E548 MrBeast

MrBeast (aka Jimmy Donaldson) is a content creator, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and considered by many to be the biggest YouTuber in the world. MrBeast joins Theo to talk about the insane scope and stakes of his new show “Beast Games”, how he struggled for years on YouTube before taking off, and the motivation behind some of his most talked-about philanthropy projects. MrBeast: https://www.instagram.com/mrbeast ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ Prize Picks: First time users, download the PrizePicks app, use code THEO and PrizePicks will instantly give you $50 on your first lineup of $5 or more. https://www.prizepicks.com Kraken: Go to http://kraken.com/theo to buy Bitcoin on the #1 crypto exchange, as ranked by Forbes Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code WEEKEND for $20 off your first purchase. Aura Frames: Go to http://auraframes.com and use code THEO to get $35-off Aura’s best-selling Carver Mat frames. Rocket Money: Go to http://rocketmoney.com/theo to cancel your unwanted subscriptions with Rocket Money. BetterHelp: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp — go to http://betterhelp.com/theo to get 10% off your first month. ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [email protected] Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Producer: Cam https://www.instagram.com/cam__george/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Theo Von?

  Today's guest is one of the biggest content creators in the world. He's an entrepreneur, a YouTube guru, and he has created more energy and excitement into the world of giving back than possibly anyone. He has a new show called Beast Games where a record-breaking 1,000 people compete for the largest prize in entertainment history, $5 million. Grateful to finally catch up with the one and only Mr. Beast.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  So is this, is it already started? We going?

• 0:52Theo Von?

  Yeah, we'll start right now, man.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 0:54Theo Von?

  Mr. Beast, Jimmy, nice to see you today.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Likewise.

• 0:56Theo Von?

  Bro, that's awesome, man. So Beast Games, that's the show.

• 0:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so before this, we were showing on episode one of a show I have coming out December 19th. What'd you think of it? We watched it and then he started talking and his team was like, hit the cameras, like, wait, wait, wait. Now I'm dying to know, what'd you think?

• 1:11Theo Von?

  Oh, I thought a lot of things, man. First of all, I thought that you are obviously, you're this Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka, kind of William Wallace of finances type of energy going on.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:26Theo Von?

  You know, there's a lot of that, a lot, like, I've never seen a show where every, I mean, couple of minutes, there's, there's like another twist of possibility, right?

• 1:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40Theo Von?

  I kind of realized how many game shows are missing so many little elements in there where they could manipulate the situation more or create more of an environment for like competitors in the game to make choices that would affect them and others, you know?

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, when like basically having layers and stuff like that, but the, the big thing is no one's ever set up like that many cameras before because it's a logistical nightmare. So it's hard to do these kinds of things normally unscripted because like, you know, we, we had unfathomable amounts of footage, like over a hundred years of footage from that episode.

• 2:13Theo Von?

  A hundred years of footage?

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I mean, we had to have over a hundred people work on it and post. So it's like to be able to do something at that scale, even just like to set up the cameras and edit and everything is.

• 2:25Speaker 01

  I mean, no one's ever done it before.

• 2:26Theo Von?

  It's diabolical almost, you know? Yeah, you said there's a lot of world records that were broken in the, in the shooting of the, of this series?

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, 40 Guinness World Records.

• 2:36Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have like so many plaques now that we have up on our wall. I'm basically making a wall out of Guinness plaques just from the show.

• 2:45Theo Von?

  What are, what are some of the records you guys broke?

• 2:48Speaker 01

  Most contestants ever in a show, largest cash prize in a show, most cameras recording at once in a show, most people [BLEEP] which you saw.

• 2:55Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  And a show like most money given away in the first episode of a show, just like stuff like that.

• 3:00Theo Von?

  Yeah, oh, that's the most people [BLEEP] probably since nine 11, I would think.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 3:05Theo Von?

  We might have to take that out. Yeah, and I shouldn't have said that. I'll say something else. Yeah, I haven't seen that many people [BLEEP] at the same time.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Wait, why was there a cut before you say what you're saying right now?

• 3:16Theo Von?

  Uh, there's just, we needed something to...

• 3:19Speaker 01

  You had to use the bathroom?

• 3:20Theo Von?

  Yeah. Just had to use the, yeah, I'd already, I'd already soiled the conversation. Oh, that's the most people [BLEEP] at once that I'd seen since, um, oh, since I was in the parking lot of a Widespread Panic concert, you know? But that was LSD.

• 3:36Theo Von?

  That kind of works a little.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's, honestly, you should keep the first one.

• 3:41Theo Von?

  There we go, dude.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  You said it, not me.

• 3:43Theo Von?

  That's a great point. You make the choices, man. Yeah, do you feel like this wizard? Like, cause I'm, as I'm watching, I'm like, man, there's so many things. I'm like, how, where does the motivation come from? Is it to, like, do you get so much joy out of like having the manipulation of the situation? Is it giving away the money? Is, cause there's so many moments in there where I'm like, watching people's feelings change. Like, what is it for you that like, have you been able to figure out? Cause you've done so many of these types of competitions and opportunities for people, right?

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, this, the thing is, you, I feel like I'm motivated by a lot of things. And, and these kinds of game shows, it's fun to like create environments that I've never been created for. And, and just like, well, let's just see kind of what people do. Like, a lot of that is just like mass behavioral psychology. Like, if you offer someone money to eliminate other people, how much money would it take? You know, um, so it's kind of a little bit of that, but it's also, I just like making great content and like, I like do, you know, making things you can't find anywhere else because it's just fun to like, see how the world reacts to it. Yeah. And so in this instance, or in a lot of what we do, like we, one time we put, we just put a big circle on the ground. We put a hundred people in it and we just were like, whoever leaves last gets half a million dollars. And then it's just like, how long does it take? Who's gonna leave? Um, like, those are the kinds of

• 5:00Speaker 01

  things I like personally, and just curious on like, what the fuck's gonna happen, you know?

• 5:06Theo Von?

  Yeah. What's like one thing you've learned then about people's psychology? Have you learned, or does it change a lot? Like, have you learned, like, are there some general rules you've learned that people will, uh, like behave around money or that sort of thing?

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that's an interesting question. That's, I honestly, I feel like people are a a lot nicer than you would think. Like, they're not as, uh, uh, they don't tend, and maybe it's because when we do it, they know the video is going to be seen by a hundred million people. So they're, they're thinking of their personal image, but a lot of times I have given people the opportunity to like, screw other people over for some money and usually they don't take it, or they like, push, like, it requires way more money than you would think, you know, like someone who'd theoretically be making $30,000 a year and you'd offer them 10 grand, but it means this other person gets eliminated or gets punished in the challenge. And a lot of times, like, they'll

• 5:58Speaker 01

  say no, you know, and I'm like, whoa, that's not an easy decision to make. Like, there's some integrity here, you know?

• 6:04Theo Von?

  Yeah, you mentioned that where we're taping that you were surprised by some people's integrity.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Exactly. Especially during this show, like, I sometimes throw a large copious sums of money to eliminate other people, to like, offer it to certain people and they say no. And I was always just like, what the fuck? Wow. This is crazy.

• 6:20Theo Von?

  Is there one age group or gender group or any demographic you can give me on who it seems like, after doing a lot of challenges, where you've gotten to see some integrity?

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Um, no, it's, it's a pretty, this is 10 episodes. If we watched it all, you would see,

• 6:35Theo Von?

  an episode of that?

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, you would see that. It's like, pretty widespread across the board. I mean, maybe. The women.

• 6:41Theo Von?

  I don't think a senior citizen could, some seniors can't make it through that.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  You saw that one 70 year old, she passed, which was.

• 6:47Theo Von?

  She passed away?

• 6:48Speaker 01

  No, passed the challenge.

• 6:49Theo Von?

  Oh, God.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  I hope she doesn't pass away before the show airs. That'd be bad.

• 6:54Theo Von?

  No, I don't think people, some seniors, I don't know if I would let one of my grandparents watch this.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:59Theo Von?

  Just the levels of.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, your heart beating.

• 7:01Theo Von?

  There's a lot, yeah.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I was going for. What I really wanted is like, in my YouTube videos, sometimes people say they don't have enough emotion, or they lack the storytelling or whatever. And part of it is like, it's just YouTube, when you go to like a streaming platform like Amazon Prime Video or Netflix, you're like sitting down to watch something usually for like hours and you're to watch like this longer story and show. But when you go to YouTube, more than likely, like, you know, you're going there for a quicker hit. You're not sitting down expecting to watch a 10 episode series, like you're just clicking on videos and watching. So content put up on YouTube is just different. It's like, you know, series don't do as well and you, you know, and so it's much easier to build characters and feel emotion over these 10 episodes, six hours of content than it is in a 20 minute video.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Cause you have like 10 minutes to build them up, but then you gotta wind the story down because the video is going to end in 10 minutes. You know what I mean? So my big thing here was like, I really wanted you to feel something and I wanted to like flex those muscles and like actually build characters and then like give emotion and things like that, you know? Like when we were watching that, even though I've already seen it like a hundred times already, I could feel my heart pounding.

• 8:05Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  I mean, or it might've been the Celsius I was drinking, I don't know, but like, I really could feel the emotion. That's what I want. Like when people watch the show, I want them to have very intense feelings.

• 8:15Theo Von?

  Yeah. Oh, I mean, I definitely did, man. And the interesting thing to me too, is like a lot of times with game shows and it's the contestants that you start to get to know, right?

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:26Theo Von?

  But with this, it's not the contestants, like.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Well, you will later on, but because there's a thousand of them.

• 8:30Theo Von?

  Right.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  First I gotta, you know, lay down the hammer, ax, you know, 900 of them or whatever, and then we can build them up.

• 8:37Theo Von?

  Ah, I see.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  And I definitely learned why no one ever does stuff with a thousand, because that's the most contestants ever. It's a lot to like, just everything is, you know, a thousand hotel rooms a night, you know what I mean? If the hotel room. Is $200, that's $200,000 a night and just hotel rooms and you're feeding them and even like every little thing is so expensive when you times it by a thousand and then like to record a thousand people, you need a thousand cameras just to buy a thousand cameras is a bitch. And then to hook all the cameras up to the server, we need like 56 miles of cable to run it over there. And then you need like fucking 250 camera people to check in on them. And so it's like, I know why people don't do reality shows at this scale because it's so fucking expensive. Um, like

• 9:21Theo Von?

  Yeah. What was the total budget of this show?

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Uh, can you, can I want to tell you about it? Can you just believe it? So it doesn't make it in?

• 9:28Theo Von?

  For sure. Can we believe it in some artistic way? So at least it looks exciting?

• 9:32Speaker 01

  No, just be like, what the fuck?

• 9:34Theo Von?

  Or do this?

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Sure. Put that over my mouth. It was, uh, we spent

• 9:39Theo Von?

  Oh my God.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:41Theo Von?

  I hope my mom's all right.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  I didn't mean it. Don't cancel me.

• 9:48Theo Von?

  No, I'm just trying to give some different, oh my God, trying to give some different reactions.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Put that in the intro.

• 9:53Theo Von?

  Oh my God, bro. That you spent that much on this?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause it gets crazy. Like that first one, we, we built a thousand towers and those are real towers that have actual hydraulic press doors that are have to be safety proof with giant foam and crash pad at the bottom with the light system, right? Cause we're turning them red and green. And then we had to build custom software to connect it all where you press the button and the lights change. And then we had to rig, like I told you, a thousand cameras in there to a giant control center. Like just that first episode alone was, I mean, crazy, man.

• 10:24Theo Von?

  And do you have to take it all down at the end?

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't, I don't own that building. Yeah. Cause the problem is like, we needed six massive hangars. So like, we basically in Canada, there's like these six giant airport hangars. And we were just like, Hey, can we use those and converted them all to these big sets? And then right outside is a field and that's where we built that city, which was also, so I, I have in this field at one point, I have like 800 people working over here, just building a city in the middle of a field. And I've got like 600 construction people in these six hangars, just building these other sets. And then I have all these, I mean, at some points we had like over 2,000 People on set, just in this town in Canada. So it was, it was crazy.

• 11:04Theo Von?

  Were you employing just a lot of locals? I mean, just you were just, you would set up, you would put out the employment opportunities in advance?

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, we, we worked with, uh, two different unions and then, yeah, we hired a bunch of people locally and, and things like that. So yeah, I created a lot of jobs locally there.

• 11:17Theo Von?

  And where does your joy come from? Like, cause you give away, you've given away a lot of money, right? And you give away a lot of joy while I'm watching. Like there's something also like, there's moments in there as I'm watching them like, oh, what would I do in that instance, right? That comes into my head. And then you see the reactions if somebody screws somebody over and you see the reaction if somebody is, gets screwed over. And you kind of think like, okay, well, what feeling would I want to have, you know? And, and then like in the moment, you're like, oh yeah, I would definitely take the money. But then right now, looking back, when I start to even think about some of those moments, I'd be like, man, it must've been really tough to leave and have those people feel. And so maybe I wouldn't have, right? It's just, it's interesting just as a viewer, all the little moments that I kind of navigate and then kind of learn about myself.

• 11:58Theo Von?

  But what do you get? Like, like you give away so much money. Do you feel like you're like making up for something in a past life? Or like, is there something that, like, um, you didn't grow up with a lot of money, you know?

• 12:08Speaker 01

  No.

• 12:09Theo Von?

  And so was it, do you, like, when you think back on little moments, like, did you see somebody give some money once and it made you feel excited or like, are you able to connect any of those dots as you get a little bit older and have some more breadth of time?

• 12:21Speaker 01

  You know, that's where I, I should come up with this, you know, heart throbbing story of like, I just want to, you know, help people because I couldn't when I was younger or whatever. But the honest truth is like, I know how to make content go viral. We were really good at making good content. And I just believe a world where I help people is just more fun than a world there where I don't. And that's kind of really it. I just, I've noticed where, you know, videos where we do help people or give away money. I tend to just be a little happier, enjoy it a little bit more. And so I just lean more that way.

• 12:54Theo Von?

  That's cool.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, that's the truth. I mean, I could, I could, one time for fun, cause like everyone has these like PR publicists and PR people. I just talked to one. Uh, I was like, huh, what advice would you have for me? And they're like, you need to come up with a better story and why you help people. And I was like, well, what I, cause this is what I usually say. It's like, well, the truth is it just is slightly more fun than when I don't. And they're like, no, you need to come up with a better one. Like, you know, like you were saying, like, you know, say like you helped a homeless person and brought you immense joy and all this stuff. And I was just like, yeah, that feels kind of fake.

• 13:24Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  So yeah, that's.

• 13:26Theo Von?

  Yeah, sometimes it's just the truth.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  It is.

• 13:29Theo Von?

  And it's a very simple truth. Yeah, I like helping somebody out.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  It's just more fun than if I don't.

• 13:33Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean.

• 13:35Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's scary to think that, though. Like recently, I was giving, giving some money to some people that had been suffered from a storm, right? From some flooding and, uh, but then I'm not saying that to make myself look exciting or anything, but it was nothing like this. And if they see that and then hear what I get, they're like, oh, this guy, this guy is.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, this is just our reality show. But yeah, in general, I don't know if you've watched too many of our videos, but we built a hundred wells in Africa. We.

• 14:00Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, I know. You've helped. Yeah, you guys have given blind stuff. You've taken plastics out of the ocean.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, but well, the, the well stuff, that one was interesting or really eye opening for me because we were one of them like we went like four hours into the middle of nowhere. And you're like, you know, in places where these people don't have the internet, like they're, I mean, really intense poverty. And it's like, it's pretty eye opening. I would recommend if anyone ever has an opportunity to like, just work on a project or do something in places like that. It's like crazy to think that we're on the same planet. You know what I mean? And people who like, don't even have access to clean water and have to walk an hour every morning to go to a river to get water. But then you look upstream and there's literally cows shitting in that same water that they're, you know, drinking out of because that's like, that's the world they live in. And like, we have, anyways, I don't know.

• 14:48Theo Von?

  Yeah. No, look, no, I think putting things in a perspective, right? Changes things for people.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 14:53Theo Von?

  Were you, was, did you have to like, kind of achieve a certain amount of finances before you were able to start giving away finances?

• 14:59Speaker 01

  No, I've always like, my first brand deal was $10,000 and I just walked outside and gave it to a homeless person. I've just always done it because it's just like, you know, if I, um, do this, then hopefully this video makes $15,000 and then I'll give away $15,000. And then hopefully that video makes $20,000, I'll give away 20. And so I just had that idea of where I was like, what if I just give away the money? And then it makes more money and I give that away. And then I've just kind of been doing that for like eight years.

• 15:26Theo Von?

  And now you're at $5 million, which is the largest amount that has ever been given away in a game show.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Or in a reality show, in any show, really. No one's ever given away. I think Squid Game was the most of 4,560,000.

• 15:37Theo Von?

  And did you want to beat that kind of?

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. That's why the number is 5 million. But we also gave away like, you know, another 15 plus million on top of that just throughout the show.

• 15:46Theo Von?

  No, I love it because you hear so many companies that, companies that just like, it's about bare bottom and it's like, this is like the opposite of that. It's like, let's do something good and let's make a bunch of money, but then let's, let's give it away.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:58Theo Von?

  It's like the opposite of like all the other treacherous type of capitalism that you hear about, you know?

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, it's interesting because now that I've done like a streaming show or whatever, it's like a lot of these shows, their cash prize is like $250,000, $500,000. It's like, I, I wonder why they don't give away more. Like you'll watch this whole, you know, 10 episode show just to see who wins 250K and it's like, the first three minutes of our show, we gave away a million dollars.

• 16:29Theo Von?

  Yeah, you're like, yeah, this is, yeah.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  So it'll be interesting. I'm curious to see how people react to it because I just, but anyways.

• 16:35Theo Von?

  You're gonna make other, yeah. Dude, we had a dude, he would give you 10 bucks to look at his butt, right?

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Wait, what?

• 16:42Theo Von?

  Yeah, when I was a, you know, when I was younger than I am now, for sure. He was a child. I didn't want to say a child, but you just pretend I was a child, right? Cause I was. And this guy would give you 10 bucks to look at his butt, right? Not up close, far away, you know? But it was like, so yeah, that guy could have given us a lot more.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Do you need to file a police report?

• 17:01Theo Von?

  I have no idea, dude. But I'm just saying, it's like, everybody has a game show and you're like, yeah, people, these, these prizes are cheap, you know? That's what it was kind of what I was getting at. Anyway, we can take that part out.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  You were at a game show and a guy gave you $10 to look at his butt?

• 17:16Theo Von?

  We had a dude in our area, I'll be honest with you. He'd give you $10, he'd walk off a little bit, he'd kind of spread his butt a little bit. And you had to kind of go like that at him and you got the money, you know?

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 17:26Theo Von?

  So, but it wasn't, it wasn't close up and it wasn't even super invasive. It was like, you know, I get, it's a.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  How old were you at the time?

• 17:35Theo Von?

  Uh, I was old enough to be like, hey, this guy's kind of a crazy guy, you know, but he's also cheap, you know, so probably 13, 12, 11, probably, you know. But anyway.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  You sure you don't want to file a police report? You sure you don't want to take care of that? He's not currently still offering 12 year olds $10 to get this fuck? Cause we might want to put it into that.

• 17:58Theo Von?

  Yeah, you're right, actually. And maybe that's the type of game we can go to do next is trapping guys like that, you know? 12 dollar butt games, that's different. Anyway, I shouldn't have said anything like that. Just so our viewers know, right? I know you have the largest YouTube channel that that exists, the most that they can have on there. You have more subscribers than I think people in America.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I haven't thought of that, but yeah.

• 18:25Theo Von?

  What's the population of America? Sorry to cut you off, Jimmy.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Like 300 million, right? Almost four. Oh, it's almost four?

• 18:30Theo Von?

  Is it?

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Let's see, in America, population, 334? Oh yeah, we're about the same, we're at 330. Yeah, so we're, we're tied with America.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess it's, uh, I mean, I, uh, it's crazy, man. Like eight years ago, I was in high school. So it's kind of funny when I think about it, cause eight years ago, I'm raising my hand to use the bathroom. And then, yeah, I guess now we have the same subscribers as America.

• 18:54Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's pretty.

• 18:55Theo Von?

  Yeah, that's a difference.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Pretty wild how it happens. It's, uh, it's a lot, man. You know what's interesting? Cause you're, you talk about like our large subscriber count is it's like, when, when I had like, uh, 10 million subscribers, I was like, I thought this is fame, like this is, you know, like I would go into Walmart and, I don't know, maybe one person would ask for a photo and it was like, this is fucking cool. This is what it's like, but you know, there's just like such a big difference where, and this is gonna sound obvious, but where I'm at now than when I had like 10 million subscribers or where I was like four years ago. And it's, it keeps getting crazier every year and every year, like. Like people will fall in my car to like, you know, if I'm out and they see me, they'll like, try to stalk me so they can see where I live. Like, you know, that's like, that kind of stuff didn't

• 19:42Speaker 01

  happen four years ago, or almost anything I do, uh, ends up on the internet, right? Like, um, one time I was like at a drive, every time I go to a drive through, it's like flipping a coin on whether or not 10, like, someone's gonna go, Mr. Beast, and then all the people in the back are gonna run to the window and it's gonna be this thing that's, you know, kinda intense? Or if it's just like a really, really old person, and I'm like, always super happy when, like, I pull up to a drive through and it sounds like they're 50, cause I'm like, fuck yeah, I'm good. But if they, if they sound like they're in their twenties or thirties, it's brutal, cause then it's like, one time, someone did that, they opened it, she was like, you're Mr. Beast? I was like, yeah, and she goes whip out her phone, I was like, hey, I don't want people to know what I'm driving, like, we could chat, but, but just please no photos, cause then if it goes

• 20:26Speaker 01

  viral, I'm gonna have to sell this car, and like, it's just a lot of work. And she's like, okay. And then she goes to get the food, and she comes back, and there's just, I see just 10 other people that work, I won't even say the restaurant, but behind her coming up, or their phones recording, I was like, I thought I could trust you, and I had to drive off before they handed me my food, because I was like, if I don't, they're gonna start filming, people will see the car drive, blah, blah. And then, it's funny, like, the next day I see on Reddit, Mr. Beast is an asshole, just drove off, and, and it's like, no, you forgot to tell the part where I was like, hey, please don't dox my car, you know, just come, immediately leaves that whole thing out. And so, there's a lot of that, like, or another time, I was at a restaurant, I don't even know

• 21:08Speaker 01

  who I was with, but, uh, someone paid for my food, and, um, I was like, the, I went, I asked for the bill, they're like, oh, someone paid for it, they're like, told me, tell you they like your videos. I was like, cool, how do I tip? And they're like, oh, well, we don't have a bill, and I was like, okay, so I just laughed. And then the next day I see on the internet, Mr. Beast stiffed me and didn't leave a tip, or whatever, and it's like, someone paid for my meal, I didn't get a bill, it's not like I carry cash, you know, so, and I was just, and so I have so many instances like that, where, like, no one gives a fuck when you're smaller about all these little things, but like, as I've gotten bigger, Yeah, it's just like every interaction, it's a, it's like a 10% chance this thing's gonna end up on the internet.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  And or they're gonna try to twist things or or whatever. And it's just gotten crazier like people, like I said, follow me or um. Yeah, it's, it's interesting.

• 21:58Theo Von?

  Yeah. And you get, well, you get to a point also with popularity where you've also gone, oh, you can't go back. First of all, you can't unbeast yourself.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Well, actually, I can unbeast myself. If I wear a beanie, I've noticed, like, I've, I've tried all sorts of outfits when I fly to see which ones get rid. If I put my bangs and a beanie and put that on, because I've never worn anything like that in my videos, the amount of photos I take go down like crazy.

• 22:19Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's like, and then if I combo the beanie with like a pair of glasses, because I also have never worn glasses in my videos. It takes it down. So I've like studied it.

• 22:29Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Because like I used to just rock a hood, but that's kind of like suspicious. It's like, especially in places where it's not cold.

• 22:35Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's like a bank robber, but he's at United Airlines.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Makes them like double look. And then they're like, oh shit. So the hood strap doesn't work. Uh, but the, the beanie and glasses strap, that's, that's the key.

• 22:47Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  If you want to be like low key.

• 22:49Theo Von?

  Yeah, no, I think there's different ways to do different little disguises. I, I do think it's interesting what you're saying, though, like about, like, I, I would notice, um, this is just for me, but I would notice like someone would pay for my food sometime at a restaurant.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:02Theo Von?

  But then I would read like, oh, he didn't thank us for it, right? So really, they were paying for it. So I would like engage with them, right? Which is, it's okay, but it's like, at some point, it's like, maybe I'm do with friends.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  I'd rather just pay for the food.

• 23:15Theo Von?

  Yeah, I'd rather just pay for my food. I didn't know that there was this other exchange to it, right? So I'm not complaining. I'm happy for the extra food. But if I'm in a hurry or something, and now I'm in a different spot, and now I'm in a conversation where somebody also then wants to ask you about a business thing or something. It's like, you know.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  There's no rulebook for these kinds of things.

• 23:32Theo Von?

  Right. There's no rulebook for it.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  So you kind of have to like learn on the go, like, what do I do when random people paid for my food? Oh, I guess this is the random people paid for my food etiquette. I have to stand there and demand a bill from the waitress five times until they give it so I can tip. I then have to walk around the restaurant and find who paid for it and thank them. It's like, these are the. The things that you just kind of have to learn as you get more famous. Yeah.

• 23:56Theo Von?

  Yeah, well, it's just interesting, you know, and people will be like, oh, famous people complaining, you know, but it's like, but if somebody if popularity is a blessing and a curse, and sometimes it's a side effect of what you even wanted to do, right? And yeah, and then there's also ways to like little things to navigate amongst it. This episode is sponsored by Bam PrizePix, baby. Do you love firing on sports? Do you love it? I do. Well, PrizePix is the best daily fantasy sports app for you. You can sign up today and get $50 instantly when you play $5. That's it. It's simple.

• 24:37Theo Von?

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• 25:19Theo Von?

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• 25:59Theo Von?

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• 27:23Theo Von?

  up now, that's kraken.com/theo. Disclaimer, not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss and is offered to US customers excluding Washington, New York and Maine through Payward Interactive Incorporated. See kraken.com/ legal dash C-A dash P-R-U dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. Let's be honest, what most people want for the holidays is to see their loved ones. That's what we want most of the time, we wanna see, we wanna see our loved ones, wanna see even a picture of them if that's all.

• 28:00Theo Von?

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• 28:41Theo Von?

  then everybody can upload different things and we'll have a beautiful just variety of things going on there. Save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get $35 off best-selling Carver Matte Frames by using promo code Theo at checkout. That's A U R A Frames.com promo code T H E O. This deal is exclusive to listeners, so get yours now in time for the holidays. Terms and conditions apply. How did you become, just so our listeners know, how did you become Mr. Beast, you know?

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:14Theo Von?

  Were you, was you at a point you were just a beast?

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, so when I was probably 13 or 11, you know, Xbox Live, I just was randomizing the name and it gave me like the name Mr. B6000. And so that was just like my Xbox gamertag when I was playing Call of Duty.

• 29:30Theo Von?

  They gave you, did they ever come after you and try to claim any title to it?

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Well, no, because it's just like a random name generator and they don't own it. But then, so then when I started a YouTube channel, I just called it Mr. B6000. And then everyone was just like, why the 6000? I was like, I don't know. And then I eventually just dropped it and there's Mr. Beast. So that's kind of how it came about. But in terms of how I got where I am now, I started making videos when I was 11. Had no fucking clue what I was doing. They were absolute trash. And then no one watched them when I was 11, no one watched them when I was 12, no one watched them when I was 13, no one watched them when I was 14, no one watched them when I was 15. And then I started to get like, holy fuck, is anyone ever going to watch these? I'm like four years in. I'm like having depressive mental breakdowns because I'm poor and everything I have. But I mean, like at the time, you know, obviously everyone thinks the videos they make are good.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Great. And I thought I was making like insanely great videos, but they're just trash. I just, um, and like the problem is I didn't have anyone to teach me how to edit. So I'm like learning on my own. I didn't, I didn't know anything about cameras. Didn't know anything about anything. And then 16, no one's watching them. Seventeen is no one watching them. And I'm like, fuck, I just like, I only, my whole life was just like, I just want to do YouTube. I need to make enough money by the time I graduate high school. So I can do this or I'm fucked. Cause like, I didn't have good grades or anything. And, you know, we didn't have much money because my parents were over leverage in 2008. They're in the army, bought some properties, 2008, and then the recession or financial crisis hit, went bankrupt, lost everything. Um, so like my mom was also like, fuck, like my son's just gonna be homeless.

• 31:01Theo Von?

  Get back in there.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, like just gonna be homeless and she, she hates it. And, and so I finally 18, about to graduate high school, still no one watches the videos. Don't give a fuck. I'm making.

• 31:11Theo Von?

  Not even on graduation night?

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I remember like, yeah, it's just like, my mom's like, all right, it's time to accept reality. Got to go to community college, got to get a degree. And I was just like, I didn't want to, but I was like, okay, let me just pick the easiest, lamest fucking degree. I think it was like some communications degree in my local community.

• 31:28Theo Von?

  Yeah, zoning is one of them.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  But then, uh, two weeks into it, I just was like, fuck this shit. And so every day, cause I didn't have enough money to move out, I just go to college. But then I would just work on videos in my car and I was just like, okay. In six months, my mom's gonna find out that I have straight zeros, kick me out of the house. I gotta get it where people are watching my videos enough where I can like live off of it over the next six months. And then I just started doing a bunch of stupid stuff like, uh, around this time is when I counted to a hundred thousand.

• 31:56Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's so classic.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  And a lot of other things like that. And I.

• 31:59Theo Von?

  Watching somebody semi unconscious count their way through like the 80,000 is unbelievable.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, uh, well, there was one part, I think at 93,000 where I was like 92,999, 91,000. I actually went backwards. I didn't realize it. And then I just went 91,001, 91,002. So I like, uh, it's, yeah, it was, it's cause I was so just out of it at that point.

• 32:19Theo Von?

  Yeah, there are, there are moments in that where you're like, yeah, somebody help this guy or something, you know?

• 32:24Speaker 01

  But anyways, around that point, I had a month where I made 20 grand and then I was like, mom. I have straight zeros. I'll move out tomorrow and then it's moved out. So that and then yeah, then we just kept reinvesting it all. And here we are. So it's like a 15 year journey and it's been pretty crazy.

• 32:39Theo Von?

  Was it hard to learn to reinvest in yourself? Is that like a, um, I, I know you kind of mentioned a minute ago, was that like a thing? Is it hard to learn to reinvest?

• 32:46Speaker 01

  No, for me, it always came natural because like I, I have a, well, now it's a little bit crazier because we're traveling everything. But back then I lived in a place that was $720 a month and I split it with someone. So I needed 360 for rent and I had like a $2,005 to an angle, which wasn't that expensive. So it was like, okay, a thousand dollars to cover my expenses. Everything else just pour it back in. You know what I mean? So if you just live a like below your means, then like it allows you just to go crazy and throw everything back into it. And I, I just was like a fucking machine back then that lived to make the best videos possible. And so every dollar was just a way to just make a better video.

• 33:22Theo Von?

  Wow. So you want to make the best video. There's something about it that you want to make the best video.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's, I've obviously studied the algorithm, studied the tens of thousands of YouTube videos. I'm a data nerd. And what's interesting is the data always just shows that the better a video is the more views it gets. It's like if people watch it and enjoy it, YouTube gives it more views. So it's like, yeah, it's the better the, that's, that's what took us from 100,000 views a video to a million to 10 million views of video to 20 to 30 to 40 to 50 to 100. It's just, you know, people notice when you put in the effort and go above and beyond. So they just keep coming back.

• 33:57Theo Von?

  Yeah, I mean, that, yeah, watching, I mean, I know this will be on Amazon, right?

• 34:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, Prime Video, the Beast Games thing. Yeah.

• 34:03Theo Von?

  But watching some of your stuff is just like, man, this is like fantastical, you know, it's like fantasy. There's fantasy parts of it. Um, what was one you guys just put up about you went out into these like, uh, like this cave and

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Seven days in the underground cave?

• 34:18Theo Von?

  Is that a, was it a real cave or not a real cave?

• 34:21Speaker 01

  So we did seven days in a cave and seven days in an underground city. Which one are you talking?

• 34:24Theo Von?

  Underground city.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's in Romania. That's, uh, that was crazy.

• 34:27Theo Von?

  It was so great because it's like, it's mixes like past and present. It's like, I can't, it's like, Are we the Mayans or the aliens here? There's this mix of like,

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:37Theo Von?

  You know, where is this a real city? Is it not? It it's looks brand new, but then it's also has

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Well, and the Romans used to mine salt out of there. I think it was like, uh, something crazy like two billion pounds of salt have been mined there or something ridiculous. Yeah. So it's been used for over a thousand years and then they built a little underground city there and there's a Ferris wheel and everything. It's so mind blowing that like how

• 35:00Theo Von?

  There's a real Ferris wheel there.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. In that underground city.

• 35:03Theo Von?

  That's a part that that's one that it's just like, I can't tell sometimes when it's new or old or it's like, it's just, it's fantastical. You know, that's what it feels like to me. It felt like dang, this is dang fantasy, you know? Um, so you're a Mr. Beast. Is there a Mrs. Beast? Do they have a Mrs. Beast?

• 35:18Speaker 01

  I mean, I have a girlfriend, but you know,

• 35:21Theo Von?

  I didn't know.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  I just call her Tia.

• 35:22Theo Von?

  Okay. So she, you just call her by her natural name or whatever God given name. Um, do you remember your first girlfriend ever or no?

• 35:30Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, but you know, I'm, I love my current girlfriend.

• 35:34Theo Von?

  Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's what I was just, or yeah, I was just thinking like, were you good at having girl? Like, was there ever a girl that you even had a crush on your neighborhood or anything? You were a kid? You don't just say her name.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  No, it's, bro, when I, um, I, when I was growing up, I was so, I mean, I still am, but I was incredibly awkward. I had a lot of pimples when I was a teenager.

• 35:54Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  And like, I have scars on my forehead from, I was so, I was an acne'd up freak that just obsessed over YouTube. I don't, I didn't know how to talk to a woman. Like, if they were like, hi, I'd probably just be like, uh, what are you? So it was, fuck, no, no. I mean, but it kind of worked to my advantage a little bit because that's why I just grinded so much from 11 to 18, which most people probably would have been trying to talk to girls or, you know, actually.

• 36:19Theo Von?

  That'll kill all your time.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Exactly. Whereas I was just like fucking, you'd play baseball and grinding on YouTube every second of the day. So it worked out in my advantage. Do you know Accutane?

• 36:29Theo Von?

  Uh, yeah, I keep saying, didn't it kill, it didn't kill Jessica Simpson? What happened to her? And that wasn't her, sorry. Yeah.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  I don't know, it might have killed someone. I mean, it's a pretty intense thing, but I took Accutane and it just got rid of all my acne.

• 36:42Theo Von?

  Oh, it helped?

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. And actually, I was, when Call of Duty YouTube, I watched when I was younger, he just said that he started taking Accutane and all his acne went away. And I was like, okay. So I asked my dermatologist and I took it and then all my acne went away as well. And I was like, holy shit. Where was, but I didn't take it till I was like 19 or 20. And I was like, my God, why didn't someone tell me about this?

• 37:01Theo Von?

  Anybody tell you?

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I was 15 or 16, what, and I probably, it's probably for the better because it's pretty intense, but it like dries your skin out like crazy. And it gets to the point where the, your skin will get like, it shrinks your pores too. So like the blackheads on your nose will literally come out on their own. And like, you'll like wake up one day and you'll just like all this stuff. Like if you squeeze blackheads, they'll just be sitting on top of your nose. It's like a miracle.

• 37:24Theo Von?

  Like when people with that worm rod in the ground, you ever seen that when they electrocute the ground to get the worms out of it?

• 37:28Speaker 01

  Basically like that. Yeah. And it's, this is a crazy thing. So anyways, I'm saying this because if there's any of you out there in the same spot as me, Accutane changed my life. I hope to be like that Call of Duty YouTuber was to me when I was younger to you. It was, it was wild.

• 37:41Theo Von?

  Some dude on Call of Duty is like, hey, get some Accutane.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. He would just do it like a story time and talk about how he fixes acne. And I was just like, oh, it changed my life.

• 37:49Theo Von?

  Dude, we had to get this blotter. They had something, there was this, finally I got a prescription because mine was bad too, dude. Like, and I was afraid to smile because some of you would have that hard patch and it would just be like, it would be like a gang of acne, like

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:02Theo Von?

  MS3 acne or whatever.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Bro, I know it too well. That was my fucking forehead for years.

• 38:07Theo Von?

  Yeah. And you would smile and it would fucking just squirt on somebody. It was almost like you were, um, you were afraid to make certain faces because a couple of them would go off, you know? It was like, you know, like.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Actually, I don't know if mine was that intense.

• 38:19Theo Von?

  I had, and if you get them like in here in the corners of my nose, it was so scary. And I already have a big nose. So if I get a pimp on it, I'd have to stay home until it went away or whatever.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:28Theo Von?

  Um, God, dude, yeah. Acne was, acne was crazy because you didn't do anything, right? You've been at home. You're just growing up or whatever.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:36Theo Von?

  And then God's like, oh yeah, you little bastard.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  I know. It's like, you see these people who don't wash their face and they just have perfect flawless skin. And then you're over here doing everything you can and you got, you know, a hundred blackheads on your nose and probably 40 pimples on your face. And it's just like, Why, why, why am I being punished? You know, like, why me?

• 38:56Theo Von?

  And we had this blotter stuff. It was like this, this green stuff came out at one point. You have to put it all, it had like a blotter, almost like a, um, for playing bingo. And you'd put it all over your skin, but it had green, it was green, right? It's kind of green. And you couldn't tell right when you put it on, but if you were at school and you had a white shirt or something, your whole shirt of your neck would start just getting green throughout the day. Cause you'd sweat it down, you know? It was heroin.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  How old were you?

• 39:20Theo Von?

  I was probably eleven, twelve.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Me growing up, we had proactive or whatever the fuck that was. That's what people did. I don't, I don't remember this green shit you're talking about.

• 39:27Theo Von?

  We had prayer and some other shit that they had. Yeah. Meeting the first girl was, oh, I remember in our apartment complex, some dad, I remember this is the first girl that I maybe had a crush on or something. The dad got a daughter a drum, right? For Christmas or whatever.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:42Theo Von?

  And she would make her play like on the back porch, she would practice and I would go around and listen and, um, she would play, uh, what's that Ice Cube song? It's like, um,

• 39:54Speaker 02

  It was a good day?

• 39:56Theo Von?

  Bum bum bum bum bum bum. Bum bum bum bum bum bum. Yeah. Kind of thank God. Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum. Yeah. No bark, no bum bum bum bum bum.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Love that song.

• 40:12Theo Von?

  Play that dude. And I would just go down there and I just fell in love listening to her play that.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:17Theo Von?

  And I remember that. It was like the first.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  And what happened between you guys?

• 40:20Theo Von?

  Oh, nothing. There was some violence between our families a little bit. My brother had some issues, I think with her brother, but they're, uh, but that was like the first crush.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  What kind of violence?

• 40:29Theo Von?

  Uh, somebody like got upset at somebody and somebody threw like, um, like a stump or whatever through somebody's bathroom window. It got, they really got hot sometimes, dude. But I, but between me and her, she didn't know that. I don't think she ever knew that, but I would listen to her play that. And the dad would yell at her to fucking play it. He was, I think a Raiders fan or whatever. Um, anyway, sorry, kind of rambling. Um, you just got back from India, right?

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:54Theo Von?

  Nice dude. How was that?

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Have you ever done shows or anything in India?

• 40:57Theo Von?

  I went to India when I was a student. We went to Madras and we worked at like a children's home. It was like, um, it was just a week, but it was magnificent, man. Some of the most beautiful, energetic humans in the world, you know, like a lot of happiness I felt like over there. Um, so I really enjoyed it. What was your experience like?

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I enjoyed being there as well. Um, well, we. Yeah, it was, it was pretty, pretty intense. Not gonna lie. We like when I, I mean, it's, it got off to like, I literally, as I'm walking out of the airport, there was just a bunch of people there waiting, you know? Right. So I took some photos, said hi to people, whatever, got in my car. And then that video that someone filmed got posted on like this, uh, big, like, I guess celebrities are like a really big thing, like Bollywood stars in India. And so like, they posted on this Instagram account and it got like 20 million views in like the next 10 hours. So basically, um, like everyone knew I was in India after that, which we also said we were coming because we were going to like, you know,

• 41:58Speaker 01

  talk on a stage because I was launching a product and things like that. But it got, uh, pretty intense because people were trying to find which hotel I was in and they were like camping out at all the hotels. And so like, I'm like, as we're pulling in, like with my seat really reclined because I didn't want to know. And, and somehow they figured out which one we're staying at. And then there's people waiting out there and there's, it, it got pretty crazy. And then we, we just like launched our chocolate bar at a mall. There's a feastable over there? Yeah, feastables we launched over there. And there was like, I mean, it was crazy. The amount of people that showed up. We were, we were just talking on stage and whatever, but the problem is so many people are showing up there that they like, like people were, were going on in places in the mall where they weren't supposed to getting in locked doors and

• 42:38Speaker 01

  the line and crowd was getting so big, they made us end it early and leave, which was annoying because like, I felt bad because so many people had showed up and I just wanted to at least like wave and say hi to a lot of them. And then, yeah, we, I met a lot of the biggest Indian creators over there and super cool, filmed some stuff. Wow. Yeah, we just, we, what was also interesting is, um, we did this, uh, meet and greet with a bunch of, uh, Bollywood actors, like their kids and just said hi to them. And, um, I've, I've just never watched any Bollywood films. So I was just, you know, hanging out, saying hi to some of these people. And like, I took a photo with this kid and, and one parent and

• 43:16Speaker 01

  then one of the guys beside me who just works there was like, hey, do you know who that guy is? It's this. And he showed me like an Instagram account. He had like 60 million followers. I was like, no. He's like, oh, that was the guy I just met. He's like, yeah, I was like, oh, cool. And then I took a photo and Said hi to another kid with with his mom and he's like, the guy was like, she is, she's like in these movies and like this and there he was like freaking out and I was like, and I, I didn't know who any of these people were.

• 43:38Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  So I was like, okay, now I need you to tell me who they are before they walk up. And so he'd like, it's just this random guy I just met. And he's just like, okay, here's, here's this person's Instagram account. It'd be like 30 million followers. Like there apparently there's like twice as many people use Instagram in India than in USA. So I didn't know any of this, but like it's a really big.

• 43:56Theo Von?

  You forget about that. And just how many people there are.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And TikTok's banned in India. So that makes more people use Instagram. And so it's like really, really big over there. Cause that was like, it was, I was, it was crazy. There were so many people that I met that just had crazy high follower accounts. And it's like, I, you don't see that over here in America. And then I looked into the data because I'm a data guy and I was like, oh my gosh, like a fuckload of people use it over there. And the usage skyrocketed after they banned TikTok. And same thing with YouTube, actually, like India, more people watch YouTube in India than in America. Because again, like in America, we're competing against TikTok over there, they're not. And then the fact that there's over a billion people. So it's like a huge.

• 44:34Theo Von?

  YouTube is bigger over there too then.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, YouTube's bigger over there. So it's like a huge market, but I had a great time. And it was just, it was pretty intense though. Like I posted an Instagram story showing us driving down the road. And they're just everywhere we drove, there's just dozens of kids that would just run along the side of the road and follow our car and things like that.

• 44:52Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so it was, it was, I felt, I felt love. Yeah. I felt very loved. That's, that's for sure. I was like, damn, people over here, they care. And it was, it was cool. It was cool.

• 45:02Theo Von?

  Yeah. It's a lot of good energy over there and it's safe energy too. So the excitement, I feel like in a place like India, you don't feel like it's going to get to a place, was it getting shady, you think?

• 45:10Speaker 01

  Not like that I thought people would stab me, but they're, how do I say it in a way where it doesn't sound like a penis diva? They were a little less concerned for personal space over there.

• 45:20Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  They're, they're like more, they'll run up to you and get like really close.

• 45:25Theo Von?

  People, it's not a lot of personal space over there. Like you get your own pillow.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Like in America, you know, people dab you up, like a group of five or six people and they'll, they'll stay a foot or two away, you know, but over there like they'll just run up and hug me and like get really, really close and it gets. It's a little intense sometimes like I noticed like some of them did not give a fuck about my personal space, especially if it was a bigger group.

• 45:45Theo Von?

  Oh, they'll hide in your mouth if you leave it open.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. So that was, that was an interesting thing.

• 45:50Theo Von?

  They just, yeah, I remember being, they would, people were sleeping on the side of the road there. I remember in India when I was there, you would just be driving at night and people just, you know, somebody was just walking and I guess they decided to get some rest or whatever. But yeah, you don't even get your own pillow in India. Like you lay down and then there's other, you know, people have a little quad. It's just, there's a lot of people there, you know, there's a lot of folks. You were talking about feastables, dude, and thank you guys sent me some, you know? I go the whole day. I don't need any sugar. Middle of the night, crack open to a box of feastables that some asshole sent me. And, uh,

• 46:20Speaker 01

  I'm that asshole.

• 46:22Theo Von?

  And they're awesome. And the peanut butter one is probably my favorite one.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 46:26Theo Von?

  But then it's like, I just have so much, you know, I freak out in the middle of the night. And, uh, cause I'm just a damn sugar pervert. And then now I just can't go back to bed, you know? But thank you. And, um, but what I want to say is, would you ever do like a Willy Wonka type of thing? Cause I feel like this, I mean, you already are kind of there, you know?

• 46:44Speaker 01

  So you know, we put 10 golden tickets in it one time, right?

• 46:48Theo Von?

  I didn't know that.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it's all good. So, uh, we, uh, it's funny you ask. So yeah, that's a great idea. We should, it's almost like we should put 10 golden tickets in random bars. I should build a chocolate factory, fly them down and have them compete for it.

• 47:00Theo Von?

  Did they, you already do all that?

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, but hey, it's, it was pretty cool. This is years ago. Most of your fans probably have no idea I did it. So yeah, we put the golden tickets out. I built a actual chocolate river. And you know what's funny? This, I don't even know if I've ever told this story, but we, I like, it's the day before we're going to film, you know, the 10 golden ticket winners are in town. And I go to the chocolate factory to just, you know, check out things. And the chocolate river is just not there. Like we had, like literally had like a multiple feet deep spread across this like warehouse, like chocolate river. But, and it's like there, but then I come back the next day and it's just not there. Like it's literally empty.

• 47:40Theo Von?

  And what had happened, you think?

• 47:43Speaker 01

  We don't know. I mean, I guess there was like a hole in the lining on the bottom of the river. We built it and it just all sank through. We, I don't know, but see that chocolate river right there.

• 47:53Theo Von?

  My God, I did not know this at all.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, posit right there.

• 47:57Theo Von?

  And was that the guy that took it?

• 47:59Speaker 01

  No, that's Nolan, one of our friends. And then that's a, he, every time someone got eliminated, they got in the boat. We paddled them down the chocolate river out the factory. But yeah, so it's like the, the day before. And I just walk in and there's like a waterfall and everything, but it's just empty. And I'm like, where the fuck did my chocolate river go last night? And so we had to like blitz to refill it and redo the entire thing. It was a fucking shit show. Just search up Mr. Beast Chocolate Factory and you can see like, he could see what it actually looks like or on YouTube.

• 48:28Theo Von?

  Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm so behind on that.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  No, it's all good. I have so many crazy stories. I could tell you about the fucking crazy shit we've done. Like who else has built the fucking chocolate factory?

• 48:38Theo Von?

  Yeah, I didn't even know.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Here, skip ahead to the inside. Yeah, or yeah, right there. Look at that shit. And candy and everything. Yeah, positive. Yeah. So those are real, real candy. I mean, it was fucking difficult to keep the bugs out of there.

• 48:54Theo Von?

  Oh yeah. You don't think about that. Bugs like candy.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so we gave the winner the option of, you know, keep the factory or just have $500,000. And I was like, yo, like this chocolate fact or chocolate river is probably going to disappear. Tends to do that. These candies are all going to go bad in the next few days. This is going to be an absolute disaster.

• 49:12Theo Von?

  Take the money.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  I'd recommend you take the money. I'll give it to you. I mean, I'm not, you know, I will, but I just, it's going to cost you like six figures to like clean this shit up. Like, I don't want to just dump that on you, you know?

• 49:24Theo Von?

  Was there Bobby Flay in that too?

• 49:26Speaker 01

  At the end is Gordon Ramsay. So the, the last challenge they did is they had to cook a dessert. And then whoever Gordon Ramsay said did the best won the chocolate factory.

• 49:34Theo Von?

  Oh, wow. And he looks a little bit like Charlie from the original chocolate factory. Pull up a Charlie from the original chocolate factory photo there. Let's do a little.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Gordon Ramsay.

• 49:44Theo Von?

  And I'm going to be so accurate here, which blew my own mind, actually.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, actually, actually Carl, the guy to the right of Gordon kind of looks like.

• 49:52Theo Von?

  Let's go. Hold on. No, the picture I want is up one. Wait, no, damn, scroll. Yeah. No, right there to the left, left on that side, right there.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, Carl kind of looks like that.

• 50:04Theo Von?

  We're pretty close, huh?

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:05Theo Von?

  Your imagination, pretty close right there.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Holy shit.

• 50:10Theo Von?

  That could be him.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  What is that shirtless photo of Gordon? Wait, wait, wait. No, go to that shirtless one. What am I looking at there?

• 50:16Speaker 01

  When did he start posing like that?

• 50:18Theo Von?

  I don't know, dude.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  My boy.

• 50:19Theo Von?

  That's one vote for Bobby Kennedy right there, dude. That's crazy, bro. Oh, Bobby Flay. Bobby Flay's daughter is beautiful, actually. And I don't care if she hears it.

• 50:32Theo Von?

  She's super talented. That's exactly what I mean. She's also stunning young lady.

• 50:38Theo Von?

  But what are we saying? No, I got more to say. I'll tell you this. Yes, you already did that, man.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and what's also interesting is while we were filming that video, I was doing a different video where I didn't eat any food for two weeks. What's the longest fast you've ever done?

• 50:54Theo Von?

  I just did three days the other day of only water.

• 50:56Speaker 01

  How was it?

• 50:57Theo Von?

  It was, or I did 72 hours. It was good. Got a little temperamental.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:01Theo Von?

  But I kind of enjoyed it. And how long do you do?

• 51:03Speaker 01

  I did 14 days, only water.

• 51:04Theo Von?

  Only water?

• 51:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I lost, what was it, like 20 something pounds?

• 51:08Theo Von?

  Was it to lose weight or just to?

• 51:10Speaker 01

  You know, it was for a video just to see what happens. And you'd like, after like day five or six, like you're pretty fucking drained. Like you have no energy. You know, it's interesting, if you read online about extended fast, people will be like, oh, you'll lose minimal muscle mass and it's mostly fat. And which seemed like a lot of Reddit threads and things when you first Google it. That's what it tells you. So I did a DEXA scan before I did my extended fast, you know, where they measure the fat muscle in your body and do one after. And I was like, I lost like six pounds of muscle. It was like pretty depressing how much muscle I lost.

• 51:42Theo Von?

  Yeah, you lose it.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, which I mean, is obvious, but that's not what the internet said would happen. Which I was like, someone needs to like correct this because yeah, it was, it was pretty depressing. So I lost whatever it was, like 13 pounds of fat, seven pounds of lean mass. But

• 51:56Theo Von?

  It's depressing because then you're so, you start to, and you don't want to explain to people, hey, I'm fasting because people think something's going on with you.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, but even after you start eating, like the muscle didn't just come back. And so it's like, yeah, that was, that was pretty brutal, but it was, yeah, it was intense not eating. I, and I still was filming and working throughout it. So like on day 10 and 11 and 12, like it was really fucking with me. Like I, I'm standing up was just. Like brutal, you know, and like walking around or anything like that because you have no energy.

• 52:22Theo Von?

  You needed a real cane like Willy Wonka.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, there. Yeah, that was that was intense and.

• 52:27Theo Von?

  Did you? What were you? Did you notice like, um, but your clarity got pretty sharp as a whip. Were you able to use that?

• 52:31Speaker 01

  People say that, but no, for me, it never that never hit. I never got that like a superhuman clarity because that's what I was hoping for.

• 52:38Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  No, I just like, I was just fucking tired, man, all the time. I was too tired to have clarity.

• 52:44Theo Von?

  Oh, I could read people's damn minds.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  I thought that guy was naked at first on the right.

• 52:48Theo Von?

  Former all pro NFL tackle Russell Okongwu is also over 150 pounds since retiring, including losing 100 pounds in 40 days by fasting every day. Yeah.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  That's just, that's crazy. We just started a video where we, uh, or we're about to start it after, when I go back home, we built a gym, like a, just a weightlifting gym. Um, and then we put a big red circle around it and then we're going to give a guy, uh, either. I don't know which one. Um, if he loses 100 pounds before he leaves that red circle. And so, and he has a trainer in there and he has a chef and everything he'll need. And then, um, yeah, and then.

• 53:24Theo Von?

  Exciting.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. So like that video might take like a year, you know? And so he just, he's living in there. We have cameras set up and it's just like, lose 100 pounds or, or leave, you know? And if you lose 100 pounds before you leave, you, you win the money.

• 53:37Theo Von?

  That's fair, dude. They should do that around a, like a, um, Indy car race, you know? Just put a big, huge circle around like a, uh, Talladega or whatever.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Why?

• 53:47Theo Von?

  And just be like, lose 100 pounds.

• 53:51Theo Von?

  Oh, I didn't think about the end of it.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  Another video we're about to start too is I bought a jet and then we're grabbing two people who just, uh, got like graduated from pilot school or whatever, just got their license. And we're going, if you guys live in this jet for the next 100 days, don't step foot out of it once. For the next 100 days, you get to keep the jet. So then they'll, they'll own a private jet, but they can fly it around and do whatever, just as long as they don't leave.

• 54:12Theo Von?

  They just can't leave.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So like, I'm hoping they'll like fly to New York and just Uber eat some pizza to the door of the jet, then fly to California or whatever. And it just like, yeah, that'll be a fun one.

• 54:22Theo Von?

  Yeah, that sounds interesting. Is there a video? Say if you got to, they shut you down. They're like, beast, you're done. No more beastin' around here, boy. Get out of here, beast. What if people were like that? And then you had to make, you got to make one more video. Do you know what it would be, you think?

• 54:38Speaker 01

  That's only one more. I mean,

• 54:40Theo Von?

  Cause you're already, I mean, you've got the $5 million, you know, you've upped the ante.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, that's on the, the show, but on YouTube, cause I don't, I don't have that, I don't have streaming money on YouTube. You know what I mean? Um, I don't, I don't know, man. We've, there's not, cause there's so many things I want to do. It'd be hard to pick one.

• 54:55Theo Von?

  Oh, there are.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:57Theo Von?

  You still have a ton of ideas.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Oh, unlimited. I mean, the bottleneck for me is not ideas. It's just like actually pulling them off, you know? Cause a lot of these are multi-million dollar projects that take months upon months to set up, months to film, months to edit, et cetera. So it's just like, they're pretty brutal. Like one of the ones we did recently that I thought was really cool. But like, this is an example of how much time it takes is we, we built a bunker underground. Did you see that one?

• 55:19Theo Von?

  I know. I'm not sure.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Okay. But so we had to dig like a super deep hole. We bought a bunker, put it in, covered it up and then built, pull up the, like the outside of it for him. So he could see what it looks like. And then we had to, yeah, that top one right there.

• 55:32Theo Von?

  I've seen some of this.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that, that's a bunker we built. And then those two people, if they lived in there for a hundred days, they won half a million dollars.

• 55:39Theo Von?

  Oh, they did it too.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And then like, but you have to set deck the bunker and then, um, so that's like multiple months of building and everything. And then you put them in there and then that's still three months and 10 days of filming. And then, you know, you have to have like camera crew there going around the clock and you have to have a medic there just for safety and, and all these other things. And I have to check in every day. And then now you come out the other end, you have a hundred days worth of footage, which takes, you know, editing team forever to come through and watch and edit and then build stories. So like, that's like a eight month long project. You know what I mean? So that's, they're just like,

• 56:10Theo Von?

  It's a lot.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's very, very intense. And, and that's the thing is like, the fact that I can do all this for a YouTube video. It was like unfathomable when I was growing up. Like it's crazy to see like the kind of, um, content that can be supported by YouTube. You know, like I think on that video, we probably spent like four and a half million dollars.

• 56:29Theo Von?

  Making that.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Just on that between the bunker and the prize pool and everything.

• 56:33Theo Von?

  And how many, uh, shows can you have? Like, can you have a couple of things going like that at once?

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. We have to, I tried to upload two videos a month. So we have to be, be working on six day videos at a time. Because these videos take months to pull off. So, cause if we're only working on one at a time, then I'd only upload once every like three or four months.

• 56:51Theo Von?

  And do you come up with most of the ideas yourself? Or do you have kind of a team and you guys kind of pool them?

• 56:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's where it's interesting because the ideas are incredibly important because like you, I do a lot of seven day challenges, right? I spent seven days buried alive. I spent seven days in solitary confinement, seven days in a cave, underground city, seven days on Zerr Island, blah, blah, blah. And then what's interesting is like you could do seven days buried alive. So me laying in a coffin for seven days, or you could do theoretically, right? I could lay in a bathtub for seven days, right? Both take the same amount of my time. Both are me just laying there, but the one in the bathtub isn't going to get any views. No one gives a fuck. The one of me laying in a tomb underground, everyone will care because it's like fucking what the fuck? This dude buried himself alive? So it like shows like the theoretically, it's kind of the same thing.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  But this idea is just in a different setting environment and will probably get 10,000 times more views. And so it shows like the importance of the idea, if that makes sense. Like it's not, uh, views or success isn't just, isn't directly correlated with the effort you put in. A lot of it has to do with what is the overarching concept? And so once you kind of realize that you're just like, you're really obsessed with how do I come up with crazy, cool, original viral ideas? And so that's what I spent most of my teenage years obsessing over. And I used to do every single day, I would brainstorm video ideas and I'd write them, write them down. And that's how I built like, I have this like Google sheet with like 10,000 ideas on it. It's ridiculous. I thought of trying to sell that to YouTubers at one point because there's so many there. I could never film them.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  But then after a while, now that things have gotten so big and I have to like film 25, 28 days a month and I have all this stuff going on. I can't do an hour a day. So I hired people to do it for me. And then, you know, like once a week they'll just go, hey, here's 200 really cool, unique ideas. I'll flip through them and you know, and they'll usually inspire something in my head. Because a big thing too is like, this is what, um, I've probably said this on podcasts before, but like if there was a, like a fruit in Africa, that if you ate, you grew two feet taller and you didn't know that existed until I just told you right now, right? You wouldn't have been able to brainstorm ideas around eating that fruit. But now that you know it exists, you could. And so it's like very important to always be intaking new information and learning things because that's how you, you know.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  Come up with more original creative stuff like I I noticed when I first started hiring people to like, you know, start brainstorming stuff for me that like after two months of someone doing this, you would just basically start getting the same ideas on autopilot, right? Like if a guy really likes basketball, you'll start to notice like, oh, 10% of his ideas have to do with basketball. But it's not because basketball is like the greatest idea is the most viral thing. It's just because that's what he watches. And so, you know, and you'll notice if someone watches baseball though, oh, now they conveniently have baseball ideas. And, and so what you want is you just want to get someone who you just almost like, want to make them constantly learn and absorb new information. Listen to 10 different podcasts, one episode of each, not 10 of one, listen, you know, watch every sport, not one. And you, you almost have to,

• 59:44Speaker 01

  like to train people to help you come up with good ideas. You have to just train them to watch a bunch of different content and absorb information. And you'll see it come out in their ideas. If that makes sense.

• 59:53Theo Von?

  So first of all, you'd find somebody who you like, okay, I like this, that this person comes up with ideas. And then you'd be like, now I just need to have, I need them to encourage them to consume different things.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  It's almost like an information diet.

• 1:00:03Theo Von?

  Different ingredients to come out with a different cake or whatever.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah. So you control their information diet and by, you know.

• 1:00:09Theo Von?

  Information diet. That's so wild.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  I mean, and that's, yeah, I mean, I obsess over things. So.

• 1:00:14Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's important.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  But that's, that's, that's been super helpful. Um, because yeah, it's just, that's how we, because a big part of getting a hundred million views theoretically on a video is if, uh, any, you know, is it something someone has seen before or not? Like, uh, there's this Ted Talk I watched one time and he was talking about how, you know, if you're driving down the road and you just see a cow, you, you're probably not even going to look at it, right? Who cares? You've seen him all the time. But if you're driving down the road and there's a purple cow, you're gonna look like four times, you're gonna remember that. Like you, you know, someone could ask you a year later and you'll be like, yeah, I saw a purple cow. And it's like, the only difference is it's purple and it's kind of the same way on social media, right? Like if you're scrolling through videos

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  and it's something you've seen before, nothing too crazy. It's just the, it's almost like you should visualize it's like, that's the equivalent of someone seeing a cow. But if it's something they've never seen before, like you putting a bunker underground and two people living in it, that's, that is the equivalent of a purple cow on social media.

• 1:01:09Theo Von?

  Like, how do I make something that Prince would drink milk out of, you know?

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Wait, what'd you just say?

• 1:01:13Theo Von?

  Like, how do you make something that Prince would drink milk out of? Prince, um, Prince musician? What's his last name?

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Prince?

• 1:01:22Theo Von?

  You know what I'm talking about Prince from Minnesota?

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:01:25Theo Von?

  Oh Prince?

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  I've heard the word.

• 1:01:27Theo Von?

  Little Red Corvette.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:29Theo Von?

  You know that song? He's a musician, but purple, he was like a purple guy.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

• 1:01:33Theo Von?

  So like, how do you make this, right?

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 1:01:36Theo Von?

  There's 2,000 princes, right? But he's the, he's.

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  He's the one on one, yeah.

• 1:01:42Theo Von?

  He's Prince.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  Gotcha, gotcha.

• 1:01:43Theo Von?

  Right? Like, that's what I'm saying, like, how do you?

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  I gotcha, I gotcha.

• 1:01:47Theo Von?

  Yeah. I'm saying the same thing you're saying, I think, you know?

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  So that's, that's a very important thing. So it's just, if anyone watching ever wants to do social media, make your ideas the purple cow. Don't just be the cow.

• 1:01:59Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  We'll blend in.

• 1:02:01Theo Von?

  You know, I like going to live events, I know that. And I know that right now, I'm actually gonna get my friend some tickets so he can go see the Bengals and the Steelers game as a gift, as a holiday gift for him. I'm excited about doing that.

• 1:02:17Theo Von?

  Game Time is where I'm gonna do it. Game Time. If you want to go to sports, music, theater, comedy, anything you want to attend, Game Time helps you. Game Time has a new feature called Game Time Picks that makes getting tickets for your favorite live events even easier. That's right. So those Bengals Steelers tickets, they're gonna,

• 1:02:42Theo Von?

  Game Time will help me figure it out. They have all-in pricing over there. Toggling this feature shows the total upfront with no surprise fees at checkout. Good, thanks, Game Time. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with Game Time. Simply download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code WEEKEND for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem code W E E K E N D for $20 off. Download Game Time today. What time is it? Game Time? I'll tell you this, um, I had a subscription to a necktie corporation or whatever.

• 1:03:24Theo Von?

  And every month, they sent me these dang neckties, you know, ties for your neck. Sent me them, yeah, I had dang so many, I don't even, I don't even wear neckties. I had enough of them, you could rappel down a dang third-story building side of it. And I was like, I gotta stop this. Thank you Rocket Money for helping me find that subscription that I didn't want. Rocket Money, it's a personal finance app that helps you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending and helps lower your bills. So you can grow your savings. Thank you Rocket Money. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of over 500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving

• 1:04:09Theo Von?

  members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's features. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com/theo. That's R O C K E T M O N E Y dot com slash T H E O rocketmoney.com slash theo. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. That's the truth. Therapy. You know, we think about it sometimes. Some people think they don't need it. You'll figure it out yourself, will you? How long you gonna tell yourself that? You know, I would tell myself things for years. Oh, well, this will get better in five years and it's the same in 10 years

• 1:04:50Theo Von?

  and it's the same. Now, I don't know that therapy would definitely help, but nothing changes if nothing changes. Baby, something helps. That's the truth. You know, especially during the holidays, you're like, oh, man, I still have the same issue that I had last year. Man, I wish I could have solved it this year, or at least addressed it, help, help talk about it with someone. So I could show up a little differently for myself. Well, BetterHelp can help. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch

• 1:05:31Theo Von?

  therapists at any time for no additional charge. Find comfort this December with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/theo today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com/theo. Like, what are some common misconceptions about you or your work? Do you feel like?

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  Well, that's a good one. Um. I would say the biggest one is, I think, people think we make content for kids and like, you know, but

• 1:06:06Theo Von?

  Oh, that's a great one.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Theo Von?

  Great answer.

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's a lot of, because I've been famous, famous, air quotes, I don't know, but for a while now. And I, the thing is, when I was like, in my young, like 20 years, I'm 26 now, when I was like 20 or 21, I didn't have much experience with storytelling or like making these like videos with contestants and like how to like show what they were feeling or anything. So back then, the videos came across a little like ADHD, like fast paced or whatever, because I saw like I had Christopher Nolan as a father teaching me. I was just learning storytelling as I was going. So a lot of my videos back then got a lot of views and like same when I was like 22 or 23. But you know, the last three years, we've really leveled up the storytelling and building characters and especially the

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  last 18 months and gotten better at like making content that, you know, people in their 20s and 30s would be like, well, this is like good and could enjoy. But because a lot of people haven't seen my newer videos and watched my older ones, they still think all my videos are like that. So they just kind of like push it up. So like when someone says like, ah, your videos are too ADHD and you don't have any storytelling, I'll usually like show them like one or two of our newer videos. I'll be like, oh my God, this is great. And I was like, yeah, let me guess. You just haven't seen a video in two years. I was like, yeah. And so that kind of is a little bit of a misconception I'm constantly fighting.

• 1:07:23Theo Von?

  Yeah, is that you're still like this kind of just entertainment for kids or that your entertainment, your ability to entertain is also still junior?

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And so, which obviously younger people watch the videos.

• 1:07:35Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, great.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  I mean, I think like anyone, you know, could watch that bunker video and be like, whoa, this is just high quality entertaining stuff. It's not like you have to be

• 1:07:42Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's like the child inside of me liked it and the adult inside of me liked it.

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:07:46Theo Von?

  You know?

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  So that, that would be one. I guess the other misconceptions of, of it is like, we I mean, we, it looks like a lot of these videos just, you know, it just looks like me and the boys having fun because that's what I wanted to look like. I want to put the boys in an environment where they're just themselves and things like that. I think people think what I do is a lot easier than it is. Like, like, these things are monster monumental projects that are a bitch to fucking do. And it's like, you know, and you know, a hundred plus million people are gonna watch it and you know, like, so everything's just gotta be fucking great and perfect. And but we don't have years to do these things. We're trying to do what most people do in a year and two months. So it's like, you know, it is tight timelines and it's, it's just, we don't have the

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  budgets of these giant studios or anything when we're doing these YouTube videos. And it's just, it's, it's very, very difficult. You know what I mean? Like, I have hundreds of employees full time.

• 1:08:36Theo Von?

  You do?

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, that depend on that YouTube channel. You know what I mean?

• 1:08:40Theo Von?

  At Mr. Beast Productions?

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I don't even know if I guess Mr. Beast Studios. But yeah, it's a, it's just a lot of pressure because it's a, yeah, it's just a lot of people depend on it. These, and it's, it's just absurd to think that I have all these employees and we're spending all this money. And I just assume like the magical YouTube algorithm, when I post this video is just gonna give it to a hundred million people every single time. And it's like, it's just like, that's a lot of stress. And it's like, it's a lot of people who, you know, watch the, it's just a lot of everything. It's a lot of pressure, a lot of stress. And it's like, if I don't film, then there's no video. So it's also not a typical business because, you know, you can, any other company, you can replace basically anyone.

• 1:09:19Theo Von?

  But you are the business.

• 1:09:20Speaker 01

  Exactly. I am. Like, literally, if I'm just like, yo, for the next month, I don't want to film. The business is dead. Do you know what I mean? So it's like, it's, uh, yeah, it's, I, I wouldn't, I, I, yeah, I just, it's a lot. It's just a lot.

• 1:09:35Theo Von?

  No, it seems like a lot. But do you, did you know it was gonna be that much stress? Do you find that you like the stress? Like, I remember even just for myself, right? Like, we have responsibilities now. We do like six episodes a month now.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:47Theo Von?

  And at first, I remember I could barely do, one episode a week was tough. And some weeks, it still is. But then some days I'll go through and it's like, this just starts to feel easier. I start to kind of acclimate to where I am. And then there's a part of my brain that's like, okay, well, now what can we do? But that same part of my brain is just the brain that, that forgets, like, fucking, we barely just got to this place. And are we even okay here? Right? So it's tough for me to like, monitor the different parts of my brain. The one that wants to do more or try new things. And the one that also wants to make sure we're okay where we're at.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  And be happy.

• 1:10:20Theo Von?

  Right. And be happy. Yeah. It's like, yeah. So most of the time I work now, it's like, um, I guess what my, my question is like, I don't know what it is, man. Do you know what it is?

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  I get what you're trying to ask. It's like, how do you, uh, which side of the pendulum are you swinging in between being stressed and wanting to die constantly? Or like prioritizing being happy and like that, basically?

• 1:10:40Theo Von?

  Yeah. And are you able to battle that? Do you know, did you know you were as competitive in, and, or do you think you're competing against like the algorithm? Or you want people to see it? Like, you know, what is that thing that are you able to notice like? Cause I don't even know sometimes what drives me to do things or even want to learn more.

• 1:10:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say I, like you, I'm just incredibly, incredibly, incredibly competitive. I, I just love winning and I, it's, the thing is, I think people have a misconception. They like try to put everyone, especially famous people in a box where it's like, this is what motivates them. And this one reasons why they do everything. And I, I believe you can be motivated by multiple things, right? Like one thing that pushes me is the fact that, you know, a lot of my friends I grew up with work for me and right? And I don't want to ever have to fire them because we can't afford to pay them. I have people who, you know, moved across the world to come work for me. So, you know, that's one thing that motivates me, being able to provide for the people who risked everything. Another thing that motivates me is I just love entertaining people and the fact that I get to entertain a hundred million people or 200 million people or whatever it is.

• 1:11:39Speaker 01

  Like I think our average videos are doing 200 million views in the first year. Like I know that's a thing that won't last forever. Right? I mean, that's like, at some point, you know, I'm not going to be able to upload something. And 3% of the humans alive are going to watch it. You know what I mean? So part of it is I want to make sure I'm like taking advantage of the opportunity I have here. Because this is like, I, what, and when I'm 40, I can't expect that. You know what I mean? Like, um, and so that's one. And another one is like, it just, for whatever reason, it just is like built in my blood. Like this is just what I do. Like working is just what I live for. And like, I don't really know what else to do with my life. Like it just, I'm just a machine that goes in. If I'm not working on something like stimulating and pushing and innovating, I just kind of get depressed and like, I'm like, why am I alive?

• 1:12:24Speaker 01

  What am I doing?

• 1:12:25Theo Von?

  Who do you get that from? Was your, one of your folks, you think?

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  No, I've just kind of always been like this. My mom hates it because I don't really celebrate wins or anything. I just always grinding on things and, um, yeah, I don't know. I think just some people are hardwired like that. And I think, but I, I think you just gotta be who you are like that. It just is who I am, but there's, there's other people who see my lifestyle because I've talked about it on podcasts and you know, a lot of creators want to be like me and, and then they end up scaling up bigger teams and they end up trying to do videos like me and then they end up there, find out they're miserable and they fucking hate it and it's too much stress and pressure. And so I wouldn't, I wouldn't advise this for most creators, right? Like I don't, like I don't have work-life balance. I just,

• 1:13:06Theo Von?

  You don't work.

• 1:13:07Speaker 01

  No, I just, I mean, I'm like, there are some months where, you know, I filmed 28 days, and I still have to run feastables. I still do, you know, film 28 days on the main channel that I, I filmed for our peaceful Anthony channel. I still film stuff for Tik Tok because we have over a hundred million followers to Tik Tok and I have to do stuff on Instagram. I still have to network and do these things and it's like, I mean, it's basically if my eyes are open, I'm, it's like, you know, I have a person whose job is just to help me basically write everything I want to accomplish on a whiteboard. I mean, it will take up the size of this wall and it's like all my piles and things I could be doing, things I should be doing, things other people need me to be doing. And then, you know, we'll just go in the next seven days, I'll circle all the things I want to do ancillary on top of what naturally have to do. And, and then he'll just like schedule

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  out basically every second my eyes are open.

• 1:13:54Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  And, and which is good because it helps me, I sometimes fall into a trap of being reactive, like, you know, my content, you know, channel needs me to film this, this needs feastables needs me to do this. And, but, you know, you're never going to achieve something great if you're just constantly like, like a ping pong ball being told what you need to do by your employees. So occasionally you need to be proactive and do other things that, you know, people wouldn't think of and be a little bit more of a visionary. So doing that kind of helps make sure I'm prioritizing things correctly and things like that.

• 1:14:22Theo Von?

  Well, it's interesting because in the beginning, you're kind of working for yourself because you're the creator, but then you build an audience and then you start to work for the audience in a weird way. Right?

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:32Theo Von?

  And there's no judgment against that, but I just noticed that in my own life in the beginning, like I'd give anything to have an audience, you know, but it's more like me, it felt like me being me, but then it's also starts to feel like you now, now you have the audience, now you have somebody to work for.

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, you, I, yeah, because you technically couldn't just 180 and like, you know, because if you did, you'd lose your audience. And so, yeah, I guess technically you're. Working, working for them in a way.

• 1:14:54Theo Von?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, I was gonna say, what did you learn about being a boss like? Cause I never wanted to be like, have any employees, right? I never even wanted to be an employee. I didn't want to have any employees. I wanted to have pizza, you know?

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  Sounds like the life.

• 1:15:09Theo Von?

  Yeah, you know what I'm saying? I'm wanting to live in a park. But what I'm saying is, um, oh shit, hold on, I know what it is. I think that, what did you learn about yourself, like about being a boss? Like I learned that if I don't show up in a comfortable way, then it's, it affects my, how my employees are. I've learned that I have to communicate better as to what I want, or cause people don't just know what I want. Those are some things that I've learned, learned in the hard way, kind of. Were there things that you've learned just about being a boss?

• 1:15:38Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, of course, um, cause I went from one to, I think now across everything I employ over four hundred people, so. Full time, so it's like, yeah, I mean that, when I first started hiring people, I was, I was nineteen, so like, or no, maybe even eighteen. So I was a teenager, no idea, I mean, yeah, you asked what I learned, I mean, at the start, I literally went to, this is how stupid I was when I was a teenager, I literally went to a comedy club, or whatever comedy, Tariq, what was it comedy?

• 1:16:05Speaker 02

  It was just an open mic?

• 1:16:06Speaker 01

  Oh, an open mic, yeah, Tariq was one of the people I hired there, it's funny, he's still here seven days later, seven years later, but I went to an open mic. And I was just like, you know, um, I want my YouTube channel to be a little funnier, so I'm just gonna go hire some random comedians at an open mic. So I just went to one, and then I just was like, writing on like a notepad every time they, they made me laugh, the comedians, and then the ones that made me laugh the most. They just afterwards went backstage and I was like, yo, you want a job? You want to help me make YouTube videos? And that's how I first started hiring. And then after that, I went into like my local Best Buy, you know, like the electronics store, this, I mean, it's fucking stupid. But I didn't know what I was doing, like, obviously, if you want to hire people, you should just go find production people, or people with creative experience or whatever. Not go into a local Best Buy, and I hired like seven people in my local electronics store.

• 1:16:52Speaker 01

  And so I have like this ragtag group of comedians, and this ragtag group of people who sell fucking laptops. And I'm like, yo, and mixed in with some people I just hired from my high school. And I'm like, and we're making these videos that are getting views and like I'm scaling up and I'm like, you know, I'm like, guys, let's give my three million subscriber, three million pennies. And they're like, how the fuck do we get three million pennies? I'm like, I don't know. And we're just like brute forcing shit. And I mean, it was an absolute dumpster fire. I didn't know what I was doing because I wish I had a mentor or something. But then after a while I realized, oh, maybe I should hire people who have a little bit of experience in this field, not laptop salesmen and comedians. And over time, we kind of started to figure it out and.

• 1:17:34Theo Von?

  But you stayed in motion, it sounds like too, though. Like you kept, you were like, this is how I do. I need something funny. I'll go to a place that has funny. I need a guy who can, you know, sell refrigerators, but talk about also iPods, right? I'll go to a Best Buy, right?

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, the Best Buy is the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life.

• 1:17:49Theo Von?

  That's pretty crazy. Because some of those people are smoking weed and wearing a shirt. They're not even clocked in.

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was.

• 1:17:56Theo Von?

  Like wearing a blue shirt.

• 1:17:57Speaker 01

  It was not the high, yeah, highest quality people.

• 1:17:59Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  One of them ended up being a convicted felon too. And I didn't even realize that when I hired him. But yeah, so it's just like, oh, you know, Best Buy hired them. I'm sure they do, they're fine. Yeah, I realized I was supposed to do background checks when I was a teenager. Obviously we do that now, but yeah, I mean, everything I, I didn't know how payroll worked or taxes. I didn't know, I didn't know what a CFO was or bookkeeping. So it's just like a lot. And I just had to learn it through trial and error, but this, we have an audience the whole time. So it's not like I can just pause things and then like, go, oh, let me just get rid of all these Best Buy comedians and replace them for real people. So I have to keep filming, but these videos we're filming are videos no one's ever done before. So these are really complicated things that are constantly going wrong. Like I think back then, like one in three videos I filmed, just like, I didn't like it.

• 1:18:45Speaker 01

  So I scrapped it or it got fucked up when we were filming it or whatever. Because like it was, these were just big spectacles and we just didn't have the team for it. And I was reinvesting everything and like, there was one time where I like, I accidentally overspent and we were like negative $200,000. Yeah, my mom was like losing her fucking mind. And I was like, it's fine, mom. I'll just, next month, I think we'll make like, you know, 200 grand or whatever. Just like spend a little less and I will, I will dig out of this hole like she hated it.

• 1:19:17Theo Von?

  Cause she was helping with the finances?

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  Well, that, but we just didn't have money growing up. And so like, like when, when I wanted to like, when I think one month we made like a hundred thousand dollars. And she was like, very adamant. She's like, just put 20% away. Just let me build a nest egg, this and that. And I was like, no, actually I was thinking of just giving like a hundred thousand dollars to Twitch streamers. I think that'd be a good video people would like. And she's like, she like for 10 hours straight was like, why not give them 80,000? It's like, because like, and this is where I'm a lot better at communicating now than I was back then. I was like, I mean, you're talking like, this is a guy who grew up with pimples, didn't communicate much, sat in his room and fucking worked on YouTube videos and obsessed over, you know, business and entrepreneurship where everyone else just wanted to watch South Park.

• 1:20:01Speaker 01

  And so I, I didn't relate to anyone. So my social skills, like skills were negative 10,000. So I was horrible at communicating things. So I'd just be like, and like in hindsight, it's kind of obvious, but at the time, like there was a huge language barrier between me and my mom. Cause all that existed in this brain was make the best videos possible, you know, and she didn't fully get that. And like, that was, that was it. I was, I was a robot that that, that is what I live for. And I was a, I was not a human at that time. And so I was just like, if we made a hundred grand, why would I not spend the hundred grand on videos? And she'd be like, put some away. And I was like, but if I put it away, I would just spend it on other videos. So why can't I just spend it on videos now? And we would just do that hours, every single day.

• 1:20:40Theo Von?

  Like if I put away 20 grand, you know that I'm only going to be able to make 80% of the best video I could make at that time.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  Yours just, and I'm just like, why am I putting the money away?

• 1:20:48Theo Von?

  Right. To not make a good video?

• 1:20:51Speaker 01

  Exactly. I was like, mom, my rent is like $350. I, the car is fine.

• 1:20:56Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  I was like, why do we need to put away? And she's, she'd just be like, and but, and I also didn't fully realize this, but you know, she would even get trauma to like 2008 when they lost everything and went bankrupt. And so she was like,

• 1:21:08Theo Von?

  We gotta save something.

• 1:21:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. But yeah, so that, that's what would make it intense. And I didn't fully understand it at the time either. So it would like get her to the point where she would cry because I would reinvest everything. And she just like, didn't want what happened to her in 2008 to happen to me. And I just like, didn't care at all. I just like, wow, trust me, videos. And so that happened, that was a thing for a very long time, but eventually. She got to the point where she's like, you know what? I'll just trust you. And that's when, that's when things got great. Cause then like it helped my relationship with her a lot. Cause she started stressing less and she just believes, you know, I got it.

• 1:21:43Theo Von?

  She's like, Jimmy will figure this out.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:21:45Theo Von?

  And like Mr. Beast, Sun Beast.

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, when shit happens, she just goes, I know you'll figure it out. I'm like, thanks. Like no need for you to cry or freak out. Like, I got this.

• 1:21:53Theo Von?

  Wow. Did you ever do something nice for your mom? Something, did you guys ever go to a concert together or something? Y'all like to do anything together?

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  Right now, I don't really get any time off. So I, we joke like in 10 years, all the things we'll do when like things kind of cool off.

• 1:22:09Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:22:09Speaker 01

  But no, we, she, she gets it. She, um, she actually sent me a message like, I think it was like four days ago. Like a really long message saying how like, she was very grateful that she still gets to work with me and do things with me. And how like most people in my position would like push their mom away. But we, we do a lot of our bonding is like doing work stuff and things like that. Because it's like, then it's like something I truly care about. You know what I mean? Like if we went to a concert, like she would see through that facade. She would know I'm not doing that because I care, just doing it to like check a box. So, but when we work together, it's like genuinely fulfilling and it's cool to like.

• 1:22:41Theo Von?

  She likes to work too?

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it, the stuff she was doing when we're building the business? No, that was very stressful. Now we have it to stuff that's a little more chill and where it's fun. Like, you know, we have hundreds of employees that have Divvy cards and all these things. And so we have a lot of bank accounts, you know? How do you know, you know, someone's not just stealing money?

• 1:22:58Theo Von?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  Who else can you trust besides your mom to control the master accounts? Cause at some point there's a master key of someone who could, I mean, if they wanted to just withdraw a million dollars and just fucking run to Mexico, right? You know, so like, that's like a really big thing that I counted my mom just to like manage the accounts and make sure there's no fraud and stuff like that. Cause I, I don't fucking know, like, um, and things like that. Um, but yeah, it's, uh, it's been a, it's been a fun journey. And so I'm very grateful for my mom. It's kind of crazy that like moms just put 18 years of their life, just pouring everything into building up this. Yeah, this human and

• 1:23:31Theo Von?

  And it's a risk, dude.

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:33Theo Von?

  Like this human and most humans, look up most humans or whatever.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  Like most humans?

• 1:23:38Theo Von?

  They're it's, you know, it's a shaky business. Just being a human.

• 1:23:43Speaker 01

  I know. And then they just unleash you in the wild and then you just move on. And it's like, it's just wild.

• 1:23:48Theo Von?

  It's really a crazy premise, you know?

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz I'm thinking about how like, you know, when I I love to spoil my mom cuz I'm like, you just like gave everything for 18 years, especially after 2008 and all this stuff. You know, worked multiple jobs just so I could like, at the time, what you thought was just be a brat and work on YouTube videos and you thought, you know, just basically, it almost would have seemed by my purpose in life was to make you as miserable as possible, yet you kept raising me and didn't give up on me. And it's like, so I think of that and then I'm like, fuck, I need to spoil my mom.

• 1:24:19Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  It's like, you know, like, I think of a different parallel universe where I'm not in this position. It's like, damn, I would never have been able to like repay her for all that time.

• 1:24:27Theo Von?

  Spoiler as much.

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, or spoiler as much.

• 1:24:30Theo Von?

  There's been recently, like in the news and stuff, I'm not as abreast on it, but there was like, they were it seemed like they were trying to like poke holes in you guys' company and stuff.

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:42Theo Von?

  But a lot of it, um, like, there were, I don't know if there was like, uh, different allegations and stuff against, if it was against you or your company, but none of it, from what I've seen, there was never, there was never any like, uh, validity to it.

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:00Theo Von?

  Right? Do you believe that there was actually something going on at your company that was bad? Or do you believe that other people, like at a certain point, if your company's doing so well that other companies or outside dark interests get upset and try to lead like reporters or create like a negative buzz?

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:25:20Theo Von?

  Is that a crazy question?

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  No, no, it's accurate. It's, uh, the thing is, again, I have hundreds of employees that I employ full time, but I've also hired hundreds of people in the past and sometimes like, uh, you know, sometimes we have hundreds of contractors just working on singular videos cuz the sets are so big. So we work with lots of people. It's impossible for there never to be anything negative. You know, that's why you have HR and things like that. So, uh, no, I mean, it would, it'd be, uh, Crazy to say, there's never been any issues where no one that's ever worked for me has ever been unhappy or, or you know, one employee's never said anything, you know, dumb to some other employee that made them want to complain or things like that. So, but I think the thing is, it's just obviously completely blown out of proportion. Like, that's not a thing that's just particular to us.

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  Any company with hundreds of employees, obviously, there's going to occasionally be something someone says is something that's inappropriate, or something that's not ideal, but that's where, when we're made aware of it, we obviously have HR look into it. Or if it's something serious, we'll bring in an outside third party, have them look into it and just tell us what to do.

• 1:26:19Theo Von?

  Yeah. And it's weird for you because if something happens at Nike, then it's like, there's an issue, there's something happened at Nike. But if something happens at a production company and you are basically the, you're

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:26:31Theo Von?

  The business, then a lot of it probably just feel

• 1:26:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, like I have people on my employee that I've never met in my life. I probably never will. I mean, because we just have so many people and some of them don't work in my hometown and things like that. So, yeah, I mean, the answer is like, yeah, it's absurd to think that, you know, hundreds of people, or sometimes over a thousand, when we scale up contractors, working together all these hours, that there'll never be any issues. And yeah, all I can really do is make sure I'm not creating an environment where we're influencing that, which we're doing our best. And like, and then when those kinds of things happen, just bring in someone to look into it and just be like, yo, tell me what to do because I'm a fucking YouTuber. You know what I mean?

• 1:27:10Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:27:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, if someone says something like, you know, hey there darling or whatever, and then someone, that person feels like that was inappropriate. Like, I don't want to be the judge of that. I want to, I don't want someone in my company to be a judge of it. I want to bring someone in and be like, yo, talk to them, gather the facts, and you tell me what I'm supposed to do, which is what we do. And that's all I really can do.

• 1:27:28Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah. It would seem like, God, it would just seem like so much stuff is out of your hands when it's got to be tough when you're a creator. You know, because you want to be, do every, you know, you kind of want to do everything and have it as a business scales. It's kind of tough because you can't, you know? What else did I want to ask you about? Oh, I wanted to ask you about

• 1:27:46Speaker 01

  Oh, he's got the flashcards.

• 1:27:47Theo Von?

  Sorry, dude.

• 1:27:48Speaker 01

  No, it's cool.

• 1:27:49Theo Von?

  I went as long as I could. That's about that was a long for me. So yeah, like you've had, like we were talking earlier about like philanthropy. So you had like you've taken plastics out of the ocean, right? You put, um, help people with eyesight. You put the water, you've done water wells in Africa or Zambia?

• 1:28:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, in Africa, a hundred wells all across Zambia or Africa.

• 1:28:13Theo Von?

  Did you, um, like, what is, is, is there like a overall goal of like a big crazy vision you see for the future of like some sort of philanthropic idea?

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  For us or just in general?

• 1:28:26Theo Von?

  Yeah, just in general, it could be anything.

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  Um, well, the thing I've been focusing most of my time on in that area recently is, yeah. So for feastables, obviously chocolate is made of cocoa. There's a lot of unethical stuff that goes on on cocoa farms. I don't know if you're aware of that a lot of child labor.

• 1:28:42Theo Von?

  I've used, yeah, it depends on what kind of farms we're talking about, but I, yeah. Well, there's some definitely, yeah.

• 1:28:48Speaker 01

  In West Africa, like, uh, so majority of the world's cocoa comes from Kotevar, Ghana. Uh, it's like, I believe like 70% of the world's cocoa and like.

• 1:28:57Theo Von?

  Kuntavara?

• 1:28:58Speaker 01

  Kot- Kotevar.

• 1:28:59Theo Von?

  Kotavara?

• 1:29:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, Kot- Kotevar, yeah.

• 1:29:02Theo Von?

  Kotavara?

• 1:29:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:03Theo Von?

  Kotavara?

• 1:29:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then Ghana, they're on the left.

• 1:29:05Theo Von?

  Oh, and Ghana, Kotavara and Ghana.

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, two countries are on the left side of Africa, kind of like where the round part right there is like the perfect place to go grow cocoa. And so, but 46% of the labor on farms there, which is where almost all the cocoa in the world comes from is child labor. So it's like pretty, pretty, like just a lot of things going on there. And so, um, that's where I've been focusing a lot of my attention because obviously we need a lot of cocoa for feastables. And so we used to, uh, get our cocoa from Peru, which ethical sourcing is not as big of a problem over there. And we use a lot of, uh, family owned farms and blah, blah, blah. But the thing is, um, there's not enough cocoa comes from Peru to supply big chocolate.

• 1:29:43Speaker 01

  And I wanted to show like, so saying I ethically sourced my cocoa from Peru doesn't really prove anything because big other chocolate companies will just go, okay. But we can't do that. There's not enough cocoa in Peru. So like, that doesn't count. It's not possible to ethically source cocoa in West Africa. So, um, I, and I knew. If Feastables kept growing, eventually we'd have to switch over there. So this past year, we switched our supply chain over there and we've been just working with the, have you ever heard of Tony Chocoloney? Probably not.

• 1:30:10Theo Von?

  Tony Chocoloney?

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:11Theo Von?

  No, and is it a real person?

• 1:30:13Speaker 01

  Well, it's a reporter who went like super deep in exposing like the chocolate industry and child labor.

• 1:30:19Theo Von?

  Really interesting guy?

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And then, but, and he was like, and no, no chocolate companies would ethically source their cocoa. And he kept exposing them and none of them were doing that.

• 1:30:27Theo Von?

  Would he be a cool guest, you think?

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, he would. He'd be awesome.

• 1:30:30Theo Von?

  Wow, it sounds crazy. I didn't know there was bad chocolate out there.

• 1:30:32Speaker 01

  So he started his own chocolate company to prove that you could ethically source it. And he called it Tony's Chocoloney because it's the lonely chocolate brand.

• 1:30:39Theo Von?

  Seen those.

• 1:30:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, badass baller company. And so I've been working with them to figure out how we can also ethically source our chocolate. Because they're, they're the only ones really doing it.

• 1:30:49Theo Von?

  Clean cocoa, dude.

• 1:30:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we built a supply chain with them. And so like all our farmers were fair trade certified and then we pay our farmers a living income. Because a big reason why there's child labor is because farmers in West Africa just don't make enough money. So it's like, that is like, if you're to rank the issues, like the number one issue is just income. Like they just can't even afford to hire adults. They don't make enough. So what they do and what we're doing for Feastables is we pay, there's a living income reference price where they basically look at the cost of bread, the cost of living, cost of inflation, blah, blah, blah. And they go, if a farmer were to sell you a metric ton of beans, if they don't get paid this number, then they won't be able to make a living income. They won't be able to live. Which then means they'll be forced to use child labor because if not, it's like they're,

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  that's the only way they'll be able to survive.

• 1:31:37Theo Von?

  Right, so they have to have children working.

• 1:31:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they need to make, and I'm paraphrasing this in mile high stuff, but they need to make this theoretical number, which is living income reference price. And so that's what we guarantee our farmers. So if like they theoretically sell us the cocoa, a metric ton of cocoa for less than that, we'll pay a premium on top and be like, no, here's extra money. This is what you need to make so you can actually live. But, you know, we don't want child labor on the farm. So we'll, we'll guarantee you'll, you'll make this much, but I don't want to see fucking nine year old Timmy on the cocoa farm. You know what I mean? So that's like the big thing. And then. Do like they have farm coaches that because another way to help farmers make more money is not just pay them more, but it's also helped them get more yield out of their farms. So they have coaches that will help counsel them and you know theoretically try to help them get

• 1:32:23Speaker 01

  five or 10% more yield out of the same hectares they have occasionally getting some supplies. It's like very like all about getting it because it's an income problem for a lot of them while they're using child labor. You could go to the farm and be like, stop using child labor. But if they can't.

• 1:32:38Theo Von?

  If they can't survive.

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:39Theo Von?

  If the family can't eat, if the kids don't also work. Yeah.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  So that's, that's been a big journey. I actually spent recently a week in Ghana, just going through the whole supply chain. So I worked on the farm, you know, and then you lay the, crack the pods, laid out to dry and then saw like where they dry and then where they store the beans and even how like the government like does QC on the beans. Went through the whole thing all the way to the ship. Just like, so this has been the last year of probably like a good fucking chunk of my time has been going to like figure out ethical sourcing with them because it's, it's very like, it's very expensive, you know? So I just want to make sure we're doing it right. And yeah.

• 1:33:15Theo Von?

  And also that's a way of, that's a really a big form of philanthropy itself because you know, just teaching these people how to do, how to have more success in their own lives. I mean, that kind of stuff is huge. You teach one person in an area and then they can be a leader and teach other people. It's like, you don't even realize that's kind of the residual.

• 1:33:31Speaker 01

  Well, the bigger thing is I hope to, like, I hope to get it where if Feastables keeps growing, where we can be like, look, we're a big chocolate company and we're ethically sourced and we're profitable. So then we can look at other big chocolate companies and go, you have no excuse, right? Right now, they can all just say, it's impossible. You don't understand. You know, you don't have scale at companies our size. This is like, this is a fairy tale dream. But because no one's doing it, you know, that's actually doing serious revenue. So if we can get to that point where theoretically we're selling a billion dollars a year of chocolate and it's ethically sourced and it's profitable, then like they have no excuse. Exactly. And so like, because there's over a million kids in child labor and on cocoa farms in West Africa right now.

• 1:34:12Theo Von?

  No way.

• 1:34:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like Feastables itself is not going to be able to get all a million out. But if we could theoretically get tens of thousands of kids out of child labor and then use that in my, you know, platform and stuff like this to bully everyone else, then hopefully that can create a snowball that gets hundreds of thousands of kids out of child labor.

• 1:34:27Theo Von?

  Yeah. Big chocolate's going down, boy. I like that.

• 1:34:30Speaker 01

  I mean, it's just.

• 1:34:31Theo Von?

  I hate Three Musketeers. I'll say it out loud. And when people eat them, and I'll say this, when people eat them, I judge them.

• 1:34:39Speaker 01

  No comment. I don't want to get sued.

• 1:34:41Theo Von?

  I'm just saying, I don't like them.

• 1:34:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, he does not like Three Musketeers.

• 1:34:44Theo Von?

  And I can say that, can I?

• 1:34:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, you could say that.

• 1:34:46Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:47Theo Von?

  I don't like them.

• 1:34:48Speaker 01

  I could say I don't like Three Musketeers either, not because of anything, just I don't like.

• 1:34:53Theo Von?

  Oh, no, I don't know any of their behaviors. I don't know what they're doing before they mail it to me or whatever. I don't like it. I never have liked it, and I don't even believe in it.

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:01Theo Von?

  Which is also a way that I feel about it. Like, when I open it up, I don't even, I don't even believe in it. And Paydays, the nuts aren't any good anymore, and they were better when my mom.

• 1:35:10Speaker 01

  Paydays, I feel like if they, if they had like a little more saltiness, a little more nuts, those things would be the bomb. Yeah, it's, it's a little, the chewy stuff in the middle is just a little too overpowering now. I agree.

• 1:35:19Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  Paydays are like so close to being a phenomenal product.

• 1:35:22Theo Von?

  Yep, and the nuts used to be a little more, they had more edges on them, they looked like more nuts.

• 1:35:26Speaker 01

  I, I, bro, I relate. I had a Payday recently, I thought the same thing. I was like, this, like, fucking shit in the middle, it's just not, there's no flavor. I want more fucking salt.

• 1:35:34Theo Von?

  It fell off for me, and I don't know when. My mom used to get them sometimes, it would be like a special thing that she would get, but she would let us watch her eat them. I'm gonna tell you this, um, did you, do you ever dealt with, like, you're so big on YouTube, do you ever deal with sanctions and stuff on there? Have you had to deal with that? Is that a conversation you have with them?

• 1:35:50Speaker 01

  Sanctions?

• 1:35:50Theo Von?

  Like, or do, or they say, like, you can't do certain things? Like, do you have to, like, submit all your videos and, and like, go through a process like that?

• 1:35:57Speaker 01

  Um, well.

• 1:35:59Theo Von?

  Can we even talk about that?

• 1:35:59Speaker 01

  No, we could, we could talk about it. The conspiracy theorists are gonna run away with this, but a lot of, uh, there's, uh, when, there's like, um, a higher ad plat, uh, what is it? When you get bigger, there's like a Google Preferred or whatever, where it's like, uh, for bigger advertisers like Coke or whatever, like premium advertisers, they want to make sure they're not advertising on, you know, bad content. So, like, for bigger channels, YouTube, if, they'll review your video before it goes up, just to make sure it's clean and you're not just, like, saying Hitler a thousand times.

• 1:36:30Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:30Speaker 01

  Um, to make sure it's good for bigger advertisers. So, they review it for that, but they do that for, I believe, thousands of creators right now, which, you know, but you don't have to do that. Uh, it just helps you get higher ad rates. But, um, no, I mean, I just post whatever. They don't know what I'm doing or anything, and, um, they're, they're pretty chill, like.

• 1:36:46Theo Von?

  Do you think they're in a tough position?

• 1:36:49Speaker 01

  With what?

• 1:36:50Theo Von?

  Just like having to set up parameters for different videos and like the effect that it could have on certain people and that sort of thing like I always just think about it from my perspective. I'm always like, well, we're upset, you know, sometimes like, oh, they'll make us take a joke or this joke or this sort of thing. They may not, you know?

• 1:37:03Speaker 01

  Well, you, the thing is they're not making you take it out. They're just saying if you don't take it out, you won't get higher ad rates.

• 1:37:08Theo Von?

  That's a good point.

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  Think of any brand that spends a billion dollars a year on marketing. That's them saying, hey, YouTube, if they here, if any of these things are in a video, we don't want to be on it. And YouTube just going, hey, take this out or we can't put these premium ads on you, which I think makes perfect sense.

• 1:37:20Theo Von?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Sometimes I only look at it from my perspective. I'm not able to look at it from like, oh, also, this is a platform where they allow us to put our stuff up. And then so they also are trying to do business as well, you know?

• 1:37:33Theo Von?

  What else do we have here? We're almost done.

• 1:37:35Speaker 01

  I mean, we can keep going. I'm having fun.

• 1:37:37Theo Von?

  You don't drink, right?

• 1:37:38Speaker 01

  I've maybe drank like five times in my life. I don't like the way it makes me feel. It's like.

• 1:37:43Theo Von?

  Is it out of control that it makes you feel, you think?

• 1:37:45Speaker 01

  No, it's just like, well, so I didn't drink alcohol until I was like 23 or 24. I wanted to stay the fuck away from it because I have a very addictive personality. So I was, my goal was to go my entire life without ever drinking alcohol. But then I was like with Logan Paul one time, or I was at, I was at a casino.

• 1:38:01Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:38:01Speaker 01

  Gambling and then Logan Paul was there and then he was like, let's hang out. And then,

• 1:38:07Theo Von?

  Was it a UFC fight or something?

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  I don't even remember. It might've been like Floyd Mayweather versus Conor McGregor or something. No, I don't know. But so well, I was like, okay, let's, we can gamble together. And then we're walking to like the tables and he stops by a club. He's like, let's just go in here. It'll be one minute. I was like, oh my God, I fucking hate clubs. They're so boring. So I go in there, one minute turns into like two hours and I'm just so fucking bored. And I just caved. I was like, okay, I need to just drink. And I'd never drank in my life, but I'm like, something, I need something. I'm dying.

• 1:38:35Theo Von?

  A lot of people need a drink to be around the polls.

• 1:38:36Speaker 01

  That's what I like. That was the time I did it. And then I was just like, oh, I just kind of like feel weird, but it's not a happy weird. It's just like, this is, I just don't like it.

• 1:38:45Theo Von?

  You don't dig it?

• 1:38:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:46Theo Von?

  Yeah, I think people, I think it's getting less and less popular in the world, kind of especially with like younger generations. It's just like, they just think it's kind of dumb.

• 1:38:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it just, I don't know. It, I, I don't know how to describe it. It's like, It just makes me feel stupid and like, but not a good stupid. It's not like a happy stupid. It's like, it's just dumb, like a waste of time.

• 1:39:06Theo Von?

  Yeah, I've definitely, I've done a lot of that. In July, you tweeted, if you were to lower the age for president, that you might run.

• 1:39:14Theo Von?

  Do you still think that ever?

• 1:39:17Speaker 01

  Um, no, no, no. I mean, I, I might when I'm older, but not, if they lowered it, that was mostly a joke. Just cause I knew people would freak the fuck out and talk about it. And it worked. But I would, if I were to, it would probably be like when I'm like 50 or 60. Cause I would need to like accomplish everything I want in business and stuff. And then probably take like 10 years and I'd have to go be like a, do something at the local level and then the state level and work my way up. But yeah, we'll see.

• 1:39:46Theo Von?

  But there could be potentially a president beast. You never know.

• 1:39:48Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. 100%.

• 1:39:50Theo Von?

  You never know, especially about after you learn a lot. Do you, um, has Elon ever reached out to you to do something cool together? Cause I mean, you guys, at a certain point, you guys are both like, um, pioneers in certain schools of thought and, and certainly creative folks.

• 1:40:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, he's pioneering, taking us to Mars, electric cars, talking with your phone through your brain, digging tunnels, fixing traffic, you know, getting rid of a trillion dollars of waste in the government now and this and that. And I'm pioneering funny videos. I don't know if I put those, but, um, but kidding, but, um, he, yeah, we, we bumped into each other at the Superbowl, said hi. I, I don't, I think he asked me, do, do, do I think people call it, call X Twitter still, or do people call it X? And I was like, yeah, most people call it Twitter. I've noticed he's like, interesting. I think I was kind of like the gist of it. And then, um, but outside of that, no, not really.

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm in talks with, um, people at SpaceX and even cooking ideas and things like that, but not Elon himself.

• 1:40:53Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah, we tried to ask if we, we could interview those, um, the two people stuck up in that.

• 1:40:59Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh, that'd be crazy.

• 1:41:00Theo Von?

  I wanted to be the first one, cause people are like, who, who you want to get on your podcast? And they're like, anybody, and I was trying to think, who can you not get? Like, oh, somebody's not on earth.

• 1:41:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:09Theo Von?

  That's who you gotta get.

• 1:41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would be sick.

• 1:41:11Theo Von?

  Loitering or whatever, you know? And, um, I love how they're not aliens, but yeah, it's like, all right.

• 1:41:16Speaker 01

  Do you think you could get Elon on here one day?

• 1:41:19Theo Von?

  I think maybe.

• 1:41:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:21Theo Von?

  They just, they offered to send me a Starlink if I want to get one. So I might get one. Are you using them?

• 1:41:25Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. Starlink's amazing, bro. When you're in fucking Zambia in the middle of nowhere, that's the only, with Starlink in Antarctica was amazing. Like Antarctica, you're in the middle of nowhere. And I mean, literally the furthest from human civilization on the planet. And yeah, you can get internet. It was, it's such a phenomenal product.

• 1:41:43Theo Von?

  Did you see anything cool like you, because a lot of people say Antarctica that they're hiding secret stuff up there, that there's that kind of energy.

• 1:41:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Antarctica, you should go to Antarctica at some time in your life. It is.

• 1:41:53Theo Von?

  Oh, I would love to go up there. Have me up there.

• 1:41:56Speaker 01

  So there is like, uh, there's, you go to South America and then you get on a Boeing seven forty seven, like an actual like commercial plane.

• 1:42:04Theo Von?

  You go to South America?

• 1:42:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. You go all the way to like the very bottom like of Chile.

• 1:42:07Theo Von?

  Okay. Antarctica's at the bottom.

• 1:42:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And then you board like a commercial plane, like you're flying like fucking Delta here. And it just starts flying and you just, you fly over the ocean and then you see just this, just endless abyss of white snow and mountains. And you just keep flying deeper and deeper and deeper into it. And then you just see this just fucking ice runway. I mean, it's the sketchiest thing you'll ever see in your life. And it just lands this commercial airliner there. I, I had no idea of any of this going into it. I kind of went into it pretty raw. And you get off, it's just this janky little like ladder thing type E. It's a, they, no, yeah, go down one image right there at that one, click on it. Cause they have to brush all the snow off. Yeah. That's what you land on.

• 1:42:51Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:42:51Speaker 01

  Just ice. And then, um, then that's not the one we went to. But then there's just this, uh, research facility where there's like three big tents that researchers work out of. And then there's like a hundred tents that they all live out of.

• 1:43:04Theo Von?

  So there's no actual terminal?

• 1:43:05Speaker 01

  No, because, uh, there it's like, so the time where it's like sun 24 seven. But then there's like these intense winters, like three or four months a year where it's like dark and you can't be there. So they have to pack everything up and leave. You can't leave anything behind. So it's like a temporary thing. And so we get out and there's all these researchers doing experiments and cool shit. And I'm just like, hey, I'm here to film a video. Um, so. And then a snow, so we were supposed to just be there for like two days or three days or whatever, but a snowstorm hits. So what we were gonna do is just go out in a random direction and then just set up a camp in the middle of nowhere in Antarctica and try to survive for 50 hours.

• 1:43:40Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:43:40Speaker 01

  But there was an intense snowstorm. So we're just, we had to sit in these research facilities and wait them out. And one of them was so crazy. It's like this tent with like door and it like flew the door, flung it open. It was so intense that we had to like tie, like hold the door shut because it's like, like barreling snow. And I'm like, my God, I think we're gonna die. Like, it was crazy. They're like, we haven't had a storm like this in a while. And like, you have like all these little tents that you live in and like the big communal tents for the, where everyone hangs out and stuff. And the little tents, like we had to build like actual snow walls around our tent because there's so much wind blowing that like our tents would have got swept away. So we had to, I had to barricade the, I'm like, this is just the normal thing. They're like, yeah, that's

• 1:44:22Speaker 01

  just what happens. And so you're like building a wall around your, your, you know, metal pole reinforced tent that you're gonna sleep in. And like, when the winds would pick up at night, I'm, I'm like, fuck, it's like, is my tent just gonna fly off?

• 1:44:35Theo Von?

  And there's nowhere to run to.

• 1:44:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, you just run to the bigger tent, but it's like, it was crazy. You know, and also in Antarctica, bro, it's like, you can't pee or shit in the snow or anything. Like, because you can't leave anything behind. Like, that's massively illegal. And so everything, all your waste and stuff, you have to store and carry and hold and that kind of stuff.

• 1:44:53Theo Von?

  Fly back with it?

• 1:44:54Speaker 01

  Well, they, they will, but you'll just put it in like, like a piss tank where they'll hold on to it and, and the shit and the shit bag that they, this big shit thing they had. But also you get snow blindness because there's, everything's white and the sun reflects. So you have to wear glasses when you go outside or it'll literally blind you, which was like, that was crazy.

• 1:45:14Theo Von?

  Yeah. Imagine, first of all, you're almost blind, can't shit.

• 1:45:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, so you wear these like tinted glasses.

• 1:45:20Theo Von?

  What are you even doing, dude?

• 1:45:21Speaker 01

  But bro, but it's-

• 1:45:22Theo Von?

  It's like you're 80 years old.

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  It's so beautiful, though. It's like crazy to just see, you're just in the middle of nowhere. It feels like you're on a different planet. And it was like, sometimes you just walk outside, you just walk in a direction, you just see nothing anywhere. And it was,

• 1:45:37Theo Von?

  Is there a zoo or anything like that?

• 1:45:39Speaker 01

  No, there's not.

• 1:45:40Theo Von?

  Or is there any-

• 1:45:41Speaker 01

  No animals, nothing?

• 1:45:42Theo Von?

  No roads or nothing, huh?

• 1:45:43Speaker 01

  No, there's literally nothing there. I mean, and like, so after the snowstorm calmed down, we just went out, like, got on these, like, little skis or things, went, went far away. But this is where it gets scary because there's crevasses and ravines and things like that. So you could be walking and then just fall 100 feet and die, right? Because there's like, the snow could have like slightly piled up over like a 100-foot gap in between the ice or things like that. So you have to have like this device go on in front of you that checks to make sure there's not just like a giant hole you're gonna fall in. You have to mark everything. So we go out in this random direction, scan everything, and then we scanned like this little like 100-foot square foot perimeter, put up flags. And it's like, guys, if you walk across those flags, there's a chance you'll fucking die.

• 1:46:27Speaker 01

  So boys, stay within this unless we scan more areas. And then, yeah, we just started setting up tents, raw dogging it in the middle of nowhere, Antarctica, far away from the research facilities. And it was, it was a fucking awesome experience. And then there's this mountain that, that no one had any records of someone climbing. So we climbed this pretty tall mountain. And so I got to name it, which I named it Shopify because they sponsored the video and helped make the whole thing happen. But yeah, so but like, it was crazy, man, climbing up this mountain. And I just, I had no idea how we did that.

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  Can you pull it up? Just like go to the 50 hours of Antarctica?

• 1:47:04Theo Von?

  Is it nice? Like, and there's no people, there's not like Antarctic, you can't go to a bar enough that there's nothing?

• 1:47:10Speaker 01

  No, there's literally nothing. Like this, there's research facilities.

• 1:47:13Theo Von?

  Do you think there's crazy stuff going on down there? Like they say, there's a lot of?

• 1:47:17Speaker 01

  No, I don't think there's anything. I didn't, I, yeah, that, so you look at that. It's fucking crazy.

• 1:47:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were deep in there.

• 1:47:27Theo Von?

  And it's super cold, huh?

• 1:47:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it depends on the time. There, there, well, so the problem is like when you move around and you have so many layers, you start to heat up and then you take the clothes off and then you get really cold. Yeah. So you look where we went to.

• 1:47:39Theo Von?

  Is there a chance that at one point it was thawed out and it was a normal land and we'll be able to explore it one day and we just don't know or that's complete?

• 1:47:46Speaker 01

  Well, there's, uh, it's not straight, like those are real rocks and stuff. So it's ice on top of stuff. So yeah, there is land. Um, and it is crazy that.

• 1:47:53Theo Von?

  Oh my God.

• 1:47:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Look at that snowstorm we got hit with. So this is after we left the research facility and now we're going to set up camp and like, yeah, those, those are the goggles you have to wear to not go blind. Um, and then right here is where.

• 1:48:07Theo Von?

  It's like a human Iditarod kinda, oh, that's the island? That's the, uh, mountain you named?

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  No, no, that's just. Yeah, the mound's behind us over there. And then this is us setting up our tents and just, I mean, we're just a bunch of stupid kids. I don't, I don't know how we pulled this off.

• 1:48:21Theo Von?

  Yeah, you could have lost a kid easy.

• 1:48:23Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, obviously we had a safety expert there, but.

• 1:48:26Theo Von?

  Yeah, but yeah, obviously that's.

• 1:48:27Speaker 01

  Then, then just skip ahead like to, towards the end where you see me climbing up the mountain. It's probably, yeah, I don't know. Maybe after this or before it, I just wanted to see. Or yeah.

• 1:48:36Theo Von?

  And that's just an ice thing you're in?

• 1:48:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, keep going to the left.

• 1:48:40Theo Von?

  That an igloo?

• 1:48:41Speaker 01

  No, that's the tent, but it's metal reinforced. Yeah. To the right a little bit. Yeah, right there. Just hit it. Uh, right click a couple or double tap. Yeah. So look at this right here. This is us climbing up the mountain. Look at those views. It's fucking gnarly.

• 1:48:56Theo Von?

  Oh, Shopify mountain.

• 1:48:58Speaker 01

  I did an ad read. I was like, what's, what's the most interesting time I could do an ad read? And I was like, where people wouldn't click off. I was like, you know, while I'm climbing this mountain, it'll probably be more interesting.

• 1:49:09Theo Von?

  Do you think you'll get to do a video with Kim Jong Un ever?

• 1:49:13Speaker 01

  Um, I mean.

• 1:49:16Theo Von?

  Like a game show to help some of his citizens?

• 1:49:19Speaker 01

  Feel like they would think it's Western propaganda. I don't think they would let me. You know, when I first started uploading in China, um, they're like, they called me like a American capitalist or whatever, whatever I, uh, post my, like, we posted some of our videos that like, uh, got views. They're like, this American, yo, capitalist. So we start, so I stopped posting the videos where we give away money and just more like the challenge videos. And then they're like, oh, this is cool. So.

• 1:49:46Theo Von?

  So they just don't like the money as the goal?

• 1:49:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 1:49:49Theo Von?

  They don't want to inspire, they don't want their people to see that.

• 1:49:51Speaker 01

  I don't know what the, uh, logic was, but I just noticed that a lot in the comments. So I was like, okay, let me just switch up what I'm posting over here.

• 1:49:58Theo Von?

  What do you watch on TV, man? You watching anything?

• 1:50:01Speaker 01

  What am I watching? Do, do, do. I'm about to start Penguin. That I haven't, that HBO show, I haven't started that yet.

• 1:50:09Theo Von?

  Oh yeah, I haven't seen that yet either.

• 1:50:10Speaker 01

  That was on the list for tonight.

• 1:50:13Speaker 01

  Honestly, I'm watching Beast Games. Like, I've probably watched that episode we watched earlier 100 times.

• 1:50:18Theo Von?

  To give still notes on and think of things.

• 1:50:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, notes, but I've also, now I just get enjoyment out of watching other people watch it. Cause that episode's mostly locked, but I'm like.

• 1:50:26Theo Von?

  So good, man.

• 1:50:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've watched like maybe 30 people watch it. So it's like my, my like guilty pleasure is just watching like other people watch my show. So that's.

• 1:50:36Theo Von?

  It's awesome. And to know that it's more for adults, it's like you still, I think you're right. I think you're perfectly right. Like when you think about Mr. Beast, it's like, um, you, you, there's a part of you that still thinks part of it's for children and it is for children.

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:48Theo Von?

  But it's also for everyone.

• 1:50:49Speaker 01

  But Beast Games is definitely for everyone. I mean, it's the most aged up, mature stuff we've ever done. And I just, I just can't wait, man. Cause we spent over a year working on that. I told you how much money we spent on it. It was so much time in effort and like the YouTube videos you make and then you upload two months later to sit on this for so long. And we have 10 episodes of it filmed. It's like, just to put it out in the world will just fucking awesome. God fucking damn it, I can't wait.

• 1:51:12Theo Von?

  So you're, so that's something that, that excites you just to see people see it.

• 1:51:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, I'm so excited. I'm so, cause most people have no idea what it is and the ones that are gonna watch it. And they're just, they're, I feel like their minds are just gonna be so fucking blown.

• 1:51:26Theo Von?

  The fact that you told me everybody's on their own individual platform and how many platforms were there?

• 1:51:30Speaker 01

  A thousand. Towers, yeah.

• 1:51:33Theo Von?

  That's crazy, bro.

• 1:51:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. I had to build a thousand of those and then a thousand, well, we needed 3,000 hydraulic presses or whatever they're called to open them. And 3,000 hydraulics and it's like to build those and then a thousand foam pits and a thousand crash pads. And then we had to rig up a thousand lightings and a thousand GoPros and then to build all that. And then the screens on the side. And I mean, even just $5 million of real money, having that there and all that stuff. And then building the sets, it's, and that's just one of the 10 episodes. You know what I mean? So we had to do that 10 times. Built a fucking city. Name one show who has just gone, okay, this field, build enough housing for 500 people, build a sports facility, build two massive five-story towers, build a helipad, build this, build that, build that, and make it look good, and a wall.

• 1:52:18Theo Von?

  Yeah. Closest thing I can think is that Angola prison rodeo. Have you ever heard of that? It's down in, uh,

• 1:52:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:52:23Theo Von?

  Outside of Baton Rouge. I mean, it's not like what you were talking about, but it's like, they put on a pretty good event once a year down there, and the prisoners are do the rodeo and...

• 1:52:31Speaker 01

  Wait, what?

• 1:52:32Theo Von?

  Yeah. The Angola prison rodeo.

• 1:52:35Speaker 01

  Angola prison?

• 1:52:36Theo Von?

  Pretty awesome if you're into that kind of stuff. But yeah, you would probably, you would definitely be able to do this way better. But just letting you know, there's a little bit of competition out there.

• 1:52:46Speaker 01

  Wait, so those are prisoners?

• 1:52:47Theo Von?

  Yep, they put them all in this circle, right? And if you leave this circle, they send the bulls through. And if you leave this circle, you lose, right?

• 1:52:53Speaker 01

  And what do the prisoners get out of it?

• 1:52:55Theo Von?

  Some, I think they get like, uh, time with a basketball or something. I don't know what the prize is. I'll have to look into who the prizes are.

• 1:53:01Speaker 01

  This is crazy. What?

• 1:53:05Theo Von?

  He stayed in there. And this is...

• 1:53:08Speaker 01

  He really wants that prize.

• 1:53:09Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:53:11Theo Von?

  But yeah, just to let you know, so there is a little competition out there. Um, have you ever seen, the last question I have for you, give me, is you ever seen that show Hands on a Hard Body? You ever see that movie?

• 1:53:19Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:53:19Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:53:20Speaker 01

  Hands on a hard body.

• 1:53:21Theo Von?

  There was a car, somebody, somebody went to a mall.

• 1:53:25Speaker 01

  Oh, that one?

• 1:53:26Theo Von?

  The documentary, yeah.

• 1:53:27Speaker 01

  I, I haven't seen it, but I've heard of the, the Last Take Hand Off Car Keeps it type.

• 1:53:31Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've, okay, I've seen a clip of that on TikTok.

• 1:53:34Theo Von?

  And they all have their hand on a hard body. The original one is great. Oh, there's a musical now? That's hilarious. And the guy's like, nothing getting me to take my hand off, but he is gone.

• 1:53:43Speaker 01

  We, we did Last Take Hand Off Lamborghini Keeps It.

• 1:53:45Theo Von?

  You did?

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, with 50 people.

• 1:53:47Theo Von?

  Well, this is how somebody trumped, somebody walked up and was like, hey, you want this chocolate bar? And I got like, I would love it. And he took it with both hands.

• 1:53:53Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 1:53:54Theo Von?

  Who takes a chocolate bar off somebody with both hands?

• 1:53:56Speaker 01

  And he, he made a mistake.

• 1:53:57Theo Von?

  And he lost.

• 1:53:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we, we did one too, where we put, took a million dollars in cash, had people put their hands on it. Um, and I think one of the four people, I don't remember, but like, cause after like 18 hours, you start to like, you know, you're not 100, 100% focused. I think he just like, reached to grab something and there was like, oh shit, and lost a million dollars.

• 1:54:18Theo Von?

  They say that the world will be changed by individuals and humans. And sometimes you start to think that that's not gonna happen, you know, that people are gonna expect a government to do it. But then I think you meet somebody like you and you're like, wow, anything is maybe possible, man. I think that's kind of like a feeling that I really got spending time with you today, man. Um, yeah, thanks for sharing your new show with me and um, is it tough for you to like, so if you have, if you spend so much time working and uh, would it like, is relationship something that's hard for you to navigate? I know you said you have a relationship.

• 1:54:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:46Theo Von?

  Is that a tough thing for you to drop in and also be like a regular person? Like, cause I'll notice I'll invite a girl over and then I'll sit there and do work.

• 1:54:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, that's, relationships just even outside of dating have always been a problem for me because like, I, I think, this might have been a traumatic experience because I still picture it to this day and occasionally have dreams of it. But I remember when I was like 15 or 16, like, I've, cause I'm so obsessed with YouTube. I remember like at lunch one time, like, one person literally just looked me dead in the eyes and said, do you know how to talk about anything besides fucking YouTube? And I, that like, and I was like, whoa. And I like, and then I was like, okay, I'm gonna not talk about YouTube. And then, so I just didn't talk like, and like, at one point, someone unironically asked me if I was mute, like, cause I was just like, in my head, I was like, well, people think I talk about YouTube too much.

• 1:55:37Speaker 01

  I don't know anything else besides YouTube. And so I just didn't know what to do. And it was like, very like traumatic for me because I was so fucking obsessed with it growing up. And the problem is though, right? And back then I thought, okay, I'm a freak of nature. I'm the problem. And I tried to, I tried to watch South Park and I, I think it's a good show, but I just didn't find it interesting. And um, and my like, opportunity cost brain back then was like, no, I need to be working. This is blah, blah, blah. And so I just never related to anyone. I thought it was because I'm a freak and it's all me, me, me. But then I, as I, when I was like 18 or 19 and got a little smarter, I realized, no, it's just in my school, there just weren't people who were interested in the same things as me. And so I was like, that's,

• 1:56:16Speaker 01

  but it is what it is. I don't need to change who I am. I just need to change the people I'm around. And that was like a big turning point for me. Um, and so, uh, no, I don't struggle with the relationships. Uh, well, I mean, if you just put me in a room with um, Someone who doesn't, isn't trying to achieve anything or doesn't want to do anything extraordinary and just wants to play video games and blah, blah, like, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't relate to them. I'd be a struggle, but you put me in a room with someone who is building a business and trying to do something cool. Like, I mean, we could probably talk for 10 hours straight. You know what I mean? So it's just all who you're around. It's just those people are pretty rare and you, you don't stumble into them. You have to be very diligent to like have those kind of people in your life. So yeah, that, that just putting myself around the right kind of people has helped like crazy.

• 1:56:59Speaker 01

  And my, my current girlfriend, she's amazing and she understands that like, you know, growing the channel, making great content. And right now with feastables, because we're trying to build an ethical supply chain. So I'm doing this on fucking steroid hard mode and all these other things I'm trying to do. It's like, it's not easy. And like, you know, she gets it, you know, like there are just some days where I won't be able to come home. There are just some days where, you know, I'm going to film for 16 hours and I'm going to, I will come home and I don't even know if my eyes will be open. Like I'm going to come home and just pass out because it was so intense. And so it's great. Like, and we, we communicate really well and that kind of stuff. And I'm very happy. But yeah, I guess that's kind of the gist.

• 1:57:36Theo Von?

  Like, did you have to say like, will you, can I subscribe to your heart or something like that? Like,

• 1:57:41Speaker 01

  No, I, um, it's actually nice though, because one thing I've found is, um, because we're not robots, you do have to take time off, even though I hate that you, you can't work all the time. And so I found that in the past, I would just like, if I went eight days like really hard or nine days, like sometimes I could get it to 10 or 12 in a row, I would just like wake up and just be like shit and crash. And I need to like watch an anime or something to like decompress and blah, blah. But I found like, if I consistently spend time with my girlfriend, I don't like boil up to this point where I'm so stressed and I need to crash. I'm losing my mind at borderline going to have a mental breakdown. You know what I mean?

• 1:58:16Theo Von?

  Yeah, kind of navigate it a little bit.

• 1:58:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like, you know, because then I get these, it's like decompression shots when I hang out with her like more consistently because it's like, you know, when you're just going home alone to an empty bed, it's like, what do you do besides just sit there and think about work? But if you have this beautiful woman, you're like, oh, this is cool. Let's talk about things. And it's like, helps you like take your mind off work. So I've noticed that's been a good benefit is like, I don't, I just. They'll have like borderline mental breakdowns as often.

• 1:58:41Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah, connections. So you gotta connect with people to get put you in a little bit better, better place.

• 1:58:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:47Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's important. Um, uh, Jimmy, thanks so much, man. Thanks for spending time, dude. I'm definitely a fan. I, you know, yeah, I'd love to chat again sometime about business or something. And you know, it's funny, you meet people. Sometimes you think they're your heroes or they're great. And sometimes what you learn about them, that's kind of like whatever, you know, they were, they were better to see from afar.

• 1:59:06Speaker 01

  I'm sorry that I was better from afar to let you down.

• 1:59:09Theo Von?

  No.

• 1:59:09Speaker 01

  Maybe next time.

• 1:59:10Theo Von?

  I was gonna say, that's not the case, man. Um, I'm excited. Yeah, I'm excited for everybody to see Beast Games.

• 1:59:16Speaker 01

  Are you ever doing a show in North Carolina?

• 1:59:18Theo Von?

  If they're children or adults. Yeah, man, we'll come over there for sure. I'll invite you.

• 1:59:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you do a show in North Carolina, we'll be there.

• 1:59:23Theo Von?

  I'll invite you to one. Uh, thanks so much for all the content and entertainment. I'm excited to see what you do in the future, man. I think you inspire a lot of people.

• 1:59:29Speaker 01

  So nice. I hate getting complimented.

• 1:59:31Theo Von?

  But I think it's just like, anything is possible. I agree. I hate fucking getting them. That's why I'm giving them to you.

• 1:59:35Speaker 01

  I'm gonna start complimenting you. This podcast was amazing. You had great questions. It was very free flowing. I thought, you know, sometimes you just go on a podcast and it's an absolute shit show, but this one wasn't. And I think you're very exceptional at what you do.

• 1:59:46Theo Von?

  Hey, watch your mouth.

• 1:59:47Speaker 01

  Your vernacular is, is very good. And I, I just really loved, uh, your shoes and how you did things. I thought your squad was pretty good. They're very welcoming. You made sure I had two cans of Celsius. Um, that was awesome. And just all around a good environment and everything.

• 2:00:01Theo Von?

  Thanks, man. Well, we'll see about that. Mr. Beast.

• 2:00:06Speaker 01

  See, does, am I the only one, all right, to close it on this, am I the only one that feels uncomfortable when people talk about you like that?

• 2:00:12Theo Von?

  Oh, I can't see. It makes me really uncomfortable. I, I, I can't wait for them to get done saying something nice.

• 2:00:18Speaker 01

  And I've had to train myself to just sit there and take it because I used to always change the subject and it would make it even more uncomfortable because and then kind of awkward. So now I've just like practiced like. Doing this, but because before I noticed my default would always just be to these people start complimenting and I just changed the subject instantly.

• 2:00:36Theo Von?

  Yeah, me too. I'll be like, oh, that's sweet of you to say we should go outdoors. That's what I'll say.

• 2:00:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd be like, yeah, interesting. Anyways, so.

• 2:00:43Theo Von?

  Oh, it's very sweet of you. I was wondering the other day if the Jets will win anything this year and people were like, what are we even, you know, but yeah, it's gotten, yeah, sometimes you navigate it a little bit better as time goes on, you know?

• 2:00:53Speaker 01

  Is this brand also paying?

• 2:00:54Theo Von?

  Nope. I just like their water.

• 2:00:56Speaker 01

  Wait, so Celsius had to pay. These guys got it for free.

• 2:00:59Theo Von?

  Yeah, but we'd like to get a water. My goal one day is to make a water.

• 2:01:02Speaker 01

  Let's see if that makes it in.

• 2:01:04Theo Von?

  This is my goal to make a water, right? I want to have a hat, like a wellness facility for people recovering from addiction, right?

• 2:01:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:01:12Theo Von?

  And it's on a, on land that has an aquifer so they can access water and the people that are getting well are, are helping to create like.

• 2:01:19Speaker 01

  So they, you employ the people with addiction. So you get them out. Yeah.

• 2:01:22Theo Von?

  Yep. And then the water gets sold and the money goes to the facility.

• 2:01:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:26Theo Von?

  So it's like, cause so many people have been ruined by addiction that our government supported, right? Or didn't really combat like an opioid epidemic. So I'm like, well, how do you beat them? And you get something everybody needs that's clean for people, which is water. And then every time they drink, buy it, they're helping somebody get clean, you know?

• 2:01:43Speaker 01

  Or what if you give them drugs and they go sell drugs and then they just put their addiction to good use?

• 2:01:51Theo Von?

  Oh, I see what you're talking about.

• 2:01:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:54Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:54Speaker 01

  I feel like that'd do better because they, they probably know the drug landscape and other addicts really well.

• 2:02:00Theo Von?

  Oh, that's a good point. You're kind of putting them in a whole new territory.

• 2:02:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. I feel like just lean into what they're good at. They're a drug addict. Just let them sell drugs.

• 2:02:07Theo Von?

  You know what? We'll try both. We'll try both, you know? And we'll get some, we'll get some.

• 2:02:11Speaker 01

  All right. He's been trying to end this for like five minutes. All right. Bye.