#351 – MrBeast: Future of YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram

MrBeast is a legendary YouTube creator. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – House of Macadamias: https://houseofmacadamias.com/lex and use code LEX to get 20% off your first order – Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/lex to get special savings – BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/lex to get 10% off EPISODE LINKS: MrBeast Main Channel: https://youtube.com/@MrBeast MrBeast Reacts: https://youtube.com/@BeastReacts MrBeast Gaming: https://youtube.com/@MrBeastGaming MrBeast Philanthropy: https://youtube.com/@BeastPhilanthropy MrBeast’s TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@mrbeast MrBeast’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/MrBeast MrBeast’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/mrbeast Feastable’s Website: https://feastables.com MrBeast Burger’s Website: https://mrbeastburger.com MrBeast’s Merch: https://shopmrbeast.com PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: – Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast – Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman – Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman – Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) – Introduction (06:55) – 1 billion views and 1 billion subscribers (12:41) – Mortality (20:04) – Improving YouTube (22:26) – Twitter (27:14) – Brand deals (30:24) – Audience retention (35:03) – Hiring (42:41) – Talking to the camera (47:42) – Brainstorming (1:00:03) – TikTok (1:09:07) – Advice for beginners (1:13:23) – How to grow on YouTube (1:21:07) – Elon Musk and Twitter (1:22:32) – 10 million dollars vs 10 million subscribers (1:29:50) – Going to Antarctica (1:31:35) – Process of making a video (1:36:11) – Overcoming depression (1:47:15) – Building a business (1:55:10) – MrBeast Burger and Feastables (1:59:15) – Creating video games (2:03:24) – Making billions of dollars (2:05:58) – Money vs Happiness (2:12:46) – Mental health (2:19:24) – Love (2:21:32) – Legacy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lex Fridman?

  The following is a conversation with Mr. Beast, the mastermind behind some of the most epic and popular videos ever made.

• 0:09Lex Fridman?

  And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We got House of Macadamias for a satiating and delicious snack. Eight Sleep for, you guessed it, naps. And BetterHelp for mental health. Choose wisely, my friends. Snacks, naps, or mental health. And now, onto the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This show is brought to you by House of Macadamias. It seems like it was just yesterday that they became a sponsor. And I became aware of their existence.

• 0:53Lex Fridman?

  Because before they became a sponsor, they sent a giant box of delicious snacks.

• 1:00Lex Fridman?

  And it seems just like it was yesterday that I ate all of those snacks over a period of a few days. And was a happier man for it. This month, I'm much stricter on my diet. And trying to be much more responsible with my consumption of snacks. I think moderation is key for that. But in general, I think, first of all, macadamia, to me, I think, is one of the more delicious nuts. But it is definitely the healthiest, or at least one of the most healthy. I think it's pretty much the healthy. I remember when I first started keto, many, many years ago,

• 1:41Lex Fridman?

  I did a bunch of research on which nuts I can and can't have. I guess if I want to be ultra low carb. And everybody recommended macadamias as like the one that has all these nutrients and all that kind of stuff. I'm sure there's a lot of science. You can look it up. I think there's like omega sevens or whatever, those different kinds of fats. It doesn't matter. The point, they're delicious. And the raw ingredient of the macadamia nut that House of Macadamias provides is just delicious. And of course, they do all kinds of snacks around that. And my task, whenever I do an ad read or talk to anybody, like my neighbors or friends, about House of Macadamias. Is not to do any sexual innuendo.

• 2:25Lex Fridman?

  That's job number one. My brain is that of a silly person. At heart, I'm still a child and I will forever remain a child. Uh, like that Tom Waits song. I don't want to grow up. Maybe that's not even the name of the song or the lyrics, but I'm just gonna go with it. And, uh, this is a good chance to mention that Tom Waits is somebody that I've dreamed of talking to on this podcast for a long time. He's a very difficult interview to get. He's dropped a few crumbs to me of hope. You know, saying like, yes, maybe one day. So I hold on to that hope. Like I hold on to the delicious house of academia nuts with childlike joy in my eyes.

• 3:10Lex Fridman?

  Go to house of academias.com slash Lex to get 20% off your first order. This episode is also brought to you by Eight Sleep and its new Pod 3 mattress. There's been a few days over the past, uh, let's say three weeks where I've been extremely stressed because of several things going on in my life. You know, you know how life is. It's an up and down process. Both the ups and downs contribute to the beauty of the whole experience. Anyway, when things are kind of difficult, I, uh, saw it escape in friends, in books, in moments of simple joy, in moments of peace.

• 3:54Lex Fridman?

  And I think the best escape is a good nap. A full night's sleep, of course, but also a good nap. It's, uh, kind of magical how much your mind can just, um, become completely refreshed. The beauty of the world can be richly rediscovered through the process of a nap. It's incredible. Just 20, 30 minutes. It's, um, it's kind of amazing. At least my brain is like that. So sometimes when I'm feeling crappy, I'll just give it a nap. I'll give it a good night's sleep and, uh, see how I feel again in the morning. And almost always, if not right away, just maybe a couple of times, I'll feel better.

• 4:37Lex Fridman?

  Anyway, that's why you want to really make sure that the surface, the mattress, all kinds of technology that you surround yourself with in terms of sleep, you use the best stuff. And that's why I look forward to sleeping on that cool surface that an Asleep cover provides. It's just incredible. I look forward to naps and sleeps just because of that Asleep cover. Check it out and get special savings when you go to asleep.com/lex.

• 5:04Lex Fridman?

  This episode is also brought to you by BetterHelp, spelled H E L P, help. Speaking of the ups and downs of life,

• 5:14Lex Fridman?

  I think it's interesting, you know, the kind of roller coaster your mind can go on.

• 5:21Lex Fridman?

  At least my mind can go on. One moment I feel blissful and happy and everything is beautiful. And one moment I feel cranky and just a little bit down. And one of the things I've learned is to just kind of

• 5:37Lex Fridman?

  allow the passage of time to cure all things.

• 5:43Lex Fridman?

  But I think that's not necessarily the full picture because you should probably treat your mental health very seriously and talk through it with a therapist. You know, there's some deep ocean of feeling there that may lay unexplored. And it's, I think, beneficial to explore it with a good therapist. I think one of the most accessible, easiest ways to get access to a good therapist, a licensed professional therapist, is BetterHelp. That's why I'm a big supporter of what they do. I mean, that's really the first barrier is make it super easy. And of course, make it affordable. And that's what BetterHelp does. Check them out at betterhelp.com/lex and save on your first month.

• 6:30Lex Fridman?

  This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Mr. Beast.

• 6:55Lex Fridman?

  I'm here with Mr. Beast, the brilliant mastermind behind some of the most popular videos ever created. Do you think you'll ever make a video that gets 1 billion views?

• 7:04Speaker 01

  I think maybe one of the videos we've already made might get a billion views.

• 7:08Lex Fridman?

  Which one, do you think?

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Probably like the squid game video with enough time. I mean, it's only a year old and it's already on 300 million or some of the newer ones we've done have gotten like 100 million views in a month. So those four projected over 10 years because YouTube's not going anywhere, probably one of those.

• 7:23Lex Fridman?

  So over time, they don't necessarily plateau.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  It's interesting. We were literally jumping right into it. I love it. It's good. So I'm a firm believer that it's much easier to hypothetically get 10 million views on one video than 100,000 on 100. And part of why it's much easier, in my opinion, is like, if you make a really good video, it's just so evergreen and it never dies. Because YouTube, when you open up YouTube and look at the videos, they're just serving you whatever they think you'll like the best, you know? And so if you just make a great video and it's constantly just above every other video, you know, even two years down the road, then they'll just keep serving it and never stop, you know, which is why it's much easier to make one great video than a bunch of mediocre ones.

• 8:02Lex Fridman?

  What about 1 billion subscribers? You've passed PewDiePie's the most subscribed to YouTube channel. When do you think you get a billion?

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Let me do some math real quick. So around 120.

• 8:14Lex Fridman?

  So you think about this?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  No, I don't, honestly. Because one thing you'll find, if you want to gain subscribers, if you want to get views, if you want to make money, and almost any metric in this video creation space, if you want something, it all comes back to, okay, well, then just make great videos. So instead of like focusing on all these arbitrary vanity metrics, I just kind of focus on the one thing that gets me all that, which is make good videos. But and I do think we will, when they hit a billion subscribers, I don't have a plan on going anywhere, even though we're only on 120 million right now on the main channel. I think like we're doing around 10 million a month now and YouTube just, yeah, I just don't see it going anywhere. And I don't see any reason why I'd ever get burnt out or quit. So I think with enough time, yes.

• 8:55Lex Fridman?

  I wanted to ask you those family friendly questions before I go to the dark questions. So now.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  We have dark questions, right now. But if you wanted to hook them, you would start off with the dark question. That's how you get them.

• 9:05Lex Fridman?

  Okay, well, let me ask you about the Twitter poll you posted, a $10,000 death poll. You tweeted, if someone offered you $10,000, but if you take it, a random person on earth dies, would you take the $10,000? And 45% of people said yes. That's, at least at the time I checked, 850,000 people committing murder for just $8.5 billion in total. So what do you learn about human nature from that?

• 9:36Speaker 01

  That's a good question. Honestly, this is like late at night when I threw that up too. I was just like, huh, this will be a funny thing. I assumed it'd be 90% no and like 10% yes. But there are a lot of serious people. For you guys listening, I just did this random Twitter poll. I was like, would you take 10 grand if it meant someone random in the world died? And a lot of the replies on this tweet were like, hell, yeah, why not? And I was just not expecting that. And so I don't really know. I mean, I feel like your take would be better than mine.

• 10:04Lex Fridman?

  Was it disturbing to you, surprising to you?

• 10:06Speaker 01

  A little bit, yeah. But, you know, obviously, a lot of people were trolling. But I actually, you know, when you read through those replies, I do think like 10% of them were like dead serious.

• 10:15Lex Fridman?

  Well, I think sometimes the trolling and the lulls reveal a thing we're too embarrassed to admit about the darker aspects of our nature. So I don't know if you listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast. He has an episode on painful attainment, which he describes throughout history, how humans have been really attracted to watching the suffering of others. So public executions, all that kind of stuff.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:40Lex Fridman?

  And he believes that's in all of us, that, for example, if something like a YouTube or a different platform. Streamed a public execution or streamed the torture of another human being. A lot of people would say that's deeply unethical, but they would still tune in and watch. And that we're, we're attracted to that drama and especially the most extreme versions of that drama. And so I think part of the lulls reveals something that's actually true in that, Paul, that like.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Your answer is so much better than mine.

• 11:13Lex Fridman?

  Do you think about that, maybe even with the squid game? Like, so I think, how many, how many views does this squid game currently have? Three hundred million, something like this? So just imagine, thought experiment, how many views that video would get if it was like real.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, assuming YouTube was like, oh, we'll turn a blind eye, we won't take it down. Yeah, I mean, it, I've, obviously it'd probably have billions of views.

• 11:42Lex Fridman?

  How do you think you will die? And do you think it'll be during a video?

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Probably doing something dumb like going to space when I'm in older, like trying to go to Mars or something like that. I know for a fact it won't be on a video. Every video we do with safety experts and stuff like that, so it's not really risk. But yeah, I could see myself like, you know, after a million people go to Mars or something like that, I'd probably like, you know what? Let's go and, and something like that, maybe.

• 12:04Lex Fridman?

  So not in the name of a video, just for the holiday?

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Heck, no.

• 12:08Lex Fridman?

  Are you open to taking risks when you shoot videos? You just went to Antarctica. I mean, you're, you're putting yourself on the line a little bit, right?

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Of course, but you know, we, we had that video in the works for three years and then we consult with tons of experts. Radar, the entire path, we're going to walk beforehand to see if there's crevasses. So we know there's no crevasses, we do training, we consult with experts and we have survival guides there with us. And, you know, monitor the weather and everything. So it's like any variable that where we could get harmed, we just pre-planned for it. Same thing with buried alive, like I had David Blaine spent a week underground. And so I consulted with him and consulted with basically anyone who ever buried themselves alive. You know, we, the coffin we used to bury me, we did so many tests, like that coffin was buried 10 times before I was, you know, for way longer than 50 hours. It tested the airflow and everything to the point where I was safer in that coffin underground than I was above ground.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Like, so we just tend to just not leave anything up to chance, you know?

• 13:00Lex Fridman?

  Another strange question then. So you recorded these videos to yourself, you know, five years, 10 years from now. Have you recorded a video that's to be released once you die?

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Well, first off, I am just glad that not every one of your questions have to do with like views or things like that. It's nice getting different questions. So this is, this is good. No, seriously.

• 13:22Lex Fridman?

  A little duck. It's a little duck.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  But it's, it's fine because a lot of people just be like, how much money do you make? You know, it's just something I just, everything's always about money now for when people talk to me. So it's nice. But for the videos I made, for you guys who probably don't follow me too closely, when I had 8,000 subscribers and I was a teenager, I filmed a bunch of videos and scheduled them years in the future. And I said, I filmed one where I was like, hi, me in a year. And the video went up a year later and it was just like, hey, I think you'll have 100,000 subscribers. And then I did one where I was like, hi, me in five years. I was like, hey, in five years, I think you'll have a million. And then one that hasn't come out yet, but comes out in two years is, was, hi, me in 10 years. And I tried to predict 10 years later, how many subs I'd have. So what he's referring to. And yes, there, there are some that are scheduled like 20 years in the

• 14:06Speaker 01

  future. And so if I don't die, I'll just move them up. And I remember, because I filmed these though, like seven years ago, but it was, I remember saying a line like, you know, if I'm dead, then I'm currently just in a coffin and like, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And because the only way the video go up is if I'm not alive. And if I'm not alive, then I won't be able to push back the schedule upload date. So it will go public automatically.

• 14:27Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  And so, yeah, I have a couple of those. Like, if I knew I was gonna die of like cancer or something, and I had like three months to live, I would vlog every day. I'd film so many videos and then I would just schedule upload a video a week for like the next five years. So it's like, I'm still alive. And I would completely act like I'm still alive and everything. And I think something like that would be cool. It's, I don't know why, but I've fantasized, not fantasized, but I've dreamt about that a lot. Like, I don't know, if, if I only had 30 days to live, what would I do? And for me, I would try to make like a decade's worth of content and schedule upload it. So they automatically go public in the future. And so it's just like, I never died. I'm just there.

• 15:05Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, it's a kind of immortality, but it's also a kind of troll on the concept of time.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:11Lex Fridman?

  That you can die in the physical space, but persist in the digital space. I actually, I recorded a video like that because I had some concerns and. I just thought it's also a good exercise to do. A video would like to be released if I die. And it was actually a really interesting exercise. It's cool, like it shows like what you really care about. I guess it's like writing a will. But when you're younger, you don't think about that kind of stuff.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Exactly. Mine was just dumb.

• 15:35Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Like I'm bones in a coffin.

• 15:38Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Yours was probably so serious.

• 15:40Lex Fridman?

  No, it's fun, actually. Well, you realize it's like, there's no point to be serious at this point. It's a weird thing. I guess you've done this, but it's a weird thing to address the world when you, the physically you is no longer there. So like, you know, this would only be released if you're no longer there.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 15:55Lex Fridman?

  That's a weird exercise.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  You know what's funny? Of all the people listening to this?

• 15:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  You know, we're probably the only two people that have made videos for when we die. It's like such a niche thing and the fact that we're bonding over, it's kind of funny.

• 16:07Lex Fridman?

  I think people should think about doing that. It's not just about YouTube, it's also social media. Just think about it. Like, there's gonna be a last tweet and a last, I don't know, Facebook post, a last Instagram post. And, um, yeah, it's, I feel like there's some aspect that's meditative to just even considering making a post like that. And also it's a way for your, the people that love you to kind of like celebrate.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Do you think that would help them cope or not? Like if someone randomly watching this did film a video, you know, for if they accidentally died in some freak accident to be given to their family? Do you think that would? And it was like a genuine.

• 16:43Lex Fridman?

  I think it would really help. I mean, it depends because like.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  How would you even intro that? Like, hey, mom, if you're seeing this, you know, I mean, I'm probably dead.

• 16:50Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, exactly. That's how you intro it. That's the opener.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  I just want you to know, yeah, I guess.

• 16:56Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, and I guess you could say in a kind of funny way, but, um, and just talk about the things that you, that mean a lot to you. Cause otherwise you're at the risk of the last post you have is like, like, I don't know, talking shit about like.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  McDonald's screwed up my order.

• 17:10Lex Fridman?

  Exactly.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  And then you're dead. That's it. Hundred years.

• 17:14Lex Fridman?

  I don't know, this, I, I do recommend it's, it's, um, like the Stoics meditate on death every day. In the same way, you kind of meditate on your death when you make a video like that. Cause it's actually not just even talking to yourself, it's talking to the world. And it like, for some reason, at least for me, they made it very concrete that there's going to be an end. And I'm like, it's almost, it's over for me. If I'm making the video, it's over for me. It's this interesting thought experiment. I recommend people try it. Okay.

• 17:44Lex Fridman?

  From, are you afraid of death, by the way?

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Yes, I, I, it's hard because like, what if you just die and then you just see nothing forever? You know?

• 17:54Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, the nothingness.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  It just fades to blackness and you're just like that for trillions upon trillions to billions squared years. And it's just, it's scary, but also before you're born, you don't remember those X amount of years either. So that gives me a little comfort, but no, it's definitely very scary. Something I'd rather not think about until I'm like 80. I'll deal with that problem then. I, I, I don't know if I told you this, but I'm kind of hopeful that someone like Elon or one of these like freak smart people would just like, be like, you know what? Screw it. I'm going to figure out a way where we can slow down aging, get it where, you know, we can live to be two, 300 years old and just like set their sights on that. And then just kind of save us. So it'd be really nice. Like it's, it's almost absurd to think that in our lifetime, they won't figure out a way to just even slightly slow down aging.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Where we could live to be like 120, 130, and then that extra time, they won't figure out somewhere where we could live to be 200. Like obviously not immortal, but I don't, I don't see how in my lifetime, the life expectancy doesn't just expand.

• 18:51Lex Fridman?

  Well, it also could be that the immortality is achieved in the digital realm. Like it could be long, be long after you're gone, there's a Mr. Beast run by a chat GPT type system.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah. That consumes everything I ever said, everything I ever wrote and thought, but I don't want that. I want to live. What are you, smart people out there? Figure it out. I'll keep you entertained, but I need you to figure out how to keep me alive. Give me till 200. That will make me happy.

• 19:15Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's, that's funny. Who owns the identity of, of Mr. Beast once the physical body is gone? Like, is it illegal to create another Mr. Beast that's chat GPT based? I don't know what the laws are on that.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, once I'm dead, I, I don't care.

• 19:31Lex Fridman?

  Well, you just said you did care. I mean, there could be a AI, like many Mr. Beast that are created after, after you're gone.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, that'd be cool to be able to like train up a model and, and let them loose. So my content lives on, I guess. Yeah.

• 19:43Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. But it somehow feels like it diminishes the value you contribute.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:48Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. It's inauthentic, but it's also. There's some aspect to the finiteness of the art being necessary for its greatness.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, the second that thing starts spamming out videos, the videos lose all meaning and it's pointless and it's a money grab.

• 20:04Lex Fridman?

  If you ran YouTube for, how long should you run it? For a year? How would you change it? How would you improve it?

• 20:10Speaker 01

  It's hard because, you know, obviously I'm biased because we're doing really well, but I feel like when I open up YouTube on my television, I get the videos I want to watch. I don't, I don't know. I don't, I don't ever open it and wonder like, what are these? What are these 10 videos on my homepage? When I click on a video, I don't ever wonder what these are. Like I, and maybe it's because I'm very adamant about like the kind of videos I watch and I try not to watch videos that I want to get recommended more because I just, that's how I think, but I'm very happy with how it is at the moment. I think one thing though, that I just hate with the passion is the comment section on YouTube. It's just so bad. But I know that's not something that's going to 10x the growth of the platform, but if you think about it,

• 20:51Speaker 01

  you go to Reddit to read comments and somehow like the, you know, usually the top 20 posts on a popular Reddit post are not spam. You know what I mean? Like, have you ever clicked on something on the front page of Reddit and then most devoted reply to it is like, "Go check out my site right here." And it's like trying to scam you out of a thousand dollars. Yeah, I can't even think of one instance I've ever had that happen. So like Reddit, it's so nice to click on posts and just see what people have to say. And I almost wish like you had that same feeling when you read the comments on a YouTube video instead. It's like, it's so many people just copying and pasting so many bots that just grabbed the top comment from your previous video and paste it over. So the top comments on every videos are the same and the things that break through that are just scammers trying to get you to give them a thousand dollars for a free, you know, fake ad.

• 21:35Lex Fridman?

  That comment section is one of the most lively on the internet. So it'd be amazing if YouTube invested in creating a natural community, like where people could do high effort comments and be rewarded for it, like on Reddit.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:46Lex Fridman?

  Like actually write out a long.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  That would make me so happy because like when I upload a video, I usually go to Twitter to see feedback. Like I read my comments and I'll flip through newest, but it's just, I feel like Reddit and Twitter just give me so much better. Filtered feedback, especially now that with Twitter blue, because people pay $8 a month. The idiot, I've noticed like any tweets I get from verified users now, they're usually not just garbage troll takes like these are people paying $8 a month. Like they're usually relatively sensible. And so it's been pretty nice. Like after I upload a video, I just go on the verified tab on Twitter and just see what people have to say. And anyways, I live for the day that YouTube's like that.

• 22:26Lex Fridman?

  What do you think about Twitter? What do you think about all the fun activity happening recently since Elon?

• 22:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:34Lex Fridman?

  Bought Twitter.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  I think he should make me CEO like I tweeted.

• 22:41Lex Fridman?

  Well, I should, I should say sort of, we had, we just like a couple of hours ago, had a conversation with Elon and you guys in exchange of some excellent ideas. So. Yeah, I legitimately think, obviously you're exceptionally busy, but I legitimately think it would be awesome if you somehow participate in the future of Twitter.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it would be fun.

• 23:00Lex Fridman?

  Cause there's so much possibility of different ideas. First in the sort of the, the content, like dissemination, hosting and all the different recommendations, like the search and discovery, all the things that YouTube does well.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  I think the most exciting thing is he's, you know, willing to move fast. And so I think there's going to be a lot of interesting things that come out of it. Because he's just moving quick and a lot of these more mature platforms just take years to do the simplest stuff and they're very bureaucratic. And so it's gonna, I mean, it'll be interesting to see which way it goes when you just kind of take a move quick, break things, whatever type of approach to social media. I'm actually pretty curious to see what features he rolls out.

• 23:37Lex Fridman?

  So what will be your first act as Twitter CEO?

• 23:42Speaker 01

  I can't spoil it.

• 23:43Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  I gotta get hired.

• 23:46Lex Fridman?

  What do you think about video on the platform?

• 23:48Speaker 01

  On Twitter?

• 23:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Do you think that's an interesting, or is it like messing with the, the medium, the nature of the platform?

• 23:54Speaker 01

  I think Twitter will always be closer to Tik Tok than it is to YouTube. Like at least in its current form. I don't, I don't see 20 minute, one hour long videos or whatever. You know, even 15 minute videos being watched over there. I see it more as like the short and snappy stuff closer to Tik Tok.

• 24:11Lex Fridman?

  But at the same time, Twitter is a really good comment section for the internet.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  I mean, it's almost weird why, like, why doesn't Twitter allow you to embed YouTube videos? Like, why, why does, you should just ask Elon that. Like, I don't know if that's a YouTube thing, but when a YouTuber posts a video, why do they have to link to YouTube? Why can't they just embed it on Twitter and you just play it there? I mean, wouldn't that just solve a lot of problems?

• 24:32Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but then the two companies have to agree to integrate each other's content.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  I don't know, but it seems like a win-win. I mean, well, it's more of a win for Twitter because then people don't have to leave the platform. I mean, that'd be the easiest.

• 24:44Lex Fridman?

  But who gets, like, when you watch the ads on a YouTube video that's embedded in Twitter, who gets the money?

• 24:50Speaker 01

  It would still be YouTube, but at least then, right now, people just post the link and it takes you off Twitter and it just kills your session time on Twitter.

• 24:56Lex Fridman?

  That's really interesting, but the, yeah, because the Twitter, whatever the, the dynamics of the comments, especially once the spam bots are taken care of, Twitter just works. It's really, so Reddit is a nice comment section for the internet. It's like slower pace, more deliberate, like higher effort. Twitter's like this high-paced, like ephemeral kind of stream, but there's the vote, the upvoting, the downvoting works much better because you could do retweeting, right? Because the social network is much stronger than it is on YouTube, like the interconnectivity.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, on Reddit, you're going to get, the top replies are going to be the most refined ones, whereas Twitter, stuff floats to the top that's not super refined. But like you're saying, it's more off-the-cuff stream of consciousness, which a lot of people prefer because it's a little more personal.

• 25:40Lex Fridman?

  How do you think Twitter compares to YouTube in terms of how you see its future on roll in 2023?

• 25:46Speaker 01

  I mean, I think YouTube's going to be YouTube and not much is really going to change, but it's going to keep growing just because, you know, that's just what it does because it's owned by Google. But Twitter, I don't know. I mean, it's one of those things, like, you can't predict if, you know, a year from now, an economy is going to be in a recession or booming. And I think Twitter is kind of the same thing. One thing's for certain, a lot of things are going to be rolled out, but who knows? Honestly.

• 26:11Lex Fridman?

  You responded to Elon saying Twitter's unlikely to be able to pay creators more money than YouTube. Why do you think that is?

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, because I think the tweet I responded to was one where he was saying that they, you know, users will jump over if Twitter could potentially pay more than other platforms. And I was just saying, obviously, because Google has Google AdWords, and I mean, that's Google's whole thing. It's putting ads on stuff. They've been doing it better than anywhere else in the world for a very long time. It's very unlikely in the next few years that Twitter is going to just magically, or any platform, you know, give a creator the ability to make higher CPMs than on YouTube. It's kind of crazy. Like, some creators in December, you know, Q4, because the ad rates are higher because of Christmas and everything. Some creators literally make like $30, $40 per 1,000 views, and that's after YouTube's cut. Like, it's almost like hard to think about, like, how high the RPMs get.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  And even then, once you pull out of finance and cars, the high CPM niches, and you move into just normal stuff. It's still just crazy. The sheer volume of creators and the fact that all of them get these multi-dollar CPMs at scale. It's pretty beautiful.

• 27:14Lex Fridman?

  So you do, I don't know what you would call them, but like integrated ads in your videos and you do, I would say, masterfully. It's like part of the video.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Are you talking about brand deals?

• 27:23Lex Fridman?

  Brand deals, is that what you would call that?

• 27:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:25Lex Fridman?

  So it's a brand deal, it's part of the video, it's still really exciting to watch, and yet there's a plug for the brand.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  In general, just brand deals, since you brought it up, integrating them well. I think that's something a lot of creators don't do. Like, they'll just do a brand deal out of the blue. They'll just be filming a video, and then around the three-minute mark, just start talking about a random company.

• 27:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  And you, I feel like if you don't want viewers to click away and you want people to not get pissed off and call you a sellout, you got to find a way to integrate into content. And ideally, use the money in the video to make it better. Like, the easiest thing you do when you do a brand deal is just tell people how you're using money from the brand deal to make your content better. And if you do that, like, no one cares. Now they're supporting you for it. And you go from being a sellout to like, oh, I'm doing this to make better videos for you guys, you know?

• 28:09Lex Fridman?

  I don't know if you can share, but with those brands, when you have discussions with them, are they strict about how long you need to be talking about it? Or is it more about they're leaving control to you about the artistic element of it?

• 28:23Speaker 01

  The problem is the ones who don't give us artistic element, we just don't really work with anymore. Because it's just, you know, we get 100 million views a video now. And I can confidently say I know how to entertain them and convert them better than these random brands. So, uh, yeah, if they don't give us that freedom, I just won't work with them.

• 28:40Lex Fridman?

  So you have that leverage, but for smaller creators.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  It's a lot harder. Yeah. And they're, they're gonna just say 45 seconds. Here's what you say. Take it or leave it. And it's like, pretty brutal. Cause I think just in general, if brands were more accommodating to let creators tell their story of the brand and talk about the brand in a way that felt a little more natural. I, I think A, it'd be less cringe and people would be less likely to go, you know, tap, tap, tap, skip. And, uh, obviously it would convert better, but they're just so afraid and they want this standardized thing. Say these words and 45 seconds, right here at this three minute mark.

• 29:13Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I often think about how to resist that.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  You just don't do them though, right?

• 29:18Lex Fridman?

  Not on YouTube, right? On audio, I do ads in the very beginning and I say, you can skip them if you want.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  The brand loves that.

• 29:26Lex Fridman?

  I don't, like, the point is they, so the funny thing about podcasts is different than YouTube videos. Podcast people actually do listen to ads a lot because they, it's a slower pace and they like the, the creator voice. Like talking about the thing. Um, but in general, I just don't believe you should be talking about a thing for a minute exactly. And that's going to be effective. I want to see the data for that. I think what's much more effective is the way you do ads, which is like integrating to the content, like put a lot of effort into making it a part of that, like doing the brand deals. And I just, it's difficult to have that conversation. It's like a very strenuous conversation you have to have with, with brands, each one at a time.

• 30:11Lex Fridman?

  And I just wish there was more of a culture to say like, the quality of the ad read matters a lot more than the, uh, like, the silly parameters, like the timing of it, like how long it is, the placement of it, all that kind of stuff.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  What percentage of your viewers do you think have seen one of my videos before?

• 30:29Lex Fridman?

  What percentage of the viewers on YouTube, right?

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, of your viewers.

• 30:33Lex Fridman?

  Of the viewers on YouTube, though?

• 30:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:35Lex Fridman?

  Because most of the people-

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Okay, sure, or all of them. It's just interesting because you're speaking very specifically like about my brand deal process. And so in my head, I'm like, I wonder what percentage of these people even have any idea what he's talking about?

• 30:45Lex Fridman?

  That's interesting. I love the thinking about numbers.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  The whole time we were having this conversation, that's all I could think about is like, god damn it. He's, there's probably like 50% of these people have no fucking clue what he's saying.

• 30:55Lex Fridman?

  Probably.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  And we're about to torture him for five minutes.

• 30:57Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, yeah, probably.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  But that's something I can't turn off in my brain.

• 31:00Lex Fridman?

  Less than 50%. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is that exciting to you that there's like 50% of people don't have not watched a Mr. Beast video? Isn't that an opportunity?

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess it's an opportunity to grow. I don't know. Honestly, I was just kind of excited to hang out with you.

• 31:13Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, me too.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Today was a lot of fun.

• 31:16Lex Fridman?

  Who cares if there's mics?

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's kind of like having a buddy to go along the journey as I'm just kind of eating shit and doing my normal grind. It was like kind of fun. And also you just say really wise stuff constantly. So honestly, no, I never even put any thought into like the demographics or what I could gain. It's just interesting because like my retention brain, when you talk about something, I'm instantly like, hmm. What value are they going to get? How many of them are going to be interested? What percentage of people do I think will lose? And I'm like running all those calculations in the background and that whole conversation like the law. It's just something I can't turn off. My like bells were like, error, error, this is bad.

• 31:50Lex Fridman?

  What are the different strategies for high retention? For your videos and in general?

• 31:54Speaker 01

  It's like, how do you cook good food? You know what I mean? That's like the same kind of question.

• 31:58Lex Fridman?

  I see. So there's so many different ways that you're so it boils down to, I mean, do you think at the level of a story? Or do you think like literally watching five seconds at a time? Am I going to tune out here? Am I going to tune out here? Am I going to tune out here?

• 32:13Speaker 01

  It's all of it. You need the overarching narrative and then you also need the micro where every second, you know, needs to be entertaining. And you basically, what's interesting is the longer people watch something, the more likely they are to keep watching. So you don't have to try as hard in the hypothetically back half of a video as you do in the front. Like even right now, we're so deep into this where a lot of people listening are probably just going to keep listening relatively close to the end. Unless we just have a really boring part of this conversation because they're just, they're saying it, they're immersed. And so a big, like to really boil it down to a simple level, you just want to get people where they're immersed in the content and then just kind of hold them there.

• 32:52Lex Fridman?

  We had this discussion offline. And by the way, I should mention that this is like late at night.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  It is. What time is it? It's nine o'clock.

• 33:00Lex Fridman?

  And I, I only slept one hour last night because I'm an idiot. And I flew to the wrong location.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Well, here, we're like, hey, let's just book you a hotel to fly. He's like, no, I got it. We're like, you sure? We can just do it. We always do this. He's like, no, I got it. I got it.

• 33:14Lex Fridman?

  He's gonna have to rub it in.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  I know. And then today, come to find out, he flew to the wrong airport, airport with the, or a city with a similar name to ours.

• 33:21Lex Fridman?

  Same name, same name in a different state.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  And I was like, that's why you should let us book it. And so he's on one hour of sleep and he's literally been dying all day. Before this podcast, he downed like two things of coffee. We've been going all day hard.

• 33:34Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I've been, got to interact with you. I should say that this gave me an opportunity to, I got a ride from a stranger and it was an incredible person. I got to interact with him. So it's like, there's so many kind people around here, just like this kind of southern energy. And then I got to go to a diner because I could, you know, there's only one hour between me arriving and having to fly out. So I went to a diner. There's a really kind waitress that called me honey. So that was a beautiful moment, you know?

• 34:03Speaker 01

  I was so confused. You tweeted about that and like Steele's like, Lex, my assistant was like, Lex isn't here yet. And I saw your tweet and I was like, he's here. Steele's like, no, he's still flying. I was like, for like, an hour ago, he just tweeted about a nice diner.

• 34:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  I didn't realize you flew to the.

• 34:19Lex Fridman?

  It was a diner. It was a diner in a different state.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  And then you had to fly over here. And then I called you, you didn't answer. I was like, hmm. I was like, something's not adding up.

• 34:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, I feel like I'm such an idiot because apparently the world

• 34:34Lex Fridman?

  has cities like Springfield, right? There's like every single state has a Springfield.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 34:40Lex Fridman?

  I think so. I think that's, that's like a Simpsons joke, right? That like it's the city in, in the Simpsons is Springfield. And I think every single state or most of them have a Springfield. And the same is true for like Georgetown. I think the most, I forget what the most popular one was. But there's like a list of these people get, when they run out of ideas, they just keep using the same.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  They're your Achilles heel.

• 35:03Lex Fridman?

  I got to, I got to meet a bunch of people from, from your team. It's just incredible human beings. So let me just ask on that topic, how do you hire a great team? Like, what have you learned about hiring? For everything, for the main channel that you do, for the React, the gaming channel, to Mr. Beast Burger, to Feastables, all that.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  The big thing is, especially in this content creation, because it's not like anything that's done on Netflix or different content mediums, I really need people who are coachable and like really see the value in what I care about. Because it's a very specific way of going about things and it's like a thing, there's no one to like plug and play. Like if Netflix wanted to hire someone to do a documentary, there's probably tens of thousands of people you could hire that have worked on documentaries before. But if you want to hire someone to make super viral YouTube videos, you know, like we do, there's just no one you can really pull from. Like sometimes I'll hire people from game shows, right? And they have all these preconceived notions about pacing and how a video should be. And you have to spend like the first year like breaking all these habits and, you know, and they think they're better than you.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Like a lot of people in traditional think they're better and they think their way is better than what we do. And so for me, it's almost easier to hire people that are just hard workers, that are obsessed and really coachable and just train them how to like be good at content creation and production than to hire someone from like traditional, which is the only way to really do it because there's not that many YouTube channels that have scaled up. So it's not like there's a huge talent pool of people who've worked on YouTube channels. So it's easier just to train someone than just pull them from traditional because traditional people just, I don't know, they have all these opinions and things and they just think our way of going about things is dumb.

• 36:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, so you want people who have the humility to have a beginner's mind, even if they have experience.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  And see the value, like actually you'll still get it. It's so crazy. Like especially some of my other friends that are scaling up their YouTube channels, there's people that'll come on and you'll ask them like, what do you want to be doing in five years? And instead of saying, oh, I want to be working on the channel, they'll be like, oh, I hope to be working out movies or this or that. And they see like working on a YouTube channel is a launchpad to go into traditional. And it's like, no, like you just don't get it.

• 37:12Lex Fridman?

  This is the future.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  This is the end goal. This is your career. And so I'm just so tired of having those kinds of conversations. Like I feel like people really should be coming around.

• 37:22Lex Fridman?

  Are there like recurring interview questions that you ask? Is there, is there ways to get?

• 37:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the biggest thing is like, what do you want to be doing in 10 years? And if their answer isn't, you know, making content on YouTube or, you know, if their answer is anything like movies or traditional stuff like that, it's like just a hell no, like it just won't even remotely work.

• 37:39Lex Fridman?

  Oh, so you really want people to believe in the vision of YouTube?

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, ideally, it's like, oh, working here, you know what I mean?

• 37:46Lex Fridman?

  So it's less about the medium and more about just being on a great team that's doing epic stuff?

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, and yeah, the media as well, because those, it's just, it's hard to put it into words, but there's, it's just two completely different ways of going about things, you know? Like, our videos aren't scripted and, you know, it's a lot more run and gun. And when we, if we hypothetically blow up a giant car or whatever, like you only have one take. You know what I mean? So, um, and it's not scripted. And so you have to over film, overshoot things, overcompensate for like the dumb way of going about it. And a lot of traditional people would be like, well, just plan what you're gonna say and just plan the angles. You can cut the cameras in half, you can save 50 grand here, you can save, you know, 75,000 dollars editing, this and that. And it's like, yeah, but that's not authentic. Like that's, you know, blah, blah, you, you get it. It's, it's almost so obvious that it hurts that I have to like constantly have these conversations,

• 38:34Speaker 01

  but it's what we live in.

• 38:36Lex Fridman?

  But there's also detail, like there's a taste, like I've watched a bunch of videos with you and it's clear to you that you've gotten really good, I don't know what the right word is, style or taste to be able to know what's good and not in terms of retention, in terms of

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:49Lex Fridman?

  just stylistically, visually.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  I don't have to think, I can just watch a video and it just, it just screams in my head, like this is what, this is what should change based on the, you know, million videos I've watched and all these viral videos I've consumed, like this is blah, blah, blah, what's optimal and things like that. It's almost like your brain's like a, you know, like a neural net. And like, if you consume enough viral videos and enough good content, that you just kind of start to like train your brain to like see it and see these patterns that happen in all these viral videos. And so that anytime I watch a video or a movie or anything, I just can't stop thinking about what is optimal. And so it's like, it gives me a headache sometimes when I watch something too slow or I don't think is optimal. Obviously, my taste isn't the end all be all. But that's something that kind of torments me, if that makes any sense.

• 39:35Lex Fridman?

  Oh, you can't enjoy a slow moving.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  No, I can't. And that's not to say there is.

• 39:39Lex Fridman?

  The retention on Godfather is horrible.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, exactly. I've tried to watch that movie like three times. But that's not to say slow movies are bad. Like, there's an audience for it. It's just obviously not what I've trained my brain to like. And in social media and YouTube right now, like, that's just not the meta.

• 39:53Lex Fridman?

  And in general, like you said, in neural network, you're training your brain in part on actual data. Right? So you're actually data driven. So you're looking at like in terms of thumbnails and titles and different aspects of the first five, 10 seconds. And then throughout the video, the retention, all of that, you're looking at all of that

• 40:13Lex Fridman?

  for your own videos to understand how to do it better. So that's where the neural network is training.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Basically, there are ways you can kind of see like the most viewed videos on YouTube every day and stuff like that. I just kind of consume those every single day. And I've been doing that for way too many years. And you just start to notice patterns, like the thumbnails on the most viewed videos or videos that go super viral tend to be clear, tend to not have much clutter, tend to be pretty simple. Titles tend to be less than 50 characters. Intros tend to be this, stories tend to be this. And you just kind of like, after you see those thousands and then tens of thousands of time, it just starts to click in your head, like, this is what it looks like, you know?

• 40:48Lex Fridman?

  So how are you able to transfer that taste that you've developed to the team? So for like, because you said like broad things, but I'm sure there's a million detailed things. Like what zoom to use on the face, using the thumbnail, right? Like.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  The answer is whatever makes the best video. Because the problem is the more, I have so many friends who are like this. They'll make like checklists for their editors. They'll make, you know, this beat and this beat. And you need to have like a three-part arc and then this. But the problem is that's how you, the more constraints you put on the team, the more repetitive and less innovation you get. And the more like, you know, after 10 videos, people are going to be like, all right, I've already seen this. So to me, and I'm 24 and, you know, I'm probably, my mindset will change over the next 10 years. I just haven't been in this industry too long. But the only way to like really make innovative content and keep things fresh is to not put constraints on or put as little as possible. And so that's why I'm very hesitant on all that stuff. Because the more I say, the more they're going to be like, oh, then that's what we do.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  And then, you know, I'll say one time like, oh, you know, ideally there's a cut every three seconds. And the next thing you know, every video, there's a cut every three seconds or whatever. So it's, it's hard because I try to give as little train, not training, but as little.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  Facts or as possible and more just make suggestions if that makes any

• 42:06Lex Fridman?

  You mean publicly or to your team?

• 42:07Speaker 01

  To my team, yeah.

• 42:09Lex Fridman?

  What was so you talked about sort of teaching your voice or your style, whatever we want to call it to other people on the team so they can be kind of a Mr. Beast replacement.

• 42:21Lex Fridman?

  So what's the process of teaching that? So you don't want to

• 42:24Speaker 01

  No, I got you. You're more talking about like what I would call almost like cloning, right? Like Tyler and other people like that. Yeah. So when we were hanging out today, I was showing him how we have multiple people and they come, it's, it's almost like talking to the camera.

• 42:37Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you turn slowly to the camera.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  I was like, it is habit.

• 42:41Lex Fridman?

  Is it weird to you to not be looking at the camera?

• 42:43Speaker 01

  This whole interview, I constantly have been turning towards the camera. I'm talking to him. It's a habit because my whole life I've just been talking to a camera.

• 42:51Lex Fridman?

  Who are you thinking about when you're looking at the camera? Do you like imagine somebody?

• 42:55Speaker 01

  I'm fully thinking about the person just sitting, watching it and I almost it's weird. When I'm looking at the camera, I don't see a camera. I'm like in a haze picturing what the viewer is seeing when they watch it. If that makes sense. And that's where I'll be saying things and or doing something and then like when I'm watching, I'm like, that's not what I want. And then I'll freeze up. It's very weird when I'm filming and for people who haven't worked with me too much, they'll think like, I don't know, it's very weird like how I go about it because I'll just be doing whatever like lighting a firework. All right, this is a thousand dollar firework and I'll go to light it and I'll like freeze because in my head I'm like this. I don't know. I don't like how that flowed or how that shot looked because I it's weird. I can perfectly picture what I'm filming by just looking at the camera and then putting myself through the lens of the camera

• 43:38Speaker 01

  while making content. I can do it at the same time.

• 43:42Lex Fridman?

  So you're like real time editing.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  In my head. Yeah, that's something that didn't at the start come natural to me, but in the last probably like five years it's happened. And so I would say it's one of my greatest strengths, but I don't know how I developed it. But anytime I'm filming anything like it's almost like the right side of my brain, I just can just look at it and I see exactly what I'm filming and I can just picture it.

• 44:02Lex Fridman?

  Well, it's probably do recording the video, being the talent for the video and then watching the editing and like analyzing it carefully and do that over and over and over and over.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  10,000 times. Yeah.

• 44:12Lex Fridman?

  You do the editing more than the being in front of the camera. So like you You start to see yourself from that third person perspective.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 44:20Lex Fridman?

  And then maybe that actually helps with the nerves of it, too. Like, you see it as creating a video versus performing.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I think so. You know, it's weird, I've never been nervous talking to a camera. It's harder for me to talk to a person than it is to talk to a camera. Which I feel like a lot of people say that, though, that are, whatever, make content, right?

• 44:41Lex Fridman?

  Interesting.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  I've heard that so many times. Or maybe not, maybe I'm just awkward and dumb.

• 44:45Lex Fridman?

  Maybe they're practiced. To me, it's, I mean, both are terrifying, but being in front of the camera by yourself is most.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  So much easier.

• 44:52Lex Fridman?

  Really?

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so much easier. I've preferred a million times over.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  But that's my whole life. So it's just, that's why it's interesting. Like, you've spent more of your time talking to people.

• 45:02Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  It comes natural, and I talk to a piece of plastic.

• 45:05Lex Fridman?

  Oh, yeah, I guess you're talking to a person, too. There's just on the other side of the camera.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's just a pixel on a screen.

• 45:11Lex Fridman?

  So cloning, how do you achieve?

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that's right, the soul rabbit trail. So I was showing him that I have a lot of people in the company who are able to think like me and basically make decisions like I would make if I was like, if you were asked, hey, in this video, should we climb a mountain or should we dig a hole? Right? And like, you know, they would pick the same answer I'd pick 90% of the times. And so like, one example is Tyler, who I was showing you. And he was pitching some content. And you could see, like, he was on point. And basically, for just four, five years, we just spent an absurd amount of time together and worked on every single video together, and we worked side by side. And same thing with my CEO, James. He literally lived with me for a couple of years.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  I'm a big fan of just like finding people who are super obsessed and all in and A players that, you know, they really just want to be great, and they're just dumping everything I have in them.

• 46:04Lex Fridman?

  And like you were saying, because I'd love to find that and develop that. You're saying you're basically for. A long time just said everything you were thinking to them.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  Exactly. Like James, the guy who's basically my right hand man right now. For two years, he lived with me and we probably talked on average over those two years, seven hours a day. I mean, anytime I had a phone call, I'd throw it on speaker and I'd let him listen. I had anything I was reading, any content I was consuming, like really just training his brain to think like me. So that way he could just do things without my input, without me having to constantly watch over him or give him advice. And, and that's where we've gotten like, so for the first six months, he didn't do anything. He just studied me and studied everything I cared about and how I spoke and blah, blah. And then the next six months, he started taking on some responsibilities and now he can just run the company and, you know, I don't ever really have to check in on him. Like I, most of the decisions he makes are exactly what I would do.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  And so I, I call that cloning. I don't know what other people would, but it's just like finding people that are really obsessed and they just kind of really want it and just being like, giving them an avenue to like, get it, if that makes any sense.

• 47:08Lex Fridman?

  Another way to see it is you're converging towards a common vision and that makes like brainstorming much more productive.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it just makes it where I don't have to be so involved in everything because I just have these people I know will think like I will, at least relatively close to it. So I can kind of almost be in multiple places at once per se. And so these things that, you know, I still approve every idea we film in, you know, everything before we film and all the creative, I approve it, but I don't have to like be in the weeds and nuances and do all this minor stuff. I just let them handle it. I can just do the more macro things.

• 47:42Lex Fridman?

  I got a chance to sit in to a lengthy brainstorming session with Tyler and others. That was really cool. Can you talk about the process of that? Of people pitching ideas and you pitching alternatives or shutting down ideas and just going like plowing through ideas very quickly.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  I mean, you kind of just described exactly what we did. Yeah.

• 48:06Lex Fridman?

  I mean, but the ideas are really, really good. It's just tossing out like different categories of ideas. And then also fine tuning them to see like, how do I change, like thinking about the titles and the thumbnails.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  I work so well off of inspiration. It's like, it's a something. Like, give me any word. I don't know.

• 48:26Lex Fridman?

  Space.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  Space. Yeah, like, I went to space, you know? What happens if you blow up a nuke in space? Or I went to the moon. I went to Mars. Right? Because you said that one word. It was able to inspire me to come up with four ideas. And so that's just, it's for me. If you, the way to get 100 million views on videos, you need something original, creative, something people really need to see. Ideally, never been done before, all these like things. And so you need like, if you want to consistently go super viral, you need just a constant stream of ideas. And the only way I've really found that I can consistently come up with 100 million view videos is to intake inspiration and then see what my brain outputs. And so that's kind of at its core foundation, what I'm doing there. It's just like intaking a lot of random inspiration to see what spawns in my mind. So I can output it.

• 49:11Lex Fridman?

  But the neural network of your brain is generating the video, the title, the thumbnail, all like jointly.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Exactly. And that only comes because I spent 10 years of my life just obsessively studying all that stuff.

• 49:23Lex Fridman?

  Because you, I mean, it seems like you would literally potentially shut down a video just because you can't come up with a good title.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, 100% or thumbnail. Yeah, I mean, that's what happened to 70% of those in that pitch session. I was just like, oh, what was one of them? Genius versus 100 people or?

• 49:38Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, like maybe average intelligence versus genius, stuff like that.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, what the heck is the thumbnail? Even if the title was good.

• 49:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, there's so many, but yeah, people don't click, they don't watch.

• 49:48Lex Fridman?

  That's so interesting, but you developed over time the ability to kind of give it what? What makes for a good title? Short?

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Not just short. It's also, I mean, if someone reads it, are they like, do they have to watch it? Is it just so intrinsically interesting that it's just gonna fuck with them? If they don't click on it, you know what I mean?

• 50:08Lex Fridman?

  So it doesn't have to be short, but it has to be like, you almost want to have a retention to word by word reading.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  Ideally, it's a title also that, um, you know, because the titles don't live in a vacuum, right? So it has to lead into the content. So ideally, the title represents content that you would want to watch for 20 minutes. So if it's a 20 minute video and the title is, I stepped on a bug, it's not gonna, because it's all of it combined. The click through rate is going to be much lower than if it was like a five second video. People might click it. So you gotta like even nuances of the length of the video based against the title will affect whether people want to click it. Cause sometimes they just don't add up. I mean, it's that, yes, ideally you want to blow 50 characters because above 50 characters on certain devices, you run the chance of it going dot, dot, dot. So like, I took a light pole and I saw how many dollar bills I could stack on top.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  And they would just go dot, dot, dot because it's too long and it can't finish it. And that's the worst thing because then people don't even know what they're clicking on. And so it's going to do even worse. Um, short, simple, ideally, and just so freaking interesting. They have to click. And it is a good segue into the content and it represents the length of the content.

• 51:13Lex Fridman?

  And there's probably stuff, it's hard to convert into words for you. Like I stepped on a bug versus stepping on a bug versus Mr. B stepped on a bug.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I mean, that.

• 51:23Lex Fridman?

  Bug stepping.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  So it's like, yes, the more extreme the opinion typically the higher the click through rate. If you can like, uh, pay it off in the content, then it just supercharges it. So like.

• 51:34Lex Fridman?

  So you have a kind of estimate of the.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Here, like this, this water, right? You're like Fiji water sucks.

• 51:41Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  That'd do fine. But if you said Fiji water is the worst water bottle or the worst water I've ever drank in my life.

• 51:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  Way more extreme opinion would do way better.

• 51:50Lex Fridman?

  But you have to deliver.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. But then you have to deliver because the more extreme you are, the more extreme you have to be in the video.

• 51:55Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. That's almost inspiration for you to step up.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. But you can, you can be more extreme in a positive way. A lot of people, it's easier though. Posit-, uh, negative clickbait is much easier than positive clickbait. It just is. It's so much easier to get negative clicks. And so a lot of people are just, in my opinion, you know, a little bit lazier and they just take the route like, oh, well, this one gets the same amount of clicks. And it's easier, less effort.

• 52:20Lex Fridman?

  The positive one is doing a large number of numbers of something like I spent this number of hours doing this.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  Or whatever. If you just wanted to help people or, right? It's just harder to get 10 million views on a video helping people than it is to get 10 million views on a video tearing down a celebrity. You know what I mean? Or whatever negative video you want to insert there.

• 52:38Lex Fridman?

  Well, that said, most of your videos are pretty positive. So what's.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  But not a lot of people do those kinds of videos because they're hard.

• 52:44Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, they're hard. Uh, some of that is giving away money, right?

• 52:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:49Lex Fridman?

  What's the secret to that? What's, how do you do, do that right?

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like give, give away money or?

• 52:55Lex Fridman?

  In a video that made, to make it compelling.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  Um.

• 52:58Lex Fridman?

  Is it, so there's a number that is better than another number, right?

• 53:02Speaker 01

  The higher number is always better than the lower number. Yeah, for the most part. And you know, it's interesting, like some videos will give away a million dollars. Some videos will give away half a million. There's not really, I guess so, I'm retracting what I just said. I was more joking with that, but there's no difference whether I put 500K or a million. There's probably not even really a difference between 100K or a million. I haven't really looked into it. Like, some of our, most of your videos are not us giving away a million dollars. And sometimes the million dollar videos just don't do as well as the other ones. So there, there is a certain point where a dollar amount is just a large dollar amount to an average human. And so I think that point is 100K. Like anything above 100K, the average human is just like, that's a lot of money. You know, like it doesn't, it doesn't, 100K and a million, like, doesn't really move the needle, if that makes sense.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  Which that's a very nuanced piece of information that applies to very few people, but yeah.

• 53:48Lex Fridman?

  Well, no, I think applies, it's fascinating. It's fascinating, human, our relationship with money is fascinating. Like, why is it so exciting to get? I mean, I, you know, the times I've found like 20 bucks in the ground are like incredible.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Really?

• 54:04Lex Fridman?

  I don't know why, right? Why? Why are you so happy? What exactly is so joyful about that? I mean, it depends where you are in, in life, what the situation is. Yeah, I don't know. There's also a gamified aspect to it. It's exciting.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I get it. Like, why people want to see people win money? It's just interesting that past 100 grand, it's, it doesn't really seem to make a difference. Like, it's the same, basically.

• 54:25Lex Fridman?

  So you found that to be true with all the money you've given away that?

• 54:28Speaker 01

  I just didn't click through it. Like, obviously, in terms of someone receiving it, yeah, a million dollars changes their life drastically more. Like, that's the difference, like, oh, if you wanted to, you could really quit your job. As opposed to 100K is like, not really.

• 54:40Lex Fridman?

  You probably do like a, a scientific study, like a formula, giving away money to click through rate.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:47Lex Fridman?

  There could be some kind of different return.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  It definitely, the, the returns level off dramatically after 100K. That's basically the premise.

• 54:53Lex Fridman?

  What about 10,000?

• 54:55Speaker 01

  No, there's 10, 100,000.

• 54:57Lex Fridman?

  That's a big.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  So it's funny, because this is such a small niche thing, but yeah, 100,000 does, from what I see in our videos, get more clicks than 10,000. But the difference between 100,000 and a million is just so little. I just, I think, big number, big number to a lot of people, past that point.

• 55:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, so for a hundred thousand, you can like, given average salary, you can probably live for a year, given, given what they average salaries in America. So that's like a big, that feels.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's also just more when they read the title. It's just like, it's a lot of zeros. It's a lot of fuckloads of zeros. Okay, click.

• 55:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. Oh, man, that's fascinating. So on the thumbnail side, again, that's gonna be much harder to say, probably.

• 55:36Lex Fridman?

  But, you know, offline, you know, I got a chance to look at a bunch of thumbnails. And it's fascinating which ones do well and which ones don't. Is there something you could say about what are the elements of a thumbnail that work well? Or is this also deeply?

• 55:48Speaker 01

  Well, that's where, yeah, it's the same thing. Like, how do you cook good food? But it's easier if you pull up a thumbnail and I could be like, that's why that's good. That's why that's bad. That's a, like, an example would be like, one of my friends, I was, he just uploaded a video recently. And I called him. I was like, what is this? Because he's a very, very smart guy. And in the thumbnail, he's, he's getting chased by cops, but the cops are wearing yellow vests. So they don't look like cops. So I was like, whoa, why are the cops in your thumbnail wearing yellow vests? It's like, that makes it so much more boring. And he was like, carrying a flag, but the pole and the color of the flag were the same color. So I was like, it's a little harder to see the flag. I was like, also, you're wearing like a shirt with like five different colors. Like, so it's like, it's hard to tell what even, what your outline is.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  And then in the background, there were cars. And I was like, well, if you have cops chasing you, why not make the cars cop cars? And, you know, and it's like, because in my head, I'm like, dang, if you just did those like four or five things, the video probably would have got like seven X the views.

• 56:44Lex Fridman?

  How much iteration? Because I also got a chance to see the number of iterations you do on a, on a just.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  It's a problem now. It's an addiction.

• 56:53Lex Fridman?

  Is it? So you kind of, because a lot of the versions are really good.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:58Lex Fridman?

  How do you know what to like?

• 56:59Speaker 01

  I love how you, when we pulled up that, the burger one and we were flipping through them, you're like, that's really good. I was like, oh, that's version like one of like a thousand.

• 57:07Lex Fridman?

  But even the sketch, the idea was good, like already even the original idea is strong.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we, one of our coming up videos, we made the world's largest plant-based burger. And the thumbnail, we were thinking it's like me standing beside the burger because it's six feet tall. That's, that's what he's talking about. So like, just picture a giant six foot tall burger, super wide, thousands of pounds, and then I'm beside it. And then it's like eating the world's largest burger. Like you, that's just something you have to click. Like, so you were saying, like, how would you describe a good thumbnail? Like that, you know what I mean? Like.

• 57:33Lex Fridman?

  But I think you said the one I noticed first that was good, where you were very small in it. Relative to the, and you didn't like that one, I think.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  I needed to come forward a little bit. And also, the photo we took was just my upper body. So they photo manipulated and created my legs Photoshop. And that's why I said I didn't like it. Cause my right leg was a little like off. It was like bent the wrong way. Build those legs in Photoshop.

• 57:57Lex Fridman?

  Well, I mean, does the physics on the thumbnail have to even make sense? I mean, you can just like exaggerate the head size and all that kind of stuff, right?

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, 100%. Yeah, things don't have to be relative. You can have a car in the background, it'll be three times the size. Cause yeah, every one of my thumbnails, my face is in the, you know, left side, very big. So brand recognition, so just people know, oh, especially because now that a lot of people copy our videos, it's just nice to like, you know, everyone else might make thumbnails like this, but this is mine. And obviously we usually over deliver and do bigger stuff.

• 58:27Lex Fridman?

  Would you recommend to other creators that wanna, that wanna make it big to, and they see Mr. Beast and they look up to you, to copy some elements of you or to really try to be unique?

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Unique, 100% unique. You're not, the next Mr. Beast, quote unquote, it's weird saying that in third person, but whatever, is not gonna do what I'm doing better. They're gonna just invent their own lane. Like you're just not gonna do what I do better than me, you know? I have so many, I literally have the best people in the world working here and I reinvest everything I make even to this day. You know what I mean? Like it's absurd, the amount of money I spend on content. And I don't care. I'll just stop sleeping and I'll just film every other day. Like you're just not gonna beat me at my own game. And that's fine. You shouldn't. Like I didn't get where I am by just beating someone else at their own game. I just found my own lane and innovated and adapted. And so, yeah, there's a lot of people that do copy me and it's fine, whatever, do it. But just know, you're not gonna get to where I am doing that. And so I'd advise you don't.

• 59:20Lex Fridman?

  You give away a lot of the secrets, basically everything about how you operate. Is there a?

• 59:26Speaker 01

  I don't hold anything back. Go for it.

• 59:28Lex Fridman?

  How do you think about that? Because that's also, that's pretty rare.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  I think, and this is a definitely not, uh, most people in my stance, I don't think would take this, uh, or my position would take this stance, but I see every other YouTuber or so person on social media, even because we're also focused super heavily on YouTube, but last year we were also the most followed TikTok creator in the world as well. Actually, we're most subscribed to YouTube channel in the world and the most followed TikTok account in the world. But, uh, in general, I just see everyone else as collaborators, not competitors. I, I don't think giving advice and helping other creators do well in any way harms me. And I think it only brings more value to my life.

• 1:00:03Lex Fridman?

  How was it jumping on TikTok and trying to understand that platform from scratch?

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:09Lex Fridman?

  So from being a successful YouTuber to understand a totally different algorithm, fundamentally different algorithm.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  It's interesting. Well, not even just the algorithm, just the content. Like I'm going from basically 15 minute short films to one sub one minute vertical content. It's a whole different just ballpark. And so the first little while I was doing TikTok is just kind of figuring out how, what, what does Mr. Beast look like in this short form content? But recently we've really started to catch our stride and come up with some original concepts and figure out how to innovate over there, just like we did on YouTube. Because I don't want it, I didn't want it to just be shitty YouTube videos, you know? And so like an example is, um, we played The Rock for a hundred K and Rock Favors Scissors. And the loser had to donate a hundred K to charity. We did, um, we went to random people on a campus and we offered them.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  So I said, I'll give you a hundred dollars if you fly to Paris and give me a baguette. And then they said, no. And I was like, I'll give you $300 if you fly to Paris and give me a baguette. And I was expecting this person to say no, and it go up to like 10 grand. And he's like, yes. And so he flew to Paris, got a baguette and brought it back and gave it to me. And that across everything got like 450 million views. Because it's just really cool just to see this random guy get on a plane, spend a day in Paris. And we cut it up real nicely and bring it back. And so we're starting to find just tons of original content over there.

• 1:01:26Lex Fridman?

  But it seems like an epic video to make for a one minute.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Exactly. No one on short form is doing it. That's the thing. It's like, it's just so funny because like TikTok's been big for a while now, years. And then, um, you know, as, as we started to really figure out things on the YouTube channel and get it cranking where I have some free time, we, we set our sights on TikTok and like, okay. What are people not doing? How do we make it better? Put in more effort, make it good? And we did the same thing we did at YouTube, just different over on TikTok. And it worked. And now we're the fastest growing or most followed TikTok account in 2022. And it's just funny that no one else did that.

• 1:02:01Lex Fridman?

  And you're not afraid to do epic stuff, which also during the brainstorming, some of the ideas you're like, that's better as a short. That's crazy.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Can you remember one? Because I remember I said that a bunch, but I can't think of one.

• 1:02:13Lex Fridman?

  All I remember is that there were like epic videos. Like, really? You're going to do that for a one minute video?

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:21Lex Fridman?

  That's crazy. So like, are you posting similar content to a YouTube short as a TikTok?

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, those would just double up. It's just hard. You know, what's actually pretty fascinating, and people who do social media listening to this will probably find this pretty interesting is, picture like the content creation meta three years ago versus now, where you can make sub one minute vertical content and it go viral on TikTok. It go viral on YouTube Shorts. It go viral on Instagram Reels. It goes viral on Facebook. It goes Reddit. You know, you swipe through vertical content now and Twitter, when you click on a video and you flip through it. So this is actually very weird. This is the first time in the history of, I guess, Western social media, that one form of content could actually go super viral on every single platform. It's never been like that before.

• 1:03:02Lex Fridman?

  So they're going viral individually? They're not like interbreeding or whatever?

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  I can post something on TikTok that'll get 100 million views and then post it on Shorts and it'll get 200 million views and then post it on Instagram and it get 50 million views. And then, you know, I haven't yet, but you know, you can then turn around and tweet it and it get tens of millions of views. And you can post it on Reddit and it get tens of millions of views and Facebook can get tens of millions of views. And that just wasn't a thing. Three years ago, Twitter didn't have, because a lot of you probably don't even know this, but when you tap on a video now and you swipe down, it just turns into TikTok. That wasn't a thing even a year ago. Reddit, that wasn't a thing a year ago. Probably two years ago, that wasn't a thing on Instagram. Three years ago, that wasn't a thing on YouTube, right, with YouTube Shorts. So this is all new. And I don't, it's weird. I haven't heard a single person talk about it. But this is the first time where content can actually go viral on every single platform.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  And you don't have to write or film a video for Facebook, film a 12 minute video for YouTube, film a sub 60 second video for TikTok, write a tweet for Twitter and post this on Reddit. You can just do the same thing on every platform.

• 1:04:02Lex Fridman?

  And the fact that your content has gone viral on multiple platforms regularly means that. Virality is not accidental. Sometimes it can be, of course, but it can be engineered.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, so many people say it's luck and they're like, you're just lucky or this or that. But what do we have to? Probably like a thousand videos over 10 million views. Like, we don't ever have a dud. Like, you can call it luck, but I think it can be trained. I counsel YouTubers all the time and show them how to go from getting a couple million views a month to 10 millions views a month very easily. Even certain ones, like just one of my friends, like he was just really struggling. And so I just started showing him basically everything I know and just doing like once every week, sometimes once every two weeks calls. And he went from $10,000 a month on YouTube to over 400,000, just doing these little counseling calls. And so, I mean, people can make excuses all they want and say it's just luck or say, you know, well, anyways, I don't even want to quote all the other stuff, but it's just, it is.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  It is a teachable skill. It's a learnable skill. You can study your way to consistently make viral videos, no matter how small your channel is. Even if you have zero subscribers, you could if you actually studied hard enough. And like, basically if you knew what I knew and some of these, so I don't sound so arrogant. Also, like some of these other friends I have that I'd say are the smartest people in the world when it comes to content creation online. If you had the knowledge that was in our heads, you could do it very easily. I see people do it all the time. And what's even more interesting is I go on podcasts and I say everything I know. And these people are also very open, some of them I know, it's all out there. And a lot of people, instead of just studying that and trying to absorb and apply it in their own way, they're just like, no, it's just luck, you know?

• 1:05:40Lex Fridman?

  So you do lay it all out there, but I gotta push back to one interesting thing. I think a crucial component of your success is the idea stage, the idea generation. The brainstorm I heard today, but getting really good at generating ideas. So it's not, it's not just.

• 1:05:59Lex Fridman?

  The selection of the thumbnail and the title, that creative process. It's also just the the engine of generating really good ideas.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:06:07Lex Fridman?

  And getting that, I mean, I would say that is probably the thing that needs to be trained the most for most creators. Right? That they're they just don't put enough ideas on paper.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  Yes, but also a lot of creators also just don't, you know, which I didn't either for the longest time, just didn't. Don't make good enough content, you know, content that's worthy of getting 10 million views.

• 1:06:26Lex Fridman?

  In the idea or the execution of the idea?

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  Both. I mean, like, think about how many people just make videos they film in under 20 minutes and they don't really put any effort into it. And like, you know, it's like my first 500 videos didn't deserve to get a million views. Like, there's a reason they did. They're terrible, you know? But at the time, I thought they did, right? And I'm in the mindset of a lot of small YouTubers where I thought those videos deserved a million views and I thought the algorithm hated me. But I watch them back now and I can tell you exactly why the videos were fucking horrible. You know what I mean?

• 1:06:53Lex Fridman?

  Well, so what was the breakthrough for you to start realizing, to start having a self-awareness, you know, about these videos aren't good enough? You're probably still going through that. You're probably still growing to see like.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, every six months you should look back and hate your videos or at least see things you could improve and be like, oh, I could have done this better, that better. If not, then you're not learning quick enough, in my opinion, at least.

• 1:07:15Lex Fridman?

  Where's the source of that learning even for you now?

• 1:07:17Speaker 01

  It's a.

• 1:07:18Lex Fridman?

  Just look at.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  I just got back from a no, I mean, I just got back from a mastermind where I just got like, you know, 10 of the smartest people I knew. And we just locked ourselves in a cabin and taught each other stuff constantly every day. Not every day now, probably every other day I go on a walk and I just call random people. I'll just say, yeah, teach me something. And I mean, it's just, you just have to have a never ending thirst for learning. Like, that's very imperative, especially if you want, like, if you want to get on top and then stay on top. The only way to do it is just to constantly be learning. Or someone who is learning is just gonna, you know, have a leg up on you in the knowledge game.

• 1:07:50Lex Fridman?

  And what kind of stuff are you, because you've talked about offline that you just love learning of all kinds, doesn't matter. But in terms of videos, are you studying videos? Are you studying?

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Recently, not as much. I'm more, because to get to the videos I want, I have to build this business and scale up and hire. So more my recent time has been, like, my teenage years were spent studying virality and studying content creation. Now I'm studying how to build a content company so I can actually produce the crazy ideas I want to produce, if that makes any sense.

• 1:08:17Lex Fridman?

  So yeah, on that, the business side, we talked about hiring. Do you have trouble firing people?

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  No, I'm pretty sure almost every person, yeah, actually, every person I've ever hired, we just give them severance. And I like to see it more as, it's no ill will. Like, if there's, like, if I fired you, if there's some other job you want me to help you get, I'll DM them on Twitter. Like, you know, if you want to go work for, I don't know, insert whatever, MTV, give me someone to DM. I'll DM them. Like, you know, I, I try to make it more like a transition and do whatever we can to make it as easy as possible.

• 1:08:47Lex Fridman?

  And if something was just not working for you, because you want people, like you said, super passionate.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  Because at the end of the day, if you hold someone that you, onto someone that you don't see being here in 10 years, you're just doing them a disservice. You're just giving them more ingrained, more enrooted in where they are. And the sooner you do it and help them move on to their, like, new life, the better.

• 1:09:07Lex Fridman?

  Given all the wisdom you have now, if you were to give advice to somebody, or if you were to start over again, you had no money, what would be the first 10 videos you tried to make on a new channel? I guess that's advice for a new person. And nobody knows you.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and nobody knows me. Yeah, hypothetically, I have a mask on.

• 1:09:25Lex Fridman?

  And you also, I guess, don't have the wisdom.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  Well, if I don't have what I have in my head, then I would say just fail. Like, just, a lot of people get analysis paralysis, and they'll just sit there and they'll plan their first video for three months. And I'm, any of you listening, if you, especially if you have zero videos on your channel, your first video is not going to give views. Period. It's not. Your first 10 are not going to give views. I can very confidently say that. So stop sitting there and thinking for months and months on end, and just get to work and start uploading. Like, all you need to do, this applies to people who have not uploaded videos but have dreams of being a YouTuber, is make 100 videos and improve something every Every time, do that. And then on your 101st video, we'll start talking like, maybe you can get some views. But you know, your first 100 are gonna start. There are very freak cases like

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  Liza Koshy or Emma Chamberlain, who have really good personalities and it doesn't take them so as many videos. And it's just like people who are seven foot five and making the NBA. Like, yes, there are freak cases you can find. But for the average person like us, you know, who don't have these exceptional personalities and, you know, backgrounds in filmmaking, just make 100 videos, improve something each time, and then talk to me on your 101st video.

• 1:10:31Lex Fridman?

  Well, the improve something each time is the tricky one. How do you improve something each time?

• 1:10:35Speaker 01

  The second one, just, I don't know, put more effort into the script. The third one, try to learn a new editing trick. The fourth one, try to figure out a way that you can have better inflections in your voice. The fifth one, try to, you know, study a new thumbnail tip and implement it. The sixth one, try to figure out a new title. There's infinite ways. That's the beauty of content creation online. There's literally infinite ways from the coloring to the frame rate, to the editing, to the filming, to the production, to the jokes, to the pacing, to every little thing can be improved and they can never not be improved. There's no, there's literally no such thing as a perfect video.

• 1:11:04Lex Fridman?

  So if you knew everything you know now, but no money?

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  Step one, would I just brainstorm like, okay, I don't have money. What are some viral things like? I mean, the first thing that comes to my mind is something as simple as when I count to 100,000, which is what I did do when I was poor. And like that worked, but like, what's something like that I could do that would be even more attention grabbing?

• 1:11:25Lex Fridman?

  You were, as part of the brainstorm, you would throw out a lot of ideas and people would throw out a bunch of ideas. And one of the questions is, is this even doable? Right?

• 1:11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. First off, come up with ideas you think would do well and then ask yourself later if they're doable.

• 1:11:38Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:39Speaker 01

  Cause there's, there's different ways you can accomplish something.

• 1:11:41Lex Fridman?

  Don't be cynical about the doability of stuff.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, because there really are so many different ways you can accomplish a goal. Like when we give away an island, like we gave our 100 million subscriber an island.

• 1:11:53Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  You know? You can't find private islands that, you know, don't look like shit for less than $10 million. So this isn't doable, right? All right, the idea doesn't exist, not doable, X it off. But then, you know, you dig into it and you, you know, find different alternatives. You find, okay, what if we just buy a $2 million island that sucks? And then spend a million dollars, you know, importing some sand. Let's build a beach, let's import 300 trees, let's build a little bit of canal, let's cut some paths. Boom, now it's a really nice island, but it's actually affordable. Cause we don't have $10 million to spend on a video, but we can afford to spend three and a half and lose whatever a million dollars on that video. So like, that's an example of like, yeah, if you just went off the gut test, you're like, this isn't doable. You know, every island's $10 million, we're screwed. Like if we go cheaper, it's just a terrible island, no.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  And so if you like, there are so many different ways you can achieve what you want. You've really got to push through those, which not a lot of people do. You have to have like a more of a dominant personality and just a willingness to, when people tell you it's not possible, just actually go through all the variables and eliminate them all yourself.

• 1:12:54Lex Fridman?

  Have a stubbornness and a resilience to failure, maybe.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  For what we do and creators online, it's very imperative that you have, that a no isn't a no to you. You really have to like think and just like we, we take a personality test and like just having a dominant personality is a better indicator that when someone tells you, oh, there's no way you're going to build a brick wall for under a hundred grand. You know, you'll be like, okay. And then still go check the next 10 vendors and you know, figure it out.

• 1:13:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. What advice would you give to an already established channel, like with one, two, three, four million subscribers? How to like 10x it, like increase it without losing maybe?

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's where it's very like channel by channel. You can't give general advice.

• 1:13:38Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause if I do, millions of creators are going to see this and then they're going to do it and I'm going to fuck them over.

• 1:13:44Lex Fridman?

  Oh, I see, I see. So let's say I'd like 2 million subscribers on this podcast.

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:49Lex Fridman?

  Like, how would you 10x that without sacrificing what it is?

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  10x your stuff.

• 1:13:54Lex Fridman?

  Does it matter? So you've talked about with success.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's different for everyone. Like, is 10x-ing your definition of success?

• 1:14:00Lex Fridman?

  No.

• 1:14:01Speaker 01

  Well, then, it's gonna, right off the bat, it's hard, because if you don't give a shit about 10x-ing, it's even harder to 10x. He does this because he likes helping people. That's one thing I've found throughout this day. Every time I've talked data, it's so funny with him, because it's like, you know, you could do this to get more views, and he'll just be like blank. I'll be like, that doesn't register anything. He's just like, doesn't care, which is, it's really cool.

• 1:14:20Lex Fridman?

  I'm really nervous about that. I'm really nervous about the numbers affecting, because it's so fun.

• 1:14:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:14:26Lex Fridman?

  It's so fun to focus on the numbers, and I'm really worried about that. But at the same time, you should be cognizant of that, because you've created not just some of the most watched videos, but some of the most amazing videos ever. So there's a strong correlation there. It's not like you're selling your soul to make a highly viewed video. It's actually, if you look at the metrics, it helps you understand what is compelling and not. And so I feel like I am, I feel like there's some value to investigate what worked, when people tune on and when not, to be more data-driven, even on podcasts. But I'm really afraid of that.

• 1:15:04Speaker 01

  On the flip side, I think part of the appeal is that you don't care about that kind of stuff.

• 1:15:08Lex Fridman?

  But there could be stuff that doesn't have to do anything with that, and it has to do with stylistic choices of lighting and cameras, or maybe with, for example, topics.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:21Lex Fridman?

  You know, like.

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  Even what you've asked me here is like, different than what most people ask me.

• 1:15:25Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, so it could be, I mean, and it'd be nice to understand that. But yeah, again, I'm worried about polluting the creative process.

• 1:15:30Speaker 01

  At the end of the day, this is a true case of it's your own intuition. Like, you know your viewers better than anyone else. It's whatever.

• 1:15:36Lex Fridman?

  See, I'd like to push back on that. I really don't.

• 1:15:38Speaker 01

  You do. Who else? Name one person who knows your viewers better than you.

• 1:15:43Lex Fridman?

  Somebody that looks at numbers of podcasts?

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  No, you know your viewers. You know, you're the only, how many episodes have you done?

• 1:15:49Lex Fridman?

  Uh, 350.

• 1:15:50Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:15:51Lex Fridman?

  But I'm not paying it to.

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  You're the only one who's watched every second of all 350 of them, probably.

• 1:15:55Lex Fridman?

  That's just, that's just not, no, well, I haven't, but the, okay.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  Well, because you did it, so you do know what's in all of them. It's your content, it's you. I'm telling you, you do, and this is just one of those moments where you're an intelligent guy, and you just have to trust your, like, instincts, like. Just think, what is the typical X viewer? And what do they want?

• 1:16:13Lex Fridman?

  I don't think like that.

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  But that's all you would have to do. And whatever your gut tells you, that would be the best guess.

• 1:16:19Lex Fridman?

  You don't know what the typical viewer is, though. I don't, I don't, because to investigate, that would be very, very difficult. And then you have to start looking at the numbers. You have to start to like consider demographics. The only way I know that anybody even watches it is because I'll sometimes run into people, like when I run along the river and they'd be like, I love you, Lex. It's like, OK, well, that, that's, that's the data point. And they're like cool people, but you know, I don't know, like, I don't have any other. It's difficult, man. It's difficult to know. It's difficult to know who listens to box. It's difficult to, do you have a sense of who's? I mean, like, you're so huge that everybody watches.

• 1:16:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. But no, I still do. I would say if you were to just put a gun to my head and you're, you're like, all right, we're going to pick a random person that watched your last video and you have to like roughly guess what they are. And if you're not close, we'll kill you. I would say probably like a teenager that plays video games. Like some, something like that would be probably the typical one. And then there are people that are maybe a little bit younger. A lot of people are, are older as well. But in a random, random sample size, yeah, it's probably like a male boy that plays video games. Like, that's the best way I would describe it. But I don't try to pertain to them. I just make whatever I think is interesting and good content. And this is what we were talking about before. Even though hypothetically 35 to 40% of my audience is women, which is, you know, less than a majority, if we get 100 million views of video, that's still 30 to 40 million

• 1:17:39Speaker 01

  females that watch every video, which is probably the largest, you know, views per video for, for women on the whole platform, which you wouldn't think that, you know? Like, I can't think of a single other creator that gets more women to watch their videos than that. And so it's just anything, even like people above the age of 30, even if it's only like three or 4%. That's still three to 4% of 100 million views is a lot of people that age. So we, we hit a large group of, of kind of every demographic, if that makes any sense.

• 1:18:10Lex Fridman?

  So what if we look at other, maybe more challenging kinds of channels or not? But if we look at educational, for example, like lectures or if we look, yeah, educational, it could be short videos, like how would you? 10x that, like something on robotics and biology, on science, on engineering, on all of that. That's more educational focused.

• 1:18:31Speaker 01

  We would honestly just have to pull the, because it's the same way, if you went to Gordon Ramsay, you said, how would a new cook cook better? You know, it's like.

• 1:18:39Lex Fridman?

  So even then, that's not even specific, you have to go channel by channel.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  You really do, or I'm giving horrible advice, because if there was these just school and rules, everyone would do it. You know what I mean? Like if there's these magical little principles.

• 1:18:50Lex Fridman?

  How quickly, when you look at a channel, can you kind of give advice?

• 1:18:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's like surface level at the start, and then the more, if we watch 10 videos, I feel like I'd have a good profile. And I could tell you, in my opinion, you know, especially once I look at the analytics and I get more ingrained in like, okay, the typical viewer is this, they're from here, here's how they're feeling, you know, because there are people who make videos for rednecks. It's like the rednecks taste of content is just so much different than obviously women watching makeup videos, which are so much different than, you know, teenage boys watching a Minecraft video. They're just all different. So the biggest thing you have to do is put your heads, your head in the headspace of the viewer and see the content how they would. Because if you just try to only give your taste, which is what a lot of people do, and things from your perspective, it's very biased. And it's just not going to work for everyone. And that's actually how you do more harm than good, which is something I'm very careful of.

• 1:19:38Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, but at the same time, just generating a lot of ideas. I think the first time I've talked to you was on Clubhouse, actually. And I mentioned something about robots and like almost immediately you went to generating a bunch of ideas around robots.

• 1:19:50Speaker 01

  100 robots versus 100 humans. Yeah. I'll bark at a robot, throw a potato.

• 1:19:54Lex Fridman?

  I think your idea, like the first idea was because you just said so many ideas I never even thought of. But it's, it's, it shows the value of basically brainstorming with people that think differently.

• 1:20:04Speaker 01

  But at the end of the day, my ideas are probably, you know, might lean towards some people a little bit younger than your audience, like some of the stuff.

• 1:20:11Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there's still ideas, like I think the first one you said, because we're talking about a quadruped, like a robot dogs. You said to replace a biological dog with a robot dog and see if the owner notices something. You were just quickly brainstorming different ideas of like.

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  This is years ago. I remember it though. Yeah.

• 1:20:27Lex Fridman?

  Which is just, I mean, it's like, oh yeah, I never really thought about that kind of sort of, it's the basic, the tension between what does it take for a robot or AI system to replace the biological systems that we, the biological creatures that we, we love in our lives. Yeah. And but like, that was like the, the pace of idea generation.

• 1:20:48Lex Fridman?

  Was the thing that struck me today and in general is like that's how you get at good videos is you keep, keep.

• 1:20:56Speaker 01

  It's much easier to make a video around a good idea, obviously than a bad one. You just send yourself up for success.

• 1:21:03Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so that's for 10xing already popular channel. What's the hardest number? You said the numbers that matters, click through rate, average view duration and surveys. What's the hardest number to optimize for?

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  Probably surveys, you know?

• 1:21:19Lex Fridman?

  Do you have any, do you have an insight into the surveys at all?

• 1:21:21Speaker 01

  No, not really. But if you just click on a bunch of random videos online, you'll eventually get a survey. Was this video transformative, heartwarming, inspiring? What people rate does make a difference. And it's like you can get people to click a video, you can get them to watch it, but you can't really fake whether or not they're satisfied. Like they don't lie, the surveys, you know? You know, maybe one person here, they're my troll, but once you aggregate enough, it's a pretty clear telltale of the video. So either you're making a great video or you're not.

• 1:21:48Lex Fridman?

  What is it minimizing the non-regretability?

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think Elon tweeted that that's what he's tried to do on Twitter.

• 1:21:57Lex Fridman?

  For Twitter, and that's interesting. That's, that's basically the survey metric, how happy you are that you've been using the platform.

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, Elon tweeted, we want to limit the amount of regrettable minutes people spend on Twitter. And the first thing I thought is like, that's something YouTube already has a lot, like their whole survey system and feedback loop.

• 1:22:13Lex Fridman?

  How tough is it to take on YouTube, you think?

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  Like for Twitter?

• 1:22:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, for Twitter, for anybody else?

• 1:22:19Speaker 01

  I mean, it's gonna be basically impossible. I mean, YouTube's not going anywhere and I, I don't know, I don't, I don't think anyone's gonna do what YouTube does better than them, at least not in the next 10 years.

• 1:22:33Lex Fridman?

  You asked on Twitter, would you rather have $10 million or 10 million subscribers on YouTube? What would your own answer be at various stages in your career?

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  If, if I had nothing, I would say $10 million. So because with $10 million, you can hire some people and pump out content with like a million or two, get 10 million subscribers and then keep the other 8 million.

• 1:22:56Lex Fridman?

  So that's if you believe in your ability to grow a channel, if you.

• 1:23:00Speaker 01

  Well, if you, yeah, if you don't believe in your ability to grow a channel, then you shouldn't take the 10 million subscribers because you're just gonna kill the channel. So the 10 million is definitely, a better question would you rather have a million dollars or 10 million subscribers? That's where it gets a little tricky because now it's like, hmm. You know, a million dollars, life-changing amount of money. But you know, if you semi knew what you're doing, you probably make a million dollars off a 10 million subscriber channel, but it is a little bit of risk.

• 1:23:25Lex Fridman?

  A million dollars might not be enough to to build a strong team because you don't know how to do it. So you might waste all of that money.

• 1:23:31Speaker 01

  Or they just keep it and retire. Yeah.

• 1:23:33Lex Fridman?

  OK, that's true.

• 1:23:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, because 10 million is just so high. It's like, just never work again. Who cares? For the average human, that's so much money.

• 1:23:39Lex Fridman?

  It's interesting to me also to the value of the subscriber versus the value of the dollar. I suppose how valuable is the subscriber for like, what percentage of the videos? Like, how active are the subscribers in watching the video? For you?

• 1:23:55Speaker 01

  That's hard. I don't know. I was actually thinking more about the subscriber to dollar. Like, if someone has 10 million subscribers, have they made 10 million dollars? I don't know why that that kind of popped in my head. It's an interesting thought.

• 1:24:08Lex Fridman?

  Do you ever, when you analyze videos, do you ever analyze videos like we've talked about offline of other videos across YouTube in general, just to understand trends, to understand social behavior?

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  All your, not all, but a lot of the questions are analytics-based.

• 1:24:22Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:23Speaker 01

  It's so funny.

• 1:24:23Lex Fridman?

  Because I love it. I mean, it's just a giant social experiment, right? Like what people like to watch, what people share. It's like a fascinating.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  So like I said before, what percentage of your audience do you think care about this kind of stuff? Like this deeply about YouTube analytics?

• 1:24:38Lex Fridman?

  I think a large amount care about curiosity and exploration of interesting ideas. So in that sense, yeah, this would this was fitted.

• 1:24:50Speaker 01

  I love it. This is funny. And this isn't me like trying to make, I love you. And I actually, I loved your Magnus one and even your Hikaru one was really good and a bunch of other ones. But I think we're getting to the point now where only analytics junkies would want to keep hearing more analytics talk. And the normie is probably like, they've had their dose of YouTube talk for the next three years. Maybe I'm wrong. Hey, comment if I'm wrong. I could be. I don't know your audience. See, this is where you would tell me, shut up. I know my audience, you dumbass.

• 1:25:19Lex Fridman?

  And I don't at all. I actually, I just follow the thread of curiosity. And I think there's just a lot of curious humans in the world. And to me, it's like.

• 1:25:30Lex Fridman?

  So the question about analytics is the question of basically stepping away, stepping outside of yourself and thinking, why the hell do I like TikTok so much? Why do I like Twitter so much? Why do I like YouTube so much? And getting, even if you're not a creator, getting an insight into that is really interesting. It's like, what? Because, because all these platforms are fundamentally changing the nature of content. People are reading books less, they're probably going to be watching movies less and less. They're probably going to be watching Netflix less and less. Do you ever think about the, the sort of the darker side of YouTube? And with shadow banning and censorship and all that kind of topics? Especially if you see it in other platforms like Twitter.

• 1:26:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:12Lex Fridman?

  That Elon recently highlighted the shadow banning that was happening. And in general, the censorship that was happening on those platforms. Do you think about the role of centralized control of which information is and or isn't made available through search and discovery?

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  I'll be honest, I never really think about it. So.

• 1:26:34Lex Fridman?

  You just, you just try to make fun videos that.

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm more, I'm kind of more in my own lane, but it's not like that. I don't just specifically think about, I just like a lot of stuff in general. Like I'm just kind of in my own lane, thinking about my own stuff. But you know, now that you asked, I'm curious, what are your thoughts on, on YouTube and that kind of stuff?

• 1:26:51Lex Fridman?

  Well, I'm generally against centralized censorship or shadow banning. Shadow banning is the worst one because not that the goal of creating a healthy platform where you're having great conversations and videos that are not spreading misinformation. That sounds like an admirable goal, but that's too difficult of a job for a centralized entity. That's too big of a.

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's the misinformation stuff. And then there's also just like the videos where they do something that causes, what happened back then? The, or adpocalypse, you know, and a lot of creators revenue plummets because people are, are doing videos that advertisers don't even acceptable. And then now all these big advertisers are pulling and the little guys are getting hit. And because ad rates dropped by 30% and the person who just quit his job to go full time content creation now can't sustain it. So it's also, it's like a lot of different variables as well. That makes it so complicated.

• 1:27:44Lex Fridman?

  Well, I think the big thing is transparency, especially around shadow banning for. For people.

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  I agree. On shadow banning, you should be transparent. You should let people know. You know, obviously, there has to be some type of controls. People can't just post whatever. And so if you're pulling those levers, they should at least know.

• 1:28:01Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. So they know how to improve their content. They can understand it. They can.

• 1:28:05Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:28:06Lex Fridman?

  If it's a wrong shadow banning, like as a society, that we should not shadow ban this kind of content. That means.

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:28:13Lex Fridman?

  You should be publicly discussing it and having.

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  Because if not, and if it's not known, then it's just kind of like, well, then who's pulling the strings? And like, yeah, how do we know they're not just manipulating things to get whatever message they want out there and silence other ones?

• 1:28:25Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, there could be sort of in the background, government influence, which is where actual freedom of speech comes into play, that government should not have any control or be able to put pressure on censorship of speech. And it gets weird if none of that is being, there's no transparency around it. That's a, but to be fair, that's a huge responsibility. The amount of content that YouTube is upload on YouTube is shared by YouTube, viewed by.

• 1:28:52Speaker 01

  But even more of a reason why it would probably make sense to be transparent.

• 1:28:56Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:56Speaker 01

  Because then people can help fact check it.

• 1:28:58Lex Fridman?

  That's right. But that requires building a platform that makes that easy, right? Like to make fact checking easy, to make the like Twitter now has like being able to share context and all that kind of stuff. That crowdsourced it. Crowdsourced it the way Wikipedia crowdsourced it. I mean, there's. It's right.

• 1:29:17Speaker 01

  And then you open a random Wikipedia article.

• 1:29:20Lex Fridman?

  But like, you know, people criticize Wikipedia because there is a political lean to the editors of Wikipedia. And then they get there's some articles that definitely have a bias to them and all that kind of stuff. It's a difficult problem. It's a difficult problem to solve that ultimately, as much as possible, it would be nice for the viewer to have control of that versus the. The entity that's hosting it. So for the viewer to decide.

• 1:29:43Speaker 01

  Figure that stuff out. I'm just gonna make fun.

• 1:29:45Lex Fridman?

  Cool videos, yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's go to Antarctica again.

• 1:29:49Lex Fridman?

  How was that? How was going? You just came back from Antarctica. That was, I watched the video. That was, that was fun. That was a really fun video.

• 1:29:56Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:29:58Lex Fridman?

  There's, I mean, there's a lot of things I can comment about that. But what was that? What was the hardest part of making that video?

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  The hardest part was just getting out there. It's just so remote. And, you know, you land the plane on just this ice runway and it's so sketchy. And then, once the plane takes off, you're just there. You're the most remote place on the planet. And it's, it's just, it's very breathtaking. I don't, if you have the chance to ever go to Antarctica, I would recommend it. It was probably like the, in the video, we climbed a mountain. That wasn't named, so we can name it. And like, standing on top of that mountain and just seeing, kind of like, nothing. And, because once you get outside the outskirts and you get deep in Antarctica, there's no penguins, nothing lives there at all. And so, there's just nothing in every direction. It's just snow and these crazy beautiful mountains.

• 1:30:47Speaker 01

  And some of them stick into the clouds. And it was, and if you go during summertime, the sun never goes down. So the sun's up 24/7 and it's just like spinning in circles at the top of the planet, or whatever, it looks like the top.

• 1:30:59Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, you guys commented several times how beautiful it was.

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so, it's just, yeah, it's just very beautiful.

• 1:31:04Lex Fridman?

  What about shooting itself? Like, the technical aspects of shooting it?

• 1:31:07Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, well, so, somehow we lucked out. One of the days was like the warmest day in like forever that's been in Antarctica. It's like, it was positive degrees. But at certain parts, it was also like negative 20, negative 30. And that's where the cameras, you constantly have to be switching out the batteries and heating them up and like putting them, basically in like your pants, or they'll just get way too cold. And we were prepared for much worse, but it ended up being much better than we thought.

• 1:31:32Lex Fridman?

  So for that video, but in general, maybe some other challenging videos, how does, how do you go from the idea stage to the actual execution to the final video? What's, can you take me through like a full process of, like, we're, we're talking about some crazy wild ideas today. How do you go from that to a final video where you click publish?

• 1:31:48Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, obviously, first things first, you gotta figure out the idea. And then, it just depends. I mean, pick any video you can think of on my channel. I can take you through it.

• 1:31:57Lex Fridman?

  Well, what about the in a circle? You have to stay in a circle for a hundred days?

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, so for that one, step one.

• 1:32:06Lex Fridman?

  One of the most popular.

• 1:32:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, that video did really well. So we, um, problem is, uh, we have to, this is where you get really into the nuances of the company because we have a lot of videos going out. You can't just in a vacuum be like, all right, we're not doing anything for a hundred days. We're only filming this. So step one is we had to build an independent crew that could actually do that for a hundred days. That way everyone else could keep working on the normal videos and not just screw everything up.

• 1:32:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:30Speaker 01

  So step one, you build that team. Okay, we got the team. Now, what do we need? Well, to do this, we need probably like 10 cameras, at least rolling at all times. So, uh, we're probably gonna need to get a trailer and hook up a bunch of storage and stuff to just carry the sheer volume of footage we're gonna have. And so get a trailer, set up the cameras, go on the field, paint a circle. Now we need a house, go buy a house, bring it out there. Uh, and then it's like, oh, wait, I think it'd be funny if I brought the house in on the intro. You know, find a crane that can lift up a house so I can drive it in and drop it in the intro.

• 1:33:02Lex Fridman?

  And that's like an iterative process where you're like, okay, this will be funnier. So it's not all upfront that you've written.

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, ideally it would be, but as you kind of see things, you get inspired and then you think of more and more.

• 1:33:12Lex Fridman?

  Uh, and then. This would be better with a crane.

• 1:33:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it'd be better if I dropped out of the house.

• 1:33:16Lex Fridman?

  Drop it, yeah. That was crazy that you decided to do that. Uh, so fearless in the kind of crazy stuff you're willing to do.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  Exactly. What, I'm a broken record, but whatever makes the best video possible.

• 1:33:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:27Speaker 01

  That's, that's all you, you focus on.

• 1:33:30Lex Fridman?

  Okay, so, uh, what about the delegation of like, who gets to? What are the cameramen, like the people operating the cameras? What, uh, who's responsible for different things? Is it like a distributed process?

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  Well, that's where whoever the lead cam would be on that video would just decide it. That one, because we shot over a hundred days, we didn't, a lot of it was just Sean and the guy who was in the circle just blogging. We just gave him a camera and, and he figured it out. And then we'd have like for him just set hours each day that a cameraman would come. So if he had any content, he needed extra hands instead of just having someone on standby 24/7. It made more sense to do set hours.

• 1:34:02Lex Fridman?

  Nice.

• 1:34:04Speaker 01

  Um, and, uh, yeah, it was, it was hard, but you know, explaining it in hindsight, it sounds so simple, you know?

• 1:34:11Lex Fridman?

  And I guess like the more, because that one is relatively simple, I guess, because it's a low number of people.

• 1:34:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, the hard part about that is just the time. Like, you know, I checked in on them so many different days and it's like an hour here, two hours there, three hours there. Over a hundred days adds up to be a ton of time. And, and even then, like, you know, if you have a 10 person crew, you know, paying them daily rates for a hundred days, it just all of it adds up.

• 1:34:35Lex Fridman?

  What about like the 100 versus 100, 100 adults versus 100 kids? What was, what was bringing that to life? That seems exceptionally challenging.

• 1:34:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. Basically, the thought process was we did 100 kids versus, or sorry, 100 boys versus 100 girls.

• 1:34:49Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:49Speaker 01

  People loved it. Honestly, I didn't think they'd like it as much as they did. Video did really, really well. So the second I saw that video was crushing, I was like, all right, we're doing it again. But last time we did it, we did in our studio. So we built a, a giant room, put 100 girls in it. It sounds bad when I explain it like this. And then a giant room, put 100 boys.

• 1:35:05Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:05Speaker 01

  And we're like, after 100 hours, whichever room has the most people, we'll give them half a million dollars. So did well. So we're like, all right, we're gonna do it again. So we threw out all these different ideas. It was like 100 football players versus 100 cheerleaders, 100 this, 100 that, 100 prisoners versus 100 cops. Just craziest ideas. And we settled on 100 kids versus 100 adults. And then the next step was like, how do we make it better? The kids versus adults are the, sorry, the boys versus girls, the first one we did was inside. The problem was every time it was night when we did these long time lapses, you couldn't see the sun go up and down. So we're like, okay, this time I want to do it outside. That's why the cubes are outside. And instead of doing circles, we want to make them cubes. And then, you know, just figure out, do we want that? Yeah, just just.

• 1:35:47Lex Fridman?

  Those videos came up at least today as ones that are like really complicated in terms of the audio, in terms of how it's filmed.

• 1:35:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the problem. We had a lot of audio issues because in the first one, we didn't have a roof on it. The second one, there was a roof, so there was a lot of reverb, which then in editing made it brutal. Like, half the shots weren't usable and it really screwed us over. So we had to do a lot of Frankenstein-ing in the editing to make up for basically my ignorance.

• 1:36:11Lex Fridman?

  So you mentioned that you were surprised how well that, that, that one did. A lot of creators talk about getting depressed when the videos don't do as well as they kind of expected. There's a kind of feeling. You can get really worn out by that.

• 1:36:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:28Lex Fridman?

  Do you yourself feel that? And also, do you have advice for others that feel this?

• 1:36:33Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, it's weird because I am a numbers guy, but also it it used to. It used to very much, especially when I was like betting everything I had on a video. When it did bad, that was devastating, man. I'd cry and I'd be depressed for days and it really would have a severe impact on my mood. But I don't know, now it doesn't really matter. It's a if a video does bad, I just look at it and I'm like, oh, why did this video do bad? Probably, oh, there's a little retention dip there. I don't think people like the thumbnail. Maybe we should switch it. And I just look at it objectively, unemotional, and then just move on. And I feel like that's a much healthier way of going about it. So if a creator is listening, like that is the ideal way to respond to a video that's doing bad.

• 1:37:14Speaker 01

  Just remove emotion from the equation and just look at it and figure out how you can improve the next one.

• 1:37:19Lex Fridman?

  Is there tricks to being able to detach yourself from the from that? Because because like in your case, I mean, that's true for creators, but in your case, there's there's like a lot of money on the line.

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:31Lex Fridman?

  These videos cost a lot of money.

• 1:37:32Speaker 01

  Months of my life and so much time. But no, I mean, you just, I mean, I don't know. The only real answer is it's just a conscious effort. You just have to unemotionally look at the video, determine the problems and then move on. Like, there is no secret. You know what I mean? It's just that's it's that. And if you really can't bring yourself to do it, then you're just screwed. Honestly, maybe you're not meant for this game.

• 1:37:51Lex Fridman?

  OK, so that's part of the development as a creator is like you being able to be.

• 1:37:55Speaker 01

  For longevity? Yes, yeah. You have to unemotionally be able to look at videos that flop and figure it out. Because if not, just you can't. And not every video can be a one out of 10. And so when a video does bad, you know, that that just stress and depression is just going to eventually get to you in the long run.

• 1:38:10Lex Fridman?

  So you said you've failed in a bunch of videos, sort of taking them to completion. So what are some of the biggest fails?

• 1:38:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, weirdly enough, as we've matured and we've done this more, we don't have that problem as much, especially now that we're getting into multi-million dollar budgets per video. It's like failure is not really an option anymore. So I'm a little more particular about what I do. But back in the day, yeah, like we would do a video where we spent 24 hours on a deserted island. And we filmed it, did it all. And I just, I didn't like it after the edit. So I just grabbed the boys and we went back to the deserted island and spent another 24 hours there and refilmed it. Or

• 1:38:48Lex Fridman?

  Could they have been caught and prevented at the idea stage? Like where?

• 1:38:52Speaker 01

  No, it's a good idea. It was just poor execution. To be honest, when we were out there, it was hot. We were, we're just like, we all, at one point, just kind of wanted to die. It was just miserable.

• 1:39:00Lex Fridman?

  So how do, how do you avoid that these days?

• 1:39:03Speaker 01

  Well, I just went when it was a little cooler, to be honest. And then we had, literally, the amount of fun we had in the video was like 10 times higher.

• 1:39:09Lex Fridman?

  Interesting. So you, like, there's some practical details that you just learned.

• 1:39:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, videos that where it's very hot or, or it's on water, because I get super seasick. There's like a, kind of like 10 things that if they have these variables, I'm down to do it. But my fun meter is not as high as normal.

• 1:39:29Speaker 01

  Like, we tried to, anytime we do anything on a boat, like when we spent 24 hours in Bermuda Triangle, or when I tried to spend like, which didn't get uploaded, but I tried to spend like 100 hours at sea or whatever, just like on a raft. It's just like, it makes me want to throw up and I get so seasick, I can't even see straight. But there are just some videos that require me to be on a boat. So I just suck it up.

• 1:39:50Lex Fridman?

  So when you spend months in creating a video, I know this is probably stressful to some creators.

• 1:39:56Lex Fridman?

  Like, how much stress, how do you feel when you have to click publish?

• 1:40:00Speaker 01

  Video? Now, not much.

• 1:40:02Lex Fridman?

  You're able to detach yourself?

• 1:40:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Again, in old me, tons. I'd be like scratching and nervous and like my hands would be sweating. Like to the point where I'm almost about to puke. I'm like, I really hope people like this. But, you know, I don't know. I think that's just part of maturing it. There's different, and as a content creator, there's different phases. And you just like, once you get over the, the fear that you're just going to wake up one day and be irrelevant, you know? And you just, you know, accept that, like, you believe in yourself and you believe in your content and that you can continue to be relevant. Then you don't, I don't know, you kind of, it's a little bit easier to detach yourself, I guess. And that's, it's a much healthier place to be. You can't do this for 10 years if every little thing just causes these huge emotional reactions. It's like, that's why a lot of creators go a little,

• 1:40:48Speaker 01

  you know, mentally insane. You have to get out of that, that game, right? Because it really messes with you.

• 1:40:54Lex Fridman?

  We've talked about this a little bit, but how do you define and how do you suggest others define success?

• 1:41:00Speaker 01

  It's so subjective. Some, some people's success is retiring their mom. Literally, you know, for you, success is inspiring people and educating them and, you know, whatever, the peak of their curiosity. For other people, it's just quitting their job.

• 1:41:15Lex Fridman?

  So you have to self-reflect on what your definition of success is. Cause I think a lot of creators kinda don't really think, don't introspect. Like, they kinda wanna keep getting more and more subscribers kinda thing.

• 1:41:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, but subscribers is just a vanity metric, you know? It doesn't, subscribers don't correlate to views.

• 1:41:36Lex Fridman?

  Sure, or views, what?

• 1:41:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, but that's more, that was a direct to you. That was more directed to people listening, because a lot of people do really care about subscribers or even followers, like on TikTok. But if you look, like, your view, if, on YouTube, very, very few percent, if even a percent of your views come from the subfeed, right? They're almost all home feed or suggested. When's the last time you clicked on your subfeed to watch a video?

• 1:41:57Lex Fridman?

  Oh, almost never, yeah.

• 1:41:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe five years ago. It used to be a thing. It's not anymore. No one does. And it's getting harder and harder to find.

• 1:42:04Lex Fridman?

  I subscribe to way too many channels, I think.

• 1:42:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what everyone does. And you subscribe to 10 channels, they're great, but two years later, your taste evolves and it's like, it's a mess. And so, subscribers don't really matter. Followers on TikTok don't really matter. So anyways, it really, they really are the definition of a vanity metric.

• 1:42:23Lex Fridman?

  And, but what about views?

• 1:42:25Speaker 01

  They do, obviously, because if people are showing up time and time again, that's what matters. Okay.

• 1:42:29Lex Fridman?

  So that, that's a good thing to define a success. I just feel like that too can be a problem. Cause uh,

• 1:42:41Lex Fridman?

  I would say, you know, if I wanted to be successful, like as a young creator, I might start copying Mr. Beast or something like that, right? Like there's, you start trying to take shortcuts as opposed to find your own unique voice, right? So like chasing views is a problem too, it feels like, or no? As long as you detach yourself from that.

• 1:43:01Speaker 01

  I mean, if you're, it sounds like if you're lazy, yeah. And you just want to copy someone else and not experiment and find your own way. But I mean, you can't make that excuse for them. If someone just isn't coming up with the original stuff and putting in the effort, you can't just say, oh, it's because they're chasing views. We need some different metric for them to chase. No, they just need to find their own way.

• 1:43:21Lex Fridman?

  It just feels like unique type of content will often lead to sacrificing the number of views in the short term.

• 1:43:28Speaker 01

  But in the long term, you win.

• 1:43:31Lex Fridman?

  Okay.

• 1:43:31Speaker 01

  Or if you do win, you win more, I guess would be a better way of putting it.

• 1:43:36Lex Fridman?

  Do you think you will IPO Mr. Beast Burger or Feastables in the next five, 10 years?

• 1:43:41Speaker 01

  Beast Burger or Feastables? No, I kind of think there, so actually, you know what? I just realized this is our first time talking about those. We're like an hour and a half in, that's so funny.

• 1:43:51Lex Fridman?

  We started talking about what?

• 1:43:54Speaker 01

  My retention brain kicked in.

• 1:43:58Lex Fridman?

  I wonder if you have retention brain for like life itself?

• 1:44:01Speaker 01

  I do. Every time I'm talking to someone, I can, I'm like, okay.

• 1:44:05Lex Fridman?

  What about like loved ones? Like spending time with loved ones, thinking like, we could be doing something much better right now.

• 1:44:11Speaker 01

  Yes, no, that is a serious problem with, well, so we'll pause the Beast Burger question, yes. But that's why my current girlfriend, which I was telling you before, when we were talking about this, is she has a genuine love for learning. And that's something I have. Like I always feel like I need to be learning something to justify the time I'm spending. And so that's why it's such a nice trait, because I feel like the time is being used optimally, because whether we're watching a documentary or we're going and, you know, taking IQ tests or reading about whatever, just why modern art is a thing. I don't know, whatever weird thing we decide to do. I'm always learning and improving, so it justifies the time.

• 1:44:49Lex Fridman?

  So to maximize retention in your relationship.

• 1:44:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:52Lex Fridman?

  You want to spend time, that time learning as much as possible.

• 1:44:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, which conveniently I don't have to force, right?

• 1:44:58Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 1:44:59Speaker 01

  Or I want to be recharging. So when I do work, I can hit the ground harder. And luckily, we're into a lot of the same things, which happen to be learning. Sometimes it's not learning, like maybe watching an anime or something like that. But I'm a big believer in you're either, if you, well, if you, if your goal is to be like a super successful entrepreneur, you need to either be working or you need to be doing something that decompresses and recharges you so you can work again. If your goal is to be like a really kick ass entrepreneur, and obviously we're boiling this down to like a very basic thing. And so the, the things you're doing in your downtime, when you're not working, if it doesn't recharge you, you're screwed. You're just a ticking time bomb waiting to implode.

• 1:45:39Speaker 01

  And so you gotta like heavily recharge and like, so like watching for me anime or whatever it is, playing a board game, like that is actually kind of crucial to my success, which takes a lot of maturing to come to that conclusion because I used to be the kind of guy that wanted to work every hour of the day. And I would try to train myself to not need that stuff. And I, you know, and I almost resented like that. I have to do these kinds of things and it would piss me off because it's not optimal. And, you know, I just really want to make content and entertain people. But as someone who's gone down that road and, you know, you just work every day for two, three months straight and every hour of the day. And then you're just a bomb waiting to explode and lose your mind.

• 1:46:21Speaker 01

  And the only real sustainable thing is to just like give yourself time to recharge in between working.

• 1:46:27Lex Fridman?

  So there's a kind of balance you have to find.

• 1:46:30Speaker 01

  You have to even, and I hate it more than anyone else because I, you know.

• 1:46:34Lex Fridman?

  You hate not working.

• 1:46:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it's just not optimal for time. Like it's, it's, it's, as a human, I do need to occasionally watch a mindless show and play a board game. And it took me a very long time to like come to peace with that and not, I would have like borderline panic attacks when I do it because I think I just, what am I doing right now? Why am I doing this? I should be, you know, like, what if one day I have to lay off an employee because we're not doing so well? Like, how could I justify watching this, this show or whatever I'm doing right now? You know, it's like, there's a lot of things like that that go on in your head, but it's necessary.

• 1:47:09Lex Fridman?

  Before we return to Mr. Beast Burger, well, what is like, since we're on the topic, what is a perfect day in the life, perfectly productive day in the life of Mr. Beast look like?

• 1:47:21Speaker 01

  Oh, boy. Well, I mean,

• 1:47:23Lex Fridman?

  or like a standard.

• 1:47:24Speaker 01

  I mean, the perfectly productive day is we film a main channel video. Because those get 100 million a pop. I mean, it doesn't really get any better than that.

• 1:47:31Lex Fridman?

  What about like the average day when you're not on the set?

• 1:47:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:34Lex Fridman?

  And you're like, because you're running a lot of things, right?

• 1:47:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. So right now, we have our snack brand Feastables. We have a restaurant chain, Beast Burger. And then we basically, which we haven't even really launched any products yet, but we have the data company that I was showing you, where we're going to roll out some tools for creators. And then we have the React channel, the gaming channel, the main channel, and then we have my charity, which also has a channel.

• 1:47:57Speaker 01

  And so kind of how I've structured my life right now is whatever I have free time, we just kind of go, hey, guys, Jimmy's got an hour from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM. And everyone's just like, I need this. I need this. And this channel's like, I need this thing filmed. Or, you know, whatever, the guy who runs my TikTok is like, I need this TikTok filmed. Or, you know, Beast Burger is like, I need this menu item approved. We need to talk about this marketing thing. And then we kind of just look at what everyone needs and we're like, that one looks like the most important. We'll do that. And then so it's just kind of like, you know, if I just did that for every company in a day, then that's optimal. If I just kind of like, an optimal day for me would be going down the eight companies and just whatever their like two to three biggest pain points or things they need from me and just doing those.

• 1:48:39Lex Fridman?

  Based on priority and then trying to keep it as short as possible.

• 1:48:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:43Lex Fridman?

  To just the things that you're needed on.

• 1:48:45Speaker 01

  It doesn't get more optimal than that. If I clear the bottlenecks or some bottlenecks for all my companies, then it's, yes, that's a perfect day.

• 1:48:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. I mean, even just me, because you're like, you're showing me around and you're being a great and gracious host. But on top of that, you're just doing all these meetings. You basically.

• 1:49:01Speaker 01

  I felt bad at some points. I was like, oh, I just tricked him into going to meetings with me. He's like my little meeting buddy.

• 1:49:06Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. I mean, it was, it was fun. It's fun to see. It was fun to see how effectively you've delegated. You basically trust the team to do a really good job on the various things. And there's just a strong team that's able to. Carry the flag on all the different tasks.

• 1:49:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:23Lex Fridman?

  From the brainstorming and the main channel to the reacts and so on. Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, it's really interesting what it takes to build a team like that. Cause you very quickly build a very large team that's able to scale.

• 1:49:35Speaker 01

  Which is very scary. This is my first, you know, I'm 24, you know, and I think I was telling you this earlier. It's funny because six years ago I had to raise my hand to go use the bathroom. And now I'm in charge of hundreds of people and entertain hundreds of millions of people. And so it is crazy just how quick it comes up. And I wish I was a little bit older so I could have ran a couple of companies and failed a few companies in the past. And like learn from those and apply those here. Cause I know for a fact when I'm 34, I'm 24 now, when I'm 34, I'll know so much more about running a business and scaling and hiring. And how to lead people and better effectively communicate and all these different skillsets that will make me a better leader. That that's the only thing that sucks is I just don't have those because I just haven't been through the lessons.

• 1:50:19Speaker 01

  And I just have such a lucrative thing on my plate right now. And it just sucks that I have to learn the lessons with the lucrative thing. You know what I mean?

• 1:50:26Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, because you already have so much influence, so much impact. But you have effectively scaled. What lessons do you draw from that how to effectively scale as a 24 year old?

• 1:50:37Speaker 01

  Like you. Yeah, that's something I feel like I actually could give a lot of value to, to young people who are doing it. Like older people who've built five companies or whatever they do. I probably couldn't, you know, they're going to be like, oh, this is so obvious. But for younger first time business owners, you gotta just experiment, to be honest. And so for us, like it's just a new space. No one had really ever scaled up 100 person team to build, make content on YouTube. So there wasn't no, I spent all this time, like I hired one person from Disney to, at one point to come in and help. And obviously that was a dumb idea looking back on it. But, you know, I thought, oh, they make great stuff. People want to watch and they come over here and help me build a team. And, you know, they build it more of the traditional way and not like how it should be online.

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  And so then it's like, okay. And now I'm not trying to trash people like they all tried their best. But then I try, hire this one person who does this different type of media and runs a hundred person team. And then you come in here and they try to build it that way. And they don't really listen to you or value or see the difference. And I tried basically for building this company with like four or five different people who worked in different veins of media.

• 1:51:48Speaker 01

  You know, every single time, it's just like, they just don't get it and they like, they don't understand my world. And the eventual solution was just like, draw up my sleeves and do it myself, you know, with like James or a hitman and just like, no, no one's ever done this and like, no one's gonna just give us a golden carrot and tell us how to build this company. We gotta figure it the fuck out ourselves.

• 1:52:06Lex Fridman?

  And you have to kind of build up people from scratch then?

• 1:52:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. All the stuff I was talking about earlier and all the lessons I learned along the way. And so for me, that was a big part of like, stop trying to have someone build this company for me and just do it myself. Cause it's scary. Like I spent my whole life studying YouTube videos of virality, not business building. But fuck it. I was like, I guess we just gotta do it ourselves. And, and that's where things really start to click. And we got the exponential growth. We started getting the right people and training them the right way. And, you know, just throwing conventional stuff out the door and focusing on what's actually practical for YouTube, which is just completely different than traditional media.

• 1:52:43Lex Fridman?

  So you train people and then those people train people and then, and so on?

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's just even like, you know, how you do the lighting on sets or like how you do the audio or, or, um, you know, not writing scripts. So, you know, we're just not as efficient with our filming. Like, sometimes I have to have 30 cameras running. Why? Because it's not scripted. I don't, I don't know what Chris is gonna do when we start filming. He might run over there. But guess what? We gotta have a plan because there's only one shot. I can't, you know, tell him not to do that.

• 1:53:11Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, that's the shooting, but then there's also the editing.

• 1:53:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then the editing as well and not having guardrails and kind of, you know, at the end of the day, it's whatever I want. The video, their job is to make a video that they think I'll like, because it's my channel. But, you know, you can achieve that kind of however. And so it's just, everything's just different. You know, it's much more, I guess, like a startup as opposed to.

• 1:53:32Lex Fridman?

  Are you often surprised, like with the result? Like, you think a certain, like we watched the video today, those really nice, those different than you would have potentially edited?

• 1:53:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:42Lex Fridman?

  Are you sometimes surprised by like a decision editor makes? Like, okay, that's not the way I would have done it, but it's actually, this is a cool idea.

• 1:53:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. Yeah. The, um, the thing, my biggest fear is I don't ever want to get trapped in like a bubble of, you know, because we are getting 100 million views of video on the main channel. Like, but I don't want to get in this feedback loop of just, my ideas are great, or, or not feedback loop, but stop learning and improving. Cause it is easy sometimes to be like, what we're doing is working. We need to just keep doing it. I want to keep learning and trying new things and. I guess one way I'd put it is like, you don't, when you're on a come up or you're growing, you don't want to test new things. Once you start to plateau or have a downtrend, because if you're like, you know, you're skyrocketing, right? You're up, up, up, and then you level off, you start to go down and you're like, oh, this isn't working anymore.

• 1:54:35Speaker 01

  Let's start experimenting. Well, if you have a bad experiment, now you're in like a tailspin, you're nose diving and you have one more bad experiment, you're like screwed, kind of. I'm oversimplifying. You want to test things while you're still growing to keep the growing from happening. Because once you like have, you know, again, very oversimplifying that like, you know, kind of level off, you do a couple of tests, they go wrong. In my, you're like screwed, you know what I mean? You're already out the door. Now you're just confirming that you're out the door and online entertainment. So that's kind of how I see it. So I think it's very imperative that you're constantly always experimenting and trying things, even if you're getting crazy unheard of growth.

• 1:55:09Lex Fridman?

  And so that outside of the thing that brought you to the dance, you just dived right into Mr. Beast Burger and Feastables. This is a whole nother industry. Like, what was that like?

• 1:55:21Speaker 01

  Well, so Beast Burger, we kind of, it was supposed to be like just a pop up. Like, we just partnered with someone who had 300 restaurants and we were just like, you know, um, let's, let's just sell Beast Burgers for a day or two. Let's, let's see what happens. We didn't really think it would be as big as it was, but those first, like that first day, you know, we do six figures in sales and they all sell out and they're running to local Walmarts. They can't keep up with the demand. And it's like, okay, well, maybe let's just leave it open a week, whatever. And we're just doing crazy revenue. And it's like, okay, well, let's add some more restaurants and let's just leave them open for a month. And we're just still doing six figures a day. And it kind of just went from this thing that was, I don't know, it wasn't really, I didn't really plan on running a restaurant

• 1:56:05Speaker 01

  chain, but here I am.

• 1:56:07Lex Fridman?

  But didn't that in some sense also open your mind to something like Feastables?

• 1:56:12Speaker 01

  Feastables is something I've always wanted to do because I think just in general, American snacks are just full of so much. Horrible ingredients, to be honest, and they're not, I don't know. I feel like there also just hasn't been any innovation in American snacks in quite a while. And so that's just something I've always been pretty passionate about. The thing, we built that from scratch. So we hired the CEO and built the team around them. And we, we spent probably over two and a half years before we even launched, just like building the right team, figuring things out and making sure it was actually ran the way I wanted. Which Feastables has just been crushing. It's, it's very interesting. This is something I've never talked about publicly, but having products in retail, it's like before Feastables, everything I had done was online.

• 1:56:56Speaker 01

  So if you wanted to, you know, anything for the quote, quote, peace brand, you'd have to buy it online and ship it to you. But Feastables, now that, you know, because our first product, chocolate bars, we started putting that in retail locations. So like, for example, Walmart, it's, it's crazy. Like, it's just, it doesn't make sense how, if you're, which I guess it does for, because we get 100 million views of videos. So a lot of people know us. If I go stand in Walmart, those people recognize me and ask for photos. Like, if I stood there long enough, I could take 150 photos today in Walmart, 200, whatever it is. So obviously it makes sense those people go find Feastables. But then you just multiply that by every Walmart in America and it just gets so crazy. And I didn't think we'd be doing the kind of revenue we are. And we're about to launch in some other, I don't know if I'm allowed to say it, so whatever.

• 1:57:41Speaker 01

  But other big retail, you know, locations and convenience stores. And like by the end of next year, we could be in like 40, 50,000 locations. And the numbers just don't make sense.

• 1:57:52Lex Fridman?

  What are some interesting challenges about scaling there that surprised you?

• 1:57:56Speaker 01

  The biggest problem, which I didn't think would be, was just keeping the shelves in Walmart stock, to be honest. Like it.

• 1:58:02Lex Fridman?

  So that supply, the supply chain.

• 1:58:03Speaker 01

  It was brutal. Well, even then, sometimes like, you know, you get them the stuff and they're like, it takes them like a day or two to put it out in that specific location. And I, I had to stop promoting it because every time I'd mention it, like 40% of people would just be like, it's not there, it's not in Walmart, or I can't buy it. And so there's like a. Three ish month period where I just didn't promote feastables because I was scared that someone would go buy it and this is not there. And so like, it took us a very long time to catch up to the demand. And also, it's not like we have unlimited money. So I, but now we're relatively caught up in keeping up. But it's gonna be interesting because now this

• 1:58:43Speaker 01

  year in 2023, we're gonna basically, you know, 10x the amount of locations we're in. So we're, and we're gonna try to launch new products. So we're in for an interesting ride. But yeah, I just hate, I hate when I tell people, you know, like, hey, go try this product. And then they go in their local Walmart and eventually other places and it's not there. It's just so brutal, you know? They made that whole journey out there and they couldn't get it. And so that was really it. Besides that, nuts, it's been doing way better than I ever thought.

• 1:59:15Lex Fridman?

  You've talked to a couple of places about maybe doing mobile games or computer games in the future.

• 1:59:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:21Lex Fridman?

  Is that something you're still considering?

• 1:59:23Speaker 01

  Yes. Because, do you normally talk with people as much as we talked beforehand?

• 1:59:30Lex Fridman?

  No, no, that was the problem. We spent all day today.

• 1:59:34Speaker 01

  I just looked in my head, everything you asked me is stuff we already talked about.

• 1:59:38Lex Fridman?

  Not really.

• 1:59:38Speaker 01

  Well, no, no, not everything. I take it back. But sorry, the last two questions. Yes. And so it's just funny because.

• 1:59:45Lex Fridman?

  What? No, I try. It's okay. There's a, there's a different style of asking those questions. Because I on purpose didn't dig further with you.

• 1:59:52Speaker 01

  I could tell. Yeah.

• 1:59:54Lex Fridman?

  Okay, this is, by the way, okay. All right. Well, this is the first time I've ever talked to somebody as much as I did with you beforehand.

• 2:00:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:07Lex Fridman?

  On the same day.

• 2:00:09Speaker 01

  Not even same day.

• 2:00:10Lex Fridman?

  All day together.

• 2:00:10Speaker 01

  We're talking like three hours ago.

• 2:00:11Lex Fridman?

  One hour.

• 2:00:14Speaker 01

  Literally, it's funny.

• 2:00:15Lex Fridman?

  This is a hilarious and awesome social experiment.

• 2:00:18Speaker 01

  I picked him up from his hotel and I just like harassed him all day to hang out with me.

• 2:00:23Lex Fridman?

  It's great.

• 2:00:23Speaker 01

  And then here we are now.

• 2:00:24Lex Fridman?

  I love it. I was secretly recording the whole time, just so you know, I'm just kidding. Anyway, so what was the question? The mobile games?

• 2:00:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the interesting thing is with Beast Burger and Feastables, that there's physical goods as opposed to like making mobile games or PC game, whichever one we end up doing, which is software. And I actually have a giant international audience. Like, most of my audience is obviously outside of America. And so the problem we're running into is it just takes time to build up the supply chain and get Feastables in Southeast Asia, get Feastables in India, get Feastables in Brazil and Mexico and all these other places where we have giant pockets of our audience. And same thing with Beast Burger, it's just, it's gonna take probably years, unless we partner with someone who already has the distribution, which we're figuring out. But the beauty of software is I can make a hypothetical game or whatever we end up doing

• 2:01:14Speaker 01

  and all my fans can, you know, use it tomorrow, the day I mention it. And so if I promote something in a video to 100 million people and it's like a, you know, basically like a game, they can all download it. So they're, you know, but if I promote a Feastables bar, right now it's only in America because we're, we're struggling just to keep up with the American demand. We haven't even gotten the chance to go outside of America. So I alienate a majority of my audience and it feels so shitty to just, you know, mention something that most of them can't buy. But on the flip side, you can't just spawn this crazy infrastructure and just have tens of millions of bars and all your products in every single store across the world before you promote it. So you can't put the egg before the chicken. And so it's like, that's, that's what I'm excited about.

• 2:01:59Speaker 01

  I want to get into less physical stuff and more stuff that everyone in my audience can actually use. This is the thought process.

• 2:02:05Lex Fridman?

  Especially if there's a social element to the gaming too. Because it's not, unlike Feastables, like that's a product you consume.

• 2:02:10Speaker 01

  You missed it. When you're setting up for this, we were doing some, basically just laying out everything that we're planning for. So we're in the phases where we want to start hiring the team to build it and we're kind of just laying out the game. And I was actually really curious to get your thoughts, but I can't say it. Because whatever I say, someone's just gonna take it and run with it. But I have a pretty good idea.

• 2:02:29Lex Fridman?

  About the kind of games you're thinking about? Yeah, I mean, I can imagine. We also talked a little bit about it. It's super awesome.

• 2:02:34Speaker 01

  So much good ones.

• 2:02:35Lex Fridman?

  I did.

• 2:02:36Speaker 01

  So much good talks. I heard the juicy talks happened here. She's like, I gotta go set up.

• 2:02:39Lex Fridman?

  Well, you know, I already heard a lot of awesome stuff. I mean, but that is a different kind of team you would need to hire.

• 2:02:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:46Lex Fridman?

  Is that a little nerve wracking, like going into a new field and trying to?

• 2:02:52Speaker 01

  A little bit, but then I remind myself, like, like Steve Jobs didn't know how to code, right? And, you know, he just, he just knew what a good product was. And I feel like as someone who wasted so much of his life playing video games, I have a good sense of it. And that might be ignorance.

• 2:03:03Lex Fridman?

  Well, that's really important, right? It's not about coding, it's about what makes for a good game.

• 2:03:07Speaker 01

  Exactly. And again, that might genuinely be ignorance. And maybe I end up, you know, getting bit in the butt because of what I'm saying now. But I think, just like with YouTube, I just want to obsess over making a great product and things that I think my audience will love. And I think as long as I keep that as my North Star, it will do well.

• 2:03:24Lex Fridman?

  What does the path to being worth 100 billion look like?

• 2:03:28Speaker 01

  What does a path to being worth 100 billion look like? I don't know.

• 2:03:31Lex Fridman?

  Okay, okay, let me just like pause. You're 24 and there's so much awesome scaling, so many great ideas. Do you think about different trajectories?

• 2:03:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:41Lex Fridman?

  What those possible trajectories might look like?

• 2:03:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, if the goal was to just be worth 100 billion dollars, yes. I mean, my goal, I'm a broken record, to make the best video possible because I know whatever else I want will come, obviously.

• 2:03:56Lex Fridman?

  The video is the foundation.

• 2:03:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So to path to 100 billion dollars is keep getting 100 million views of video. You know what I mean? But

• 2:04:03Lex Fridman?

  Or more.

• 2:04:03Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, or more. Exactly. If we can keep growing. But, you know, if we can keep feasible growing, right? And we eventually expand international and one day we're in 100,000 retail locations and we're selling the same amount of SKUs or units per SKUs like we're currently doing. I mean, that would crush. And then obviously, ideally, one day we open up hundreds of Beast Burgers, we get it where we churn out, you know, like super sell a couple hit games. I don't want to make dozens or hundreds of games. I just want to make games that are just great. And, you know, we rarely drop them, but we do, they're bangers. And just, you know, whatever other stuff we end up doing, all that combined. I mean, it's just interesting because like, what, what's a show that's pulled 100 million views per episode, basically, like, like we're doing? Like, you know, I mean, like

• 2:04:48Speaker 01

  the Super Bowl gets praised because they get 100 million viewers, but I can't think of a show. Um, maybe it reruns or something.

• 2:04:54Lex Fridman?

  But it's also a show that's has a singular kind of figure.

• 2:04:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:59Lex Fridman?

  That you can now use as a.

• 2:05:01Speaker 01

  Like, I don't have a network tell me what to do. I don't have anyone. Like, I can do whatever I want. So it's a very interesting position because I put out content and 100 million people show up. And then I also have a gaming channel. I put out content and 15 million people show up. And every action, I put out content and 10 million people show up. I have a TikTok and I put out content and on average, 20 million people show up. And like, and I, so as long as I can keep that going and then we build these businesses. It's like, it's honestly pretty scary to see what will happen, you know, uh, over the years. Because Feastables launched, you know, last year, 2022, so it's a relatively new thing. And Beastburger, we just started scaling up the physical side and we haven't, obviously, even launched any mobile games yet. So I think I'm at the antithesis of it. I don't see a world where my YouTube channel is irrelevant in the next couple of years. I just, this is what I live for.

• 2:05:44Speaker 01

  And so if I can keep that going and then really start to expand these businesses that leverage off of it, then, yeah, I mean. Hopefully, there's the day where I can give away a billion dollars in a video, honestly.

• 2:05:55Lex Fridman?

  That, that, yeah, that would be one hell of a video. Let me ask you the ridiculous question, since you went from being broke to being, uh, rich, although you keep, uh, spending all your money.

• 2:06:09Lex Fridman?

  Does money buy happiness? How has money changed sort of your, your content and your happiness in life?

• 2:06:18Speaker 01

  It's money by happiness. Um, no, not, I mean, to a point, yes. Once you can take care of your health, you can take care of like any immediate dangers and you can take care of your family relatively. No, it doesn't. Like, but those things do. Like, when I first came into money, one of the first things I did was retire my mom. And like, that brought me tons of happiness, you know what I mean? And like, you know, if my brother had a medical emergency and, and we couldn't afford it and I made money to afford it, that'd bring tons of happiness, you know? So once you take care of those basic necessities, so we'll say makeover hypothetically a million dollars. No, it, it, it really doesn't. Like, adding an extra zero, going from 10 million to 100 million, or whatever it is, makes no difference.

• 2:06:56Lex Fridman?

  So you're given that or just fearless in spending the money?

• 2:07:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, let me reframe. I guess it could for some people if if you really, I don't know, you spent your whole life obsessing over cars, it probably would bring you a little bit of joy to buy a nice Lamborghini. I I'm coming more from the frame of mind of of an entrepreneur, someone who's really obsessed with business building. For me and a lot of my friends and people I hang around, what brings us happiness is winning and building companies and do, you know, changing the world like that. That is fun. It's a complex problem. You can wake up every day and it gives you something to obsess over and devote your life to. Where it's just having money doesn't, you know?

• 2:07:31Lex Fridman?

  Well, one interesting question I have for you psychologically. So because you have become wealthy and because you give like part of your work is giving away a lot of money. Do you find it hard to find people you can trust?

• 2:07:45Speaker 01

  Good question.

• 2:07:46Lex Fridman?

  Do do do people see you basically as a source of money as opposed to another human being?

• 2:07:50Speaker 01

  It's weird because you would think yes, but I I feel like I also know the right places to look. But yeah, if I just walked into Target and tried to make friends with 10 random people, of course, you gotta.

• 2:08:05Lex Fridman?

  So you can kind of sense.

• 2:08:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:08:06Lex Fridman?

  Who has the right thing in their heart?

• 2:08:09Speaker 01

  The yeah, it's so obvious. So I don't even want to go into descriptions, but but honestly, a lot of my friends are like Chandler, I I played Little League with him. And Tyler, the guy, I mean, I went to school with him. Chris, he was my first subscriber. Carl was here after we got big, but whatever. He's friends with the boys and it is a lot of my closer friends, even like my YouTube friends I I knew before I was big. So maybe there is some merit to that. Maybe it is. I don't know. I've never really put too much thought into it. And maybe there's a reason I hang around a lot of these people I knew before I got big because it's much easier.

• 2:08:47Lex Fridman?

  And they help you keep like your radar sharp of who can and can't be trusted because you know you can trust them. It's difficult when you become richer and richer and more powerful.

• 2:08:57Speaker 01

  Well, one thing you'll also find when you get rich, not even richer, but more famous. One thing I thought is as I climbed this like ladder of YouTube and got bigger, I thought there would be tons of people like me, people. Like that takes like the kamikaze approach to building a business. You just throw all your money in it. You throw all your time. You throw all your energy. You throw everything. You're just like, fuck it. It's this or I'm dead.

• 2:09:18Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:18Speaker 01

  I thought there would be hundreds of me.

• 2:09:20Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:20Speaker 01

  And

• 2:09:21Lex Fridman?

  And there isn't.

• 2:09:21Speaker 01

  There isn't. I mean, there's like maybe one or two. And I talk to those motherfuckers every single day. I'm sick and tired of talking to them, but I love them. But it's just so interesting because like every level I got up, like I get a million subscribers. I'd be like, all right, where's all these guys in the million subscribers that are fucking psychopaths? And then you don't, you know,

• 2:09:39Lex Fridman?

  People become like conservative as they get, they get more.

• 2:09:43Speaker 01

  Especially as they get bigger. Yeah. And, you know, 20 million subscribers, 30, it's like every step of the way, it's like, I just got more and more lonely, to be honest. So did you, you know, it sounds cliche and you hear that kind of shit in movies and you're like, oh, that's not how it works. But it is like, there's, there's just not many people that just want to give up everything, go all in, then obsess over making the greatest goddamn videos every single day of their life. Like they're really hard to find.

• 2:10:07Lex Fridman?

  And be able to sacrifice everything for that video.

• 2:10:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:11Lex Fridman?

  Like basically you put all the money right back in.

• 2:10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Or the people doing it, they're on just a small scale. And if I talk to them, it's just 99.9% of the time I'm teaching them things and it's like,

• 2:10:21Lex Fridman?

  So it's lonely because there's not too many people, especially in the creative space that are as crazy as you.

• 2:10:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. 100%. It's, it's so, it's not what I was expecting. I was expecting there'd be a lot of people like me, but.

• 2:10:34Lex Fridman?

  Well, I guess the guy we talked to Elon Musk is a bit like you in that sense.

• 2:10:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:38Lex Fridman?

  In a different domain.

• 2:10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:10:41Lex Fridman?

  Just willingness to put it all back in.

• 2:10:43Speaker 01

  And that's why I've found right now, a lot of the people I relate to don't even make YouTube videos. Like such as like I'm veering more and more away from fellow content creators and more to just, you know, I'm just looking for those other people who just share a little bit of it. So I don't feel so fucking crazy all the time. Like, you know what I mean? And like people I feel normal around, they tend to just be doing the randomest things, but you know, loving it.

• 2:11:06Lex Fridman?

  Well, I think that's really inspiring. It's, uh, it's like the Bukowski line, find what you love and let it kill you. It's really put everything.

• 2:11:16Lex Fridman?

  Put everything into the thing you love. And that that's like the way to really create special stuff, but it's also the way to

• 2:11:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:21Lex Fridman?

  Live out your life.

• 2:11:23Speaker 01

  You have to be careful giving this advice because they're like, they're like bodybuilders. So it'll be like, just go to the gym, be disciplined. I'm disciplined, go to gym. But I would argue for those people, it's like, it's not even discipline. They just enjoy weightlifting, right? Cause there are people who are jacked, but they don't make much money or run a business. Right? If they're that disciplined, they would, they would be hitting every area of their life. They just really like business. And there's people like me who just to an extreme level, love building companies. Right? It's not even discipline for me. It's just in my blood. It's what I wake up, I don't think about it. I don't push myself. I don't need to watch a fucking motivational video to go work. I just do it. It's programmed in me at this point. And I couldn't imagine a world where I don't wake up and do it every day.

• 2:12:06Speaker 01

  But I think that a little bit of it is genetics and just how you're hardwired. Not that it can't be trained or taught and not that, you know, and obviously the friend group you're in influences these things and over time I think can change it. But someone's just not going to be able to flip a switch and then just start doing a kamikaze approach to building a business. Just like a lot of people try to flip a switch and start bodybuilding and then quit majority of the time, you know? It's just not innate to them.

• 2:12:32Lex Fridman?

  But I think a lot of us have the capacity to do that in some domain.

• 2:12:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think if you went about it strategically, if you surrounded yourself with fellow like minded people and, you know, slowly over time switched it. But if you just try to like hardcore do it, you're just going to lose your mind.

• 2:12:47Lex Fridman?

  Do you ever worry about your mental health? Did you take step to protect it to, uh, yeah, to like for the long run, to make sure you have the mental strength to go on?

• 2:12:57Speaker 01

  Yes. Weirdly enough, the best thing for my mental health was giving into my nature to work. And the most depressed I get is when I try to restrict it and like, I don't work weekends. So I don't work this day. What's best for me is just to work when I feel like working and then just not work when I don't like, and just have no constraints. Cause there are just some nights where I don't want to sleep and for whatever reason I feel compelled to go all night, whatever, like just do it, you know? Do whatever you want is what I tell my like. Working brain and I just give into it and I feel that's where I feel the happiest and and then, you know, it's typically like, and when I'm really in the grind mode, it'll be like seven or eight days, just nonstop going, going. And then it's like, I'll, I'll realize like, oh, I need some recharge

• 2:13:42Speaker 01

  time and then go fucking binge it a season of anime. Yeah, but but that's the thing like people will tell you, don't work weekends or don't do this or don't work past this or blah, blah, I'll give you all these constraints. But for me, and it's unconventional, I just give into it.

• 2:13:55Lex Fridman?

  I think there's something really to be said for that. I, I, I try to surround myself with people that, like when I don't, when I pull an all nighter, they don't go like, you should get more sleep. There's a reason I pulled that all nighter. Like if I'm really passionate about something, they say, they basically encourage it. Because I, I have no problem getting sleep and getting rest. What I need in my life is people that encourage you to kind of keep going, keep going with the stuff you're passionate about.

• 2:14:21Speaker 01

  Normal people, they don't want that life and they probably shouldn't. It's not good for you. But yeah, is if you hang around people like just whatever, different people, you're gonna feel crazy and it's gonna wear on you. Whereas if you're around similar people, it just, it's so much easier. Like if you, you know, I've started weightlifting more and like one thing that's helped is just having Jack people around. They naturally just eat healthier. They do. Like they naturally just have freaking grilled chicken and all this shit and high protein meals. And it's just like easier for me to just piggyback and be like, oh, can you just order me whatever you're getting? And they're like, oh, I gotta go to the gym. And I'll be like, oh shit, I'll just join you, you know? And it's like, it's just, it's cheat codes, you know? Just surround yourself with people that you want to be. And it makes it

• 2:15:04Speaker 01

  like 70% easier, in my opinion. It's like, that is the cheat code to life. And I wish, I, I, obviously your audience is definitely a lot older, but you know, to the older people listening, like if you have, are in a place of mentorship for someone younger or have influence over younger people, you should really try to drill that in their heads. Like the people they're around 100% dictates the outcome. I would, I would not be on 120 million subscribers if I didn't find, uh, when I was around a million, I had a couple of friends that were just also psychopaths, you know, I outgrew them, but at the time it was great. And I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for them. And just all along the way, the friends that I hung out with had such a dramatic impact on, on where I am. Like I, I'd probably have.

• 2:15:48Speaker 01

  Eighty million less subscribers, you know, if it was, if I wasn't so strategic about hanging out with people that I add value to and they also add value to me.

• 2:15:54Lex Fridman?

  So the advice for young people would be to be very selective about the people you're so.

• 2:15:59Speaker 01

  So selective. It's, it's crazy. Like Chris, you know, he's, I, I, he's really funny. And that's why he's great for the videos. And part of why he's so funny is he consumes copious amounts of cartoons and just funny content. And so I'll find, like, when I spend more time with Chris, I'll start just quoting these weird cartoons or shows and I, like, my speech will literally change. And just after like, a week of spending more time with him, it has like, it's like that quick of an effect, you know? Now picture that over the course of years. I mean, yeah, it has such a huge influence. Like, pluck one of their friends out and hypothetically put me in there. And, you know, there's no doubt if they're trying to become a content creator, their odds of success is 10x, right? Obviously, you can't do that, but you gotta find your closest version of it.

• 2:16:43Lex Fridman?

  And just be selective. Yeah. But this also applies not just to younger, to older people, too.

• 2:16:48Speaker 01

  Agreed. But they, it's, it's even more, I, like, when I was a teenager, I just, you know, I couldn't relate to many people. I just thought I was like a fucking freak of nature because no one was obsessed with building businesses or any of this kind of stuff. And so like, back then, you know, that advice would have been helpful. Maybe not that particularly, but just knowing that there are, it's not that you're a freak of nature, you just haven't found people that have the same interests.

• 2:17:09Lex Fridman?

  So the task is not to feel sorry for yourself or somehow change yourself. It's more to find.

• 2:17:14Speaker 01

  Find people you fit in with. Yeah. I mean, assuming which, you know, you're not getting compliment, uh, like, assume it's not something bad. Like, if your hobby is shooting things, or shooting things you shouldn't be shooting, you know, don't find people that encourage that.

• 2:17:31Lex Fridman?

  But outside of that, for sure. Actually, as an answer to what is the best advice someone ever gave you, you said, you're crazy until you're successful, then you're a genius.

• 2:17:40Speaker 01

  100%. All along the way, people gave me so much. You know, advice on why I shouldn't be doing it, why I'm crazy. Every step of the way, people wanted to tell me why I shouldn't be doing this and should get alive, should stop being too obsessed, everything, everything under the book. And then once I'm successful, those same people are like, dang, you're a genius. Wow, you really, you pulled that off.

• 2:18:03Lex Fridman?

  Those are probably the same people that will give you advice now. You're the most successful video creator of all time. Stick to that anytime you want to do something new, right? They'll, they'll like pressure you not to do, you know, feastables or, or mobile gaming, or whatever lays beyond.

• 2:18:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:24Lex Fridman?

  It's funny how people don't.

• 2:18:25Speaker 01

  Well, honestly, they're the type of people I just don't talk to anymore. I wouldn't even know what they have to say now.

• 2:18:30Lex Fridman?

  So most people on the team are like, yes, and they're like, whatever the idea you got, they, they're with it.

• 2:18:36Speaker 01

  No, I mean, it's weird. We actually have a, my team pushes back on me pretty hardcore, which I want. I don't want yes men and they're like, they're, James, you know, the CEO who helped me build all this, he's very adamant, like, we're not yes men and, and he trains people to really think for themselves. And even when I give them orders, like really think like, is this optimal? Is there context or information Jimmy could be missing that I could provide that could help him make a more updated decision? Like, I'm not God, you know what I mean? Like, I'm human and I make errors. And so don't take what I say as the Bible.

• 2:19:09Lex Fridman?

  So even like in the brainstorming and so on, they can, they can push back.

• 2:19:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can see it like Tyler, anytime I said something, he would give me feedback and push back, which is what I want. I don't want him just to be like, yes, you're a fucking genius. Good job, Jimmy. You know, I don't need that, you know? I need negatives.

• 2:19:24Lex Fridman?

  You talked about being in a relationship. What role, Jimmy, does love play in the human condition?

• 2:19:31Speaker 01

  I think, well, the role is, well, the big thing is that love can be scary because this is, you know, the human you're going to spend the most amount of time with in your life, you know? And so for a project that over 50 years, they can be a liability or an asset.

• 2:19:43Lex Fridman?

  Love the metrics.

• 2:19:45Speaker 01

  You know, I love. No, but seriously, it's gotta be someone that makes you better. For me, I can't truly love someone that doesn't make me better because.

• 2:19:51Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, in the long run.

• 2:19:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:52Lex Fridman?

  Across, across.

• 2:19:53Speaker 01

  Because if not, then it's like. It's a negative, you know, to everything I've spent my life building.

• 2:19:58Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:58Speaker 01

  Um, but luckily I'm very happy with the, the partner I have and like we were talking about before. I do think she makes me better. There's a lot of actually positives I've noticed, even things as simple as like, you know, I struggle to turn off my brain at night because I'm just thinking about all the businesses and how we could do better or whatever weird thing I have on my mind. But, you know, just chatting with her and, and hanging out with her helps me like, basically just shut my brain off and like mellow out and even like, there's just a ton of little things like that that I've noticed are, are positives, especially when you really look for them, that are easy to gloss over if you're not. And so for me, yeah, I, I have someone who I think is very beautiful, very intelligent, makes me better. It's constantly pushing me, okay with me, working hard, makes me smarter.

• 2:20:39Speaker 01

  And just all these different things that I think for me, love just makes me a better person, you know what I mean? Which makes me love her even more. Does that make sense?

• 2:20:48Lex Fridman?

  Absolutely. What advice would you give on finding somebody like that?

• 2:20:52Speaker 01

  Um, just really don't give up until you, you find someone that, you know, that there's so many people on the planet. I mean, there really is. There, there's billions of.

• 2:21:03Lex Fridman?

  The odds are in your favor.

• 2:21:05Speaker 01

  Of, yeah, like just don't settle and find someone that, you know, makes you happy.

• 2:21:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, just like you said, surround yourself with people that, that make you a better person. In the same case, surround yourself with that one special person that really makes you a better person.

• 2:21:21Speaker 01

  And for, and maybe that's just an entrepreneurial brain looking at it. Not everyone wants to hyper-optimize their life like me. But for me to like truly love someone, they have to make me a better person.

• 2:21:29Lex Fridman?

  In every way, yeah.

• 2:21:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21:31Lex Fridman?

  Well, what do you hope you're 24? We, we started talking about death. Let's, let's, let's finish talking about death. What do you hope your legacy is? When you, when we look a hundred years from now and the AI has completely taken over and the aliens visit and discuss with the AI, what this last of special humans that existed on earth was like? What, what do you hope they say about you?

• 2:22:02Speaker 01

  It's a deep one.

• 2:22:06Speaker 01

  Probably just that.

• 2:22:09Speaker 01

  Because it's hard, right? Like I said before, Elon is over double my age. I could live every second I've lived up to this point in my life and still not even be Elon's age. So I have so much time. I just hope whatever it is that it's a net positive on the world and it impacts billions of people in a positive way that makes lasting change.

• 2:22:31Lex Fridman?

  So you admire people like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk for having sort of reached for that goal as well?

• 2:22:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 2:22:39Lex Fridman?

  To help, to help millions.

• 2:22:40Speaker 01

  I mean, the iPhone's the most successful product ever invented. It's hard not to admire what he created, you know?

• 2:22:46Lex Fridman?

  The same with sort of as Johnny Ive talks about, like, the, the passion, the effort they put into the designing iPhone. That like little bit of love is transferred to the whole world. Like they get to experience the joy of that from the designer.

• 2:23:00Speaker 01

  It's what a beautiful thing to do. You know, I couldn't think of anything better, you know? To create something that even after you're dead for decades, just has such a profound impact on basically half the human population.

• 2:23:12Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:12Speaker 01

  It's wild.

• 2:23:13Lex Fridman?

  Brings joy to people. Well, I hope you do just that, man. You've already done it for millions and millions and millions and millions of people, and I hope you keep doing it. I'm, I can't, like, it's so exciting to see what happens this year and next year.

• 2:23:26Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:23:27Lex Fridman?

  Like the sky's the limit.

• 2:23:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:29Lex Fridman?

  I can't, I mean, the videos, but every, all the other businesses you're in and you as a human being, as you grow. I can tell, I know, as everyone knows, you have a kind heart and the fact that you're really damn good at actually using that kind of heart to help a lot of people. It's awesome to see, man.

• 2:23:47Speaker 01

  I appreciate it. More importantly, before we go, are we gonna play Dune tonight? Some board games?

• 2:23:51Lex Fridman?

  Not gonna play Dune. I have to, I have one hour.

• 2:23:54Speaker 01

  You don't want to play board games with me?

• 2:23:56Lex Fridman?

  I want to, I'll play.

• 2:23:58Speaker 01

  You don't want to play board games?

• 2:24:00Lex Fridman?

  If, if only I wasn't an idiot and actually flew to the right airport.

• 2:24:05Speaker 01

  If you don't play board games with me, they're gonna dislike the video.

• 2:24:10Lex Fridman?

  Thanks for listening to this conversation with Mr. Beast. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from the poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore. "Reach high, for stars lie hidden in you." Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.