MrBeast: Future of YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram | Lex Fridman Podcast #351

I'm here with Mr. Beast, the brilliant mastermind behind some of the most popular videos ever created. Do you think you'll ever make a video that gets one billion views? I think maybe one of the videos we've already made might get a billion views. Which one do you think? Probably like the squid game video with enough time. I mean, it's only a year old and it's already on 300 million or some of the newer ones we've done have gotten like 100 million views in a month. So those four are projected over 10 years because YouTube's not going anywhere. Probably one of those. Over time, they don't necessarily plateau. That's interesting. We're literally jumping right into it. I love it. It's good. So I'm a firm believer that it's much easier to hypothetically get 10 million views on one video than 100,000 on 100. And part of why it's much easier, in my opinion, is like if you make a really good video, it's just so evergreen and it never dies. Because YouTube, when you open up YouTube and look at the videos, they're just serving you whatever they think you'll like the best. And so if you just make a great video and it's constantly just above every other video, even two years down the road, then they'll just keep serving it and never stop, which is why it's much easier to make one great video than a bunch of mediocre ones. What about one billion subscribers? You've passed PewDiePie as the most subscribed to a YouTube channel. When do you think you get a billion? Let me do some math real quick. So around 120. Do you think about this? No, I don't, honestly. Because one thing you'll find if you want to gain subscribers, if you want to get views, if you want to make money, almost any metric in this video creation space, if you want something, it all comes back to, okay, well then just make great videos. So instead of focusing on all these arbitrary vanity metrics, I just kind of focus on the one thing that gets me all that, which is make good videos. But I do think we will one day hit a billion subscribers. I don't have a plan on going anywhere. Even though we're only on 120 million right now on the main channel, I think we're doing around 10 million a month now and YouTube just, yeah, I just don't see it going anywhere. And I don't see any reason why I'd ever get burnt out or quit, so I think with enough time, yes. I wanted to ask you those family-friendly questions before I go to the dark questions. So now, we have dark questions. But if you wanted to hook them, you would start off with the dark questions. That's how you get them. Okay, well, let me ask you about a Twitter poll you posted, a $10,000 death poll. You tweeted, if someone offered you $10,000, but if you take it, a random person on Earth dies, would you take the $10,000? And 45% of people said yes. That's, at least at the time I checked, 850,000 people committing murder for just $8.5 billion in total. So what do you learn about human nature from that? That's a good question. Honestly, this is like late at night when I threw that up too. I was just like, huh, this will be a funny thing. I assumed it'd be 90% no and 10% yes, but there are a lot of serious people. For you guys listening, I just did this random Twitter poll where I was like, would you take 10 grand if it meant someone random in the world died? And a lot of the replies on the tweet were like, hell yeah, why not? And I was just not expecting that. And so, I don't really know. I mean, I feel like your take would be better than mine. Was it disturbing to you, surprising to you? A little bit, yeah. But obviously, a lot of people were trolling, but when you read through those replies, I do think like 10% of them were dead serious. Well, I think sometimes the trolling and the lulls reveal a thing we're too embarrassed to admit about the darker aspects of our nature. So I don't know if you listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast. He has a episode on painful attainment, which he describes throughout history how humans have been really attracted to watching the suffering of others. So public executions, all that kind of stuff. And he believes that's in all of us. That, for example, if something like a YouTube or a different platform streamed a public execution or streamed the torture of another human being, a lot of people would say that's deeply unethical, but they would still tune in and watch. And that we're attracted to that drama, and especially the most extreme versions of that drama. And so I think part of the lulls reveal something that's actually true in that poll. Your answer's so much better than mine. Do you think about that, maybe even with the Squid Game? So I think, how many views does the Squid Game currently have, 300 million? Yeah, somewhere around. Something like this? So just imagine, thought experiment, how many views that video would get if it was real, the Squid Game. Yeah, I mean, YouTube was like, yeah, we'll turn a blind eye, we won't take it down. Yeah, I mean, obviously, it'd probably have billions of views. How do you think you'll die? And do you think it'll be during a video? Probably doing something dumb, like going to space when I'm older, or trying to go to Mars, or something like that. I know for a fact it won't be on a video. Every video we do, we have safety experts and stuff like that, so it's not really a risk. But yeah, I could see myself, after a million people go to Mars or something like that, I'd probably be like, you know what, let's go. And something like that, maybe. So not in the name of a video, just for the hell of it. Heck no. Are you open to taking risks when you shoot videos? You just went to Antarctica. I mean, you're putting yourself in the line a little bit, right? Of course, but we've had that video in the works for three years, and then we consult with tons of experts, radar the entire path we're gonna walk beforehand to see if there's crevasses. So we know there's no crevasses, we do training, we consult with experts, and we have survival guides there with us, and monitor the weather and everything. So it's like, any variable where we could get harmed, we just pre-plan for it. Same thing with buried alive. Like, I had David Blaine spent a week underground, and so I consulted with him, and consulted with basically anyone who ever buried themselves alive. You know, the coffin we used to bury me, we did so many tests. Like, that coffin was buried 10 times before I was, you know, for way longer than 50 hours. It tested the airflow and everything, to the point where I was safer in that coffin underground than I was above ground. So we just tend to just not leave anything up to chance. Yeah, another strange question then, so you recorded these videos to yourself, you know, five years, 10 years from now. Have you recorded a video that's to be released once you die? Well, first off, I am just glad that not every one of your questions have to do with, like, views or things like that. It's nice getting different questions. So this is good. No, seriously. It's a little dark. No, but it's fine, because a lot of people just be like, how much money do you make? You know, it's just something I just, everything's always about money now. Over for when people talk to me. So it's nice. But for the videos I made, for you guys who probably don't follow me too closely, when I had 8,000 subscribers and I was a teenager, I filmed a bunch of videos and scheduled them years in the future. And I said, I filmed one where I was like, high me in a year. And the video went up a year later. And it was just like, hey, I think you'll have 100,000 subscribers. And then I did one where I was like, high me in five years. I was like, hey, in five years, I think you'll have a million. And then one that hasn't come out yet, but comes out in two years, was high me in 10 years. And I tried to predict 10 years later how many subs I'd have. So he's referring to. And yes, there are some that are scheduled like 20 years in the future. And so if I don't die, I'll just move them up. And I remember, because I filmed these though, like seven years ago. But it was, I remember saying a line like, you know, if I'm dead, then I'm currently just in a coffin and like, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And because the only way the video would go up is if I'm not alive. And if I'm not alive, then I won't be able to push back the schedule upload date. So it will go public automatically. And so yeah, I have a couple of those. Like if I knew I was gonna die of like cancer or something, and I had like three months to live, I would vlog every day. I filmed so many videos. And then I would just schedule upload a video a week for like the next five years. So it's like I'm still alive. And I would completely act like I'm still alive and everything. And I think something like that would be cool. I don't know why, but I've fantasized, not fantasized, but I've dreamt about that a lot. Like, I don't know, if I only had 30 days to live, what would I do? And for me, I would try to make like a decade's worth of content and schedule upload it so they automatically go public in the future. And so it's just like I never died. I'm just there. Yeah, it's a kind of immortality, but it's also a kind of troll on the concept of time. Yeah. That you can die in the physical space but persist in the digital space. I actually, I recorded a video like that because I had some concerns. And I just thought it's also a good exercise to do. A video would like to be released if I die. And it was actually a really interesting exercise. It's cool. Like it shows like what you really care about. I guess it's like writing a will. But when you're younger, you don't think about that kind of stuff. But- Exactly, mine was just dumb. Yeah. Like I'm bones in a coffin. Yeah. Yours was probably so serious. No, it's fun actually. What you realize is like there's no point to be serious at this point. It's a weird thing. I guess you've done this, but it's a weird thing to address the world when you, the physically you, is no longer there. So like, you know this would only be released if you're no longer there. Exactly. It's a weird exercise. You know what's funny? Of all the people listening to this, we're probably the only two people that have made videos for when we die. It's like such a niche thing. And the fact that we're bonding over it's kind of funny. I think people should think about doing that. It's not just about YouTube. It's also social media. Just think about it. Like there's gonna be a last tweet and a last, I don't know, Facebook post, or a last Instagram post. And yeah, I feel like there's some aspect that's meditative to just even considering making a post like that. And also it's a way for the people that love you to kind of like celebrate. Do you think that would help them cope or not? Like if someone randomly watching this did film a video, you know, if they accidentally died in some freak accident to be given to their family, do you think that would, and it was like a genuine. I think it would really help. I mean, it depends. Like how would you even intro that? Like, hey mom, if you're seeing this, you know, it means I'm probably dead. Yeah, exactly. That's how you intro it. That's the opener. I just want you to know, yeah, I guess. Yeah, and I guess you could say it in a kind of funny way, but, and just talk about the things that mean a lot to you. Because otherwise you're at the risk of the last post you have is like, like, I don't know, talking shit about like McDonald's. McDonald's order. Exactly. And then you're dead. That's it, 100 years. I don't know. I do recommend it. It's like the Stoics meditate on death every day in the same way you kind of meditate on your death when you make a video like that. Because it's actually not just even talking to yourself, it's talking to the world. And it like, for some reason, at least for me, they made it very concrete that there's going to be an end. And I'm like, it's almost, it's over for me. If I'm making the video, it's over for me. It's an interesting thought experiment. I recommend people try it. Okay. Oh, are you afraid of death, by the way? Yes. It's hard because like, what if you just die and then you just see nothing forever, you know? Yeah, the nothingness. It just fades to blackness and you're just like that for trillions upon trillions to billion squared years. And it's just, it's scary. But also, before you're born, you don't remember those X amount of years either. So that gives me a little comfort. But no, it's definitely very scary. Something I'd rather not think about until I'm like 80. I'll deal with that problem then. I don't know if I told you this, but I'm kind of hopeful that someone like Elon or one of these like freak smart people would just like be like, you know what, screw it. I'm going to figure out a way where we can slow down aging, get it where, you know, we can live to be two, 300 years old and just like set their sights on that. And then just kind of save us. So it'd be really nice. Like it's almost absurd to think that in our lifetime, they won't figure out a way to just even slightly slow down aging, where we can live to be like 120, 130. And then that extra time, they won't figure out some way where we can live to be 200. Like obviously not immortal, but I don't see how in my lifetime, the life expectancy doesn't just expand. Well, it also could be that the immortality is achieved in the digital realm. Like it could be long after you're gone as a Mr. Beast run by a Chad GPT type system. Exactly. Yeah, that consumes everything I ever said, everything I ever wrote. I don't want that. I don't want to live. What are you smart people out there figuring out? I'll keep you entertained, but I need you to figure out how to keep me alive. Give me till 200. That will make me happy. Well, that's funny. Who owns the identity of Mr. Beast once the physical body is gone? Like, is it illegal to create another Mr. Beast that's Chad GPT based? I don't know what the laws are on that. Yeah. I mean, once I'm dead, I don't care. Well, you just said you did care. I mean, there could be a AI, like many Mr. Beast that are created after you're gone. Yeah. I mean, that'd be cool to be able to like train up a model and let them loose. So my content lives on, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. But it somehow feels like it diminishes the value you contribute. Yeah, it's inauthentic, but it's also, there's some aspect to the finiteness of the art being necessary for its greatness. Yeah, the second that thing starts spamming out videos, the videos lose all meaning and it's pointless and it's a money grab. If you ran YouTube for, how long should you run it? For a year, how would you change it? How would you improve it? It's hard because, you know, obviously I'm biased because we're doing really well, but I feel like when I open up YouTube on my television, I get the videos I wanna watch. I don't know. I don't ever open it and wonder like, what are these? What are these 10 videos on my homepage? When I click on a video, I don't ever wonder what these are. And maybe it's because I'm very adamant about like the kind of videos I watch and I try not to watch videos that I don't wanna get recommended more because that's how I think. But I'm very happy with how it is at the moment. I think one thing though that I just hate with the passion is the comment section on YouTube. It's just so bad. But I know that's not something that's gonna 10X the growth of the platform, but if you think about it, you go to Reddit to read comments and somehow, you know, usually the top 20 posts on a popular Reddit post are not spam. You know what I mean? Have you ever clicked on something on the front page of Reddit and then most upvoted reply to it is like, go check out my site right here and it's like trying to scam you out of $1,000? Yeah, I can't even think of one instance I've ever had that happen. So like Reddit, it's so nice to click on posts and just see what people have to say. And I almost wish like you had that same feeling when you read the comments on a YouTube video. Instead, it's like, it's so many people just copy and pasting, so many bots that just grab the top comment for your previous video and paste it over. So the top comments on every videos are the same. And the things that break through that are just scammers trying to get you to give them $1,000 for a fake ad. That comment section is one of the most lively on the internet. So it'd be amazing if YouTube invested in creating an actual community, like where people could do high effort comments and be rewarded for it, like on Reddit. Yeah. Like actually write out a long thing. That would make me so happy. Cause like when I upload a video, I usually go to Twitter to see feedback. Like I read my comments and I'll flip through newest, but it's just, I feel like Reddit and Twitter just give me so much better filtered feedback. Especially now that with Twitter Blue, because people pay $8 a month, I've noticed like any tweets I get from verified users now, they're usually not just garbage troll takes. Like these are people paying $8 a month. Like they're usually relatively sensible. And so it's been pretty nice. Like after I upload a video, I just go on the verified tab on Twitter and just see what people have to say. And anyways, I live for the day that YouTube's like that. What do you think about Twitter? What do you think about all the fun activity happening recently since Elon bought Twitter? I think he should make me CEO, like I tweeted. Well, I should say sort of, we just like a couple hours ago had a conversation with Elon and you guys said in exchange of some excellent ideas. So yeah, I legitimately think, obviously you're exceptionally busy, but I legitimately think it would be awesome if you somehow participate in the future of Twitter. Yeah, it would be fun. Cause there's so much possibility of different ideas. First in the sort of the content, like dissemination, hosting, and all the different recommendations, like the search and discovery, all the things that YouTube does well. I think the most exciting thing is he's willing to move fast. And so I think there's gonna be a lot of interesting things that come out of it because he's just moving quick. And a lot of these more mature platforms just take years to do the simplest stuff and they're very bureaucratic. And so it's gonna, I mean, it'll be interesting to see which way it goes when you just kind of take a move quick, break things, whatever type approach to social media. I'm actually pretty curious to see what features he rolls out. So what would be your first act as Twitter CEO? I can't spoil it. Okay. I gotta get hired. What do you think about video on the platform? On Twitter? Yeah, do you think that's an interesting, or is it like messing with the medium, the nature of the platform? I think Twitter will always be closer to TikTok than it is to YouTube. At least in its current form. I don't see 20 minute, one hour long videos or whatever, even 15 minute videos being watched over there. I see it more as like the short and snappy stuff closer to TikTok. But at the same time, Twitter is a really good comment section for the internet. I mean, it's almost weird why, like why doesn't Twitter allow you to embed YouTube videos? Like why does, you should just ask Elon that. I don't know if that's a YouTube thing, but when a YouTuber posts a video, why do they have to link to YouTube? Why can't they just embed it on Twitter and you just play it there? I mean, wouldn't that just solve a lot of problems? Yeah, but then the two companies would have to agree to integrate each other's content. I don't know, but it seems like a win-win. I mean, well, it's more of a win for Twitter because then people don't have to leave the platform. I mean, that'd be the easiest solution. But who gets, like when you watch the ads on a YouTube video that's embedded in Twitter, who gets the money? It would still be YouTube, but at least then right now people just post a link and it takes you off Twitter and it just kills your session time on Twitter. That's really interesting. But yeah, because the Twitter, whatever the dynamics of the comments, especially once the spam bots are taken care of, Twitter just works. It's really nice. So Reddit is a nice comment section for the internet. It's like slower paced, more deliberate, like higher effort. Twitter's like this high paced, like ephemeral kind of stream, but there's the upvoting and the downvoting works much better because you can do retweeting, right? Because the social network is much stronger than it is on YouTube. Like the interconnectivity. Yeah, on Reddit you're gonna get, the top replies are gonna be the most refined ones, whereas Twitter, stuff flows to the top that's not super refined. But like you're saying, it's more off the cuff stream of consciousness, which a lot of people prefer because it's a little more personal. How do you think Twitter compares to YouTube in terms of how you see its future on Roland 2023? I mean, I think YouTube's gonna be YouTube and not much is really gonna change, but it's gonna keep growing just because, you know, that's just what it does because it's owned by Google, but Twitter, I don't know. I mean, it's one of those things, like you can't predict if a year from now an economy's gonna be in a recession or booming. And I think Twitter's kind of the same thing. One thing's for certain, a lot of things are gonna be rolled out, but who knows, honestly. You responded to Elon saying Twitter's unlikely to be able to pay creators more money than YouTube. Why do you think that is? Well, yeah, because I think the tweet I responded to was one where he was saying that users will jump over if Twitter can potentially pay more than other platforms. And I was just saying, obviously, because Google has Google AdWords, and I mean, that's Google's whole thing, it's putting ads on stuff. They've been doing it better than anyone else in the world for a very long time. It's very unlikely in the next few years that Twitter's gonna just magically, or any platform, give a creator the ability to make higher CPMs than on YouTube. It's kind of crazy. Like some creators in December, Q4, because ad rates are higher because of Christmas and everything, some creators literally make like $30, $40 per 1,000 views. That's after YouTube's cut. It's almost hard to think about how high the RPMs get. And even then, once you pull out of finance and cars, the high CPM niches, and you move into just normal stuff, it's still just crazy. The sheer volume of creators, and the fact that all of them get these multi-dollar CPMs at scale, it's pretty beautiful. So you do, I don't know what you would call them, but like integrated ads in your videos, and you do it, I would say, masterfully. It's like part of the video. Are you talking about brand deals? Brand deals, is that what you would call that? Yep. So it's a brand deal, it's part of the video. It's still really exciting to watch, and yet there's a plug for the brand. In general, just brand deals, since you brought it up, integrating them well. I think that's something a lot of creators don't do. Like, they'll just do a brand deal out of the blue. They'll just be filming a video, and then around the three-minute mark, just start talking about a random company. And I feel like if you don't want viewers to click away, and you want people to not get pissed off and call you a sellout, you gotta find a way to integrate it into content. And ideally, use the money in the video to make it better. The easiest thing you do when you do a brand deal is just tell people how you're using money from the brand deal to make your content better. And if you do that, no one cares. Now they're supporting you for it. And you go from being a sellout to like, oh, I'm doing this to make better videos for you guys. I don't know if you can share, but with those brands, when you have discussions with them, are they strict about how long you need to be talking about it? Or is it more about they're leaving control to you about the artistic element of it? The problem is the ones who don't give us the artistic element, we just don't really work with anymore. Because it's just, you know, we get 100 million views a video now, and I can confidently say I know how to entertain them and convert them better than these random brands. So yeah, if they don't give us that freedom, I just won't work with them. So you have that leverage, but for smaller creators, it's a lot harder. Yeah, and they're gonna just say 45 seconds, here's what you say, take it or leave it. And it's like pretty brutal. Because I think just in general, if brands were more accommodating to let creators tell their story of the brand and talk about the brand in a way that felt a little more natural, I think A, it'd be less cringe, people would be less likely to go, you know, tap, tap, tap, skip. And obviously it would convert better. But they're just so afraid and they want this standardized thing. Say these words in 45 seconds, right here at this three minute mark. Yeah, I often think about how to resist that. You just don't do them though, right? Not on YouTube, right. On the audio, I do ads in the very beginning and I say you can skip them if you want. I'm sure the brand loves that. No, I don't. Like the point is they, so the funny thing about podcasts is different than YouTube videos. Podcast people actually do listen to ads a lot because it's slower paced and they like the creator voice, like talking about the thing. But in general, I just don't believe you should be talking about a thing for a minute exactly and that's going to be effective. I wanna see the data for that. I think what's much more effective is the way you do ads, which is like integrating into the content, like put a lot of effort into making a part of that, like doing the brand deals. And I just, it's difficult to have that conversation. It's like a very strenuous conversation you have to have with brands. You have to each one at a time. And I just wish there was more of a culture to say like, the quality of the ad read matters a lot more than the silly parameters, like the timing of it, like how long it is, the placement of it, all that kind of stuff. What percentage of your viewers do you think have seen one of my videos before? What percentage of the viewers on YouTube, right? Yeah, of your viewers. Of the viewers on YouTube though. Yeah, yeah. Most of the people. Okay, sure, or all of them. It's just interesting because you're speaking very specifically about my brand deal process. And so in my head, I'm like, I wonder what percentage of these people even have any idea what he's talking about. That's interesting. I love the thinking about numbers. The whole time we were having this conversation, that's all I could think about, is like, God damn it. There's probably like 50% of these people have no fucking clue what he's saying. Probably. And we're about to torture him for five minutes. Yeah, yeah, probably. But that's something I can't turn off in my brain. Less than 50%. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is that exciting to you? That there's like 50% of people don't, have not watched a Mr. Beast video. Isn't that an opportunity to like? Yeah, I guess it's an opportunity to grow. I don't know. Honestly, I was just kind of excited to hang out with you. Yeah, me too. I mean, it was a lot of fun. Who cares if there's mics? Yeah, so it was kind of like having a buddy to go along the journey as I'm just kind of eating shit and doing my normal grind. It was like kind of fun. And also you just say really wise stuff constantly. So honestly, no, I never even put any thought into like the demographics or what I could gain. It's just interesting. Cause like my retention brain, when you talk about something, I'm instantly like, hmm, what value are they gonna get? How many of them are gonna be interested? What percentage of people do I think will lose? And I'm like running all those calculations in the background and that whole conversation, like the lot, anyway, it's just something I can't turn off. My like bells are like, error, error, this is bad. What are the different strategies for high retention for your videos and in general? It's like, how do you cook good food? You know what I mean? That's like the same kind of question. I see, so there's so many different ways that you, so it boils down to, I mean, do you think at the level of a story or do you think like literally watching five seconds at a time, am I gonna tune out here? Am I gonna tune out here? Am I gonna tune out here? It's all of it. You need the overarching narrative and then you also need the micro where every second, you know, needs to be entertaining. And you basically, what's interesting is the longer people watch something, the more likely they are to keep watching. So you don't have to try as hard in the hypothetically back half of a video as you do in the front. Like even right now, we're so deep into this where a lot of people listening are probably just gonna keep listening relatively close to the end unless we just have a really boring part of this conversation. Because they're just in it, they're immersed. And so a big, like to really boil it down to a simple level, you just wanna get people where they're immersed in the content and then just kind of hold them there. We had this discussion offline. And by the way, I should mention that this is like late at night. It is, what time is it? It's nine o'clock. And I only slept one hour last night because I'm an idiot and I flew to the wrong location. And I was like, hey, well here, we're like, hey, let's just book you a hotel and a flight. He's like, no, I got it. We're like, you sure? We can just do it. We always do this. He's like, no, I got it, I got it. He's gonna have to rub it in. I know, and then today, come to find out, he flew to the wrong airport, airport with a, or a city with a similar name to ours. Same name. Same name in a different state. And I was like, that's why you should have let us book it. And so he's on one hour of sleep and he's literally been dying all day. Before this podcast, he downed like two things of coffee. We've been going all day hard. No, that's not me. I just don't wanna be annoyed at myself. I just wanna, I feel so Sorry though. I feel so bad right now. Okay Open and it's 10, you done face time that day? Are you done face time? Are you done face time with him? Can those three be ended? All right. For sure. Okay, Offscreen, it's not working well 89. Well 나는 여러분한테 będzie saddle doen bastard Because she's stuck in the back and I've been in the front six days of this podcast. So that was a beautiful moment, you know, I was so confused you tweeted about that and I steals like like my assistant It was a Lex isn't here yet. And I saw your tweet. I was like, he's here. Yeah, he's like no He's still flying. I was like for like an hour ago. He just tweeted about a nice diner. Yeah It was a diner in a different state and then you had to fly over here and then I called you didn't answer I was like Something's not adding up Yeah, I feel like a such an idiot cuz uh, apparently the world Has cities like Springfield, right? There's like every single state has a Springfield. Oh, really? I think so. I think that's whatever that's like a Simpsons joke, right? That like it's this the city is and the Simpsons is Springfield and I think every single state or most of them have a Springfield and the same is true for like Georgetown I think the most part I forget what the most popular one was But there's like a list of these people get when they run out of ideas. They just keep Achilles heel Yeah, I got to I got to meet a bunch of people from From your team. There's just an incredible human beings it so let me just ask on that topic How do you hire a great team? Like what have you learned about hiring for? Everything for it for the main channel that you do for the the react again the the gaming channel to Mr. Beast burger to the Feastables all that The big thing is especially in this content creation because it's not like anything that's done on Netflix or or different content medians I really need people who are coachable and like Really see the value in what I care about because it's a very specific way of going about things and it's a like a thing You there's no one like plug-and-play like if Netflix wanted to hire someone to do a documentary There's probably tens of thousands of people you could hire that I've worked on documentaries before But if you want to hire someone to make super viral YouTube videos, you know, like we do There's just no one you can really pull from like sometimes I'll hire people from Game shows right and they have all these preconceived notions about pacing and how a video should be and you have to spend like the first year like breaking all these habits and You know and they think they're better than you like a lot of people in traditional think they're better and they think their ways better Than what we do and so for me it's almost easier to hire people that are just hard workers that are obsessed and Really coachable and just train them how to like be good at content creation and production then to hire someone from like Traditional which is the only way to really do it because there's not that many YouTube channels that have scaled up So it's not like there's a huge talent pool of people who've worked on YouTube channels So it's easier just to train someone then just pull them from traditional because traditional people just I don't know They have all these opinions and things and they just think our way of going about things is dumb Yeah So you want people who have the humility to have a beginner's mind even if they have experience? And see the value like actually a lot you'll still get it It's so crazy like especially some of my other friends that are scaling up their YouTube channels There's people that will come on and you'll ask them like what do you want to be doing in five years and instead of saying? Oh, I want to be working on this channel They'll be like, oh I hope to be working on movies or this and they see like Working on a YouTube channels a launchpad to go into traditional and it's like no, you just don't get it This is the future. This is the end goal. This is your career um, and so I'm just so tired of having those kinds of conversations like I feel like people really should be coming around are there like Recurring interview questions that you ask is there ways to get yeah But the biggest thing is like what do you want to be doing in 10 years and that their answer isn't you know? Making content on YouTube or you know, if their answer is anything like movies or traditional stuff like that It's like just a hell no, like it just won't even remotely work Oh, so you really want people to believe in the vision of YouTube? Yeah. I mean ideally it's like Oh working here You know, I mean, so it's less about the medium and more about just being on a great team is doing epic stuff Yeah, well, and yeah the media as well because those it's just it's hard to Put into words, but there's it's just two completely different ways of going about things you know like our videos aren't scripted and you know, it's a lot more run-and-gun and When we if we hypothetically blow up a giant car or whatever like you only have one take, you know So and it's not scripted and so you have to over film overshoot things overcompensate for like the dumb way of going about it a lot of traditional people would be like Well, just plan what you're gonna say and just plan the angles You can cut the cameras in half you can save 50 grand here You can save a you know, 75,000 hours editing isn't that and it's like yeah, but that's not authentic Like that's you know, I above you you get it It's it's almost so obvious that it hurts that I have to like constantly have these conversations But so what we live in but there's also a detail like there's a taste like I've watched a bunch of videos with you and it's Clear to you that you've gotten really good I Don't know what the right word is Style or taste to be able to know what's good and not in terms of retention in terms of yeah Just stylistically visually. I don't have to think I can just watch a video and it just it just Screams in my head like this is what this is what should change based on the you know Million videos I've watched and all these viral videos are consumed like this is bubble what's optimal and things like that it's almost like your brains like a You know like a neural net and like if you consume enough viral videos and enough Good content that you just kind of start to like train your brain to like see it and see these patterns that happen in All these viral videos and so that anytime I watch a video or a movie or anything I just can't stop thinking about what is optimal and so it's like it gives me a headache Sometimes when I watch something too slow, or I don't think it's optimal Obviously my taste is at the end all be all But that's something that kind of torments me if that makes any sense. Oh You can't enjoy a slow-moving. No, I can't and that's not to say there's tension on the Godfather is horrible Yeah, no, I've tried to watch that movie like three times, but that's not to say slow movies are bad Like there's an audience for it It's just obviously not what I've trained my brain to like and in Social media and YouTube right now like that's just not the meta and in general like you said in neural network You're training your brain in part on actual data Right. So you're actually data-driven. So you're looking at like in terms of thumbnails and titles and Different aspects of the first five ten seconds and then throughout the video the retention all that you're looking at all that For your own videos to understand how to do it better. So that's where the neural network is training Yeah, basically there are ways you can kind of see like the most few videos on YouTube every day and stuff like that I just kind of consume those every single day. I've been doing that for way too many years And you just start to notice patterns like the thumbnails on the most few videos or videos that go super viral Tend to be clear tend to not have much clutter tend to be pretty simple titles tend to be less than 50 characters intros tend to be this stories tend to be this and you just kind of like after you see those thousands and then tens of thousands of time it just Starts to click in your head like this is what it looks like, you know, so how are you able to? Transfer that taste that you've developed to the team So for like because you said like broad things, but I'm sure there's a million detailed things Like what zoom to use on the face to use in the thumbnail, right? Like the answer is whatever makes the best video because the problem is the more Which I have so many friends who are like this They'll make like checklists for their editor So yeah you know this be in this be and you need to have like a three-part arc and then this but the the problem is that's how you the the more constraints you put on the team the more repetitive and Less innovation you get in the more like, you know after 10 videos people are in there, right? I've already seen this so to me and I'm 24 and you know, I'm probably my mindset will change over the next 10 years I just haven't been in this industry too long But the only way to like really make innovative content and keep things fresh is to not put constraints on All right, put as little as possible and so that's why I'm very hesitant about all that stuff because the more I say the more they're gonna be like Oh, then that's what we do. And then you know, I'll say one time like oh, you know Ideally, there's a cut every three seconds and the next thing, you know, yeah every video there's like cut every three seconds or whatever so it's it's hard because I try to give as little train not training but as little a Facts or as possible and more just make suggestions if that makes any you mean publicly or to your team to my team Yeah, what was so we talked about sort of teaching your voice or your style? Whatever we want to call it to other people on the team so they can be kind of a mr. Beast replacement So what's the process of teaching that so you don't know I got you You're more time about like what I would call almost like cloning right like like Tyler and other people like that Yeah, so what when we were hanging out today? I was showing him how we have multiple people in the company It's it's almost like talking to the camera to have you turn slowly to the camera I was like it is have it is it weird to you to not be looking at the camera this whole interview I constantly have been turning towards the camera. I'm talking to him. Yes. It's a habit. It's my whole life I've just been talking to a camera. Who are you thinking about when you look at the camera? Do you like imagine somebody? I'm fully thinking about the person just sitting watching it and I almost it's weird when I'm looking at the camera I don't see a camera. I'm like in a haze picturing what the viewer is seeing when they watch it Yeah, that makes sense And that's where I'll be saying things and or doing something and then like what I'm watching I'm like, that's not what I want and then I'll freeze up. It's very weird when I'm filming and it for people who haven't Worked with me too much. They'll think like I don't know It's very weird like how I go about it because I'll just be doing whatever like lighting a firework All right. This is a thousand-dollar fire when I'll go to light of it and I like freeze because in my head I'm like this I don't know I don't like how that float or how that shot look cuz I it's weird I can perfectly picture what I'm filming by just looking at the camera and then putting myself through the lens of the camera while Making content I can do it at the same time. So you're like real-time editing in my head Yeah, that's something that didn't at the start come natural to me But in the last probably like five years it's happened And so I would say it's one of my greatest strengths, but I don't know how I developed it But anytime I'm filming anything like it's almost like the right side of my brain I just can just look at and I see exactly what I'm filming and I can just picture it well that's probably do recording the video being the talent for the video and then watching the editing and And like analyzing you carefully do that over and over and over you to thousand times Yeah, you do the editing more than the being in front of the camera. So like you You start to see yourself from that third-person perspective Exactly, then maybe that actually helps with the nerves of it too. Like you see it as creating a video versus performing Right. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. You know, I it's weird. I've never Been nervous talking to a camera It's it's harder for me to talk to a person that is talk to a camera which I feel like a lot of people say That though that are whatever make content right interesting. I've heard that so many times Or maybe not. Maybe I'm just awkward and maybe they're practiced I to me it's when you both are terrifying but being in front of the camera by yourself is much easier Really? Yeah, so much. I prefer it a million times over But that's my whole life It's just that's why it's interesting like you've spent more of your time talking to people Yes comes natural and I talked to a Piece of plastic. Oh, yeah, I guess you're talking to a person too. There's just then on the other side of the camera Yeah, there's just a pixel on a screen So so cloning, how do you how do you cheat? Oh, yeah, that's right That's all rabbit. Oh, so I was showing him that I have a lot of people in the company who are able to think like me and Basically make decisions like I would make if I was like if you were asked hey in this video Should we climb a mountain or should we dig a hole? All right, and like, you know, they would pick the same answer. I'd pick 90 plus percent of the times and so like one example is Tyler who I was showing you and he was pitching some content and you could see like this he was on point and Basically for just four or five years We just spent an absurd amount of time together and worked on every single video together and we worked side-by-side And same thing with my CEO James. He literally lived with me for a couple years I'm a big fan of just like finding people who are super obsessed and all in and a players that you know They really just want to be great and they're just dumping everything I have in them And like you were saying because I'd love to find that and develop that you're saying you're basically for a long time Just said everything you were thinking to them exactly like James the guy who's basically my right him and right now For two years he lived with me and we probably talked on average of those two years seven hours a day I mean anytime I had a phone call it don't on speaker and I'd let him listen Anything I was reading any content that's consuming like really just training his brain to think like me so that way He could just do things without my input without me having to constantly watch over him or give him advice And and that's where we've gotten like so for the first six months. He didn't do anything He just studied me and studied everything I cared about and how I spoke and blah blah And then the next six months he started taking on some responsibilities and now he can just run the company and you know I don't ever really have to check in on him. Like I most the decisions he makes are exactly what I would do And so I I call that cloning I don't know what other people would but it's just like finding people that are really obsessed and they just kind of Really want it and just being like giving them an avenue to like get it if that makes any sense Another way to see it is you're converging towards a common vision and that makes like brainstorming Much more productive. Yeah, it just makes it where I don't have to be so involved in everything because I just have these people I know will think like I will at least relatively close to it So I can kind of almost be in multiple places at once per se and so these things that you know I still approve every idea we film and you know everything before we film it all the creative I approve it But I don't have to like be in the weeds and nuances and do all this minor stuff I just let them handle it. I just do the more macro things. I got a chance to sit in To a lengthy brainstorming session with Tyler and others. That was really cool can you talk about the process of that of People pitching ideas and you Pitching alternatives or shutting down ideas and just go like plowing through ideas. I mean you kind of just Describe exactly what we did. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, but the ideas are really really good. It's just tossing out like different categories of ideas and then also fine-tuning them to see like You know, I change like thinking about the titles and I work so well off of inspiration. It's like it's a something Like give give me any word I don't know make a real space space. Yeah, like I went to space, you know What happens if you blow up a nuke in space or I went to the moon? I went to Mars right because you said that one word it was able to inspire me to come up with four ideas And so that's just it's for me If you the way to get a hundred million views on videos You need something original creative something people really need to see ideally never been done before all these like things And so you need like if you want to consistently go super well You need just a constant stream of ideas and the only way I've really found That I can consistently come up with hundred million view videos is to intake inspiration and then see what my brain outputs And so that's kind of at its core foundation what I'm doing there It's just like in taking a lot of random inspiration to see what spawns in my mind so I can Output it but the neural network of your brain is generating the video the title the thumbnail all like jointly Exactly, and that only comes because I spent ten years of my life just obsessively studying all that stuff because you I mean It seems like you would literally Potentially shut down a video just because you can't come up with a good title. Yeah Yeah, I mean that's what's happened to 70% of those in that pitch session I was just like oh, what was one of them genius versus a hundred people or yeah Like maybe average intelligence versus genius. Yeah. Yeah. I was like what the heck is the thumbnail even if the title is good? Yeah, yeah, I mean this so many but yeah people don't click they don't watch That's so interesting. But you developed over time the ability to kind of give it what what makes for a good title short? Not just sure. It's also I mean If someone reads it, are they like do they have to watch it? Is it just so intrinsically interesting that it's just gonna fuck with them if they don't click on it You know what? I mean, so it doesn't have to be short, but it has to be Like you almost want to have a retention to word by word reading. Ideally. It's a title also that You know because the titles don't live in a vacuum, right? So it has to lead into the content So ideally the title represents content that you would want to watch for 20 minutes So if it's a 20 minute video and the title is I stepped on a bug It's not gonna because it's all of it combined It's the click the rates gonna be much lower and then if it was like a five second video people might click it So you got a like even nuances of the length of the video based against the title will affect whether people want to click it Because sometimes they just don't add up. I mean, it's that yes Ideally you want to blow 50 characters because above 50 characters on certain devices you run the chance of it going dot dot dot So like I took a light pole and I saw how many dollar bills I could stack on top and they would just go dot dot Dot because it's too long and it can't finish it and that's the worst thing because then people don't even know what they're clicking on And so it's gonna do even worse short simple ideally and just so freaking interesting they have to click and it is a good segue into the content and it Represents the length of the content and there's probably stuff. It's hard to convert convert into words for you Like I stepped on a bug versus stepping on a bug versus mr. B stepped on a bug So it's like yes the more extreme the opinion typically the higher the click-through rate if you can like Pay it off in the content then it just supercharges it so like you have a kind of estimate of the Extremist this water right? You're like Fiji water sucks. Yeah, that'd do fine. But if you said Fiji water, it's the worst water bottle or the worst water I've ever drank in my life. Yeah way more extreme opinion would do way better. You have to deliver Yeah, but then you have to deliver because the more extreme you are the more extreme you have to be in the video Yeah, that's almost inspiration for you to step up Yeah, you can be more extreme in a positive way. Yeah, a lot of people it's easier though posit Negative clickbaits much easier than positively fate. It just is it's so much easier to get negative clicks And so a lot of people are just in my opinion, you know a little bit lazier and they just take the route like oh Well, this one gets the same amount of clicks and it's easier less effort The positive one is doing a large number of numbers of something Like I spent this number of hours doing this or whatever if you just wanted to help people or right It's just harder to get 10 million views on a video helping people than it is to get 10 million views on a video Tearing down a celebrity, you know, I mean or whatever negative video you want to insert there Well that said most of your videos are pretty positive. Yeah, so what's but they're not a lot of people do those kinds of videos Because they're hard. Yeah, they're hard. Yeah, some of that is giving away money, right? Yeah What's the secret to that? What's how do you do that? Right? Yeah, like give away money or in a video that made it to make it compelling Um, is it so there's a number that is better than another number, right? The higher number is always better than the lower number. Yeah for the most part and you know, it's interesting like Some videos will give away a million dollars. Some videos will give away half a million There's not really I guess so I'm retracting what I just said I was more joking with that, but there's no difference whether I put 500k or a million There's probably not even really a difference between 100k or a million. I mean, I don't know I haven't really looked into it like some of our mostly videos are not us giving away a million dollars and sometimes the million dollar Videos just don't do as well as the other one So there there is a certain point where a dollar amount is just a large dollar amount to an average human And so I think that point is 100k like anything above 100k the average human is just like that's a lot of money You know, it doesn't it doesn't 100k in a million like doesn't really move the needle and that makes sense Which that's a very nuanced piece of information that I'll probably have to look into That's a very nuanced piece of information that applies to very few people. But yeah, well, no, I think it applies. It's fascinating. It's fascinating human Our relationship with money is fascinating. Like why is it so exciting to get I mean, I you know the times I found like 20 bucks in the ground are like Incredible. I don't know why Why are you so happy? Like what exactly is so joyful about that? I mean, it depends where you are in life what the situation is. Yeah, I don't know There's also a gamified aspect to it. It's exciting. Yes. No, I get it. Like why people want to see people win money It's just interesting that past 100 grand. It's it doesn't really seem to make a difference. Like it's the same basically So you found that to be true with all the money you've given away that I just think click-through rate like obviously in terms of someone Receiving it. Yeah a million dollars changes their life drastically more Like that's the difference like oh you if you wanted to you could really quit your job As opposed to 100 K is like not really you probably do like a scientific study like a formula Giving away money to click-through rate. Yeah, there could be some kind of I got your turn It definitely the the returns level off dramatically after 100 K. That's basically the premise. What about 10,000? Now there's 10 a hundred thousand Funny because this is such a small niche thing But yeah, a hundred thousand does it from what I see in our videos get more clicks than 10,000 But the difference between a hundred thousand a million is just so little I just I think big number big number to a lot of people well, I pass that point Yeah, so 400,000 you can like a given average salary. You can probably live for a year given give a day out every salaries in America So that's like a big that feels yeah, I think it's also just more when they read the title It's just like it's a lot of zeros. It's a lot of fuck loads of zeros. Okay, click Yeah, oh man, that's fascinating so on the thumbnail side again, that's gonna be much harder to say probably But you know offline, you know, I got a chance to look at a bunch of thumbnails And it's fascinating which ones do well, which ones don't is there something you could say about? What are the elements of thumbnail that work? Well, is this also deeply? Well, that's where yeah It's the same thing like how do you cook good food? But I it's easier if you pull up a thumbnail and I could be like, that's why that's good That's why that's bad. That's a like an example would be like one of my friends I was he just uploaded a video recently and I called him I was like, what is this because he's a very very smart guy and in the thumbnail He's he's getting chased by cops, but the cops were wearing yellow vests so they didn't look at cops I was like, oh, why are the cops in your thumb? No wearing yellow vests? It's like that makes it so much more boring and he was like carrying a flag But the pole and the color of the flag were the same color So it's like it's a little harder to see the flag I was like also you're wearing like a shirt with like five different colors like so it's like it's hard to tell What even what your outline is and then in the background there are cars and I was like, well if you have cops chasing you might not make the cars cop cars and You know and it's like cuz in my head I'm like dang if you just did those like four or five things the video Probably got like 7x the views how much? Iteration because I also got a chance to see the number of iterations you do on a just a problem No, that is an addiction is it so you can't kind of There's a lot of the versions are really good. Yeah, how do you know what to like? I love how you when we pulled up that uh, the burger one and we were flipping through him. That's really good I was like, oh that's version like one of like a thousand But even the sketch the idea was good like already even the original idea is wrong Yeah, so we one of our coming-up videos We made the world's largest plant-based burger and the thumbnail we were thinking is like me standing beside the burger cuz it's six feet tall That's that's what he's talking about. So I just picture a giant six-foot tall burger super wide Thousands of pounds and then I'm beside it and then it's like eating the world's largest burger Like you that's just something you have to click like so you were saying like how would you describe a good thumbnail like that? You know, I mean like but I think you said the one I noticed first that was good Well, you were very small in it relative to the and you didn't like that one I need to come forward a little bit and also I the photo we took was just my upper body. Yeah, so they photo manipulating creating my legs Photoshop and that's why I said I didn't like it because my right leg was a little like off It was like bent the wrong way Well, I mean does the physics of the thumbnail have to even make sense I mean you can just like exaggerate the head size and all that comes. Yeah 100% Yeah, things don't have to be relative. Yeah, you can have a car in the background be three times the size Yeah, because yeah, everyone of my thumbnails my face is in the you know, left side very big so brand recognition So just people know oh, especially because now that a lot of people copy our videos It's just nice to like, you know, everyone else might make thumbnails like this But this is mine and obviously we usually over deliver and do bigger stuff Would you recommend to other creators that wanna that want to make it big too and they see mr Beast and I look up to you to copy some elements of you or to really try to be unique Unique 100% unique. You're not the next mr. Beast quote-unquote. Yes, we're saying that third person But whatever is not gonna do what I'm doing better They're gonna just invent their own lane. Like you're just not gonna do what I do better than me, you know I have so many I literally have the best people in the world working here and I reinvest everything I make even to this day You know, I mean like it's absurd the amount of money has been on content and I don't care I'll just stop sleeping and I'll just film every other day like you're just not gonna beat me at my own game and that's fine You shouldn't like I didn't get where I am by just beating someone else at their own game I just found my own lane and innovated and adapted and so yeah There's a lot of people that do copy me and it's fine Whatever do it but just know you're not gonna get to where I am doing that And so I'd advise you don't you give away a lot of the secrets basically everything? Yeah, well how you operate is there I don't hold anything back. Go for it You know, how do you think about that? Because that's also that's pretty rare. I think and this is a definitely not a Most people in my stance. I don't think would take this or my position would take this stance But I see every other youtuber so person on social media even is we're also focused super heavily on YouTube Well last year We're also the most followed tik-tok creator in the world as well I sure were most subscribed to YouTube channel world and the most followed to talk account in the world But uh in general, I just see everyone else as collaborators not competitors. I I don't Think giving advice and helping other creators do well in any way harms me And I think it only brings more value to my life. How was it? Jumping on tik-tok and trying to understand that platform from scratch Yeah, so from being a successful youtuber to understand a totally different algorithm fundamentally different algorithm It's interesting. Well, not even just the algorithm just the content like I'm going from basically 15 minute short films So one sub one minute vertical content is a whole different just ballpark And so the first little while is doing tik-tok is just kind of figuring out how what what does mr Beast look like in this short form content but recently we've really started to catch our stride and come up with some original concepts and figure out how to innovate over there just Like we did on YouTube because I don't want it. I didn't want it to just be shitty YouTube videos Yeah, you know and so like an example is um We played the rock for 100k and rock paper scissors and the loser had to donate 100k to charity We did we went to random people on a campus and we offered them So I said I'll give you a hundred dollars if you fly to Paris and give me a baguette and then they said no I was like, I'll give you $300 You fly to Paris and give me a baguette and I was expecting this person to say no and it go up to like 10 grand He's like yes and so he flew to Paris got a baguette and brought it back and gave it to me and that Across everything got like 450 million views and it cuz it's just really cool Just to see this random guy get on a plane spend a day in Paris and we cut it up real nicely And bring it back and so we're starting to find just tons of original content over there But it seems like an epic video to make for a one minute. It's like no one on short forms doing it That's the thing. It's like it's just so funny because like tick tocks been big for a while now years and then You know as we started to really figure out things on the YouTube channel and get it cranking where I have some free time We set our sights on tick-tock and like, okay, what are people not doing? How do we make it better put in more effort make it good and we did the same thing We did at YouTube just different over on tick-tock and it worked and now we're the fast growing They're most followed tick-tock account in 2022 and it's just funny that no one else did that You're not afraid to do epic stuff, which I also doing the brainstorming some of some of the ideas you like that's better as a short That's crazy. Yeah, can you remember one? Cuz I remember I said that a bunch I can't think of all I remember Is that there were like epic videos? Like really you're going to do that for a one-minute video Yeah, it's crazy. So like are you posting similar content to a YouTube short as a tick-tock? Yeah, those were just double up It's just hard You know what's actually pretty fascinating and people who do social media listening to this will probably find this pretty interesting is picture like the content creation meta three years ago versus now where you can make sub one minute vertical content and it go viral on Tick-tock and go viral on YouTube shorts go viral on Instagram reels. It goes viral on Facebook. It goes read it You know you swipe through vertical content now and Twitter when you click on a video and you flip through it So this is actually very weird This is the first time in the history of I guess Western social media that one form of content could actually go super viral in Every single platform. It's never been like that before. So they're going viral individual. They're like I can post something on tick-tock that will get a hundred million views and then post on shorts and I'll get 200 million views and Then post it on Instagram and I get 50 million views and then you know I haven't yet but you know you can then turn around and tweet it and it get tens of millions of views and you can post on red and it get tens of millions of views and and Facebook and get tens of millions of views and That's that just wasn't a thing three years ago Twitter didn't have when because a lot of you probably don't even know this but when you tap on a video now and you swipe Down it just turns into tick-tock. That wasn't a thing even a year ago read it That wasn't a thing year ago probably two years ago. That wasn't a thing on Instagram three years ago That wasn't a thing on YouTube right with YouTube shorts. So this is all new and I don't it's weird I haven't heard a single person talk about it. But this is the first time where content can actually Go viral in every single platform and you don't have to write or film a video for Facebook film a 12-minute video for YouTube Film a sub 60-second video for tick-tock write a tweet for Twitter and post this on reddit You can just do the same thing on every platform and the fact that your content has gone viral on multiple platforms regularly means that Virality is not accidental Sometimes it can be of course, but it's it's just it can be engineered It's yeah, so many people say it's luck and like you're just lucky or this or that but What do we have to probably like a thousand videos over 10 million views? Like we don't ever have a dud like you can call it luck, but I think it could be trained I I counsel youtubers all the time and show them how to Go from getting a couple million views a month to 10 millions views a month very easily if I'm even certain ones like it's just one of my friends like he was just really struggling and so I just started showing him Basically everything I know and just doing like once every week Sometimes once every two weeks calls and he went from ten thousand dollars a month on YouTube to over four hundred thousand I'm just doing these little counseling calls And so I mean people can make excuses all they want and say it's just luck or say, you know Well, I don't want to quote all the other stuff, but it's just it is it is a teachable skill It's a learnable skill you can study your way to Consistently make viral videos no matter how small your channel is even if you have zero subscribers you could if you actually studied hard enough and like Basically if you knew what I knew and some of these so I don't sound so arrogant Also like some of these other friends that have that I'd say are the smartest people in the world when it comes to content creation Online if you had the knowledge that was in our heads you could do it very easily I see people do it all the time And what's even more interesting is I go on podcasts and I say everything I know and these people are also very open Some of them I know it's all out there and a lot of people instead of just studying that and trying to absorb and apply It in their own way. They're just like no, it's just luck, you know, so you do lay it all out there But I got to push back to one Interesting thing. I think a crucial component of your success is the idea stage the idea generation the brainstorming I heard today but getting really good at generating ideas. So it's not it's not just the Selection of the thumbnail and the title that creative process. It's also just the The engine of generating really good ideas, of course getting that I mean I would say that It's probably the thing that needs to be trained the most for most creators, right that there they just don't put enough ideas on paper Yes, but also a lot of creators also just don't You know, which I didn't either for the longest time just didn't don't make good enough content, you know content That's worthy of getting 10 million views in the idea or the execution of the idea both I mean like think about how many people just make videos they film in under 20 minutes and they don't really put any effort into It and like, you know, it's like my first 500 videos didn't deserve to get a million views Like there's a reason they did they're terrible, you know, but at the time I thought they did right now I'm in the mindset of a lot of small youtubers or I thought those videos deserved a billion views I thought the algorithm hated me, but I watch them back now and I could tell you exactly why the videos were fucking horrible You know, I mean, well, so what was the breakthrough for you to start realizing to start having a self-awareness, you know about These videos aren't good enough. You're probably still going through that. You're probably still growing to see Yeah every six months you should look back and hate your videos or at least see things you could improve and be like Oh, I could have done this better that better if not, then you're not learning quick enough in my opinion at least Where's the source of that learning even for you now? It's uh, just look at I just got back from a no I mean, I just got back from a mastermind where I just got like, you know Ten of the smartest people I knew and we just locked herself in a cabin and taught each other stuff Constantly every day not every day now probably every other day. I go on a walk and I just call random people I'll just say teach me something and I mean, it's just You just have to have a never-ending thirst for learning like that's very imperative Especially if you want like if you want to get on top and then stay on top The only way to do it is just to constantly be learning or someone who is learning is just gonna You know have a leg up on you in the knowledge game And what kind of stuff are you because you've talked about offline that you just love learning of all kinds doesn't matter But in terms of videos, are you studying videos? Are you studying? Recently not as much I'm more because to get to the videos I want I have to build this business and scale up and hire So one of my recent time has been like my teenage years were spent studying virality and studying content creation now I'm studying how to build a content company so I can actually produce the crazy ideas I want to produce if that makes any sense. So yeah, and that's the business side We talked about hiring. Do you have trouble firing people? No, I pretty sure almost every person Yeah, actually every person I've ever fired we just give them severance and I like to see it more as It's no ill will like if there's like if I fired you if there's some other job You want me to help you get I'll DM them on Twitter Like, you know if you want to go work for I don't know insert whatever MTV give me someone to DM I'll DM like, you know I I Try to make it more like a transition and do whatever we can to make it as easy as well Something was just not working for you because you want people like you said super passionate because at the end of the day if you Hold someone that you on to someone that you don't see being here in ten years. You're just doing a disservice You're just giving them more in grain more and rooted and where where they are And the sooner you do it and help them move on to their like new life the better Given all the wisdom you have now if you were to give advice to somebody or if you were to start over again You had no money will be the first ten videos you tried to to make on a new channel I guess that's advice for a new person and nobody knows you. Yeah, nobody knows me Yeah, I have a mask on and you also I guess don't have the wisdom well, if I don't have what I have in my head, then I would say just fail like just a lot of people get analysis paralysis and they'll just sit there and they'll plan their first video for three months and Yeah, I'm any of you listening if you especially if you have zero views on your channel Your first video is not gonna give views period it's not your first ten are not gonna give views I can very confidently say that so stop sitting there and thinking for months and months on in and just get to work and start Uploading like all you need to do this applies to people who have not uploaded videos But have dreams of being a youtuber is make a hundred videos and improve something every time do that and then on your hundred first Video we'll start talking like maybe you can get some views but you know your first hundred are gonna start There are very freak cases like by Sakoshi or Emma Chamberlain who have really good personalities and it doesn't take them So as many videos and it's just like people who are seven foot five and making the NBA like yes There are free cases you can find but for the average person like us, you know We don't have these exceptional personalities and you know backgrounds and filmmaking just make a hundred videos Improve something each time and then talk to me on your hundred first video. Well, the improve something is time is the tricky one How do you improve something each time the second one just I don't know put more effort into the script the third one Try to learn a new editing trick the fourth one Try to figure out a way that you can have better inflections in your voice the fifth one try to you know Study a new thumbnail tip and implement it the sixth one try to figure out a new title There's infinite ways. That's the beauty of content creation online there's literally infinite ways from the coloring to the frame rate to the editing to the filming to the production to the jokes to the pacing to Every little thing can be improved and they can never not be improved. There's no there's literally no such thing as a perfect video So if you knew everything, you know now But no money step one would I just brainstorm like okay. I don't have money. What are some viral things? Like I mean, you know The first thing that comes to mind is something as simple as when I count to a hundred thousand Which is what I did do and I was poor and like that work But like what's something like that I could do that would be even more Attention, yeah, you were as part of the brainstorm You would throw out a lot of ideas people throw it up a bunch of ideas and one of the questions is this even doable? Right. Yeah, first off come up with ideas you think would do well and then ask yourself later if they're doable Yeah, because there's there's different ways you can accomplish something. Don't be cynical about the do ability of stuff yeah, because there really are so many different ways you can accomplish a goal like When we give away an island like we gave our hundred million subscriber an island Yeah, you know, you can't find private islands that you know, don't look like shit for less than ten million dollars So this isn't doable, right? All right, the idea doesn't exist not doable exit off But then you know you dig into it and you you know find different alternatives you find Okay, what if we just buy a two million dollar island that sucks and then spend a million dollars, you know importing some sand Let's build a beach. Let's import 300 trees. Let's put a little bit of canals cut some paths. Boom Now it's a really nice island, but it's actually affordable because we don't have ten million dollars on a video But we can afford to spend three and a half and lose whatever a million dollars on that video So like that's an example of like yeah, if you just went off the gut test, she's like this isn't doable You know every island's ten million dollars. We're screwed. Like if we go cheaper, it's just a terrible island No and so if you like There are so many different ways you can achieve what you want you've really got to push through notes, which not a lot of people do you have to have like a more of a dominant personality and just a willingness to When people tell you it's not possible just actually go through all the variables and eliminate them all yourself have a stubbornness and Resilience to failure maybe for what we do and creators online. It's very imperative that you have that I know isn't a no to you that you really have to like think and And just like we we take a personality test and like just having a dominant personality is a better indicator that when someone tells you Oh, there's no way you're gonna build a brick wall for under 100 grand You know, you'll be like, okay and then still go check the next 10 vendors. Yeah, you know figure it out Yeah, what advice would you give to an already established channel? Like with one two, three four million subscribers how to like 10 exit like increase it Um without losing me. Yeah, that's where it's very specific channel by channel. You can't give general advice. Okay? Yeah, because if I do Millions of creators are gonna see this and then they're gonna do it and I'm gonna fuck them over, you know I say see so let's say I'd like 2 million subscribers on this podcast Yeah, like how would you 10x that without sacrificing what it is 10x your stuff doesn't matter. So we you've talked about what success Yeah, it's different for everyone like is 10x in your definition of success. No Well, then it's gonna be right off the bat. It's hard because if you don't give a shit about 10x thing It's even harder to 10x. He does this because he likes helping people That's one thing I found throughout this day every time I talk data It's so funny with him because it's like, you know You could do this to get more views and he'll just be like blank I feel like that doesn't register anything and he's just like doesn't care which is it's really I'm really nervous about that I'm really nervous about the numbers affecting Because it's so fun. Yeah, it's so fun to focus on the numbers and I'm really worried about that but at the same time you should be Cognizant of that because you've created not just some of the most watched videos, but some of the most amazing videos ever So it's there's a strong correlation there. It's not like you're selling your soul to make a highly viewed video It's actually if you look at the metrics It helps you understand what is compelling and not and so I feel like I am I Feel like there's some value to Investigate what work when people tune on and when not to be date more data-driven even on podcasts But I'm really afraid of on the flip side I think part of the appeal is that you don't care about that kind of stuff But there there could be stuff that doesn't have to do anything with that and it has to do with stylistic choices of lighting and cameras or maybe with For example Topics. Yeah, you know like even what you've asked me here is like different than what most people ask me Yeah, so it could be that I mean and they'd be nice to understand that but yeah again I'm worried about polluting the day. It's it's this is a true case of its your own intuition Like, you know, your viewers better than anyone else. What it's whatever. See I'd like to push back on that I really don't you do I do else name one person who knows your viewers better than you Somebody that looks at numbers of podcasts, no, you know, your viewers, you know, you're the only how many episodes have you done? 350 exactly, but I'm not you're the only one who's watched every second of all 350 of them probably that's just that's just not No, I haven't but the well cuz you did it so you do know what's in album It's your content is you people I'm telling you you do and this is just one of those moments where? You're an intelligent guy and you just have to trust your like instincts like just think what is the typical X viewer? And what do they want? I don't think like that My tip but that's all you would have to do and whatever your gut tells you that would be the best guess You don't know what the typical viewer is though I don't I don't cuz I Choose investigate that would be very very difficult and they have to start looking at the numbers You have to start to like consider demographics the only way I know that anybody even watches it is because I'll sometimes run into people like when I run along the river and They'd be like I love you Lex. It's like, okay. Well that that's that's the data point and they're like cool people But you know, I don't know like I don't have any other it's difficult man. It's difficult to know It's difficult to know who listens to boxes difficult. And do you have a sense of who's I mean, you're so huge that everybody watches Yeah, but no, I still do I'd say if you were to just put a gun to my head and you're you're like, alright We're gonna pick a random person that watched your last video and you have to like roughly guess what they are and if you're not close will kill you I would say probably like a a teenager that plays video games like some something like that would be probably the typical one and then there are people that are maybe A little bit younger a lot of people that are older as well, but in a ramble random sample size Yeah, it's probably like I'm a male boy that plays video games like that's the best way I would describe it But I don't try to pertain to him I just make whatever I think is interesting and good content and this is what we were talking about before even though Hypothetically 35 to 40 percent of my audience is women which is you know less than a majority if we get 100 million views video That's still 30 to 40 million females that watch every video which is probably the largest You know views per video for women on the whole platform, which you wouldn't think that you know Like I can't think of a single other creator that gets more women to watch their videos than that and So it's just anything even like people above the age of 30, even if it's only like three or four percent That's still three to four percent of 100 million views is a lot of people that age So we we hit a large group of of kind of every demographic So what if we look at other maybe more challenging kinds of channels or not? But if we look at educational for example, like lectures or if we look yeah educational it could be short videos. Like how would you? 10x that like something on Of robotics and biology and science and engineering and all that. I that's more educational focus We would honestly just have to pull that because it's the same way if you went to Gordon Ramsay He said how would a new cook cook better? You know, it's like even then that's not even specifically you have to go channel by channel You really do or I'm giving horrible advice because if there was these just golden rules everyone do it You know what I mean? Like if there's these magical little principles how quickly when you look at a channel Can you kind of very give advice? Yeah, it's it's like surface level at the start and then the more if we watch 10 videos I feel like I'd have a good profile and I could tell you in my opinion You know one especially once I look at the analytics and I get more ingrained in like, okay The typical viewers this they're from here. Here's how they're feeling You know because there are people who make videos for rednecks and like the rednecks taste of content It's just so much different than obviously women watching makeup videos, which are so much different than you know, teenage boys watching a Minecraft video They're just all different. So the biggest thing you have to do is put your head your head in the headspace of the viewer and See the content how they would because if you just try to only give your taste which is what a lot of people do and Things from your perspective. It's very biased and it's just not gonna work for everyone And that's actually how you do more harm than good, which is something I'm very careful of Yeah, but at the same time just generating a lot of ideas I think the first time I've talked to you was on Clubhouse actually Yeah, I mentioned something about robots and like almost immediately went to generating a bunch of ideas around Oh, yeah, easily It's just a hundred robots versus a hundred humans. Yeah. Yeah, how far can a robot throw a potato? I think your idea like I think the first idea was because you just said so many ideas. I never even thought of but it's it shows the value of Basically brainstorming with people that think differently, but at the end of the day my ideas are probably you know might lean towards Some people a little bit younger than your audience like some of the stuff I'm yeah, there's still ideas like I think the first one you said because we're talking about a quadruped like robot dogs you said to replace a Biological dog with a robot dog and see if the owner notices something you were just quickly Brainstorming different ideas of like how this is years ago. I remember yeah Which is just I mean, it's like oh, yeah I never really thought about that kind of sort of it's the basic the tension between What does it take for a robot and our AI system to replace the biological systems that we the biological creatures that we love? in our lives, yeah, and but like that was like the the pace of idea generation Was the thing that struck me today and in general it's like that's how you get at good videos as you keep keep It's much easier to make a video around a good idea. Obviously than a bad one I get you just send yourself up for success. Okay, so that's for 10xing already popular Channel, what's the hardest number you said? and the numbers that matters click-through rate average view duration and surveys What's the hardest number to optimize for probably surveys, you know? Do you have any do you have an insight into the surveys at all? No, not really, but if you just click on a bunch of random videos online, you'll eventually get a survey What's this video transformative heartwarming inspiring what people rate does make a difference? And it's like you can give people click a video you can get them to watch it But you can't really fake whether or not they're satisfied like they don't lie the surveys, you know You know, maybe one person here there my troll but once you aggregate enough, it's a pretty clear telltale of the video So either you're making a great video or you're not What is it? Minimizing the non Regrettability, yeah, I think Elon tweeted that that's what he's tried to do on Twitter Twitter and that's interesting That's that's basically the survey metric how happy you are that you've been using the platform Elon tweeted we want to limit the amount of regrettable minutes people spit on Twitter and the first thing I thought it's like that's something YouTube already has a lot like their whole survey system when feedback loop. How tough is it to take on YouTube you think? Like for Twitter. Yeah for Twitter for anybody else. Oh, I mean, it's gonna be basically impossible I mean YouTube's not going anywhere and I I don't know I don't I don't think anyone's gonna do what YouTube does better than them at least not in the next 10 years you Asked on Twitter. Would you rather have 10 million dollars or 10 million subscribers on YouTube? What would your own answer be at various stages in your career if uh, if I had nothing I would say 10 million dollars So because with 10 million dollars you can hire some people and pump out content And with like a million or two get 10 million subscribers and then keep the other 8 million So that's if you believe in your ability to grow a channel if you well If you yeah If you don't believe in your ability to grow a channel then you shouldn't take the 10 million subscribers Because you're just gonna kill the chance So the 10 million is definitely a better question would you rather have a million dollars or 10 million subscribers? That's where it gets a little tricky because now it's like hmm, you know a million dollars life-changing amount of money But you know if you semi know what you're doing, you probably make a million dollars off a 10 million subscriber channel But it is a little bit of a million dollars might not be enough to build a strong team Because you don't know how to do it. So you might waste all that money. Yeah, or they just keep it and retire Yeah, okay. That's true. Yeah, cuz 10 million is just so high. It's like just never work again Who cares for the average human that's so much money. It's interesting to me also to the value of the subscriber versus the value of the dollar I suppose how valuable is a subscriber for? Like what percentage of the videos like how active the subscribers in watching the video? Um For you, that's hard. I don't know I was actually thinking more about the subscriber to dollar like if someone has 10 million subscribers have they made 10 million dollars I don't know why that that kind of popped in my head. It's an interesting thought Do you ever when you analyze Videos do you ever analyze videos like we've talked about offline of other Videos across the YouTube in general just to understand trends and social be home all your not all but a lot of questions are Analytics face. Yeah. Yeah, it's so cuz I love it I mean, it's just a giant social experiment right like what people like to watch what people share. Yeah, it's like a fascinating I hate that so back like I said before what percentage your audience do you think care about this kind of stuff? Like this deeply about YouTube analytics. I think it's a big part of it I think a large amount care about Curiosity and exploration of interesting ideas. Uh-huh. So in that sense, yeah, this would this was fitted. I love it This is funny. I mean, this isn't me like trying to make I love you I actually I love you to Magnus one and I and even your Hikaru one was really good a bunch of other ones But I think we're getting to the point now We're only analytics junkies would want to keep hearing more analytics talk and the normie is probably like they've had their dose of YouTube Talk for the next three years Maybe I'm wrong. Hey comment if I'm wrong, I could be I don't know your audience See, this is where you would tell me shut up. I know my audience you dumbass and I don't at all I actually I just follow the thread of curiosity and I think there's just a lot of curious humans in the world and and to me it's like So the question about analytics is the question of basically stepping away Stepping outside of yourself and thinking why the hell do I like tick-tock so much? Why do I like Twitter so much? why do I like YouTube so much and Getting even if you're not a creator getting an insight into that is really interesting It's like what? Because because all these platforms are fundamentally changing the nature of content people are reading books less They're probably going to be watching movies less and less. They're probably going to be watching Netflix less and less do you ever think about the sort of the darker side of YouTube and With shadow banning a censorship and all the kind of topics, especially if you see it in other platforms like Twitter. Yeah that Elon recently Highlighted the shadow banning that was happening and in general the censorship that was happening on those platforms. Do you think about the role of of centralized control which information isn't or isn't Made available through search and discovery. I'll be honest. I never really think about You just say you just try to make fun videos that yeah more I'm kind of more in my own lane But it's not like that. I don't just specifically think about I just like a lot of stuff in general I just kind of my own lane thinking about my own stuff But you know now you asked I'm curious. What are your thoughts on on YouTube and that kind of stuff? Well, I'm generally against centralized Censorship or shadow banning shadow banning is the worst one because not that the goal of creating a healthy platform where you're having great conversations and Videos that are not spreading misinformation that sounds like an admirable goal, but that's too difficult of a job for a centralized entity That's too big of an yeah There's the misinformation stuff and then there's also just like the videos where they do something that causes what happened back there the Adpocalypse, you know and a lot of creators revenue plummets because people are doing videos that advertisers don't seem acceptable and then now all these big advertisers are pulling and The little guys are getting hit and because ad rates dropped by 30% and the person who just quit his job to go full-time Contribution now can't sustain it. So it's also it's like a lot of different variables as well. That makes it so complicated Well, I think the big thing is transparency, especially around shadow banning for people I agree on shadow banning. You should be transparent. You should let people know it You know, obviously there has to be some type of controls people can't just post whatever and so if you're pulling those levers They should at least know yes, so they know how To improve their content they can understand that they can exactly if it's a wrong shadow banning Like as a society that we should not shadow ban this kind of content That means you should be publicly discussing it and how does it not and if it's not known then it's just kind of like well Then who's pulling the strings and like, you know, how do we know? They're not just manipulating things to get whatever message they want out there and silence other ones Yeah, and there could be sort of in the background government influence, which is where actual freedom of speech Comes into play that government should not have any control or be able to put pressure on censorship Of speech and it gets weird if none of that is being there's no transparency around it Yeah, that's a but to be fair. That's a huge responsibility the amount of Content that YouTube is upload on YouTube that is shared by YouTube viewed by you But even more of a reason why it would probably make sense to be transparent. Yeah, because then people can help fact-check it That's right. But that that requires building a platform that makes that easy right like To to make fact-checking easy to make the Like Twitter now has like being able to share context and all that kind of stuff that crowdsource it crowdsource Is the way Wikipedia crowdsource it? I mean there's It's right and then you open a random Wikipedia article but like, you know people criticize Wikipedia because there is a political lean to the editors of Wikipedia and then they get There's some articles that definitely have a bias to them and all that kind of stuff. It's a difficult problem it's a difficult problem to solve that ultimately as much as possible it would be nice for the viewer to have control of that versus the The entity that's hosting it. So for the viewer to decide I'm just gonna make cool videos. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go to Antarctica again. How was that? How's going to you just came back from Antarctica that I watched the video that was that was fun. That was a really fun video There's I mean there's a lot of things I can comment about that But what was that what was the hardest part of making that video? The hardest part was just getting out there it's just so remote and You know you land the plane on just this ice runway and it's so sketchy and then once the plane takes off you're just there you're the most remote place in the planet and It's it's just very breathtaking. I don't if you have the chance to ever go to Antarctica I would recommend it. It was probably like the in the video We climbed a mountain that wasn't named so we can name it and like standing on top of that mountain and just seeing Having nothing and because once you get outside the outskirts and you get deep in Antarctica, there's no penguins So nothing lives there at all and so there's just nothing in every direction is just snow and these crazy beautiful mountains and some of them stick into the clouds and It was and if you go during summertime, the Sun never goes down So the Sun's up 24 7 and it's just like spinning in circles at the top of the planet or whatever. It looks like top Yeah, you guys come with this several times how beautiful yeah, and so it's just yeah, it's just very Beautiful. What about shooting itself like the technical aspects of shooting it? Oh, I mean, well, so somehow we lucked out one of the days is like the warmest day and like forever That's been in Antarctica. It's like is positive degrees but at certain parts is also like negative 20 negative 30 and that's where the cameras you constantly have to be switching out the batteries and heating them up and like putting them basically in like your pants or they'll just get way too cold and We were prepared for much worse, but it ended up being much better than we thought So for that video, but in general maybe some other challenging videos How does how do you go from the idea stage to the actual execution to the final video? What's can you take me through like a full process of like we're talking to bought some crazy wild ideas today How do you go from that to a final video where you click publish? Well, I mean obviously first things first you gotta figure out the idea and then it just depends I mean pick any video you can think of on my channel I can take you through it Well, what about the in a circle you have to stay in a circle for 400 days Yeah, so for that one step one one of the most popular. Yeah, that video did really well. Yeah, so we Promise we have to This is where you get really into the nuances of the company because we have a lot of videos going out You can't just in a vacuum be like, all right, we're not doing anything for 100 days We're only filming this so step one is we had to build an independent crew that could actually do that for 100 days That way everyone else could keep working on the normal videos and not just screw everything up. Yeah So step one you build that team. Okay, we got the team now. What do we need? Well to do this we need probably like 10 cameras at least rolling at all times So we're probably gonna need to get a trailer and hook up a bunch of storage and stuff So to just carry the sheer volume of footage we're gonna have and so get a trailer set up the cameras Go on the field paint a circle now. We need a house go Buy a house bring it out there and then it's like oh wait, I think it'd be funny if I brought the house in on the intro But yeah, you know find a crane that can lift up a house So I can drive it in and drop it in the intro and that's like an iterative process where you're like, okay This would be funnier. So this is not all up front these right? Yeah, like you're ideally it would be but as you kind of See things you get inspired and then you think of more and more and this would be better with a crane Yeah, it'd be better if I dropped out of the house. Yeah. That was crazy. They did it So fearless in the kind of crazy stuff you willing to do exactly what I'm a broken record, but whatever makes the best video possible Yeah, that's that's all you you focus on okay, so What about the delegation of like who gets to what are the cameraman like the people operating the cameras? What who's responsible for different things? Is it like a distributed process? So like that's where whoever the lead cam would be on that video Which is decided that one because we shot it in the morning. We shot it in the afternoon We didn't a lot of it was just Sean and the guy who was in the circle just vlogging I'm just getting my camera and yeah, and he figured it out And then we'd have like for him just set hours each day that a cameraman would come So if he had any content he needed extra hands instead of just having someone on standby 24-7 It made more sense to do set hours. Nice. And Yes It was hard, but you know explaining it in hindsight. It sounds so simple, you know And I guess we're gonna go back to the question of the camera It sounds so simple, you know, and I guess like the more because that one is Relatively simple I guess because it's a low number of people Yeah the hard part about that is just the time like You know, I checked in on them so many different days and it's like an hour here two hours there three hours there over a hundred days adds up to be a ton of time and and even then like, you know, if you have a 10 person crew, you know paying them daily rates for a hundred days. It just all that adds up What about like the hundred versus hundred hundred? adults versus hundred kids What was the what was? Bringing that to life. That seems like exceptionally challenging Yeah, basically the thought process was we did a hundred kids versus our hundred boys versus hundred girls Yeah, people loved it. Honestly, I didn't think they'd like it as much as they did video did really really well So the second I saw that video was crushing. I was like, all right, we're doing it again But last time we did it we did in our studio So we built a a giant room put a hundred girls in it It sounds bad when I explain it like this and then a giant room put a hundred boys And we're like after a hundred hours, whichever room has the most people give them half a million dollars So did well, so like all right, we're gonna do it again So we threw out all these different ideas. It was like hundred football players versus a hundred cheerleaders hundred this hundred that 100 prisoners versus 100 cops just craziest ideas and we settled on hundred kids versus a hundred adults And then the next step was like how do we make it better the kids versus adults? Or the sorry the boys versus girls the first one we did was inside And the problem was every time it was night when we did these long time lapses you couldn't see the sun go up and down So we're like, okay this time I want to do it outside. That's why the cubes are outside And instead of doing circles we want to make them cubes and then you know is figuring out do we want that? Yeah, just those videos came up at least today as ones that are like really complicated in terms of the audio in terms of how Yes, yeah, that's the problem. We had a lot of audio issues because In the first one, we didn't have a roof on it. The second one there was a roof So there's a lot of reverb which then in editing made it brutal like half the shots weren't usable and it really screwed us over So we had to do a lot of frankensteining in the editing to make up for basically my ignorance So you mentioned that you were surprised how well that that that one did A lot of creators talk about getting depressed when The videos don't do as well as they kind of expected. There's a kind of feeling You can get really worn out by that dude. Yeah Do you yourself feel that and also do you have advice for others that feel this? Um, yeah, it's weird because I am a numbers guy, but also it it used to It used to very much especially when I was like betting everything I had on a video when it did bad I was devastated man I'd cry and i'd be depressed for days and it really would have a severe impact on my mood But I don't know now it doesn't really matter. It's uh If a video does bad, I just look at it and i'm like, oh, why'd this video do bad? Uh, probably Oh, there's a little retention dip there. I don't think people like the thumbnail. Maybe we should switch it I just look at it objectively unemotional and then just move on and I feel like that's a much healthier way of going about it So if a creator is listening like that is the ideal way to Respond to a video that's doing bad Just remove emotion from the equation and just look at it and figure out how you can is there next one Is there tricks to being able to detach yourself from the from that because because like in your case I mean that's true for creators, but in your case There's there's like a lot of money on the line. Yeah, well, there's videos cost my life Yeah so much time but no, I mean you just I mean, I don't know the only real answer is it's just a conscious effort You just have to unemotionally look at the video determine the problems and then move on like there is no secret You know what? I mean? It's just that's the only way to do it There is no secret. You know what I mean? It's just that's it's that and if you really can't bring yourself to do it Then you're just screwed. Honestly, maybe you're not meant for this game Okay, so that's part of the development as the creators like you're being able to be for longevity. Yes Yeah you have to unemotionally be able to look at videos that flop and figure it out because if not just can You can't not every video can be a one out of ten. And so when a video does bad You know that that just stress and depression. It's just gonna eventually get to you in the long run So you said you've failed in a bunch of videos sort of Taking them to completion. So what are some of the biggest fails? Yeah, weirdly enough as we've matured and we've done this more we don't have that problem as much especially now We're getting some multi-million dollar budgets per video. It's like failure is not really an option anymore So I'm a little more particular about what I do, but back in the day yeah, like we would do a video where we spent 24 hours on a deserted island and We filmed it did it all and I just I didn't like it after the edit So I just grabbed the voice and we went back to the deserted island and spent another 24 hours there and refilmed it or Could that have been caught and prevented at the idea stage? No, it's a good idea. It was just poor execution to be honest when we were out there was hot We were just like we all at one point just kind of wanted to die. It was just miserable So how do you avoid that these days? Well, I just went what is a little cooler to be honest And then we had literally the amount of fun we had the video was like 10 times higher Oh interesting. So you like there's some practical details that you just learned Yeah, I know what it takes to videos that where it's very hot or or it's on water because I get super seasick There's like a kind of like 10 things that if they have these variables I'm down to do it, but my fun meter is not as high as normal Like we tried to Anytime we do anything on a boat like when we spent 24 hours on a boat And we spent 24 hours in a bear minute triangle or when I tried to spend like which it didn't get up But I try to spend like 100 hours at sea or whatever just like on a raft It's just like I it makes me want to throw up and I get so seasick I can't even see straight but there are just some videos that require me to be on a boat. So I just suck it up So when you spend months in creating a video, I know this is probably stressful to some creators Like how much stress how do you feel when you have to click publish On a video now not much you're able to detach yourself. Yeah again and old me tons, I mean I'd be like Scratching and nervous and like my hands will be sweating like to the point where i'm almost about to puke I'm, like I really hope people like this, but You know, I don't know. I think that's just part of maturing it. There's different and as a content creator there's different phases and uh You just like once you get over the the fear that you're just gonna wake up one day and be irrelevant, you know And you just you know accept that like you believe in yourself and you believe in your content and that You can continue to be irrelevant then you don't I don't know you kind of are it's a little bit easier to detach yourself I guess and And that's I it's a much healthier place to be you can't do this for 10 years if every little thing just causes these huge emotional reactions, it's like That's why a lot of creators go a little you know, mentally insane, you know You have to get out of that that game because it really messes with you. We've talked about this a little bit But how do you define and how do you suggest others define success? I'm so subjective some some people success is retiring their mom Literally, you know for you success is inspiring people and educating them and you know, whatever the peak in their curiosity Yeah, um for other people it's just quitting their job So you have to self-reflect on what your definition of success is because I think a lot of creators kind of Don't really think don't introspect Like they kind of want to keep getting more and more subscribers kind of thing. Um, yeah, but subscribers is just a vanity metric You know, it doesn't subscribers don't correlate to views Sure or views what? Yeah, I know but that's more that was a direct to you That's more direct to people listening because a lot of people do really care about subscribers or even followers like on tick-tock but if you look like Your view if on youtube very very few percent if even a percent of your views come from the sub feed Right. They're almost all home feed are suggested. What's the last time you clicked on your sub feed to watch a video? Oh almost never. Yeah, maybe five years ago used to be a thing. It's not anymore No one does um, and it's getting harder and harder to find. I subscribe to way too many channels. I think yeah That's what everyone does and you subscribe to 10 channels. They're great But two years later your taste evolves and it's like it's a mess. And so This subscribers don't really matter followers on tick-tock don't really matter. Um, So anyways, it really they really are the definition of a vanity metric and but what about views? They do obviously because if people are showing up time and time again, that's what matters. Okay, so that That's a good thing to define a success. I just feel like um, that too can be a problem because uh, I would say You know if I wanted to be successful like as a young creator, I might say yeah, I'm gonna be successful Like as a young creator, I might start copying mr. Beast or something like that, right? Yeah, like there's you start trying to take shortcuts as opposed to find you your own unique voice, right? so like chasing views is a problem too, it feels like or no, um, it's as long as you detach yourself from I mean if you're Sounds about but you're lazy. Yeah, and you just want to copy someone else and not experiment and find your own way but I mean you can't make that excuse for them and someone just Isn't coming up with the original stuff and putting in the effort. You can't just say oh, it's because they're chasing views We need some match different metric for the chase. No, they just need to find their own way It just feels like unique type of content Will often lead to sacrifice in the number of views in the short term. Mm-hmm by the long term you win Okay, or if you do win you you win more I guess would be a better way of putting it Do you think you will ipo miss mr. Beast burger or feastables in the next 5-10 years? Beast burger or feastables? No, I I kind of think They're something actually, you know what? I just realized this is our first time talking about those We're like an hour and a half in that's so funny. We started talking about what uh, My retention brain kicked in um I wonder if you have retention brain for like life itself. I do every time i'm talking to someone I can i'm like, okay I'm, what about like loved ones? like Spending time with loved ones thinking like we could be doing something much better right now. Yes. No, that is a serious problem. Uh with Well, so we'll pause the beast bird question. Yes, but that's why uh, my current girlfriend uh, which I was telling you before when we were talking about this is she has a genuine love for learning and That's something I have like I I always feel like I need to be learning something to justify the time i'm spending and so that's why it's such a nice trait because I feel like that time is being used optimally because whether we're watching a documentary or we're going and you know Taking an iq test or reading about whatever just why modern art is a thing. I don't know whatever weird thing we decide to do I'm always learning and improving so it justifies the time so to maximize retention in your relationship Yeah, you want to spend time that time learning as much as possible. Yeah, I which conveniently I don't have to force right? Or or I want to be recharging so I when I do work I can you know hit the ground harder and luckily We're into a lot of the same things which you know happen to be learning sometimes It's not learning like maybe watching an anime or something like that um, but i'm a big believer and you're either if you well If you if your goal is to be like a super successful entrepreneur you need to either be working or you need to be doing something that Decompresses and recharges you so you can work again if your goal is to be like a really kick-ass entrepreneur And obviously we're boiling this down to like a very basic thing. And so The the things you're doing your down time when you're not working if it doesn't recharge you you're screwed You're just a ticking time bomb waiting to implode um, and so you got to like heavily recharge and like so like Watching for me anime or whatever it is playing a board game like that is actually kind of crucial to my success which takes a lot of maturing to come to that conclusion because I used to be the kind of guy that wanted to work every hour of the day and I would try to train myself to not need that stuff and I you know, and I Almost resented like that. I I have to do these kinds of things and it would piss me off because it's not optimal And you know, I just really want to make content and entertain people but Yeah as someone who's gone down that road and you know You just work every day for two three months straight and you know every hour of the day and then You just a bomb waiting to explode and lose your mind And the only real sustainable thing is to just like give yourself time to recharge in between working So there's a kind of balance you have to find you have to even and I hate it more than anyone else Because I you know You hate not working. Yeah, because it's just not optimal for time like it's it's it's As a human I do need to occasionally watch a mindless show and play a board game Yeah, and it took me a very long time to like come to peace with that and not I would have like borderline panic attacks when I do it because I think I just what am I doing right now? Why am I doing this? I should be you know, like What if one day I have to lay off an employee because we're not doing so well Like how could I justify watching this this show or whatever i'm doing right now? You know, it's like there's a lot of things like that that go on in your head, but it's necessary before we return to uh, Mr. Beastburger Yeah, well what is like a since we're on the topic? What is a Perfect day in the life perfectly productive day in the life of mr. Beast look like Oh boy. Well, I mean or like a stand. I mean the perfectly productive day is we film a main channel video Because those get 100 million a pop. I mean it doesn't really get any better than that What about like the average day when you're not on the set? Yeah, and you're like pull it like because you're running a lot of things Right. Yeah. So right now we have our snack brand feastables We have a restaurant chain beast burger and then we basically which we haven't even really launched any products yet But we have the the data company that I was showing you where we're going to roll out some tools for creators And then we have the react channel the gaming channel the main channel then we have my charity which also has a channel um And so kind of how i've structured my life right now. Uh Is whenever I have free time we just kind of go. Hey guys, jimmy's got an hour from 2 p.m to 3 p.m And it's everyone's just like I need this I need this and this channel's like I need this thing filmed or you know Whatever the guy who runs my tickets. I was like I need this tic-tac filmed or um, you know beast burgers Like I need this menu item approved and we need to talk about this marketing thing and then we kind of just look at what everyone needs and we're like That one looks like the most important we'll do that and then so It's just kind of like You know if I just did that for every company in a day Then that's optimal if I just kind of like an optimal day for me would be going down to eight companies and just Whatever they're like two to three biggest pain points or things to need from me and just doing those based on priority And then trying to keep it as short as possible Yeah to just the things that you're needed on it doesn't get more optimal than that if I clear the bottlenecks or some bottlenecks for all my companies then It's yes. That's a perfect day. Yeah, I mean even just me because you're like You're showing me around and you're being a great and gracious host But on top of that you're just doing all these meetings you you basically I felt bad at some points I was like, oh, I just tricked him into going to meetings with me. He's like my little meeting buddy. Yeah I mean it was it was fun. It's fun to see it. It was fun to see how effectively you've delegated You basically trust the team to do a really good job on the various things and there's just a strong team that's able to Carry the flag on all the different tasks. Yeah from the from the brainstorming in the main channel to the reacts and so on Yeah, it's really interesting I mean, it's it's really interesting what it takes to build a team like that because you very quickly build a very large team That's able to scale which is very scary because it's my first, you know I i'm 24, you know, and I think I was telling you this earlier It's funny because six years ago I had to raise my hand to use the bathroom and now i'm in charge of hundreds of people and entertain hundreds of millions of people and so it is crazy just how quick it comes up and I wish I was a little bit older so I could have ran a couple companies and failed a few companies in the past and like Learn from those and apply those here because I know for a fact When i'm 34 i'm 24 now when i'm 34 I'll i'll know so much more about running a business and scaling and hiring and and how to lead people and better effectively Communicate and all these different skill sets that will make me a better leader that uh That's the only thing that sucks is uh I just don't have those because I just haven't been through the lessons and I just have such a lucrative thing On my plate right now and it just sucks that I have to learn the lessons with the lucrative thing you know what I mean? Yeah, because you you you already have so much influence so much impact, but You have effectively scaled. What lessons do you draw from that how to effectively scale as a 24 year old? Like yeah That's something I feel like I actually could give a lot of value to to young people who are doing it like older people Who've built five companies or whatever they do. Um, I probably couldn't you know, they're gonna be like, oh, this is so obvious but um for uh younger first-time business owners you gotta just experiment to be honest and uh So for us like it's just a new space No one had really ever scaled up a hundred person team to build make content on youtube. So there wasn't no uh I spent all this time like I hired one person from disney to at one point to come in and and help and Obviously that was a dumb idea looking back on it But you know, I thought oh they make great stuff people want to watch and they come over here and help me build a team And you know, they build it more the traditional way and not like how it should be online. And and so then it's like, okay And now i'm not trying to trash people like they all tried their best but then I try hire this one person who Does this different type of uh media and runs a hundred person team and then you come in here and they try to build it That way they don't really listen to you or value or or see the difference and I I tried basically For building this company with like four or five different people who worked in different veins of media and And you know every single time it's just like they just don't get it and they like they don't understand my world and the the eventual solution was just like to roll up my sleeves and do it myself, you know with like james or him man and Just like no no one's ever done this and like no one's going to just give us a golden carrot and tell us how to build This company we got to figure the fuck out ourselves and you have to kind of build up people from scratch then Yeah, exactly all the stuff I was talking about earlier and all the lessons I learned along the way um, and so for me that was a big part of like It's stop trying to have someone Build this company for me and just do it myself because it's scary Like I spent my whole life studying youtube videos of virality not business building But fuck it. I was like, I guess we just got to do it ourselves then um and that's where things really start to click and we got the exponential growth and we started getting the right people and training them the Right way and you know just throwing conventional stuff out the door and focusing on what's actually practical for youtube Which is just completely different than traditional media So you train people and then those people train people and then and so on. Yeah I mean, it's just even like you know How you do the lighting on sets or like how you do the audio or or um, you know not writing scripts So, you know, we're just not as efficient with our filming like sometimes I have to have 30 cameras running Why because it's not scripted. I don't I don't know what chris is gonna do when we start filming He might run over there, but guess what? We got to have a plan because there's only one shot I can't you know, tell him not to do that Yeah, that's the shooting but then there's also the editing Yeah, and then the editing as well and not having guardrails and kind of you know I at the end of the day It's whatever I want the video The their job is to make a video that they think i'll like because it's my channel But you know you can achieve that kind of however and um, and so it's just everything's just different you know, it's much more I guess like a startup as opposed to um, are you often surprised like with the result like You think a certain like we watched the video today. That was really nice I guess that was different than you would have potentially edited it. Yeah Are you sometimes surprised by like a decision editor makes like okay? That's not the way I would have done it, but it's actually this is a cool idea. Yeah, of course. Yeah the the thing my biggest fear is I don't ever want to get trapped in like a bubble of you know because we are getting 100 million views a video on the main channel like but I don't want to get in this feedback loop of just My ideas are great or or I get that feedback loop but stop learning and improving because it It is easy. Sometimes we like what we're doing is working. We need to just keep doing it I want to keep learning and trying new things and I guess one way I'd put it is like You don't when when you're on a come up or you're growing you don't want to uh, Test new things once uh, you start to plateau or have a downtrend because if you're like, you know You you're skyrocketing right you're up up up and then you level off you start to go down and you're like, oh This isn't working anymore. Let's start experimenting Well, if you have a bad experiment now, you're in like a tailspin you're nose diving and you have one more bad experiment You're like screwed kind of i'm oversimplifying You want to test things while you're still growing to keep the growing from happening because once you like have You know again very oversimplifying that like, you know kind of level off you do a couple tests that go wrong It might you're like screwed, you know, I mean you're already out the door now You're just confirming that you're out the door and online entertainment. So that's kind of how I see it So I think it's very imperative that you're constantly always experimenting and trying things even if you're getting crazy unheard of growth and so that outside of the thing That brought you to the dance. You just dived right into Uh, mr. Beast burger and feastables. There's a whole nother industry like what was that? Like? Well, so beast burger we kind of It's supposed to be like just a pop-up like we just partnered with someone who had 300 restaurants and we're just like, you know Um, let's let's just uh sell beast burgers for a day or two. Let's let's see what happens We didn't really think it would be as big as it was but those first like that first day You know, we do six figures in sales and they all sell out and they're running to local walmarts They can't keep up with the demand and it's like, okay. Well, maybe let's just leave it open a week, whatever Um, and we're just doing crazy revenue and it's like, okay Well, let's add some more restaurants and let's just leave them open for a month and we're just still doing six figures a day and it kind of just went from this thing that was I don't know. It wasn't really I didn't really plan on running a restaurant chain, but here I am But didn't that in some sense also open your mind to something like feastables? Feastable is something i've always wanted to do because I I think just in general, uh, american snacks are just full of so much Horrible ingredients to be honest and they're not I don't know I feel like there also just hasn't been any innovation in american snacks in quite a while. Um, And so that's just something i've always been pretty passionate about the thing. We built that from scratch So we hired the ceo and built a team around them and we we spent Probably over two and a half years before we even launched just like building the right team Figuring things out and making sure it was actually ran the way I wanted um which feastables has just been crushing is It's very interesting. Uh, this is something i've never talked about publicly but having products in In retail it's like before feastables everything I had done was online so if you wanted to you know anything from the quote quote peace brand you'd have to buy it online and ship it to you, but Feastables now that you know because our first product chocolate bars. We started putting that in in retail locations. So like for example walmart, it's It's crazy. Like it's just it doesn't make sense How if you're which I guess it does for because we get 100 million views video So a lot of people know us if I go stand on walmart those people recognize me and ask for photos Like if I stood there long enough, I could take 150 photos today in walmart 200, whatever it is So obviously it makes sense those people go fight feastables But then you just multiply that by every walmart in america and it just gets so crazy and I didn't think we'd be doing the kind of revenue we are and we're about to Launch in some other I don't know if i'm allowed to say it So whatever but other big retail, you know locations and convenience stores and like by the end of next year We could be in like 40 50 000 locations and the numbers just don't make sense What are some interesting challenges about scaling there that surprised you the biggest problem which I didn't think would be was just keeping the shelves and walmart stock to be honest like So that supply it was like it was brutal well even then sometimes like you know you get them the stuff and they're like it takes them like a day or two to put it out in that specific location and I I had to stop promoting it because every time I'd mention it like 40 of people would just be like It's not there. It's not in walmart or I can't buy it. And so there's like a three ish month period where I just Didn't promote feastables because I was scared that someone would go buy it and it's just not there And so like it took us a very long time to catch up to the demand and also, you know It's not like we have unlimited money. So I didn't but now we're we're relatively caught up and um keeping up but it's gonna be interesting because now this year in 2023, we're gonna basically you know 10x the amount of locations we're in so we're and we're gonna try to launch new products or we're in for an interesting ride, but Yeah, I just hate I hate when I tell people, you know, like hey go try this product And then they go in their local walmart and eventually other places and it's not there It's just so brutal, you know, they made that whole journey out there and they can get it. And so that that's really it. Um Besides that that's it's been doing way better than I ever thought Uh, you've talked a couple places about maybe doing mobile games or computer games in the future Yeah, is that something you're still considering? Yes. Um, because You know, do you normally talk with people as much as we talked beforehand? Is that no? No, is that that was All day today Talking about my head everything you asked me is stuff. We already talked about not really Not really. Well, no, not everything I take it back. But sorry the last two questions. Yes, and so it's just funny because What no I try so good. There's a there's a different style of asking those questions because I on purpose didn't dig further Would you uh, I could tell yeah Okay, this is by the way, okay. All right This is the first time i've ever talked to somebody As much as I did with you Beforehand. Yeah, well on the same day. I know not even all day together We're talking only three hours one hour. Yeah. Yeah Literally, it's funny. Um, this is a Hilarious and awesome social experiment. I I picked him up from his hotel and I just like Harassed him all day to hang out with me and then here we are now. I love it Um, I was secretly recording the whole time just saying i'm just kidding anyway, so what was the question the Mobile game. Yeah. So the interesting thing is, uh with beast burger and feastables that um There's physical goods as opposed to like making mobile games or pc game, which everyone we end up doing which is software and I actually have a giant international audience like Most of my audience is obviously outside of america And so the problem we're running into is it just takes time to build up the supply chain and get feastables in southeast Asia get feastables in india get feastables in brazil and mexico and all these other places where we have giant pockets of our audience And same thing with beast burger. It's just it's going to take probably years Unless we partner with someone who already has the distribution which we're figuring out but beauty of software is I can make a hypothetical game or whatever we end up doing and All my fans can you know Use it tomorrow. Uh the day I mention it and so So if I promote something in a video to 100 million people and it's like a you know, basically like a game They can all download it. So they're you know, um, but if I promote a feastables bar right now It's only in america because we're we're struggling just to keep up with american demand We haven't even gotten the chance to go outside of america. So I Alienate a majority of my audience and it feels so shitty to just from you know mention something that most of them can't buy but on the flip side you can't just spawn this crazy infrastructure and just have Tens of millions of bars and all your products in every single store across the world before you promote it So you can't put the egg before the chicken and so Um, it's like that that's that's what i'm excited about I want to get into less physical stuff and more stuff that everyone out it can actually use It's the thought process Especially if there's a social element to the gaming too because it's not unlike feastables like that's a product you consume You missed it when you're setting up for this we were uh doing some basically just laying out everything Everything that we're planning for so we're at the phases where we want to start hiring the team to build it And we're kind of just laying out the game and I was actually really curious to get your thoughts But I can't say it because whatever I say Someone's just gonna take it and run with it. But you're a good idea about the kind of games you're thinking about Yeah, I mean I can imagine we also talked a little bit about it. It's super awesome Good one. I did so much good talks. All right, the juicy talks haven't you she's like I gotta go set up Well, you know, I already heard a lot of awesome stuff. I mean, but that is a different Kind of team you need to hire. Yeah, is that a little uh nerve-wracking like going into a new field and trying to a little bit but then I remind myself like like steve jobs Didn't know how to code right and you know He just he just knew what a good product was and I feel like as someone who wasted so much of his life playing video Games, I have a good sense of it and that might be ignorance. Well, that's really important, right? It's not about coding. It's about what makes for a good game. Exactly And again that might genuinely be ignorance and maybe I end up, you know It can bend the butt because of what i'm saying now, but I think just like with youtube I just want to obsess over making a great product and things that I think my audience will love and I think as long as I keep that as my north star it will do well What is the path to being worth a hundred billion look like? There's a path to being worth a hundred billion look like I don't know because okay, okay. Let me just like pause you're 24 and there's so much awesome scaling so many great ideas Do you think about different trajectories? Yeah What those possible trajectories might look like? Yeah, I mean if the goal was to just be worth a hundred billion dollars. Yes. I mean i'm My goal i'm a broken record So make the best video possible because I know whatever else I want will come obviously The video is the foundation. Yeah, exactly So the path to a hundred billion dollars is keep getting a hundred million views a video, you know, I mean, um, but or more Yeah, or more exactly if we can keep growing, but you know if we can keep feasibles growing, right? And we eventually expand international and one day we're in a hundred thousand retail locations and We're selling the same amount of skews per units per skews like we're currently doing I mean that would crush and then Obviously ideally one day we open up hundreds of beast burgers. We get it where we turn out You know like supercell a couple hit games. I don't want to make dozens or hundreds of games I just want to make games that are worth a hundred billion dollars I don't want to make dozens or hundreds of games. I just want to make games that are just great And you know, we rarely drop them what we do they're bangers um, and just you know, whatever other stuff we end up doing all that combined I mean, it's just Interesting because like what what's a show that's pulled a hundred million views per episode basically That's like we're doing like, you know, I mean like the super bowl gets praised because they get 100 million viewers But I can't think of a show um, maybe in reruns or something, but it's also a show that's has a um as a singular kind of figure Yeah, you can now use as a like I don't have a network tell me what to do I don't have anyone like I can do whatever I want So it's a very interesting position because I put out content and 100 million people show up And then I also have a gaming channel. I put out content and 15 million people show up in a reaction I put out content 10 million people show up I have a tick tock and I put out content and on average 20 million people show up and like and I So as long as I can keep that going and then we build these businesses. It's like it's honestly Pretty scary to see what will happen, you know Over the years because feastables launched, you know last year 2022 So it's a relatively new thing and beast where we just started scaling up the physical side We haven't obviously even launched any mobile games yet. So I think i'm at the antithesis of it I don't see a world where my youtube channel is irrelevant in the next couple of years I just this is what I live for and so if I can keep that going and then really start to expand these businesses that leverage off of it then Yeah, I mean Hopefully there's a day one where I can give away a billion dollars in a video. Honestly That that yeah, that would be one hell of a video um, let me ask you the ridiculous question since you went from being broke to being uh rich, although you keep uh spending all your money, uh Does money buy happiness how has money changed sort of your Oh your contentment your happiness in life money buy happiness. Um No, not I mean to a point. Yes, once you can take care of your health You can take care of like any immediate dangers and you can take care of your family relatively No, it doesn't like but those things do like when I first came into money One of the first things I did was retire my mom and like that brought me tons of happiness You know what? I mean? And like, you know if my brother had a medical emergency and and we couldn't afford it And I made money to afford it that bring tons of happiness, you know So once you take care of those basic necessities, so we'll say make over hypothetically a million dollars No, it it really doesn't like adding an extra zero going from 10 million to 100 million or whatever it is makes no difference so you're Given that are just fearless in spending the money. Yeah. Well, let me reframe I guess it could for some people if if you really I don't know you spent your whole life obsessing over cars It probably would bring you a little bit of joy to buy a nice Lamborghini I I'm coming more from the frame of mind of of an entrepreneur someone who's really obsessed with business building for me And a lot of my friends and people I hang around what brings us happiness is Winning and building companies and do you know changing the world like that that is fun It's a complex problem You can wake up every day and it gives you something to obsess over and devote your life to where it's just having money Does it you know? Well one Interesting question I have for you psychologically. So because you Have become wealthy and because you give like part of your work is giving away a lot of money Do you find it hard to find people you can trust? Do you find it hard to find people you can trust? It's a question Do people see you basically as a source of money as opposed to another human being it's weird Because you would think yes, but I I feel like I also know the right places to look Um, but yeah, if I just walked into target and try to make friends with 10 random people, of course, um, you gotta Uh, so you can kind of sense. Oh, yeah, you can say the right thing So quickly, right though, yeah, that's yeah, it's so obvious I don't even want to go into descriptions, but but honestly a lot of my friends are like, uh, Chandler, I I played little league with him. Um, And Tyler the guy I mean I went to school with him. Chris. He was my first subscriber um, Carl was here after we got big but whatever he's friends with the boys and It is a lot of my closer friends, even like my youtube friends. I I knew before I was big so Maybe there is some merit to that. Maybe it is. I don't know. I've never really put too much thought into it Maybe there's a reason I hang around a lot of these people I knew before I got big because it's much easier and they help you keep like, uh, your radar sharp of Who can and can't be trusted because you know, you can trust them It's difficult when you become richer and richer and more powerful Well one thing you'll also find when you get rich not even richer but more famous One thing I thought is as I climbed this like ladder of youtube and got bigger I thought there would be tons of people like me people I don't like that take like the kamikaze approach to building a business You just throw all your money in it. You throw all your time. You throw all your energy throw everything You're just like fuck it. This is this i'm dead. Yeah, I thought there would be hundreds of me Yeah, and and there isn't there isn't I mean there's like maybe one or two and I talk to those Motherfuckers every single day i'm sick and tired of talking to them, but I love them. Um, but It's just so interesting because like every level I got up like I get a million subscribers be like, all right Where's all these guys in the million subscribers that are fucking psychopaths and then you know, you know People become like conservative as they get like they get more especially as they get bigger Yeah, and you know 20 million subscribers 30. It's like every step of the way. It's like I just got more and more lonely to be honest with you you know, it sounds cliche and you hear that kind of shit in movies and you're like, oh, that's not how it works, but It is like there's there's just not many people that just want to give up everything go all in And then obsess over making the greatest goddamn videos every single day of their life Like they're really hard to find and be able to sacrifice Everything for that video. Yeah, like basically Put all the money right back in yeah, or the people doing it They're on just a small scale and if I talk to them, it's just 99.9% of the time I'm teaching them things and it's like so it's lonely because there's not too many people Especially in the creative space that are as crazy as you. Yeah, it is 100% It's so it's not what I was expecting. I was expecting there would be a lot of people like me But well, I guess the guy would talk to you almost because a bit like you in that sense Yeah, just in a different domain. Yeah, exactly just willingness to put it all back in right? And that's why I found right now a lot of the people I relate to don't even make youtube videos like so just like I'm veering more and more away from fellow content creators and more to just You know i'm just looking for those other people who just share a little bit of it so I don't feel so fucking crazy all The time like you know what I mean? Um and like people I feel normal around and they tend to just be doing the randomest things but you know Loving it. Well, I think that's really inspiring. It's uh It's like the bukowski line find what you love and let it kill you is really put everything Put everything into the thing you love and that that's like the way to really create special stuff It's not just special stuff, but it's also the way to yeah, it's live out your life. You have to be careful giving this advice because they're like They're like bodybuilders. So it'll be like just go to the gym be disciplined. I'm disciplined go to gym But I would argue for those people. It's like it's not even disciplined. They just enjoy weightlifting, right? Because there are people who are jacked but they don't make much money or run a business, right? If they're that disciplined they would they would be hitting every area of their life They just really like business and there's people like me who just to an extreme level love building companies, right? It's not even disciplined for me. It's just in my blood. It's what I wake up. I don't think about it I don't push myself. I don't need to watch a fucking motivational video to go work. I just do it It's programmed in me at this point and I couldn't imagine a world where I don't wake up and do it every day um But I think that A little bit of it is genetics. Um and just how you're hardwired Uh, not that it can't be trained or taught and not that you know, and obviously the friend group you're in influences these things and over time I think can change it but Someone's just not gonna be able to flip a switch and then just start doing a kamikaze approach to building a business Just like a lot of people try to flip a switch and start bodybuilding and quit majority of the time, you know It's uh, it's not innate to them. I think a lot of us have the capacity to do that in some domain Yeah, I think if you went about strategically if you surrounded yourself with fellow like-minded people and you know Slowly over time switched it. Uh, but if you just try to like hardcore do it, you're just gonna lose your mind Do you ever worry about your mental health? Did you take a step to protect it to uh, Yeah to like for the long run to make sure you have the mental strength to go on Yes, weirdly enough the best thing for my mental health was giving in to my innate nature to work And the most depressed I get is when I try to restrict it and like I don't work weekends or I don't work this day what's best for me is just to work when I feel like working and then Just not work when I don't like and just have no constraints because there are just some nights where I don't want to sleep And for whatever reason I feel compelled to go all night, whatever like just do it, you know, do whatever you want is what I tell my like working brain um and I just give into it and I feel that's where I feel the happiest and and then uh, You know, it's typically like but and when i'm really in the grind mode It'll be like seven or eight days just non-stop going going and it's like i'll i'll realize like oh I need some recharge time and then go fucking binge a season of anime. Yeah, but listen But that's the thing like people will tell you don't work weekends or don't do this or don't work past this or blah blah I'll give you all these constraints but for me and it's unconventional. I just give in to it I think there's something really to be said for that. I I try to surround myself with people that Like when I don't when I pull an all-nighter, they don't go like you should get more sleep There's a reason I pulled that all-nighter like if i'm really passionate about something they say they basically encourage it Because I I have no problem Getting sleep and getting rest Um, what I need in my life is people that encourage you to kind of keep going keep going with the stuff You're passionate about normal people. They don't want that life and they probably shouldn't it's not good for you Um, but yeah is if you hang around people like just whatever different people You're gonna feel crazy and it's gonna wear on you. Whereas if you're around similar people It just it's so much easier like if you You know Um, i've started weightlifting more and like one thing that's helped is just having jack people around they naturally just eat healthier Yeah, they do like they naturally just have freaking grilled chicken and all this shit and high protein meals And it's just like easier for me to just piggyback and be like, oh, can you just order me whatever you're getting? Uh, and they're like, oh I gotta go to the gym and i'll be like, oh shit. I'll just go to the gym And i'll be like, oh shit. I'll just join you, you know, and it's like it's just it's cheat codes You know Just surround yourself with people that you want to be and it makes it like 70% easier in my opinion It's like that is the cheat code to life um, and I wish I obviously your audience is definitely a lot older but you know to the older people listening like if you Have are in a place of mentorship for someone younger or have influence over younger people You should really try to drill that in their heads like the people they are around 100% 100% dictates the outcome I would I would not be on 120 million subscribers if I didn't find uh When I was around a million, I had a couple friends that were just also psychopaths, you know I outgrew them but at the time it was great and I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for them um and just all along the way the friends that I hung out with had such a dramatic impact on where I am like I I'd probably have 80 million less subscribers You know if it was if I wasn't so strategic about hanging out with people that I add value to and they also had value to me so the advice for young people would be to Be very selective about the people you saw so so selective. It's it's crazy like Chris, you know, he's I I He's really funny and that's why he's great for the videos and part of why he's so funny is he consumes copious amounts of cartoons And just funny content and so i'll find like when I spend more time with chris I'll start just quoting these weird cartoons and shows and like my speech will literally change And just after like a week of spending more time with him. It has like it's like that quick of an effect You know now picture that over the course of years. I mean, yeah, it has such a huge influence like pluck one of their friends out and hypothetically put me in there and You know, there's no doubt if they're trying to become a content creator. There are odds of success just 10x, right? Obviously you can't do that, but you got to find your closest version of it And just be selective. Yeah, but this also applies not just to younger to older people too agree But they it's it's even more I like when I was a teenager, I just you know I couldn't relate to many people and I just thought I was like a fucking freaking nature because no one was obsessed with building Businesses or any of this kind of stuff and so like back then, you know that advice would have been helpful Maybe not that particularly but just knowing that There are you it's not that you're a freaking nature. You just haven't found people that have the same interest So the task is not to feel sorry for yourself or somehow change yourself. It's more to find people you fit in with. Yeah I mean assuming which you know, you're not getting compliments, uh, like Assume it's not something bad Like if your hobby is shooting things, you know or shooting things you shouldn't be shooting, you know Don't find people that encourage that But outside of that for sure, uh Actually as an answer to what is the best advice someone ever gave you you said You're crazy until you're successful then you're a genius 100 all along the way people gave me so much You know Advice on why I shouldn't be doing it why i'm crazy Every step of the way people wanted to tell me why I shouldn't be doing this and should get alive should Stop being too obsessed everything everything under the book. Um, and then once i'm successful those same people are like dang You're you're a genius. Yeah. Wow. You really you pulled that off. Those are probably the same people that will give you advice now You're the most successful video creator of all time stick to that anytime you want to do something new, right? Yeah, uh, they'll they'll like pressure you not to do. Um, You know feastables or or mobile gaming or whatever lays beyond. Yeah, it's funny how people don't well I honestly the type of people I just don't talk to anymore I wouldn't even know what they have to say now So most people on the team are like yes, and they're like whatever the idea you got they they're with it. No, I mean It's weird. We actually have a my team pushes back on me pretty hardcore Uh, which I want I don't want yes, man, and they're they're like, uh, they're James, you know the ceo who helped me build all this. Um, he's very adamant like we're not yes men and And he trains people to really think for themselves and even when I give them orders like really think like is this optimal? Is there context or information jimmy could be missing that I can provide that could help him make a more updated decision? Like i'm not um god, you know what I mean? Like i'm human and I make errors and so don't take what I say That's the bible So even like in the brainstorming and so on they can they can push back Yeah, you can see it like tyler anytime I said something he would give me feedback and push back which is what I want I don't want him just to be like yes, you're a fucking genius. Good job. Jimmy, you know, I don't need that. You know, I need negatives uh You talked about being in a relationship. What role Jimmy does love play in the human condition? I think Well, well this well big thing is love can be scary because this is you know The human you're gonna spend the most amount of time with in your life, you know And so for project that over 50 years, they can be a liability or an asset. I love the metrics, you know I love no, but seriously, it's got to be someone that makes you better for me I can't truly love someone that doesn't make me better because yeah in the long run Yeah across across because if not, then it's like it's a negative, you know to everything. I've spent my life building Um, but luckily i'm very happy with the partner. I haven't like we were talking about before I do think she makes me better There's a lot of actually positives I've noticed even things as simple as like you know, I struggle to turn off my brain at night because i'm just thinking about all the businesses and how we could do better or Whatever weird thing I have on my mind but you know just chatting with her and hanging out with her helps me like basically just Shut my brain off and like mellow out and even like there's just a ton of little things like that that i've noticed are Positives especially when you really look for them that are easy to gloss over if you're not um And so for me, yeah, I have someone who I think is very beautiful very intelligent makes me better It's constantly pushing me okay with me working hard makes me smarter and just all these different things that I think for me love Just makes me a better person. You know what I mean? Which makes me love her even more. Does that make sense? Does that make sense? Absolutely. What advice would you give on finding somebody like that? um Just really don't give up until you you find someone that you know There's so many people on the planet. I mean there really is there there's billions of the odds are in your favor of yeah Like just don't settle and find someone that you know makes you happy Yeah, just like you said surround yourself with people That that make you a better person in the same case surround yourself with that one special person that really makes you a better person And maybe that's just an entrepreneurial brain looking at it Not everyone wants to hyper optimize their life like me but for me to like truly love someone they have to make me a better Person in every way. Yeah. Yeah Well, what do you hope you're 24? We started talking about death. Let's let's let's finish talking about death What do you hope your legacy is when you when we look a hundred years from now? And yeah alien the ai has completely taken over and the aliens visit and discuss with the ai What this last of special humans that existed on earth was like what what do you hope they say about you? um It's a deep one Probably just that Uh because it's it's hard right like I said before elon is over double my age. I could live every second I've lived up to this point in my life and still not even be elon's age. So I have so much time I just hope whatever it is that it's a net positive on the world and it impacts billions of people in a positive way that makes lasting change so you admire people like steve jobs and elon musk for having Sort of reached for that goal as well. Yeah, of course to help to help millions I mean the iphone's the most successful product ever invented. It's hard not to admire what he created, you know um the same with sort of as johnny ive talks about like The the passion the effort they put into the designing The iphone that like little bit of love is transferred to the whole world like they get to experience the joy of that from the Designer it's what a beautiful thing to do, you know, I mean, I couldn't think of anything better You know to create something that even after you're dead for decades just has such a Profound impact on basically half the human population. Yeah, it's wild brings joy to people Yeah, um, well, I hope you do just that man You've already done it for millions and millions and millions and millions of people and I hope you keep doing it I'm, I can't like it's so exciting to see what happens this year and next year. I know like the size the limit Yeah, I can't I mean, um The videos but all the other businesses you're in and you as a human being as you grow Yeah, I can tell I know as everyone knows you have a kind heart and the fact that you're really damn good at uh Actually using that kind of heart to help a lot of people. It's awesome to see man I appreciate more importantly before we go. Are we gonna play dune tonight? Some board i'm gonna play dune I have to I have you know one hour You don't want to play board games with me. I want to i'll play You don't play board games? If only I wasn't an idiot and actually flew to the right airport If you don't play board games with me, they're gonna dislike the video Thanks for listening to this conversation with Mr. Beast to support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description And now let me leave you with some words from the poet and philosopher Reverend Ranath Tagore Reach high for stars lie hidden in you. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time