The people
What they build
Open roles via the TechTO Job Board
Working at Substack
Browse open roles across the community on the TechTO Job Board — Canada’s most connected tech network. Substack’s roles show up here whenever they post.
Open roles on the TechTO Job Board ↗Or their own careers page: substack.com/careers ↗Jobs live on jobs.techto.org — the only structured source. We link to it rather than scraping career sites, so the board is always the source of truth.
On the TechTO stage
Every talk is searchable — ask the archive about Substack ↗
About
Substack started when Chris Best, fresh off eight years as technical co-founder of Kik in Waterloo, took time off to write an essay about what the internet had done to the business model for good writing. He shared it with Hamish McKenzie, and — as Best told the TechTO stage in June 2021 — they accidentally made a company while procrastinating on finishing the essay. They launched with one writer, Bill Bishop, whose immediate success rewrote their Y Combinator application mid-interview. The company went through YC in winter 2018 and is headquartered in San Francisco, with a Toronto contingent including co-founder Jairaj Sethi. It takes a cut of what writers earn rather than selling advertising.
Backers
BOND and The Chernin Group led the July 2025 Series C; Andreessen Horowitz also participated. Earlier rounds valued the company at $650M in 2021.
More from TechTO ×6
Quick answers
What does Substack do?
It lets a writer publish to the web and to email and charge readers a subscription, with the billing, delivery and reader app handled for them. Substack takes a percentage of subscription revenue instead of selling ads.
Who founded Substack?
Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi, in 2017. Best, previously the technical co-founder of Kik in Waterloo, is CEO.
Is Substack Canadian?
No — it is headquartered in San Francisco. But its CEO is a University of Waterloo graduate who built Kik in Ontario, and Best told the TechTO stage in 2021 that co-founder Jairaj Sethi was in Toronto and the company had a good Toronto contingent.