It isn’t his full time job. He was doing it as a side project
He’s on a 3 person podcast that could very well gross over $850K a year - 3 ad reads * 5500 * 52 weeks a year [1]. I wouldn’t make doing an app a high priority either.
Mind you, given that Liss is on a bunch of Apple-focused podcasts, writing and publishing and marketing an iOS app really is giving him useful brand-related experiences. Being able to pull out recent personal anecdotes is very handy, even if he doesn't make any notable money directly from it.
Sure, in theory that makes sense. But he hasn't mentioned it once before last week, and he usually talks very little about his apps, so I don't think that is the main, or even an important reason. He also hasn't mentioned that as a reason.