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MrBeast: Future of YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram | Lex Fridman Podcast #351
2 hours 17 minutes 46 seconds
🇬🇧 English
Speaker 1
00:00
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 1000000000 views?
Speaker 2
00:09
I think maybe 1 of the videos we've already made might get a billion views.
Speaker 1
00:13
Which 1 do you think?
Speaker 2
00:14
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 4 are projected over 10 years because YouTube's not going anywhere,
Speaker 1
00:27
probably 1 of those. So over time, they don't necessarily plateau.
Speaker 2
00:30
It's interesting. We're literally jumping right into it. I love it.
Speaker 2
00:33
It's good. So I'm a firm believer that it's much easier to hypothetically get 10 million views on 1 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.
Speaker 2
00:54
And so if you just make a great video, and it's constantly just above every other video, even 2 years down the road, then they'll just keep serving it and never stop, which is why it's much easier to make 1 great video than a bunch of mediocre ones.
Speaker 1
01:07
What about 1000000000 subscribers? You've passed PewDiePie's the most subscribed to YouTube channel. When do you think you get a billion?
Speaker 2
01:16
Let me do some math real quick. So we're on
Speaker 1
01:18
120. Do you think about this?
Speaker 2
01:20
No, I don't, honestly. Because 1 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 like focusing on all these arbitrary vanity metrics, I just kind of focus on the 1 thing that gets me all that, which is make good videos.
Speaker 2
01:42
But, and I do think we will 1 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.
Speaker 1
02:00
I wanted to ask you those family-friendly questions before I go to the dark questions. So now,
Speaker 2
02:04
what is it? Oh, we have dark questions. But if you wanted to hook them, you would start off with the dark questions.
Speaker 2
02:09
That's how you get them.
Speaker 1
02:10
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.
Speaker 1
02:29
That's, at least at the time I checked, 850,000 people committing murder for just $8.5 billion in total. So what do
Speaker 2
02:38
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.
Speaker 2
02:47
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.
Speaker 2
03:06
And so I don't really know. I mean, I feel like your take would be better than mine.
Speaker 1
03:09
Was it disturbing to you, surprising to you?
Speaker 2
03:11
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 like dead serious.
Speaker 1
03:19
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 listened to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast. He has a episode on painfotainment, which he describes throughout history how humans have been really attracted to watching the suffering of others.
Speaker 1
03:41
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 a 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.
Speaker 1
04:10
And so I think part of the lulls reveals something that's actually true in that poll.
Speaker 2
04:16
Your answer's so much better than mine.
Speaker 1
04:18
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?
Speaker 2
04:27
Yeah, something
Speaker 1
04:28
like that. Something like this? So just imagine, thought experiment, how many views that video would get if it was real.
Speaker 2
04:39
Yeah, assuming YouTube was like, ah, we'll turn a blind eye, we won't take it down. Yeah, I mean, obviously it'd probably have billions of views.
Speaker 1
04:46
How do you think you'll die? And do you think it'll be during a video?
Speaker 2
04:49
Probably doing something dumb like going to space when I'm older, like 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.
Speaker 2
04:59
So it's not really risk. But yeah, I could see myself, like, you know, 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.
Speaker 1
05:09
So not in the name of a video, just for the holiday?
Speaker 2
05:12
Heck no.
Speaker 1
05:13
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?
Speaker 2
05:19
Of course, but we had that video in the works for 3 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 that where we could get harmed, we just pre-plan for it.
Speaker 2
05:39
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 themself alive. You know, the coffin we used to bury me, we did so many tests.
Speaker 2
05:50
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. Like, So we just tend to just not leave anything up to chance.
Speaker 1
06:05
Another strange question then. So you recorded these videos to yourself 5 years, 10 years from now. Have you recorded a video that's to be released once you die?
Speaker 2
06:17
Well, first off, I am just glad that not every 1 of your questions have to do with views or things like that. It's nice getting different questions. So this is good.
Speaker 2
06:26
No, seriously. It's
Speaker 1
06:27
a little dark.
Speaker 2
06:27
No, 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 for when people talk to me. So it's nice.
Speaker 2
06:37
But for the videos I've 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 1 where I was like, hi me in a year. And the video went up a year later. And it was just like, hey, I think you'll have a hundred thousand subscribers.
Speaker 2
06:54
And then I did 1 where I was like, hi me in 5 years. I was like, hey, in 5 years, I think you'll have a million. And then 1 that hasn't come out yet, but comes out in 2 years, is what was high me in 10 years. And I tried to predict 10 years later how many subs I'd have.
Speaker 2
07:05
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 7 years ago.
Speaker 2
07:17
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. 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.
Speaker 2
07:32
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 3 months to live, I would vlog every day, I'd film so many videos, and then I would just schedule upload a video a week for like the next 5 years. So it's like I'm still alive. And I would completely act like I'm still alive and everything.
Speaker 2
07:50
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 a decade's worth of content and schedule upload it so they automatically go public in the future.
Speaker 2
08:07
And so it's just like I never died, I'm just there.
Speaker 1
08:10
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.
Speaker 1
08:19
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 what you really care about. I guess it's like writing a will.
Speaker 1
08:37
But when you're younger, you don't think about that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2
08:39
But. Exactly, mine was just dumb. Yeah. Like I'm bones in a coffin.
Speaker 2
08:43
Yeah. Yours was probably so serious.
Speaker 1
08:45
No, it's fun actually. What you realize is there's no point to be serious at this point. It's a weird thing.
Speaker 1
08:51
I guess you've done this, but it's a weird thing to address the world when you, the physical you, is no longer there. So you know this would only be released if you're no longer there. That's a weird exercise.
Speaker 2
09:01
You know what's funny? Of all the people listening to this, we're probably the only 2 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.
Speaker 1
09:12
I think people should think about doing that. It's not just about YouTube, it's also social media. Just think about it.
Speaker 1
09:17
Like there's gonna be a last tweet, and a last, I don't know, Facebook post, a last Instagram post. And yeah, I feel like there's some aspects 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.
Speaker 2
09:37
Do you think that would help them cope or not? Like if someone randomly watching this did film a video, you know, for 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.
Speaker 1
09:48
I think it would really help. I mean, it depends.
Speaker 2
09:50
Like how would you even intro that? Like, hey mom, if you're seeing this, you know, it means I'm probably dead.
Speaker 1
09:55
Yeah, exactly. That's how you intro it. That's the opener.
Speaker 2
09:59
I just want you to know, Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1
10:01
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
Speaker 2
10:13
like, McDonald's,
Speaker 1
10:14
screwed up my order. Exactly.
Speaker 2
10:16
And then you're dead, that's it, 100 years.
Speaker 1
10:19
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.
Speaker 1
10:32
And 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 over for me. If I'm making the video, it's over for me. It's an interesting thought experiment.
Speaker 1
10:43
I recommend people Try it. Okay, are you afraid of death, by the way?
Speaker 2
10:51
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 billions squared years.
Speaker 2
11:06
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.
Speaker 2
11:18
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 1 of these like freak smart people would just like be like, you know what, screw it. I'm gonna figure out a way where we can slow down aging, get it where, you know, we can live to be 2, 300 years old and just set their sights on that and then just kind of save us. So it'd be really nice.
Speaker 2
11:38
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 could 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.
Speaker 1
11:56
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.
Speaker 2
12:06
Exactly, yeah, that consumes everything I ever said, everything I ever wrote, and I don't want that. I don't wanna live. What are you smart people out there figuring out?
Speaker 2
12:13
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.
Speaker 1
12:20
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.
Speaker 1
12:27
Beast that's Chad GPT based? I don't know what the laws are on that.
Speaker 2
12:31
Yeah, I mean, once I'm dead, I don't care. Wow. But you just said
Speaker 1
12:36
you did care. I mean, there could be a AI, like many Mr. Beast that are created after you're gone.
Speaker 2
12:41
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.
Speaker 1
12:48
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.
Speaker 2
13:02
Yeah, the second that thing starts spamming out videos, the videos lose all meaning and it's pointless and it's a money grab.
Speaker 1
13:09
If you ran YouTube for, how long should you run it? For a year, how would you change it? How would you improve it?
Speaker 2
13:15
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 want to watch. I don't know.
Speaker 2
13:25
I don't ever open them 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 the kind of videos I watch.
Speaker 2
13:38
And I try not to watch videos that I don't want to get recommended more, because that's how I think. But I'm very happy with how it is at the moment. I think 1 thing though that I just hate with the passion is the comment section on YouTube. It's just so bad.
Speaker 2
13:51
But I know that's not something that's going to 10x the growth of the platform. But if you think about it, you go to Reddit to read comments and somehow like that, you know, usually the top 20 posts on a popular Reddit post are not spam. You know what I mean? Like, 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.
Speaker 2
14:11
And it's like trying to scam you out of
Speaker 1
14:13
$1,000.
Speaker 2
14:14
Yeah, I can't even think of 1 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.
Speaker 2
14:25
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 video is 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 1
Speaker 1
14:41
of the most lively on the internet. And 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. Like actually write out a long thing.
Speaker 2
14:52
That would make me so happy. Because 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.
Speaker 2
15:18
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.
Speaker 1
15:31
What do you think about Twitter? What do you think about all the fun activity happening recently since Elon bought Twitter?
Speaker 2
15:41
I think he should make me CEO, like I tweeted.
Speaker 1
15:46
Well, I should say, we just 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.
Speaker 2
16:03
Yeah, it would be fun.
Speaker 1
16:04
Because 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
Speaker 2
16:16
the most exciting thing is he's willing to move fast. And so I think there's going to 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.
Speaker 2
16:29
And they're very bureaucratic. So it's going to 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.
Speaker 1
16:42
So what would be your first act as Twitter CEO?
Speaker 2
16:46
I can't spoil it. Okay. I gotta get hired.
Speaker 1
16:51
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?
Speaker 2
17:00
I think Twitter will always be closer to TikTok than it is to YouTube, at least in its current form. I don't see
Speaker 1
17:07
20
Speaker 2
17:07
minute, 1 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.
Speaker 2
17:20
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. Like, 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?
Speaker 2
17:35
I mean, wouldn't that just solve a lot of problems?
Speaker 1
17:37
Yeah, but then the 2 companies would have to agree to integrate each other's content.
Speaker 2
17:41
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.
Speaker 1
17:49
But who gets, like, when you watch the ads on a YouTube video that's embedded in Twitter, who gets the money?
Speaker 2
17:54
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.
Speaker 1
18:00
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.
Speaker 1
18:13
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 vote, the upvoting, 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.
Speaker 2
18:31
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.
Speaker 1
18:45
How do you think Twitter compares to YouTube in terms of how you see its future unroll in 2023? I
Speaker 2
18:51
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 1 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. 1 thing's for certain, a lot of things are gonna be rolled out, but who knows, honestly.
Speaker 1
19:16
You responded to Elon saying Twitter's unlikely to be able to pay creators more money than YouTube. Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2
19:23
Well yeah, because I think the tweet I responded to is 1 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 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.
Speaker 2
19:42
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, you know, Q4 because ad rates are higher because of Christmas and everything. Some creators literally make like $30, $40 per 1,000 views.
Speaker 2
20:01
That's after YouTube's cut. Like it's almost like hard to think about like how high the RPMs get. And even then, once you pull out of financing 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.
Speaker 1
20:19
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.
Speaker 2
20:27
Are you talking about brand deals?
Speaker 1
20:28
Brand deals, is that what you would call
Speaker 2
20:29
that? Yep.
Speaker 1
20:30
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.
Speaker 2
20:36
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.
Speaker 2
20:45
They'll just be filming a video and then around the 3 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 to sell out, you gotta find a way to integrate into the 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.
Speaker 2
21:06
And if you do that, no 1 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.
Speaker 1
21:14
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?
Speaker 2
21:27
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 a hundred 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.
Speaker 1
21:45
So you have that leverage, but for smaller creators,
Speaker 2
21:47
it's a lot harder. Yeah. And they're going to just say, 45 seconds, here's what you say, take it or leave it.
Speaker 2
21:53
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, tap, tap, tap, skip.
Speaker 2
22:09
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 3 minute mark.
Speaker 1
22:18
Yeah, I often think about how to resist that.
Speaker 2
22:21
You just don't do them though, right?
Speaker 1
22:23
Not on YouTube, right. On the audio, I do ads in the very beginning and I say you can skip them if you want.
Speaker 2
22:28
Gotcha. I'm sure the brand loves that.
Speaker 1
22:30
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.
Speaker 1
22:54
I wanna see the data for that. I think what's much more effective is the way you do ads, which is like integrating to 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.
Speaker 1
23:13
You have to each 1 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, how long it is, the placement of it, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2
23:30
What percentage of your viewers do you think have seen 1 of my videos before?
Speaker 1
23:34
What percentage of the viewers on YouTube, right?
Speaker 2
23:36
Yeah, of your viewers.
Speaker 1
23:38
Of the viewers on YouTube, though. Yeah, yeah. Because most of the people.
Speaker 2
23:40
Okay, sure, or all of them.
Speaker 1
23:42
It's just interesting,
Speaker 2
23:43
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.
Speaker 1
23:50
That's interesting. I love the thinking about numbers.
Speaker 2
23:52
The whole time we were having this conversation, that's all I could think about. It's like, God damn it. He's, there's probably like 50% of these people have no fucking clue what he's saying.
Speaker 2
24:00
And we're about to torture him for 5 minutes.
Speaker 1
24:02
Yeah, yeah, probably.
Speaker 2
24:03
But that's something I can't turn off in my brain.
Speaker 1
24:05
Less than 50%. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is that exciting to you?
Speaker 1
24:09
That there's like 50% of people don't
Speaker 2
24:11
have
Speaker 1
24:12
not watched a Mr. Beast video. Isn't that an opportunity?
Speaker 2
24:14
Yeah, I guess it's an opportunity, bro. I don't know. Honestly, I was just kind of excited to hang out with you.
Speaker 1
24:18
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2
24:20
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.
Speaker 2
24:27
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 the demographics or what I could gain. It's just interesting, because my retention brain, when you talk about something, I'm instantly like, what value are they gonna get?
Speaker 2
24:42
How many of them are gonna be interested? What percentage of people do I think will lose? And I'm 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 were like, error, error, this is bad.
Speaker 1
24:54
What are the different strategies for high retention for your videos and in general?
Speaker 2
24:59
It's like, How do you cook good food? You know what I mean? That's like the same kind of question.
Speaker 1
25:03
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 5 seconds at a time, am I gonna tune out here? Am I gonna tune out here?
Speaker 2
25:17
Am I gonna tune out here?
Speaker 1
25:17
Am I gonna tune out here? Am I gonna tune out here?
Speaker 2
25:18
It's all of it. You need the overarching narrative and then you also need the micro where every second needs to be entertaining. And basically what's interesting is the longer people watch something, the more likely they are to keep watching.
Speaker 2
25:31
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 going to 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 want to get people where they're immersed in the content, and then just kind of hold them there.
Speaker 1
25:57
We had this discussion offline, and by the way, I should mention that this is late at night.
Speaker 2
26:02
It is. What time is it? It's 09:00.
Speaker 1
26:05
And I only slept 1 hour last night because I'm an idiot and I flew to the wrong location
Speaker 2
26:10
Well here we're like, hey, let's just book you a hotel to fly. He's like no, I got it We're like you sure we just do it. We always do this.
Speaker 2
26:17
He's like, no, I got it, I got it.
Speaker 1
26:18
He's gonna have to rub it in.
Speaker 2
26:19
I know, and then today, come to find out, he flew to the wrong airport, airport with the, or a city with a similar name to ours.
Speaker 1
26:26
Same name. Same name in a different state.
Speaker 2
26:29
And I was like, that's why you should have let us book it. And so he's on 1 hour of sleep and he's literally been dying all day. Before this podcast, he downed like 2 things of coffee.
Speaker 2
26:37
We've been going all day hard.
Speaker 1
26:39
Yeah, I've been, I got to interact with him. I should say that this gave me an opportunity to, I got a ride from a stranger and it was an incredible person. I got to interact with him.
Speaker 1
26:50
So it's like there's so many kind people around here, just like this kind of Southern energy. And then I got to go to a diner, because I could, you know, there's only 1 hour between me arriving and having to fly out. So I went to a diner, there's a really kind waitress that called me honey, so that was a beautiful moment.
Speaker 2
27:08
I was so confused, you tweeted about that, and like, Steele's like, my assistant, was like, Lex isn't here yet. And I saw your tweet, and I was like, he's here. So he was like, no, he's still flying.
Speaker 2
27:19
I was like, an hour ago, he just tweeted about a nice diner. I didn't realize you flew to the wrong side.
Speaker 1
27:25
It was a diner in a different state.
Speaker 2
27:27
And then you had to fly over here. And then I called you, you didn't answer. I was like, I was like, something's not adding up.
Speaker 1
27:33
Yeah, I feel like such an idiot, because apparently the world has cities like Springfield, right, like every single state has a Springfield.
Speaker 2
27:43
Oh, really?
Speaker 1
27:45
I think so. I think that's like a Simpsons joke, right? That like it's the city in the Simpsons is Springfield and I think every single state or most of them have a Springfield.
Speaker 1
27:56
And the same is true for like Georgetown. I think the most popular, I forget what the most popular 1 was. But there's like a list of these people get, when they run out of ideas, they just keep using
Speaker 2
28:05
the same thing over and over. They're your Achilles heel. Anyway, I got
Speaker 1
28:09
to meet a bunch of people from your team. They're just incredible human beings. So let me just ask on that topic, how do you hire a great team?
Speaker 1
28:17
Like what have you learned about hiring for everything, for the main channel that you do, for the React, the gaming channel, to MrBeastBurger, to Feastables, all that?
Speaker 2
28:32
The big thing is, especially in this content creation, because it's not like anything that's done on Netflix or different content medians, I really need people who are coachable and 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, there's no 1 like plug and play. Like, if Netflix wanted to hire someone to do a documentary, there's probably 10s of 1000s of people you could hire that have worked on documentaries before.
Speaker 2
28:58
But if you want to hire someone to make super viral YouTube videos, you know, like we do, there's just no 1 you can really pull from. Like sometimes I'll hire people from game shows, right? 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.
Speaker 2
29:17
Like a lot of people in traditional think they're better and they think their way is 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, than to hire someone from 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 than 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.
Speaker 1
29:52
Yeah, so you want people who have the humility to have a beginner's mind, even if they have experience.
Speaker 2
29:57
And see the value. Like actually, you'll still get it. It's so crazy.
Speaker 2
30:00
Especially some of my other friends that are scaling up their YouTube channels. There's people that'll come on and you'll ask them, like, what do you wanna be doing in 5 years? And instead of saying, oh, I wanna be working on this channel, they'll be like, oh, I hope to be working on movies or this or that. And they see working on a YouTube channel as a launchpad to go into traditional.
Speaker 2
30:14
And It's like, no, you just don't get
Speaker 1
30:17
it.
Speaker 2
30:17
This is the end goal. This is your career. And so I'm just so tired of having those kinds of conversations.
Speaker 2
30:24
Like I feel like people really should be coming around.
Speaker 1
30:27
Are there like recurring interview questions that you ask? Is there ways to get?
Speaker 2
30:32
Yeah, but the biggest thing is like, what do you want to be doing in 10 years? And 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.
Speaker 2
30:44
Oh,
Speaker 1
30:44
so You really want people to believe in the vision of YouTube.
Speaker 2
30:47
Yeah, I mean, ideally, it's like, oh, working here. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1
30:50
So it's less about the medium and more about just being on a great team that's doing epic stuff.
Speaker 2
30:54
Yeah, well, and yeah, the media as well. Because those, it's just, it's hard to put into words, but it's just 2 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.
Speaker 2
31:08
And when we, if we hypothetically blow up a giant car or whatever, like, you only have 1 take, you know, I mean, 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. And 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 75,000 dollars editing, this and that.
Speaker 2
31:30
And it's like, yeah, but that's not authentic. That's, you know, blah, blah, blah. You get it. It's almost so obvious that it hurts to have to constantly have these conversations, but it's the world we
Speaker 1
31:40
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 just stylistically, visually.
Speaker 2
31:55
I don't have to think. I can just watch a video and it just screams in my head, like this is what should change based on the million videos I've watched and all these viral videos I've consumed. Like this is blah, blah, blah, what's optimal and things like that.
Speaker 2
32:10
It's almost like your brain's like a neural net. And like if you consume enough viral videos and enough good content that you just kind of start to train your brain to 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.
Speaker 2
32:33
Obviously my taste isn't the end all be all. But that's something that kind of torments me, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 1
32:39
Oh, you can't enjoy a slow-moving movie? No, I can't.
Speaker 2
32:42
And that's not to say there's
Speaker 1
32:44
no- Your attention on The Godfather is horrible.
Speaker 2
32:46
Yeah, no, exactly. I've tried to watch that movie like 3 times. But that's not to say slow movies are bad.
Speaker 2
32:50
Like there's an audience for it. It's just obviously not what I've trained my brain to like. And social media and YouTube right now, like that's just not the meta.
Speaker 1
32:58
And in general, like you said, in neural network, you're training your brain in part on actual data, right? So you're actually, it's data driven, so you're looking at, like, in terms of thumbnails and titles and different aspects of the first 5, 10 seconds, and then throughout the video, the retention, all of that, you're looking at all of that for your own videos to understand how to do it better. So that's where the neural network is training.
Speaker 2
33:22
Yeah, basically there are ways you can kind of see like the most viewed videos on YouTube every day and stuff like that. And I just kind of consume those every single day. And I've been doing that for way too many years.
Speaker 2
33:32
And you just start to notice patterns. Like the thumbnails on the most viewed 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.
Speaker 2
33:45
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?
Speaker 1
33:52
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?
Speaker 2
34:05
The answer is whatever makes the best video. Because the problem is the more, I have so many friends who are like this, they'll make like checklists for their editors. They'll make, you know, this beat and this beat, and you need to have like a 3 part arc and then this.
Speaker 2
34:18
But the problem is that's how you, the more constraints you put on the team, the more repetitive and less innovation you get. And the more like, you know, after 10 videos, people are gonna be like, all 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, or put as little as possible.
Speaker 2
34:44
And so That's why I'm very hesitant on all that stuff, because the more I say, the more they're going to be like, oh, then that's what we do. And then, you know, I'll say 1 time like, oh, you know, ideally, there's a cut every 3 seconds. And the next thing you know, every video, there's a cut every 3 seconds or whatever. So it's hard because I try to give as little, not training, but as little facts as possible and more just make suggestions, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 1
35:11
You mean publicly or to your team?
Speaker 2
35:12
To my team, yeah.
Speaker 1
35:14
What was, so you 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?
Speaker 1
35:27
So you don't want to
Speaker 2
35:29
have constraints? You're more talking about like what I would call almost like cloning, right? Like Tyler and other people like that.
Speaker 2
35:34
Yeah, so when we were hanging out today, I was showing him how we have multiple people and they've come, it's almost like talking to the camera. It's a habit.
Speaker 1
35:42
You turn slowly to the camera.
Speaker 2
35:44
I was like, it is habit.
Speaker 1
35:46
Is it weird to you to not be looking at the camera?
Speaker 2
35:48
This whole interview, I constantly have been turning towards the camera, I'm like, wait, I'm talking to him. It's a habit. Because my whole life, I've just been talking to a camera.
Speaker 1
35:56
Who are you thinking about when you're looking at the camera? Do you imagine somebody?
Speaker 2
36:00
I'm fully thinking about the person just sitting, watching it.
Speaker 1
36:03
And
Speaker 2
36:03
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, if that makes sense. And that's where I'll be saying things or doing something.
Speaker 2
36:15
And then like when 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 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.
Speaker 2
36:29
All right, this is a thousand dollar firework and I'll go to light it and I'll like freeze because in my head I'm like this, I don't know, I don't like how that flowed or how that shot looked, because 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 the video. Yeah, that's something that didn't at the start come natural to me, but in the last probably like 5 years it's happened.
Speaker 2
36:56
And so I would say it's 1 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 can just look at it and I see exactly what I'm filming and I can just picture it.
Speaker 1
37:07
Well, that's probably recording the video, being the talent for the video, and then watching the editing and analyzing it carefully and do that over and over
Speaker 2
37:14
and over and over. Yeah, you do that 10,000 times, yeah.
Speaker 1
37:17
You do the editing more than being in front of the camera. So like you start to see yourself from that third person perspective. Exactly.
Speaker 1
37:25
And maybe that actually helps with the nerves of it too. Like you see it as creating a video versus performing.
Speaker 2
37:33
Yeah, yeah, I think so. It's weird, I've never been nervous talking to a camera. It's harder for me to talk to a person than it is to talk to a camera, which I feel like a lot of people say that though, that are, whatever, make content, right?
Speaker 2
37:46
Interesting. I've heard that so many times. Or maybe not, maybe I'm just awkward and dumb.
Speaker 1
37:50
Maybe they're practiced. To me, both are terrifying, but being in front of the camera by yourself is most. So much easier.
Speaker 1
37:57
Really?
Speaker 2
37:57
Yeah, so much easier. I've referred a million times over. But that's my whole life, you know?
Speaker 2
38:03
So it's just, that's why it's interesting. Like you've spent more of your time talking to people. It comes natural and I talk to a piece of plastic.
Speaker 1
38:10
Oh yeah, I guess you're talking to a person too. There's just on the
Speaker 2
38:12
other side of the camera. Yeah, there's just a pixel on a screen.
Speaker 1
38:16
So cloning, how do you achieve the goal?
Speaker 2
38:18
Oh yeah, that's right. Let's all wrap it up. 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?
Speaker 2
38:34
And like, you know, they would pick the same answer I'd pick 90 plus percent of the times. And so like, 1 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 4 or 5 years, we just spent an absurd amount of time together and worked on every single video together and we worked side by side.
Speaker 2
38:54
And same thing with my CEO, James. He literally lived with me for a couple of 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.
Speaker 1
39:09
And like you were saying, cause I'd love to find that and develop that. You were saying you're basically for a long time, just said everything you were thinking to them?
Speaker 2
39:18
Exactly. Like James, the guy who's basically my right hand man right now, for 2 years he lived with me and we probably talked on average over those 2 years, 7 hours a day. I mean, anytime I had a phone call, I'd throw it on speaker and I'd let him listen. Anything I was reading, any content I was consuming, like really just training his brain to think like me.
Speaker 2
39:36
So that way he could just do things without my input, without me having to constantly watch over him or give him advice. And that's where we've gotten. So for the first 6 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 6 months, he started taking on some responsibilities and now he can just run the company and I don't ever really have to check in on him.
Speaker 2
39:58
Most of the decisions he makes are exactly what I would do. And so 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.
Speaker 1
40:13
Another way to see it is you're converging towards a common vision And that makes like brainstorming much more productive.
Speaker 2
40:20
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.
Speaker 2
40:44
I can just let them handle it. I can just do the more macro things.
Speaker 1
40:47
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 very quickly.
Speaker 2
41:07
I mean, you kind of just described exactly what we did. Yeah. I mean, but
Speaker 1
41:11
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, how do I change, like thinking about the titles and the thumbnails.
Speaker 2
41:23
I work so well off of inspiration. It's like, it's something, like give me any word, I don't know. Make it relative.
Speaker 2
41:31
Space. Space, yeah, like I went to space. What happens if you blow up a nuke in space? Or I went to the moon, I went to Mars.
Speaker 2
41:37
Because you said that 1 word, it was able to inspire me to come up with 4 ideas. And so that's just, for me, The way to get 100 million views on videos, you need something original, creative, something people really need to see, ideally never been done before, all these things. And so you need, if you want to consistently go super viral, you need just a constant stream of ideas. And the only way I've really found that I can consistently come up with
Speaker 1
42:01
100
Speaker 2
42:02
million view videos is to intake inspiration and then see what my brain outputs. And so that's kinda at its core foundation what I'm doing there. It's just like intaking a lot of random inspiration to see what spawns in my mind so I can output it.
Speaker 1
42:15
But the neural network of your brain is generating the video, the title, the thumbnail, all like jointly.
Speaker 2
42:23
Exactly, and that only comes because I spent 10 years of my life just obsessively studying all that stuff.
Speaker 1
42:28
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.
Speaker 2
42:34
Or a good thumbnail. Yeah, 100%, or a thumbnail. Yeah, I mean, that's what happened to 70% of those in that pitch session.
Speaker 2
42:39
I was just like, oh, what was 1 of them? Genius versus 100 people, or?
Speaker 1
42:42
Yeah, like maybe average intelligence versus genius, or something
Speaker 2
42:45
like that. Yeah, I was like, what the heck is the thumbnail? Even if the title is good.
Speaker 2
42:49
Yeah. I mean, there's so many, but yeah, people don't click, they don't watch.
Speaker 1
42:53
That's so interesting, but you developed over time the ability to kind of give it, what makes for a good title, short?
Speaker 2
43:00
Not just short, 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
Speaker 1
43:12
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.
Speaker 2
43:21
Ideally, it's a title also that, you know, cause 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.
Speaker 2
43:32
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. The click-through rate is going to be much lower than if it was like a 5 second video, people might click it. So you gotta, 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 all add up. I mean, it's that, yes, ideally you want it below 50 characters because above 50 characters on certain devices, you run the chance of it going dot, dot, dot.
Speaker 2
43:56
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.
Speaker 1
44:18
And there's probably stuff, it's hard to convert into words for you, like I stepped on a bug versus stepping on a bug versus Mr. B stepped on a bug versus
Speaker 2
44:28
bug stepping video. So It's like, yes, the more extreme the opinion, typically the higher the click-through rate. If you can pay it off in the content, then it just supercharges it.
Speaker 2
44:39
So like- Oh,
Speaker 1
44:39
so you have a kind of estimate of the extreme- Yeah,
Speaker 2
44:42
like this water, right? If you're like, Fiji water sucks, that'd do fine. But if you said Fiji water is the worst water bottle, or the worst water I've ever drank in my life, way more extreme opinion would do way better.
Speaker 1
44:54
But you have to deliver.
Speaker 2
44:56
Yeah, but then you have to deliver because the more extreme you are, the more extreme you have to be in the video.
Speaker 1
45:00
That's almost inspiration for you to step up.
Speaker 2
45:03
Yeah, but you can be more extreme in a positive way. A lot of people, it's easier though. Negative clickbait's much easier than positive clickbait.
Speaker 2
45:13
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 1 gets the same amount of clicks, and it's easier, less effort.
Speaker 1
45:25
The positive 1 is doing a large number of numbers of something. Like I spent this number of hours doing this.
Speaker 2
45:31
Well, whatever, if you just wanted to help people. 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 what I mean? Or whatever negative video you want to insert there.
Speaker 1
45:43
Well, that said, most of your videos are pretty positive.
Speaker 2
45:46
Yes. But not a lot of people do those kinds of videos because they're hard.
Speaker 1
45:49
Yeah, they're hard. Some of that is giving away money, right? What's the secret to that?
Speaker 1
45:55
What's, how do you do that right?
Speaker 2
45:58
Yeah, give away money or?
Speaker 1
46:00
In a video to make it compelling? So there's a number that is better than another number, right?
Speaker 2
46:07
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.
Speaker 2
46:15
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.
Speaker 2
46:24
I haven't really looked into it. Like some of our, most of the videos are not us giving away a million dollars. And sometimes the million dollar videos just don't do as well as the other ones. So there is a certain point where a dollar amount is just a large dollar amount to an average human.
Speaker 2
46:37
And so I think that point is 100K. Like anything above 100K, the average human's just like, that's a lot of money. You know, like it doesn't, 100K and a million, like it doesn't really move the needle, if that makes sense. Which that's a very nuanced piece of information that applies to very few people, but yeah.
Speaker 2
46:53
Well, no,
Speaker 1
46:53
I think it applies, it's fascinating. Our relationship with money is fascinating. Like, Why is it so exciting to get, I mean, the times I've found like 20 bucks on the ground are like incredible.
Speaker 2
47:08
I don't
Speaker 1
47:09
know why, right? Why are you so happy? Like what exactly is so joyful about that?
Speaker 1
47:14
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.
Speaker 2
47:21
It's fun. No, I get it, why people want to see people win money. It's just interesting that past 100 grand, it doesn't really seem to make a difference.
Speaker 2
47:28
It's the same, basically.
Speaker 1
47:30
So you found that to be true with all the money you've given away that-
Speaker 2
47:33
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.
Speaker 2
47:40
Like, oh, if you wanted to, you could really quit your job.
Speaker 1
47:42
As opposed to 100K, it's like, not really. You probably do like a scientific study, like a formula, giving away money to click-through rate. Yeah.
Speaker 1
47:51
There could be some kind of diminishing return.
Speaker 2
47:53
It definitely, the returns level off dramatically after 100K. That's basically the premise.
Speaker 1
47:58
What about 10,000?
Speaker 2
47:59
No, there's
Speaker 1
48:00
10, 100,000.
Speaker 2
48:02
It's funny, because this is such a small niche thing. But yeah, 100,000 does, from what I see in our videos, get more clicks than 10,000. But the difference between 100,000 and a million is just so little.
Speaker 2
48:13
I just, I think big number, big number to a lot of people past that point.
Speaker 1
48:17
Yeah, so for 100,000, you can, like given average salary, you can probably live for a year, given what the average salary is in America. So that's like a big, that feels something.
Speaker 2
48:26
Yeah, I think it's also just more when they read the title. It's just like, it's a lot of zeros. Fuck loads of zeros, okay, click.
Speaker 2
48:32
You know? Yeah.
Speaker 1
48:34
Oh man, that's fascinating. So on the thumbnail side, again, that's gonna be much harder to say probably. But offline, I got a chance to look at a bunch of thumbnails and it's fascinating which ones do well and which ones don't.
Speaker 1
48:47
Is there something you could say about what are the elements of a thumbnail that work well? Or is this also deeply instinctual?
Speaker 2
48:53
Well, that's where, yeah, it's the same thing, like how do you cook good food? But it's easier if you pull up a thumbnail and I can be like, That's why that's good, that's why that's bad. Like an example would be like 1 of my friends, he just uploaded a video recently and I called him.
Speaker 2
49:06
I was like, what is this? Because he's a very, very smart guy. And in the thumbnail, he's getting chased by cops, but the cops were wearing yellow vests. So they didn't look at cops.
Speaker 2
49:16
So I was like, well, why are the cops in your thumbnail 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 I was like, it's a lot harder to see the flag.
Speaker 2
49:28
I was like, also, you're wearing like a shirt with like 5 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, why not make the cars cop cars?
Speaker 2
49:41
And you know, and it's like, cause in my head I'm like, dang, if you just did those like 4 or 5 things, the video probably would've got like 7 X the views. How much iteration, because I also got a chance to see the number of
Speaker 1
49:52
iterations you do on a, I don't know, just a brand
Speaker 2
49:54
of thumbnails. It's a problem now. It's an addiction.
Speaker 1
49:58
Is it? So you kind of, because a lot of the versions are really good. How do you know what to like stop?
Speaker 2
50:04
I love how you, when we pulled up the burger 1 and we were flipping through them, you're like, that's really good. I was like, oh, that's version 1 of like
Speaker 1
50:10
1,000. But even the sketch, the idea was good. Like already even The original idea is strong.
Speaker 2
50:16
Yeah, so 1 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 because it's 6 feet tall. That's what he's talking about. So just picture a giant 6 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.
Speaker 2
50:32
That's just something you have to click. So you were saying, how would you describe a good thumbnail? Like that, you
Speaker 1
50:37
know what I mean? But I think you said the 1 I noticed first that was good, where you were very small in it, relative to the, and you didn't like that 1, I think.
Speaker 2
50:46
I needed to come forward a little bit, and also, the photo we took was just my upper body, so they photo manipulated and created my legs in Photoshop, and that's why I said I didn't like it, because my right leg was a little off. It was bent the wrong way, because they had to build those legs in Photoshop. Well, I mean, does
Speaker 1
51:02
the physics on a thumbnail have to even make sense? I mean, you can just like exaggerate the head size and all that kind of
Speaker 2
51:08
stuff, right? Yeah, 100%. Yeah, things don't have to be relative.
Speaker 2
51:10
You can have a car in the background and be 3 times the size. Because, yeah, every 1 of my thumbnails, my face is in the 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.
Speaker 2
51:28
And obviously we usually over deliver and do bigger stuff.
Speaker 1
51:31
Would you recommend to other creators that wanna make it big and they see Mr. Beast and they look up to you to copy some elements of you or to really try to
Speaker 2
51:40
be unique? Unique, 100% unique. You're not, the next Mr.
Speaker 2
51:44
Beast, quote unquote, feels weird saying that in 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.
Speaker 2
51:57
And I reinvest everything I make even to this day. You know what I mean? Like it's absurd the amount of money I spend on content. And I don't care.
Speaker 2
52:03
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.
Speaker 2
52:15
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.
Speaker 1
52:25
You give away a lot of the secrets, basically everything about how you operate. Is there a- I
Speaker 2
52:31
don't hold anything back, go for it.
Speaker 1
52:33
How do you think about that? Because that's pretty rare.
Speaker 2
52:35
I think, and this is definitely not, 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 or person on social media, because we're also focused super heavily on YouTube, but last year we were also the most followed TikTok creator in the world as well. Actually, we were most subscribed to YouTube channel in the world and the most followed TikTok account in the world. But in general, I just see everyone else as collaborators, not competitors.
Speaker 2
53:01
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.
Speaker 1
53:08
How was it jumping on TikTok and trying to understand that platform from scratch? Yeah. So from being a successful YouTuber to understand a totally different algorithm, fundamentally different algorithm.
Speaker 2
53:18
It's interesting. Well, not even just the algorithm, just the content. Like I'm going from basically 15 minute short films to 1 sub 1 minute vertical content.
Speaker 2
53:27
It's a whole different just ballpark. And so the first little while I was doing TikTok is just kind of figuring out what does MrBeast 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 didn't want it to just be shitty YouTube videos.
Speaker 2
53:50
And so, like an example is we played The Rock for 100K and Rock, Paper, Scissors, and the loser had to donate 100K to charity. We went to random people on a campus and we offered them. So I said, I'll give you $100 if you fly to Paris and give me a baguette. And then they said, no, and I was like, I'll give you $300 if you fly to Paris and give me a baguette and I was expecting this person to say no and it'd go up to like 10 grand.
Speaker 2
54:12
And 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. Cause 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.
Speaker 2
54:27
And so we're starting to find just tons of original content over there.
Speaker 1
54:31
But it seems like an epic video to make for 1 minute.
Speaker 2
54:33
Exactly, no 1 on short form is doing it. That's the thing, it's like, it's just so funny because like TikTok's 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.
Speaker 2
54:48
We set our sights on TikTok 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 TikTok and it worked. And now we're the fastest growing or most followed TikTok account in 2022.
Speaker 2
55:03
And it's just funny that no 1 else did that.
Speaker 1
55:06
And you're not afraid to do epic stuff, which also during the brainstorming, some of the ideas you're like, that's better as a short. That's crazy.
Speaker 2
55:14
Yeah, Can you remember 1? Because I remember I said that a bunch, but I can't think of 1.
Speaker 1
55:17
All I remember is that there were like epic videos. Like really, you're going to do that for a 1 minute video? Yeah.
Speaker 1
55:27
That's crazy. So like, are you posting similar content to a YouTube short as a TikTok?
Speaker 2
55:30
Yeah, those we 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 3 years ago versus now, where you can make sub 1 minute vertical content and it go viral on TikTok, it go viral on YouTube Shorts, go viral on Instagram Reels, it goes viral on Facebook, it goes Reddit, you know, you swipe through vertical content now, and Twitter when you click on a video and you flip through it.
Speaker 2
55:56
So this is actually very weird. This is the first time in the history of, I guess, Western social media that 1 form of content could actually go super viral on every single platform. It's never been like that before.
Speaker 1
56:06
So they're going viral individually.
Speaker 2
56:08
They're not like interbreeding or whatever.
Speaker 1
56:10
I can
Speaker 2
56:10
post something on TikTok that'll get
Speaker 1
56:12
100
Speaker 2
56:12
million views and then post it on Shorts and it'll get 200 million views and then post it on Instagram and it'll get 50 million views And then, I haven't yet, but you can then turn around and tweet it and it get tens of millions of views. And you can post on Reddit and it get tens of millions of views and Facebook can get tens of millions of views. And that just wasn't a thing.
Speaker 2
56:27
3 years ago, Twitter didn't have, 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 TikTok. That wasn't a thing even a year ago. Reddit, that wasn't a thing a year ago. Probably 2 years ago, that wasn't a thing on Instagram.
Speaker 2
56:41
3 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 on every single platform.
Speaker 2
56:55
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 TikTok, write a tweet for Twitter and post this on Reddit. You can just do the same thing on every platform.
Speaker 1
57:07
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
Speaker 2
57:18
it can be engineered. It's yeah, so many people say it's luck and they're like, you're just lucky or this or that, but what are we up to? Probably like a thousand videos over 10 million views.
Speaker 2
57:26
Like we don't ever have a dud. Like you can call it luck, but I think it can be trained. I counsel YouTubers all the time and show them how to go from getting a couple million views a month to 10 million views a month very easily. Even certain ones, like just 1 of my friends, he was just really struggling.
Speaker 2
57:42
And so I just started showing him basically everything I know and just doing like once every week, sometimes once every 2 weeks calls. And it went from $10,000 a month on YouTube to over 400,000, 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, anyways, I don't even wanna quote all the other stuff, but it's just, it is. It is a teachable skill.
Speaker 2
58:04
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 0 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 I 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.
Speaker 2
58:28
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.
Speaker 1
58:45
So you do lay it all out there, but I gotta push back to 1 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.
Speaker 1
59:00
So it's not just the selection of the thumbnail and the title, that creative process. It's also just the engine of generating really good ideas. And getting that. I would say that is probably the thing that needs to be trained the most for most creators, right?
Speaker 1
59:18
That they just don't put enough ideas on paper.
Speaker 2
59:21
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.
Speaker 1
59:31
In the idea or the execution of the idea?
Speaker 2
59:33
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. It's like my first 500 videos didn't deserve to get a million views. Like there's a reason they did.
Speaker 2
59:45
They're terrible, you know what I mean? But at the time I thought they did, right? And I'm in the mindset of a lot of small YouTubers where I thought those videos deserved a million views and I thought the algorithm hated me, but I watch them back now and I can tell you exactly why, the videos were just fucking horrible, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1
59:57
Well, so what was the breakthrough for you to start realizing that?
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