An Unfiltered Conversation with MrBeast

23:36We also need to give some credit to Pete Davidson and Tom Brady. Yeah, they're awesome. They can do this without mentioning their appearance in that video. Very cool. I also, I noticed a lot of comments that were like, oh, I didn't realize like six minutes in Tom Brady would just spawn. And I didn't even think about that when I uploaded it, that we didn't even elude that he was going to come. In hindsight, I should have said like in the first minute, oh, and by the way, Tom Brady will be later in the video. But it was more exciting than it was a surprise. Yeah. And then those clips also then like get out there, right?

24:04Like the Tom Brady clip. of you guys. Yeah, they got some views, but I don't know. I think, I mean, the retention on that video was better than any of our other videos. Yeah. So I don't know how much that actually helped, to be honest. Because like the Tom Brady clip started going nuts like on ESPN and all that stuff, but that was like two days after we posted it. Yeah. It was very weird like seeing the lag. I think that plays into though why people know you now without watching your videos, right? It's because like clips like that are becoming more and more mainstream. Oh, 100%. Yeah, right? That hits a totally different audience.

24:31That's a completely different audience, which is crazy that you can be hitting 100 to 200 million and there's still a whole audience. And then other people take it and share past it. Even for me though, I learned about that video on Instagram. Normally I would see it on YouTube and click based off the thumbnail but you posted something on Instagram and it said that Pete Davidson and Tom Brady were going to be in it and I was like, I kind of have to see that. Are you going to sell that Instagram post up or are you going to make them close the app? Yeah, we're going to make them imagine it in their head.

24:58The best thing to do is leave this pod and then go open and see it. Or you just put it right here and your retention. Yeah. I also think though, like that almost felt like the modern day talk show in a way where like Pete Davidson was showing up on your show. I agree. I think having, it's not exactly like that. Like Dobrik kind of did that a while back where like Justin Bieber would show up in the car or something like that. The thing is like, it's also them aside. I'll just tell it blankly. People like that tend to be the people I gravitate towards more to now because they're just, they just kind of understand my life a little bit more.

25:33So I also just like having other famous people, that's the word you want to use, around because it's kind of cool to see how they deal with all these random problems I'm starting to have. So I mean, sure, it's great because it helps the video, whatever, but it's also just literally fun to be around them and see how do you deal with all this stuff? What is going on? And also it's like, they're infinitely better on camera too. So I don't have to like, Tom Brady or Pete Davidson, you don't have to tell them what to do or anything. like a camera's just rolling and they're just funny and they're just cool and great so it also makes it so much more fun for me to film because I'm not stressing out or like they're kind of whispering, that's not usable they're just like great and it's like awesome and I just exist and we just joke and be funny and it makes filming the video 10 times easier.

26:21Did they give you any advice on the boat? Well Pete Davidson maybe not the most family friendly stuff we were joking the whole time but no time all around was just great it was really fun i don't even remember i just had a good time yeah yeah there's that that you know one verse a million or you know a billion format that i've noticed then i guess when i zoom out like you've always done kind of human experience right like the one experiments no but you know what i mean like yeah social experiments kind of like one versus a hundred cool stuff or one year old versus a hundred year old is that what it's called?

26:59Yeah. One ages, one through a hundred compete for. That's probably the most complicated time I've ever done. And somehow it did well. I don't even know. But that concept was really fun. Yeah. And you're doing things now where like, you know, I felt connected to the contestant at my age, which is so smart, right? When you do that, you're like, yeah, I'm 33. So I was connected to the 33 year old, right? I was like, okay, that's cool. And I can say on your new video, there's something similar that kind of feels like that. But at the end of that video, the stakes rose like crazy. And I didn't anticipate that.

27:31I have so much to say there. It's like, you know, I used to be a big fan of like simplicity, like keep the challenges as simple as possible. I was like, you know, 200, some of these videos, 300, 400 million people are going to watch it. Like it's a lot of people. I got to like make this stuff as simple as possible. Or like, you know, some of these 400 million people just aren't going to understand it. They're just not, is what I used to believe. But in that video, I was like, you know what? Screw it. I'm just going to throw my preconceived notions out the windows. These challenges, if they vote for them, I'm going to make them a little more complicated.

28:02I'm going to add some more things that you have to flick your brain on to really comprehend. The last challenge, when I'm filming it, I'm like, I just don't see how everyone actually understands what's going on. The whole two briefcases, one has half a million, one doesn't, no one looks in it. And then one person looks, and then they decide they swap. that is one of the more complicated things I've done. And so after we filmed it, I'm like freaking out. I'm like, oh, man, I don't know. I don't know. But I like grabbed that. I had them edit that clip. And I just went to like 40 people, you know, from all ages.

28:33And I was just like, watch this and tell me if you get it. And all 40 of them were like, yeah, that made sense. I understand it. And like, as long as they were actually paying attention, it made perfect sense, you know? And I was like, oh. And then I was like, okay. And then my nerves calmed down. And I uploaded the video. And instead of people being like, I'm lost or I don't understand the ending, everyone's like, oh my gosh, the ending was like, oh, that was so cool. It was so thought-provoking. It was so grabbed. And so like, yeah, it changed my perspective. Like, I actually think I can have more complicated stuff and people still easily follow along even though I have the skill I have, which I didn't think so before, which is why you should always innovate and adapt.

29:09Also, let's think about football, the Super Bowl. Like, football is a really complicated game. It is. Right? And a lot of people watch that game, but it's pretty complex. Yeah, but they've also had training their whole lives and blah, blah, blah. And when it comes down to it, it's also like one team is going this way, the other is going that way. I still don't even fully understand football. Exactly. I'm just like, boo. Boxing is so interesting because it's so simple. I think, you know, when I watched that video, you also left space for character building, which is something we talked to you about two years ago.

29:38Yes, sir. It was advice from us that, like, not to say that that's at all part of it. No, of course. Everyone tells you. There's an element of, you know, when you make space for character building, potentially people click off. Yeah. Because they're like, I'm not connected to that person. And in that video, I think you successfully pulled that off where one of the final contestants, it's his daughter's birthday. I know. And she comes in and like, he's emotional. And that was one of the first times where I was like, whoa, this is - We had a guy who was in a cube for like seven days. It was his daughter's birthday.

30:08And so we brought his daughter in. It hit hard. Yeah. Did you almost cut that? No. Bro, when I saw that, the first time I literally cried. I was like, oh my gosh. Like in person, I was kind of crying. But when I saw the first cut of the video, I literally, tears came down my cheeks. I was like, oh, I've never felt this way before watching one of our videos. Like even just thinking about it, like a tearful of it. Yeah, you're getting teared out. Yeah, so it's good. That was a very emotional moment. And so yeah, that video we tested a lot. We tested a little more complex challenges, but we also tested like, screw it.

30:37Like people say they want better stories from us. Let's do it. And again, that's where I threw all my like things I normally worry about out the window there. I was like, simplicity, simplicity. I was like, screw it. It will be a little complex. And then on the other end, it's like, I'm very fast, fast, fast. It's like, let's slow it down. Let's build some characters. That's what people say they want. And they worked. And everyone's like, those are the two reasons we love that video. Is it like people say they want it in the comments, on Twitter, people you trust that are close to you? How does that get - Almost all around.

31:06Those were some of the bigger criticisms I get. Because I always, you know, I call you guys all the time. I'm just like, I'm telling people, roast my videos, roast my videos. Like even Squid Game, some of the biggest complaints was like, I didn't feel connected to the viewers or to the contestants. Yeah. As much as I'd like to. So the thing is I just, yeah, I've never really gotten good at that. So that's something we've been honing a lot recently. And yeah, I love it. So that, but it's also like part of it too is I've come to realize like not every video is the same, which is obvious, but it's like, you know, story, there are videos where storytelling is great.

31:39Like the one through 100, we have a ton of contestants and you build them up and blah, blah. And, and, you know, and so then when people win, you're like, oh my gosh, like I care about this person. This is awesome. I love this feeling and I love when their three-year-old comes in. But then there's videos like the$1 versus a billion dollar boat. It's not about me. It's about my experience on these boats, but ultimately, it's about these boats. That's what they're watching. How cool. What's the difference? It's our experience of it. Yeah, but the story is also like, what is the difference between all these boats?

32:07And so that's where it's, yeah, I mean, people watch this and they're like herded her, obviously, but it is like just figuring out what kind of story applies to what kind of content you're making is a lot harder than it sounds. And in hindsight, it's always obvious. But you have to make big decisions. And these are multi-million dollar videos that are filmed over the course of weeks that we set up for months. And it's like all these million decisions lead to this final video. And to protect the story, all of it is very hard. But that's one of my priorities for this year, to elevate the videos.

32:37It's important to surprise your audience sometimes with the impact. Like we were watching last night a cut of the experiments video. Rough cut. Yeah, you guys are working through it. But like the emotion there is just, oh my gosh. Yeah. Like, wow. It's like a cycle. It keeps hitting you of like, whoa, I didn't see that coming. Yeah. Right? And if you did that every single time, it gets boring. Exactly. Or you get desensitized to it. Right? Yeah. And so by switching it up and being like, no, this time it's character building. And you have to follow characters throughout the entire episode. It makes us work as an audience.

33:08Have you ever seen the show Love Deaf Robots? No. Oh, you should watch it. It's on Netflix. It's good. I'd say it's the closest thing on Netflix to what we do, even though it's not real life. It's animated and different. But every episode's different. One episode's about robots taking over the world and what would happen. And it's just 20 minutes. And the next episode's eight minutes about pirates back in the day when they have a mutiny and how they overthrow the captain and random things like that. But the theme is every single episode, it's either revolving around love, people dying, or robots.

33:39And it's really cool how they tie it together over the course of many seasons. And I think it's kind of like with us, like the themes are like, you know, doing good, helping people, hopefully soon like great storytelling, the boys and I having fun, blah, blah. And so like you have all these core things, but you can apply it to all these different formats, but you know those core things will be there. And so, yeah, we just mix it up as much as possible. That's cool. You tweeted something recently. I did. Well, you tweeted a lot of things. I was like, which tweet? Well, I'm also a subscriber to your Twitter blue.

34:11but you tweeted something about all$10 ,000 a month yeah yeah you know I pay my dues here you tweeted something about I'm gonna face this towards that camera there you go you wanted to test what you do on a streaming platform and then you tagged a bunch of streaming platforms which I loved because I was just imagining the meeting rooms and those streaming platforms did you guys see this tweet from Mr. Beast? the funny part is we're already in talks with a lot of them so a lot of them were like why'd you do that? like we already are talking I'm like yeah I just thought it'd be funny and they're like yeah but but we were already talking about a show.

34:43So it's kind of funny. Why do you want to do that? Why do you want to take what you do and put it on a streaming platform? Yeah, well, you know, the thing is YouTube is great, obviously. I love YouTube. And YouTube's always going to be my number one priority. It's just interesting that serialized content isn't the best on YouTube. Like if I made 10 episodes and 30-minute episodes of something, it just doesn't belong on YouTube. It just doesn't. I don't even think YouTube themselves would argue that. You know what I mean? It's meant to be viewed as individual pieces. Yeah, as of right now. Yeah, as of right now.

35:13And I also just, like, there's a lot of people that use Netflix that don't watch YouTube. And so it'd be cool just to, like, make content for them. And also just, like, test our limits. Like, because I do think, well, I don't know how to say it. I don't have an ego, and I don't care. Like, this doesn't matter to me. But I do think a lot of people are like, oh, well, he's just good at gaming the YouTube algorithm, even though, like, we have, you know, hundreds of people that work on our videos, multi-million dollar productions that no one else in the world could do for the money we spend. It would take Hollywood$20 million, I can do it for two.

35:43And we're consistently churning out some of the best content you can find, better than anyone else. But a lot of people are like, oh, it's just games, YouTube algorithm. So I'd love to jump to a new format, just quickly crank out 10 episodes. I have a great idea, the largest game show in history with the most contestants in history, with the largest game show prize in history. And I know we could crush it using our studio space and everything. And I think it would just go wild on Netflix. And then, I don't know, for me, it'd just be a fun challenge to show like, no, we're not just gaming YouTube.

36:14Like I can also make a hit Netflix show that tens of millions of people want to watch. And then just come back to YouTube and keep doing my thing. It'd just be like a little side quest that's fun. Yeah, because it's not like YouTube would stop. The crazy thing too is if you took time to go do that, it's not like your videos aren't getting viewed on YouTube. Well, I would still do YouTube. And you would still make YouTube. Yeah, I would just figure out a way to do it where it doesn't hurt YouTube, but yeah. That would be super interesting. So you're in talks. Yeah, we already know what we're going to do.

36:39You already know what you're going to do. It's just figuring out like. Who's going to do it? Yeah, I mean, because like if it's 10 episodes, I mean, like on YouTube, some videos I'm spending up to$4 million. So like if I'm doing a 10 episode show and I mean, bare bones, if I wanted to stay the same as my YouTube channel, I mean, that'd be$40 million. But if I want to elevate even more, which you should on a streaming platform, I mean, it gets pretty crazy. So it's just a lot of money. And so just figuring out like, do I want to do it myself? and then like go to them and just be like, hey, here it is.

37:07You don't get to tell me what to cut or anything. I just swear to God, it will crush. Or do I partner with one of them on the front end so they can help alleviate the cost and they get it? I don't know. I've never done it before. So kind of figuring it out. Are there some things you know you would do differently on a streamer because it's not on YouTube? Well, yeah. I mean, everything would breathe a whole lot more. So we would pick things that, well, like also like you don't have to like hook people as much. Like I don't have to, you know, so after I get people through episode one, and they're invested in the characters we would have in these game shows.

37:38So I don't have to be screaming at the start of all of them and convince them to watch. They're watching. But it'd be so awesome. Picture Squid Game, but 10X. That's what I would do. But obviously, actual Squid Game, not ours, was scripted. This would be unscripted. But picture those same crazy sets and experiences, but unscripted, where it's actual real raw emotion with, I don't know if it's 1 ,000 or 10 ,000 people that dwindle it down to one competing for the largest cash prize in history. It'd be awesome. Especially now that we're getting better at storytelling and how to build characters and stuff.

38:14I'd love to take all that knowledge we've learned and just apply it to a longer format. It'd be so much fun. It's so interesting you bring that up about the different environments and what the viewer expectation is and what the creator does in those environments. We've been talking about it in the terms of permission and interruption. So if I buy a ticket to a movie and I go sit in a movie theater. You know how weird it would be if I left after 70 % of the movie? Yeah. You know, or like 30 % of the movies. You're a lot more willing to like, grind through some like dull moments. Totally, exactly.

38:44And so that's like permission. Like the audience has given you permission to tell you this two hour story or an hour and a half story. But on YouTube or TikTok, it's like kind of interruption. It's like this thumbnail is meant to interrupt your feed and make you so curious that you click through and then, you know, you need to keep me. And then in the first 30 seconds, you got to explain why it's important. and it's like you're a salesman, you're a salesman, you're a salesman. If you do it right around the one minute mark, now you're not a salesman. You've got them convinced. They bought with their eyeballs.

39:10Now it's just like, here's what you came for. Enjoy it. It's so interesting. That's such a different environment. Movies are so opposite, man. It's so brutal when you sit through five minutes of shit just popping up on the screen before a movie. I'm like, why? Why is this necessary? Title sequences and exposition. Can you remember any name in any movie you've ever watched that popped up? Why is that so necessary? Can we just move on? Yeah, just send us a text. Can you just put it at the end? Like literally just put it at the end. Like at the end of every movie, just have fireworks pop up, make it cool.

39:36Have the main characters just be like walking back and forth. Yeah. Then put the names at the top. Or do like the outtakes or like extra scenes. Or at least put their face up there. Like if you put their name with like a little face, then I'd be like, oh. And maybe I'd start to like recognize somebody's face. It's so interesting. Like credits haven't been changed in movies. I know, it's wild. It's so strange. So what do you think? We talk about this. We talk about the landscape of YouTube a lot. Yeah. And like in 2023, what do you feel like the landscape of YouTube is? And what do you feel like it's missing?

40:05The hard part is I go through cycles watching a lot of YouTube. I'm so knee deep in grind mode right now. I'm not even. You're not watching YouTube. I'm watching so little content on any platform. Like I uninstalled TikTok and everything because distraction. So like I literally just wake up and I work out. And then I work on my videos. And then I work on Feastables. And then I go to bed. And like I try to hang out with my girlfriend a couple hours here and there. So it's like, I'm probably the worst person. You tell me what's going on in the platform. I feel bad. I'm so out of the loop because I'm like so knee deep in like what I'm doing that I'm not even keeping up with everyone else.

40:38I feel kind of shitty. I think a lot of the consensus lately has been that it's stale in a way. And even speaking with you last night, I think you voiced. Last time I used YouTube a lot. Yeah, it's like who are the new people? Who are the things doing creative stuff? Yeah. And, you know, something I want to talk to you about is the term beastification. Yeah. Because we had emerged on our show. I think so. Yeah, maybe from Ryan Trahan. Because we have people come on the show and talk about the beastification of YouTube, which meant that people on YouTube are following in your footsteps and trying to copy you.

41:08And so the thumbnails look the same. A lot of the concepts look the same. I know. And so when you open up YouTube for a period of time, it just felt like, wow, why does every thumbnail look the same with just a different person's face? Yeah. Why do some of these concepts look the same? The subtitles feel the same. I wish people would like there's like inspiration and then there's just stealing and so many people just steal what I do like so many people literally just put their face on my face or just take my thumbnail or literally verbatim say what I say at the start of my videos or like all my things and so like it's pretty interesting because I think the podcast we've done like when I every time I've done these podcasts we did them almost every year for like three four years I just come on here and I say everything I know like I don't hold back I will literally come on here and tell you guys every little thing I know about getting views on YouTube.

41:55And I know thousands, tens of thousands of creators have watched those. And literally, that's the reason why they're making$10 ,000 plus a month because they're just like, oh, Jimmy just literally laid it out. I just followed it. So there's that positive. But then there's also the negative because so many creators have watched it. And instead of taking inspiration from me, they're just like, oh, I'm just going to do exactly what he's doing. And it's pretty brutal. I don't call people out that copy me because not everything I do is original you always get inspiration from somewhere so I try not to be hypocritical because it would be very easy for someone in my spot to just start going off on creators because there's so many that just to a T just steal everything my thunder and all that I'll spend six months working on a project and millions of dollars and all this time and effort and brain power and then after I upload two weeks later someone will just do the exact same video say the exact same words with the exact same thumbnail And it's like, they didn't have to do any of that.

42:48But yeah, I don't know. I almost wish it was one of those things where people would self-police it more and just be like, no. It's okay to draw inspiration for me, but just don't do what I do to a T. But I'm never going to call out and trash on people that do because I'm not 100 % original. It's not like$1 versus blank. I'm the first person to do it. But I just saw that format and I was just like, how can I do that 100 times better? how can I put 100 times more creativity into it how can I level up the editing by 100 times how can I spend blah blah blah and that's always my mindset if I get inspired by something how can I do that but 100 times better and make it my own whereas a lot of people are just like oh Mr.

43:27Beast did that I'm just going to do it we got some we talked to the author of the book Steal Like an Artist about this topic so many people have recommended me that book it's a great book it's about what you're saying everyone steals from someone right? Everyone's inspired from someone. But his advice was to go back further. Like if they want to copy you, try and figure out who you were inspired by. Try and figure out like all the way back. What's like the lineage of this inspiration, which I think is interesting. And then he also talks about the difference between plagiarism and transformation.

44:00Like how do you look at what you're talking about is transformation. You said, I saw a concept and I said, how can I make this a hundred times better? How can I go like this? Which is perfectly fine. That's totally fine. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's where people need to understand is that if you see something on YouTube that you're into, transform it. Take it and change it, right? Yeah. Don't just, because if you do the same thing, you said this on a podcast recently, but you said like the next Mr. Beast is not going to make videos like you. No. And I believe that. I think that's not going to happen.

44:26No, you're never, no one's ever going to do what I do better than me. Like it's just not, it's not even humanly possible. Like I reinvest every penny I make. Yeah. I work every hour I'm awake. I devote every atom in my brain to solving this. I hired the best people on the planet. I've been doing this for 14 years. And I think in decades, not years. So I'm going to be doing this for another 20, 30 years, not two or three. So no, the next me isn't going to be me because no one's going to do what I do better than me. It's not possible. If I thought someone was doing better than me, I'd just start sleeping less so I could work even more.

44:53Like I'd figure it out. I don't give a fuck. The barrier to entry to be you is extremely high. Yeah. Right? Especially where you're at now. Well, it's just because I'm all in. I'm crazy. Like people shouldn't be me. I don't have a life. I don't have work-life balance. My personality, my soul, my being is making the best videos possible, entertaining my fans as best as I can. Like that is what exists on this planet. And I don't recommend it. Like you should have work-life balance. You should not devote your entire life to this one thing. Like go have fun. Like, you know, I'm miserable a lot of times.

45:21I have a mental breakdown every other week because I push myself so hard. Like I don't recommend it, you know. How do you come back from that? I just, I don't know. I take a couple hours off and then I watch some anime and then I'm good to go. Yeah, but I also feel like hanging out with you over the past couple years, like this year particularly, you do feel like lighter, not like your weight. Thank you. But like you do feel lighter. Yeah. I don't know. Like even when we were hanging out this morning and working out, like something feels like, do you feel like you're coming into a different state of being?

45:56Oh, 100%. Because I feel like you are. I feel like you're, maybe you're just more comfortable with the level of pressure. Does it feel like that? Yeah, I definitely, my level of care has definitely gone down quite a bit. It's just like, I don't have any fear of falling off or I don't have much fears at all. It's like, I'm just so laser focused. I'm like, here's what I got to do. I've got clarity beyond, I have clarity on clarity on clarity of what I want to do. It is like, I want to wake up and I want to figure out how I make the best videos possible. That is it. And it's like so clear. I don't have to like wonder like, oh, should I be doing this or should I be doing that?

46:35Or like, and you know, it's like, as long as that's all I obsess over every day, no one's ever going to do what I do better than me. And people are going to continue watching it. I'm like, if I'm spending a hundred times more than everyone else, I'm being a hundred times more creative. I'm putting a hundred times more effort in and I'm hiring the best people in the world and I'm doing blank and I'm doing blank. Then like people are going to show up. And so I don't, I don't even, I don't have a fear of falling off. I don't have a fear of anything. I just wake up and I'm obsessed with this one thing with my entire soul and it's great.

46:59And like I said, right now I'm in a rut where I don't even watch YouTube. I have no idea what everyone else is doing. I don't care. I'm just doing my thing and I'm trying to go as hard as I can and make it as good as possible. Do you crave competition on the platform? Oh yeah, that'd be awesome. That'd be so much fun. You would unlock such a different level. If someone started doing videos at my level or better and people are like, ooh, Mr. Beast, this guy's better than Mr. Beast, I would go so like just bananas working. It would be crazy. I've also competed with you in things like basketball.

47:30Are we going to bring up basketball again? No, I wish we could have played tonight. That would have been fun. But I'm just saying like you are a competitive guy and I feel like I'm one of the most competitive people on the planet. I feel like you crave a competitor right now. Oh, it'd be awesome. Yeah, it'd be so much fun. And maybe that's what going to a streamer. It'd be terrifying. Like the kind of videos I'd be cranking out would be like I'm already pushed to the max but I'm serious. I would just be like, okay, why do I need to sleep nine hours a night and I just start sleeping six? It's an invitation to compete.

47:54I don't care. I'm crazy. The fact that you're including more storytelling in some of your videos, I think is representative of competition a little bit. That there are some channels that, sure, they're not doing the numbers that you do. Yeah. But there are channels that have like impact and even just the overall sentiment, right? Of like, we want more characters, we want more storytelling. Exactly. And I think if you look at YouTube, the platform, there's the chance that over time, what is deemed the best could change. Oh, of course. Style of content. Yeah, and the thing is, like, even though my videos were the best, like, it's not, it's not like they were the best because there wasn't storytelling.

48:28It was just the best because of the effort and blah, blah. But there's always, that's what I'm saying, there's always a way to improve them. And for me, one of the things I lacked was storytelling, especially the further back you go on my videos. Like, I didn't go to college to learn this stuff. I didn't, you know, I don't have mentors or trainers teaching me any of this. I'm, like, learning as I go. And I'm, like, you know, like we talked about before, I'm running 24 miles an hour on a treadmill. And sometimes it's even, like, hard to look up and breathe and be like, how do I learn storytelling?

48:53What does that even mean? What is this Dan Harmon thing and this three-act structure? What does that mean? Three acts. And so, yeah, it's like slowing down the treble enough where I can focus and study and learn all that stuff and then bring it in and then figuring out how to apply it. Because I have tried storytelling before and created 10 out of 10 videos that just bomb. And it's like, interesting. Okay, what did I do wrong there? And so it's just like something we've been slowly working on. And now we've really finally started. it's clicked like I understand because it's not like I can't just go grab someone from traditional and go teach me storytelling because they'll just be like do this three-act structure and I'm like and I'm like okay and I read books and I study and I'm like that just doesn't work and they're like no it does work I'm like no it just doesn't you just don't get YouTube like you can't just break a video into three acts like that's just not I mean sure maybe you could but it's just not like that's not optimal and things are so dynamic and changing yeah like but I was like but I'll just take what I think would work and I'll just like throw it in this pot and I think like oh I I like this kind of thing.

49:52And, oh, I learned that from that book. And I'll stir it. Oh, that's a 10 out of 10. Okay, maybe we can do that. Oh, okay, that's like a five out of 10. We didn't bomb. And then, you know, and then eventually you get like one through 100 and stuff like that. What's your relationship right now with short form content? I mean, it's a no brainer. You should be doing it. Yeah. But you're also making a lot of short form content. And some of the short form content you're making is what used to be long form YouTube videos. I know. Right? It's pretty crazy. It's really crazy. The fighter jet one was crazy.

50:18Yeah. When you had. Back in the day. What's interesting is like, yeah, back in the day, I would do entire videos around like, you know, can 10 ,000 fans push a car? Like that would be a whole video. Now for me, if I did 10 ,000 fans push a car, that'd be a one minute segment in an experiment video. If that, maybe it would be a short. So it's like my videos now, some of them are literally just 10 of my old videos put together. Like that's how crazy it's gotten. Yeah. And like the, they're expensive too. Like you asked if someone would go to Paris to buy you a baguette. Yeah. Which was a very fun short.

50:52Yeah. My shorts lose so much money. But someone actually flew to Paris. Like he flew someone to Paris. Yeah, exactly. And they did it. And they come back. And it's a really fun short. But I was thinking, I was like, five years ago, that's a long form YouTube video. Oh, 100%. Yeah. Like it's so crazy that that has gone condensed. And I would argue that that does work in a three-act structure, right? On short form? Yeah. Yeah. Short form, you can do more stereotypical stuff because you're not trying to hold people for... Yeah, the question's kind of the hook, and then there's exposition of here's the concept in Act 1, then he goes to Paris, his Act 2, he comes back, that's Act 3.

51:25We're going to see who's going to pass out first in a jet. Since you have to condense a story to sub-minute, it has to be broken down, very simple. So almost any structure, you could be like, oh, it applies to that, because it's like basically sub-1-minute stories are just bare-bone storytelling. You don't have time to be dynamic. But I like the POV stuff you're doing on Shortform. It's really interesting where it's like your hand and your voice, right? Because it becomes very much about the situation. Like the two people who went on a date, international date. Part of the thing with Shortform too is it's like because it's vertical, it's very hard to fit a lot of things in the frame is one of the things I'm learning.

52:00And it's like the thumbnail, there is thumbnails in Shortform, not when you're on the homepage, but when you're swiping. And the thumbnail is the first frame. It is. And it's like it's very hard to fit tons of people. And so sometimes it is easier to remove me from the frame so you can be more focused on one person and get a better reaction. It's just the same reason why some thumbnails, it's not me and people, it's just me. It's easier to focus on one person. And so I try to think of the first frame as the thumbnail. So I heard you guys talking about autoplay on YouTube and I've never considered it.

52:30I've always thought about the thumbnail, but now on YouTube videos automatically play. Yeah, here, let me show you the autoplay for one of my coming up videos. Okay. This is how seriously we take it. Look at this shot. So I have this fully rendered out. This is just the intro for our next video. Oh, yeah. You probably saw it, yes. Yeah, yeah. We saw this. This is the autoplay.

52:54Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, wait. So all you have on your phone is the autoplay. Yeah, because that's what's going to play. It's the first five seconds. Exactly. And you make sure the first five seconds looks like the thumbnail. Of course. So before you film a video, what is the thumbnail? What is the video? And then what's the first five seconds? And then what's the first 30 seconds? By the first five seconds, it goes with the thumbnail. Because it's possible that people open YouTube and they don't even see the thumbnail. Especially for us because so many people have watched hundreds of our videos.

53:22When I upload, I am first on your homepage. So you just literally don't even see the thumbnail because it auto plays so quickly. So the thumbnail is irrelevant. I have to visually convince you to click on the video. Wow, that's so interesting. Yeah, that's why we go so hardcore. Dude, that's so crazy. So do you consider also captions in those first five seconds? Of course. Because people aren't watching with audio. Yeah, everything. Everything, yes, 100%. Wow. So those first five seconds, that hook is now even more important than it ever used to be. Oh, 100%. Yeah, before it was important because you had to convince people to watch.

53:53Now you have to convince people to click and watch at the same time with the first five seconds. That's driving CTR now too. It is, 100%. Wow. Bro, I roast the hell out of people who have boring first five seconds. It's brutal. What role does short form play? Is it audience growth, brand growth? On YouTube or across everything? Just across the board. Yeah. You said it loses money. Yeah, well, short form is an interesting thing because never before in history have you been able to make a piece of content that goes viral on Facebook, goes viral on Instagram. I mean, Reddit has where you swipe through.

54:23You can go viral on Reddit. You can go viral on Twitter when you tap on a video. Twitter, you can swipe through. Go viral on TikTok and go viral on YouTube. If you make the right kind of short form content, you can literally grow across every platform. Like Cavy Lane doesn't make Instagram specific content. And what does he have? Like 80 million followers? I think you're neck and neck with him right now. Yeah, but whatever. But on Instagram, he's like 80 million followers, right? The guy doesn't even use Instagram. He just reposts his clips of it, right? Same thing with a lot of other people popping on short form.

54:49So like short form is very interesting because it's like, you don't have to be like a god at YouTube. You don't have to be a god at TikTok and then a god at Snapchat and then a god at this platform and that platform. You can actually, it's very weird. It's like, this has never happened in social media. It just never has. You can master this one craft, and by mastering that one craft, you can grow across all platforms, which it's just like, even for me, like I would say I'm one of the best in the world at YouTube, but I'm not one of the best in the world at Instagram. I'm just not, you know? But if you master short form really high level enough, you can be one of the best at both because being the best at short form means you can have popping reels and popping shorts on YouTube.

55:27So to me, it's pretty fascinating because if you play your cards right, you can grow on every single platform, which is wild. That's an encouragement to everyone watching to clip this. Yes. Spread these clips. Spread these clips. Do it. Do you care if they re-upload it on TikTok? No. Guys, easy way to make money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get the clip in. They gave you permission. I want to see TikToks. I want to see shorts. I want to see reels every single moment. Subtiles. Make the subtitles better. Bro, do that thing where they throw their cringe violin with subtitles. You know what? Screw it. Figure out a different instrument.

55:57You're up here. You're different. I want to see it. Dude, honestly, though, it's so interesting. I've been thinking about the concept of clipping like that. Someone's going to work wonders. Someone's going to work wonders on that. I can't see that. You know what? That. Make that viral. This right here is on TikTok and you're watching it. And it went viral because it's ironic. I was curious about how you think about your own visibility like that. Like people clipping you. Yeah. That's a whole other layer when we were talking in the beginning of the show about fame and how visible you are. It's not just your videos.

56:28It's like millions of clips of you. One to 100. there's a someone clipped uh like just like took a two minute segment of the video and put on tiktok and it had 40 million views on tiktok and these guys are just like so many of the comments are like where do i find this what is this and people are just like it's mr beast and like and then like they'll respond like two hours later they're like wow i just watched 10 of his videos where has this been and i see stuff like that all the time so short form's like great that's where when i hear creators are like striking other people that do up re-upload their videos or whatever i'm like You're crazy.

57:00This is a funnel to your content. That's like undervaluing brand. It's undervaluing. If I was like, hey, I'll give you some free billboards and put them everywhere. You're like, no, no, no, take them down. I love it. Clip my videos. React to my videos on your Twitch stream, your whatever stream. Clip my videos. Put it on TikTok. I don't care. Just make sure you give views. I think that's why we have a lot of new creators right now because in a very short amount of time, you can make a ton of content and you can grow a big audience. Exactly. And I don't think anyone, I don't think not a single person is actually using it correctly.

57:32Like no one, there is no like Mr. Beast of long form. There's no Mr. Beast of short form yet. I think that someone who's actually like figuring out and crushing it. And so I'm like excited to see like, who are those people? Who do they shape up to be? Like we had Charlie and Addison Ray at one point and like, they're doing fine. But I wouldn't say like, when you think of TikTok, you don't really think of them anymore. No, TikTok is very much a stepping stone. Yeah. Right. To do something else. either YouTube or like going to the movies or do music or it's, it feels like it's like back in the day.

58:00Yeah. But someone needs to come along. You know, it's funny where the fifth most followed account on TikTok at the rate we're growing, we're actually gonna be number one on TikTok as well, which is kind of funny. Which is crazy. Yeah. That is actually a lot. But you're also doing specific concepts for short form. Well, for TikTok as well. Yeah. Anytime there's huge trends, you know, I just kind of look at the trends. I'm like, Oh, that one's big. Let's do it. Yeah. Whatever. I remember corn kid at, uh, at the burger opening. Yeah. He was cool. It was fun to hang around. So we, yeah, it's just, I don't know.

58:28You're right. So many people on TikTok are using it as a launch pad. They're like, oh, I can't make that much money or blah, blah, blah. Which, same thing was back in the day on YouTube. It was pre-television. No one 10 years ago when I was grinding and putting in the hours, whatever I thought you could do the kind of revenue and money I'm doing now. But you have to have a little bit of that faith. It's like someone needs to just go, no, TikTok will keep growing. I love this platform. I'm just going to go all in. And when the money's here, the money's here. Or I don't even care about money. Just screw it.

58:58I just want to be the best. And I just feel like I haven't seen many of those people that are making mass appealing content with that mindset. One of the most substantial changes to the business from two years ago to now is Feastables. Yes. And even walking around this campus, I was thinking about it. And there's Feastables everywhere. Yeah. And I was like, is this a chocolate company? With a YouTube channel? Do you know what I mean? I'm like, is this, are we at a YouTube channel? You finally figured it out. No, I'm kidding. No, but that's what it feels like. You're like, oh, this is a chocolate company with mega distribution, right?

59:31Yeah. Because like, we were talking about this before too, but like as the business grows, like Feastables is going to dramatically change your relationship to advertising. Like the advertising business, the brand deal business, ad revenue, all that. Like Feastables is the business, right? Is that how you see it? The thing is, like, there's only...

1:00:21Yeah, I've never talked about this before. me to get paid fairly. So a lot of times it's like, you know, we talk to these like marketers and they're just like, you know, I only get X amount of money a quarter to sponsor YouTubers with. And I'm like, well, for one video, it costs more than that. And they're like, well, then what do we do? And I'm like, I don't know, but I'm not going to just give you a discount because your boss won't give you more money. Like, you know, this is 200 million views. It's double the Superbowl. It is what it is. And so it's like harder and harder to find brand deals for us that keep up with the pace.

1:00:49Like the amount of money people are willing to pay has stalled, even though the views are skyrocketing. Like a year ago, I was getting 50 million views a video or whatever, 70. And so, yeah, it's getting more, makes more and more sense for me to just build companies that I own because, you know, I know, you know, if I promote something that it converts and like, you know, it actually leads to real sales. And so ideally one day, I don't have to do brand deals anymore. I don't like having to promote other companies, but I also like making the best videos possible. And my videos don't make money.

1:01:15Even when I do a brand deal on a video, I still lose money. I lose like over a million dollars a video and I have to supplement it to like gaming or reacts or through other means. And it's like, I don't make money. I'm constantly stressed about money nonstop. And it's like, people are always like, well, just don't spend$4 million on a video. And I'm like, why would I not do that? And they're like, well, because it's stressful. And maybe if you spent two and a half, you'd be fine. I'm like, yeah, but then I don't get to do what I want to do. It's also a big difference from last time. You showed us your books last time.

1:01:40Yeah, we were probably spending a million of video back then. I think it was like 500. Yeah, it was like 500. Yeah. I think you showed us one and you were like, that's 800. Yeah. This time you didn't take us to the accounting office. I lose more than that on average per video I upload. So my total spin last time. But it is what it is. So yeah, I just got to figure out a way. The question, the answer to me isn't make worse videos or like stifle my creativity. I want to do whatever the hell I have to do to make the best of it possible. And money just is a huge factor. It just is. To build sets, these walls, even lumber, it's expensive.

1:02:12And then you got to construct it. And this is like a shell of what it will be. This video is going to be freaking awesome. but like for this video alone 1.5 million of it's going to be just building this stuff and like decking it and putting stuff in it or whatever and like you know well if i give a million dollar cash prize well that's a million dollars on top of it you know what i mean yeah and it's like it just adds up and it's like well i don't want to give away less money i don't want to have less i don't want to have worse sets i just need to figure out how to make more money so i can fund all this stuff and so that's kind of what got me started on on doing this and um i also i'm just very passionate about food in general.

1:02:46I love just even, I don't know if you came to my room earlier, but we were just trying different formulas for the chocolate. And then to me, this is kind of like a YouTube thumbnail. You put it on a shelf in a store. And actually a lot of what I learned on YouTube about clickbait or whatever came over. And it's like, I get that same excitement designing the packaging that I do when I get to make a YouTube thumbnail. And it's very fun to create something, create an actual product, and then have people try it and experience it. I could go on and on. Also, just chocolate, like for the last 100 years, we started with this.

1:03:18We're going to do other stuff like one day soda and, you know, try to just take categories and make healthier products than what's out there. But chocolate for the last 100 years, especially in America, has been owned by four companies and like no one has been able to get in there. It's like Hershey's, Mars, Lent, and Ferraro. And it's just, it's pretty crazy. Like, but even most of it, it's just Hershey's and Mars. You know, like they do like 75 % of chocolate revenue in America. And so it's like, it's kind of like monopolistic almost. Like you can't, if you have a successful chocolate company, they'll just buy you or just like bully you so you don't get shelf space.

1:03:51And so these guys like just own all the chocolate space and they don't innovate. Like a Hershey's bar to me just tastes like, yeah, it tastes very processed and I don't really like it at all, to be honest. I mean, and so it's so fascinating to me. Like why, why are there not new, innovative, cool, like, you know snack products coming out more often it's because these guys just have all the shelf space and they have no need to innovate just you're just going to buy what's there and no one's really threatening them so to me it's fun to like put pressure on them and try to get as much shelf space as possible and you know try to figure out what they're doing but better it's like the only thing in my life outside of youtube that i've like gotten hooked on and like on that same high again working on youtube i get that when i make these products like cpg products and so i enjoy it a lot.

1:04:36It's a lot of fun. I think like Feastables to me is your YouTube channel when it had 8 ,000 subscribers. Exactly. Right now, I'm still figuring it out, but that's exactly it. I love it so much. It's so addicting, and I never, I never ever, ever, ever, ever thought I would find something even remotely close to YouTube that I love and I can throw my life at and genuinely enjoy, but I freaking love it. I love staring at chocolate data. I know everything. It's all over the walls. You wonder how much? 20 billion. 24 % a year. What else do you want to know? That's what I realized. Walmart does four and a half billion a year in fucking chocolate sales.

1:05:08It's like your new YouTube studio. Say that again. Walmart does four billion a year in chocolate sales. Yeah. Wow. Not just chocolate bars like this, but across anything with chocolate in it. Yeah. Walmart's the highest grocery retailer. How much of Walmart's chocolate business is Feastables? Well, ask me that in a year. The thing is like there's resets. And so our chocolate per skew, if you put Feastables there, sells like crazy compared to every other chocolate company. but the thing is they only once a year reset and evaluate, oh, you're selling X amount of volume. We should give you more space.

1:05:40Our company is very new. So we are way overdue for infinitely more shelf space. We're just waiting for the next reset. It might not even be 100 % about that. There's probably some politics involved in that too. I don't want to get into that. No, but I'm saying the Hershey's Walmart relationship is probably legacy. It's old. Yeah. You're the new kid on the block. Yeah, I know. There are some interesting stories there for another day. right now. Like any business, it's going to take time to build trust. Yeah. Right? Like your YouTube channel at 8 ,000 subscribers in YouTube's eyes is like, eh. All right.

1:06:11Yeah. Let's see what happens. No, I mean Walmart and everyone's great. The retailers working with them is awesome and like a lot of them watch videos so it's like pretty easy. It's not like the stereotypical where you would think I walk in there and I have to pitch these people why they should sell these products. Anytime I talk to a retailer they're just like, okay, you know, how much do you want to spend on the shelves? You know, it's not, So right now more the problem is making enough bars and keeping up with demand. It's not really convincing retailers to put it there. Because it's pretty obvious.

1:06:37I can show infinite amounts of data of how Feastables isn't just taking revenue from Hershey's. So people are just walking to the chocolate aisle and instead of buying Hershey's, buying Feastables. People who never would have bought chocolate in Walmart are walking to the chocolate aisle specifically to buy Feastables. You're creating a new market. Exactly. I'm bringing new customers to the aisle, which is such a net positive and one of the biggest KPIs these buyers would want that it's just like dumb not to have me there. It's like literally incompetence not to put our bar there because I'm bringing new people to the aisle.

1:07:10You know what I mean? And they realize that. So it's not even like a thing. You know what I mean? It's just like literally, can I keep up with the demand? It's similar to when you started on YouTube, you had like a group of up and coming creators that you talk to all the time, right? Do you have that in CBG products? I'm working on it. I'm trying. Like founders or like chocolate people. I can't name one, but I'm trying. Bro, I'm trying to build that. So every company on the world, I'm calling them. I'm reading books. I just read Chocolate Wars. I read Milton Hershey's biography. I'm reading all these books.

1:07:38And I'm calling people who wrote the books. And I'm like, yo, what did you learn? Or this or that. My tree of knowledge is disseminating. You read this book and then you talk to this author who recommends this person. It's cool to see that. And so I'm starting to get resources of people because for the most part, I don't know what I'm doing. and I'm learning as fast as possible and trying to become one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet when it comes to making food products and eventually beverages so right now I'm just in that stage of trying to absorb knowledge as much as possible and I'll just call people I'll do everything I can to add value to you in exchange just teach me everything people who have run a snack business for 10 years I'm like just teach me everything and then I'll teach you everything I can which is exchange knowledge and try to make it a win win and I'm doing that five hours a day The thing I love about the way Feastables works with your brand is that when it is in the videos, which is now almost every video, right?

1:08:33Yeah. It doesn't feel like a brand deal. Of course. Yeah. But there's still set up moments. Like in the boat video, in the yacht video, there's like a moment, a Feastables moment, right? Where it enters into a segment. It's because I'm excited about it. Like when we're, you know, in that video, when we were going around and having people try it, like I'm genuinely, like I've worked so hard to make these products. And I'm like, yo, what do you think? And I love asking random people. and yeah and there's like jokes and bits and like between you and Pete Davidson it was funny yeah like that was a really funny moment um so like those experiences I think that is the gold standard now of like if you can build your own product oh you should organically talk about it not only just even have to think about talking about it it's just part of you like I think Mr.

1:09:11Beast I think Feastables and and it just in the long run it's just better like you know if people aren't gonna pay you what you're worth for a brand deal yeah just do it yourself I mean it just is what it is. You know what I mean? So, yeah. It's like, hopefully one day I can spend$10 million a video, you know, because I just don't think, you know, not in the near future, people are going to be willing to pay that kind of money. Even if I'm pulling a billion views of video, I don't think anyone's going to pay me$10 million a video. So I just got to go make it myself. You know what I mean? Would you ever entertain not spending millions of dollars on a video?

1:09:43I mean, I have before. But like to go back to years ago, like filling a backyard with four bees. I did the video. I didn't eat food for 30 days. I mean, like, yeah, I did that video for dirt cheap people. I've said this before. That's one of my favorite. People love that. I can't, I mean, that was unexpected. Yeah. I can, I can get a hundred million views on a video for less than 10 grand if I wanted to. It's like, it's possible, but it's like, like, what, what's the point? Like, I'm just trying to make the best of it as possible. I'm not trying to like, I don't have an ego. I'm not trying to like prove to people I don't need to spend money.

1:10:09I don't care. Spending money isn't a bad thing. I hear people ask me that. I'm like, why does it matter? In what world? So you would rather me keep my, not you, but this imaginary hypothetical person. It's like, so you'd rather me keep my money. You'd rather me go buy a mansion and a Lamborghini like everyone else as opposed to investing it in content, creating jobs for people and trying to do everything I can to make videos my viewers want to see and can't find anywhere else. You'd rather me just go buy a mansion. That's what I'm supposed to do. You know what I mean? It's not a negative that I spend money on videos.

1:10:39You know what I mean? I actually ask it more from a place of curiosity of what would you make. I mean, look at our gaming channel. I mean, our gaming channel, we get 60, 70, 80 million views on videos with like no money spent all the time. So it's like, it's definitely possible, you know? Yeah. I'm going to shift gears a little bit to talk about as you're building this company, this like media company or chocolate company, I don't know how you think about it. But how do you think about the difference between human intelligence and artificial intelligence in the future of creativity and work. Yeah, that's going to be interesting.

1:11:19Obviously, it's not there yet. We all know it's not there. But yeah, with chat, GPT, and everything, it's definitely getting exponentially better at an alarming rate. And there will probably be a day where you can upload every Mr. Beast video and just go, all right, here's every video I've ever done, everything I've ever said, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to do$1 versus$1 billion helicopter. Tell me what I should do. Tell me what would be funny. Tell me the best helicopter. And it would probably be able to spit off, like, here's every helicopter on the planet. Here's what I think you should do and blah, blah.

1:11:48And it'd probably be pretty close to what I would end up doing. So I do think that will be a thing one day. But it's also interesting because I don't think it will destroy things. I think it will just free up people to do, you know, more of what they love and like focus on creating and they'll have that for inspiration. and like there'll probably be a period where everyone just plagiarizes and uses that and like are lazy. It's going to get more homogenous at one point. And then it'll normalize and then the people who break through are going to be the ones that use that as inspiration and level up on it.

1:12:15And, you know, it just kind of is what it is. But right now, kind of neglecting it. Like sometime in the next year, I'm going to go down the AI rabbit hole and be like, screw it. I'm going to start putting five hours a day into this and like figure out how I could use it to like level up what I'm doing. But I don't know. I think one of the most interesting things that's coming that we've spoken about before is multi-language audio. Like you releasing the yacht video in as many languages as you did contributed to getting so many views, of course. And there will be a moment when that is available to people because of AI very quickly and very cheaply, I think.

1:12:51I still think it's a little ways away. Let's just go there. Okay, yeah, if you want to say five years from now. You have a plethora of content on YouTube, and I'm not going to watch videos in English that are just AI dubbed. I'd rather just literally watch a normal English video. And so it's like, the thing is, in a vacuum maybe, but to get your video in Hindi promoted with Hindi dubs, you can't just have the dubs. If this is the standard of content over there, it has to be above the standard to get promoted and go viral. You know what I mean? And so you're kind of with AI dubbing, especially right now, obviously, you're just competing on crutches, like in a wheelchair.

1:13:30You know what I mean? It's not a level playing field. And so for it to get to the point where it's so indistinguishable, where it is a level playing field, I think that's still years away. I think you need to have video tracks that are different too, maybe. Oh, yeah. Video tracks is another thing. Subtitles that are different. It's brutal. Yeah. There's something that I love upstairs, by the way, which is the photos of your voice actors. Hey, are you going to overlay that footage? No, we're not going to overlay any footage. That's our rule. Maybe don't. Don't overlay that. You guys don't get to know that.

1:14:00Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, but that's really cool that you have all the different voice actors who play you guys. Like their pictures are up here in the office. Yeah. I love that. I don't know. I just think that's so cool. There's 13 me's all around the world. Actually, when I went to Japan, I met, you know, all our voice actors over there. It was so awesome to see them. Because like, I've said this a million times, it sounds like a broken record, but I have the same person who voices Naruto does me. And then we also had all the other voice actors for the boys. It's so interesting talking to them because they're like, they study our personalities and they like know us so well because they've basically role-played as us for hundreds of videos, like hundreds of hours collectively.

1:14:37And so it's pretty interesting because sometimes they're like, when I talk, I accidentally start talking like you because I've mimicked you so much that it's kind of become a little bit like us. That's one of them said to one of the boys. That's crazy. Yeah, it's so interesting. And they know everything about us. They know our mannerisms. They're like, hey, Lamborghini is hard to translate. Maybe use a different word. And we're like, oh, really? And they're like, oh, you use this adjective. a lot and I've noticed you do this and you have this quirk because they have to study how we speak so they can mimic it properly so the doves come across real.

1:15:07Are you considering that in your content of like how do we make this more global? No, I just do. I'm just me. I don't care. But it is interesting when I meet them and they're like why do you say this word a lot? And like one of the ones a lot is like Lamborghini. Apparently that's hard to translate. And they're all like any other car. They're like Ferrari. I'm like how is Ferrari easier to say than Lamborghini? And they're like trying to explain it like I don't understand. But on the topic of like. Because also when we're talking to them we're talking with Google Voice. I'm typing in, why is Ferrari better than Lamborghini?

1:15:34And then I hit play and it says, and they grab the phone and they're like. That'll be interesting when that's happening live, where there's live translations happening between people. I should be able to talk into it and your AirPods auto-translate. That's probably pretty close. But on the English dub thing, did you watch Squid Game in Korean with English subtitles? Or did you watch it as an English dub? Because of anime, I'm kind of conditioned to use subtitles. So I watch the subtitles. Yeah, because I would say that, when I think about Squid Game, I think a lot about is the next big YouTuber from somewhere else?

1:16:03Yes. Right? Is the next big YouTuber from India and with multi-language audio, they get kind of imported into America the same way that Squid Game got imported into America. Agreed. Right? I think that's a real possibility that maybe YouTube has been so U.S. based for so long. Which is U.S. and Europe. U.S. and Europe. Yeah, English based. That maybe we need a completely different culture to watch. I'm excited. Right? I want to see it. Yeah, that feels like, if there was like a Casey Neistat in India, like showing us his daily life, I'd be like, wait, that's super cool. And I could understand it all.

1:16:33Imagine like a Ryan Trahan from India, where it's like, you know, I won't even name a country, but just, you know, these other countries that have lower RPMs, you know, so they couldn't ever do these bigger budget stuff or build sets. You know, Ryan isn't spending that much money on videos. So like finding a Ryan in one of these other countries, you know, that just is getting by on personality for the most part would be very fascinating. And then to see that personality in this other culture and environment, I do think would do pretty well. I think that's probably the next thing we're going to experience.

1:17:01I would love to see it. The only problem is, you know, now almost everyone's getting this beta program where you have access to audio tracks, but even then, like, they're not going to be able to do the dubs. Like, it's just a big thing, and it costs money. So it's probably going to be at least another year until that's kind of a thing. Yeah. But yeah, it'll be interesting once it is. Speaking of Ryan Trahan, Is there any inspiration you've taken from him? When we had him on the channel for the first time, we titled it around Mr. Beast. Yeah. Being like that he's kind of the next Mr. Beast, but we were saying it in like a low budget way that he has not budget.

1:17:36That was years ago. Not budget every man in a bad way. Yeah, I get what you're saying. How much have you watched his videos and have you taken any inspiration from what he's doing? No, I can't do what Ryan does. Like he's too, I mean, he's like Emma, you know, like they're just different, you know. Ryan has fun and Ryan's happy. Ryan's the YouTuber you want to be, man. I agree. Dude, I said that yesterday in the car. I was like, if there's one YouTuber I'm jealous of, it's Ryan Trahan. Exactly. Ryan's got a great life. Man's making money. Man's having a good time. He's got a wife and he's happy.

1:18:09Like, you want to be him. Like, no, I mean, like, you don't just spawn stuff like this and manage companies this big and scale up tens and hundreds of millions of chocolate bars and all these things and, you know, and just have carefree, oh, just make stupid, not stupid, but make like, you know, funny jokes and blah, blah. Like we just, me and him live in different worlds. And so like, no, it's like, I, yeah, I'm just like, I don't know. I got so much going on. It's so hard for me to turn my brain off. Like I really, I struggle, but it's something I try to do is like when I'm filming tend to like, it's so like even one through a hundred, I'm like thinking like, oh, these sets could be better.

1:18:42Like that cube could be better. We should wipe that so they could see through it. We should have this wide shot and then it could come here and I'm thinking of all this. And so it definitely, I try to like flick my brain off and just be like, be funny. You know, be funny because that's what people want. They just want me to be funny and be in the moment. And like, that's like a constant battle for me. Whereas I don't think he has that much of a struggle because it's just, the things aren't as complex. So it's just a little bit of a different world because also if I'm not worried about those things, then they don't happen, you know.

1:19:09If you don't fully enjoy it all the time or it is stressful, are you always actively working to make it more enjoyable? The problem is like, I always push the videos to be better. And so in a world where I'm like, all right, this is like the level where it's good, then it would be fine. Because like the second I solve a problem and we catch up and like boom, boom, it's like, okay, well now I want to start doing CG like Squid Games. And it's like, all right, we solved that. Now it's not as stressful. And it's like, okay, well now I want bigger sets. You know, like this is one of the bigger videos we've done.

1:19:36It's like, now I want Squid Games every video. And my team's like, bro, we can't. We can't spend$4 million every video. We can't do sets. This is impossible. This is a one-off. and I'm like, but no, now I know it's possible. So like, I want to do it every video. And so it's like, then, you know, you solve that and you keep pushing and pushing and pushing. And it's like, so that's the reason why I'm always stressed. But it's like, it's not like anyone's forcing me to do it. It's just like, it just feels like it runs in my blood. Like if I'm not pushing and innovating, then I just get depressed and I'm like, what am I doing?

1:20:05Like, what's the point of life? Innovation is what makes you happy. Exactly. It makes life so exciting. Innovation is extremely difficult. Exactly. And it's miserable. And then you push and then you're like, oh, this is hard. And then you're like, well, why am I even doing this? And then you're like, I'm going to go watch anime. And then you come back and you're like, all right, let's do it. So we tweeted out this graphic that you replied to. It was like a pyramid where we showed like a typical company has a CEO on the top. And if you remove that CEO, the company is still intact. And you can swap out employees.

1:20:33Yeah, that was a while ago. That was a while ago. And we turned it on its head and said, this is a creator company. Everything lies on this one individual. And you pull that person and everything falls. and you replied to that talking about the pressures of running a creator-led business and that you need to be, you have to be a certain type of person to do this. Yeah. Can you talk a little about what you've learned about that, like a creator-led business and being the creator in a creator-led business? Well, one thing is, especially because I started off the podcast talking about stuff, I just want to be clear.

1:21:02Obviously, I signed up for this and like no one's forced me to do it. I love my fans. I love you guys. So like, I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. It's miserable. Even though I am miserable a lot, but it's self-inflicted misery. But yeah, the thing is, it's like, you know, I mean, across everything I'm doing with this and the production company, production company, whatever, just the people who make my videos. I have hundreds of people that work for me and they have families and like so many people depend on me. Like if I, you know, don't film videos, like I can't pay people. So like I have all that.

1:21:30And like I was describing before, it's like, you know, I leave these walls and it's like, you know, just crazy. Like not as crazy. Like obviously there are people way more famous than me, like Taylor Swift, you know what I mean? and hers is probably infinitely worse, but it's still like, you know, I can't be in large crowds. I just can't. I can't go watch a movie with my girlfriend. We were in a very large crowd with you in November. Yeah. At the mall. Exactly. So I can't be in crowds. I can't, you know, watch a movie unless I rent out the entire, buy every ticket in the movie or people are just going to like film me the whole time.

1:22:02It's like, I always have to be on guard. Like I'm known for carrying around money. Like people haven't broken into my house before. And so it's like, I got to have security at my house and I got to do all this. So it's like all that, it's like no matter where I go, you're always on. And you know, also I can't just like, if I mess up, someone's always filming me when I'm in public. I don't know what mess up means, but you're just, you're always on. You can never let your guard down. There's always things going on and then, you know, and you always have to be filming because all these people depend on you and, you know, and then the expectation is like, if I just do one thing just slightly worse than video, then there's 500 Twitter threads of like why Mr.

1:22:38Beast is getting lazy and Mr. Beast is going to fall off because on this one boat, he wasn't feeling the best. They don't know, but I'm like, oh, if I'm not feeling the best and I just don't film as much for one little thing and I just, you know, whatever. And so then the bit isn't as perfect as it could be. Everyone reverse analyzes it and it's like, Mr. Beast is a fucking moron. He didn't do this, this, and this. He'd go, what is wrong with, and it's like, I don't know, I had the flu or something. Sorry, that piece of content isn't as good. I don't know what you want from me. You know, then it's all this pressure.

1:23:09And then, you know, you still have to make short form content. I still have to do this. And so, yeah, just kind of like all stacks up and you're running at full speed nonstop. And, you know, every time you take even like an hour off, you feel bad because you're like, damn, that's an hour. I could have been working, you know, and I'm the bottleneck for almost everything. You know what I mean? That's the thing. Yeah. You're the bottleneck for everything. And we feel that, too, in our company. Right. Like if we're not at our office or like reviewing edits or something, everything always ends with us.

1:23:37Right. That's the hard thing about creating a business. It's brutal. It's 100 % brutal. And so that's where you have to be a specific type of person. That is why a lot of people get burnt out. And it just is what it is. It's the nature of the business. I don't think it's the fault of anyone. It's just like some people have the personalities. Like I want the pressure. I'm complaining a lot on this podcast. I want it. I love it. I love having the pressure on my back. Put it on my back. Put more on there. It excites me. It doesn't scare me. I'm like, I want more. I get competitive and it fires me up.

1:24:06but for other people it feels like a never ending race that's daunting and you can never stop and it's like what's the point of life if you're just always going to be like running at a million miles an hour and you know i want to do this thing but i can't do it because i just if i let up then this falls apart and so it's like it can be a scary trap it's like it's either like something you live for and it's like in your dna or for a lot of other people ends up being your nightmare if you're not careful that's why i don't recommend a lot of creator scale as big as i have because it's like it's a lot of pressure like you really should probably keep your team a little more leaner you probably shouldn't do big projects like I do.

1:24:38You should keep it a little more reasonable. You should get it where you have a year's pay in the bank. So if you have a couple of duds, you don't have to worry about paying, are you going to be able to pay your employees? You shouldn't reinvest every penny so aggressively like I am. And there are things you can do to make it where it's not as brutal on your mental health. And all of it is the exact opposite of what I do. But it's what you want. Yeah, that's why you shouldn't. Like a lot of people, unless you really do truly believe that you're like me and you like the pressure shouldn't try to do what I do because it's just, it's going to end up being your nightmare.

1:25:11I see it happen all the time for a lot of people. I think there's a big scale, right? Like if you're on YouTube and you're making good videos, you can also kind of be like an artist, like an actor, right? Where you don't really want to hire employees, but you're just really good at making videos. Yeah, but then those are the same people who have to edit their videos. They have to set up the cameras and those are the first to get burnt out because they're doing everything. And they're doing seven jobs and they only enjoy two of them. And the five jobs they hate are the things that burn them out and they don't know why they're burnt out.

1:25:35and it's because, well, you know, 70 % of what you do, you just freaking hate, you know? That's fair. That's true too. You need to hire someone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like there was a moment, like two years ago when we interviewed you or even over the past year, it feels like you were, even though you had such large scale, you were still like ours. Like you were part of the creator community. Yeah. And it feels like now you've gone well beyond that. I should have because I'm still in the creator community. I know you're still in the creator community. This is my life. Yeah, but it feels like you've like transcended in this way.

1:26:02Yeah, I got you. Like brand wise. Yeah, like brand wise. And Colin always says this, that when you're in a community, people always describe you as underrated or kind of like you're just like ours. It's like, yeah, Mr. Beast is the top of our game. People watch a video, right? Yeah. For us, this is what happened before we had a million subscribers. I felt like people would watch and be like, wow, more people should know about you. More people should be subscribing to you. This is so good. They give you the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. As the number goes up and you cross a threshold, it's like the chance that someone's like, this is not that good.

1:26:34Yeah. You should be way better with this many followers, this many subscribers. Or you're overrated, or just have not great things to say about you. I think it feels like when you transcend a bit, then all of a sudden you're rated. You're no longer underrated. People are on both sides of the aisle. Do you feel that? Well, I think this is where I'm different from most people that come before me, and I just don't care. I've said this before. My goal is to make the best videos possible. I'm going to spend 100 times more. I'm going to be 100 times more creative. I'm going to work 100 times harder.

1:27:01I'm going to hire the best. I've said this three times already. You probably want to kill me. and as long as I do those things and I believe in my heart I'm making the best videos possible and I'm doing everything in my power to entertain my fans as much as possible then I don't care say what you want I mean like I don't like I know that I'm doing the best I can and that's all I can really expect so like once I kind of got out of that loop where like the comments you know kind of this was years ago kind of told me what's good or not and I just got to like no I'm just going to do what I think is good and I'm going to pour my entire soul in everything I have from money to my brain power to my physical body and hire the best people as well to like leverage and expand that.

1:27:36And then like, yeah, what is there for me to be worried about? Do you feel like people judge your moves now? Oh, they judge every little thing I do. Everything. Everything I say is reversed analyzed with Twitter threads. Everything I do on camera. Every thumbnail switch you make. Everything. It's hyper analyzed. Yeah, exactly. Of like, why did he do that? Everything. Yeah. But I mean. What does that mean? It is what it is. Like I said, I'm doing, I wake up every day. I work out. I focus on Feastnells and I make the best videos possible. And I'm going to do those three things. Yeah. And I say this repeatedly because I think this is like, everyone needs to find their own mindset.

1:28:06Yeah. Because like, if you just, if your mind is just like the whim of what Twitter wants it to be, then it's always going to be bouncing around and you're not going to be focused. And like, I got my three things and that's it. And like, as long as I'm doing them, I'm doing what I need to do. And I know I'm going to achieve what I want to achieve. You know what I mean? What have some of your big videos in the past year taught you about making videos? Like the last podcast we did, 70 % retention was crazy. It was crazy, right? Holy crap, really? It was something that we talked about a lot, right?

1:28:35Wow. With 70 % retention. And I feel like people took that away from that podcast of like, that's what I'm striving for. We went home and edited the shit out of the video. The first one that came out after visiting you was like seven minutes or something hyper-edited. Yeah. Okay. Is there something new? Because we talked a lot about the hooks. We talked a lot about 70 % retention. With Squid Game and Yachts and all this new content that you've made, is there something new that you've learned that you feel like is - Yeah, I mean, the hard part is like, and it's crazy because I'm very, very analytical and I love data.

1:29:10But no, it's like, bro, you're going to kill me. People who watched the last podcast are going to kill me, but it's like, just make the best video possible. Like, just do it. It's the first time you said it, bro, that's good. I literally don't even look at retention charts or percentages. I don't know what it is. Like that, you know, Yavi, I don't know what it is. I don't care. Like, I'm just like, how do I make this video as good as possible? Yeah. And then I just obsess over that. And that's just what works for me. I don't need data to confirm it anymore. What do you think makes a video good?

1:29:38Just generally, you can watch it and you just know it when you see it? It's the best fucking piece of content we possibly can make. From watching you give notes last night, I think it's a mix of, am I entertained? Can I not look away? That's the core thing. And then second, does this make sense? If we go to a new location, does it make sense? Yeah, it just depends on the video. challenge, a new something, a new this, a new that, whatever. Like at every step of the way, does it make sense? Can people follow it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those are the, just the core foundations and then you build on top of it.

1:30:09Like we said before, it just depends, you know, like one through 100 is like, is the storytelling out of this world or is the set out of this world? Are me and the boys being funny? Are the challenges freaking awesome? Are they executed properly? Is the pacing good? You know, the duration of it, all that, you know, these are all things you can just like the little levers you can pull to like make it exponentially better. Yeah. So if we telescope out, let's say five years, and Feastable sells for a couple billion dollars or something happens. Yeah, ideally more. Ideally more, okay. Tens of billions of dollars.

1:30:41Yeah, let's think bigger. But what does your life look like? Is it similar to this? Well, that's where, I mean, I'd be doing some crazy videos. You guys buy Feastables, A, so I can afford my videos right now. I don't make money. But then, yeah, if we ever had a crazy exit like that, I mean, bro, the kind of videos I'd be making would be just as stupid. I'm always going to be making videos. You're always going to be making videos. Yeah, 100%. So, yeah, it'll be interesting. That's part of the fun of following you for a long time is that you won't stop making videos. Oh, I never want to stop. At every level of success.

1:31:17I'm like the last person on the planet you'd ever want to compete with because I'm stupid. And there's also - I'm just like, I'm like, herdeder, this thing? All right, have 30 years of my life. I don't care. it's not logical but there is also like when I look at you like a parallel storyline where I wonder will he ever stop making videos because he's 25 now I don't know 10 years from now I'm like you know I'm 34 10 years from now I'll be getting started easy why would I stop but that's the tension in it is I'm like okay what's a better use of my time than getting hundreds of millions of people to watch every piece of content I make I get to be here and be like alright let's see I'm more excited now than I was when you first met me when was that four years ago whatever it was Yeah, maybe four or five years.

1:31:57Whatever our first podcast was, I'm at least 10 times more excited than we did that. So it's not going down, it's going up. It's pretty crazy. Do you have aspirations of getting married? Yeah, of course, one day. I mean, right now, this is my main focus, but I love my girlfriend. That's my answer. No, but that's not like me pushing the question. Sure, sure. No, no, no. I'm just curious about some of that, right? Like of that trajectory over the next 10 years or 20 years. Well, luckily, my partner, Tia, she just, she is like, you know, you hear it. Like, your partner can either, you know, divide what you do.

1:32:34What's the other word? Multiply. Well, multiply or divide. But it's a different word than divide. I forgot the same. But anyways, they can either like make you a worse person or a better person. Tia definitely amplifies me and pushes me to work harder. And like, you know, you can't go a million miles an hour forever. You do have to at some point slow down and like recharge. and I do feel like she does a fantastic job of helping me recharge very quickly and she pushes me and inspires me to do better. And so, no, if you would have asked me that four years ago, I would have said no, never. But my partner, you know, I do think actually does make me more successful.

1:33:07So as time goes on, I'm more like, yeah, actually that would make sense. Yeah, that's my answer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so funny because I feel like, you know, we're almost 10 years older than you. Jesus Christ. Right? Yeah, when we did the Dexter skin, you said 1989. Yeah. And you're just like, I know. I remember when I said that out loud, I was like, he said to me too. He goes, what? He goes, the 80s? I paused and I was like, 89. And I was like, wait a minute. He's nine years older than me. Yeah. I like did the math and I was like, did he say 98 or 89? Yeah. I'm almost 10 years older than you, man.

1:33:41Oh my God. Like it's, it's so interesting. So I feel like I, you know, we, my life was dramatically different from yours at 25. Yeah. But at the same time, there's. You're 34. No, I'm 33, all right? I'm 34. He's 34. Wow. The old guy. What's it like? Are you guys about to die? What's it like, man? You saw us working out. Do you have a will? What happens? Who gets the chance? I don't. I don't. So when you die in a couple years, does it just go to Colin? I mean, you're getting close. Or I'll just find another Samir. I should just write another Samir. You know what you should write? Your name is Samir.

1:34:16Yeah, put it in the comments that you want to check. No, I think it should just become Colin. Or it should become Samir if you die. But we'll have to find replacements either way. But it is interesting being like mid-30s YouTube creators. Married grandpa, mid-30s YouTube creators. Oh, my God. And you're married. Wow. Yeah, I am married too. I had to take off my ring to do the Texas scan. You did. Yeah. I had to scan myself and find out how much body fat percentage I had here. Yeah. Yeah. What were we talking about? About that? Oh, I was just saying. Hugo, Hugo. You said today at the gym, you're like, I don't know that much about you.

1:34:48Well, now you know. I'm learning so much. You're learning now. Yeah. But I remember when I was 25, that was like a really different year in my life. Like that was the year I felt like a lot changed for me. Interesting. Where like I became more open to things, you know? And I was like, oh, interesting. Maybe my life will end up like that or I will. And I feel like just from observing you, you know, not even from detailed conversations, even though we've just covered some of it now, like I feel like I'm watching you experience some of that. Yeah. Which is really interesting. I agree. I think part of mine might be different than yours though.

1:35:19Of course. Yeah, you're living a very different life. No, well, more so like from 18 to like, we'll say 24, 23. Yeah. I just was like, you know, I was just so all in on this. Like I just, like my growth was in like making better content and me being, you know, leading a company and that stuff. But my growth outside of that was non-existent. And so I do feel like, like because of working out and just doing just slight things here and there outside of it. It's like transformed my life so much because it's like, oh, I have slight skills that aren't just purely making great YouTube videos. When you have those things, it changes you so much more because I'm not just purely 100%.

1:36:00It'd be a problem if you talked to me four years ago about anything other than YouTube analytics. I remember we used to talk, yeah. This was like a YouTube algorithm and content creation, just GPU computer. That's what my brain was. It was a neural net for like making good videos. That was all it knew how to do. That's all it's ever done. That's all it's ever been trained. I was like literally training my brain to like hate things. So like things that didn't make better videos, like to actually be disgusted at and like avoid it like the plague. Like don't date. Women will waste time. Don't drink alcohol.

1:36:36Even though I've only drank alcohol like three times in my life. Don't do this or like anything. I was like any, like my brain would just like naturally like run away from things that like I didn't think would be good for making better videos and so it's like so fascinating because I've let some of those things in my life and now I don't feel like a Mark Zuckerberg like algorithm you know and so it's like it's pretty funny how it changes your personality yeah that is now that you've kind of evolved past that stage do you ever think how did I end up like that like what made me so competitive what made me so obsessed I was just let those things in because I have a very addictive person out like I got addicted to this and so it's like oh what if I get addicted to any of these things these distractions like I would like you know I wouldn't let a computer in my house because I might play video games and like that you know what if I get addicted to a video game well opportunity cost what if I play two hours a day that's 60 hours a month what am I doing you know that's that's a video you know like bro it was like a fucking straight algorithm up here I was like I called it nightmare mode I would like push myself to be a nightmare mode for 100 days straight where I like I wouldn't play video games I wouldn't do anything fun out.

1:37:42Like I would just work for a hundred days straight. And then I'd be like, okay, now you get one day to like have fun. And then I'd try to go for another a hundred days nightmare mode. I was absolutely stupid. I don't know what I was doing. But I do think now that being a little more well-rounded makes you, well, A, just so happens, if this was a business where I wasn't being a creator or like being an entertainer, I probably would stay in algorithm, like crazy mode a lot longer. But it did kind of hit me that being a little more well-rounded equals a better personality, which will make me funnier in videos, which people like.

1:38:13People surprisingly like a little bit of comedy here and there. So I was like, when it hit me, I was like, oh, maybe I stopped being a little bit of a lizard so much and let up. Maybe just occasionally let a South Park episode in or occasionally just ingest something that isn't optimal for performance. And so I can speak in other things than CTR and AVD. It's like, maybe that'll make better videos. So that's kind of how it developed. so we have South Park to thank. No, I can't watch it. But I don't think it's bad. But I just, that to me is just so far off the chain. Like my girlfriend always tries to get me to watch it, but I'm like, I just can't focus.

1:38:50I end up just like checking out and going into numbers land in my head. But other things, like Succession, I'm liking that. Succession's great. Yeah, it's good. Did you finish it? I'm on episode like three right now. I feel like that's going to take you a while to watch all that. Yeah, Succession's good. What was the other one? What's the, oh, which one? Now we're about to go down a rabbit hole. Did you see Severance? Severance how did you know that's what I was going to say I mean you could feel it that's the one because it's so good you obviously finished it that is stupid that me touching my eyebrows indicated Severance I knew it I was like he's on the inside I was about to say like the show with the white walls but I was like they're not going to know what I'm talking about Severance was insane Severance was great all the way up to the ending I feel like that was just like all that you didn't like the ending no like all that build up and all that like investment and then the ending to me was just kind of but it's not over yet don't you want to watch season 2 Well, give me season two.

1:39:39It's going to be another year. Yeah, it's going to be another year. Stop waiting four years to make a season of shows. Can we just get on this YouTube timeline, man? Bro, I get two weeks. You don't get four years. Come on. I think that's a lesson in brand, though. It's that good that they could take that much time off. It's not that good. No, I think it is. It's good, but it's not optimal. I'm not going to watch that for season two because by the time it comes on, I'm going to freaking forget everything that happened in season one. I'm not even going to remember. I can't wait until it comes out.

1:40:05I'm going to text you. Okay. I'm just not going to remember. Like that happens with so many shows. It's like, it's not optimal. We can all agree. It's not optimal. Like, or anime, like half the anime I watch, it's like, all right, season one, awesome. Two years later, season two. And I'm like, well, I don't care anymore. You know what I mean? And these are shows like I really, really enjoy. It's like, we need to get the rest of the world on this YouTube timeline. Like crank these things out quicker. When do you think that happens where all of this kind of reaches singularity of like the entertainment business?

1:40:33Where they come down to our timelines? Or we go up and we are the ones who produce like when does it happen where there's not I think the answer is like you actually you have to believe more in a project and instead of just filming one season posting the season which is what a lot of people do waiting to see the performance of the season waiting to see what everyone thinks then green lighting a second season you have to just believe in your work before you do it like that's how you double down on a piece of content quicker before you even post the first piece of content you start working on the next like actually start working on it actually start spending money.

1:41:06That's how you dramatically shrink the timelines. But I guess for them, they're probably like, well, these are big budget things that are a lot of money. I think you have a different relationship with money. What probably stops really good art is the commercialization of it, like the monetization of it. I just think in that aspect, it's like the day you finish filming season one, take a little bit of time off and then go right into season two. Don't wait till you post it, which sometimes can take six months to a year. But they're looking at performance probably. Exactly. and that's why it's also hard to scripted content they don't know what we'll do well they don't always sometimes they do but for the most part they don't and so they have to wait till six months to a year for it to get up and then they have to wait to see what people think and some shows don't pop off right away sometimes it takes six months and then you have to green light a show and then it takes all this time to get the game back together and then it takes a year of production whereas if you were just like fuck it I believe in myself you do season one you instantly start working on season two by the time the fans are like oh we want it You already got season two and you can drop that two, three months later.

1:42:06Right. Yeah. But the cost of failure for them is too high. Right. It's again, that's where you need data. You need to be knowledgeable. Like for me, I just spent 10 years of my life, you know, hyper obsessing over what makes the best video possible and like what people on YouTube want to watch. So like I can spend every dollar in my bank account on a video because I don't care. I know people will watch it. You know, you just need someone like that over there. Who's like, I don't care if we spend all the money at the studio. I was like, I know people will watch it. We're just going to do three seasons.

1:42:30We're going to get six seasons of severance and put it out all in one. They should have, bro. That's a freaking banger. Anyone with a brain watching that knows it's a banger. And mine is the end of season one. It was great. It was awesome. I was like so curious. I loved it. It was like porn for my brain. It was like a bunch of thought porn. Yeah, it was a bunch of unclosed loops. Like it kept going like, ooh, what is that? Exactly. Oh, what's that? It's almost like a Sudoku puzzle. Yeah, where it just opens and you're like, once you hit episode six, you can't not make it to the end. Yeah. They just.

1:42:59Bro, I would love to see someone watch Severance with like those things on the brain where you see activity and then have them watch Spongebob. And it's like, Spongebob, your brain activity is probably like, and then with Severance, it's probably like beaming and all red like the whole time. Yeah. That's funny. I wonder if we'll put B-roll over that part. Spongebob and Severance. What's your relationship to like a, like, do you have, do you feel like any of your videos are not well performing or do they all perform at such a level? This is the worst time to ask me. Almost every video the last two years has been one out of 10 or two out of 10.

1:43:34Our views have gone up so much. It's crazy. Is that data? Is that team? I mean, our videos are just so much better than they used to be. Watch a video from three years ago. It's abysmal. But what makes them better? Just the ideas? Everything. The concepts? I mean, look at that yacht video. The transitions for better. I already told you. The intro to the yacht video I thought was one of the best. I mean, it's literally everything. It's like I used to be like robot man and just scream and just say things. I'm a lot more natural now. It's like, all right, boys, let's go have fun on the yacht. Sometimes I'm just like, okay, boys, just do whatever you want.

1:44:07And that's what we put in the video. And it's like, you know, that was a huge breakthrough. It's like people want to just see a more natural me. And like, you know, I don't have to like scream constantly to hold people's attention, you know? You know, it sounds obvious in hindsight, but so it's like that little thing. I mean, like every video, we improve a bunch of stuff. So it's all, it's these five things a video we're improving over the last two years that they just keep stacking on top of each other. We keep pushing and pushing and pushing. And like, you know, we do more. Like yachts on the$25 million boat with the thing went through it and then I spawned.

1:44:38Like that's a more high quality shot than we normally would have done. And it's awesome. I thought it was really cool. And like, you know, sometimes when we film now, we have like seven drones whizzing through the air. We're doing like cool stuff with drone shots. And like, you know, whereas two years ago, we were using one. But so we can do like cool things where like we can have a further away drone, punch into a closer one. so it looks like it flew in and then we can have just all these cool things we're doing on the camera side and my personality and on that side and on scaling up the sets and stuff.

1:45:09Like you said, our average spend has gone from a million to millions of dollars a video. So everything, everything is constantly getting better and the more we level it up we always get rewarded proportionally with views. It just is what it is. The algorithm does a great job of rewarding great content which is subjective it is what it is no one can define great content to a T but in my opinion right now if you make great content which essentially is you know what viewers want to watch but obviously then that goes into a million nuances you can never like verbalize but if you make what people want to watch you make great content the algorithm rewards it very well right now and so as we make our content better and better we just get rewarded with more views and so we just keep pushing and like we're just no matter what there's always a way to be better there is always a way to be better and so we're just never going to stop making them better.

1:45:57You've been tweeting out your analytics quite a bit on your subscription tab. Behind the subscription tab, yeah. Which I've really enjoyed. It's really interesting to see. It's like my own little, like, because I can't tweet it on my main page because then I look egotistical and, like, but I, like, crave that, like, hey, other YouTubers, what do you think of this, like, little piece of data? I think it's great. So, like, on Twitter, you can have this thing where people can subscribe for$5 a month. And so, like, I've just kind of made that a thing where YouTubers, only YouTubers pay the$5 a month because I only share data there.

1:46:27And so it's cool because I have these people whenever I want to share data, it's not egotistical. It's people who actually crave that stuff and know I'm not trying to flex and say, hey, look at me. I'm just more like, hey guys, what do you think of this cool little thing? Speaking of other YouTubers, you're still doing masterminds. Of course. Meaning a group of creators that you get together with and go on trips with. 100%. That's how you stay on top. I got to always be learning from everyone. That's cool. To me, it's really cool that you're like so committed to that. Of course. Like it's just like, I guess it's just for me, I think of it as like, that was like a part of your origin story.

1:47:05You know, like when I think about your, the Mr. Beast origin story, like so much of it has to do with like finding a group of creators. But I just love that it's still a part of your narrative. Yeah, now it's just, it's different. It's more just like, you know, who are the five people that are innovating the most, doing the most creative stuff? Who are the five people that are pushing the boundaries? And then, yeah, just talk to me once a month or once every other week. can tell me. Who do you feel like some of those people are who are pushing the boundaries? I'm struggling to find them right now.

1:47:31I don't want to say names because I'm grasping at Charles with some of them but I'm just like, what did you learn? And then they tell me and I just tell them, here's everything I learned. I watched your video. Here's why I think it's bad and how it could be better. Let me know how else I could add value. And I try to do that as much as possible. I'm not sure that the next chapter of YouTube is channel specific more than, over the short term it's going to be video specific. We're going to see videos that really pop. I mean, that's where we are now. But that's because a lot of people, when they have a video pop, they just don't know why.

1:47:59They don't. I know why my videos do well because, like I said before, I spent 10 years of my life just hyper-obsessing over all this. The amount of YouTube videos I watch in my life is just ridiculous. I mean, and the amount of videos I've broken down frame by frame is in the thousands over my life. And the amount of hours I've spent studying stuff is like, something that's interesting is like, you know how they say it takes 10 ,000 hours of mass or something, right? Yeah. obviously everyone says that and everyone's like proud when they're like i put 10 000 hours into this thing like i'm like i'm gonna put 10 000 days into this like literally i'm gonna like 10 000 days is like 30 years and i'm almost 15 years in like i'm literally on a quest to not put in 10 000 hours but actual 10 000 days into my craft so it's like that level i'm like literally halfway there which i've never heard someone say that before and it kind of hit me in my in the head earlier when i I was like, fuck.

1:48:51Because I was like, 10 ,000 hours just isn't that much in terms of what I devote to this. And so throughout all that just sheer stupid amount of time I've dumped into this, I've just learned what does well. But for other people, they don't. And they upload 20 videos, one does well, and they don't know why the other 19 didn't do well. And we spend years not paying attention to videos that did well. Yeah. I think we tried to learn from mistakes, but we should have been learning from success. Because you look at our videos that do well on our channel go back three years. The next video we make, bombs.

1:49:26Because it has nothing to do with it. I know, every time you guys came down, I'd tell you why. It is true, sometimes that is harder. It's harder to pay attention to success. You would think that if something does well, you'd repeat it. The thing is, it's all knowledge. It really is. Every time I say this, people debate it to the end of time on Twitter, but I don't care. I could start a new channel tomorrow with not using my face or my voice without ever promoting it and in six months have 20 million subscribers. I just could. There's sometimes where I have theories that you are doing that and it's going to happen and you're not going to tell anyone.

1:49:58I live through people vicariously all the time and help people just get a couple million subscribers here and there. It's purely knowledge. If you knew what I knew, you could get 10 million views of video and you could get 10 million subscribers no matter where you are right now within six months. It really is just knowledge. I can already tell you 90 % of the people watching, they don't agree with that. They don't. And everyone has excuses. And they're always like, no, YouTube just doesn't work like that, Jimmy. You don't understand. But I mentor a lot of people. I see it even to this day. I still see it all the time.

1:50:28It is possible. It is simply knowledge. And the second you accept that it is knowledge and you start your, for me, 10 ,000 day journey of learning for you, whatever it is, if you want to be less hardcore. But and like actually figuring out, you know, what makes a good video? What does my audience want? How can I elevate? and then you take that knowledge and you just assume that I will never understand what the perfect video is and every single day I just need to be devoted to learning as much as possible and improving as much as possible and I got to prove every video as much as I can then there you go.

1:50:59You feel like people still underestimate YouTube as a whole. Oh 100%. I feel like it has gotten better but I am surprised sometimes when I see traditional media talk about it. When people look at the views on my video they still don't like they're like, oh, well, yeah, he might get 150 million views on a video, but this show gets 2 million viewers or whatever. It's not the same. Those 2 million viewers are different. Are you talking about the Succession finale? Because you tweeted about that. Oh, yeah. You trolled them pretty bad. I like meeting on random tweets. It was funny. You said, I didn't know numbers go that low.

1:51:37Well, that was probably 4 a.m. We won't put that tweet up. I'm kidding. they'll put it up. Or they're going to go search for it. That was interesting that the succession finality had like 2.9 million views or something like that. But that was live viewers, right? Live viewers, yeah. Yeah, which is very impressive. I'm sure over time it's going to go on to get tons of other ones. I mean, I don't know. Like, that is actual apples to apples because that means that many people watch the whole series, which is pretty crazy. Which is why I want to make my own show. So I can actually see like, you know, what it's like.

1:52:07But like 24 hour views of that, who knows what that was? Maybe 10 million. Yeah, which is pretty impressive. Which is really impressive on a narrative show like that. Yeah, you got people to watch that many seasons and get all the way to the end. And get that connected, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. What did you, I'm just curious. When I look at this hat that you wear, this Nike hat, I think so much about our video we made in November with you at the Beast Burger opening. Yeah? My Nike hat? Yeah. What about it? I'm just curious what you thought about that video that we made with you. Oh. Yeah. I just reminded you.

1:52:38Yeah, the hat reminded me of that video. I thought you were about to ask why I was wearing that. And I remember we talked about it a bit afterwards, but like kind of briefly reflected on that video. But I'm curious six months later, like what you think about that video? I think it was, it's a little eyeopening for me. I guess I, kind of like I said, I don't know anything about you really. Like I don't, I don't even know your wife's name, you know, until you told me about the wedding ring. I didn't know you took it off. But it's like, it kind of helped me, like I thought people knew like how hard what I do is and like blah, blah.

1:53:07And that really opened my eyes. Like I was like, that was not that crazy for me. It was crazy and a hectic day, but in the scheme of what I do, that is just a slightly above stressful day for me. But everyone in the comments is like, I had no idea. I had no idea this is what Jimmy goes through. This is Jimmy's life, and I was like, what do you mean? I've done harder things. Do you think making Squid Game in 30 days was easy? This was me for 30 days straight. So it was pretty eye-opening to me that I think a lot of people think what I do is easier than it is. I know people. That was the first time that we truly spent 24 hours with you, like not here, you know, and just saw like what something of that scale felt like with you.

1:53:51Exactly. And I think our goal with that piece was to make people feel like a sense of empathy too. Of like, whoa, this is like. It's hard. And there was exciting moments like coming out of the elevator with you and everyone cheers and like there's 20 ,000 people there, you know, and then also like figuring out the logistics of all that. Yeah. Yeah. That was a, that was a really fun thing to make. Yeah, it was eye-opening because it's, like I said, a lot of people I think think my life is easier than it is. And like just these magical big videos that no one else does just happen. And, you know, there's a reason no one else does what I do.

1:54:22There is. Like no one, not a single creator makes videos anywhere near as difficult as we do. And there's a reason. Like they're freaking hard. They're so hard. And so actually after that, I actually hired a guy to follow me around and film me 24-7. It sucks that today he's not here. what about the Colin and Spircher he's dumping footage right now off cards but I've been having a guy ever since then follow me around and like he films me and so bro I have so much footage of me just working well right now don't worry about it too much I just don't want to say because like it's like it's not connected to the internet it's just connected to a computer because there's so much footage in my life on it but I'm going to just do this for a whole year.

1:55:09And then I think like, I don't know, I think that would make sense to post on Netflix. Oh, yeah, definitely. A hundred percent. Yeah, but I think what I would want to do, I don't know, what I've been brainstorming is like every year. So like I just name, like each season is just the year of my life. It's like 25, 26, 27. And then like, I don't know if it would make sense to follow me around for like three or four years and build them up. Or if I just do it for this year and every year on my birthday, I drop it. But it's like, I mean, we're getting eight hours of content a day. And this is like crazy stuff that like I know people are going to want to see like every little thing from like a 10 hour design meeting from festivals to like, you know, filming videos behind the scenes and like are me going for 30 hours straight and like being like, please just give me a five hour break so I can sleep.

1:55:52Like all this cool content. So I think like I might just drop it on some streaming platform because it's going to be like I don't even know. Like the problem is I got so much content that it might need like each year of my life might need to be like 10 episodes. like literally or like three or four like one hour episodes just to like show a whole year of my life. It might not do it justice if you wait three to four years to drop it. Then it's just a docu-series. Yeah. So that's where I think like kind of like Drive to Survive like how you see so much fun. Like a Mr. Beast version of it where it's like every year on my birthday it's like here's like you know this year it's three one hour episodes next year it's five because we had a crazy year and next year it's two.

1:56:27Would you feel like on something like that you would want creative control or would you feel more open to someone else's vision of what that looks like? I don't know. I haven't really thought about it. I just let the guy follow me around, do it and edit it. So I'm probably just going to let him do it. I got too much stuff going on. Yeah. Yeah. But that's cool to have like another vantage point of your experience. Exactly. And I'm kind of like, oh, after we do this at the end of the year, I can have someone come to the footage and I can see how many hours went to Feastables, how many hours went to this.

1:56:52And like my data brand, it's like, I love having someone follow me around all day because now I can like look at that and see where my life went. Yeah. But I think it's going to be phenomenal content. It sucks that he's not here right now. Yeah. He's like, occasionally he has to like dump all the SD cards. So it's like, that's what he's doing today. We filmed some stuff today and yesterday that I feel like would be really cool. It's cool to me that it was the Beast Burger video that we made. It made you think, I want to have someone. Oh, I was like, bro, because like you made, what was it, 40 minutes?

1:57:1840 minutes, yeah. 40 minutes around one day of my life. One freaking day of my life was a 40 minute video that 10 million people wanted to watch. Yeah. And it's like, so he's been following me around for a long time now. Oh, yeah. He's got like, I mean, he's got hundreds of those. Yeah. It's going to be crazy. Wow. Yeah, I don't even know. Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's literally like six hours of actual usable good footage in a day. And I'm like, bro, you could just make a documentary on that day. I don't even know what we're going to do with this. I think it's important for people to see what making YouTube videos looks like.

1:57:48And obviously at your scale, it's a little bit different. I'll probably end up dropping the first one on my next birthday. So we'll see. Assuming a streaming platform will actually pay what it's worth. So that'll be interesting. I feel like every time we do a podcast, you call out streaming platforms, which I love. But hey, it's about to get real because I'm going to have that. I'm going to have the 10 episode series. If someone will just, you know, trust me and put up enough money and let me do what I want and not, you know, mess with the creative vision. Yeah. I got another one. All right. Can this, if I tell you what it is, you'll have to mute it.

1:58:20But maybe share our reaction. Yeah. Well, but are you actually going to mute it? Because if it accidentally got in, it would like screw me. Yeah. But listen, we've built up trust over the years. No, but this is not one of those like you can't forget to mute it. We won't mess with it. Okay. So we're trying to get.

1:58:43Oh, my God. And do like. Whoa.

1:58:51Wow. So we also have that in the works and it's looking like. That would be crazy. All right. Now, unflur. All right. Now, unmute. Unmute. Can we not mute? Don't mention nothing. Mention nothing. Okay. But is that not the banger out of this world? No, but that's a great idea. That's more than a great idea. That is the pinnacle of ideas. If they agree to that, that will be the moment that I was, I think that I was talking about where you'll start to see the world's blend in a different way. Yeah. The moment that happens. And imagine so that's.

1:59:22Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah, that would be insane. The funnel. That's what I'm saying. It's a no brainer. That would be insane. But there is a big barrier of subscription price on certain streamers. Yeah. You know? Or all streams. And just like in Walmart and these other retailers, how I can point to how I'm driving new people to these aisles. Like, it's the same way there. Data is data. And like, I mean, they're throwing around nine-figure deals sometimes to people who like, don't get 100 million views of it. They get like a million. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. On random things, on television shows.

1:59:52So it's like, I mean, I see the kind of checks they write. It's like, it's a no-brainer to work with me. You know what I mean? Yeah. So we just got to figure it out. Which they know that. Of course. Yeah. They'll figure it out. Of course. We will. You don't have any fear in doing that? We can't talk about it anymore. You can't say that. No more idea. Fine. We muted it anyway. We muted it anyway. We have to mute so many things. Okay. That was funny. That's great. Is there something that you feel like, you know, even in an effort to document your life, that people still don't understand about you or that you wish people understood about you?

2:00:28Oh, gosh. I mean, yeah, I think the biggest thing is people just think what I do is a lot easier than it is. It's hard. I'm serious. Now I'm just regurgitating myself from earlier, but there is a reason no one else does what I do. There just is. No one on YouTube. I've been doing this for years. There's been plenty of time for someone to spend millions of dollars, to build a team, to do big videos, to do videos that take a month to film, six months to set up. If people wanted to, they could, but it's hard. It's so hard. And to consistently do that is like, it's just so much work and so much more work than, and whatever people think we're doing, it's 10 times harder.

2:01:06They just don't realize it, you know? So I'd say that's the biggest thing. It's like, I think people, a lot of them think I just throw out money, but it's like, it's not that. It's like, if it was that, everyone would be doing what I'm doing, you know what I mean? Or every creator would. Yeah. When it comes to team, how do you pitch jumping on board for that? Because I feel like even for Samir and I, it's much easier to be like, yeah, we'll put ourselves through hell. We'll stay up Friday, Saturday, Sunday, whatever. Because it's like, this is our name on this channel. And this is what we've chosen to do.

2:01:40It's what we like. But it gets tougher when you have people come in and work. I would say, how do you pitch it to people? Or what do you look for? What's the type of person that is down to be on this journey? Well, one thing is the highest thing I value is coachability because no one's going to come in here and be able to tell us what to do. No one's going to come in here knowing what to do. The first six months you work here, you're useless. And it's fine. You're supposed to be useless. I've spent 10 years of my life doing this. I've had people here for five, six years now. They will just run circles around you no matter who you are.

2:02:14You know what I mean? And so coachability is very important because people who aren't, they just don't belong here, which is crazy, but it's that simple. It's like, I'm going to tell you how you can charge me more money. But people really struggle with that because they want to prove they're valuable or they think they know better, especially if they come from traditional. I don't hire traditional anymore because they think everything we do is just stupid. But it's like our shows aren't scripted. It's not even a show. I don't know why I call it a show. Like what we film isn't scripted. So it's like things aren't efficient, but they can't be efficient because to be efficient, you'd have to fake things and we don't fake things.

2:02:45You know what I mean? So it's like, yeah, just coachable. And then you just have to see the value. You have to believe YouTube's the future. You have to believe we're going to be on top five, 10 years from now. You know, you have to really see the vision, which not all people do. A lot more now, earlier on, I'd always have people that'd be like,

2:03:31I'm going to be honest. I've lost so many people over the years. And it's funny, almost every single one of those people end up regretting it. And they're all always like, they always end up calling three years later and they're like, wow, how was I supposed to know you're going to get 100 million views of video? No one's ever gotten 100 million views of video before. And I was like, bro, I literally laid it all out for you. I told you everything. You just didn't believe in me. And it is what it is. I'm not mad at you. I don't hate you. But I told you this would happen and you just didn't trust me.

2:03:56And it is what it is. And so I've had that happen so many times. So you see the value, coachable, and I mean, I could go down the list. Like, do you have five hours? I can tell you all the things that make someone a great partner. I was going to say, do you have that vision now of like, where does this channel go in five years? Of course. We've got at least 20 years left. This is easy. What does it look like that you get to a billion views of video? I don't know. Here's the thing. Fuck stats. We're going to make the best videos possible, and I'll get what I want if I do that. You know, that's something you said to us.

2:04:30maybe four years ago, you said, just focus on making the best videos and the whole world will open up to you. Exactly. And I think that's some of the best, I'm going to say, I think that's some of the best advice we've gotten as not only, I'm the only one to this day that still says this. Yeah. Everyone's all about everything else. I'm like, literally I'm up here getting like 10 times more views than everyone else. And I'm just going, just make great videos. Just obsess over what people want and give them what they want. I think it is like you get a taste of a little bit of success. And then you're like, I'm going to launch all of these things.

2:04:58Yeah. And now I can't focus on making videos, you know? Yeah, I suffered from that a little bit. Yeah, that happens, right? Like to creators, I think what we see is creators like balloon out like this and then the best ones refocus, right? They come back, they're like, wait a second. This is what matters. Wait a second, yeah. I feel like we're experiencing that right now, you know, where it's like, wait, wait a second. We got to refocus, you know? Like this is what matters the most. This unlocks the world. I love it. You know, two years ago we did this podcast. Yes. And it kind of drastically changed our career.

2:05:28you know, amongst other videos we did and different things we did. At one point, we were number one, two, three, and four, right? Yeah, I mean, you look at our channel, a lot of the videos have been collaborations with you. Reid snuck up there. With the mystery style, Carl snuck up there. But you are probably one of the most sought-after collaborations. The amount of times I see someone make a video trying to give you something that's oversized. Yeah. I say no to a lot of those. At this point, what do you say yes to? I say yes to things where I think people genuinely put in effort. I think there's a phase where people are just giving me stuff, but it's just so low effort and it's not original.

2:06:05And it's just so they can slap my face on a thumbnail. And so that's why I say no to basically everything now. I don't do those anymore because they're just like, it's like, I don't know. I can only receive big things so many times. And I don't like faking my personality. Yeah. If someone gave me another low effort item and they're filming and they pull a curtain off. They're like, oh, what do you think? I'd probably say, this fucking sucks. I'm glad you got my face on the thumbnail. Can I go do something important? Like, I'm kind of, which is why I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. So I just like, I just say no.

2:06:39But like, I would say yes if I actually thought someone did something actually awesome. But no one does. So, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. All right, what's our outro? Last time we gave away something, right? We gave away a Gatorade ball. We're giving away this Feastables bar right here. Give away this exact one. I kissed it. But you have to like sign it or something. No, I kissed it. You kissed it. All right. Give me that pen. You know what? Sign it. Sign it. All right. We'll give this away to, should we give it away? Subscriber or someone who comments? Someone who subscribes to Mr. Beast. No.

2:07:10Someone random who comments, I watched to the end. They're going to send you this Feastal Bar. That's good. I'm handing it to Samir. Yep. If someone is not giving the Feastal Bar, this is not my problem. It's not his. I don't care. He scammed you. That is on us. I want no responsibility. Okay. You have to comment that you watched all the way till the end. And you actually, come on. Put three periods at the end? So then I know you watched to the end of the end. Like you watched the deep end. The deepest end. All right, now, wait for it. Put 10 periods. And we're only going to give it to someone who said, I watched the end with 10 periods.

2:07:38Because we want to reward the most loyal of the viewers. You guys know how retention works. Yeah. Don't click off. Yeah. All right, but now we're done. Now it's over. It's really over. Now you can click off. See you in a year. Now we're going to give it to someone who put 20 periods. This is final. I watched to the end 20 periods. People who put one, three, or 10 are disqualified. Always watch to the end. All right, end it. Get this mic away from now. It's over. It's over.