The Diary of a CEO has become a giant in the podcast world, with millions of devoted listeners and a reputation for landing blockbuster guests. But behind the scenes, the team has had to confront something uncomfortable: the show’s own past. In late 2024, the BBC reported that of 23 health-related episodes, 15 contained an average of 14 potentially harmful claims. For any creator with a platform as large as Steven Bartlett’s—the show has about 21 million YouTube subscribers and regularly sits at the top of Spotify’s business podcast charts—that kind of finding is more than a PR headache. It strikes at the heart of trust. Hans Sahni, the executive producer, put it plainly: the show is now striving to be “more rigorous than we have been in the past,” and that standard “gets higher and higher every day.” There is a certain vulnerability in admitting that, especially after years of celebrated interviews and viral moments. But it’s also a necessary kind of honesty. In an era when health misinformation can travel faster than corrections, and when listeners often treat podcast hosts like trusted friends, the stakes are not merely about credibility. They’re about whether audiences can feel safe taking advice from someone who speaks so persuasively for so many hours each week.
What does that new rigor actually look like in practice? For about six months after the BBC report, the show didn’t have a formal fact-checking process in place for its guests. Then, according to Sahni, the team started building one. Now every new episode goes through an AI-assisted review that uses tools like Claude, Gemini, and Consensus, alongside human oversight. The show also brought in an independent medical researcher with a Ph.D. to review health and wellness content. That researcher has so far fact-checked 71 episodes, which represents maybe 13 percent of the 540 long-form interviews in the YouTube catalog. The team is also thinking about revisiting previously published episodes, though that’s a bigger project. What’s striking here is how much this mirrors the evolution of traditional media companies, where stories go through layers of fact-checking, legal review, and editorial judgment before they ever reach the public. Independent creators used to be seen as the scrappier alternative to that kind of institutional caution. But as their audiences grow and advertisers become more selective, the incentives shift. Big brands increasingly want their ads placed in environments that feel safe and responsible. Health and wellness content, in particular, is now one of the most fraught genres in all of podcasting. Major hosts like Joe Rogan have faced intense criticism for letting guests make bold claims without enough pushback. So the fact that a show like DOAC is investing in a process that slows things down, questions authority, and adds context is a meaningful sign that the industry is maturing, even if it took a crisis to get there.
Bartlett’s own position makes this all the more complicated. He has built a massive personal brand, and the business around it is booming—he recently told Fortune that he projects the show will earn $60 million this year from sponsorships and other revenue. With that much money on the line, and with that many eyes on every episode, the temptation is always to lean into the most sensational guest and the boldest claim. But that’s exactly where the danger lives. A provocative headline can generate clicks and downloads, but if listeners start to realize that the health advice they heard on the show was shaky or misleading, the long-term damage can be enormous. The team’s new fact-checking approach is partly an attempt to manage that tension. Sahni acknowledges that there is a delicate balance between having a compelling, even provocative guest and presenting the most accurate information possible. He says they’re always going to lean toward accuracy, even if it makes the show a little less controversial. But he’s also careful to point out that the show doesn’t consider itself journalism. “None of us are and don’t purport to be the news,” he says. That’s a revealing quote, because it captures the awkward space many popular podcasts occupy today: they are not news outlets, yet they have giant platforms and a profound influence on public conversations about health, science, and lifestyle choices. The line between informing and entertaining is blurry, and the team is trying to find its footing somewhere between being a freewheeling conversation and a source of responsible guidance.
One of the most visible ways that new caution appears is in the video episodes on YouTube and Spotify. When a guest says something that is contested, complex, or just needs a little more context, the show now flashes temporary on-screen pop-ups called “DOAC Community Notes.” These are not cheap graphics designed to look smart; they are the result of an actual review process. The internal team, working with the independent researcher, decides what appears on screen and when. The goal is to correct the record without pausing the conversation for too long or scolding the guest in a way that feels heavy-handed. The decisions are made based on how high the stakes are, how strongly the scientific literature contradicts the claim, and whether a pop-up would genuinely help the viewer at that moment. The emphasis, Sahni says, is on fewer interruptions that carry more weight. A perfect example is the episode with neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, who has been criticized in the past for promoting treatments that aren’t approved or widely supported. During that interview, which has drawn millions of views, pop-ups appeared around his discussion of peptides and weight-loss drugs. When Huberman mentioned that his sleep improved after taking a peptide called pinealon, a pop-up gently noted that evidence from human clinical studies is limited. When he called the weight-loss drug Retatrutide “amazing” and claimed people lost about a third of their body weight, another pop-up reminded viewers that the drug is still under investigation and not FDA-approved. These moments don’t stop the conversation, but they create a pause in which viewers are invited to think critically. It’s a small intervention, but it signals a change in how the show sees its own responsibility.
The fact-checking isn’t just limited to big, headline-making guests. In an episode with sleep specialist Michael Breus, which has become one of the show’s most-watched interviews, Breus said that 75 percent of the reason for insomnia is anxiety and depression. The research document behind that episode clarified that insomnia actually has many contributors, and that reducing it to one cause oversimplifies a complex condition. In another episode, aging researcher David Sinclair suggested eating a Brazil nut a day for its selenium content, and a pop-up warned that too much selenium can be toxic. These examples are useful because they show that the show is not trying to embarrass guests or prove itself right. It is simply trying to give listeners the information they need to make their own choices. On the audio-only version, where pop-ups can’t appear, the team cuts segments if they determine that the guest has shared something inaccurate. Alongside that, the show links to an extensive fact-checking research document in the show notes, so curious listeners can dive deeper into the evidence themselves. The guest-booking and research teams have also changed their process. They are more disciplined now about who they bring on, doing more background work before an interview, and asking tougher questions about a guest’s qualifications and the reliability of their claims. That kind of preemptive vetting is maybe the most important step, because it means the problem is being addressed before it ever reaches the microphone.
All of this points to a larger moment in the podcast industry. Creators are no longer just amateurs with a microphone; they are media companies in their own right, with teams, budgets, and responsibilities that resemble traditional publishers. But with that growth comes a need for accountability. The Diary of a CEO’s response to the BBC investigation is not perfect, and it’s still a work in progress. The team has fact-checked only a fraction of its back catalog, and there are still hundreds of past episodes where misleading claims may remain. But the shift in mindset is real. Sahni’s honesty about the show’s limits—its insistence that it isn’t journalism, its acknowledgment that it can’t catch everything—feels like the beginning of a more mature conversation about what podcasters owe their audiences. In the end, the real challenge isn’t just correcting bad facts. It’s deciding how to stay interesting, bold, and entertaining while also being careful not to harm the people who trust you. The pop-ups, the expert reviews, the AI tools, and the stricter guest vetting are all attempts to hold two ideas at once: that a conversation can be lively and controversial, and that the people listening deserve to know what’s true. It’s not a perfect answer, and it never will be. But for a show that has built its name on big claims and big ideas, learning to pause, question, and verify might be the most important plot twist yet.