Lucia Moses

‘The Diary of a CEO’ star Steven Bartlett is going all in on AI — except on LinkedIn

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Steven Bartlett isn’t just discussing AI on “The Diary of a CEO” — he’s using it to make entire podcasts, automate sales pitches, and more.

The podcast star recently raised an eight-figure investment round to build out his company, FlightStory, which has about 100 employees and generated around $47 million in revenue last year.

FlightStory’s AI experimentation started in a big way last year, when Bartlett challenged his staff to a two-month competition to use AI agents in their work.

The competition was a scrappy “test for us to very much dive into that space and just see what worked, and see what we could do in a short space of time,” said Isaac Martin, director of innovation at FlightStory.

The pre-production team won Bartlett’s contest — and a $20,000 prize — for building tools or agents that replaced or improved nearly every part of their processes. Bartlett said the contest resulted in savings of $1.18 million for the company.


Isaac Martin, director of innovation at FlightStory

Isaac Martin, innovation director at FlightStory, is promoting AI-made content through an initiative called “Project Gutenberg.”

FlightStory



Since then, FlightStory has used AI throughout its operation, including an AI-content push it calls “Project Gutenberg,” a nod to the founder of the printing press.

Execs at FlightStory spoke with Business Insider about the various ways their operation — a unit of his holding company, Steven.com — is using AI.

They also spoke about why, in the case of LinkedIn, the team is dialing back the use of AI.

The many ways FlightStory is using AI

Shows: In its most ambitious creative application, FlightStory is producing a fully AI-animated video series for kids aged five to eight called “Steven’s World.” The show revolves around a young Bartlett going on adventures with his friends and uses information from podcast guests like Neil deGrasse Tyson. FlightStory said it’s in talks with major streamers for distribution. The series grew out of an earlier AI-made podcast test, “100 CEOs,” that was hosted by an AI clone of Bartlett’s voice.

AI is also being used to translate “DOAC” into 14 languages. The Spanish translation has been the biggest success story so far, bringing in an incremental 20.5 million views or listens and generating $200,000 in indirect gross ad revenues on Spotify, said Christiana Brenton, FlightStory’s CRO and cofounder.


Christiana Brenton, FlightStory's CRO and cofounder.

Christiana Brenton, FlightStory’s CRO and cofounder, sees AI as a way to expand the kind of work the company can perform.

FlightStory



Ad revenue: On the commercial side, staffers are using a custom AI tool to develop pitches based on briefs, FlightStory’s creators, and past brand campaigns and pitches. In this way, FlightStory said it has shrunk the process from about three days to a few hours. This has helped boost the average revenue contribution per person across the company by 60% over the past two years.

Speakers: FlightStory is redesigning its FlightSpeakers division, using a conversational AI tool to reduce the time it takes to recommend speakers and check their availability.

Talya Levine, who leads the project, said the aim is to preserve the relationship element that’s long been a part of the business but also shake it up with tech.

“We hope it ruffles some feathers,” she said.

Social: FlightStory launched a new unit, FlightSocials, in late 2025 to help creators like Colin and Samir, and comedian Ali Siddiq, distribute clips on social media. Brenton said AI has sped up the work of producing clips, evaluating them, and making recommendations for the next ones. In this way, the company can post up to 15 clips per day per creator.

“It just completely removes the guesswork of a human having to decide what part of this long episode to cut up,” she said.

FlightStory also built an API called Creator Radar, which plugs into YouTube and other social platforms to help identify high-potential creators to sign. The API helped validate FlightStory’s decision to bring on “Hot Smart Rich” host Maggie Sellers Reum by showing that she had an unusually strong community — women who self-identify as “HSR angels” — relative to the size of her audience.

AI still has limitations

Surveys have found that independent creators are generally more eager to experiment with AI than legacy Hollywood studios and guilds are.

For creators like Bartlett looking to scale beyond themselves, AI offers a way to reach bigger audiences without being limited by their own time and energy.

Brenton said a lot of companies focus on using AI for efficiency, but FlightStory thinks of it as a way to “do things that we couldn’t necessarily do before.”

Like many companies implementing AI, FlightStory says it’s not using it to get rid of people, but to allow them to focus on higher-value work.

FlightStory’s leaders also recognize AI isn’t right for every use case.

For example, the company cut back on using AI on LinkedIn after noticing a lot of AI-written posts on the platform and deciding that ones written by humans could have more emotional resonance. The conclusion: They take longer to write, but have performed better than AI ones. Bartlett and his team now personally write every piece of social copy, Brenton said.

“Ironically, we believe that’s a unique advantage,” she said. “You’ll even notice now if you do follow Steven, there’s spelling mistakes and errors, and he doesn’t fix them by design.”


A still from

FlightStory used AI to create a junior version of Steven Bartlett for “Steven’s World,” a new kids’ show.

FlightStory



It’s also early days in understanding the types of AI-made content that audiences will embrace.

The AI episodes of “100 CEOs” got at most 35,000 views on YouTube, while Bartlett’s flagship podcast regularly gets hundreds of thousands of views per episode. Some praised it while others criticized the voice as not sounding human enough and said they preferred Bartlett’s interview format. FlightStory execs think kids will be more receptive to an AI-animated show, and that “Steven’s World” will introduce Bartlett’s brand to a new audience.

While the Spanish-language translation of “DOAC” brought in additional audience and revenue, not all of its podcasts will share the same financial opportunity. And podcasts that depend on a strong emotional connection with the audience might feel jarring to some if they’re dubbed by AI.

When it comes to FlightStory’s most valuable property, the “DOAC” podcast, where Bartlett interviews a range of public figures, the execs are adamant that the final edits are done by real people.

“The risk profile and the stakes are higher when you’re producing long-form content that reaches millions and millions of people,” Brenton said.




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LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman

LinkedIn billionaire Reid Hoffman reveals he had more meetings with Epstein

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  • LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman said he met with Jeffrey Epstein for fundraising purposes.
  • Hoffman previously said his last meeting with Epstein was in 2015.
  • Now he says there were six more meetings, from 2016 to 2018.

Reid Hoffman says he had more meetings with Jeffrey Epstein than he originally thought.

The billionaire LinkedIn cofounder previously maintained that the last time he met with Epstein was in 2015, and that he only knew Epstein via fundraising efforts for the MIT Media Lab.

This week, as the latest tranche of Epstein-related documents from the Justice Department continues to make headlines, Hoffman revised his accounting.

“I was mistaken, as according to calendar entries I have become aware there were additional fundraising meetings in 2016 and 2018,” Hoffman wrote in a post on X on Tuesday night.

Hoffman listed six additional meetings, including various Skype calls and in-person meetings in Cambridge and Palo Alto. The most recent meeting Hoffman listed was a Skype call in March 2018.

“I have done multiple calendar searches, and if I find any other meetings, I will continue to share them,” Hoffman wrote. “The victims of Epstein’s abhorrent and vile actions deserve all the information they are seeking, and I continue to call on President Trump to deliver that for them.”

Hoffman said that those meetings had also been scheduled as part of his fundraising relationship with the MIT Media Lab.

Hoffman has also said he visited Epstein’s private island, Little Saint James, in the US Virgin Islands. In December, he told a podcast host that he stayed on the island for one night on a trip connected to fundraising activities.

“Note to self: Google before going,” Hoffman said on the podcast.

Hoffman’s appearance in the Epstein files has helped reignite the billionaire’s feud with Elon Musk.




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LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman’s go-to gift this Christmas was an AI-generated music album

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Reid Hoffman loves AI. So much so that, for Christmas, instead of fuzzy socks or wool sweaters, he gave his friends and family an AI music album.

The LinkedIn cofounder and Greylock partner, who Forbes estimates has a $2.5 billion net worth, recently told Wired he generated silly Christmas songs using AI and pressed them onto records.

“There’s a song on ugly sweaters and all of this kinda stuff,” he said. “As opposed to the ‘Holly, Jolly Christmas,’ you know, something that actually has some humor. Almost like what ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic would do if he was doing a Christmas album.”

To create the Christmas music, Hoffman said he used two different AI agents: one to write the lyrics and another to compose the music.

It’s not clear which AI tool Hoffman used to generated the songs. His current firm, Greylock, doesn’t list any of the major music-generating apps — like Suno, Udio, or AIVA — in its investment portfolio.

But, whichever tool he used, Hoffman said he was impressed by the result.

He said he told everyone who received the gift that it was AI, but when he played it for his wife, she couldn’t tell it was computer-generated.

The Christmas surprise comes as Hoffman has been talking about AI while promoting a new book published with journalist Greg Beato titled “Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future.”

In it, the two argue that AI doesn’t need to be a dystopian technology destined to displace workers or lead to human extinction, as some more pessimistic about the technology have warned.

Hoffman argues that AI skeptics are falling into the same trap that has gripped tech cynics in the past, including existential complaints during the rollouts of the printing press, electricity, and the internet.

“My push for people is if you are not using AI in a way today that isn’t seriously helpful to you, you are not actually trying hard enough,” he told Wired. “Now, of course it’ll transform jobs, and there’ll be a bunch of pain in that transformation. But the way that you as an individual can avoid that is to be engaged.”




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3 successful job seekers share how they used LinkedIn to stand out and land new roles

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Finding a job on LinkedIn can feel overwhelming as some roles draw hundreds — or even thousands — of applicants within hours or days. The challenge for job seekers using the platform is standing out among the crowd.

Some LinkedIn users, however, have successfully done so. Whether by using overlooked job filters, crafting a targeted cold outreach, or intentionally sharing their work, people have found ways to secure new jobs on the platform.

Below are three people who strategically landed their roles through LinkedIn. They shared with Business Insider how they did it. Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.

Using a strategic filter on LinkedIn helped me find a new role


Lauren Young headshot.

Lauren Young used the “under 10 applicants” filter to enhance her chances of securing a new job on LinkedIn.

Photo courtesy of Lauren Young



Lauren Young is a 28-year-old continuing education specialist in Indiana.

Last spring, I was becoming increasingly unhappy and stressed out at work, so I started applying to multiple jobs a day. Even within the short time that I was back in the job market, from March to June, it was getting worse, and I started to panic. I was having no luck landing a new role.

I live outside Chicago, and some of the jobs that would come up would be at huge Fortune 500 corporations. Even if the role was posted within the last day or the last hour, hundreds of applicants still applied immediately. I started experimenting with LinkedIn filters, trying to be more strategic about how I spent my time searching for work.

That’s when I found the “under 10 applicants” filter. It’s one of the last options under the function that says “all filters,” pretty close to the bottom. Once I started using it, I saw roles at small businesses that didn’t have a huge following on LinkedIn.

My role now is to help medical professionals who are seeking different educational opportunities or want to pursue further licensing. I didn’t think I would be a top applicant since I’d never worked in the medical industry, but the posting had just been posted and had very few applicants. I landed my first interview at the end of May and received my offer letter in mid-June.

My new role has been completely life-changing. I work primarily remotely and visit the office about once a month. The company offers excellent benefits, a generous PTO policy, and a great work-life balance.

A well-crafted cold outreach helped me land my job at OpenAI


Sophie Rose

Sophie Rose’s cold outreach on LinkedIn led to a job offer within five weeks of sending her message.

Photo courtesy of Sophie Rose



Sophie Rose is an OpenAI employee in her late 20s based in San Francisco.

In 2023, I joined OpenAI to build out what was then the associate team. I noticed that a leader on the go-to-market team had posted on LinkedIn that she was hiring a founding account associate, so I directly messaged her about the opportunity. Within five weeks of sending that message, I had an offer in hand.

I constructed my note by congratulating the lead on her role and said I saw she was hiring for this founding account associate job. I added that I’d love to learn more, plan to apply, and would be willing to relocate for the opportunity. I also asked if she could hop on a call.

In her response, she said she couldn’t jump on a call but would push my résumé through the initial screening. I applied the next day and immediately followed up with her, thanking her and saying I looked forward to exploring the opportunity with OpenAI.

There are two things I would warn people against doing: asking for time right away and rushing the follow-up.

I asked for time in my note, which I wouldn’t have done in hindsight. If you do ask for time, be very clear about why you need it. Also, try not to send that generic follow-up. Wait — maybe three weeks later — or look for something new that the person you’re reaching out to is posting or talking about.

For many of my peers, their OpenAI job started with a cold outreach to someone they might have heard of or had a mutual connection with. I think that’s how you can ultimately get ahead or pivot in your career.

Posting on LinkedIn brought the recruiters straight to my inbox


Dhyey Mavani headshot

Dhyey Mavani strategically posted online to attract recruiters and mentors and grow his professional network.

Photo courtesy of Dhyey Mavani



Dhyey Mavani is a 21-year-old software engineer at LinkedIn, based in Sunnyvale, CA.

I moved to the US from India in 2021 to attend Amherst College, where I triple-majored in computer science, mathematics, and statistics.

I started posting because people on campus were reaching out and asking to chat through ideas and career advice. I wanted to share my resources, so I decided to document my learnings and my progress and share them online for everyone. Since I started posting, I’ve significantly expanded my network to over 500 connections and more than 6,000 followers.

I posted about a research paper I wrote, and in the post walked through a short summary about my research, how I got there, what the key accomplishments were, and what things I’m still looking into for future work. That gained some traction with over 45,000 post impressions on LinkedIn. I had people working in research labs at Princeton and other universities reach out to me.

It’s helpful to phrase the posts you share in a value-first manner, where you provide some of your own perspective and explain why you stand by it. When I share my work online, I like to walk readers through why I pursued this project, what it entails, and who it impacts.

I also try to engage with content I see to increase visibility and expand my network. I recently commented on a post about Google, sharing my thoughts on the company’s strategy, and my comment had over 100,000 impressions.

After seeing my work online in 2023, a recruiter at LinkedIn contacted me directly on the platform to discuss an internship opportunity, which ultimately led to my current full-time position as a software engineer at the company.

I realized that there are opportunities that arise from organic posting and genuinely engaging with other people’s content. I wouldn’t have the job options, the reach, the network for mentorship, and other opportunities if I hadn’t started sharing my journey online strategically.

Do you have a story to share about LinkedIn strategies? Contact this editor, Agnes Applegate, at aapplegate@insider.com.




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Executive ghostwriter gives LinkedIn makeovers to execs. Here are 4 ways to brag more effectively on your profile.

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This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jillian Richardson, a 31-year-old ghostwriter for executives. She’s based in Brooklyn. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I’m a ghostwriter focused on helping executives and founders grow their presence on LinkedIn.

I offer LinkedIn profile polishes for executives, as well as people looking for a new job or trying out self-employment. After helping a number of people edit their profiles, one of my takeaways is that people need to brag more. They are not hyping themselves up nearly enough.

LinkedIn is the place where it’s socially acceptable to brag. The point is to discuss your career and where you’re going next in life. LinkedIn is also a sea of people, and if you don’t share what makes you unique, you won’t stand out. People also assume you just need to share something about yourself once, and that’s it, but things get lost on social media, so you can share the same thing a few times.

I recently talked to a colleague, and we both have the same experience with ghostwriting clients. When they start posting more on LinkedIn, they’ll receive a text from a friend calling them a try-hard or poking fun at them.

The idea that social media is not entirely real and only shows everyone’s best side is what’s called “discernment.” You’re not going to be sharing every horrible moment of your life on social media. If you did, you probably wouldn’t be in a super stable place. There are only parts of yourself that you want to share on the internet, and that’s up to you. I wouldn’t say that’s inauthentic. That’s just having boundaries.

There are a lot of places in the profile where the bragging — or lack of it — can show up. These are my suggestions to showcase your accomplishments more effectively:

The ‘Headline’

The headline is one of the places people share accomplishments. I always recommend that when people write their headline, they think about using the language they would if they were speaking to an individual customer.

You want to use the headline to let the reader know how you can support them. Just write it as a single sentence. Don’t use those divider lines that chop up everything because that’s when people get carried away, and then they have 10 different accomplishments that don’t connect to the person reading it.

The ‘About’ section

I can’t tell you the number of founders I’ve talked to who literally don’t have anything in their ‘About’ section. If I looked at their LinkedIn, I would assume their company doesn’t even exist.

In the ‘About’ section, you should share statistics of how you help your customers. This is the place to really brag about how you help people succeed; why people should trust you; and what makes you different from other people in your industry. You should also use client case studies and share testimonials.

The ‘Featured’ section

I always recommend that people pin a newsletter, a landing page, or a website that brings people outside LinkedIn, where you can collect their email so you can be in contact with them in another place, and continue to have them get familiar with you.

For example, you could feature a social media moment that you had. Recently, I was featured in Forbes, so I have that there to look like I’m a trustworthy human being. Or, I can pin a LinkedIn post that performed really well to demonstrate my industry expertise.

The ‘Recommendations’ section

The Recommendations section is located toward the bottom of the profile, and many people don’t pay attention to it. However, people really look at this section when considering hiring someone. Many people already have testimonials on their website, so I usually suggest asking for recommendations from those people by saying something like, “Hey, you said this exact thing to me. Would you be willing to copy and paste this on LinkedIn?”

Or, if somebody just said something nice to you on a call that they maybe didn’t write down, just email them being like, “Hey, I’m looking for recommendations on my LinkedIn. I remember you so generously said this thing. Would you be willing to copy and paste this as a LinkedIn recommendation?”

Most people will say yes, including a former boss or colleague. As long as you have a good relationship with them, why not reach out and ask? Everybody wants to see their team members succeed, hopefully.




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