Steven Bartlett, founder of The Diary Of A CEO podcast, announced on LinkedIn that he is hiring more than 100 roles in the UK and the US. He has put Ada Pemu at the head of a new technology division.
Hiring is not a routine personnel matter for a single show. It hangs on the company Steven.com, which investors valued in October 2025 at about €365 million, or roughly $425 million.
From podcast to holding company
Steven.com brings together Bartlett's media, technology and investment activities under one brand. Its media arm is FlightStory, FlightCast hosts the video versions of the podcasts, and FlightFund handles investments. Bartlett owns more than 90% of the company.
The eight-figure round that set the valuation was led by the funds Slow Ventures and Apeiron Investment Group. According to tech.eu, it is probably the largest European round in the creator economy so far.
Bartlett sums up his goal in one sentence. “My ultimate ambition is to build the Disney of the creator economy.” He describes his model in the words “The creator is the new franchise.” According to him, the ecosystem rests on two pillars, “creator media and creator ventures”, and is powered by “proprietary creator technology”. The first pillar consists of the podcast and other rights, the second of e-commerce, investment and infrastructure tools.
The whole structure rests on one show. According to the company, The Diary Of A CEO passed one billion views on YouTube in October 2025.
New technology chief came from Amazon
Bartlett introduces Ada Pemu through her career at Amazon. He says she is a Harvard graduate, spent over six years at Amazon, and most recently led product for Amazon and AWS AI, where she launched AI applications and agents for some of the world's largest companies.
Before that, according to him, she built Amazon's global payments infrastructure and launched payment systems in 27 countries and with more than 4,000 banks. Before Amazon she led product teams at Wayfair responsible for $6 billion in revenue.
According to Bartlett, though, those figures were not decisive. “We care most about your mentality and attitude, NOT your experience,” he wrote at the very start of the post. He puts attitude, hunger to learn and fit with the company culture above experience, and this applies to the rest of the hiring too.
Hiring focused on product and data
Steven.com is hiring across the UK and the US, and Bartlett points out where he feels the pressure most. He is looking for “world class Technology and Data talent” for Ada Pemu, who is to build “the infrastructure” for what he believes is “the most consequential industry on earth”, the creator economy. Alongside that, he is recruiting for marketing, sales, production and C-suite positions.
The podcast is thus staffing its product and data organisation the way a technology company would. The creator economy appears here as an industry that builds its own infrastructure and competes for the same people as the large technology firms.
British media cut, Steven.com hires
Bartlett's direction runs against the trend in the domestic market. The British government announced in June 2026 a ban on social media for children under 16, which is to take effect in spring 2027. At the same time, British media are cutting staff.
The BBC announced in April 2026 the elimination of up to 2,000 jobs over two years and savings of £500 million, the biggest wave of layoffs in almost fifteen years. The reason given is licence fee income, which according to the BBC has fallen in real terms by 24% since 2017. The ban on social networks for children is a separate pressure. Both moves, however, show the uncertainty around the classic media model.
Steven.com is going the other way. While traditional British media narrow their teams, a British creator is building a company and hiring product and data people from Amazon. For a European brand director, the creator thus becomes a counterpart with its own C-suite, a product team and an investment budget, which competes for the same people as the large technology firms.
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