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ocean_moist
simonw
I’m with you on the management vibes - it doesn’t sound like a culture that I’d enjoy.
That’s one of the things I find so interesting about this document: it does feel very honest and unfiltered, and as such it appears to be quite an accurate insight into their culture.
And that’s a culture that works if you want to create massive successful viral YouTube videos targeting their audience.
How much has that specific chosen culture contributed to their enormous success in that market? There’s no way to know that, but my hunch is it contributed quite a bit.
tpmoney
What I find interesting in reading this is that it's not particularly surprising in content. And I don't mean that I expected some hugely toxic culture from a youtube company and found it. I mean that the whole document is largely pretty standard "how to make it in a competitive industry" advice. The tone might be a little unprofessional for folks who are used to big corporate talk, but if you'd leaked internal Microsoft or Google documents to a bunch of long time IBM folks they would have thought the same things I'm sure. The tone might be different, but most of the points seem identical to stuff anyone should be familiar with. "Follow up when you ask someone for something", "Don't commit to giving X if you can't actually get X", "Have a backup plan", "Try to turn a failure into something useful", "Own your mistakes", "Make sure you've exhausted all the avenues for something before you decide it's impossible", "Do the hard work early so you're not cramming it all in at the end", "You are the subject matter expert on your specific project, assume everyone else doesn't know anything". Even the "A,B,C" employee thing is pretty standard stuff folks know intuitively. Fast food is garbage no matter where you go, yet somehow Chick Fil A has lines around the block at lunch time and if there's 3 cars in a Wendy's drive through, you'll go somewhere else. Why? Because Chick Fil A really tries to not have "C" employees (relative to fast food employees in general), and it shows in the customer experience. Two fast food places can have the same quality of food, and the one with the drive through attendant that acknowledges people and responds to phatic phrases, and marks the diet soda cup is going to have more traffic and customer satisfaction than the one where the attendant barely acknowledges you've arrived at the window and leaves you to figure out which was the diet coke when you get home.
bnralt
That's the same impression I got. It's odd seeing the discussion veer off into morality, because most of it seems to be standard and non-problematic advice (IE, understanding what your product is and don't get distracted by focusing on what it's not).
And though the advice isn't particularly novel, it was worth reading since a surprisingly large amount of people don't do these simple things.
naming_the_user
Yeah, it reads as being pretty standard to me.
To be honest I think there's just a bit of a bifurcation between people who do business, like really do business as a competition like an Olympic sport, and people who just sort of like turn up and do their thing for a bit and then go home.
To the former camp all of this is intuitively obvious and doesn't need spelling out although the insights are generally useful.
nrp
That’s one of the most interesting parts of this document. Many people will read it and think “I would never work at a place like that,” and many others would think “that’s exactly the environment I want to work in!”
More startups should be this transparent about their stated/desired culture (even if unintentionally).
gleventhal
It clearly biased for young people or those without a family with something to prove, the perfect type of employee to exploit and vampirize.
Cthulhu_
I appreciate it for being honest tbh, 99% of job hunting in the IT field is filtering out the bullshit, or the greenwashing that what a company does is Good, Actually.
Example, I work for an energy company. Their objective is to earn money. They earn money by selling gas and electricity to their customers. Their revenue increases if they have more customers, using more electricity/gas, and if the price goes up. If they were honest, they would be pushing their customers to use more energy; "Hot in summer? Get an AC! Cold in winter? Don't wear a sweater, crank up the thermostat! Have you considered a sauna and jaccuzi? Isn't a long hot bath nice?" that kind of thing.
But all energy companies' marketing talk (both internal and external) is about reducing energy usage, their green energy efforts, tips to customers to reduce power use, apps and websites so they can monitor it, and currently, dynamic contracts so people can optimize their usage to when the price is lowest.
It's just so cynical.
next_xibalba
> How much has that specific chosen culture contributed to their enormous success in that market?
You see this across industries. Even Google, in the early days, was people working crazy hours, sweating the details, and just generally grinding. It is something like a law of nature that extraordinary results require extraordinary effort from extraordinary people.
jodrellblank
How does that align with Dan Luu’s article “95th percentile isn’t that good”[1] and the general observation so many of us have that the companies we work for and interact with and buy from are executing so badly on so many fronts?
That is, most programmers aren’t good programmers, most managers aren’t good managers, most salaries aren’t good salaries, most salespeople aren’t good salespersons, most workflows aren’t efficient, most team communications aren’t effective.
If Dan Luu is right, it shouldn’t take extraordinary effort to do better (excepting the case where “trying” is extraordinary). If he’s wrong why does it take Herculean effort to outdo a bunch of average companies?
greesil
At face value, this is not a culture that would reward risk taking. It's very operations focused. Get x done on day y or you're fired. Maybe they do value risk taking on the creative side?
j45
Learning why it’s done the way it’s done before bringing up the beginner questions they get answered over and over is reasonable.
refurb
An example of risk taking in operations is right there in the pdf - “no doesn’t mean no”
They give the example of picking a filming location you aren’t likely to get permission to film in but would produce outstanding content.
j45
First time entrepreneurs are also learning how to build culture. No excuse, but still.
oulipo
A lot of people here (and in tech in general) are conflating "being efficient" with "having success"...
that's clearly because people in tech generally value efficiency
but we have to take a step back collectively and understand that "being efficient at producing addictive video for teens to sell ads for shit they don't need" is BAD, not a "success"
cdrini
I don't think it has anything to do with efficiency, but with effectivity. You could argue producing addictive videos for teens is Mr beasts goal. And he is very effective at doing that. And actually yes, successful at that goal.
Success doesn't really have a moral component, it's relative to the stated goal. You could argue it's not meaningful or moral or worthwhile or valuable, but you can't deny that he has achieved success.
So the thing you can take away from someone like mr beast is "what made them so effective?". A lot of his strategies could be useful for other, more worthwhile goals than his! So there's something that can be learned. I think that's what people mean, not that "people in tech generally value efficiency".
chii
> is BAD, not a "success"
that is your moral view or value. It is not a universal value.
Economic success is indeed a thing, and it can be discussed separately from moralityl.
consteval
Not entirely true - bad things can be measured. Harm exists and has a value. The value, in this case if you wanted to derive, would be the amount of money consumers spent on random advertised things.
Sure it would be hard to measure - but you could argue that money is money consumers lost as a result of Mr Beast (or maybe YouTube as a whole).
For example, looking to the tobacco industry: they were incredibly economically successful because they leveraged the weaknesses of the human brain to sell their product, namely nicotine addiction. This is now largely considered immoral, but let's look past that.
We can still measure the badness, or harm, of the tobacco industry objectively. We see how much money was/is spent on cancer treatment, COPD treatment, etc. These analysis have been done before and it's pretty damning, billions of dollars. In some cases, the cost of tobacco straight up exceeds the profit. Meaning, from a communal economic standpoint, they are a net-negative. Yes, it's true, tobacco, while wildly popular, is economically in the red.
Of course, we live in a staunchly capitalistic, individualistic society. Communal economic cost/benefit is almost never looked at. Which is why we had the problems with the tobacco industry, and why the obesity epidemic grows. Mr Beast videos are not of this scale, but I would argue they are of this nature.
oulipo
No it can't, economic success is completely linked with morality when your success is linked to producing tons of CO2, which is going to put our planet, and in particular poorer people, in the shitters
refurb
> but we have to take a step back collectively and understand that "being efficient at producing addictive video for teens to sell ads for shit they don't need" is BAD, not a "success"
That’s seems like a judgement call and a personal one at that. It certainly isn’t a universal value among humanity.
Which is fine, but a 500+ comment HN post where people argue over personal values doesn’t make for interesting reading.
meowface
If 100% of his watchers were YouTube Premium subscribers and none of them ever saw an ad, would you feel differently?
oulipo
If people were actively paying for the content, and thus "accepting to be endoctrinated" why not, although I think that all kind of entreprise with such a handbook of "how to make people basically addicted to the shit we build" is bad
People are losing communities, people are losing attention span, and this is because we make people addict to shit like this
And then idiot like Trump manage to take power
We need a society with longer pauses, reflexion, empathy
nothercastle
It’s still kind if garbage content
robertlagrant
> that's clearly because people in tech generally value efficiency
I think this is you reading this into the comment. They don't mention efficiency.
threeseed
I always love the "just hire A-players" line.
As though startups are trying to hire mediocre people instead of having no choice.
And that 95% of startups don't know their metrics. Pretty sure almost all do but again don't have the skills or resources to meaningfully move them.
kjksf
It's more about willing to fire below-A players quickly rather than having a perfect hiring filter that only lets A players in.
Looking back at 7 companies I worked at: they all had a tough hiring filter to get in. But most of them also had not that great people that they were not firing.
Firing people is hard even when you know you should do it. You have to be a heartless bastard to not have a problem firing people.
It's even worse when the company gets so big that a game of building empires starts in which case managers have an incentive to grow headcount to grow power, even if that headcount isn't very good.
The document even talks about what MrBeast considers a B-player.
Made a mistake once? That's fine. Fuck ups are a price of ambition.
Made the same mistake twice? Need to be told the same thing multiple times? Not an A player so fired.
XorNot
Of course now you have a function which isn't non-optimally performed, it's now not being performed at all. Because you're probably "running lean" so actually you have no redundancy for that function.
And then there's the sociological effect of course: are you even any good at identifying poor performers, does the team view it that way? You can be one employee departure away from an exodus since someone being laid off is usually a good sign for everyone else to reconsider how they feel about their position. Bad management is pretty good at generating a never-ending stream of "underperforming employees".
Like let's state the obvious here: you're looking back the 7 prior companies you worked for. Are the people you thought should be fired still there? Are they still turning up every day and doing something? Because in that context, whatever their fault, they are a more reliable resource to the company then you were (this isn't judgment: my resume is long too).
r00fus
The major problem I see is: focusing on an individual, when it's the team that needs to be A-level. You can't just throw a bunch of A-players together and expect an A-team.
Expecting your workers to never make the same mistake twice is extremely harsh and only works if you are comfortable with a lot of volatility in team structure & in an employer's market.
nfw2
I’ve seen multiple teams hire mediocre people despite having a choice. Usually it is because either:
- they believe velocity is simply additive (A player + B player > A player)
- they look too much into credentials (big name school / employer) and do not adequately vet ability
- they start with the attitude “let’s give this person a chance and see if they work out” and become too reluctant to fire when they turn out mediocre.
Teams should be more comfortable staying small longer in my opinion.
DaoVeles
It does come from a point of privileged. Steve jobs said "A players hire A+ players. A+ players hire A++ players". That was because he saw A players hiring B players. B Players will hire C players - and so on.
That is all well and good when you are the golden goose that is Apple. Most people just do not get the opportunity to hire like that.
j45
Apple wasn’t that at the start. But it had a few a players.
__turbobrew__
Startups usually have no choice, they cannot afford A players. There are businesses which do hire A-players such as OpenAI, Jane Street, Netflix, etc. but A players require A compensation.
nothercastle
And a lot of A players are unique snowflakes so they have to be compatible with other unique snowflakes so it can be hard to fill the gaps. You need a few Bs who are moldable to fill gaps
ocean_moist
>I always love the "just hire A-players" line. As though startups are trying to hire mediocre people instead of having no choice.
If a startup can't attract talent (a sign of bad traction), that startup probably is not that good and more people won't solve the underlying problem. You would also be surprised how many startups outsource dev/marketing/etc. in their initial stages.
If you can't convince smart people to work for you and that your idea is good, good luck trying to convince customers of the same.
>And that 95% of startups don't know their metrics. Pretty sure almost all do but again don't have the skills or resources to meaningfully move them.
I said most don't know them as well as Mr. Beast. Read "Chapter 1: What makes a Youtube video viral?". Most founders have not put the same amount of time into seeing how to track, measure, and impact metrics. He identified key KPIs and then experimented with changes until he found what worked. His whole north star to, minute by minute, structure each video, is informed by the KPIs. His whole strategy is built upon metrics by metrics.
He clearly is obsessed with them to a degree few are. Some startups don't even know how much money they make, how much money they lose, etc.
aa-jv
>trying to hire mediocre people
It should be "always retain A-players". You can hire as many ABC's as you like - some of those C's will become B's and A's, and some of the B's will become A's, and the rest .. you let go with severance.
Thats the free market, baby. Live with it, or perish.
OJFord
> As though startups are trying to hire mediocre people instead of having no choice.
Well one choice you might make is to hire some number of 'mediocre people' instead of one 'A-player'; the ratio of more junior to more senior; etc.
sage76
I am hearing this stuff from bigger companies too now. By definition, everyone cannot hire A players.
nothercastle
Yeah most places can’t comp 2 Std deviation candidates. Either in pay or experience. Beast could because he’s got the top company in the market that makes it cheap to hire talent.
grecy
> I think it's important not to micromanage to the extent he is--it's necessary, maybe, for his business
I think it's pretty clear he has figured out how to "master" YouTube better than anyone else ever has by a very wide margin.
So if he doesn't micromanage, how can he teach people how to do something that nobody else has ever figured out how to do?
It's not like people will show up and be good at what he wants. There is no school for this, no "Here's my past experience". None of that matters at his level of success.
FrozenSynapse
> I think it's pretty clear he has figured out how to "master" YouTube better than anyone else ever has by a very wide margin.
content for dumb kids
wahnfrieden
There’s a difference between writing down that you hire A-players in a document, and hiring the unqualified personal friends that he does in practice for all kinds of production roles
sumedh
> and hiring the unqualified personal friends that he does in practice for all kinds of production roles
How do you know they are unqualified?
wahnfrieden
Reports from insiders of nepotism hires and lack of qualification
marxisttemp
> Rewarding employees who make value for the business and think like founders/equity owners, not employees.
The best way to get employees to think like equity owners is to give them equity. But I guess the name of the game in our times is to somehow expect people with no equity to work even harder for the company than the equity holders do, right? Let me know how that works out.
ocean_moist
I personally think (and I think the prevailing sentiment is) that giving early employees equity is crucial. There is no way I would do any work for an early stage startup (or, in general, if I can help it) with no stake in the company.
In bigger companies, it's a zero sum game. They don't really care about you because their scale makes it hard to identify who cares for them, so everything is just a business transaction.
Wolfenstein98k
Pretty well so far
spencerchubb
I read the entire document and I don't understand where you saw bad culture or micromanaging.
Some people may not like the fact that they pull all nighters, but that's a matter of opinion. Clearly some people do like the terms of employment, otherwise they wouldn't work there.
smt88
> Clearly some people do like the terms of employment, otherwise they wouldn't work there.
This is a deeply naive understanding of employment.
Almost no one has a huge array of job opportunities, and they can select the one they want based on company culture.
Most people have one viable job offer at a time, and they have to work hard for it. This is even more true in entertainment fields. Many people in entertainment feel lucky to be a paid employee at all, and they can't choose between a job that requires all-nighters and one that doesn't.
javier123454321
This is not a foxcon factory, this is the most famous and productive Youtube production company. People here work incredibly hard IN ORDER TO get this particular job, seeking it out specifically.
> Many people in entertainment feel lucky to be a paid employee at all
And this is BY CHOICE.
I fundamentally disagree with your positioning.
ocean_moist
> bad culture
The let "let boys be childish" part and the overall psuedo-human tone kind of alarmed me. The random "hahas" littered around, seemed like a robot trying to be a human.
> micromanaging
He has a playbook/formula that works and all employees are solely focused on executing that vision. People have little operational ownership. In other words, employees don't have freedom in vision.
I even said it probably is necessary for the success of his business that employees don't have that freedom. I just would not enjoy working in a environment like that and I think employees (especially early ones) need to have that kind of operational freedom in startups (which is the context of my comment).
gwbas1c
> where you saw bad culture or micromanaging
Mr. Beast is ultimately the star of the video, so he has to micromanage at some point or another. That's his brand. He can't let his employees plan a video that he won't like.
I did find the comments about all-nighters off-putting... And I personally don't like working on multiple things at the same time. But that's personal preference; I don't particularly like Mr. Beast's videos, so I don't see myself working for his company any time soon.
I'm more concerned about Mr. Beast overextending himself. With Mr. Beast (the person) being the brand and the star, I don't think he can scale himself much more.
StackRanker3000
https://youtube.com/shorts/6WgklDqOnH4
I think his personal involvement in any given project is already quite limited. He’s created a huge, soulless machine that churns out videos for the sole purpose of achieving some YouTube high score, and he just pokes his nose in here and there to be the face of the operation and ensure it remains well-oiled.
Edit: that ”just” is obviously doing a ton of lifting because it’s likely still a huge amount of work on his part, but my point is that it’s not like he lovingly crafts all these clips by himself.
calmbonsai
Re-read those operational principles out loud. Now imagine them being executed at-scale by a fraudulent enterprise to the net detriment of society.
You don't have to imagine very hard.
nothercastle
So most tech startups?
doix
There are lot of comments here disliking MrBeast and what not, but some of the advice can definitely apply to all organizations.
> Your goal here is to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible. That’s the number one goal of this production company. It’s not to make the best produced videos. Not to make the funniest videos. Not to make the best looking videos. Not the highest quality videos.. It’s to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible.
Replace "youtube videos" with whatever the company is trying to achieve. I see it all the time in large organizations, where different teams forget what the goal of the company is and instead get hyperfocused on their teams KPI's to the detriment of the company as a whole.
Lawyers finding problems and trying to stop things from happening instead of finding solutions. Security blocking things and not suggesting alternatives. IT blocking this or that instead of trying solve problems, etc.
bayindirh
> Replace "youtube videos" with whatever the company is trying to achieve.
Some counterpoints:
- Xerox knowingly didn't fix the problematic gear trains to guarantee periodic part changes, prioritizing money over "best copier possible".
- Ford didn't fix Pinto's fuel tank, prioritizing cost minimization over "best possible car in its class".
- Microsoft is did tons of shady things in its OS development history to prioritize domination over "best OS possible", sometimes actively degrading the good features and parts of its OS.
- Dyson's some batteries are notorious for killing themselves via firmware on slight cell imbalance instead of doing self-balancing. Dyson prioritize "steady income via killing good parts early" instead of "building the best vacuum possible".
- Many more electronic and electromechanical systems are engineered with short lives to prioritize "minimizing costs and maximizing profit" over "building the best X possible".
- Lastly, Boeing's doing all kinds of shady stuff (MCAS, doors, build quality, etc.) since they prioritize "maximize shareholder value" over "building the best planes possible".
- ...and there's Intel, but I think the idea is clear here.
folken
I think this is exactly the point that MrBeast is trying to make.
By being best YOUTUBE videos it means to focus on whatever appeals to the algorithm. It doesn't mean you are better informed, or better entertained, as long as the click-through-rate is great and the minutes people watch the video is maximized.
You could say the same thing is true for Xerox, for them the best doesn't necessary mean that they sell you the best most reliable copier, but the highest grossing product, with a guaranteed post-sale income.
And this is why we can't have nice things.
duxup
There was a blog post linked on HN a while ago, it was about their start up they ran many years ago. They got traction with clients and were a very "engineering focused" (or similar term) organization. Their code was rock solid.
It was all going great, until suddenly some new company showed up and started taking their customers. Their new competitor's software was a mess with all sorts of incomplete or pure vaporware features.... but they did get features out fast.
They got beat out by Salesforce...
We as people pick the winners with our money, we don't really want nice things.
hyperadvanced
This is exactly correct. See distinction between “best produced videos” and “best YOUTUBE” videos - it’s not about making the best video, it’s about making the one that minmaxes the metrics
throwaway48476
Youtube needs a metric to not promote low quality videos with low intentionality. No one searches for Mr beast videos with intent to watch them. The audience is primarily children who will watch whatever slop the algorithm puts in front of them. We need something like china where algorithms push quality educational content.
montag
Mr. Beast is FAR from the most pathological content on YouTube.
GTP
> And this is why we can't have nice things.
Indeed, and that's why OP wrote its list of counterpoints. In theory, a company can make a lot of money by creating products that are aligned with users' interests. Unfortunately, in today's world this is more difficult to do rather than taking advantage of users in some way. Still, if we don't oppose these practices there will never be a change, so it's worth fighting for our rights as users.
throw0101a
> Some counterpoints:
The goal would be to be more customer-focused in those cases.
"No one prospers without rendering benefit to others." — Tadao Yoshida, founder of YKK zippers, https://ykkamericas.com/our-philosophy/
With MrBeast, the "best YOUTUBE video" would be one that causes engagement with the viewer throughout the video:
> The creative process for every video they produce starts with the title and thumbnail. These set the expectations for the viewer, and everything that follows needs to be defined with those in mind. If a viewer feels their expectations are not being matched, they’ll click away - driving down the crucial Average View Duration that informs how much the video is promoted by YouTube’s all-important mystical algorithms.
You have to both entice the viewer with the thumbnail/title, and meet the expectations of the viewer so they continue watching.
Your counterexamples are a bunch of instances where the company did not meet customer expectations.
daymanstep
> "No one prospers without rendering benefit to others." — Tadao Yoshida
This quote describes how things should be, not how things actually are.
thegrimmest
In MrBeast's case, his revenue is directly correlated with customer engagement via YouTube's algorithm. I'm sure that were it legal, gladiatorial combat would be very popular and profitable on YouTube. I suppose one could make an argument that it would therefore "beneficial".
In the other aforementioned cases, in absence of an algorithm, revenue-generating activity wasn't as well correlated with meeting customer expectations. The point is that companies will always optimize for their own revenue, regardless of how well or poorly their activity meets customer expectations.
someothherguyy
> No one prospers without rendering benefit to others
Plenty of counterexamples for this as well. Snake oil salesmen, drug dealers, woo peddlers, gurus, politicians, grifters, scammers, thieves, and on and on...
CooCooCaCha
I hate that so many people live by “wisdom” that falls apart at the slightest scrutiny…
willvarfar
Their definition of "best copier possible" was "most-profitable copier possible", meaning they had to balance getting people to not hate it so much they chose competitors, while not being so reliable it didn't need warrantees and services and parts etc?
bayindirh
> not being so reliable it didn't need warrantees[sic] and services and parts etc?
The thing is, nothing is completely maintenance free, esp. if there's something mechanical. Make wearing parts wear, core parts robust. All my laser printers were Samsung/Xerox (hah), and their "core" is made like a tank. Only its rollers, toner and imaging/drum kits wear down, and these are already consumables.
The device keeps track the life of every of these replaceable components, and you replace them you hit these marks, because they're already worn down to hinder reliable operation (Imager dies at 9K pages, rollers at 20K pages IIRC).
You don't need to make things fail prematurely to make something profitable. First one of these printers didn't have replaceable rollers, so I had to donate it after 11 years of operation. This one is almost 8 years old IIRC, and it's still going strong. I'll be using it as long as I can find spares for it, because it's engineered "correctly", not "for profit". Meantime, its manufacturer can still profit from parts, toner and imaging units.
mc32
>- Ford didn't fix Pinto's fuel tank, prioritizing cost minimization over "best possible car in its class".
This is a nit-pick, but for the record, The Pinto didn't explode at higher rates than other similar automobiles, also there wasn't an internal Ford Memo, it was an attachment to a letter to the NHTSA --but all people remember is the this so called "memo" Anyhow a myth was born and it seemingly refuses to die. By the numbers:
In 1975-76, the Pinto averaged 310 fatalities a year. But the similar-size Toyota Corolla averaged 313, the VW Beetle 374 and the Datsun 1200/210 came in at 405.
Additional info: https://newmarksdoor.typepad.com/mainblog/2005/07/the_pinto_...
deaddodo
That's not a counterpoint, that's a list of examples of exactly what they're saying.
They're not saying make the best product possible, they're saying make the product that sells the most despite quality.
ngneer
I do not view these as counterpoints. You are making the same point, which is that the metric one optimizes for is extremely important. MrBeast is solely focused on maximizing revenue on the YouTube platform. The examples you cite also demonstrate the same exact metric (i.e., profit) in other domains. I know HP was in the habit of crippling its printers to extract more money, to add to your other examples.
Out of curiosity, what's wrong with Intel? Are you referring to their selling more capable parts for more money? If so, that does not strike me as a shady practice to maximize profits. More like how the best fruit goes for export, where it can fetch the most return.
IanCal
Those are problematic business goals, right? I think that's very different to aligning team goals to company goals.
kmacdough
Well a lot of these aren't counterpoints but rather examples of when companies naively followed KPIs to their own detriment. Boing has fallen from dominance to a distant second, Windows has been steadily losing dominance, Ford's darker years were around the Pinto fiasco.
While Microsoft as a whole is still quite strong, Ford and Boeing lost significant market position and the losses are partially attributed to these very mistakes.
xivzgrev
I liked how honest the guide was. There wasn’t anything fake noble here and a lot of his frustrations I have also felt as a people manager - the questions employees ask, making excuses when deadlines slip, etc
the job is to make YouTube videos that people click and watch
What gets them to watch and stick is a few things but notably wow factor, something crazy they haven’t seen before
The bar for wow factor keeps rising
Therefore you need to keep learning driving better and better results. Otherwise you are out
You need to take ownership for results to avoid delays at all costs.
gwbas1c
>> Your goal here is to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible.
> Replace "youtube videos" with whatever the company is trying to achieve.
I see a lot of unnecessary negative sentiment towards that quote.
The quote has no hidden meaning and should be taken on face value: I could easily see an up-and-coming producer work for Mr. Beast, and get sidetracked with making sure that pixels are "perfect." Or a set designer making sure that a specific prop is placed "perfectly." That's not the point, and Mr. Beast is very upfront about it.
I actually admire that quote.
talldayo
[flagged]
Wolfenstein98k
The "best YouTube" video is not whatever you think it is, but rather what it is.
You can go see what are the most watched videos. How many are softcore porn?
(Let's exclude music videos because they have always included that at times, and popularity tends to run with the audio first)
nl
> "the best" video you can make is probably porn that's softcore enough to not trip the monetization or age restriction gates
Since Mr Beast has some of the highest repeatable viewerships on YouTube I think there's some evidence that is wrong.
btbuildem
> Lawyers finding problems and trying to stop things from happening instead of finding solutions. Security blocking things and not suggesting alternatives. IT blocking this or that instead of trying solve problems, etc.
I think these are clear signs of a dysfunctional organization. I want to associate that with company size (larger -> more bureaucratic, counter-mission nonsense), but I've also seen large companies that don't get caught in these pitfalls. My best guess to lay blame would be at inadequate, out of touch, need-to-be-fired B.o.D and upper and mid-management deadwood. These are the people that propagate such ineffective culture.
I will forever remember the head of IT at my org exclaiming in a meeting, "I'm not here to solve problems". Blew my mind at the time, but it's emblematic and representative of company culture as a whole.
__turbobrew__
I see this all the time. Organizations which are solely dedicated to stop things from happening instead of allowing things to happen.
One example is a disaster readiness organization which mandates that teams cannot deploy code in only a single datacenter. What they should really be doing is making it so code automatically runs in multiple datacenters.
Facilitate instead of forbid.
twojobsoneboss
TBF there are orgs at companies whose sole role is to play DEFENSE - lawyers, CSO etc… if they deem something too risky it IS their job to block it, and then it’s up to upper management to override them if the situation calls for it.
Now that said they should still try to advance the mission within that framework, and not be lazy.
fishpen0
The most secure company is, of course, the company that doesn't exist. Bankrupting your org is certainly the most effective way to keep it secure.
Yes, their role is defense, but not insofar as to remove the profitability of the organization. In several orgs now I've seen the legal team blow contracts and the security team break the product and the IT team break development in the name of performing their role "correctly".
Brainless box checking is not part of defense, you must be willing to critically think about how to fit your role to your product or organization's profit motive.
duxup
Your comment reminded me of the old content vs process Steve Jobs commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4dCJJFuMsE
But I agree, it's so tempting to get internally focused, or focused on "improvement" that really shifts the focus to something else entirely (hollywood style movies, tv shows, whatever).
Personally I'm no fan of the youtube-ism and youtube generally, but it's clear that game is it's own game. It's not making a movie, it's not a TV show, it's not even tiktok. It's its own thing and it is pretty clear that generally you have to play that platform's game.
My kids play a lot of roblox, and while there's a lot of copy cat games based on traditional gaming, there's almost a system on roblox as far as what games are popular as far as ease of jumping in goes and so on. And there's a lot of weird creativity you find nowhere else as far as the topics of the games (want to be a bug? you can do that). That's it's own space too.
lenerdenator
> Lawyers finding problems and trying to stop things from happening instead of finding solutions. Security blocking things and not suggesting alternatives. IT blocking this or that instead of trying solve problems, etc.
"People who realize the ramifications of the proposed route of action beyond 'it makes the number bigger'" finding problems and trying to stop things from happening instead of finding solutions.
There. Fixed it.
sanex
Ok but the main issue is the stopping things from happening instead of finding solutions.
lenerdenator
Some things should be stopped.
For example, locking a dude in a room for days on end with no mental health evaluation beforehand to see if he can handle the psychological stress that might induce. Or having said dude run a marathon on a treadmill without any training. Or running illegal lotteries. Or fixing the outcomes of game shows.
Some of those things "make the best YouTube video possible" but are profoundly abusive at the least and outright illegal at worst. If you can't do the video without doing those things, you shouldn't do the video and should focus on human factors instead of the money you're missing out on, like a person without psycopathy might.
pjlegato
> teams forget what the goal of the company is and instead get hyperfocused on their teams KPI's
This is the intractable and unavoidable problem with the use of KPIs as a management tool: Goodhart's Law -- any metric used as a target ceases to be a good measure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
You are -- literally -- telling the team, "go make this KPI number go up. Your entire job performance will be evaluated on that basis." It is unsurprising that the team therefore focuses on making that number go up.
If you want teams to consider the goals of the company, or anything at all besides their KPIs, don't use KPIs.
agluszak
And the "best YOUTUBE videos possible" are... toxic, useless brainrot? (with occasional for-views philanthropy)
These videos are certainly the best in terms of what money they can make... but are they any good for their consumers?
itishappy
Who said anything about consumers? I think viewing "the best YOUTUBE videos possible" in line with "the best CIGARETTES possible" is probably the right framing here.
GTP
Yes, best is always wrt some metric, which here is clearly monetary gain.
underlipton
His competition and giveaway videos are just the modern version of reality TV and game shows, where the draw is the horse race and human drama. You might call that "toxic, useless brainrot," but personally, I feel like such fare is about on the same level as any number of classic novels (including pretty much anything authored by a Bronte sister). Your enjoyment likely hinges on your level of empathy for the people involved, as they're thrown into complex social situations with their livelihood at stake, or whatever.
meowface
>toxic, useless brainrot
I assumed that's what all his videos were for years and hadn't ever watched any (given I am not a child, among other reasons), but I gave one a chance out of curiosity and found myself surprisingly enjoying some of the competition videos. The competitions are often well-designed and adeptly narratively structured.
tgsovlerkhgsel
Notably, many of them are similar formats that you'd find in regular TV, except the MrBeast version puts 10 minutes of content into a 12 minute video, while the TV show would put 5 minutes of content into a 45 minute episode.
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javier123454321
What's wrong with making things for others' entertainment? The moralization of this is bizarre. Don't like it, don't consume it. This man has figured out how to create a ridiculous amount of value, whichever way you slice it.
talldayo
What's wrong with asking a homeless person to do an embarrassing dance for a $20 bill? That used to be popular content on YouTube. Don't like that, don't watch it.
If your most potent defense of Mr. Beast is that he's made a lot of money, then he stands due the same scrutiny Rockefeller and Carnegie got. I've watched his videos, it's not an incorrect conclusion to say that his popularity hinges on the "savior complex" present in most of his videos. His content revolves around exploiting charity as a social phenomenon. He's a wannabe altruist that pockets more money than he donates. His business relies on the emotional manipulation of a destitute audience.
geerlingguy
It's interesting to see the discussion from two different angles—there's a lot of support for the type of A/B/C delineation in parts of this thread, and some people who decry it in other parts.
I was on the set for one of the productions, and I'll just say at the time I thought the experience was a one-off for one of the bigger productions they've put on. Since reading other people's stories, it seems more a case where the pressure to push, push, push for the next big video is a ginormous machine that grinds people pretty hard.
An early stage startup, with a few employees, pushing to hit some milestone, could survive like that a while. But you can only burn through so many creative minds driving them at 110% all day like that. IMO, you have to find a sustainable burn rate that might be too much for some, but isn't going to drive away everyone desiring normal family / outside work life balance, especially 5-10 years into an org's lifetime.
MrBeast (the org) has hundreds of employees and probably 5-10 major active productions (in pre-prod, prod, and post-prod). They've achieved a lot of impressive results, but they also get to cut a lot of corners traditional media (Hollywood, TV production) can't due to labor laws and unions.
Edit: Not to mention, the 'No does not mean no' section was a bit alarming. There are plenty of times when no most certainly means no, and you can really damage business and personal relationships if you can't figure those out.
pests
One thing I find interesting over the last few weeks since this was released (and other MrBeast drama) is how there is now a separation between MrBeast the person and MrBeast the company.
Before today, it was never differentiated. Since the drama started, I've seen more news and people (like yourself) clarify that you mean the company vs the person, and I'm not sure its warranted.
While everything was going good, MrBeast the person took all credit for MrBeast the company. Now, it seems like everyone is on tip-toes to clarify they are trash-talking MrBeast the company, not MrBeast the person.
It just seems a bit weird to me.
geerlingguy
Honestly I never met Jimmy even though I was in his studio for two weeks working on the video. I did meet a ton of his employees, many of whom I'd gladly work with again, just not on a MrBeast production.
I just can't speak to Jimmy Donaldson himself. Not even sure how much he's involved in the day to day at the company (outside of being the public face).
Wolfenstein98k
The bigger the company gets, the more separate it becomes from its founder/face/whatever.
Inevitable.
(Although this document clearly sets out that this distinction should be fought at every step, so that counts against what I'm saying. It is trying desperately to ensure the company reflects the man as much as possible)
saghm
> While everything was going good, MrBeast the person took all credit for MrBeast the company. Now, it seems like everyone is on tip-toes to clarify they are trash-talking MrBeast the company, not MrBeast the person.
Yeah, I can't really understand why someone would craft a persona with a unique bespoke name and then name the company the same thing other than to try to make sure that the company is viewed as synonymous with the persona.
slt2021
MrBeast has given up his life for his youtube channel (he writes exactly this in the doc) - and he is looking for other people willing to give up theirs for his channel
earnesti
He is fricking 26 years old. He hasn't given his life for anything. At the moment he is, yes, but likely after some years he is retired on his yacht.
_zamorano_
Some things leave a permanent mark on you. Try being a workaholic a few years and tell me later how easy is to disconnect, and rejoin with familiy and friends.
jrochkind1
Giving up your life for many millions of dollar is a choice.
His employees are probably payed well, but obviously don't make as much as he. So I guess asking them to give up their lives for less compensation is to say their lives are or less value...
Wolfenstein98k
No, it's to offer them a chance to make a lot of money in exchange for a lot of work.
No one is forced to work there and they are not taken advantage of.
Any of them are free to start their own channel and outcompete him! It's literally how he did it!
malthaus
the audacity to ask other people to give up their life for helping you fulfil your dream and even sell it to them as them fulfilling their dream.
is it the same "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" shtick the american dream brainwashed americans with?
if you have that much drive and want to invest so heavily in work - do yourself a favour and do it as a leader where you call the shots and have the equity instead of as a follower.
TrapLord_Rhodo
THIS. I would like to tell you a bit of a personal story and this may shed some light on your question. Disclaimer* I am American.
I was working at Tesla on the CapEx team, and unless you were doing something "interesting", like going to Tahoe or something, then you were expected to be in the office on Saturday and Sunday.
I worked my ass off, pulling 70 hour weeks, catching naps in a conference room when there was a big push. I learned to be energized by my work, seeing the factory cells come together gave me this giant rush. Eventually, I got the thought you had but i worded it differently. "I will never be Elon, working for Elon".
So when Covid hit, i got put fully remote and started having some conversations with potential clients to launch my own consultancy. After a couple of months, our managers told us to start coming back into office. I had gotten some traction with the consultancy, so i decideded to "do [myself] a favour and do it as a leader where [i] call[ed] the shots and have the equity instead of as a follower."
At first it was great! I was learning an absolute ton, designed my own website from scratch, wrote a bunch of automation code, my sales ration was like 85% because i was just calling on all my old associates and references of references... life was great!
Then after i scaled, I realized I wasn't actually doing anything... I have these meetings, and my schedule is always swamped with evaluating this peice of software/this person, generating "Work" for different people, and i freaking hated it! I stopped learning... I had no peers, only employees. I had "Mentors" but my consultancy was so nitch so outside "Executive mentorship" i had no one to guide me. I tried to focus on growth opportunities within the company, scaling different verticles as different companies and other things to keep my mind working, but i slowly but surely lost interest. I couldn't push myself 70 hours a week because i didn't have anyone pushing me, and i hated "Consulting".
but every chance i got i would be watching drone videos over the Giga Texas progress. I kept up with every SpaceX, Tesla update ever...
And suddenly i realised, i deeply missed working at Tesla... i don't want to be Elon...
But that Elon is building some pretty cool shit, and factories, robots, automation is super cool and fun.
So i sold my consultancy for 1.5X revenues (Pretty shit deal but i wanted out). It didn't give me fuck you money but i could have chilled for a bit...
but now I'm happily working my ass off back at Tesla, fulfilling Elons dream. But i get to "Give up my life" to get to play with robots all day. I'm learning a ton again, i love my team, and i've never met a smarter group of people.
Aeglaecia
[flagged]
AndyMcConachie
This is what we call a cult.
valval
You can call it whatever you want, it’s obvious you’re never going to be part of it.
sanderjd
People should not do that, though. There are better things to dedicate lives to.
TrapLord_Rhodo
>There are better things to dedicate lives to.
Everyone seems to think that they have the answers to this question... Family, friends, community, god, volunteering at the local soup kitchen..
All over your own wants? If you are a video creator/ creative and that's what gives you energy and all the feel good chems, why not work your ASS off for THE CREATOR of our generation?
Cause from the way i see it, success and the confidence* it brings, solves all other issues.
*As long as you can avoid the pitfall of arrogance.
earnesti
Or, you can go work there for 1-2 years, learn a lot and move on. Maybe to some more relaxed work, or start your own venture. It actually sounds like a place where you might learn something.
saintradon
> There are better things to dedicate lives to.
Then those aren't people Jimmy wants to hire for his company. There are hundreds of millions of teenagers on this planet that want to stake everything they own to make a YouTube channel and reap the rewards - ownership of their work, being their own boss, potentially lucrative amounts of money, microcelebrity if not greater levels of fame, etc. Some will do it, and some won't. Jimmy is very clearly talking to those people.
I know because I was one of them, making my first few hundred dollars ever from adsense at the age of 14 (till I was demonetized a year later and my channel got taken down for copyright, but hey, you learn). I've since grown a bit a taken that energy and it's helped guide me as I learn to make my own startup right now - it's the same adrenaline rush and pursuit of the American dream.
slt2021
who are you to dictate what people do with their lives and deny them their free will?
OJFord
That's like me saying I've given up my life to have the job that I have currently and live where I do. Or you've given up your life for however you spend it.
It just about makes some sort of sense in the context of something like giving up a professional career in a developed country and moving to a remote African village to do aid work, but giving up your life to make a tonne of money creating viral YouTube videos is an absurd description.
citizenpaul
My biggest critizism of A/B/C is it is always either a delusion, lie, or manipulation. People that talk frequently about "A players/employees" are almost certainly not the ones hiring them. Why? "A players" don't work someplace where they are not respected and ground to dust as a non-owner. That means at best the best employees are "B-players" and probably most of their staff is actually "C-players"
"A players" know their worth and go somewhere that either has prestige, high pay or work life balance and respect. Like all such places in my experience Mrbeast does not appear to provide those things to all but his inner circle. Which by the way an "Inner circle" is a hallmark of places that like to make noise about A/B/C dynamics.
lukas099
I would like to believe that's true, but honestly, I know some really hard workers who are gluttons for abuse.
citizenpaul
Sure. My point really was though that if you find a place that is openly discussing A/B/C dynamics it is a huge red flag.
grensley
"C-Players" tend to keep "A-Players" out of legal trouble, so Jimmy might just now be learning their value.
gonzo41
The no doesn't mean no section was about contractors and dealing with other people. It was a way of conveying that if you ask for something and get an outright refusal, then it's ok to ask again and pivot on details to try and find a fit. MrBeasts company drove a train into a big pit (one of the few videos I watched). That call, would have started with, I'd like to buy a train and a big pit. It probably started as a flat out refusal before he turned up with money.
valval
I bet the folks at Train & Pit Co. Couldn’t believe their ears.
next_xibalba
> labor laws and unions
Perhaps this is as much a commentary on the state of labor laws and unions as anything else.
yard2010
You don't understand. In this culture if you have enough money no does not mean no. You have less laws to care about. In some cases you ARE the law.
gleventhal
I don't have the energy for an intellectual debate, but personally, I have the sense that Youtube is net bad for the world and the monetization of Youtube has incentivized and amplified mediocrity, stupidity, and social decay.
I don't follow or watch Mr Beast videos, but from what I've seen, they are largely driven by a money fetish and as far as "creativity", it feels on par with the more boring "What would you rather" conversations I had in middle school.
Maybe he has unlocked the key to virality by vigorously analyzing data, but looking at his videos, at a glance, it seems to more be formulaic, predictable, and simply having an actual budget that sets it apart (if it is actually set apart, as I find it hard to tell how much of it is others copying his work versus hius work being unoriginal).
TheAceOfHearts
For as much slop as gets produced on YouTube, I think the high quality educational content more than makes up for it. You can literally look up any subject and find a full blown series on the topic.
His huge budgets and willingness to reinvest all the profits into future videos have allowed MrBeast to produce a lot of unique videos which are effectively unmatched by anyone else. Right now they're really the undisputed kings of the platform, by a massive margin.
cnity
This is why those who can appropriately select good information will flourish in this age. I still suck at it (get pulled into mindnumbing shorts for 30 minutes), but then I learned a new musical instrument for _free_ using YouTube.
Andrex
Agreed, YouTube is the PBS of the internet. It's free and fast.
dredmorbius
PBS is not, at least nominally, advertising-supported.
YouTube very much is.
intalentive
It’s a wonder of the modern world
aantix
>Youtube is net bad for the world
Disagree. The outliers don’t determine the value of the platform.
The videos of people creating, fixing, coding, diagnosing, doing every day random things - those are a gift to humanity.
Those visual demonstrations transcend language. Because of this, YouTube is more important than Google or any written word website.
Knowledge share is finally global.
p_j_w
> Disagree. The outliers don’t determine the value of the platform.
Agreed.
> The videos of people creating, fixing, coding, diagnosing, doing every day random things - those are a gift to humanity.
These seem like the outliers.
MetaWhirledPeas
The good news is they don't have to be outliers for you. Watch what you want; skip the rest.
rurp
Mr Beast and similar viral videos are hardly the outliers given that their traffic absolutely dwarfs the best educational videos. There is a lot of useful and interesting content on Youtube, but that's very much a niche use. The vast majority of watched hours are on content much closer to Mr Beast than learning how to code or a diy woodworking project.
aantix
The value isn't determined by watched hours.
No other streaming platform offers a video catalog that covers nearly all aspects of human activities.
This has never existed in all of humanity.
elliotec
This is not how YouTube, or people, or virality work though.
The fact there is some useful educational content is a byproduct of the machine of lucrative trash of the capitalist hellhole spiral, and the written word will always prevail comparatively. You can always bet on text. https://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/193447.html
Also, as you likely know, YouTube is owned by Google so it’s very silly to say it’s “more important.”
scrollaway
What you're saying is that the high quality educational content is subsidized by the trash.
It doesn't make it net-bad. It makes it an ad-supported educational resource. Is that surprising, given that it's owned by an ad company?
mightybyte
> I have the sense that Youtube is net bad for the world and the monetization of Youtube has incentivized and amplified mediocrity, stupidity, and social decay.
Interesting that you say this regarding YouTube. I've been saying this regarding Twitter for awhile even though I consume quite a bit of YouTube content. However, I've curated my YouTube feed to be almost entirely stuff that is interesting, educational, and that I think I'm getting value from. I've learned tons of useful stuff from YouTube such as how to dress better and tailor my own clothes, how to fix things that break around my house, more effective training methods to accomplish specific fitness goals...I could go on and on. When I go to YouTube in incognito mode, I definitely see the bottom-of-the-barrel content that you're talking about. But it doesn't have to be that way.
matheusmoreira
> However, I've curated my YouTube feed to be almost entirely stuff that is interesting, educational, and that I think I'm getting value from.
Those creators are still making orders of magnitude less money than people who make zero content attention grabbing controversy meme slop videos.
ryukoposting
> Those creators are still making orders of magnitude less money than people who make zero content attention grabbing controversy meme slop videos.
Off the top of my head, Gamers Nexus is a counterpoint. Obviously not Mr Beast-scale, but we're also looking at a huge difference in target demographic breadth.
Besides, is YouTube any worse in this regard than what came before it? Substance-free reality TV predates YouTube. For as long as cheap printing and mail services have been around, artists have had strong incentive to go design ads rather than pursue their art independently.
YouTube definitely has a race to the bottom going on, but it's not all-consuming and well-researched, high-quality material is still profitable for creators as long as you know how to play the thumbnail game.
MetaWhirledPeas
But are they enjoying what they are doing? If so, then what difference does it make how much cash YT hands to Mr. Beast?
While many try to make a living off YouTube (and some do) there are no guarantees offered nor should any be expected.
hackernewds
IF it were a net good, they'd let me disable Shorts. But they don't.
bit_4l
I would disagree on the net bad for the world, or at least be skeptical about it. Personally, Youtube was my life changing tool which I used to learn almost everything essential to my career and personal development, and I would assume lots of others would be the same. The type of content it recommends goes with the type of content you interacted with in the past. It just a tool and it matters how you use it
lijok
> I have the sense that Youtube is net bad for the world
Overwhelming majority of things designed to exploit human imperfections for personal gain are a net bad. Youtube has become one of those things.
Unfortunate, 'cause that's where the money is.
malthaus
youtube still has a net positive value. the amount of knowledge & learning (and ok, entertainment) i get out of it on a daily basis is immense and i can't imagine the amount of wisdom i'd have sucked up as a kid if i had access to all this.
if it comes at the price of having it subsidised by the likes of mrbeast, i'm all for it. same trade-off as getting ads on instagram to enjoy it as a free service.
sgu999
What the algorithm seems to favour is a better indicator of what people use Youtube for overall.
I'm also using youtube almost exclusively as a means of education, but a net positive for us doesn't really mean much. If for one more educated viewer you get ten more radicalised and dumber ones, we may be better off without it.
lnsru
I am with you. YouTube does not offer math lectures about volume calculation. It advertises some fast food alike junk about insane things. And the 8 years old boys watch cartoons about chopped heads and how the dog plays with these heads. Afterwards I was happy, that I am luddite and YouTube is blocked at home and kids don’t have smartphones.
wholinator2
Youtube is the single most important and valuable learning tool that exists on the planet. There are lectures on literally everything, i have been recently learning my way into geometric algebra and lie theory for my physics phd. Sure, there's a lot of crap and youtube is just as happy to waste your time but if you search out and only watch educational content, your Frontpage will become educational content. It's hard to keep that way because there's tons of fun but uneducational things to watch, but there's browser extensions and things to help with that. Extensions that block the homepage and video recommendations, extensions that let you group your subscriptions and create your own feed. It can be amazing if you use it right, it's hard to use right sometimes
bonoboTP
More and more it's crystallizing that people with high agency can elevate themselves as never before, while the average person is dragged down into a mud as never before. The divide is crazy and it's starting already in early childhood.
Yes, you and people like you can seek out the best browser extensions, install them, understand how to use them, and can curate a nicely tended online garden for yourself, and this is genuinely great. But "we live in a society", even you are subject to wider trends of how people around you live their lives and spend their time. And average people's front page is filled with slop and AI generated chum and Youtube-face thumbnails etc. While you can configure ublock origin to remove irrelevant recommendations from the middle of search results, the average person browses the internet without adblock and sinks hours into mindlessly scrolling social media.
Our parents worried about us staring at the TV all day, and today we have that on super steroids.
It's super hard to avoid rabbit holes. Once the recommender engine picks up on something you find interesting it will exploit that with no end.
The mind numbing stuff can be highly specific that no human TV program manager would ever think up. For example, I clicked a few videos about cow and horse hoof trimming and horseshoe applications. Kinda interesting, geeking out on skilled crafts like this, never seen it done in real life, maybe I learn something interesting! And a few days later I find myself regularly clicking these because I get so many of these now on my frontpage and I kind of take a step back and think, is this really time well spent? Watching hoof after hoof being trimmed? (By the way, these videos have millions of views each, and have entire channels dedicated to producing them over and over again. It's an entire genre, not just a few videos.)
I see this stuff with family members too. Zoning out and watching repetitive crap, like the hydraulic press channel, red hot ball, a guy who cleans up backyards, powerwashing objects, dashcam crashes, arrest bodycam footage, pimple popping, mukbang. (And I'm not even getting into political outrage stuff, that's a topic to itself.) Once Youtube figures out which type of repetitive brain-numbing genre you respond to, it will push it. It takes more self-awareness to get back in control than a lot of people have. Some of these "genres" are shockingly weird, like jigger removal (a kind of larva) from dog paws. I don't know if this has been studied properly. It's kind of like a non-sexual version of fetishes. Highly specific and somehow repetitively able to "tickle" one's brain, and while it's soothing and satisfying to some, it's disgusting and weird to others, pretty much like sexual fetishes.
jimmyjazz14
"YouTube does not offer math lectures about volume calculation."
oh really did you try searching because I found one in about two seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1qXIkr05tk
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bmoxb
It absolutely does offer more maths lectures than you could ever conceivably watch.
lnsru
They’re there. Hidden somewhere. I watched some of them. But you need to search for them. Like there is quality food I prepared for my workday today. But I must actively work on that and not take offered junk food.
twixfel
Yes, but good luck trying to watch them when the thumbnails in the side bar are full of seductive junk.
infecto
I see it differently. I don't think YouTube fundamentally changes people; it might serve up low-quality content to those seeking it, but they'd likely find it elsewhere if not on YouTube.
On the positive side, YouTube has brought the world closer. We can access videos from nearly every corner of the globe, giving us insight into how others live and interact in their environments. Additionally, it's become an incredible resource for information. If something breaks in my home, I can probably find a video explaining how to fix that exact model. While I'm not old enough to have "adulted" without YouTube, it’s amazing how much you can learn from it.
Zanni
Surprising reference to The Goal [1], which Mr. Beast "used to make everyone read ..." and still recommends. The Goal is a business novel about optimizing manufacturing processes for throughput and responsiveness rather than "efficiency" and is filled with counter-intuitive insights. Presenting it as a novel means you get to see characters grapple with these insights and fail to commit before truly understanding them. Excellent stuff, along the lines of The Phoenix Project [2], with which I assume many here are already familiar.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goal_(novel) [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17255186-the-phoenix-pro...
llamaimperative
Theory of Constraints is fascinating because, as MrBeast points out here, it seems extremely obvious. I've had numerous interactions on this site where a person dismisses an insight from ToC as "obvious" and then 2 sentences later promulgates the exact type of intuition that ToC disproves.
Zanni
Yeah, this is the brilliance of the novel format. Someone presents an insight, and it can see obvious in isolation but then seems obviously wrong in context. "Of course we should favor throughput over efficiency" is obvious until you realize it means, for example, allowing idle time on incredibly expensive machines to favor responsiveness, which just seems wasteful.
In the novel, you get to see the characters bang their heads against these "paradoxes" again and again until it sinks in.
tpmoney
>is obvious until you realize it means, for example, allowing idle time on incredibly expensive machines to favor responsiveness, which just seems wasteful.
Weird how things that seem to make sense in one context seem to make no sense in another context. If you told me a factory runs their widget making machine at 70% capacity in case someone comes along with an order for a different widget or twice as many widgets, at first glance think that's a bad idea. If your customers can keep your widget machine 100% full, using only part of the machine for the chance that something new will come along seems wasteful. And through cultural osmosis the idea of not letting your hardware sit idle is exactly the sort of thing that feels right.
And yet, we do this all the time in IT. If you instead of a widget machine told me that you run your web server at 100% capacity all the time, I'd tell you that's also a terrible idea. If you're running at 100% capacity and have no spare headroom, you can't serve more users if one of them sends more requests than normal. Even though intuitively we know that a machine sitting idle is a "waste" of compute power, we also know that we need capacity in reserve because demand isn't constant. No one sizes (or should size) their servers for 100% utilization. Even when you have something like a container cluster, you don't target your containers to 100% utilization, if for no other reason than you need headroom while the extra containers spin up. Odd that without thinking that through, I wouldn't have applied the same idea to manufacturing machinery.
llamaimperative
Interesting -- I'll have to read The Goal! I've only read the reference material around ToC, so this sounds additive :)
krrrh
This sounds intriguing. Of note for anyone with an audible membership: The Goal is in the free library.
BryanLegend
It's also included in Spotify Premium for free.
TheAceOfHearts
One of the key details missing from the analysis being done in this thread is that Jimmy was iterating and figuring out how to optimize every part of his content for years before he really blew up in popularity. Having a loop where you keep publishing content and analyzing all aspects of it is the ultimate key to success, given enough time and resources.
As I understand it, MrBeast helped fund the creation of ViewStats [0] in order to gather more data on thumbnails and channel / video performance over time. Then this knowledge is applied to their own content in order to make it even more successful. At this point there's probably multiple people who specialize just in thumbnail optimization.
Another key detail about MrBeast production is that they target a global audience, so they hire famous voice actors of every major language to do their voice-overs. A few years before YouTube supported multiple audio tracks, they had different channels for various languages and regions. Now it's just a drop-down in the video settings. Many products fail to take internationalization and localization seriously, so their products are unable to penetrate non-western markets.
Speaking of international reach, I saw in an interview a few years back that MrBeast was trying to expand to the Chinese market, but none of his public interviews since then have discussed how he's doing there. This goes a bit against the extreme focus on YouTube as his primary platform. A quick search on bilibili (which I believe is the Chinese equivalent of YouTube), shows his latest video hitting 1.6 million views and 8k comments, which isn't bad but it doesn't really compare to the amount of attention that he gets on YouTube. It seems like even the most skilled content creators in the West still struggle to break into the Chinese market.
trogdor
I didn’t know that YouTube supports multiple audio tracks for the same video. Can alternate tracks be uploaded at a later point in time? Can the feature be used to replace the original audio in a video?
fngjdflmdflg
It's only available for certain channels. You can see more info here.[0]
tkgally
It might be interesting to contrast MrBeast’s management approach with that of Marques Brownlee (MKBHD). He is also a successful YouTuber who leads a team that puts out videos on several channels. While his videos don’t have the huge production scale of MrBeast’s, they seem to be produced on short deadlines and must require close coordination among his team.
If I were young and wanted to work in online media production, I would much rather work for Marques Brownlee than for MrBeast.
soniman
Brownlee is such a mystery to me. The #1 rule of Youtube is show energy, show enthusiasm. Brownlee is like if Urkel were given a sedative and told to review the latest iPhone
natdempk
You mean he talks more like a normal person talking about a product rather than a Youtuber going over the top with everything? The fact that he is genuine is a big part of his appeal.
replwoacause
He’s been doing it a long time, has an excellent understanding of the tech industry, and is a master at producing content that is easy for everyone to digest. I’ve been watching him for years and have always thought he had a knack for his craft. Just because he has a calm demeanor shouldn’t take away from what he does, but in my opinion should add to it even more.
igornadj
The #1 rule is clearly not show energy, show enthusiasm. It's the #1 rule for a subset of content, like MrBeast. The content world is a big place, and the silent majority has no interest in loud and obnoxious.
tsol
Right. Take Asianometry-- a channel dedicated to economics, politics, and tech in Asia. Very high quality stuff. He goes into deep detail about a lot of technical stuff.. and as you can imagine his delivery isn't anything like a showman. He can be monotonous but if anything that is likely preferred by his audience, given his niche.
jerrygoyal
despite less views, MKBHD is more net positive for humanity than MrBeast. MrBeast's whole game is to draw people's attention to not-so-useful content.
dogleash
Is product fetishism really better than light entertainment? The MKBHD slop is just branded with that same vibe of the products he likes to cover, namely the self-satisfactions of luxury goods that people mistake for high quality. That gives the false signal it provides more value than Mr. Beast. Yes, MKBHD technically covers products, but so did Top Gear. The content is neither necessary nor sufficient to make an informed purchase decision.
ThrowawayTestr
Watching a review on a device you'll never buy is hardly a net positive compared to watching a yacht get blown up.
aae42
Not so sure, while I like Marques, he has a 100% focus on consumerism.
HDThoreaun
MKBHD feeds the worst aspects of consumer culture.
snapcaster
Come on, they're both useless consumerist slop (i watch a lot of slop not throwing stones just don't see either as beneficial at all)
tinco
MKBHD intentionally has a small team that makes relatively low budget videos. I think MKBHD mainly has a relatively large audience because he was very early to the high quality videos game on YouTube. I wouldn't be surprised if his edge is lost now and his viewership does not grow faster than would be expected of an active channel of his size.
Not to hate on him, but just saying that's in sharp contrast with what MrBeast and LTT are trying to achieve.
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rs_rs_rs_rs_rs
MKBHD is not even in Top 500 of the most subscribed Youtube channels, first give me the details of what those other 500 channels are doing then maybe MKBHD... (and I'm saying this as a long time subscriber)
Etheryte
Would you say the same about companies, that the only interesting ones worth talking about are the ones in the Fortune 500? If anything, I would say many of them are rather boring examples, we all know roughly how they're managed and run.
infecto
That’s a bit naive. I’m willing to bet that most of them have interesting details, with each one doing things in their own unique way.
jhwhite
> I want you to look them in the eyes and tell them they are the bottleneck and take it a step further and explain why they are the bottleneck so you both are on the same page.
I've always wanted to be able to tell people they're the bottleneck. I've had talks with management about this. "We need to tell people bluntly so they understand the impact they're having."
Nope, it could hurt a relationship and relationship is more important than delivering.
I don't want to be an ass, but I do love this approach by Mr. Beast.
MetaWhirledPeas
I feel the same, but I realized I don't want to be the blunt person; I just want some other blunt person to do my dirty work. This is not really a fair expectation for me to have.
That said I feel like having people who are constructively blunt in your organization can make all the difference. If you listen to stories about successful managers and CEOs it often comes down to bluntness.
It can also go the other way though. Being blunt while lacking in other areas (technical knowledge, judgment, vision, ethics) will just add toxicity.
jack_riminton
I was fully expecting to read a load of nonsense, but it chimes quite a lot with military training, which shouldn't actually be that surprising.
e.g. if someone is your bottleneck make them aware, give them a due date, check in regularly, in person comms is better than written etc.
sharpshadow
The pdf is fine nothing really sensational. Some good advise for video creators and how to commit to succeed at their company. Written in what you need to invest not what you need to sacrifice. The bar is high which is fine tho. For example he wants one to work on 3 different projects on a workday instead of 1 project for 3 workdays.
I watched one video of MrBeast in the past and the pdf explains well why I actually watched it to the end. I do dislike these kind of videos and don’t watch them but success is success and he does things right. One of his rules which is kind of neat is that the clickbait title and thumbnail needs to deliver on the promise - which is a great concept considering over 97% clickbait isn’t.
newaccount74
I think following through on the crazy thumbnail is the most defining part of the MrBeast brand.
Lots of Yt videos have crazy thumbnails; only MrBeast follows through!
al_borland
> “I Spent 50 Hours In Ketchup”
Mr Beast throwing out viral video ideas sounds like the Family Guy joke generator from South Park[0].
Doing a quick web search, it seems several people have made idea generators based off his formula.
gzer0
This point caught my attention, as my experience has been quite different, though in completely different industries. How does one go about finding genuinely good consultants, in any industry?
> "Use Consultants
Consultants are literally cheat codes. Need to make the world's largest slice of cake? Start off by calling the person who made the previous world's largest slice of cake lol. He's already done countless tests and can save you weeks worth of work. I really want to drill this point home because I'm a massive believer in consultants. Because I've spent almost a decade of my life hyper obsessing over YouTube, I can show a brand new creator how to go from 100 subscribers to 10,000 in a month. On their own it would take them years to do it. Consults are a gift from god, please take advantage of them. In every single freakin task assigned to you, always always always ask yourself first if you can find a consultant to help you. This is so important that I am demanding you repeat this three times in your head "I will always check for consultants when I'm assigned a task""SonOfLilit
Disclaimer: I'm a software consultant, so obviously biased.
MrBeast enters a new domain every week so consultants are way more important to him than to a software business.
He has enough budget and fame to, as he says, use the Guinness Word Records book as a phonebook. Or any other resource that records world-famous achievements. So that's one way.
Another is to have friends in the business that can recommend people they worked with.
I'm not sure a third consistent way exists.
Edit: very good technical people can recognize very good people in very different technical fields by their thinking and communication habits. Same for business people I believe. So if you have a wonderful devops employee/consultant and need an ML consultant but have zero idea how to evaluate them, have your devops guy talk to a few candidates and ask him whether they're good technical people.
pocketarc
I think the key thing here is he's talking about "the person who made the previous world's largest slice of cake".
In other words, if I were working on a new programming language (just as an example), and could go hire Anders Hejlsberg as a consultant, well, that -is- going to be a mega cheat code. The amount of experience he'd bring to bear to even a 30 minute call would be insane. He would save me months or even years in mistakes and bad directions, and lead me straight to the core of whatever I wanted to do.
That's the thing - he's not talking about hiring a generic "cake consultant". With that in mind, it'd be much easier to find those people - you'd know them by their achievements.
potsandpans
Just an aside, not arguing...
You don't necessarily need to hire someone like Anders to pick their brain.
A lot of people who are not huge in the zeitgeist (and also are not assholes) are surprisingly reachable.
Funnily enough, I've chatted with Anders about programming language design -- I got the impression he thought my ideas were terrible.
For a while, you could just email Noam Chomsky and he would respond.
solatic
It's really a question of your expectations.
If you're a software shop, hiring an army of consultants to build out core parts of your solution who will walk away when they're finished, you're doing it wrong. Success doesn't come from assembling piles of slop, it comes from putting together a team that will stick together to build value over the long term.
If you're an individual who wants to improve X part of themselves (fitness, musical ability, scholarship, whatever) then hiring a "consultant" (a trainer, a coach, a tutor, a therapist) is not only massively beneficial but almost an essential part of the process. You can easily measure the value you're getting from the consultant against the progress you're making.
If you're assembling highly complicated custom work on strict deadlines, hiring experts in that specific area of customization is pretty critical to consistently making those deadlines.
> How do you find them?
Connections, networking, and reputation, usually. MrBeast is lucky in that YouTube presents a good search platform; trying to find people who had made massive cakes before was probably just 5 minutes of searching and sorting by views.
atomicUpdate
Both of the examples in the quote give you the answer: talk to someone that’s actually done it.
It’s always amazing to me how often the person 3 desks over has already solved the same problem, but is never asked how by the next person. Instead, too many people act like they’re the first person to ever attempt whatever they’re working on.
foooorsyth
Are you dealing with MBB consultants? These are ivy-educated MBAs with no operating experience and no real expertise in almost anything other than powerpoint and credential attainment.
Mr Beast is talking about actual experts in incredibly niche things, like baking giant cakes. Completely different type of person to the extent that "consultant" is just a total misnomer if you're used to the term in the land of F1000 corpo-speak. Mr Beast is probably reaching out to people guerilla-style that don't even have "consulting" firms -- which makes total sense if you're doing crazy stuff on YouTube.
arder
This, like a lot of the advice is "Things that worked for me that likely won't work for you". A lot of people are going to talk to Mr Beast that won't talk to you, Mr Beast is doing a variety of one off projects that he'll never need to revisit. Mr Beast has a shit tonne of money and a shit tonne of resources. For all those reasons, it's something that he can do that you probably can't.
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Lot of people critiquing this, but you can't deny the success. I think a lot of the advice is applicable to startups.
1. KPIs, for Beast they are CTR, AVD, AVP, will look different if you are a startup. I am willing to bet he knows his metrics better than >95% of startup founders. Because he is literally hacking/being judged by an algorithm, his KPIs will matter more and can be closely dissected. Startups aren't that easy in that sense, but KPIs still matter.
2. Hiring only A-players. Bloated teams kill startups.
3. Building value > making money
4. Rewarding employees who make value for the business and think like founders/equity owners, not employees.
5. Understanding that some videos only his team can do, and actively exploiting and widening that gap.
The management/communication stuff is mostly about working on set/dealing with physical scale. You need a lot more hands dealing with logistics, which requires hardline communication and management. In startups, the team is usually really lean and technical, so management becomes more straightforward.
I am also getting some bad culture vibes from the PDF and really dislike the writing style. I think it's important not to micromanage to the extent he is--it's necessary, maybe, for his business. Not for startups. Interesting perspective, reminds me of a chef de cuisine in a cutthroat 90s kitchen. The dishes (videos) have to be perfect, they require a lot of prep and a lot of hands, and you have to consistently pump them out.