Steven Bartlett’s “The Diary of a CEO” has lost four key staffers in the past five months as the podcast expands beyond its UK roots and scales into a global media empire, according to Business Insider. The departing team members—Jack Sylvester (cofounder), Jem Erith (executive producer), Anthony Smith (director of trailers), and Grace Miller (head of failure and experimentation)—all left on good terms, with the departures planned over nearly a year and supported by Bartlett himself.
Sylvester, who helped establish the show’s YouTube presence, which now exceeds 18 million subscribers, told Business Insider he was searching for the next step after the podcast moved out of its initial growth phase. In a LinkedIn post, Bartlett wrote that “nobody” had a “bigger impact” on the show than Sylvester. Erith, who scaled the show from 100,000 to 15 million subscribers over four years as executive producer, detailed her departure in an April 2026 Substack essay, describing a persistent internal voice telling her she needed to step away despite the show’s continued success.
A FlightStory spokesperson said the departures reflected the company’s culture, noting that the four employees had joined relatively early in their careers and advanced to senior roles before leaving. “We see their next steps as a positive reflection of the culture,” the spokesperson told Business Insider. The four staffers posted on social media confirming their departures were voluntary and expressed gratitude to Bartlett and the organization.
The exits come as Bartlett’s operation undergoes significant expansion. The 9-year-old show recently moved its center of gravity to the United States, with Bartlett relocating to Los Angeles and opening a production studio there. The podcast now ranks as the No. 1 business podcast on Spotify in the US and regularly tops Joe Rogan’s show in YouTube views. Bartlett’s company, FlightStory, employs roughly 150 people and generated around $47 million in revenue last year, according to Business Insider.
Turnover among early employees is common at scaling startups. Research from 2026 shows that startups experience turnover rates nearly double the national average, with early employees often departing as companies transition from rapid-growth phases into more structured operations. When companies expand geographically and add layers of management, the roles that made sense in a startup’s early years often become less defined or no longer align with an employee’s career trajectory. In the case of Bartlett’s earlier venture, Social Chain, a social media marketing firm he founded before “The Diary of a CEO,” a number of alumni went on to start their own ventures.
Bartlett has been increasingly busy with other projects beyond the main podcast. He recently raised an eight-figure investment round and added other creators to his network, seeking to apply his playbook—extensive pre-show research and aggressive social media clipping—to their shows. The company has launched FlightSpeakers, a speakers division, and is exploring a paid membership program to leverage its audience. These expansions suggest the organization is moving toward a more complex, multi-brand structure, a shift that can strain early-stage employees accustomed to the intensity and informality of a single-show operation.
Sources
- Business Insider — reported the four departures, named staffers, and company context including FlightStory’s statement, Bartlett’s LinkedIn response, and details on the show’s US expansion and revenue
- Jem Erith’s Substack — provided Erith’s firsthand account of her four-year tenure as executive producer, her role in scaling the show from 100k to 15 million subscribers, and her decision to depart
- Carta employment research — cited startup median job tenure of 2.0 years and early-stage employee turnover patterns
