which are most likely worth far less than 10%. However, they’re clearly going for being a Brand that people want to publish under. Substack is worth 10% because it’s Substack, not for the tangibles they provide.

Now that leads to the question: what do they need to do to be a brand people want to be a part of? Is censorship part of that? Maybe, maybe not.

The other interest related piece that is topical at the moment is whether Substack might be worth 10% for card payments alone if certain publications would be unable to use payment providers otherwise. Porn and gambling sites often pay that sort of rate because it’s hard to get a payment provider. Maybe laundering nazi sympathy in with a bunch of tech blogs is worth 10% to them.

[add-sub-mul-div]

Greed doesn't have to be the same thing as the ambition it takes to start a company like this, but in practice it pretty much always is.

[Kwpolska]

Running a successful platform is not enough for VC grifters who funded them, the only thing that matters to VC is growth.

[senko]

"Grifters" a bit harsh, considering they used VC money to become successful in the first place (see other comments).

Presumably they knew the deal.