It’s Wednesday and a new mobile app is designed for people who want wearers of Meta glasses to “ZuckOff” (or, at least, make their presence known).

MONEY MOVES

The venture: When Steven Bartlett landed an eight-figure investment last year, his backers valued his company at $425 million. That makes Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO one of the most lucrative podcasts in its field—and now, the creator is looking to pay it forward.

Alongside billionaire Jamie Salter, Bartlett is launching OBSN, a venture that will look to invest $400 million in creator-led companies.

OBSN (pronounced like “obsession”) will leverage the expertise of its two leaders. Since establishing himself as a creator to watch, Bartlett has spent his time scaling creator economy businesses and backing other notable podcasters, including Maggie Sellers Reum of Hot Smart Rich fame. Salter, meanwhile, is the founder of Authentic Brands Group, which has helped brands like Reebok scale up and reimagined the IP of celebrities like Elvis Presley.

Working together, Bartlett and Salter will set their sights on creators who are building consumer-facing brands, expanding their media businesses, and globalizing their reach.

The context: Bartlett and Salter aren’t the only industry leaders zeroing in on creator-led businesses. Talent firm Night made a $70 million bet in that area earlier this year, while CAA and its equity partner TPG plan to deploy $250 million of their own. Slow Ventures, which has invested in Bartlett’s business, is also on the hunt for aspiring creator-entrepreneurs in high-value verticals.

Compared to those ventures, OBSN may not reinvent the wheel—but it does come armed with a powerful arsenal of resources. Bartlett’s brand-building expertise and social media know-how will come in handy, while Authentic will use product, licensing, and distribution services to supercharge creator businesses.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

GOSPEL STATS 📈

Back-to-school season is still going strong, and so is MrBeast’s reign over the YouTube branded charts. The man known as Jimmy Donaldson claimed first and second place in Gospel Stats’ latest Weekly Brand Report, while Dude Perfect kept the school spirit alive in third place.

🥇 #1. MrBeast x Call of Duty Mobile: Escape 100 Cops, Win $500,000 (104.2M views)
After clinching spots #1 and #2 last week, MrBeast has landed another double-header. This 20-minute upload—another of Donaldson’s signature cash-fueled challenges—was sponsored by first-person shooter Call of Duty Mobile, which also paid for a handful of videos from smaller creators this week.

🥈 #2. MrBeast 2 x Jack Link’s: How Many States Can You Visit in 24 Hours? (23M views)
Over on MrBeast’s secondary channel, members of his team hit the road to see how many states they could drive through in 24 hours—while eating jerky from ongoing sponsor Jack Link’s.

Outside YouTube, Jack Link’s has an ongoing win-win partnership with Donaldson; the brand gets a boost by reskinning its existing products as MrBeast’s faves, and Donaldson secures a foothold on the savory side of consumables.

🥉 #3. Dude Perfect x BODYARMOR: School Stereotypes (12.4M views)
In this 17-minute upload, the dudes of Dude Perfect blended shout-heavy skit content with their usual trickshots by adopting stereotypical high school personas. We’ve got goths, nerds, bullies, and (perhaps unsurprisingly) jocks—all courtesy of BODYARMOR.

According to the lads, this concept is “the #1 REQUESTED VIDEO in Dude Perfect history.” It’s safe to say the video’s viewcount reflects that demand.

Check out the full branded ranking here and head over to Gospel Stats for more YouTube sponsorship insights.

AI WAVE

The coach: Twitch is testing out a new resource for streamers who could benefit from a little constructive feedback. The platform has introduced Stream Coach, an AI-powered virtual assistant that offers personalized advice for live broadcasters.

Users who have access to Stream Coach (and don’t choose to opt out) will receive feedback whenever they end a live Twitch session. Those insights will be delivered through the platform’s Creator Dashboard. Stream Coach emails will also summarize the bot’s suggestions.

For now, only a small group of streamers can access Twitch’s AI coach. The platform confirmed on X that if it does expand Stream Coach “beyond this small test, it would be opt-in.”

The context: As the live streaming economy booms, more and more platforms are trying to convince creators to go live—a daunting proposition for video makers who have never been on-stream.

To ease those transitions and help new streamers build confidence, YouTube debuted a Practice Mode for its Vertical Live format. TikTok’s Creator’s Cut newsletter, meanwhile, offers a different type of advice by imbuing creators with best practices for TikTok LIVE.

Twitch’s decision to power its own advisory resource with generative AI isn’t surprising. The platform has rolled out a host of AI features and policies, much to the chagrin of many users. Will Stream Coach be able to win over those skeptics?

WATCH THIS 👀

The music aficionados: Tempest Instruments doesn’t just offer an array of “rare and unique virtual instruments.” The company—which is run by composer Alex Davis—has also attracted a loyal YouTube audience thanks to its short-form history lessons.

It’s not unusual for brands to hype up their products on YouTube with oddly satisfying Shorts (or even totally unrelated skits). In fact, those videos often draw in a wide variety of viewers, in large part thanks to their bright colors and universally-appealing themes.

Davis, however, has taken a different approach by tailoring his content to a particular niche—one occupied primarily by audio nerds. Tempest’s short-form history lessons have attracted millions of views with tales of stolen violins and century-old voices, and we wouldn’t be surprised if many of those fans made their way to the company’s website.

After all, who’s more likely to buy software modeled after a 250-year-old grand piano than a viewer intrigued by videos about 148-year-old recordings?

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.