Grainger Advertiser (3:34)

No.

Jamie Bartlett (3:35)

No, no. I need some more water. This is serious. Because this is often ranked as the most popular podcast in the uk. What advice have you got for me?

Pocket Hose Advertiser (3:44)

This is driving me insane.

Jamie Bartlett (3:46)

I really want this podcast, this, the one you're listening to right now with me, Jamie Bartlett, to be a success. Maybe I just need to be a bit more Stephen. But how?

James Hurley (3:59)

Stephen Bartlett, I'd say, is a kind of combination between a entrepreneur and a media star. Built his name as a social media guru, but where his real success lies, and it is, let's be honest, his undoubted success. This is a world famous podcaster.

Jamie Bartlett (4:21)

My first guest is James Hurley, a business journalist at the Times newspaper who's written about Stephen Bartlett's success. And part of that success comes from his origin story.

James Hurley (4:33)

Stephen's origin story, if you like, is a classic rags to riches tale of a boy from a fairly working class background who built a social media company that then become part of a larger group. And then he was centrally involved in floating that business for in excess of $600 million when he was only in his 20s.

Jamie Bartlett (4:50)

His website stated that Stephen took his social media company, Social chain public at 27 years old, reaching a market valuation of $600 million before he resigned. But in 2023, James started looking into that claim.

James Hurley (5:10)

The true story was slightly different, or actually, to be fair, very different from the one that Stephen told.

Jamie Bartlett (5:17)

Stephen founded Social Chain in Manchester in 2014. It was a successful social media marketing business with sales of 12.6 million pounds in 2019. But it was acquired by a German entrepreneur and became part of a much larger group consisting of many other companies, including one that sold mattresses and beanbags. And it was that much larger group that was floated for $600 million. Stephen had been named co CEO of the group, but by the time it reached that $600 million valuation, he was no longer in that role. The social media company that Stephen had originally built would later be sold on for around £8 million.

James Hurley (6:08)

He's not even named in the prospectus. And you know, normally the important people in a business would be named quite a lot in a prospectus. I also couldn't find any record of him having any significant shareholding in the business at the time it floated either.

Jamie Bartlett (6:22)

We approached Stephen's team for a comment. A spokesperson said he remained under employment by the company in an advisory capacity for through its peak valuation and that the $600 million figure referred to the valuation of the wider social chain group, not the latest sale of a single agency asset after his departure. How different is this to frankly what a lot of people do, which is kind of, you know, dressing things up a little bit, but it's not really a direct lie?

James Hurley (6:54)

Yeah, good question. I mean, I would argue it's a little bit more serious than a bit of garnishing. To say that you floated a business for 600 million in your 20s and then you weren't even named in the prospectus is, I think you could be accused at least of quite a serious mischaracterisation and misrepresentation.

Jamie Bartlett (7:12)

Stephen Bartlett's podcast is successful because I think he is a very good interviewer and has lots of interesting guests. But it has also sometimes featured people who make some pretty questionable health claims. Gluten can cause everything from osteoporosis to autism to schizophrenia.

Grainger Advertiser (7:31)

Three females who were in the program

Jamie Bartlett (7:33)

doing my hacks for just a month

Grainger Advertiser (7:36)

got their period back and were able

Jamie Bartlett (7:38)

to get pregnant in that month just with my hacks. Medieval, I call it Medieval approaches to this. Are you kidding me? What they're doing to cancer patients. A spokesperson for the Diary of a CEO said the podcast is a long form interview format intended to explore guests views rather than endorse them. But James Hurley thinks that's part of the problem.

James Hurley (8:02)

As far as I can tell, they don't really, really get much of a robust challenge. But I think that's quite dangerous that these shows that are consumed by so many people don't have that sort of, I guess, journalistic literacy.

Jamie Bartlett (8:18)

When James Hurley published His article, Stephen Bartlett, of course, was forced to apologise. He stepped down from the diary of a CEO and walked away from Dragon's Den, his reputation in tatters. I'm joking. Has it had any impact at all?

James Hurley (8:33)

It doesn't really seem to have done him any harm, really, does it, in the long run of things, because he's still a star of BBC Dragons Den, or certainly was in the last series anyway. His podcast goes from strength to strength.

Jamie Bartlett (8:43)

You cover the world of business. Is this common? Is this normal? And has it changed in the last decade? Is it more common now than it used to be?

James Hurley (8:53)

I think that this stuff's always gone on. I think maybe what's changed is that now there's less kind of impact if you get exposed for it, really. And actually it's all right that you embellished your backstory and no one really seems to mind and everything just carries on.

Jamie Bartlett (9:18)

So this is the part of the podcast where I tell you what this six part series is all about. This is usually easy, but this story is hard to pin down because it's about something that's everywhere, something that's so ubiquitous you might not even notice it anymore. Fakery. Everything is fake. It's also fake. They are fake solutions.

Pocket Hose Advertiser (9:42)

I'm getting like a fake vibe.

James Hurley (9:43)

Something's off there.

Jamie Bartlett (9:45)

Politicians have always lied and businesses have always inflated the numbers. But something has changed over my adult life. A shift in the culture.

LinkedIn Ads Narrator (9:57)

I believe we may have reached peak.

James Hurley (9:59)

Bullshit.

Jamie Bartlett (10:00)

Fakery today isn't always about lying or making stuff up. It's something more subtle. It's where the line between reality and make believe is deliberately blurred and where truth is replaced by something else. Emotion, narrative and performance. In so many areas of modern life, fakery is often incentivized and even rewarded.

LinkedIn Ads Narrator (10:28)

It's a new age of shamelessness.

Jamie Bartlett (10:31)

It's not just about Stephen Bartlett. I only chose him because we share the same name. But I think his success and popularity is emblematic of this new world. Is this clash between this imaginary world that we all now partly live in and reality. In this series, I'm going to explain how I think that's happened. Because the roots of modern fakery are not found in Russian bots or social media. It goes back much further, to dramatic social and cultural changes over four decades, which turned perception and feeling into reality. For BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds, this is everything is fake and nobody cares. With me, Jamie Bartlett. Episode 1 Fake it, make it, Podcast it so here's the deal. As a podcaster myself, Figuring out the rules of successful podcasting feels like a good way to start my investigation into modern fakery. Perhaps I can learn a thing or two from another podcaster, the only one from the UK who's arguably even more successful and famous than Stephen, the best

Pocket Hose Advertiser (11:55)

selling author and host the number one

Jamie Bartlett (11:57)

health and wellness podcast On Purpose with Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty's podcast On Purpose is regularly listed as one of the most popular health and well being shows in the world. Originally from London, but now based in la, Shetty hangs out with movie stars, tops book bestseller lists and makes millions of dollars. What is the day in the life of a monk like? Okay, so you wake up at 4am and then you meditate for about four to eight. If you've enjoyed this episode and would like to hear the rest of the series, search for Everything is Fake on BBC Sounds and subscribe to stay up to date with the latest episodes

Pocket Hose Advertiser (12:40)

the

LinkedIn Ads Narrator (12:41)

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Grainger Advertiser (13:21)

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