Diary of a CEO — January 2026 Kiriakou interview
================================================

The Diary of a CEO, January 2026 Kiriakou interview is the long-form podcast appearance by John Kiriakou on Steven Bartlett's Diary of a CEO that, in Kiriakou's own account, produced the pivot he calls his Gen Z breakout. Kiriakou describes the interview itself as "the standard long-form podcast interview" he had already given many times to Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan, only "a little bit more philosophical." He recorded it, boarded a plane and flew home; the shorts came later.

The UT Austin sophomore's shorts

A University of Texas at Austin sophomore took the Bartlett interview and cut it into TikTok shorts, "sped up my voice, slowed down my voice, shot lasers out of my eyes", and, in Kiriakou's telling, "it went completely crazy." While Kiriakou was on a paid contract in Dubai, his niece called: "Uncle John, you're exploding on TikTok, I don't know why, but it's huge." At 2:30 the following morning local time, the Creative Artists Agency, "the biggest talent agency in the world", reached him and said "tell me you're not represented." He wasn't. They signed him on the call.

Why he thinks it landed with Gen Z

Kiriakou attributes the traction to a generational appetite for a truth-teller with no personal agenda: "Gen Z trusts me because I'm a truth-teller, I don't have any personal agenda, none. I think that for the most part, mainstream media lies to us every single day." His prescription to the audience is not a subscription but a discipline: sample twenty-five outlets across the ideological range, the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, BBC, Times of London, AP, Reuters, Al Jazeera, Al Monitor, and reason your way to the fact pattern yourself.

See also

- John Kiriakou
- Tucker Carlson
