He is a catalyst for his own and other people’s personal and professional experiences. An amalgam of information from which his brain takes advantage of everything: successes and failures. With it he founds, invests in and advises companies (Apple, McDonald’s, Microsoft, BBC, Puma) and earns a lot of money. So much so that he became a millionaire at the age of 23 when major brands trusted him to manage their social media marketing. His worldwide fame is, however, due to his role as a populariser. Steven Bartlett (Botswana, 1992) is the author of podcast most listened to business in Europe, Diary of a CEOwith more than 17 million followers. Spotify Wrapped, which collects data on his activity for the platform, places him among the 10 most popular worldwide.
Bartlett is a business idol who inspires and motivates his legions of followers from his strengths and weaknesses. A poor student, he left university to experiment as an entrepreneur. He failed, went bankrupt and got back up. At the age of 22, he co-founded the digital marketing company Social Chain, with which he achieved million-dollar figures. In seven years, its valuation reached 600 million euros on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. After resigning as CEO in 2022, he launched Thirdweb, a web development tools platform3, valued at 160 million dollars and created Flight Story Fund, a fund of 100 million dollars. One facet, that of investor, from which he participates in the BBC’s One Dragon’s Den program, where different entrepreneurs present their businesses to five patrons in search of financing.
It is no coincidence that Diary of a CEO is the podcast Bartlett is the number one business site in the UK or one that is close to reaching seven million followers on YouTube alone. He manages it with a clear business plan: he experiments and fails “to gradually incorporate small conquests,” he explained during his participation in the last edition of the South Summit. For the businessman, the digital era requires a lot of testing to know what works because this knowledge is no longer in books. “We don’t waste time in meeting rooms imagining scenarios and thinking of possible solutions. We directly experiment and make decisions.” And he added during the event: “In my opinion, I don’t want to lose time in meeting rooms imagining scenarios and thinking of possible solutions. We directly experiment and make decisions.” podcast I have a failure manager. His job is to make sure my team runs more experiments per month than the competition.”
His logbook does not lack the emotional management he does in the business world. Smart and intuitive, he handles this powerful communication tool, the podcast from his naturalness combined with the play of silences that he cuts or lengthens at will. There he is able to turn the space, which brings together host and guest, into a true confessional where leaders of large companies, entrepreneurs, but also prestigious doctors or elite athletes open up and get emotional. “Give me a moment,” asks Simon Cowell, director of Sony Music and creator of Factor X, when he talks about the death of his parents, his depression or addiction to work. “It was devastating, having to think every day what I have to live for.”
Confessions
The other chapter of the program, the former Google executive, Mo Gawdat, reflects on happiness, with his book The Happiness Algorithm, written after the death of his son or, in an unprecedented statement, openly recognizes the fear that generates in him “an artificial intelligence that advances too quickly in the midst of great ignorance”. Bartlett has also invited to his table the former commander of the special corps of the United States Navy, Jocko Willink, author of leadership books based on his experiences in the trenches. “As in combat, for business you have to train discipline and learn to make decisions under pressure”. Converted into an instructor in his leadership consultancy Echelon Front, the commander transmits his motto: “Study, work, practice and train to manage your company and your life”.
Entrepreneur, investor, writer (Happy, Sexy & Rich and Diary of a CEO), Bartlett has become a true celebrity of business. In his world tour as a speaker, he fills auditoriums where he shares his knowledge. Forums such as the South Summit where he never tires of recalling the learning he has learned from mistakes “thanks to a path riddled with failures” which he considers feedback. “I have gained knowledge and knowledge is power,” he says. “I have come this far because I have a higher failure rate than most people.” And he asserts that “failure is not what generates the greatest cost to a company, but the time wasted in making decisions.”
During the event, Bartlett gave the example of Amazon. “Jeff Bezos failed with Fire Phone (mobiles), Ruthless (books) or Endless.com (fashion), which nobody remembers. On the other hand, everyone knows its Amazon Web Services division, AWS, which generated 90 billion dollars in 2023. An amount that pays for the cemetery of failure.” For this reason, he invites companies to ask themselves: how often do I carry out experiments? And he warns: “Everything that depends on an algorithm or technology changes so quickly that it requires us to resort to trial and error to obtain knowledge and move forward.” He urges the application of the scientific method on this path. “Propose a hypothesis (change the variables to be measured), define what a good result is and be clear about what you are measuring,” he says.
And he throws out a little challenge: “Put 100 euros in advertising on Snapchat; 100 on X; 100 on Tik Tok, 100 on Reddit and 100 on Meta and experiment.” He advises entrepreneurs to “not forget that the success of a company lies in knowing what customers need. This is not about having a great idea.” And he concludes: “Recruit a good team, hook them into a great company culture and define a valuable mission for them. Believe in yourself, work hard to master your craft, learn to sell and sleep as much as you can.”
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