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let's bring him out Jimmy Donaldson Mr
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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Beast going what's up
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everybody let your winners
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ride Rainman
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[Music]
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David we open source it to the fans and
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they've just gone crazy with love you
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queen of K
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so uh look at the pH wow wow guys no
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selfies no selfies sending it to their
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kids as we speak yeah what are do your
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fans have like a a like a name like
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beasties or something
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beasties besties that's Taylor Swift
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beasties is pretty good so I think
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everybody all of you guys know Jimmy but
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let me just tell you the the quick story
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um I hate when people describe me in
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front of me but go for
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it uh Jimmy started youtubing when he
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was 13 years old and this is an
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incredible example I mean Jimmy's
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basically an athlete so if you take a
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guy who basically spends 10,000 hours at
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something and he you know there's a
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Steph Curry outcome there's a LeBron
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James outcome and there's a Jimmy
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Donaldson outcome so what does this one
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look like he starts posting videos
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online he starts iterating iterating
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iterating at 16 I think he had like no
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2016 or so he had like 30,000 followers
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some nominal number kept tweaking
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putting in the thousands and thousands
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of hours stumbled into college for two
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weeks stumbled out uh and then fast
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forward now a decade since he started
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this um he's basically the most followed
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human on earth after Messi and uh
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Cristiano Ronaldo although in terms of
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content creation um he's basically the
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top two or three most followed people on
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YouTube Twitter Tik Tok uh sorry not
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Twitter uh x x um billions of views
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event-based viewing so you know when he
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launches videos uh noon Eastern Time on
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Saturdays every two weeks um if you're
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not watching them probably people you
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know definitely you know your kids their
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friends it's just a
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spectacle um and so that's how you know
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you've become mute so let's start at the
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beginning
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um how did your mom react
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because you know cuz Sue seems like a
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she's like a and she's she works for
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Jimmy she's like a head of compliance
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okay she just makes sure no one steals
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money it's a it's a nice fun R so what
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what happened when you showed up and
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you're like hey mom I've been streaming
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secretly and I have these followers yeah
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well you know what's interesting
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actually is uh you should encourage your
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kids to have hobbies and and want to do
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these things uh my mom thought it was
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crazy that I was talking to people on
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the internet so I ended up just lying be
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like oh it was a a joke I just have a
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friend I'm talking to every night online
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or or on Skype or whatever um and then
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once I hit 10,000 subscribers I told her
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yeah that was I was a lie I don't have
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any friends I just making videos um and
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she just didn't understand it she was
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just like what does this mean um yeah
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where where did the idea for all these
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spectacles originate from like how how
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that that the first few that really
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broke through how did you guys come up
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with them or how did you come up with
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them yeah the well the thing is like for
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people if you want to get like
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hypothetically 100 million views on a
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video the easiest way is to like do
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something cool no one's done before and
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one of the first ones was I saw no one
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had ever counted to 100,000 in a row so
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I was just like I'll just count to
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100,000 I watched that video for about
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five minutes yeah more than normal it's
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40 hours long but the retention is 2
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minutes so I was like and you look like
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how old are you when that 15 years old
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or I was like 18 yeah it's hilarious
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yeah so I just started cuz I didn't have
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money so I just started how many views
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does that have I think that one like 30
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million yeah just me Counting but it's
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like it's funny because it's like look
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at this idiot he counted to 100,000 how
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much money has it made that one I don't
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know ballpark what do you think I mean
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most videos probably like $5 RPM so 150
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Grand okay yeah great okay so you launch
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this thing and then it starts to go and
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then how do you scale the ideas because
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it it does become a bit of a hamster
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wheel like how do I one up myself and do
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you always feel this pressure to have to
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one up yourself from the last video
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literally yeah it's it's uh well
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essentially obviously I've just been
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doing this for 14 years years and also
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you said 10,000 hours I think people
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should change that saying to 10,000 days
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and I'm I'm almost at my halfway point
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to 10,000 days I think that's how people
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should start looking at things because
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to be honest 10,000 hours is pretty easy
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what is that like 10 hours a day for
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three years um just a random thing but
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um yeah just uh I don't know we would
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get 100,000 views on a video take the
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money do another video get 150,000 and
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I've just kind of reinvested the money
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for 14 years and even to this day
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whatever I make I just spend it the next
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month on content and the videos have
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just progressively gotten bigger and
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bigger and it's gone from me counting to
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100,000 to seeing what happens if you
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put a Lamborghini in the world's largest
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Shredder you know just random things you
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know well you also seem to have some
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pretty good judgment where maybe some of
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your contemporaries don't uh we've seen
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that need to get the next view lead to
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people doing increasingly dangerous
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stunts like this um taking a model X
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over some Hill I think Dober did that
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some other person was swinging somebody
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on a crane maybe you could talk a little
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bit about restraint and understanding
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like hey even though this is going to
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get a lot of views and maybe some of you
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are contemporaries I won't give the
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specific names of people but they've
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done some really idiotic things and and
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gotten hurt yeah so how do you know when
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a conversation you know and some of
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these ideas kind of maybe go over the
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line yeah well I mean the obvious answer
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is common sense so right okay next
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question but no no no no but the the
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thing is like obviously if it's there's
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a lot of things people do that they know
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will get views because of outrage and
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it's just easy to do but you know if
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you're trying to build a long-term brand
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you don't want to just constantly piss
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people off just to get attention like
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eventually it stops working so the real
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answer is you just got to not go what is
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the easiest way to get views what is you
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know what do people actually want to
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watch that you know isn't just going to
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get views because they're angry
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essentially you have um if you in um
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Greenville North Carolina you basically
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have your own college campus yeah you
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know it's like buildings Lots Studios
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all these young people dynamically
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running around doing all this stuff I
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mean when I saw it I was like this is a
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tech startup it felt like Facebook
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circuit 2006 accepted in Greenville why
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did you think you could pull this off
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there yeah well the thing is you know as
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as you scale up you're not really
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especially when you're in your young 20s
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you're just kind of doing whatever you
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got to do to keep up with growing and
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making the videos so you just kind of
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blink and 10 goes to 20 employees to 50
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to 100 and how do you get people to go
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there like what is it that you're giving
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them yeah where they would leave New
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York or LA and whatever job is to try to
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do this with you yeah that's the hard
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part I'm still still trying to figure it
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out most people it's it's a lot of
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convincing to be honest uh I would
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highly recommend you don't build a
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company in a middle of nowhere Woods in
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North Carolina city like ours it's most
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people don't want to live there um so
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usually it's just like people who you
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know their job is kind of their life and
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they're very passionate about what they
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do so it's like we provide you a cool
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job where one day you get to bury me
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alive the next you get to you know
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figure out how to send me to space or
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whatever um but the real answer you just
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got to find people where work is their
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life and so they don't care but anyone
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who does they hate it well that's
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actually a feature in some ways right
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which is how Silicon Valley used to work
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by the way this is what I was going to
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say how do you recruit for that and and
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what do you do when you find out that
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there are people that you know want work
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life balance and don't don't want to do
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the level aren't willing to commit the
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way you're willing to commit for yeah I
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mean like I said that's the part I'm
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still trying to figure out to be 100%
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honest it's I I think at some point I
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just got to move out of the middle of
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nowhere in North Carolina don't don't
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recommend it building a big company in a
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small city employees you have now
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they're around 250 so you consider maybe
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moving it to Los Angeles or something to
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be closer to but just like somewhere
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where it's like a decent size city would
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probably be more optimal one that has an
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airport would be nice sure Jimmy um one
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of the things you say a lot is I'm still
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trying to figure it out I think that's
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the key to your success having spoken to
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you a bunch I get the sense that you're
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on this kind of insatiable Journey like
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you I mean you speak in a very grandiose
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way about what you're trying to do it's
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just there's no there's no fraking limit
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and you see it in your videos but you
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also see it in how you've kind of
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iterated I tell people like there's no
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one else on Earth no entrepreneur in
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history where you can go track them
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longitudinally from the first thing they
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did all the way through to today if you
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want to understand this entrepreneur
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it's all in the open go check it out and
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now you'll see the grind and you'll see
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what it took to get here and it doesn't
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stop every week you've got some new
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record-breaking 24-hour video coming out
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and it's [ __ ] nuts what's the the the
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mission where's it all going and help
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just frame for the audience for everyone
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like how do you think about where you're
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going the the beauty is there's well
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YouTube as that's my main platform you
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know obviously if you buy an Android
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phone YouTube's pre-installed and
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alphabet owns it so when you search
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things on Google it takes you to YouTube
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a lot of time so YouTube is just massive
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I mean billions of people use it on a
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monthly basis and so being big on
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YouTube you know we get 100 million
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views on a video in the first seven days
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which you know up before the last couple
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years that's never been possible in
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history so it's it's definitely a very
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interesting time where you can get you
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know just unfiltered access to basically
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unlimited people and then um you know we
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just I've weirdly enough it's not why I
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got into it but it ended up just working
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out that way that I spent 14 years of my
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life just studying how to make the most
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optimal videos what type of content
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people want and we just kind of mased
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the art of going viral and YouTube just
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so happens to be such a big platform and
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so it's pretty nice because now like
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they've been saying we're getting around
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a billion views a month and um yeah we
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can just but where do you want to take
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it well recently we started getting into
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um selling long term yeah yeah well we
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started getting into selling some cpg
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products so we started with chocolate
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and it's nice because the same people
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who I would take pictures with in
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Walmart when they see our product there
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they're like oh it's the guy from
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YouTube and they'll buy it and so um
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just kind of right now just anything in
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retail is great because you know you
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just put things on a shelf and people
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buy it and you know um it's like it's
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it's much easier than like doing
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something complicated I tell I tell
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people it's almost as if you think your
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job is to make people happy is that a
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good way to frame like about your job
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yeah yeah the other thing that's I I
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find just extraordinary about your
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business is you're essentially built
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Walmart without any of the cost
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structure any brand you decide to build
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will immediately have the first 10
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million customers yeah the beauty is we
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don't have like essentially don't have
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to do marketing so marketing cost but
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also zero distribution cost um that can
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go one of two ways with the Mr Beast
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bger yeah you you learned a lot of
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lessons there maybe went too fast you
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didn't expect it to be so popular and
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you lost control of that and then with
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Mr with the uh
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febles stuff you nailed it so maybe you
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could tell us the lessons from each of
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those projects um well yeah the beauty
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of a febles is you I mean kind of like I
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said you just put on a shelf and people
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go there and buy it I don't you want to
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ask me something more
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specific about on be be honest about the
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insane amount of product development
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work you personally do and how deeply
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you care about making it work um because
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I think that's what's missing for a lot
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of people well no and then my point was
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Mr Beast Berger you kind of loaned your
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name yeah to it and it it didn't have
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the same quality control yeah well that
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one I can't talk about but oh okay no
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problem I was wondering yeah no problem
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yeah little okay let's just admit this
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last few questions R shitty let's reset
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no I think it's a great question you
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just can't talk about bring it back
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let's go back to the two smarter people
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here we start David do you have a
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question I want to I want to I want to
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ask about um I better go on to a new
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topic here real quick um the thing I've
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been really Blown Away by is just how
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elaborate your Productions are I mean
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some of these videos are incredibly
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elaborate in the production values and
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in the storytelling the one that comes
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to mind for me is the the squid game uh
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series with I mean that looked like
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Monumental logistically to pull off and
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terms of set design and every other way
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um I mean I guess tell us more about
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what goes into that and you know what
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I'm kind of hearing from you with the
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250 people you have working you've built
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this whole town it sounds like the old
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Studio system you know like back in
00:12:49
Hollywood like Warner Brothers back in
00:12:50
the 1930s where they had their own Lots
00:12:53
their own actors their own everything
00:12:56
and it was very different back then like
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we heard Gwyn saying that like most time
00:12:59
on assess is like waiting around it
00:13:01
doesn't sound like that's what's going
00:13:02
on with you you've like so you're back
00:13:04
to kind of the original Studio system
00:13:06
yeah exactly I mean like I said um the
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beauty is we don't have a studio that
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tells us what we can or can't do or you
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know the distribution or anything it's
00:13:13
just we we own it all so we just make
00:13:16
whatever videos we think will be viral
00:13:17
and you know um obviously we have the
00:13:19
direct connection and so the the big
00:13:21
thing is like obviously YouTube you know
00:13:24
at the moment you don't make that much
00:13:25
from ad Revenue so to do these big
00:13:27
multi-million dollar videos it's just
00:13:28
not really possible possible which is
00:13:29
why doing things like feas and other
00:13:31
products to generate revenue on the back
00:13:32
end is why we're able to do that and
00:13:34
other people aren't because it's like
00:13:36
you know if you get even if you get a
00:13:39
100 million views on a video the RPM's
00:13:40
$5 it's only 500 Grand you know what I
00:13:42
mean so it's not that crazy which is why
00:13:44
people aren't able to do these big
00:13:45
budget spectacles like we are um even
00:13:49
because most people don't even get
00:13:50
anywhere near that kind of viewership
00:13:51
and so it's like the beauty is creating
00:13:53
the model where we turn around and we
00:13:55
use that to sell products sell a couple
00:13:57
hundred million of that a year and then
00:13:58
we use that to put it back into the
00:14:00
content is there pressure to tone down
00:14:03
like the consumerism or the giving away
00:14:06
money like do some I'm sure there's a
00:14:08
faction of people that either find that
00:14:10
offensive or they think it's
00:14:12
exploitative how do you deal with that
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no no not really to be honest um most
00:14:17
people think it's cool that because it's
00:14:18
like it's kind of fun to watch someone
00:14:20
receive you know $10,000 or Lamborghini
00:14:23
or house or I like the last thing we did
00:14:25
was I ordered pizza and tipped the guy a
00:14:26
house and like uh
00:14:29
that was cool um my bad I actually
00:14:32
ordered two pizzas one from Domino's and
00:14:34
one from Pizza Hut and the guy who got
00:14:36
there first got the house I mean there
00:14:37
was the so the Domino's guy got it so
00:14:40
order do but I think like no but didn't
00:14:42
you do something it was curing
00:14:45
blindness 10 carens who got upset and
00:14:48
people were like but there were people
00:14:49
right like 10 carens got upset it was
00:14:51
like at the end of the day as long as I
00:14:53
I think what I'm doing is good and right
00:14:54
and helping people like obviously at the
00:14:56
scale of our views you know that video
00:14:58
got 200 million VI views of course some
00:15:00
subsection is going to be mad it's just
00:15:02
kind of at the that number it's just
00:15:05
inevitable that people be unhappy
00:15:07
there's a piece of your business that
00:15:08
actually many people probably don't know
00:15:10
about outside the commercial part which
00:15:12
is Beast philanthropy you want to tell
00:15:14
people about the size of the food bank
00:15:15
you've built and how that works um sure
00:15:18
uh so I just I feel we're talking about
00:15:20
it myself but we essentially just
00:15:22
started a charity and then made a
00:15:24
YouTube channel where you know whatever
00:15:26
we do with the money from the charity we
00:15:27
film it so then generat revenue on the
00:15:29
back end and obviously those videos go
00:15:31
on to raise a lot of money for donations
00:15:33
and so it's just kind of a cycle where
00:15:35
we upload a video a week and we were
00:15:37
able to build a couple food banks and
00:15:38
feed a couple hundred thousand people
00:15:40
that kind of
00:15:46
stuff you want to talk about the
00:15:49
business model uh in the future so you
00:15:52
have basically this YouTube business yep
00:15:55
and that goal is essentially just
00:15:58
maximize growth
00:15:59
yeah just make content people want and
00:16:01
get as many views as possible and as J
00:16:03
said build distribution and direct it at
00:16:04
these old Legacy companies are there
00:16:06
things but you said you wanted to do
00:16:08
things that were just like it seemed
00:16:10
less offline right so I'm sure you you
00:16:12
looked at online things yeah uh I mean
00:16:15
right now it's just like the the reason
00:16:17
we started with chocolate is obviously
00:16:19
like in the last 50 years there hasn't
00:16:21
been any like major chocolate company
00:16:23
that has spawned up like Hershey's lent
00:16:25
Mars far they're all like 100 years old
00:16:27
and so it's kind of just a sleepy space
00:16:29
where they don't really innovate and
00:16:30
it's kind of boring and no one really
00:16:32
cares and so um obviously eventually
00:16:34
we'll do online because it's much easier
00:16:35
to get people to download an app to buy
00:16:37
a physical product but it's just kind of
00:16:39
perfect because the Shelf space never
00:16:41
changed and people want something new
00:16:42
and so you know uh it was easy to take
00:16:45
over you know how big how big is that
00:16:48
how big is that business for you can you
00:16:50
say uh this this is our second year
00:16:52
we'll do a couple hundred million wow
00:16:54
okay wait so we just we just guessed
00:16:57
about the math here you said million um
00:17:00
views a month at $5 CPM so it's 5
00:17:02
million a month for the video so 60
00:17:04
million a year and the chocolate bars
00:17:06
will do 200 uh I mean we're not really
00:17:09
public about it but it'll do a lot of
00:17:11
Revenue figure it
00:17:13
out it'll do something more than a penny
00:17:16
what do you think about the success of
00:17:17
prime you know how do you look at that
00:17:19
is that yeah they're killing it I mean
00:17:21
yeah that's a a great case study it's
00:17:23
just you know I I heard you never two
00:17:27
years ago Revenue right well I don't
00:17:29
know about that but or at least I can't
00:17:30
say publicly but I can't say like you
00:17:32
never would have thought like you know
00:17:34
tens of millions of kids or at least
00:17:35
millions of kids would be so
00:17:37
enthusiastic about a sports drink you
00:17:39
know I mean it's crazy the kind of
00:17:40
demand they've created like kids
00:17:42
literally collect Prime bottles and then
00:17:44
Tik to go viral showing off their
00:17:46
collection of drink bottles that are
00:17:48
like $3 or whatever your hand if you got
00:17:49
kids that do that yeah it's it's wild I
00:17:52
mean so Prime was was great because
00:17:54
obviously it's a beverage and the more
00:17:56
shell space you get just naturally the
00:17:58
more sales but they it was more a
00:18:00
Lifestyle brand they created where just
00:18:02
kids felt cool drinking it until the
00:18:04
point where they would buy a 12 pack for
00:18:06
like 15 bucks and then sell them for
00:18:07
like $6 you know a bottle at their
00:18:09
school which is like something that
00:18:10
happens in almost every school in
00:18:12
America it's crazy still to this day
00:18:13
after like a year and a half one of the
00:18:15
one of the things that I think if you
00:18:17
taste Prime that it has is a ton of
00:18:19
sucrose right so it tastes super like
00:18:21
bam big mouth feel um where's your
00:18:26
thinking on like the line between nut
00:18:28
nurition versus just taste good for the
00:18:30
products you have and the products you
00:18:31
want to build yeah and where do you want
00:18:33
to take that agreed I I think that's
00:18:35
very important that's why our chocolate
00:18:36
we only use four ingredients whereas
00:18:38
Hershey's uses nine because obviously
00:18:40
since we have this much influence we
00:18:41
don't want to just you know make people
00:18:44
whatever we sell needs to be better than
00:18:45
what's currently on the shelf or then
00:18:47
it's just a net negative you know what I
00:18:48
mean better for you higher quality
00:18:49
ingredients Etc so um yeah I mean in a
00:18:53
nutshell that's kind of how I view it
00:18:54
and so what are these other areas and
00:18:56
that just make maybe obvious sense if
00:18:58
you could snap your fingers and just
00:19:00
yeah well I think the simplest thing the
00:19:02
the more I like studied chocolate and
00:19:04
and see it like we started with well
00:19:06
funny enough we started selling dark
00:19:08
chocolate which 65% of kids in America
00:19:10
don't even like so that was kind of dumb
00:19:12
but I didn't know any better so I mean
00:19:14
the simplest thing is do milk chocolate
00:19:16
which is what we're getting into and um
00:19:18
you know then just going down and and
00:19:20
maximizing chocolate like doing Reese's
00:19:22
cups and that kind of stuff um so I past
00:19:25
Chocolate I haven't really thought about
00:19:26
it because that's basically all I'm
00:19:27
thinking about for next year
00:19:29
okay do you think the candy business can
00:19:31
be a billion dollar Revenue business oh
00:19:33
yeah of course I mean look at Hershey's
00:19:35
what are they doing 12 billion a year
00:19:37
Mars tens of billions all I mean in
00:19:40
America alone I think people spend $25
00:19:42
billion a year on chocolate and there's
00:19:44
no one in those companies building a Mr
00:19:45
Beast competitor I mean from a brand
00:19:48
there's no one of those companies that
00:19:49
build the companies they're like 100
00:19:50
years old so they're they're all dead
00:19:53
yeah um how do you you must have a ton
00:19:56
of inbound to do things outside of the
00:20:00
Mr Beast realm Hollywood Etc how do you
00:20:03
sort through all the inbound
00:20:05
opportunities and then organized because
00:20:07
you could I would suspect be drowning an
00:20:09
opportunity at this point with this
00:20:10
level of notori well that's why we are
00:20:13
where we are is because we just layser
00:20:15
like focus on one thing for essentially
00:20:17
my entire life and so it's pretty easy I
00:20:19
just say
00:20:20
no and then uh yeah because it's like
00:20:23
you know
00:20:25
obviously for to to make the view the
00:20:28
videos that the caliber we need it's
00:20:29
just like that's been my obsession for
00:20:31
the last 14 years almost every waking
00:20:32
hour of the day just you know obsessing
00:20:34
over you know every little thing like if
00:20:37
even simp like simple things like when
00:20:38
you click on a video the brightness in
00:20:40
the video matters like if it's a little
00:20:41
too dark people are more EP to click off
00:20:43
and not watch it you know because not
00:20:45
everyone has their phone screen
00:20:46
brightness you did something with your
00:20:47
mouth being open or closed in the
00:20:49
thumbnail and it changed clickthrough
00:20:51
that was a new a test well the problem
00:20:52
is whatever I do a bunch of other people
00:20:54
do and I started opening my mouth in my
00:20:56
thumbnails and it's kind of annoying and
00:20:58
then a bunch of other creators did it
00:21:00
and I was like okay we're not doing this
00:21:02
anymore so I switched them
00:21:03
back what's the budget on each video now
00:21:06
so every two weeks how much money goes
00:21:08
into that video um I think right now
00:21:10
it's around two and a half million per
00:21:11
video oh okay yeah that's like making an
00:21:13
independent film every two weeks yeah
00:21:15
but I mean they yeah I don't think it's
00:21:16
that crazy though because they they're
00:21:18
getting like 100 million views in seven
00:21:20
days so if anything any other like Medan
00:21:22
outside of social media that got that
00:21:24
kind of viewership their budget would be
00:21:25
like 50x you know what I mean absolutely
00:21:27
absolutely do you think that you're
00:21:28
building Library like do you expect that
00:21:30
a video that you created you know the
00:21:32
Olympic Games thing you did a few weeks
00:21:34
ago in 5 years that that'll still be
00:21:37
that'll have some value 15 years from
00:21:39
now well 15 I don't know but five yes
00:21:42
usually whenever we upload a piece of
00:21:43
content we'll get a couple million views
00:21:44
a month for as of right now forever but
00:21:47
obviously eventually it'll probably die
00:21:48
off but they they're usually pretty
00:21:50
Evergreen because right now because we
00:21:53
have the model where we're making money
00:21:54
outside of YouTube so I can spend more
00:21:55
it's like you have this video that's
00:21:57
$2.5 million budget or like another
00:21:59
video that's $2 and half thousand budget
00:22:00
and so right now usually people end up
00:22:02
just clicking on the cooler stuff and
00:22:04
then how do you think about the just the
00:22:07
axis of going outside the United States
00:22:08
so different languages different
00:22:10
countries how do you how do you deal
00:22:11
with that that's that's the best part so
00:22:14
um I mean as as you know we we hired
00:22:15
voice actors to dub our videos in every
00:22:17
language and I I assume a lot of you
00:22:19
guys here are content creators and the
00:22:21
crazy part is only 10% of the world
00:22:23
speaks English so if your content's only
00:22:25
in English it's pretty hard to obviously
00:22:27
reach most of the the world even
00:22:29
subtitles most people don't prefer it um
00:22:31
so if you dub your videos hire voice
00:22:33
actors or whatever um your viewership
00:22:35
will Skyrocket and so right now over
00:22:37
half the people that watch my videos
00:22:38
don't even speak English which is pretty
00:22:40
crazy um tell me about the relationship
00:22:43
with YouTube and how that's evolved over
00:22:45
the years because I I don't know they
00:22:47
anticipated that you know the footprint
00:22:50
of the top creators on YouTube would get
00:22:52
so large yeah are they deeply involved
00:22:56
in communicating with you or are they
00:22:58
just like hey we a platform post a video
00:22:59
if you like it it's that yeah that's
00:23:02
extraordinary to me yeah I mean I kind
00:23:04
of like it because then no one can say
00:23:05
there's favoritism or or they're helping
00:23:07
us in any way um but agreed like even
00:23:09
when I was coming up like you know
00:23:10
people were getting 10 million views a
00:23:12
video and that was like mind-blowing and
00:23:14
their life cycle would be like a year
00:23:16
and they fall off so I don't it's kind
00:23:18
of crazy I don't really know how we
00:23:19
ended up getting this big I me was there
00:23:20
ever a thought to tell them I need to
00:23:22
make you know a higher minimum per RPM
00:23:25
and I'd like to cut a deal with you to
00:23:27
hit these numbers
00:23:29
they'd be like well then everyone's
00:23:31
going to want that cuz if they do it
00:23:32
with me then they would open the
00:23:33
floodgates they would just tell me spend
00:23:35
less money so got it interesting cuz no
00:23:38
one's forcing me to spend this much
00:23:39
money it's kind of the
00:23:41
problem technically most people don't
00:23:43
spend hardly any money I mean and but
00:23:45
there was a moment in time where
00:23:46
Microsoft started stealing away some
00:23:48
YouTubers and folks for their twitch
00:23:50
competitor did did you get those kind of
00:23:52
offers and then how did you evaluate
00:23:54
them well the the problem is like like I
00:23:56
said at the start you know YouTube's
00:23:57
where all the viewers are so it's like
00:23:59
sure you can get a little bit of money
00:24:01
but ultimately the real game is if you
00:24:02
can get a billion views a month for 10
00:24:04
years you know whatever the amount of
00:24:06
Brands we could build is you know insane
00:24:08
yeah so it's it is the great success of
00:24:10
YouTube that they've hit this level of
00:24:12
scale exactly and and the features and
00:24:14
stuff on that like YouTube is the only
00:24:15
platform right now where you can upload
00:24:16
a video in different languages so if
00:24:18
someone clicks my video Mexico I'll
00:24:20
speak Spanish whereas if you click in
00:24:22
America that feature is in beta right
00:24:24
now yeah well they they've rolled it out
00:24:25
to other people but on Tik Tok Facebook
00:24:27
no other platform can you do that so
00:24:29
YouTube's the only place right now where
00:24:30
you can actually have a global audience
00:24:32
do you provide the voiceover person or
00:24:34
is that done automatically because
00:24:35
they're they're working on an automatic
00:24:37
version I was told yeah and for the
00:24:39
first or the next two years it will
00:24:40
probably sound terrible but it's of
00:24:41
course at sometime in the near future
00:24:43
aiing will you know we get hit up about
00:24:46
that all the time for the all in right
00:24:47
now I've I've trained a ton of different
00:24:49
voice models they all sound terrible um
00:24:51
but it is you know obviously getting
00:24:53
better very quick have you published any
00:24:54
to see what the viewership looks like uh
00:24:56
yeah aim me versus like real voice
00:24:58
acting we it's usually so if it's a one
00:25:01
minute video the retention with noral
00:25:03
voice 45 seconds it be 42 but it'll also
00:25:05
be a lot of comments like why does he
00:25:07
sound slightly off so the retention
00:25:09
isn't as bad as you would think but it's
00:25:11
it's still like you can tell the quality
00:25:12
score is lower yeah exactly like to if
00:25:15
the thing is like when you're using dubs
00:25:17
you're already at a disadvantage because
00:25:18
they can choose to watch someone in
00:25:19
their native language or watch you with
00:25:21
a guy speaking over your lips and so if
00:25:23
it's not as good as like you're already
00:25:25
down here a little bit worse and then if
00:25:27
you use a dubing it's even worse worse
00:25:28
like so you you know I think video games
00:25:30
are six times the uh revenue for movies
00:25:34
today have you thought about video games
00:25:36
the folks I've got to assume folks
00:25:37
approached you and how do you think
00:25:38
about the video game industry because
00:25:39
you're you have a lot of audience
00:25:41
overlap I got imag yeah um to be honest
00:25:43
I tried to build one and then uh like
00:25:46
six months in I was like oh these things
00:25:48
take years and then I was like I'd
00:25:49
rather sell chocolate so um yeah that
00:25:52
that was kind of the extent of it I mean
00:25:53
obviously it's a no-brainer because it's
00:25:55
much easier just to tell people to
00:25:56
download it just click the link in
00:25:57
description it but I've just found that
00:26:00
I don't know it's like I just keep going
00:26:03
back to it making you know confectionary
00:26:05
products is just so much more fun and um
00:26:08
you know 100 million people are going
00:26:09
walk into Walmart every month and if you
00:26:11
don't have a product there there there's
00:26:12
nothing for them to buy and so like I
00:26:13
just want to maximize that getting
00:26:15
something in every retailer in America
00:26:17
first one of the one of the things that
00:26:19
you've done is you've mentored younger
00:26:21
content creators coming up um who are
00:26:25
people that you look at that are
00:26:26
creating things that you think are
00:26:27
interesting whether it's formats or I'm
00:26:30
curious how many of you guys make
00:26:31
content out there like anything okay I
00:26:34
mean we
00:26:35
do a little bit I guess so actually do
00:26:38
you have have any tips for us I mean our
00:26:41
our uh viewership on YouTube is
00:26:43
embarrassing one of the one of the
00:26:45
things he did first was he ripped apart
00:26:47
our thumbnails oh yeah he said our
00:26:48
thumbnails were total [ __ ] I mean that
00:26:51
remember and we gave that we gave that
00:26:52
to was I joking or was I being well I
00:26:55
think you guys like I mean clearly it's
00:26:57
working I think the that no one cares
00:26:59
about your guys thumbnails I think the
00:27:00
big thing is like the value you guys
00:27:02
provide and like that it's a but should
00:27:03
we not close our mouths now in
00:27:05
thumbnails oh you should the mouths open
00:27:07
yeah the mouths are open oh yeah I would
00:27:08
I would close I mean it's there's
00:27:09
something different about each week of
00:27:12
especially for this age group definitely
00:27:13
closed them well no I mean there no one
00:27:16
wants to see a there's something
00:27:18
distinctly different about what you do
00:27:20
every week it's something new it's
00:27:22
something original we're trying to have
00:27:24
a conversation mclocklin group kind of
00:27:27
format so I think some of those tips
00:27:29
don't work but our audience on YouTube I
00:27:32
think now will um exceed what we're
00:27:34
doing in podcasting ultimately because
00:27:36
it does seem that people like to watch
00:27:39
us uh and put it on in the background so
00:27:41
we're seeing that I think we have
00:27:42
380,000 you guys are doing great to be
00:27:44
honest I remember when you first started
00:27:45
it and I was like oh this is an
00:27:47
interesting combo but it
00:27:50
works and like whenever something weird
00:27:52
in the world happens I'm like oh I'm
00:27:53
going to go see what they think of it
00:27:55
it's like it's cool where do you see
00:27:57
this we met Jimmy at poker
00:27:58
let's do you think we no where do you
00:28:00
think this is going to be in 20 years
00:28:02
well your podcast
00:28:05
you no I mean we have an idea where this
00:28:07
is going
00:28:09
this to be honest the only thing in
00:28:11
front of us right now are uh the daily
00:28:14
from The New York Times a priest reading
00:28:17
the Bible and serial killer podcast
00:28:19
seral killer podcast I me it's really
00:28:21
not much ahead of all podcast or in news
00:28:24
in all of podcasting those are the three
00:28:26
ahead of us yeah just on gal's question
00:28:29
like are you being do you feel pressure
00:28:31
to like elongate the content like like
00:28:34
and or have you you feel like you've
00:28:35
optimize now the amount of time where
00:28:37
you maximize viewership well yeah I mean
00:28:39
that's actually something we've been
00:28:40
focused on a lot recently I think the
00:28:42
the problem is people are like we waited
00:28:43
two weeks and it was just 15 minutes of
00:28:45
content they actually get annoyed when
00:28:47
it's too short so we're working on
00:28:49
elongating it but not because of like
00:28:51
algorithms or anything it's just like
00:28:52
people just actually don't like waiting
00:28:54
two weeks for just 15 minutes of content
00:28:56
like they want more or more frequent
00:28:58
videos and the problem is the spectacles
00:29:01
are so big it's much easier just to make
00:29:02
it longer than do a whole new one to
00:29:04
like upload more so yeah they're
00:29:06
naturally getting longer and longer
00:29:07
right now I wonder if you did a behind
00:29:09
the scenes on the off week yeah and just
00:29:11
had another group cuz I was watching the
00:29:13
one you did where you were all on a um a
00:29:16
like a raft yeah and you decided to
00:29:18
torture your team we spent seven days on
00:29:20
a raft in the ocean I mean I was painful
00:29:23
to work but behind the scenes of that
00:29:25
done by another group of video editors
00:29:26
on the off week I bet you would do as
00:29:28
many views yeah the the thing is though
00:29:30
like the mystery is part of what's cool
00:29:32
like how does this random YouTuber give
00:29:33
a million dollars away to someone on the
00:29:35
street or like things like that so part
00:29:37
of it is like them not knowing how it's
00:29:39
even possible is is why it's so
00:29:41
interesting and they click on it if that
00:29:42
makes sense yeah can you talk a little
00:29:44
bit about um the point of view where
00:29:47
folks say content creators on YouTube
00:29:49
have an audience and that audience ages
00:29:51
out and then they lose that audience and
00:29:53
how you've continued to be able to grow
00:29:54
your audience know some of the folks you
00:29:56
started with have gotten older just like
00:29:58
the problem is like every advice is all
00:30:01
it's there's no like one size fits-all
00:30:04
advice and so like obviously if we're
00:30:05
talking to someone who unboxes toys you
00:30:08
know Their audience is going to grow and
00:30:10
there's nothing they can do about it um
00:30:12
but you know for us we ideally you know
00:30:15
one day you guys aren't going to be like
00:30:16
oh my kid loves you you'll be like I
00:30:17
also like your content um but we try to
00:30:20
make content that you know no matter
00:30:22
what age you are you'll enjoy it so
00:30:23
usually they don't who here personally
00:30:25
watches Beast yeah oh more than oh yeah
00:30:28
us too all right everybody Jimmy
00:30:31
Donaldson the timer since 25 seconds oh
00:30:33
we went over
00:30:35
over well you can stay up here if you
00:30:37
want we're going to take questions from
00:30:39
the audience I I'll take a question from
00:30:40
the audience all right I I flew out here
00:30:42
for this let's do some more okay I'm
00:30:44
going to moderate the question raise
00:30:45
your
00:30:46
hand how do you stay consistent when
00:30:49
executing so frequently I think that's
00:30:52
the hardest thing for repeat I can I'll
00:30:54
repeat it yeah so he asked how do you
00:30:56
stay so consistent uh with with what
00:30:58
with your
00:30:59
execution so incredible execution so
00:31:02
hard spot on all the time yeah uh he
00:31:05
said how do you be so consistent with
00:31:07
execution spot on all the time um so the
00:31:10
the thing is you just have to obviously
00:31:11
just train great people because you know
00:31:13
if you're doing everything yourself
00:31:15
eventually you're going to burn out get
00:31:16
different interests blah blah blah and
00:31:17
so um I actually my top people I bought
00:31:21
a house and we all lived together for
00:31:22
years and I just kind of trained them to
00:31:24
think like me and you know see the world
00:31:26
like me and so a like by I top probably
00:31:28
12 people 95% of the time you know if
00:31:31
you ask them something and ask me in
00:31:33
different rooms we'll give the exact
00:31:34
same answer and the other 5% of the time
00:31:36
will just be like very slightly
00:31:37
different thrown away a video because
00:31:38
you were unsatisfied with it oh of
00:31:40
course all the time how that happens all
00:31:42
the time yeah so out of 10 videos how
00:31:43
many would be well the thing is like if
00:31:45
you want to build viewership over time
00:31:47
if you want to go from 10 million to 20
00:31:48
million views a video to 30 million
00:31:49
views a video you just have to get it
00:31:51
where every time they show up they're
00:31:53
happy they feel like they got value out
00:31:54
of it it's like it was worth their time
00:31:56
and investment so yeah if something's
00:31:59
not good and they click on it then
00:32:00
they're less likely to click on future
00:32:02
videos so you can only yeah to grow
00:32:03
viewership like that it has to be want
00:32:05
to take a right
00:32:11
here
00:32:14
obv
00:32:23
do thank
00:32:25
you here you you repeat the question
00:32:27
question um I don't know how to repeat
00:32:30
that one not as easy as it looks H
00:32:32
that's how he does it he would like to
00:32:33
know how uh your normal person and you
00:32:36
stay so authentic given this incredible
00:32:40
your humility how do you keep your I
00:32:41
think the beauty of it is I usually
00:32:43
spend 99% of my time in my studio so I
00:32:45
don't really like the 100 million number
00:32:47
on the video just looks like pixels on a
00:32:49
screen like I don't really experience it
00:32:51
that much so I think that's kind of the
00:32:52
best part how do you walk through an
00:32:54
airport these days or walk you know
00:32:57
through a City it is pretty crazy huh I
00:33:00
was really worried about getting you
00:33:01
here I kept asking them how are we going
00:33:03
to get him through LAX I don't
00:33:05
understand the the thing is you throw a
00:33:07
hood on and wear some glasses I and
00:33:09
you're pretty good and you just don't
00:33:10
talk on like talk out loud or anything
00:33:12
like that so same thing all right
00:33:15
everybody give it up for Jimmy Donaldson
00:33:17
thank you it's F that was awesome these
00:33:23
are your win
00:33:26
ride rain and
00:33:30
David and instead we open source it to
00:33:33
the fans and they've just gone crazy
00:33:35
with
00:33:35
[Music]
00:33:43
it besties
00:33:46
are my dog taking
00:33:51
driveway oh man my Willet me we should
00:33:55
all just get a room and just have one
00:33:56
big huge orgy they're all useless it's
00:33:59
like this like sexual tension that they
00:34:00
just need to release
00:34:07
somehow we need to get
00:34:11
[Music]
00:34:16
merch I'm going all in
