'I HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO DRIVE A HAPPIER WORLD'

Steven Bartlett, launch guest for the new season of Standard proprietor Evgeny Lebedev's podcast, Brave New World, on bringing a CEO mindset to the masses and why failing is good

- CHRIS BLACKHURST

Steven Bartlett is welling up. He's recounting why he agreed to be on Dragons' Den. “I wish when I was 12 years old there had been someone looking like me, but there wasn't.” A tear appears. “There was only Jamal [Edwards],” he says. “I was crazy about him because he was a young black man. I stalked him on the internet and knew I could learn so much from him.”

Edwards, the hugely inspirational London music entrepreneur, DJ and owner of SB.TV died in 2022, aged 31. By then, says Bartlett: “We'd become friends. I speak to his mother, Brenda, a lot. When he passed away, I went to their house, we talked about his legacy and how it could continue.”

His memory is one of the motivators of Bartlett, now 33. “There are so few young black men entrepreneurs in the UK. It is so hard for them to raise venture capital. It's especially difficult for young black women.” He adds: “There is no black billionaire born in the UK right now.”

Today he's the youngest ever Dragon (he used to watch as a child, pretending to be on the show), founder of the social media marketing company Social Chain and podcaster extraordinaire, with his The Diary of a CEO occupying the No 1 spot in Britain and second in the world only behind Joe Rogan. Now his new creator holding firm Steven. com has just closed on a $425 million valuation.

He is also the launch guest of the new season of Standard proprietor Evgeny Lebedev's Brave New World podcast in which he talks to thought-leaders, scientists and intellectuals shaping the future of society and transforming our culture. The series begins with Bartlett’s episode on Tuesday and also stars de-extinction entrepreneur Ben Lamm, nutrition pioneers, doctors Tim Spector and Federica Amati, and world-leading bio-hacker Gary Brecka.