Welcome to this curated educational transcript of the Joe Rogan Experience. In this session, we provide a deep-dive examination of the critical perspectives and historical dialogues presented in Episode #1788. Our mission is to offer a high-fidelity, searchable research resource for students of cultural history, emerging technology, and global discourse. This transcript has been specifically optimized for academic reference, linguistic study, and archival preservation regarding Digital Media Economics, Viral Content Algorithms, and Philanthropy in the Creator Economy The Joe Rogan Experience. Showing by day, Joe
Rogan Podcast by night. All day. Wow. I've done
quite a few. I've never... Okay. Here, hold up.
Just talk to me for like a minute. Okay. This
is so freaky to me. Is it really? Yeah, to hear
my own voice. We need to put this on the video.
Okay, good. We're recording already. Have you
ever had a guest freak out about that? No, you're
the first freak out because of headphones. not
headphones no it's because I hear my own voice
I'm very conscious of that so now I'm like fuck
my inflection or whatever is it sounds fine okay
no I know it sounds fine it's just fuck whatever
I'll suck it up you don't have like a button
you can press to kill it no what the fuck so
when you play video games you don't hear yourself
right no yeah I don't either but Yeah, I hear
it's different. Sorry. Yeah, don't worry about
it, dude. That's what you sound like. Now you
know. I mean, I've seen videos. I knew what I
sound like just in real time hearing it. It sounds
like I'm speaking to myself. Fuck it. But you're
not. You're speaking to me. The purpose of it
is when you and I talk and we can hear each other's
voice at the same sound level, we don't talk
over each other. Because people tend to talk
over each other. It's just normal. In one -on
-one conversations? Yeah, it's a normal conversation.
People talk over each other, accidentally. But
when you hear both sounds, both voices, at the
same sound level, it sounds really clunky in
your ears. It's imperative when you have three
people. If you have three people and you don't
have headphones on, it'll be a disaster. Everyone
starts talking over each other. And then when
you're listening to it, it's unlistenable. It's
hard to... That makes sense. Alright, so we're
just rolling right now? We're rolling, man. What's
happening? How are you? First of all, let me
just tell you how impressed I am with what you've
done. I think what you've done is amazing. Because
your channel and what you've done on YouTube
is completely unique. It's completely you. Your
personality comes through. The way you've crafted
these things that people have to do. These tasks
and these games and this fun shit you do. And
it's wildly popular. And I didn't know about
it until, I guess, about a year. ago. I told
you my 11 -year -old is fucking obsessed with
your show. Obsessed. And she told me, and we
were in a hotel in Vegas. I was there for the
UFC, and she was watching YouTube. I'm like,
what are you watching? She's like, oh my god,
it's Mr. Beast. And she was so into the show,
and then I watched it, and I was like, wow, this
is actually really entertaining. It's fun stuff,
man. Thank you. Yeah, it's been crazy, because
I've been doing it since I was 11. Really? Yeah,
so now I'm 23, and so it's just like, basically
every... a year it just got crazier and crazier
and i used to make a dollar a day back well the
first few years i wasn't even making money off
youtube but once i started making money i was
making a dollar a day and i saved up for a couple
months i bought a microphone saved up for half
a year i got a computer and i've just always
reinvested it and so it's like literally just
all i mean i was like as awkward as they came
uh no money no nothing and i just basically just
obsessed over youtube every day for a decade
are your first episodes available the 11 when
you're 11 years old uh no because i i had a friend
when i was 13 that found my channel and so i
deleted like all the videos i got really self
-conscious uh oh no but so everything from 13
and up is there and yeah they're terrible that's
still cool yeah so what did you do when you first
started like what was the first idea uh the very
first video um weirdly enough I played this stupid
game and some hacker like killed my base when
I was 11 and so I uploaded it and my first video
got 20 ,000 views like instantly because it was
like all the people that played the game was
like oh shit you can hack in this game. It's
a game called Battle Pirates. I guarantee you
no one listens. What is it called? Battle Pirates.
No one here has ever heard of it. Battle Card?
Battle Pirates. Battle Pirates. Yeah it was a
really small game but I uploaded that and it
got 20 ,000 views and that was probably the best
thing that could have ever happened to me because
then I was hooked from day one. Literally like
most people it takes hundreds of videos before
you get like one view. And somehow the very first
video I uploaded at 11 got like 20 ,000 views.
And then I was just like, oh, I fell in love.
And I've been hooked ever since. Wow. So it was
kind of almost by accident. Essentially, yeah.
It was that. Because this was way before YouTube
was even a thing. No one was really a YouTuber.
Hardly anyone made money. When did YouTube first
get launched? Like 2006 or whatever. YouTube
was a thing, but the partner program wasn't really
a thing. No one was making money. It was definitely
back before it was cool. When I was doing YouTube
when I was 14 and 15, now it's cool if you want
to be a YouTuber in high school or middle school.
Back then, no one gave a fuck. You're just worried
they would try to play your videos in class or
make fun of you or stuff like that for it. But
how did it evolve to what it is now? Was it a
vision? Was it a slow, sort of a gradual increase
in numbers? Yeah, I mean it's about as slow as
it gets. When I was a young teenager, I was getting
no views, had no money, had no equipment. So
for the most part, it was just like I was just
trying to scrounge money so I could buy equipment
because I was using my brother's old laptop.
And so like my first couple hundred videos, I
didn't have a microphone. Like imagine just like
crackly, terrible voice. And so once I got monetized,
I saved up for a few months. Like I told you,
I bought a microphone. I can just give you a
mile high history. And I saved up for like six
months. I mean, I was just doing video game videos
and they were terrible. But I saved up. I had
a real computer. So now I can actually record
the video game at high quality. I have a microphone.
I'm like 15. And I just kept going and going.
Trying to figure out what are some of the hot
spots. I essentially... Up until 18, I had been
doing YouTube pretty religiously, but I was making
no money. Like, this is kind of the turning point
was when I graduated from high school. And my
whole life, I was like, I want to be making enough
money by the time I graduated to do this full
time. And I wasn't. I was still only making a
couple hundred bucks a month. So I graduated
high school. And my mom was like, either move
out or go to a community college. And I didn't
have enough money to move out. But I really just,
I hated school with a passion. But she forced
me to go to community college. And that was the
worst thing ever. made me hate life like borderline
suicidal i just can't stand like having to just
sit there and listen to this dumb stuff and listen
to some teacher read out a book so what i did
was i would act like i was going to community
college but i would just work on videos in my
car and edit and stuff like that i had straight
zeros and so now the clock had started because
like once my mom found out i was screwed um were
you aware of that like yeah you're running a
risk yeah exactly and so i would act like i was
going to college that whole time but i wasn't
and i didn't have enough money to move out and
that was kind of when I was just like 15 hours
a day, all in, I was like, I'm fucked if this
doesn't work. And I actually, I had some videos
pop off. I couldn't tell you which ones, but
I had a month where I made 20 grand because I
just had some videos just do really, really well.
And then I came home and I was like, yeah, I
haven't been going to college. And I moved out
the next day. My mom almost had a heart attack
because she doesn't understand YouTube or anything
back then. And she just was like, she was like,
man, this guy's going to work at McDonald's.
I wasted all this time. Like I invested 18 years
in this one. Where were you living? What part
of the country? North Carolina. That's where
I've lived almost my whole life. And so how does
she feel now? Oh, she's great. Is she flabbergasted?
She's beyond happy. Yeah, she loves it. Put her
in front of her friends. She loves talking about
it, obviously. Oh, I always knew little Jimmy
was going to be a success. No, she doesn't try
to hide it. We would fight all the time. Even
in high school, I never once studied. I literally
wouldn't even take my books home. I legit don't
think I studied once all of high school at my
house. And so we would fight a lot. I didn't
have the best grades. And so I would just make
videos, and she didn't understand it, especially
because back then it was just a whole different
world. There wasn't really a thing as a full
-time YouTuber and stuff. And so it was a lot
of arguments, a lot of drama, but it ended up
working out. She's happy. The thing is it's like
nobody saw this coming, right? So you can't blame
her. Especially me. In the middle of North Carolina
in a small town, I had horrible acne. Especially
back then, really awkward. It's like no one –
people would have bet a million dollars that
I wouldn't be a YouTuber. It makes no sense.
But I just like – I have hyper obsession and
I love this. And given enough time, anyone can
solve it. Well, there's a lesson in that for
people really. Like to just – if you do have
a hyper obsession to something, there's a lot
of people that think that because they're bad
at school or because they're not interested in
school that they're destined to be a loser. And
that's not true. The problem is school is too
rigid. Like regular public school system, sit
down, underpaid teacher. Disinterested, not really
connected with the work. You're not connected
with it. You just can't wait to go home and do
what you like to do. Exactly. And you get this
thought in your head like, oh, my God, I'm going
to be a loser. I mean, that's how I was when
I was in high school. I thought I was going to
be a loser. Well, and you take it a step further
because I thought, especially if you're, like,
extremely passionate about something at a young
age, where most kids are, then you're even, it's
more exacerbated that it's like, you know, I
didn't talk to anyone. I hardly had any friends
because I was so obsessed with YouTube. Back
then, just no one cared. So it's like, I thought
I was just like... just didn't even know how
to speak. Literally, I just couldn't hold a conversation
with a single person because people would just
tell me all you talk about is YouTube, and I
would try to talk about something else, but back
then I was so hyper -obsessed that I literally
just didn't know how to. What were you obsessed
about? Were you obsessed about other channels,
your channel? Everything, from learning how to
editing, the pacing of the videos, ideas, what's
going viral, what's trending, what's hot. Especially
back then, I had no idea what worked. I had to
self -teach myself everything, even frame rate
on cameras, coloring of the videos. Just stuff
like that. And how did you learn? Did you learn
from YouTube? Yeah. So YouTube videos and tutorials
or something? Most of my growth came actually
after I graduated high school. Basically what
I did was I somehow found these other like four
lunatics. Three of us were college dropouts.
One was a high school dropout. And one, I don't
know, he just like quit his job. We were all
super small YouTubers. And we basically talked.
every day for a thousand days in a row and did
nothing but just like hyper study. Like what
makes a good video? What makes a good thumbnail?
What's good pacing? Like how to go viral. And
we would just call it like daily masterminds.
We would just get on Skype every morning. And
like some days, like I'd get on Skype at 7 a
.m. and I'd be in the call until like 10 p .m.
And then I'd go to bed. I'd wake up and I'd do
it again. And, you know, we'd do things like
take a thousand thumbnails and see if like there's
a correlation to the brightness of the thumbnail
to how many views it got. Or like, you know,
like videos that get over 10 million views. is
how often do they cut the camera angles or things
like that. Really? So you micro -analyzed everything?
Yeah. We were very religious about it. And so
that's where most of my knowledge came from is
I just surround myself with these lunatics and
just every day, we didn't do anything. We had
no life. But everybody had sort of a similar
vision. Yeah, exactly. So we all had like 10
,000, 20 ,000 subscribers when we met. And by
the time we stopped talking, we all had millions
of subscribers. And we all hit a million subscribers
within a month. It's crazy. because it's like
if you envision a world where you're trying to
be great at something and it's just like You
learning and fucking up and learning from your
mistakes. Also, my mom told me not to curse.
Sorry, mom. If someone could just edit out the
swear words and give it to me. Sorry, mom. Yeah,
so I could give it to my mom to listen to. That
would be great. But you mess up, you learn from
your mistake, you mess up, you learn from your
mistake. You in two years might have learned
from 20 mistakes. Or if you have four other people
who are also messing up, and when they learn
from their mistake, they teach you what they
learned. Hypothetically, you two years down the
road have learned five times more of the amount
of stuff. So it just helps you. grow exponentially
way quicker, if that makes any sense. It does.
It does. But it's interesting that you thought
about it that way in sort of a systematic approach.
Exactly. This is not dumb luck. No. I mean, it
was like they say 10 ,000 hours of mass or something.
We probably put in like 40 ,000, 50 ,000 hours.
We're talking like every day, all day, like literally
nothing. We had no friends outside of the group.
That was your life. I'm actually rereading that
book right now, that Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers,
that talks about that 10 ,000 hours principle.
It totally applies to what you did, 100%. I mean,
it sounds like you were just all day, every day.
Which makes sense. What do you have now, 90 million
subscribers? Well, across everything, we're closing
in on 200 million subscribers. Have you seen
our dub channels? No. Can you pull that up? Just
search MrBeast and Estefaniel. I'm kind of curious
why you don't do this. We do our videos in other
languages as well. Really? Yeah. Wow. I can't
wait to show you this because I actually have
a really cool story. Just go to the channel.
Who does this? We do. So you hire someone? Yeah,
we have voice actors and everything. Wow. So
these are the exact same videos on my main channel,
but we pay voice actors to dub over them. We
translate the text in the video, everything.
Mr. Beast in Espanol. Yeah, that was actually
one of the fastest growing channels last year.
That's so smart. Okay, now click on a video so
we can kind of hear it. And so scroll down so
you can see the comments. It's all in Spanish.
That's dope. Yeah, so that's now just, I won't
pull them all up. Any other countries? Yeah,
search MrBeastBrazil. We do a bunch of them.
Oh, so you got a Portuguese translator as well.
Wow, that's dope. Yeah, same thing here. I love
it. Oh, man, what a great idea, man. Yeah, and
so. Because if you Google it, it's like only
whatever. Less than 10 % of the world speaks
English. So 90 % of the world can't even enjoy
your content. And when I realized that, I was
like, wait a minute. 90 % of the world can't
even watch this stuff. And so go back to the
Spanish one real quick because that's our biggest
one. And sorry for anyone watching who doesn't
have the visuals. So set it to most popular.
We just started doing this like six months ago.
And it's crazy how viral some of these videos
are going. Wow, 51 million. Yeah. The problem
with me is like... I don't know if someone's
going to translate it, if they're going to say
exactly what I said. Well, you have quality control.
So we have like, before a video gets uploaded,
we have three different people who basically
write the transcript. And then if the words don't
line up on all three, then, or sorry. let me
think about the process we have something like
that because I was worried about that as well
I think we take the original transcript and then
we have it dubbed and then after stuff we have
like two different people write out and if it
doesn't line up with the original then there's
like it's a red flag and we look at it interesting
yeah we built some system where I don't have
to worry about that and the final point is in
Spanish the guy who does my dubs is the same
guy who dubs Spiderman we managed to convince
him so a lot of those comments are like why does
he sound like Spiderman or is Mr. B Spiderman
that's hilarious yeah and so what we do when
we go into these markets we get celebrities to
do my voice so then like the local people in
the language freak out so like Japan's coming
up and I can't say who but we secured like a
giant voice actor from an anime to do my doves
and whenever we launch in Japan I know they're
gonna lose their freaking minds that's a brilliant
idea that's so smart so you have how many employees
then? I mean, across everything, over 100. I
don't know. Wow. And what are you, 23? Yeah.
That's crazy. Yeah, it's wild. I think I just
had the blessing of finding what I loved at a
young age. To get to this level, it takes a decade.
Most people don't find what they love until their
young 20s, so they'd be where I'm at in their
30s. I just lucked out and found it when I was
really young. It's that, but it's also your vision.
One of the things that I was really impressed
by when I started looking into you after my daughter
introduced me is that you invest so much money
into the show. All the money I make. Why do I
need money? So you don't go crazy? You don't
have a Ferrari or anything nuts? No. I think
living your life chasing a nicer, nicer car and
a bigger and bigger box to live in is kind of
a dumb way to go about life. Yeah. Yeah. So I
actually, funny enough, I lived in a super below
average home. And I kind of learned why famous
people don't live in a... below average homes
because someone broke in, stole everything I
owned. So I had to get a little nicer house for
security reasons. But before I was robbed, my
place was like a little duplex, $700 a month.
You get a roommate's 360 split. Right. Yeah,
and just drive a normal car. Well, now I drive
a Tesla just because of getting off of gas and
stuff like that. But, yeah. So you don't go crazy
at all with cash? I really try not to. I think
that's just a bad way to go about life. Also,
it is a little hypocritical because I run a nonprofit.
Have you seen our Beast Philanthropy channel?
No. Can you pull that up as well? We do a lot
of stuff for helping people. And so also if I
lived in a $10 million mansion while I'm feeding
people and trying to help people, in my eyes,
it's also a little hypocritical as well. So in
every area, I feel like it's just better if I
just live below my means. You're just very wise
for a young man because a lot of 23 -year -olds
will be. Balling out of their fucking mind right
now. Zoom out. Well, yeah, I also have some stories
about that, too. You do? Yeah, because I did
have a phase where I did ball out a little bit,
and then I realized, yeah, this doesn't make
me happy. What did you do during the balling
out phase? I bought an i8. And I also bought
some designer clothes, like some $1 ,000 shirts
and stuff like that. Ironically, all of which
was stolen when my house was broken into. So
it was kind of perfect because I was like, I
don't know if I really care about this stuff
anymore. And then someone just stole all my expensive
shit. And I was like, perfect. Did you set aside
a bunch of fuck you money at least so that you
never have to worry about money again? I've always
reinvested back in the channel. Sometimes I run
out of money and I have to take it alone. Really?
Yeah. You've taken a loan? Multiple times. But
you're making astounding amounts of money. Yeah,
but hypothetically if like, you know. do a brand
deal and a brand owes you half a million dollars,
sometimes they don't pay for four months. I already
spent that half a million dollars when I gave
it away in that video. It's never been a point
where I'm negative. Technically, money's inbound,
but sometimes you just have to wait. I got to
keep going and keep filming. Wow. It's very unusual
that someone would spend that much money reinvesting
in the show. Which, ironically, is why we made
more money last year than any other YouTuber
on the platform. The thing is... Like for YouTube,
a lot of people are very young. And so I think
it's like there's so much money in this industry,
but most people are so young that they just don't
even realize the opportunity they have and they
don't understand a lot of these things. And so
I think that's like it shouldn't be revolutionary
that I reinvest all my money. Like that's something
businesses have been doing for centuries. You
know what I mean? It's not that crazy. But I
think just like I was saying, like people are
just so young and they don't understand like.
you know, the opportunity you have here. I mean,
if you have 50 million people that watch everything
you do, you can start a business and you can
do anything. You know what I mean? It's very
valuable. Well, the thing is, is that you're
treating this like an established business. And
I think there's a lot of people that get into
YouTube and they're just, they have no idea what
they're doing and they have no business sense.
And even though you didn't pay attention in school,
you're obviously wise enough to recognize that
the right thing to do is to invest. That's what
makes it unusual. Because, like, you give a 23
-year -old the kind of money that you're making,
most of them are going to just go fucking crazy.
Think even younger, because I started getting
money when I was 19, 20. And so there's so many
things I want to say on that, because I agree,
and I feel like I have some good advice to add
for people in those positions. There's a couple
things. First off, to be this successful as a
YouTuber, you kind of have to understand there's
three different pillars that get us where we
are. You have to have the business sense, reinvest,
hire, scale up. I mean, the things we're doing
are huge logistical nightmares. Have you ever
tried to buy a private island and you buy a private
island and there's no beach and so you have to
terraform a beach and build a pier and stuff
like that? Is that what you did? Yeah. You guys
bought an island? Yeah, because we did a video
where Last Leave Island keeps it. And so we buy
an island and it looks better on the internet.
and you go see it, and there's no beach. Well,
fuck. Now you've got to import 5 ,000 pounds
of sand and stuff like that. Where's the island?
Somewhere in the Bahamas. Someone won it. Someone
won a fucking island? Yeah. We're actually about
to do something similar again coming up. How
much does an island cost? That one was like 800
grand, and then we put like 100 grand into renovating
it. Wow. How big is the island? It's huge, like
three football fields or something like that.
It took quite a while to walk to the other side.
This is it? Yeah. Yeah, that one. I bought this
entire island. You can get an island for $800
,000? Yeah, in the Bahamas. That's kind of a
shock. How many islands are in the Bahamas? I'm
going to be honest. I have no idea. But that
beach you see there, we had to build that beach.
Really? Yeah. So that sand wasn't there. We had
to import it. So it was just like rocky coastline?
Exactly. And we needed a beach to film on. So
we basically had to build a south part. And so
did you put a house up there? No. Or is it just
an island? The person who won it just sold it.
Oh, did they really? Yeah. Right away? Yeah.
He was like, I don't fucking want it. I was like,
well, then sell it. And so these people, how
do you find them? This one. The contestants.
It's different for every video. This one, I'd
have to see them all in particular. This one
was a mix of random people and my boys. The hard
thing is sometimes I love pulling random people,
but. If you grab random people, sometimes people
just don't know how to act on camera, and they
freeze up, and they're really not good for content.
And so in an ideal world, everyone in my videos
is just purely random, which is what I'm trying
to get towards because I'm trying to get better
at filtering out the random people that just
freeze up and aren't good on camera. That one's
a little older, so some of those are people I
knew because I knew they'd make good content.
Because I would bring someone in a video, and
they'd win something, and they'd just freeze
up, and they'd do nothing. They'd just be like,
oh, thanks. And then all the comments are like,
no one just says, oh, thanks, when you win a—
hundred grand this is fake mr beast is fake all
this is fake i'm like no it's real the fact that
he's acting like that shows it's real but like
the masses don't understand that so i have to
be like very like strategic on how i pick people
or everyone's just like oh this is fake they
didn't they didn't react so how do you pick people
do you have an audition do you have a conversation
with them do you meet them i literally just hired
a casting director and usually we just like get
large amounts of people they filter through and
we're just looking for like people a do they
need it like do they actually need this help
would have been to fit their life you know obviously
they can't be super rich and then also it's literally
just like put a camera in front of them and do
they freeze up that's it i just can't have people
like freezing up because then it just like it
i don't know it's just not content and it's i
can't just pause the show and like explain like
oh they're not talking right now because they
you know so when they meet you is it for the
first time yeah when we film it's usually for
the first time So the casting person sets everything
up, and they get these applicants from— It really
just depends on the video. Because some videos,
like Squid Game, there's 456 people. That one,
we dropped a shirt. We grabbed 100 random people
that bought the shirt. And then the other 356
we just got from a local college. We literally
just went there, put out flyers, and the first
356 people that called, we just brought them
in. You brought them in, but did you vet them?
No, because there were so many people. That's
what I'm saying. It's like different videos.
Did you see that Squid Game video? I saw part
of it, yeah. Yeah, that was wild. That was the
most expensive thing we've ever done. How much
did it cost? A little over $4 million. Jesus
Christ. Yeah, because we had CG, recreated all
the sets. And the thing is, there's not really
room for error. This shit has to work. And so
engineering, like the glass bridge, we legit
had to build the glass bridge. We dropped them
and safety and all that stuff. And when you're
doing this, are you bringing in stunt people?
How are you coordinating all this to set up challenges?
If you're doing something where you drop people
off a – how do you make sure that they don't
die? Well, there's foam below it, and obviously
it's safe. Everything we do, we safety test beyond
belief. That video we had over 100 different
people working on. Wow. I don't even know how
many people we had working on that Clash Bridge
thing. That one was very stressful. Because it's
also, it's like, you know, you spot a trend.
Squid Game's hot. It's not like you have six
months to pull it off. It's like, fuck, this
is hot. It's not going to be hot in a couple
months. Like, if we're doing it, we got to do
it in the next month. And so it's like, it was
basically like three or four warehouses just
filled with, like, these crazy, like, sets. And
all this stuff has to move concurrently. Yeah,
I mean, it's hard without the visuals to even
begin to explain it. Because, like, the first
set we had was, like, literally, like, the size
of a football field. And we need to go to the
very beginning. Yeah, that's the glass bridge
one. But, yeah, look at this set. Like, those
are real walls we built. Those things are fucking
huge. Sorry, Mom, for swearing. Sorry, Mom. Yeah.
Oh, well. Like, you can't even tell the scale
of how big that room is in the shot. But that's
456 people. and look how tiny they are what are
you hitting them with uh so again again this
is like crazy stuff that people don't even realize
we have to do. So we had to build these squibs
on them so when people got out, because in Squid
Game you got shot when you got out, we can't
shoot people. So the next best thing is we put
a device on them that when they get out, it just
shoots out ink to signify that they got out.
So everyone had a device strapped to their chest
that we had to custom build and we had to build
software in an app and then we had like a hundred
spotters around. So if I said red light and they
kept moving, the spotter would click the app
on their app and basically pop their squib. So
you They developed an app specifically just for
this? Yeah. That's hilarious. I wish I had it
on me. And so you would see all 456 people. You'd
see their face. And then when they got out, the
spotter would pop them out. That's the thing.
There's so much stuff that goes on behind the
scenes to make this stuff happen that people
don't even realize. And that's why no one else
does what we do because it's stressful. It's
hard. And it's brutal. Wow. And where did you
get the doll, the doll that spins its head around?
That one? You built that? Yeah, some company
in Europe, they built it for us. It was like
50 grand. What do you do with that after you're
done with it? That's the problem because none
of our videos are the same. It's like usually
we give stuff away or we just put it in storage.
But, like, I don't know. Where is that doll now?
I don't want to lie to you. I have no earthly
idea. I'll buy it. Oh, you'll buy it? Yeah, I
want to put that doll in my studio. Okay. I think
that would be dope as fuck, wouldn't it? A little
doll head? Come on, man. That thing would be
cool as shit to have that here. So now skip to
the next scene. I mean, because I can run you
through it. That's why, like, this originally
was supposed to cost $2 million. But as we're
going through it, it's like, oh, fuck, now it's
two and a half. Oh, fuck, it's three. And I was
like, okay, you can't get any more than $3 million.
And next thing you know, like, you actualize
the budget afterwards. It's like fucking $4 million.
Holy shit. And this is, did you have to take
all this down once you were done? Yeah. So you
just leased these warehouses? No, we own them.
Oh, you own them. Okay. Yeah, we have one of
the largest studios on the East Coast. Oh, so
you built warehouses specifically so that you
can. do all kinds of stuff like this well and
so you can pause it he gets adjusted this that's
kind of the problem for me it's like we're reinvesting
so much money in the videos and pushing him to
the max but I also need space like right because
like the videos are so big that So you can't
just work on a video for a week. You've got to
be working on it months in advance. So you've
basically got to always be working on, in an
ideal world, six to ten videos. Well, if one
video takes up your entire warehouse, how the
fuck do you work on the other five? So space
is a huge bottleneck, and I'm in the middle of
nowhere in North Carolina. There's not tons of
studio space and stuff like that. So we have...
three or four studios. The newest one is what
I call our campus that we built. It's a giant
$10 million studio. And it's kind of like a money
game because I want to reinvest and go big on
videos, but I also need to build infrastructure,
so it's kind of like a balancing act. But we
built this huge, it's 70 ,000 square feet, or
55 ,000 of studio space. Because also the problem
is if you get warehouses, they always have beams
and you can't film if there's beams. So it was
easier just to... renovate this place. Sorry,
I'm just going on random tangents. No, it's good.
It's great. I love it. And so basically we have
this ginormous warehouse, soundproof. I can do
shit like blow up a car in it because there's
like a thousand sprinklers that you'll drown
before you burn to death in there or like light
a fire or anything, which is good. So we can
do dumb shit. It's like the perfect wonderland.
But even then, like even though this place is
great and it's $10 million, it's still like usually
only houses one or two videos. So we need to
build another one. And it's just usually like
a money game. Now, how much micromanaging? do
you do because i'm looking at this and i'm seeing
like you've got everything you've even got the
cookies like in the shape of the umbrella so
that you like have to get someone who makes the
cookies for you but make sure that you could
still cut them out with that's one of the easiest
things even that Even that being easy, it's like
you've got to make sure everything's right. I
can imagine one screw -up, like if someone makes
bad cookies that you can't cut through right,
and they crumble. We do test on test on test
on test leading up. Dude, this one was crazy,
the tug -of -war scene. Look at that set. Isn't
that freaking crazy? That's amazing. So they're
over foam, so they just drop down into a giant
pile of foam? That's incredible, dude. That's
probably one of the coolest shots I've ever gotten.
Yeah, I mean, this is like something that looks
like a set from Fear Factor or something. I mean,
it really looks like a big time. Wait, look at
this one, too. Pause it there. Look at that shit.
It's crazy. Yeah. I love it. No, it's really
cool. I love what you do. I just think it's amazing
how much dedication you have to this. Thank you.
Because no one's telling you to do this. This
is not like you have Universal Studios behind
you, and they're like, Mr. Beast, this is what
we planned, and we have hired these people. You're
doing all this yourself. Taking all the risks,
coming up with the ideas, and every step. Now
people, it's like. What's it say? It's like you're
crazy until you're a genius or whatever. I don't
know. Not that I think I'm a genius, but it's
like basically up until like two years ago, every
step of the way, two people are throwing tomatoes
and telling you you're stupid for reinvesting.
Right. Everyone thinks you're off your rocker.
You've lost your mind. And everyone also thinks
like the life cycle of YouTubers, like two years.
And it's like, well, you know, in two years you're
going to be irrelevant when it's only two years
if you just don't. do interesting shit, you know?
Yeah. Well, I think it's two years if you don't
continually push yourself. Exactly. Innovate.
Yeah. If you're innovating, adapting, and, like,
doing cool stuff, I mean, you can have a career
as long as 10 years, in my opinion. But that's
the same in everything, I think. I mean, that's
the same television shows. How many television
shows are really popular for a while and then
they drop off? Yeah, exactly. Because they don't
innovate. Yeah. Yeah, they get the cookie -cutter
formula. Also, that video, too, looking at the
view count reminded me. I think Netflix in total
has 220 million subscribers, and that video just
crossed 220 million views. Wow. So it was a big
dub. Yeah, I mean, obviously it worked. I mean,
just incredible. Incredible that you were able
to pull it all off during the time where Squid
Games was really relevant. Because if that came
out today, I'm sure it would be really interesting.
But people wouldn't be obsessed with it like
they were. No one would give a fuck. Yeah, because
when Squid Games first came out, I mean, it was
a phenomenon for like a couple of months. Exactly.
So you had a small window to act in. Yeah. And
you had to design everything and build everything.
And I also want to put out there, I have some
amazing people on my team. Because that video
without, like, I mean, I have. arguably some
of the smartest people in the world when it comes
to just creating viral content and YouTube and
stuff like that. Without them, that wouldn't
be possible. Because it's not like I'm over there
designing every little set and I'm custom building
the squibs that we're rigging on them and designing
the app. It's taken a long time, but I would
literally, without a doubt in my mind, say we
have the smartest people in the world when it
comes to making viral content. And no one else
can do this type of stuff. You have to be very
nimble. You have to really think outside the
box. And it's like, one day you're trying to
figure out how to secure a sub, the next you're
trying to figure out how to go to Antarctica,
the next you're building... Squid Game in real
life the next year burying me alive for 50 hours
you know it's like you have to it's like you
don't find people that specialize in stuff it's
like just people I don't know, who just have
a willing to learn and adapt and like, you know,
keep because it's all different. And how do you
find these people? How do you find these people
that you work with? I mean, it's been hard. A
lot of them are just like lunatics that really
love doing interesting things because it is fulfilling
because like it's different. It's not like you're
going and doing the same cookie cutter stuff
every day. So a lot of people find that fulfilling.
And usually it's people with good work ethic
that want to learn. And then we kind of train
them up. It's kind of been my best result because,
like I said, no one specializes in all that stuff.
You know what I mean? Also, people who work in
unscripted or, like, shows like that where it's
not, like, a set plan typically do better in
our environment. But, like, someone who worked
– like, if you worked on Wheel of Fortune, you
would do horrible in our environment. You wouldn't
even understand. It's like – because, like, you
know, we don't tell you what to do. We kind of,
like, give you a little bit of reign to make
decisions and you got to pivot. And it's like
– no one knows – we've never built Squid Game
in real life before. We don't know if it's possible
to, like, build a 40 -foot wall in this coliseum.
It's like they might cap you at 35. Well, then
now you have to decide, well, does 35 still look
good on Vision? on the camera and stuff like
that. So it's like people who are also able to
think for themselves a little bit. So, I mean,
do you guys have like weekly meetings where you
talk about this stuff? I mean, we work in the
office every day. Are you working every day?
Well, not every day, but you know. Pretty close
to it. Yeah, I mean, if it's closer to a video,
you know, it gets crunch time. But like right
now, we're not even really filming that much
because we've just had a lot of videos fall through
because of COVID. Is this stressful to have like
such a big staff? uh yeah i mean my life is very
stressful because we haven't even touched on
like have you seen our gaming channel our reaction
no i want to get to all that but i just just
the way the whole thing is structured is fascinating
to me because Obviously, you're at the top, and
you're the guy who's calling the shots, and it's
your channel, but it seems like you've got a
whole ecosystem under you. Of course. And you're
fucking 23 years old. I mean, that's wild shit
to be managing all that. I could step away, and
those guys could create just the most viral videos
ever. We have a machine. These people are geniuses.
I mean, I lucked out with quite a few of them.
They're really intelligent. The way you put them
together was just... finding people that you
thought were interesting? I mean, how long did
it take to develop a 100 -employee roster? Yeah,
well, not all 100 are on the main channel, right?
Because, like, we have the gaming channel, which
probably has, like, 24 people. Like, on our gaming
channel, we have, like, four or five people.
Like, their full -time job is just to build the
maps. Like, everything we do on Minecraft, we
custom build, and we custom code stuff. And then
we have a dozen people that work on a React channel.
The main channel, I don't know where we're at,
but it's probably, like, half of it. And I don't
know. They're just like the people – they just
come from everywhere. I don't even know how to
explain it because it's like I basically just
hired one person a month every month for like
the last five years essentially. Wow. That's
amazing. So what is a typical day for you? When
you're trying to figure out what you're going
to make a video of next, do you get together
with your friends and brainstorm? Do you have
an idea that you come up with while you're driving
your car or something? So that's where it gets
interesting. So the difference between a video
on YouTube, and this is where I can go infinitely
in -depth, the difference between a video with
a million views or 10 million views, usually
isn't that like the 10 million view video, or
actually a better example would be a million
views. 30 million views. The video with 30 million
views usually didn't put in 30 times the effort.
Like they might have put in two or three times
the effort and just had a way better idea. Does
that make sense? Yes. And so once you kind of
understand that, which I understood, like I kind
of started to understand that like when I was
19, you realize that like the idea is so freaking
important. Like you could. theoretically, most
YouTubers watching this, you can pull triple
the views with half the work if you just have
better ideas. Like, no joke. It's that extreme.
And so once you realize how important an idea
is, you just obsess over, well, how do I get
more ideas? How do I get better ideas? So I used
to just spend an hour every day brainstorming
ideas. I don't anymore, but, like, probably,
like, four years that just every day I'd just
spend an hour. And I would just do something
different. One day I'd use a random word generator.
Like, I don't know, just say a random word. Dog.
You know, I adopted 100 dogs. I gave my friend
50 dogs or I gave a dog a million dollars for
dog treats, whatever. So I take in random words.
I see what pops in my head. I write those down
and I take in another random word. And I've studied
it very intensely. I've tried like lucid dreaming
to see if I could trick myself to come up with
ideas while I'm sleeping and stuff like that.
I work really well when I. intake inspiration,
and I see what pops in my head, that's like the
most effective way for me to come up with ideas.
So it's like, I just try different ways of intaking
inspiration, whether it be like traveling, random
words, flipping through a dictionary, things
like that. And that's always, for me, been the
way to like consistently come up with good ideas.
Wow. So you actively seek these ideas out and
you try to come up with different ways to just
have them manifest. Yeah, exactly. And then once
you do, then you sit down with the crew and you
go, okay, how do we make this? And then... How
does that work? It's a long time. But then we
can't start working on the video until we know
what it is. I have a guy named Tyler who I've
known for years. I went to high school with.
He's just phenomenal. And so then we have to
write the video and actually figure it out. So
if I want to bury myself alive for 50 hours,
what does that look like? What are we doing in
there? Because until you know everything you're
doing, you can't start working on it. And then
you come up with it. And then we have our people
who basically make it happen. But then the problem
is it's like, oh, well, you're... you wanted
a giant ball in a coffin. But they're like, oh,
well, you can't get a giant ball. And so then
it's just months of back and forth. And this
is where most people fall apart and why this
wouldn't work in traditional media. Because it's
like, you don't write a script and then just
hand it to them, especially because it's non
-scripted. So you can't just say, here's what
we need, and they just do it, and then it magically
happens. Because once they start working on it,
there's all these things like, oh, well, this
is impossible. This is impossible. So it's like
a back and forth for months. And then usually
it's like, well, Since this didn't work, that
means this doesn't work in the hypothetical thing.
Like you can't light a firework in the coffin
or whatever or like you can't light a fire. If
like one of the bits was me to cook food, well,
because of the ventilation, you can't light a
fire in there. So then it's like you got to change
it. So it's like a lot of back and forth like
that over the course of months and then you get
a final product, which is why you need intelligent
people working on it so they can like do that
and they can occasionally make decisions on their
own without having to push it all up to me because
then I want to kill myself. And this has been
all just a trial and error sort of thing from
the beginning. Exactly. From the first videos
to now. Yeah. Do you ever stop and look at when
you've got a video like that that has 224 million
views and look at how insane your reach is and
go, how the fuck? I know. It's crazy. Well, and
that's just in English. Right. You have the other
channels, other languages as well. Yeah. I mean,
I. I don't know. I don't even know how to put
it into words. I mean, it is crazy. It's like,
obviously, it just feels like numbers on the
screen. But if I tried to visualize 100 million
people, it's unfathomable. Now, you're in an
unusual situation, too, because YouTube is, you
know, it's a weird place because it's got these,
you have like partnership deals, right? So you
get a piece of the ad revenue, but you essentially
don't have a contract. Like YouTube can just
go, you know what? Fuck Mr. Beast. Let's get
rid of them. Why would they? Of course they shouldn't.
It's a terrible idea. But you're in this weird
– like if they change the way they monetize things
for any reason. I know that has happened to certain
people, right, where they used to have some sort
of a deal with YouTube where they were making
videos and for whatever reason YouTube demonetized
them and they go into full -blown panic. Yeah.
I mean obviously – You're not controversial in
the sense of like – Yeah, we're not anywhere
near the line. And like a lot of that like isn't
YouTube. It's like the advertisers putting pressure
on them and they're just trying to – But if you
had been – my point was have you been approached
to be independent of something like that? Because
you're so big at this point. You could have your
own servers, your own website, your own deals
with advertisers where you get 100 percent of
the revenue rather than – I love YouTube. I mean
like you got to think about it like YouTube comes
pre -installed. on Android. Obviously, Google
owns YouTube or Alphabet, but also Google owns,
so people go there through Google. All roads
point to YouTube. I love being the biggest creator
on YouTube. Fuck going and doing my own thing.
That sounds stupid. Hell no. I can have one of
the largest audiences in the world. Instead of
thinking about building my own platform, I'd
rather think about building businesses, leveraging
my audience off of YouTube, like Beast Burger
and our snack brand and other stuff like that.
I feel like that's a better use of time instead
of just nuking my audience. Well, I don't think
it would nuke your audience. My point is I think
you're so big that you would just transfer anywhere.
Yeah, but you would take that, but then you don't
have like – because we're constantly gaining
new people. Like last year we gained – on the
main channel alone, we were the most subscribed
to a channel in the world. We gained 36 million
subscribers on the main channel. Really? Yeah.
If I had my own platform, it would be like one
or two million. You know what I mean? Right,
right, right. So it's like – and it's still going
up. Across all the channels, we're gaining like
7 million subscribers a month. Like that would
just plummet if I used my own platform. Do you
have an ultimate? plan for all this? I mean,
I just love YouTube. It's been my life's passion.
Do you ever meet them? People at YouTube? Yeah,
do you ever go there and have a powwow? No. I
mean, I've talked to some people, but it's like
I don't really need anything. Bro, they should
massage your feet. They really should. They should
sit you down. Jimmy, you're doing so well. Yeah,
YouTube, if you're listening, I'll take the foot
massage. Yeah, that's what they should be doing
with you. They should set up a throne. They sit
there with a crown on, and then they dunk your
feet in the thing, and they do your nails. And
so I might have a different view than most people,
but I didn't have much, and it's all 100 % of
everything. I've never worked a job. I've never
made like anything. It's all been from YouTube.
It's incredible. Used to make a dollar a day.
So I love this platform more than anything. Listen,
I love YouTube too. All the problems that they
have. I think it is absolutely amazing that they've
created this thing where someone can make a living
and an incredible living just creating content.
Anyone in the world can. Like if you like. I
don't know how to say this. It doesn't sound
arrogant. But, like, if you knew what I know
about, like, how to make a good video and go
viral, even if you had zero subscribers, you
could be making $100 ,000 a month in half a year,
right? Anyone in the world can be a successful
YouTuber. And to me, that's, like, the beauty
of the platform. Yeah, it really is. And it's
very unique in that there's a lot of other platforms,
but no one ever figured out a way where someone
could be fully dedicated to it and make a living
off it. I guess maybe Twitch. And then I guess
there's a few other ones where people make money.
But not at this scale of YouTube. No, not even
close. Not even close to scale. That was one
of the most difficult things about going to Spotify
was leaving YouTube. Because I was like, man,
our growth on YouTube is pretty crazy. I don't
know if that's a smart move to just leave. And
so the compromise was we could still put clips
up on YouTube. That was really the only way I
was willing to do it. I wasn't willing to just
abandon. It was a great idea because I don't
really use Spotify that much, but all the time
your clips occasionally pop up on my homepage
on my TV. And so if you, in my world, because
there are these different worlds now. There are
some people that only use TikTok. So if you're
not on TikTok, you just don't exist in the world.
That's kind of how I view it. In my world, it's
pretty big YouTube. So, like, if you just were
not existing on YouTube, like, you wouldn't exist
to me, you know, hypothetically in my world.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I exist on TikTok, but it's
not me. Like, someone's just uploading my content
on TikTok. Really? Yeah, at a certain point in
time, I guess I should step in and do something.
You should. On TikTok, but TikTok is such a sketchy
fucking application. Have you ever seen, like,
the breakdown that these software engineers have
done of TikTok, of how intrusive it is? No. They
said it's the single most disturbing piece of
software they've ever had to back engineer. Because
the amount of... Like cross -platform spying
it does. Well, I know if you travel to a different
state, like even now in Texas, my TikTok feed
will be a lot more Texas content. It's definitely
location -based. And I have had instances where
I would say certain things in conversations,
and then later that night I would get it in my
feed, something similar. Like if I talked about
dogs a lot, and then I'd weirdly start getting
TikToks about dogs. I have noticed that type
of stuff. My friend told me that she was talking
to this lady, and they were just... She was having
a conversation and then she looked at her TikTok
and TikTok suggested her. Based on that conversation?
So TikTok knew that her and this lady were next
to each other physically because their phones
were next to each other. Wow. So TikTok suggested
that she follow that lady. That's crazy. That's
spooky. And TikTok can be pretty addicting. I
actually recently uninstalled it just because
– even though my TikTok is mostly like gym and
like actually finance stuff. So it's like I actually
don't – I enjoy the content on it and I don't
think it makes me a worse person. But I found
I was spending like two hours a day on TikTok
and I was like, ah. Just scrolling through videos?
Yeah, that's what I was like. That's a little
much. So I uninstalled it. Yeah, it's a fine
line between enjoyment. getting something out
of the content, and then just this weird empty
obsession where you're just spending time staring
at other people's stuff. But I think you can
curate the feed, though, where it is beneficial,
which is what I tried to do. I had it in a good
place where when I opened TikTok, it would motivate
me to work out, and it would motivate me to go
work, so it's good. But sometimes it would take
a little long because you can see your time on
app. Usually I try not to spend more than an
hour and a half a day on social media. So when
I saw that two hours, I was like, fuck. Do you
know the difference between... the way China
does it versus the way the American does it?
No. It's really interesting. China, first of
all, between the hours of 10 a .m. and 6 p .m.,
kids are not allowed on it. They can't be on
it. Really? They won't let them on it. Second
of all, when you're on it... The difference between
like TikTok in America is like dances and people
doing pranks and people doing things to try to
get viral views. In China, it highlights scientific
achievements, athletic achievements. It highlights
like people doing things, accomplishing things.
Wow. So it's a lot more curated. Yes, much more.
But curated by the CCP where they're trying or
whatever in conjunction with where they're trying
to elevate the quality of the lives of the kids
that are addicted. So instead of them being addicted
to putting piss in the hand soap container, instead
of doing something like that, what they're doing
is showing science experiments. They're showing
innovation. They're showing kids accomplishing
great athletic goals. And it's motivating people
to do good things and improve themselves, which
is totally possible here. But the problem is
you would have to have some sort of overview.
like, some sort of Orwellian restrictions brought
down from the governments to, like, make sure
that kids only see that kind of thing. But here
in America, if you did that, like, people just
wouldn't use it. They'd be like, oh, well, fuck
this. I'm going to Instagram Reels or YouTube.
Exactly. So do you put stuff on TikTok as well?
Yeah, we use TikTok. So you have, like, a team
that does all that kind of stuff? Exactly. I'd
say, like, 1 % or 2 % of my time go to TikTok.
Like, 90 -plus percent goes to YouTube. Because
essentially, like, at the end of the day, like,
the most – I can hire creative people to help
come up with bits. I can hire production people
to help do the videos and editors. The only thing
I can't outsource is me actually filming. At
the end of the day, that's the only thing that
I'm the only person in the world that can do.
So in an ideal world, I spend as much of my time
as possible filming and not doing other stuff
because we have multiple different channels and
stuff like that. So peak performance would be
me. 90 % of my work week is just filming shit
and nothing else. Yeah, I mean, when you're in
the middle, of all this and you have all the
stuff going on whether it's the social media
stuff and the filming stuff and the coming up
with the new content and new ideas and then managing
the fact you have a hundred fucking people well
we haven't even gotten into the side companies
or the side channels either no the the beast
burgers and all that jazz yeah wait first of
all where's mr beast burger how many of them
do you have uh so right now we don't have any
physical we have 1600 virtual restaurants oh
so you order it online and then they deliver
it yeah so like uh let's say you own a mom and
pop restaurant you you literally just sign up,
go through the course. You learn how to make
all the stuff on a menu and you just order our
ingredients and our packaging. And then you just
flick it on, on Uber Eats store dash Grubhub
and you can start taking orders and we let you
keep a majority of the revenue. So it's basically
like it's a win -win for restaurants, especially
when COVID first hit, it was like huge for a
lot of restaurants. Cause I was pushing it really
hard back then. And like some restaurants, you
were literally laying off people. And then they
started serving Beast Burger and some of them
doing like 10 grand a week, not like in total
revenues, whatever their cut was lower, but it
allowed. them to not have to like lay off part
of the workforce or keep their employees and
stuff like that. And so, yeah. And this idea
came out of what? We were approached by some
company. And the more I thought about it, the
more I just realized it was just a great idea.
So we have a partner, basically a guy who's been
doing restaurants his whole life. So actually,
that's how we started, because he owned 300 restaurants.
So we launched with his 300 restaurants. And
that first day, they all sold out. They were
having to run to local stores to buy ingredients
to keep up with orders. The Uber Eats delivery
lines were out the door. It was pretty bad. So
we had to quickly expand up. And we've just been
adding like 50 restaurants a week ever since.
Wow. Yeah. And so now we're about to start doing
our first physical restaurants as well. And that
should be fun. Your mom must be so baffled. A
kid she thought wasn't doing jack shit in school.
Now he's creating virtual restaurants. It's incredible,
man. Yeah, it's actually insane. So we've been
doing it for probably like 15 months now. And
we're about to cross $100 million in top -line
revenue across the restaurants. Wow. So that's
one side business. What other side businesses
do you have? So we just launched our snack brand.
Our first thing is a chocolate bar. Just basically,
like, only four ingredients. Just a slightly
healthier version of a chocolate bar. Problem
is, if you make things too healthy, which is
what I've found with my restaurant, is that I
would love to wean people off, like, super unhealthy
stuff. But if you, like, we did lettuce wrap,
where you just replace the bun with lettuce,
no one orders it. If you go, like, too extreme
on the healthy side, just no one cares. So it's,
like, I found, like, the best spot is just to
make things, like, 20 % healthier, and then people
still order it. If not, then it's just useless.
So I wanted to do a snack brand, and I'm experimenting
with that. So it's just basically slightly better
for you. chocolate bar. Just higher quality ingredients,
a little bit less ingredients. And what do you
put in it? Well, you can just pull it up. There
it is. Mr. Beast bar. I mean, like I said, it's
not crazy healthy, but... Yeah, it's got quinoa
in it. Yuck. I love that one. I have some out
there. I'll have you taste test it. I'm sure
it's good. Quinoa mixed with chocolate. Bro,
they put chocolate on ants and people eat it.
I mean, everything with chocolate is good. Well,
and so our big marketing stunt for this, because
everything I do, it's got to be a spectacle,
is 10 random people are going to get flown down
to compete for a chocolate factory in a video.
So we're still working on building the chocolate
factory. That's what I was doing yesterday before
I flew out here. So when you say a chocolate
factory, is it going to be a real place that
makes chocolate? No, it's going to be kind of
like the Willy Wonka one, where it's like decked
out. Most people, I feel like, are just going
to take the money instead. They can keep the
Chocolate Factory or I'll just give them like
half a million dollars. 99 % of people, I feel
like, would rather just take the money. Yeah,
because then you'd have to sell the Chocolate
Factory. Exactly. Because in Willy Wonka, it's
not like it was the Chocolate Factory. It was
like they had the Chocolate River and all that.
So that's what we're trying to figure out right
now. We're literally building, like, a chocolate
river, and I'm trying to figure out, like, how
do you keep chocolate flowing and from going
bad and, like, being fucking disgusting and shit
like that. So you said you're trying to make
your chocolate bars healthier. Do you use, like,
Stevia for sweeteners, or is it just all sugar?
Like, what is it? I mean, honestly, I'm still
educating myself in this stuff, so I'd rather
not go in depth because you could probably run
circles around me on this type of stuff. Nutrition
stuff. Yeah, exactly. I think just, like, just
getting the – here, I mean, just pull it up.
Just roast it here if you want to. Okay, let's
see the ingredients. So here we go. Created by
experts. Just scroll up. No, no. Just where.
Does it have an ingredients list? About. In about
maybe. Yeah, hit about. I can also probably just
pull it up. On the about page. There must be
something I'm not clicking somewhere. Here, if
you want to just search for it and then pull
it up once you find it. Yep, yep. So other than
that, are there other businesses you have that
are like sidebands? Yeah, so the dub channels
I showed you, we're actually building a dub studio
in Mexico. We're building dub studios across
the world, and we're actually doing that for
other creators as well. So to dub foreign languages
onto English videos. Yeah, so if you were a YouTuber
and you wanted your videos in a bunch of other
languages, just come to us. We'll start up the
channels. We'll translate the thumbnails, translate
the content, do it all for you. So you have like
a whole business set up in Mexico. Well, our
business is Unilingo. Here it is. Sugar cane,
cocoa bean, cocoa powder, sunflower, lecithin.
So that's all that's in there. Yeah. That's good.
Total sugar, where's that? 13. Okay, total sugar.
It's whatever. I wanted to take it extreme, but
the problem is if you go too extreme, then no
one will order it. I'll admit, it's not the healthiest
possible. It's a snack, though. It's not supposed
to be that healthy. It's a fucking chocolate
bar. Eventually, if we could crack the code,
that's what I'd love. Most of the food we eat
is fucking garbage for us. I wish you could just
be like, this is the perfect chocolate bar, and
then we just magically get people to actually
eat it. You said you work out a lot? I'm starting
to get into it. The problem is, We just have
so much shit going on. And it's, like, one week
I'm burying myself alive. The next week we're
dealing with Squid Game. When I'm not, like,
not filming, it's so fucking easy, like, to work
out. But it's, like, it's hard to, like, get
a routine going because, like, we just went to
South Africa and we were going to Antarctica
for a couple of days. And, like, that's, like,
a 12 -day trip. And so it's, like, it's weird.
I get it. Yeah. But I'm also being a pussy. Like,
in an ideal world, I should be working out way
more consistent than I am. Listen, man, just
relax on yourself. Sounds like you're doing a
lot. You're getting a lot. I want to be the best.
Well, you obviously are trying to do that because
you're amazingly accomplished at 23 years old.
It's super impressive. Thank you. So when you're
going to like South Africa, like what did you
do in South Africa? Well, we just flew to South
Africa as a stop to Antarctica. But annoyingly,
when we were about to get on the plane to go
to Antarctica because we're going to spend 50
hours in Antarctica, we're going to climb a mountain
that's never been climbed before in Antarctica,
do all this cool shit. The group that went before
us gave the group in Antarctica COVID. Everyone
there had COVID. So they had to leave. And so
there's no one there to clear the ice runway
for us to land. So we went to South Africa and
they literally just flew back because we couldn't
go to Antarctica. I know. It's brutal. And there's
only a little window where you can go to Antarctica
twice a year. One's in February. And because
of that, the window was missed. So now we can't
go. They don't test the people before they fly
to Antarctica? I would think that's so isolated.
They have to test you if you're going to go to
the Bahamas. I know. I mean, I don't know how.
it happened but yeah so now we can't go again
until November which is annoying because like
we had already we've been working on that video
for over a month you know like we're gonna go
to this part and play with the penguins we're
gonna climb this mountain the content was like
phenomenal and you're out there we have the team
you're in Africa ready to go there and then it's
just like nope and so it's like it's also opportunity
cost because we could have been filming a video
that would have been uploaded which that's why
I haven't uploaded in a month because that fell
through and so it's like not only did that fall
apart but it's like the opportunity cost it sucks
Now, that sounds a little dangerous. Like, you're
climbing a mountain? I mean, we have experts
there. You know, like, they'll make sure we're
safe. Right, but you're climbing a mountain in
Antarctica. I mean, it seems just by nature.
I mean, the company we were working with does
this stuff all the time. And they assured us
it was safe. So, like, I mean. Have you ever
seen that film, Twelve Peaks? My friend actually
recommended it, but I haven't seen it yet. It's
incredible. It's really wild. But one of the
more. confusing moments is when you recognize
how many people climb mount everest and there
was one part where there was a window a small
window of good weather and so the queue of people
trying to get to the top of mount everest was
hundreds of people long i saw the like a picture
on twitter near the peak there's like 50 people
waiting to go yeah the star of the film he he
took that photo That's one of them. He took a
photo of the people in front of him that were
trying to get up to this mountain, the top of
Everest. Yeah. That's a weird one because it
used to be this thing where you would go to this
far off land and you would climb this rugged
mountain and there was no one out there and it
was so hard to do. But now hundreds of people
in a day. Look at that. Crazy. Oh, wow. I didn't
see that one. That's insane. I mean, even crazier,
you got like the free solo guy just climbing
without anything. Yeah, well, he doesn't do this
stuff. No, no, but yeah. Yeah, but Alex Honnold,
he's been on a couple of times. He's a fascinating
guy. Yeah. He scares the shit out of me. I would
love to speak to him. My hands start sweating
just talking to him. Yeah. Just like what he
does because it's like he's up 1 ,500, 2 ,000
feet hanging on by his fingertips with a bag
of chalk. Just hearing you say it is making my
hands literally sweat. Yeah. When you watch videos
of him do it, and he's just so kind of calm and
chill about it, and he's very, in the nicest
way, like almost innocent and childlike in the
way he talks, like his eyebrows are, look at
that. Look at that. Oh my God. Fucking Jesus
Christ, man. That's so crazy. I mean. Wow. He's
hanging by his fingertips. Fuck all that. Gosh
dang it. That's funny. And, you know, the real
weird thing is experts are convinced that he's
going to die. Like, the real experts. Like, how
many of those images are there of him doing that,
man? He's basically hanging by his fingers. There
ultimately are probably variables occasionally
out of his control. Look at that. Look at that
photo. Look at that photo. Fuck that. Yeah. Look.
Oh, Jesus. I mean, like, bro, if someone was
like a billion dollars to do this and climb to
the top of the mountain and gave me five years
to train, I would say fuck no. Fuck no. And the
thing is, like, he'll tell you he's not even
the best climber in the world, which is really
wild. There's guys that are better at it than
him. He just has a knack for doing this and doing
it without any ropes, and he stays calm. He knows
how to just find his way up and concentrate entirely
on the task at hand. And the guy – look at that
fucking – Oh, my gosh. Look at my hands. Feel
my hands. I have a minor sweat. I'm good. You
don't trust me? I don't want the Joe Rogan sweat
on me. It's good sweat. It's very healthy. It's
got a lot of nutrients. But that – I mean that
kind of stuff, you're not going to fuck around
with like mountain climbing. No. No. Don't do
that. Don't die, man. You're too important. You
don't have to tell me. But the Antarctica thing,
when you said you're going to climb a mountain
that's never been climbed before, I'm like, yikes.
So do you run the risk of as you continue to
do these things and you keep pushing the envelope
and making more and more exciting content? Do
you ever think like because let me tell you something
one of the things that happened with fear factors
We did fear factor for six years and then we
came back and did it for a final season in 2011
and they were pushing it way too far It scared
the shit out of me. They were going what the
stunts were way bigger and that was part of the
appeal They were like bigger batter crazy or
fear factor and while they were filming it i
was like man i am fucking nervous because these
are just these stunts are so much more chaotic
there's so much more like the the potential for
injury is so much greater no one got injured
fortunately nothing serious i mean bumps and
bruises nothing serious yeah okay you know because
it's like you know it's a lot of physical contact
and stuff but there was moments like there was
one where they had a guy different people that
were there was a helicopter with a bungee cord
and you were attached to the side of this cliff
with a tree, and you're trying to unlock yourself,
and when you do unlock yourself, the bungee cord
pulls you, snaps you out over a canyon, and you're
attached to a fucking helicopter dangling over
this canyon. Wow. I'm like, what if something
breaks, man? Like, it was so nuts. This is it
right here. So these people would... unlock this
thing, and the moment they unlocked it, and then
their partner is climbing on a ladder that's
below the helicopter, and the moment they unlock
themselves from the tree, the bungee cord yanks
them. Holy crap. Yeah. And while we were doing
this, I would come home every day from filming,
and I'd be like, we didn't kill anybody today.
I would just take a... A big drink of whiskey
and just sit down. Yeah. Like, fuck, man. So
my point is, like, do you worry that. as you
continue to innovate and come up with new ideas,
that eventually they're going to get a little
dangerous. No, because, A, whenever we do stuff,
we always have experts, obviously. So did we.
Also, I just don't push it that far. The thing
is, I'm not just known for doing things like
that. Some of our videos are philanthropic. We'll
go buy everything in a store and give it away.
Other videos, a lot of times, I just punish myself.
I bury myself alive. I trap myself in solitary
confinement, stuff like that. And then we have
other challenges. Like, when we put 50 people
in a circle, it's not like there's... And the
last one to leave gets half a million dollars.
So you have no interest in pushing the envelope.
Exactly. There are different ways to push the
envelope besides that, even though that's not
even really one of the things we do that much.
So yeah, I can push by giving away more money.
I can push by torturing myself more. I can push
by walking a marathon in the world's largest
shoes. I'm not narrowed into that one vertical.
So for me, it's not really a concern. The world's
largest shoes? Is that what you did? Yeah. Pull
it up so we can see it. They're actually not
as big as you would think. is they are heavy
and each shoe was five pounds and so it was brutal
and i had like these just ginormous blisters
halfway through the marathon it was miserable
what do you say the world's largest shoes like
what do you mean by that it's so much easier
if you just pull them up they're like size 40
shoes oh oh the like the largest yeah there you
go so like go back a little bit so you can see
the start so it's just like a normal marathon
yeah and then we just have size 40 shoes these
things are freaking heavy the problem is if you
go any bigger then It's like you can't walk because
they don't bend or whatever. Like flippers. Yeah.
Have you ever tried to walk with flippers on,
like snorkeling flippers? I haven't, but that's
exactly what they told me. So we did size 50,
size 100, and 50 and 100, you couldn't move.
So this was as big as they could go where you
could still move. And we did the marathon. The
marathon ended. They shut things down. And we
were still only like, whatever, seven miles in.
Look at you. Those shoes are fucking hilarious.
Yeah. And we basically walked it all. How long
did it take you guys? Oh. I actually don't remember,
weirdly enough. So halfway through, we actually
laid down and just slept. So we set up tents
and stuff like that. Wow. So I guess technically
probably like 15, 16 hours, but maybe only like
9 or 10 of walking. Were the shoes destroyed
at the end? Oh, yeah. See the duct tape? They're
falling apart. That's hilarious. Why were they
so... Because those aren't real shoes. We had
to build them. This guy, we hired to build these
size 40 shoes that he's never built before. Who
would have thought halfway through they start
falling apart? Also, I took a knife and I started
carving out some of mine because I physically
couldn't move my calves. They were so heavy.
So I had to carve out the middle to take some
weight out because I wasn't going to be able
to finish if they didn't get lighter. So I carved
this two -pound part out. So going from five
to three pounds made a world of a difference
on that shoe. Yeah, they say that every one pound
on your feet is like 10 pounds on your back.
Yeah. That's like a hiking rule. Exactly. It
was brutal. So someone had to make these for
you. These are not like a giant shoe that you
can go buy in a store. Yeah. Now, where did that
idea come from? That was years ago. God, if I
know. Just being silly. Yeah, I mean, I literally
have spent so many hours. Like, I've probably
spent 10 ,000 hours of my life brainstorming
ideas. Like, I don't know where any of this stuff
comes from anymore. I just have, like, you know,
I have a sheet with, like, 1 ,000 ideas on it.
Probably, like, 200, like, super ultra viral
video ideas that anyone could do and they would
instantly go viral. Just, like, sitting on a
Google Doc. Really? Just waiting? So you have
no lack of content? No, we have unlimited. The
bottleneck is more can we do it? Not really like
do we have our ideas, which is backwards for
most people. Most people just don't have good
ideas. Right. So with the bottleneck, can you
do it because is it physically possible or is
it? They're just hard. Like that's back when
my videos were easier. But the videos obviously
have gotten harder and harder. So like the Squid
Game video, it's just like. Yeah. It's not can
we do it. Can we do it while also doing other
videos? What's this, Jamie? If you can carry
a million dollars, you can keep it. Yeah, we
got a million dollars, and we basically told
people as much cash as they could carry, they
could keep. And we just gave them a bag. How
much does a million dollars weigh? What's the
denomination? $1, obviously, because it looks
better. Is that a million dollars and $1 in that
room? And that was just one part of it. And that's
the thing. So now this is a three -time World's
Strongest Man. If he can deadlift this car, we
let him keep it. And this is what we call Would
You Rather. We do a bunch of super interesting
bits. So just skip ahead to where he actually
deadlifts it. So if he can deadlift the car,
you let him keep the car? Yeah, which he could.
Oh, he deadlifts it easy. Yeah, he actually did
reps with it. Look at the size of that fucking
gorilla. I know. Jesus Christ, he's so big. He's
doing dead reps with the car. That is fucking
bananas. Oh, my God. Look at the size of him.
He keeps skimming through. Is there any other?
So you give him a car. That's nice. Yeah. Barely
fits in it. Look at this. I know. That was the
funny part. It was easier for him to deadlift
the car than sit in it. Have you ever seen what
Shaq does with his cars? He takes out the back
seats and he has a seat. That makes sense. I've
seen custom cars they've made for him where the
seat basically sits where the back seat should
be because he's so big. Have you seen the clip
where he holds a water bottle and it looks tiny?
Yeah, dude. We did a video. We showed a video
the other day of me and him doing Fear Factor
because he was a host on Fear Factor with me
one day. It literally looks like a six -year
-old standing next to his dad. dad. He's a gigantic
human being. So when you're doing these videos,
do you ever have one that you do it and it just
doesn't live up to what your expectations were?
All the time. Now, I know you're about to ask
me, so let me think of some. Probably back in
the day, one out of every four videos we filmed
just never got uploaded because they were just
not good. Especially when I was 19 and 20, I
had no idea. I'd come up with an idea. Let's
climb a building with plungers right right and
then you know you can't do it all right so that's
an example one that failed but then other times
like we spent 24 hours on a deserted island and
i don't know the content wasn't really there
it's kind of hot and so we were a little miserable
and we weren't really like in the funny mood
so like literally two days later we just went
back out and redid it and re -spent 24 hours
on a deserted island and so sometimes we're like
if i don't think the content's good enough we'll
just refilm it and stuff like that and so do
you review it with your friends do you review
it personally or how do you just usually it's
just me So you just sit down and go, this is
not up to my standards. Yeah, exactly. That's
one thing I've never struggled with. If I don't
think something's good and the best we can do
and a revolutionary audience will love it, I
have no problem killing a video even if we spent
a million dollars on it. I think that's probably
one of the main reasons for your success other
than your obsession and your dedication and discipline
is that you don't have to answer to anybody.
I don't know how many... People could do what
you do like in to get to your position is very
unique and one of the beautiful things about
something like YouTube is that you can get there
because other Then this, like, if you worked
for, you know, if this was a show on NBC or something
like that, you would have to run this by so many
people. I'd kill myself. You'd have so many kitchen
staff in there trying to put their ingredient
in the soup. There'd be so many chefs. They'd
want to standardize things. So it's replicable,
and that's how you kill innovation. Yeah. And
then they would also say, like, what do you think
about us doing another show similar to yours?
Maybe one of your friends hosting. Yeah. Branch
offs, yeah. It's brutal. Yeah. I get that vibe.
It's funny you bring it up because that's the
world you came from. I get that vibe sometimes
when we work with production crews, and I kind
of see a little bit of that world, how it's a
lot more standardized. When you work with production
crews, do they come up with ideas? You're like,
hey, hey, hey. It's not what you're here for.
What am I trying to say? It's like they're used
to scripted stuff, and we're not scripted. So
it's like they just like, you don't know. Yeah,
we're planning on it taking two hours. The fucking
thing could take 20 hours. I don't fucking know
whatever this hypothetical scene is, right? And
so kind of the way we do things to them, it just
seems so barbaric. But it's like that's how you
get that natural, authentic stuff that's not
scripted. And if you do work with a production
company, then you have to deal with, I guess,
unions and time. They have a certain amount of
time on set. It seems like... You work until
you get it done. Yeah, usually. Yeah. Well, so
actually what we do is, and this is probably
one of the smartest things we've done, is we
have multiple different teams that we're working
on building out. So they rotate videos. So team
A will do hypothetically, whatever, Antarctica.
And then team B isn't on the Antarctica video
and they're working on the next video. And then
while I'm filming with team B, team A is working
on their video. So they like rotate. So that
way, and I'm trying to build out full, fully
fledged production teams, creative teams, editing
teams, all super independent. So then I can do
a video a month and each team's only responsible
for one video. Which that's plenty of time to
like get a video done and you know and you have
downtime in between your videos and stuff like
that Instead of like most youtubers. It's just
one team and they're trying to have them do it
all which just honestly isn't sustainable Yeah,
well it seems like in your when you're looking
at This business that you've built, it's so large.
There's no way you could just have one team.
They'd be dead. Well, you'd be surprised. That's
how everyone else is building theirs. Really?
Yeah. People who try to do what we do. It's hard
enough to build one team. Building multiple ones,
it's a lot. Do you have a lot of guys that are
trying to copy the format that you've put together?
Yeah. The thing is... It doesn't matter. It doesn't
really affect me. I don't like to waste energy
worrying about that type of stuff. At the end
of the day, it doesn't hurt me, so go for it.
It actually probably helps you. Yeah, exactly.
Because everyone gets compared to Mr. Beast.
Yeah, a lot of YouTubers get triggered when other
people quote -unquote take their ideas or whatever.
Do they, though? They really do. I mean, that's
like all the time. Someone will do something.
And it's funny. It's usually people who copy
tons of other YouTubers, and they do one thing
original, and then some other people take it,
and they just throw a hissy fit. Yeah. probably
get attention from throwing the hissy whenever
we do something usually like thousands or at
least hundreds of other people do it and of course
yeah it's part of it yeah but when you do something
like the squid games thing like there's no way
anybody can yeah but see technically that's not
an original idea you know what i mean so i saw
some really bitchy take on your squid game thing
that you're copying other people's content that
he's profiting off of copying other people's
content and it's from a comedian i was like shut
your mouth like well that You think that's easy,
what he's doing? This is so crazy. Also, the
guy who wrote Squid Game said he loved people
doing recreations of Squid Game. Literally, he
did an interview. He was like, I love it. And
he encouraged it. Well, it's just a hater's take.
Yeah, but it's not even logical. The actual creator
of the show was like, hey, do this. And it's
like, okay, if you insist. Haters are never logical.
But the point was, when you get to the position
where you're at, you must have a lot of haters.
I don't really pay attention to it. Good for
you. That's a great attitude. Yeah. That's what
I like to hear. It's kind of a waste of time.
It's 100 % a waste of time. It's so stupid, but
it's so common for people to concentrate on that
and make response videos. I wouldn't be a fraction.
But also, we don't really, to be honest. And
most people are positive about it. We help people.
You know what I mean? Yes. I reinvest everything
I don't live in a mansion, and I just try to
make the best videos I can. And tell me about
– you just touched on it earlier, your philanthropy
channel. How did that get started, and what are
you trying to do with that? Yes, if you want
to pull that up. So basically, I don't know.
I enjoy helping people. It's fun for me. It's
kind of like – I don't know. I just – I don't
know how to put it into words, but I enjoy doing
good. Well, you're a good person. Yeah, so I
wanted to figure out, like, I have this ability
to go viral and get views. And so I wanted to
figure out how to leverage it to, like, basically
build a charity on the back. So this is Beast
Philanthropy. 100 % of all the revenue on this
channel goes towards our food pantry that we
started. So we basically started our own nonprofit.
And so I make these videos. I do brand deals.
We sell merch and stuff like that in the ad revenue.
And we use that money to buy food so we can feed
people. And you say food. pantry like there's
a sign so that's a physical location yeah so
we have our own warehouse um where hover over
a different video does see and how how does it
work like people could just go there and get
food no no so basically so so this is where I'll
have to we We're in North Carolina. There's actually
not a lot of big cities, a lot of little cities.
So we actually have like in our city, we have
the 14th largest hospital in America, even though
we're like a tiny city, because there's a bunch
of small communities around. It makes sense to
have people come from these little communities
to a big hospital instead of building a bunch
of little ones. And so we kind of the same model
with our food pantry where instead of. you know,
supporting a big city, which most big cities
already have food pantries there. There's all
these little communities that weren't big enough
where people would actually give a fuck or help
them because it just, you know, doesn't make
sense. A couple thousand people or whatever.
So we built. a big food pantry in a central location.
And we're more of a logistics company. We'll
pick a certain community, like Grimesland. Every
Saturday, we'll load up food. We'll go there.
And then the people in need, we'll do a food
drive and basically give them three different
boxes of food, a box of dairy products, pantry,
and vegetables. And then we come back two weeks
later and give them food. So basically, they
can just live off the food we supply them. And
we do that to a bunch of little communities.
And we just crossed one year of operation, and
we were able to give away over a million meals
in our first year. That's fantastic. Oh, yeah.
So in those boxes. This one was a special episode.
Someone gave us 50 ,000 cookies. Go back, though,
to where the boxes were. Back one more. Yeah,
right there. So that's what we give to everyone
that comes to the food drive completely for free.
We've never charged the fucking person a dime
for food. That's enough to survive two weeks.
And it's good, nutritious food. We actually invest
in – we got a really nice fridge too so we can
like – which most food pantries don't have. So
we can store a lot of cold goods like vegetables
and dairy products. Also, some of these places,
their food pantries went under. And so we come
in and we take over for the old food pantries.
And people love when we do because you go from
like a box of – I don't want to dumpster on them,
but average stuff to like – getting like fucking
milk and dairy and yogurt and also like all these
vegetables they're like what the fuck this is
free it's like over a hundred dollars worth of
food um And so, yeah, it's been great. That's
awesome. So how does this work? Like if someone
wants to go to the food pantry to get food? You
don't go to the food pantry. We do distributions
where we go to places in low -income places and
do distributions. And so you would just come
to the distribution, and you just sit in your
car, pop your trunk, we put food in, and you
drive off. So you just set up a shop, like a
stand on the side of the road? No, no, no. So
they're scheduled. The communities are notified
beforehand. Is that line a bunch of people waiting
for food? Yeah, this was a special one we did
for Thanksgiving where we gave away 10 ,000 turkeys
for free. That is so awesome, dude. Yeah, well,
this isn't our normal thing. But, yeah, basically
you go there. It will be in the church parking
lot. How do these people find out about this?
Well, that's the thing. Your first food drive,
it's not as many people. But word spreads as
you do them. And you consistently show up at
the same time every second week. And people just
come and come. And eventually hundreds of families
come. Look at the line there. That's nuts. Yeah.
This one, because it was a bigger thing, we actually
bought ads and spread it out. You got people
in turkey outfits. Yeah. That's a... turkey holocaust
right there look at all those dead turkeys i
know um hey i mean people ate it's amazing it's
very cool that you did this it's very cool and
you see these people where you're oh you even
made a turkey yeah these people that are waiting
in line for these turkeys but this isn't our
normal thing so it's like i said it's the the
distributions we do with the other food so essentially
like i want to grow this channel really big get
it where you know it's pulling millions of dollars
a month in revenue and do tons of brand deals
and stuff like that and then just basically use
that money to buy food and feed as many people
as we can. That's so cool. I love it, man. I
just love that you do that. And that turkey thing
when you're out there, like how long does that
take to get turkeys to that many people? I mean,
that was like a four or five hour food drive.
I mean, we're pretty efficient with the lines
and getting through it. Did you run out of turkeys?
No, actually we had 10 ,000. I don't remember
the number, but we had a few thousand left over
that we then went to other food pantries and
we gave to them to give to their communities.
That's so cool. Yeah. And do you have someone
who organizes that for you? Oh, of course. Like
a philanthropy manager or something? So his name's
Darren, which also shout out to Darren. He's
literally the greatest thing that's ever happened
to me. This guy's a fucking lunatic. He won't
let me pay him for working on the charity. He's
like that. What? In love with helping people.
Yeah. And he puts in like 10 hours a day. Every
day he's a machine. You couldn't stop him if
you wanted to. He loves helping people. That's
so cool. So he built it out. So I met him. kind
of stole him from a different nonprofit because
I met him and I loved him. I was like, fuck yeah,
there's not another person in the world I'd rather
have run Beast Philanthropy. And so now, yeah,
it's its own thing. You know, we have people
that work in the pantry, logistics people and
stuff like that. Wow. And how does one procure
10 ,000 turkeys? Well, that one, again, this
is why the beauty of Beast Fenty, that was a
sponsored video by Genio, which is a company
that sells turkeys. And so we got them to give
us 10 ,000 turkeys plus money to feed people
for free in exchange for a shout out in the video.
Oh, that's amazing. That's brilliant. Exactly.
And so you do all this, you have this food drive,
and then people know, okay, that this is a regular
thing. Exactly. And then it builds up. The turkey
thing isn't. That was a thing that was special.
But normally, yeah, exactly. And the more you
do it, the more people come. And then we just
guesstimate the numbers and average it out and
usually bring a little extra just in case more
people come this week than others. And he just
does that routinely. And right now we're doing
that for like 13 communities. And then we're
going to build another food pantry and scale
that up and just keep scaling up. Also, I don't
want to. Just do North Carolina. Our next food
pantry is going to be in Atlanta and then hopefully
get out of America and just keep scaling them
up. Wow. So you just keep everything you're doing.
You just keep expanding and scaling up. Exactly.
Because I'm not trying to make money. So it's
easy. That's so unusual. Well, also, that's a
charity. So all the money goes back into it.
Yeah, exactly. It's so unusual that someone is
so selfless and then that you have the vision
to just. I'm not trying to make money. I'm just
trying to grow the company. In that particular
one, I'd be fucked if I didn't have Darren. He's
just a lunatic. He's literally one of the smartest
people I've ever met. The fact that he has such
a philanthropic heart. The dude could probably
make $5 -10 million a year working in a normal
business, but he dedicates his life to charity.
I don't understand it, but I love him. Obviously,
it means something to him. It's important. This
charity that you do with the food bank, how many
employees are involved in that? He would know
better. I'm not in the weeds because, like, this
is where you have to think about strategically.
The most optimal, like, you know, in a perfect
world, I could be on the front lines going to
the food drive getting my food. But the most
valuable use of my time is to make videos to
generate revenue to buy food, right? So I'm more
doing high -level things like figuring out what's
the next viral stunt for the charity so we can
do a brand deal and get a couple hundred grand
in and stuff like that. I'm not really in the
weeds of, like, how are we going to do this food
distribution tomorrow or, like, this ship insulates
or blah, blah, blah, this. But probably somewhere
around a dozen right now because we're only at
one warehouse. And you eventually plan on going
worldwide? Yeah, exactly. Just scaling it up.
Because by watching those videos, you're essentially
feeding people, literally, because all the revenue
goes to it. So I think we can get to the point
where we're supporting a dozen of these and just
keep going bigger and bigger. That's so cool.
like i don't know this is just what this is what
i do all day so i just come up with these ideas
no i didn't come up it's just like i mean that's
something i was passionate about passionate about
youtube essentially but like that's like a parallel
thing right like i've already put in the hundred
thousand hours and obsessed over youtube so it's
like building a channel that like let we leverage
to grow our charity like isn't as crazy because
like i already know all this stuff you know what
i mean like how to go viral and and that type
of stuff that's so dope dude i just love the
vision that you have for this it's because it's
so unusual for a young person to have such a
clarity and focus. Yeah, well, pull up MrBeastGaming.
I want to show you some of the other stuff too
because it's like the main channel isn't even
all we do. We have one of the largest gaming
channels on YouTube and one of the largest reaction
channels on YouTube as well. So it's like I actually
spend a fuckload of my time every week filming
because we have five different channels. So this
is our gaming channel. Just hit videos so you
can see them. These actually go really viral.
And so we basically apply what we do in real
life to gaming. We invited 1 ,000 v. 1 ,000.
We invited 1 ,000 players to fight against another
1 ,000 players, and the winner gets a bunch of
money or whatever. And so these do really well.
Actually, we recreated Squid Game in Minecraft
as well. And so usually... On Mondays, I film
for gaming. On Tuesdays, I film for Reacts. And
then I do World once we're uploading again. Wednesday
through Fridays, I film on the main channel.
And then Saturdays when I do Beast Burger, Feastables,
and all my side businesses, I take calls. And
then I try not to work on Sunday. How much energy
do you have to do this? Not enough. I'm constantly
losing my mind. But it's all self -implied. And
at any point, I could stop. So it's like no one's
forcing me. But it's just like, it's just...
I don't know. It's like if I don't, I get depressed.
Really? Yeah. It's like this is what I live for.
I don't know how to put it in words. Because
of the fact that you've just generated such an
immense audience and it's just become. Yeah.
And so I hit videos here. So this is our reaction,
which also averages over 10 million views a video.
Wow. So this is all just look at that. So this
is all just you looking at stuff online. Yeah,
whatever we think is interesting. So like, you
know, world's unluckiest people. The eight minutes
of us just reacting to people is super unlucky
and stuff like that. And that's one of my best
friends, Chris. It's actually, I don't know how,
but it's really funny when you just put us in
a room and just let us roast and react to things.
And you do this one day a week? Yes. And so actually
this day is also the same day I filmed Philanthropy,
if you have a Philanthropy video that week as
well. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot, and there's
no... Also, well, the thing, too, is, like, so
these channels, like, this channel specifically
doesn't cost a lot of money to run. So this is,
like, you know, mostly just pure profit, which
is what I ran into is, like, my main channel,
because I kept taking the videos bigger and bigger
and bigger, there did get a point where they
weren't really profitable. Like, I was losing
money every video. So I started this other channel
so they would make money so I could lose money
on my main channel, if that makes sense. Really?
Yeah, so, like, the gaming channel, you know,
like... So the stuff like the Squid Games, it's
so cross -prohibitive. Well, that one, because
it's getting so many views, might break even.
But, yeah, other videos like buying that private
island and giving it away and terraforming it,
like, yeah, fuck no. You lose money on that.
Yeah, a lot of videos. Like, we did a video where
we, like, sold houses for a dollar, right? Usually
it's like I think things are going to cost less
than they do, but it ended up costing over a
million dollars, and it probably only made like
600 grand. So that was like a $400 ,000 L. I
take L's like that all the time, but that's why
I have these other things so I can afford to.
So I don't really care if a main channel video
makes money or not. It's just like in general,
does everything at least semi -supplement it
so I can, if that makes any sense. It makes a
lot of sense. So you kind of have a safety net.
of sort of almost like backup revenue. Yeah.
Make sure that everything is. Essentially, if
I didn't have these, the main channel videos,
I just wouldn't have been able to keep making
them bigger. And then, I don't know, I would
just be sad. Then they'd have to be lamer, which
is another reason why people don't do what I
do because a lot of videos just aren't profitable.
They don't make money. Well, I just don't think
people would be as obsessed as you are. You've
got a very unique vision with this stuff. When
I'm talking to you and I recognize the scale
of it all, it's massive. That's all I do. I understand.
But I mean, you must have some sort of a social
life too, right? Not really. I don't. That's
the problem. But it's not a problem. I love it.
And I wouldn't trade for anything. Well, there's
not a lot of human beings that ever get to a
position like you're in. It's a very rare place.
Thank you. I mean, the question now is like,
can we keep it going? Because like I said last
year, we were the highest earning YouTube channel
in the world and the most subscribed to YouTube
channel in the world, which is great. And it's
like, fuck yeah. And then you realize, well.
If we're going to do better this year, that's
going to be pretty hard because we got beat number
one. So just keep going, though. Keep grinding.
Well, it seems like you could do it. I mean,
if anybody can do it, you could do it. Do you
have like a grand vision? I sort of asked you
this before, but like when you think of your
future and you think like, do you have an idea
in your head of where you would like all this
to go to? Because it seems like. The world's
your oyster. You could kind of keep going and
do whatever you want. Do you have a vision? Yeah,
I mean, I do in a way see it a little bit as
like Elon's PayPal. Like, you know, maybe when
I'm 30 and if I'm not doing YouTube anymore,
I'd take the money and move on to the next business
like Tesla, SpaceX and stuff like that. But I
don't know. I mean, right now I've spent up to
this point my entire life hyper obsessing over
how to go viral. youtube youtube youtube youtube
making videos how to go viral so it's like that's
really it i just want to do this as long as i
can and just keep growing it though the thing
is like if it gets to a much larger place like
you are at what is it 90 what million on your
main channel 91 on the main what happens when
you hit like 300 million what if it's like everyone
in the country subscribes to you you just keep
going i mean i i want to do youtube for at least
another 10 years because I don't think YouTube's
going to slow down. YouTube's still growing year
over year. No, I don't think it's slowing down.
Exactly. So like, why would I not want to be
the biggest YouTuber on the platform? Like, why
do I need to do anything else? Like, I just want
to keep growing, be at the top. And I think the
platform is just going to get bigger with time.
But as you do more and more of these Squid Games
type things, do you see yourself putting more
and more time into production and more and more
time to bigger it? Because it seems like you
want to ramp things up. With each one, you want
to make it grander than the one before. Yeah.
And that's why I need the smartest people in
the world around me. Because I'm filming so much,
I don't have time to be in the weeds. Which I
already have, like I told you before, some geniuses.
But I need more. If you're out there and you
know how to do production, hit me up. But, yeah,
ideally you just build out the team so I'm not
the one, like, having to micromanage and do it.
Where do you think you would be if it wasn't
for this? I don't know. I have, like, a problem.
I'm, like, so obsessed. Like, I, like, devote
my life to one thing, and that's just all I live
for. That's not a problem, man. No, I know, but
that's... That's an amazing gift. True, true,
but that's where... I don't know what it is.
I mean, I could have devoted, like, that, like,
laser -like focus, or, like, cocaine -like addiction
could have been on painting bowling balls or
something fucking dumb. So I'm just grateful
it was, like, at a young age, it was something
like this that has infinite upside, and I can
just obsess, and I can obsess forever, you know?
Before YouTube, was there another thing that
you... concentrated on with that kind of hyper
focus? I mean, a little bit of baseball. I got
Crohn's when I was 15, so I played baseball nonstop.
And then when I got Crohn's, I lost like 50 pounds.
I was like, fuck that. You got Crohn's? Crohn's
disease. Right, but Crohn's is something that's
a genetic disease, right? Yeah. So it just manifests
itself. It started to emerge. You're not born
with it. Are you not? Yeah, most people get it
when they're around 15 to 20. I mean, I guess
you're born with the genetics thing, but I guess
the inflammation doesn't occur until that age.
Yeah, and so I lost like 40 pounds because I
was... go into the bathroom like 10 times a day.
And so I was a little obsessed with baseball.
I like literally was playing like two or three
hours a day. There was a period like where I
actually, I kind of like quit YouTube when I
was like 13, 14, like so I could just really
focus on baseball. But then once I got that,
which was probably a blessing, I was like, fuck
it, I don't care anymore. And I just went all
in on YouTube. So this Crohn's, does this make
you, do you have to seriously regulate your diet?
Yes, very regulated diet. I have very... I run
out of energy very easily. That doesn't make
sense. How is that possible? You have so much
energy. I don't. I'm probably one of the least
energetic people you'll ever meet. But you do
so much. How is it possible that you have no
energy? I don't know because my immune system
attacks itself, so it's very draining. And so,
yeah, I get very tired easily. I take a lot of
naps and stuff like that. I have a buddy of mine
in Ohio that has it, and he can't eat bread.
Yeah, I can't eat like a fuckload of stuff. So
you can't have one of your own burgers? No, actually,
that's fine. It doesn't flare me up. Even when
I eat burgers, I usually take off the buns and
just eat meat. I don't really like bread that
much anyways. No, that's fine. And the chocolate
bar actually is good on my stomach too, which
is why I'm pretty happy with that as well. So
what is it that really fucks with you? Weirdly
enough, corn, for whatever the fucking reason.
Corn. If I want diarrhea tomorrow, just give
me some fucking corn. Really? Yeah. Corn, anything
spicy, anything overly, overly processed. I'm
trying to think. What exactly is Crohn's? What
is the immune system doing? I'm going to be honest.
I've never fully understood it. It's something
about my intestines where like the lining of
it, like the immune system attacks it. So my
intestines are super inflamed. And so if it's
not in remission, I basically just can't digest
food because it's just like it's so inflamed.
Food just passes through and you just like shit
it out. Oh, wow. Yeah. So it's like brutal, which
is why when I first got it, I lost like 40 pounds
in like a really quick time span. It's often
with ulcerative colitis too. Yeah. A friend of
mine has it. Ulcerative colitis is a little bit
more extreme version. of crones so thankfully
i got a little bit of the dulled down version
but uh yeah like sometimes i'll flare up and
then i'm just like i'm dead i just i just lay
in bed all day and i can't really do anything
Is there any medication that you can take that
improves it? Yeah. So I'm on what's called Remicade.
And so every eight weeks they just do an IV with
a huge bag, which essentially suppresses my immune
system. So that's why I get sick very easily
because the answer to my immune system attacking
itself is just to fucking nuke my immune system.
Oh, Jesus Christ. I know. So it's a little annoying.
It's unfortunate. I'm stuck with it. What can
you do? And there's no. It blows my mind that
there's no cure because I think like you probably
Google it. Millions of people in America, I'm
pretty sure, have it. So it's like it's pretty
fucked up. It's annoying. So I don't understand
why there's not a better way to treat it. But
are there any sort of dietary remedies that maybe
people have tried? I'm sure if I just like dropped
everything and just spent my life laser focused,
I could probably figure out some way to like.
780 ,000. 780 ,000 Americans currently have Crohn's.
Yeah. Another 900 ,000 have ulcerative colitis.
Wow. Yeah. I don't know. Honestly, I haven't
really thought of it. It's just one of those
things like I'm so used to it. It's just life.
But it seems like you're such a smart guy that
dedicates yourself to things and find solutions.
Maybe this is something you could do. Yeah. Maybe
after YouTube, I throw my life at that. Take
the money. Have you tried an elimination diet?
Yes, exactly. So I don't know why I'm drawing
a blank. I mean, there's a lot of things that
aggravate it. It's like chips, cookies, or things
like that. Chips that have corn. Yeah, exactly.
Probably an allergy maybe even to corn. Yeah,
so I've done it. I know what to eat now where
it's not like my diet isn't causing it, but for
whatever reason, sometimes it just flares up.
It's weird. Does it say anything, Jamie, about
some sort of dietary? Solution for Crohn's disease.
I've talked to my friend about this. He got it
around the same age as you. His name is also
Jimmy. Let's go. He, though, went the other way.
He has had multiple inches of his colon removed.
Does he have the bag on his side? He did for
a while, but he's pretty healthy now. That's
my worst fear, is if they remove it, you then
have to get the bag, and then you shit in the
bag. Yeah, I know an older guy who has one of
those. That's my worst fear is to have that.
That's fucking gross. It's gross, and it's scary.
Yeah, but I know people who have gotten it, and
they're just like, when they went from being
tired and miserable and all that, and then they
get that surgery, and they feel like a normal
human. It completely changed their life. I mean,
they shit in a bag, but at least now they're
happy. Yeah, it's like six in one, half a dozen
in the other. What's better? I'd rather have...
shit in a bag and be happy. I know. I think about
a lot because I could just have the part I have
with Crohn's removed and then I'd be fine too.
Yeah, but man, what if you did that and then
down the road they come up with some sort of
a solution? I know. Because I was wondering if
like stem cells or something along those lines.
I remember because I've talked to him a long
time. I just looked it up. I've seen when CBD
was getting big, there were some talks that it
could help people, but I just checked and there
was a study that said there wasn't anything.
Conclusive on that. Just the CBD part. Yeah,
anything that reduces inflammation. Yep. So they
don't know what causes it or why a person gets
it versus... I could speculate, but I don't think
he knows. No, I mean, not that I know of. Does
exercise help it? Does anything help it? I mean,
your immune system attacks itself is all I know.
Wow. Yeah. Nothing's ever really – it's like
it just feels so random. It's weird. Because
I know people who have had it and talked about
it before. The literal only answer that they
could have was just to get that part of their
body cut out, which is just unfathomable. Yeah.
But anyways, such is life. Yeah, my friend's
mom died from that. Wow. Yeah, back in the day
when they did just used to cut chunks of your
body out and she eventually passed away at a
young age. As a mom, she was 35. Oof. Yeah, it's
horrible. This is their motto. No colon, still
rolling. But anyways, yeah, it's life. I mean,
I could have cancer. There could be much worse
stuff. Well, you have a great attitude. When
you look back at all the stuff that you've done
and the fact that you've done all this while
you're dealing with an autoimmune disease, that's
a giant inspiration to other people that are
struggling. Thank you. It really is. I mean,
yeah, if you have an autoimmune disease, just
fucking push through it. That's what I did, and
it worked. Well, you have a very happy attitude.
I mean, obviously you've been— wildly successful
in your young life but you you have a happy attitude
towards things and i think that that also is
very inspirational to people yeah i mean i wish
if i had thought about this i could probably
have some like badass quote but i mean the gist
is like you know what like If it's Crohn's, sitting
there mourning over it all day, that doesn't
do anything. If it's something that's out of
your control, worrying about it, it quite literally
is a waste of time. Well, you're very into time
management, obviously. You kind of have to be
because you have so many things on your plate.
I mean, essentially, yeah. The more I film or
work, the directly correlates the more money
we bring in, so the bigger videos we can do.
So, yeah, it's essentially just a formula where
my time goes to optimally for videos. Do you
have a lot of guys coming to you for advice?
Yes. Like, hey, I want to be like Mr. Beast.
You know, actually, here, can you pull up my
Twitter? I have something cool I want to show
them. I mentor YouTubers a lot. You'll probably
find this cool. One of the people I've been mentoring
recently, he was doing $24 ,000 a month, and
then he recently had a $400 ,000 a month on YouTube.
Yeah. Wow. Yeah, so I tweeted out the before
and after of his revenue. And so, yeah, just
click on that left image. So this was before
I started mentoring him. He was doing 4 .6 million
views a month, 24 grand. And then probably like
seven, eight months into it, we got him up to
45 million views, and he had a $400 ,000 a month.
Wow. And what kind of advice are you giving someone
like that that makes such an exponential change
in the amount of interactions that you get? The
biggest thing is... It's much easier, as weird
as this sounds, it's much easier to get 5 million
views on one video than 100 ,000 views on 50
videos. Does that make sense a little bit? A
lot of people, you could upload one great video
a year and get more views than if you uploaded
100 mediocre videos. It's very exponential. Well,
now I'm going to dial back to go to do on YouTube.
You just need people to click your videos and
watch them. That's literally all YouTube wants.
And so if you get people to click your video
10 percent more and watch a video 10 percent
longer than mine, you don't get 10 percent more
views. You get like four times the views. Right.
So you have to think like an exponential. Right.
Like a 10 percent better video is four times
the views, not 10 percent more views. Right.
And so like once you understand that and you
like funnel your energy better, it like it makes
a big difference. So it's usually like just like.
don't make your video shit put in effort you
know like put in way more effort like really
hyper obsessed over these videos like triple
the amount of time you're putting in that into
that video because you're not going to get triple
the views you're going to get 10x the views and
like because like YouTube's trying to serve people
the best content possible. They don't want to
serve you 100 lame videos. They just want to
serve you one good one. So it makes sense logically.
Your homepage is curated the best videos possible.
And so it's really just like making these videos
really, really good, helping them build out a
little bit of team like an editor. If you're
doing five jobs and you can only put 20 % of
your time to each, well, if you hire an editor,
he can put 100 % of his time into that. So even
if he's like 20 % worse than you, he's still
going to do a way better job just because that's
where all his time is going and he's able to
obsess over it. Like you can't spend 10 hours
a day editing, but he can. Have you always had
this logical, analytical approach to things like
this? Yeah. Always. I love this stuff. Yeah,
this is what I live for. So it's like kind of
going through and doing that for everything.
And usually, like in his case, he's uploading
less even though he went – He's making over 10
times more. It's with less videos, ironically.
And the videos are just better. And the fans
are happier. Everything about it is just better.
So you mentored this guy. Did you know him previously?
I did. I knew him a little bit. He's always had
great thumbnails, but he wasn't the best at making
good videos. Those are the easiest people to
mentor. They can get people to click, but they
can't get people to stick around. I've obsessed
over how to make good videos, so now I just teach
them how to make a video good, and then boom,
the channel just goes skyrocket. But how do you
have time to mentor people with all the things
on your plate? I find it fun. For me, it's kind
of therapeutic to go on a walk, call someone,
and then just roast their channel. Is that what
you do? You roast their channel? Not meanly,
but it's just like, yeah. Just honestly. Yeah,
I'm like, I can tell you're a little lazy here.
You could have put a little bit more effort.
The hook was a little weak. Why didn't you do
this or the payoff or whatever? And you don't
ask anything of them? Him? No, I don't own any
of his channel. I just did it for fun. That's
a wild thing to do, man. That's so cool that
you're doing that. Yeah. He's going to kill it.
Who is this guy? You want to say it? Yeah, exactly,
because some people know who he is, and then
they're going to be like, oh, you're really successful
because of Mr. Beast, which I don't like. Oh,
right. Well, look at you. Good for you, man.
So you just look at that as an exercise. Yeah,
it's fun. I do that for a lot of people. It's
just, I don't know. How many is a lot? Probably,
like, six or seven. It's always rotating. It's
also, like, me playing evil mad scientist. Like,
I tell them things, and then I kind of see how
the theories work on their channel and, like,
reconfirm what I know, and it's like, oh. Yeah,
it is true. His stats went up 10 % and his views
5x or like things like that. So I also get a
weird enjoyment of like being able to – because
it's nice because I don't have to do it. Like
I can say, oh, do this, this, and this, and then
just hang up. I don't have to go film the fucking
video. And I just talk to them next week and
I can just look at the numbers and be like, okay,
this worked, this worked, and kind of like see
it, which I really enjoy getting to do that.
That's just so selfless of you because – Well,
I'm getting data, and I'm learning, and it's
helping me better understand what works. But,
yeah, I guess theoretically I could bully these
people into giving me half their channel if I
wanted to. No, no, I'm not saying that. I mean,
I would never expect that you would do that.
But the fact that you're willing to spend the
time and give them what you've learned, that's
really cool. I've done podcasts where I've literally
laid out exactly how to go viral, every little
thing I know, and they're just sitting out there.
And it's funny because people will listen to
them and then just explode on YouTube and make
tons of – of money. And it's just kind of funny
because it's literally just out there. And some
people still pay hundreds of dollars for a YouTube
course or anything. Who teaches YouTube courses?
There's ones all over the place. Are there really?
Yeah, millions of people are trying to be YouTubers.
So the YouTube courses, are they taught by successful
YouTubers? I mean, you just Google it and we
pick them. I mean, there are tons of YouTube
gurus. I mean, one I know is Daryl Eves, who
he... I don't know how public he is with his
stats. He's very intelligent. He knows what he's
doing. So his would be legit. But also, I don't
want to trash people. I don't know. There are
other ones. Yeah, I understand what you're saying.
Like you just get a satisfaction out of watching
people improve and grow and knowing that you
do really have a very comprehensive understanding
of how this business works. Yeah, exactly. And
I also, I'm just so fucking obsessed with this
shit. I can't stop talking about it. Like in
an ideal world, I probably wouldn't tell everyone
every fucking thing I know about going viral
all the time. But it's just like, that's me.
That's literally all I've ever done. It's like
if you did the same thing every day for 10 years,
like how do you talk about anything else, you
know? But it's just amazing that it's still an
obsession. of yours. Even though you're number
one, even though you just keep being more and
more wildly successful, it seems like, if I'm
guessing, you're more obsessed now than ever.
Yeah, if you took it away from me, I don't know
what I would do. I love YouTube more than anything.
Technically, you get the unlimited upside money
-wise, influence -wise, power -wise, whatever,
whatever sick thing you're chasing. With YouTube,
you can get it all. I can't think of a more fulfilling
job, and I'm completely in control, and I can
do whatever the fuck I want. Those are all positives
for sure. Yeah. But it's so unusual for someone
to find a thing. For a lot of people, people
that I know and even people deep into their 30s,
they don't know what they want to do. They don't
have a thing. And for whatever reason, they don't
connect to a thing that gets their juices flowing,
that gets their engine running. It's the saddest
thing in life. It's the saddest thing in life.
Yeah. Because if you can find a thing that's
an obsession that you can make your occupation.
I don't know who said that once. Steve Jobs.
What did he say? Isn't it if you can find what
you love, there's no greater thing or something
like that? It's like you'll never work a day
in your life. I think it's an older quote than
that. Search Steve Jobs if you find what you
love just in the background. That really is one
of the keys to a happy existence because I have
so many people that I know that don't like what
they do. So many people that I know. And they
do it and maybe some of them are really successful
at it. They don't like it. Yeah, the way you
get that exponential growth is to obsess over
things for decades, not years. And so since they
don't truly love what they do, they never get
that crazy, crazy success. So for you, when you
release a thing like the Squid Games video, you
just get a wild rush of excitement? Oh, gosh.
Yeah, especially that video. You're on like fucking
cloud nine for usually about a day. You're just
like. punching the air. I can't sleep. I'm excited.
Just because that was so big. A normal video,
not as much. I'm so numb to it. I've done it
a thousand times. Thousands of times now. But
yeah, that video, I'm calling everyone. I'm like,
what'd you think? Because that was our first
time ever using CG in a video too. So I was just
like, did you think this was cringe? What'd you
think? And most people were stroking me off and
telling me it was good. So that felt great. Yeah,
that was good. Probably one of the few actual
days where I was genuinely happy. Now, are you
happy? Because what makes you more happy, like
numbers, the grand scale of things, just seeing
your vision come to fruition? Yeah, the vision,
seeing people recognize the work we put in. Because
some videos we put a fuckload of work in. Well,
that one clearly. Yeah, exactly. So that one
they see. But other times, you know, sometimes
I also I have a lot of really critical people
around me, which I want. I don't want yes men
that just tell me everything's good. Like sometimes
I'll pour my heart and soul in a video and then
I'll get a call right after I upload and someone
just like. One of my friends, it was like a bounty
hunter video. I thought it was one of our best
videos. And he's just like, honestly, I think
this video is a little lazy. And he's like, here's
10 things you could have done better. And I agreed
with four of them. But I remember that made my
heart sink. I was like, fuck this guy. Fuck him.
And I was like, no, no. This is what you want.
You want honest feedback. And I was like, this
is good. You really do want honest feedback.
Exactly. And when it hurts, it's probably better.
Exactly. So you've got to check yourself and
realize, yeah, this makes you better. So I have
a lot of people like that. And Squid Game was
one of those. videos where like none of them
were like saying negative they were saying positive
and we had that to me was what felt the best
because these are like the most critical motherfuckers
ever and they're just like this is good and they
didn't say anything bad i saw the bounty hunter
video that was one of the first ones my daughter
introduced me to so what what about the bounty
hunter video do you think could have been better
uh which he said which i agree that the beginning
felt a little fake um when i like threw the knife
and they're tied up the rope it wasn't as visible
we were on an island for that i don't know why
everything's on fucking islands but we didn't
have of like the best like realistic looking
rope so it looked a little kiddy and then uh
so i i agree with that we could have made it
look a little more real and then he had like
certain parts were a little stretched out could
have been a little quicker um and then also he
was like which i this is something i suck at
because like with youtube you're trying to hook
people and keep them engaged especially when
you're in the tens of millions of views but part
of the problem of moving so quick is sometimes
you don't get as much depth than the person um
because like depth can be portrayed as boring
so it's like it's a constant balancing act of
like depth but also keep moving quickly And so
he was like, you know, there wasn't much depth
with the bounty hunter. I don't really know.
Like he's like, I don't even know his name. And
I agree. It's like, but it's hard. And I do a
world, but again, it's not scripted, but an ideal
world while he's doing action. Cause action's
interesting. He gives death. Like if you're just
driving and you're telling the life story, that's
fucking boring. But if you're running after me
and somehow, I don't know if this makes sense.
Maybe life story is not the right thing, but,
and you tell it that while action's gone, now
it's interesting and I can kind of include it.
Does that make sense? It does make sense. So
you're. So that's really interesting because
what you were trying to do is you're trying to
just, you had an accomplishment. This is, you're
trying to get the bounty hunter to chase you
guys and all that jazz, but you're even post.
Post -production or post -publication, you're
still looking at ways you could have added more
entertainment to it. Of course. Hooked people
deeper. Made it more complete. Well, I mean,
we're not looking at also how we could. Because
that's not scripted. That is just a bounty hunter.
We didn't tell him what to say. So also we're
trying to make a story out of him chasing me.
And those videos are the most fucking stressful
videos on the planet. Because we're setting that
stuff up for forever. And at any point, if he
catches me, the video is over. And everything
else past that point was just for nothing. How
long did it take for him to catch you? That one
was probably like 10 hours, 11 hours. Yeah, but
it's like there's no room for error, right? You
fuck up at any point. Because I can't just be
super far away, then there's no tension and it's
a boring video. I have to be close. There has
to be a possibility at all time that he could
catch me or it's a boring video. And so that
means like at any point, like the video could
fuck up and then we just fucking everything's
to shit, all that work, all that effort is just
out the fucking window. He catches me. I give
him 100 grand, the video's over. It's not fake.
What would you do with that? Would you just try
again and have another bounty hunter? Yeah. probably
I just eat the hundred grand you know but like
renting all this stuff I mean you would probably
like a quarter million dollar L because just
everything's so expensive right and then we'd
probably just do it again next week yeah with
a different one um how do you pick a bounty hunter
Casting person. I know that's where a lot of
them weren't the most entertaining. And it's
not like they're like hitmen. They're like bounty
hunters that would like, you know, people who
bail on bail and they go bounty hunt and stuff
like that. I know they went through quite a few
to like find one that actually had a little bit
of a personality. Because, you know, I don't
want someone like super hardcore serious. So
over the years, you've kind of perfected your
method of creating these tasks in these games
that you play. They're all different, though.
Yeah. That's the thing. That video is completely
different than the video where we put 50 people
in a circle, which is different than where people
competed for an island. Right, which is why a
production company would have a problem with
it because it's not a formula that you could
just recreate. Exactly. That's why I'm still
not consistently uploading because then you have
shit like the Antarctica thing happened or this
thing happened. You just don't know. How often
do you upload to the main channel? Right now,
probably around twice a month. Well, actually
right now once because Antarctica fell through.
But ideally, we're going to get back up to starting
this month twice. And then as we build out the
other teams, hopefully by the end of the year,
we're doing every single week. That's what I
want in an ideal world every week. One a week?
Yeah, of course. Well, actually, in an optimal
world, speaking purely analytically, if I'm putting
that brain on, I would be uploading twice a week.
I would upload every Thursday and Saturday. That's
what would be optimal, which is where I inevitably
do want to get to. Then I'm spending like ungodly
amounts of money, ungodly amounts of people.
I mean that's – I'm going to also be filming
probably like 90 percent of my waking hours.
It would be like crazy – or working hours, which
is what I eventually want to ramp up to. Because
like I said, I don't spend most of my time filming.
I spend most of my time working on videos. But
in an ideal world, I spend most of my working
hours filming because that's the only thing in
the world I can do and no one else can. Right.
Do you anticipate – How hard would it be to hand
over the reins, the creative reins, to other
people which would allow you to film? I'm always
going to have to have the final say and be pitched.
But you can always narrow it down where the pitching
takes less and less. But I'm never – I'm always
– I have a guy named Tyler who fucking crushes
it, and I'd say out of anyone in the world, he
understands how to write content better than
anyone. Any YouTuber could hire him, and he would
just instantly probably triple their attention.
It's crazy. He's really good. But still, I'm
always going to have to hear it before we film
it and stuff like that, just to put my little
spin on it. Now, this Squid Games thing was the
first time you used CG. Do you anticipate using
that in the future? I do. Because then you could
really get crazy as the technology evolves too,
right? Yeah, but we can't be cringe with it.
When I use CG, it's not like I'm trying to hide
that it's CG. Right. Because we're still like,
at the end of the day, we are a YouTube channel,
and it's my channel, and so I don't want it to
feel like Hollywood. You know what I mean? But,
yeah, I see it as a way to enhance that. There's
never going to be a world where I'm just filming
in front of a green screen, but if I have something
cool and I just want to extend it, that's kind
of where I see CG useful, if that makes any sense.
Yes. Do you upload to Facebook? Yes. What are
your thoughts on meta? I'm going to be honest.
I have no idea about anything meta. Really? Yeah.
Literally, you can probably tell by talking to
me. I'm like 95 % laser focused on YouTube. I
understand. Yeah. So like Facebook is usually
just our videos just shortened a little bit because
their attention span is a little bit shorter
and we just make them vertical and put them over
there. I'm just fascinated by where augmented
and virtual reality go and where it's going to
take us in terms of, you know, most people. It's
a big commitment to put the goggles on and to
hold the controllers and to stand in a room.
And the engagement that those like VR, whether
it's Oculus or what have you, that they have
in comparison to like people playing with their
phones, like people going on social media. It's
no comparison, right? Yeah. It's a tiny, tiny,
tiny fraction of the people. But I'm wondering
if there's going to be a tipping point because,
you know, I'm. from an age where i grew up with
no internet i'm like one of the last generations
of people that grew up without an internet and
didn't get the internet until i was in my 20s
and that's when it all emerged in the in the
world and i slowly watched it take over but no
one ever would have anticipated that you'd have
a device in your pocket that people would be
addicted to, and many people would be on it eight
hours a day just staring at people's butts. Yeah,
I get where you're going with this. This virtual
reality thing, there's a lot of people that are
dismissing it, and a lot of people think, but
when I see Zucker... Zuckerberg put so much emphasis
on this and the fact that he's even changing
the name of his company to Meta. And I see these
commercials that they're doing with people staring
into these art pieces and start dancing and moving.
And I'm like, where is this going? Do you think
about it at all? A little bit. I honestly, I
think the first step is definitely going to be
augmented reality. I think so too. Like the Google
Glasses or Apple Glasses and stuff like that.
And then... I don't know. It's hard to say because
you're right. Technology advances so much more
rapidly. I do believe within my lifetime I will
be able to put on a full suit and just lay down
and play in virtual reality, maybe when I'm 60,
70, and play an actual game, have sensors hooked
up, actually feel shit, and maybe with Neuralink
or some shit, and control it with my mind and
actually feel like I'm in a different world.
But it's weird because my gut's like, ah, that
shit's like 20, 30 years away. But in reality,
in 10 years, VR is going to be more advanced.
could ever imagine and it's scary you're right
it's crazy to think about you saw ready player
one i'm sure yeah of course yeah that kind of
world is not outside the realm of possibility
in my lifetime yeah 100 yeah it's good i don't
think it's going to be that long man i don't
think i think you know like you're saying 10
15 years i think there's gonna supply chain ramp
up and stuff like that i mean it's going to take
many many years um and yeah I mean, 15 doesn't
seem crazy. Actually, even 10 seems – it's just
– I don't know. But that's like our brains aren't
good at thinking about how rapidly technology
advances. What is the most advanced haptic feedback
suit now, Jamie? Is there anything that's new
on the horizon? Because I know they were doing
stuff that could – like if you got shot in a
game, it could – have you ever done sandbox?
Do you know what that is? No. It's fun, man.
You go to a warehouse. They have one here in
Austin, and one of them is this thing called
Deadwood Man. So I've done it with my family
a bunch of times. You go to a warehouse, you
put the goggles on, they give you a haptic feedback
vest, they give you plastic guns. I have done
that. I did not know that was called sandbox,
though. And you fight zombies. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Maybe we went to the same one. Yeah, I went to
one here two years ago. Yeah, there's one in
Austin, and then there's one, I've been to the
one in Woodland Hills, California, too. Yeah,
and did they have the lines on the ground and
stuff, too? There's some Call of Duty game they
had as well where there's walls and stuff, and
they're wrapped on the ground. No. They didn't
have lines, but you're just basically in a room.
And then as soon as they turn it on, that room
becomes like this virtual world. And all your
friends, like you see them in front of you and
they're these avatars now, like they're a pirate
or something like this. And then you get to do
this game on a pirate ship and you could fight
off these skeletons that are trying to kill you.
Or you're in the zombie game and the zombies
are running at you and you're blasting with a
shotgun and blood splattering everywhere. And
they get a hold of you. You feel them touch your
suit. You see, like, red in front of your eyes
because they're tearing you apart and you're
trying to shoot them and reload your gun. It's
wild. And it's really fun. And my thought is,
like, this is Pong. You know, this is do -do
-do -do -do -do -do -do. This is just a sort
of it's really fun. It's really exciting. But
it's going to be it's going to come a time where
as this technology continues to evolve and they
continue to have new innovation, it'll be indistinguishable
from a real experience. Yeah. And I don't know
how far away that is. I mean, I don't know either.
If I dedicated my life, I could probably figure
it out, but yeah. My thing is I'm wondering if
it's going to come to a point in time where your
show. is going to exist in a virtual reality
world where someone could not just watch it,
but actually be in it and be a part of it. Well,
I mean, obviously, if virtual reality has mass
adoption, of course. It's really just when the
tech gets here. If everyone had a VR headset
in their house, yeah, you probably would go to
concerts in there, too, if it just wasn't so
shit. Yeah, exactly. How good is the haptic feedback
suits now? I'm trying to look at what they were
showing at CES and see if anybody said, you've
got to try this, one of those kinds of things.
I know they have things that affect your hands.
It seems like the best thing they showed were
maybe some gloves, and they sound very expensive,
and I can't tell that, like they said they were
turning knobs, so I don't know how good that
feels to make you're actually turning a knob
or not. And what is the best VR setup now? Is
it Oculus? Is it HTC Vive? It depends on what
you want to do, honestly, because I've had it
for a long time now. So there's not, from what
I've been looking, a new game that's come out
recently that's like, oh, my God, check this
out. I would have showed it to you. Right, right.
And I don't know that there is one. Literally
all I play with my Rift is just Beat Saber. Yeah,
that's been around for a while. You can actually
get a really good workout with that. I agree.
It's so much fun. You're swinging your arms around.
And another thing that's really great with the
Oculus, there's a boxing game that you play.
So you've got this – because the way Oculus is
set up, the one we had back at our Woodland Hill
studio, it was like just an iPad was controlling
it, right? So you have the headphones and they're
pretty light and then you have these things on
and you're in this virtual ring and you're boxing
this character. And every time he hits you, you
see like a flash of light in front of your eyes.
And so you're basically shadow boxing but you're
reacting to a thing. So you're moving and you
get a good cardio workout. You could actually
get a – a really solid workout. I've never seen
this. This popped up on the thing. I was like,
this is a preview of an Iron Man VR game. This
could get into a AAA title game where they're
spending a lot of money. Any game like this where
you move in game but you're not moving in real
life gives me severe motion sickness. I feel
like it does for a lot of other people I know
as well. Obviously, you're not flying in real
life. You're not moving in real life, but you're
moving in game. That always fucks with me. So
it makes you want to throw up? Yeah, or it just
gives me like a giant headache. I wonder if there's
something they can give you for that, like a
Dramamine or one of them little things they put
on your wrist, like if you got on a boat, you
know? Yeah. I know you didn't get into Ready
Player Two, but that is part of what happens
in the fictionalized world where the thing got
too real and they've upgraded it. If you spend
more than 12 hours in it, your brain starts disconnecting
and you can die. That makes sense. They worked
that into the physical world. I'm sure Zuck's
taking that into account. We'll see. Well, that's
probably going to be where they come up with
a human brain interface. You know, the human
brain interface question, it's like how much
time have you spent looking at what Elon said
about Neuralink? Outside of your podcast? Nothing.
It's very complicated because the first steps
about it are really undeniably important because
the first steps about it are reconnecting people's
spinal cords. The first way that it's going to
be implemented is people that have severe spinal
cord injuries. So someone who has an injury like
that, they'll be able to do something where this
implant interfaces with the brain and somehow
or another can control the nerves or activate
parts of the body i'm not exactly sure how it's
done but it's going to allow people that are
paralyzed to walk It's crazy. Which is an undeniably
amazing thing. There's no ethical questions about
that. The ethical questions arise when you realize
that you're going to be putting this quarter
-sized hole in someone's head, and then you're
going to put wires into their brain, and it's
going to change the way human beings interface
with information. He said it's basically going
to increase, this is his words, it's going to
increase your bandwidth, your access to information,
and you're going to be able to talk without words.
Yeah, I remember he said that on your podcast
as well. I mean, fuck. If anybody else said that,
I'd be like, shut up, bitch. But when Elon says
it, I was like, shit. He probably – I mean, he's
not saying that wildly. He's probably got a plan
for coming up with something. See, now you're
making me wish I was more educated in this because
that's so fascinating. There's so much cool shit
going on, like VR, that. Fuck. There's so much
cool shit, and my feeling is – The way the internet
sort of just changed life. If you go back to
pre -internet versus post -internet, there's
a lot of problems that people have with the internet,
right? There's cyberbullying. There's a lot of
people that are disconnected. A lot of kids in
particular have a real problem with social media,
FOMO, and just with people bullying them and
them comparing their lives to other people. With
girls in particular, there's a lot of serious
psychological issues that have come with social
media. But it came out of nowhere, man. I mean,
we're talking about like the real implementation
of social media or mass scale where it started
affecting people's lives as early 2000s. And
now here we are. Maybe like 2010. Yeah, really
was phones. So iPhone 2007, right? Which took
years to ramp up. Like maybe even 2010 is a little
early. Because I agree. It's not like we've had
100 years to study how this shit affects us.
Exactly. It's all very recent. changed lives
so quickly. It went from, you know, 1990, almost
no one had a phone, a cell phone, to 2020, everyone
has a cell phone, to what is it 20 years from
now? What is it 30 years from now? I mean, when
does this new technology get implemented and
completely change the way human beings communicate
with each other? I don't... I don't think it's
going to be that far away, man. I think once
it gets going, the problem is, and the way Elon
was explaining it, you're going to have such
a competitive advantage if you have this chip,
if you have this Neuralink, if you have this
setup. You could just get an infinite loan out
to get it put in. Well, not just that, but we've
always had this problem where the rich get richer
and the poor get poorer. What happens from the
haves and the have -nots, once the haves have
a fucking Neuralink, And now they have literally
like an infinity pill that they're taking that
gets – what is that movie with Bradley Cooper?
Limitless. Limitless. They got a limitless pill
they're taking. And then out of nowhere, they
have incredible access to information. Imagine
literally learning everything I know, everything
I've spent my whole life studying, just downloading
your brain in a second. And what if it gives
you energy too? Because you think about what
are people taking when they're taking stimulants
like Adderall. Well, they're taking something
that stimulates your brain. I mean, it stimulates
your central nervous system, but it gives your
brain more information or more energy, rather.
But if you could do that electronically, where
you're not juicing yourself up with amphetamines,
but instead you're enhancing all the capabilities
of your entire neural network. Yeah. Crazy. Bro,
we're going to be robots. We're going to be cyber
people. I don't know in our lives. I think so.
Yeah? Yeah, I think so. I think it's going to
happen quick. I think the big fear is AI, right?
What people are worried about is a sentient artificial
intelligence that's far superior to ours that
realizes that we're not just outdated, but we're
kind of dangerous and we ruin the environment
and just decides to get rid of us and take over
as the new life form. You accidentally write
something that's like, help us solve climate
change. And it's like, the solution is just kill
the humans. Well, Marshall McLuhan wrote about
this in the 1960s. He said, human beings are
the sex organs of the machine world. Sex organs
of the machine world. Elaborate on that. Well,
we make the machines. The machines need us to
make them. We are how they replicate. So once
the human being creates a machine that's better
than it. why would the machine keep it around?
If they create an artificial life form that can
make better... We're incredibly advanced compared
to most of the creatures on this planet. But
compared to what's possible, I mean, godlike
powers, infinite powers are possible if you just
scale up from what we can do now with nuclear
power and video and 5G that you could send to
Australia in a second. It's wild shit you can
do right now. Imagine how far... that keeps going
and where it's going to go. Well, if they, if
it eventually goes to an artificial creature,
an artificial being that someone constructs and
it's not biologically based at all. So it doesn't
have any of the pitfalls that we have in terms
of our, our reliance on emotions and fear and
our desire to breed and ego and all these different
weird things that people have. None of those
has zero, zero of those things will be obsolete.
I mean, in a hypothetical world, I agree. The
hypothetical world is being worked on right now
by the smartest fucking people in the world.
That's why it's sketchy. And that's why I'd rather
just live in my own little bubble, just do my
own little thing. You figured that out with them.
You guys handle it. Here, just make sure I don't
get killed by this AI. And I'll be over here.
I'll make YouTube videos. I'll do my thing. I'll
feed people. Listen, I'm not figuring out shit.
I'm just talking. I'm just talking, and I get
to talk to smart people. But the thing that I'm
worried is it's going to sneak up on us. of the
ways that we avoid artificial intelligence I
mean if you look at like the possible pitfalls
like how does how does this play out one of the
ways we avoid being obsolete is we integrate
And that's what I think Neuralink is. I think
Neuralink is a no -brainer at some point or something
like that because right now your rate of learning
is just as fast as you can read. I mean it just
makes sense to be able to download information
if that is possible. If that is something that
can physically happen, then it's obviously going
to happen eventually because it's a no -brainer.
Yeah, I had Coleman Hughes on the podcast and
he disagrees. He thinks it's going to be so much
more difficult to sort of replicate the – the
human mind because there's so little we know
the human mind. But one of the things that I,
I don't know if I've said this to him, I forgot
to say it to him, but my position on that has
always been we don't have to replicate the human
mind. We just have to replicate its ability.
Like the idea that you have to replicate the
human mind, well, you have to understand the
human mind and, you know, just the neurons and
all the cells working together and the human
neurochemistry and the neurotransmitters. There's
so much shit going on in the brain constantly.
It's an intensely complex process. They don't
have to recreate that. Just make a new thing
that does what the brain does, but does it better.
And we've essentially started doing that with
artificial intelligence computers. I mean, look
what we've done with chess, right? It used to
be they thought the one thing that shows that
human beings are more intelligent than computers
is that computers can't beat them at chess. Well,
now they beat people at chess quick. Not only
do they beat people at chess, now computers...
get creative, and they come up with their own
moves. What do you mean, own moves? Their own
moves. They come up with their own openings.
Computers come up with different patterns of
playing chess that haven't been established by
grandmasters. And not just chess. It might be
actually Go that I'm thinking of, which Go is
apparently much more complex than chess. I remember
that, the AlphaGo documentary. Yeah. And so these
computers... Here it is. DeepMinds AI is helping
to rewrite the rules of chess. DeepMinds researchers
are letting AlphaZero play with different rules
to find out how to improve the game. They're
creative, at least in the context of the game
of chess. So, look, that didn't used to be the
case 10 years ago, 30 years ago. They're getting
better at thinking. How long? Did you see Ex
Machina? No. You didn't? No. How dare you? What
even is that? You never saw that movie? Wait.
Oh, my gosh. I purely grew up on YouTube. I haven't
seen hardly any. That's wild. Isn't it incredible
what you can accomplish with singular focus?
I said something to him earlier. I was like,
is that on YouTube? No, it's popular. I mean,
that's how you get successful at a young age.
You just obsess and cut everything else out.
I'm not doubting that. But you would love Ex
Machina. It's a fucking amazing movie. It's one
of my top ten favorite movies of all time. And
it's a movie about this guy who's a super genius,
the guy on the far right who's been in Star Wars.
What's that dude's name, Jamie? Oscar Isaac.
Oscar Isaac. He's awesome. And he creates – and
who's the girl? I don't remember her name off
the top of my head. Well, let's give her some
props to find out who it is. But anyway, it's
an amazing movie. It's one of my top ten all
-time favorite movies. Someone listening to this
text me to watch it. That Oscar guy is... Alicia
Vikander. Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac, and then
Dom Hanal Gleesom is the computer coder that
this guy hires. So Oscar... The Nathan guy is
this like super genius who lives in this very
remote location and he's been secretly working
on an advanced, super complex version of artificial
life. And he has literal artificial humans in
this compound that you realize are human or you
realize are not human along the way. And one
that he has this guy do. You know what the Turing
test is? No. The Turing test is a test that was
created by this guy. Is it Arthur Turing? Alan.
Alan Turing. Alan Turing was a guy who devised
a test to find out. The idea was if. You could
interact with a computer and not know that it's
a computer. Then it would pass this test. If
you could interact with something and it would
behave and think and communicate like a human
being. And so he was kind of brought on, the
computer coder, to interact with this woman who
was clearly a robot. But she was so seductive
and beautiful and the way she communicated was
so enticing that it was essentially passing the
Turing test even though he knew. And Alan Turing,
which is really crazy, Alan Turing existed, he
was born in a barbaric time. And I believe he
lived in the UK and he was gay and he was...
Tried and prosecuted for being gay and they made
him take drugs that I Think he they made him
take like a chemical circumcision drug not circumcision
castration drug a chemical castration drug that
killed his libido and he wound up committing
suicide so the one of the leading fathers in
concepts Yeah. Which is really wild. 1952, he's
convicted of gross indecency with another man
and was forced to undergo so -called... Organotherapy.
Chemical castration. It's crazy that wasn't even
100 years ago. No, man. Wow. 1952. Two years
later, he killed himself with cyanide at just
41 years old. Alan Turing was driven to a terrible
despair and early death by the nation he'd done
so much to save. It's an amazing story. And it's
so heartbreaking because it shows you the stupidity
and the ignorance. And the prejudice of human
beings destroying a guy who had this vision to
understand what possibly can be coming down the
line in terms of artificial life. Yeah. And if
he was 40 then. I mean, he would have lived to
like 2000. He would have seen some wild shit.
Yeah, exactly. I imagine what he would have came
up with once computers actually fucking worked.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, who knows how much
we would have advanced his ideas and concepts,
but. Yeah. With all that stuff, I wish I had
more value to add, but it's like, honestly, this
is like a lot of what you just said. Probably
like the first time I've ever thought of half
that shit. Really? Yeah. I don't really spend
too much time thinking about futuristic stuff.
I'm usually just like. But you work in computers.
You work on computers. Your shit gets uploaded
to computers. I work in content. It's interesting.
You're definitely getting my gears turning. I
wish I had more value to add. You're great, man.
Stop. I'm ex -mocking it, though. You must see
it. I'm going to watch it. You have to. You don't
have to. Do whatever the fuck you want. See how
hard you vouched for it. I kind of have to watch
it. I've watched it like four or five times.
At least. I love it. Do you watch films? Do you
watch any films? No. When was the last time you
saw a movie? Well, I watched the Spider -Man
No Way Home because it was cool. That just came
out on Apple, didn't it? Isn't it available now
on Apple TV? My 11 -year -old that's obsessed
with you is also obsessed with Spider -Man. Yeah,
everyone is at the moment. Tom Holland's crushing
it. But growing up, since YouTube's what I do,
I should consume YouTube. So if I consumed movies
or other stuff, I always kind of saw it as a
waste of time unless it was culture. then it
would make sense to watch it. It makes sense
to watch Spider -Man, so I know what's going
on in the world. But for the most part, for me,
what's optimal is to just watch a bunch of YouTube,
so then I better understand what's trending and
how to make better videos and pacing and stuff
like that. So you just, you're constant YouTube.
Yeah. I'm not as much anymore, but when I was
growing up, a hardcore, I would call it like
an information diet. Like I would only watch
YouTube. So I was constantly just ingesting like,
you know, how to make better videos. That was
your isolation diet, right? Yeah. Or, um, so,
yeah. So when you, um, when you talk about Spider
-Man, you can't not talk about the Into the Spider
-Verse. Have you seen that one? The animated
one? No? I've really only seen the newest one
because it was so huge. Dude, the best one is
Enter the Spider -Verse. Okay. Don't you think,
Jamie? Yeah, well, I've - That one's the shit.
But I haven't seen this one either, and I've
heard it could win Oscars and whatnot, which
the other one did win an Oscar, but they're talking
like - This was such a good movie. There wasn't
a lot of movies that came out there. The newest
one? Yeah. Yeah, crushed it. It was phenomenal.
And I didn't even watch the old Spider -Man's,
and I feel like I understood everything. Well,
I hope it wins an Oscar. I think this, from what
I even heard, this is almost like a real action
version of that animated one. Oh, yeah? Like
there's verses that combine, and I don't know
how visually. comparable it was. I don't think
it's in 3D like the other one was. Well, the
end to the Spider -Verse, the fact that it's
animated, you could just do so much more with
animation because you can get away with stuff.
It doesn't have to be realistic. You don't have
to have stunt people or CGI. It's all animated.
I feel like animation does a better job of portraying
emotion. I don't even know how to put it into
words, but with movements and stuff like that
because it doesn't have to be so realistic. Yeah,
I'm kind of amazed that they don't have more
feature -length animated movies. Oh, when is
that coming out? Probably this year, later this
year. Does it say? Oh, wow. It says October 7th.
Oh, all right. Nice. But that's probably more
an American thing because, like, you know, anime
is exploding here. Right. I am surprised it hasn't
seeped over more into just, like, the culture
of what we consume here. Yeah, it's exploding
on YouTube, too. I mean, it's like there's so
much anime content on YouTube. Yeah. What is
happening? How is that happening? Because that's
another thing my kid's into. Yeah. I mean, I
love anime because the stories are so weird that
it inspires me. I feel like it's actually a really
good way. to develop creatively. Death Note,
have you ever heard of that? Yes. One of the
biggest animes. The story is about a book that
fell from the sky and you can write any name
in it and they die. I watched that movie. Yeah,
well, the anime is obviously better. The movie's
good, though. Well, the anime, if you like that,
you'd like the anime. It's 30 times better. Anyone
who's seen the anime is just shaking in their
boots because it's a common thing. Everyone hates
the fucking movie. What? Yeah. Go to the movie,
Jamie, because the movie is good. His anime dorks
need to get out of the fucking house. I mean,
you should try watch a couple episodes of the
anime and see. It's like, it's the pacing in
the anime. It's one of my favorite shows. It's
really good. And just the, I don't know. I feel
like it just moves so much better. The movie
kind of made me cringe at a few parts. Really?
Yeah. I mean, it was silly, but it was... That's
the thing. It was a little bit more silly, whereas
the anime is very serious. It really gets you...
Because they essentially condense, what is it,
dozens of episodes down to a two -hour movie.
Right. And what's his name? William... What the
fuck's his name is the voice of it? The voice
of the demon. Willem Dafoe. Willem Dafoe, that's
right. Yeah, he's in it. He's the voice of the
demon. He's the guy that shows up when the dude
starts putting names in the book and has people
killed. The dude meets him in a laboratory. There
he is. It's a cool -looking demon. Does it show
it? Or did you skip ahead? There it is. No, they
show it. They'll show it a little bit. But it's,
I thought it was fun. Yeah, right there. But
the point is, like, this, you know, the show,
it's just something so different that you don't
find here, right? At least when I grew up and
I was watching a little bit of TV, it felt like
it was just all, like, crime scene shows and,
like, different variations. And it's like, or,
like, game shows. It's all, like, the same tried
and true shit. Where it's like, that's what I
love about anime. It's just, like, you get stuff
like that. Like, you'll never, ever, ever find
anything like that over here. And there's...
it's i don't know for me like that extra creativity
is so much more entertaining it is weird though
like i wonder what is it about japanese culture
where they tapped into that and it's obviously
very exciting to kids Yeah, people of all ages,
to be honest. I mean, I don't know mass data,
but just even the people I see, like everyone
recently, even like a lot of YouTubers talking
about to their audience, like, anime's exploding.
It's very graphic, too, man. My kid, we were
on vacation, and I always give her a hard time.
I was like, which one are you watching now? And
she's like, this one's called Demon Slayer. And
she tries to explain to me, like, did you watch
Demon Slayer? A little bit. I'm still working
on it. It's super graphic. I watched it. I was
like, Jesus. They really kill people. It's a
wild, bloody mess. I know. I mean, that's what
I love about anime is that for a lot of them,
they don't hold back. I prefer that. But I guess
for you and your stance as a father, it's a little
different. Well, I don't want to protect her
from fake violence. It's weird to me that she
likes it. When you have children, one of the
weird things is what disturbs them and what doesn't
and why. What freaks them out and what doesn't
freak them out. And what freaks her out or used
to freak her out is realistic depictions of horror.
I feel like, honestly, I'm the same way. You're
saying that's not normal? No, no, I think it
is. But anime, because it's not realistic, because
it's clearly a cartoon. Yeah. Seems to be...
It's like, who killed Kenny? Like, you bastard.
Like, when South Park... When Kenny would die
every... Do you not know fucking Kenny in South
Park? I've heard the name Kenny. I've never watched
South Park. Oh, no. Oh, no. What is happening
here? Are we in an alternative universe? What
planet are you from? You're talking to a YouTube
baby. A guy... What? I saw South Park as a waste
of time. He is younger than South Park, I do
believe. Well, South Park's current. i know but
i mean just uh it's still amazing right now so
you've never seen the south park movie i've never
watched south park oh my god you never seen when
when you're a comedian like that's more relevant
in your world i guess so i mean before i was
a comedian i love comedy you don't love like
did you ever see team america world police Nope.
Jesus Christ! You know, and you're not... But
basically, this is partly why I didn't have any
friends growing up. I'm serious. You just YouTubed
out. Yeah, no, that's the problem. Like, that's
legit what you're experiencing. That's how I
felt every day about every little thing throughout
my teenage life. And that's why, like, I felt
like I was a fucking freak because I was like,
I just... Listen, man, I get it. No, but now
I'm confident. I don't give a fuck. I find it
funny. But that's what's interesting because
when I was at a younger age, I didn't. It confused
me, and I felt like a weirdo. And I say that
for people who are hyper -obsessed listening
because there are people listening to this who
are probably a little bit younger that are hyper
-obsessed over certain things and probably feel
like that. I just surround myself with YouTubers
and people that care about YouTube, so I don't
have that problem. You know what I mean? But
you just got to find those people that have those
same... whatever, obsessions. You know what I
mean? No, listen, it's obviously paid off in
a huge way for you. I'm not in any way criticizing.
No, no, I don't think you're criticizing. I just
think it's so unusual. I just like bringing that
up for people to hear because I'm serious. That
was one of the things I just couldn't figure
out growing up. I just couldn't find anyone that
I related to. I was miserable, so fucking miserable.
But it paid off. It did, and that's why I like
saying that. But that's the thing. And this is
the thing that gets covered in Outliers and gets
covered in when a lot of people try to study
hyper achievers. Like, what is it about these
people that makes them so successful? And with
you, it's clearly this singular dedication to
content creation. Exactly. To the point where
you don't even fucking watch South Park. Yep.
Crazy. Where you give up everything, even if
it means you don't fit in. Yeah. Which is what
you have to do. But it doesn't seem like it's
a sacrifice for you. That's the beauty of it.
The beauty of your story is that there's... obviously
discipline and obviously you work hard but it's
love it's a passion it's you're clearly obsessed
with this still all these years in top of the
food chain you're still guns blazing and constantly
trying to add add more to what you're doing thank
you it's pretty dope dude i agree i don't I'm
grateful, genuinely just grateful that I found
what I loved. It's not like a broken record,
but that's the type of shit they should teach
in school. You should have classes helping you
find what you love. Once you find what you love,
you don't have to tell someone to study. You
don't have to force someone to do it. They just
do it because it's built in you. It's part of
who you are. I couldn't agree more. But the problem
is, like we were talking about earlier, that
you have these... underpaid teachers who are
not really engaged with what they're teaching.
They're just kind of spitting it out in this
large class. They're not connecting to the students.
But even then, like what we're talking about
here isn't even just supported in the curriculum.
Right. And I don't know. See, that's why I'd
have to do research. I don't know if everyone's
like us and if they found what they love, they'd
go all in or figure it out. But I don't know.
I just feel like that's something that's just
super just in general in American culture, like
just that, like helping people find their passion.
Because I feel like that's like that's just what
holds so many people back. They're just doing
shit they don't love. One hundred percent. But
the question is, like, is there enough? passion
projects out there for everybody to do what you
do or to do what i do well the thing is to chase
what they enjoy because i did youtube for no
pay for years and i did it making hardly anything
and i did this podcast for no money for years
yeah this podcast cost me money for like the
first five or six years that i was doing it exactly
and so even if even if i was making minimum wage
doing youtube i'd still be way happier than if
i was making like three or four times minimum
wage doing something else of course yeah yeah
and so you also kind of have to factor that in
whereas if you do what you love you don't necessarily
need as much I think with a lot of people the
problem is external pressures, like obviously
your mom wanted you to go to college, and my
parents didn't want me to do a lot of the things
that I did. But luckily for both of us, we didn't
listen. And I think that's the thing. But how
do you transfer that to a child? How do you tell
a young kid coming up, you've got to learn how
to be stubborn, and you've got to learn how to
know when you're right? You've got to learn how
to chase down the things that actually excite
you. The flip side, we took some big risks. I
have a friend who I support. Similar thing, all
in, $50 ,000 in debt, channel didn't take off,
whatever. He quit and ruined his life. It's not
all sunshine and rainbows. Not everyone's going
to end up like us. I pay him $10 ,000 a month.
He's good. He's not homeless anymore. So it's
like, I don't know. I don't know where the line
is, where we're not giving people advice that
could potentially fuck them over. Because obviously,
even though you might be less happy, you have
a higher chance of not being homeless by being
a sheep and doing that stuff. There's a thing
like that with comedians, too, right? Because
I have friends that I thought were really funny.
And going back a decade ago, I remember hanging
out with them at the comedy store going, 10 years
from now, this person's going to be killing it.
10 years from now, they're no better off than
they were then. And I don't know why. And I don't
know what it is. And they can be funny. I've
seen them have really good jokes on stage. Pretty
good stage presence, but for whatever it is,
they've never been able to get that real traction
and then just build on it. One of the things
that I see with you is you have massive momentum
and all this inertia that's going towards getting
things done, and you keep building on it. You
keep adding to the machine. Exactly. Some people
don't do that for whatever reason, and I don't
know if that's a teachable thing. Well, I mean,
there's more to it. It's like my first brand
deal. Everyone in the world is like, God. Just
set the money aside. Put this in an IRA. Do this
thing. And I'm like, no, I'm just going to go
spend it on a video or whatever. People always
want you to set aside money or de -risk things.
It's like everything kind of points to you doing
what's opposite of what's optimal. You know what's
optimal for growing a business is hella risky.
So it's like, I don't know. But also there's
no real precedent. I mean, there is you now.
But in the world of this content creator on YouTube,
it's not like there's decades of history that
people could study. Exactly. And that's one of
the hardest things. If you're trying to become
a great basketball player, get a fucking mentor.
There's plenty of people who have spent their
lives, NBA players or college players at a high
level. Get a mentor. Anything you're doing, if
there's someone who... If you can get a mentor,
it's like fucking cheat codes. It's like that
guy I took from $20 ,000 to $400 ,000 a month.
That would take him like a decade on his own.
I was like, here you go. Just do this once a
week for eight months. And that's the thing.
For what I did, no one has done it. And so there's
never any point where I could have a mentor that
could help me. And I don't even know what you
were saying that inspired this. But it is something
that's like a pet peeve of mine. Like, bro. A
mentor is a fucking cheat code. If you're in
an industry where you can get one, get one. A
lot of people enjoy, if they're really passionate
about what they do, they enjoy talking about
it. They'll mentor you for free just because
it's what they love. But what's fascinating about
a guy like you is you didn't have a mentor and
you became one. Exactly. You figured the system
out. My point would be if I knew what I knew
now like three years ago, I'd be on half a billion
subscribers or whatever. My growth would have
been so much more extreme. It's like knowledge
is just so OP. And, like... I don't know. Just
one of my things. I just really want to drill
in your fucking heads. It's like if you're in
an industry where there are other experts, just
have them teach you what they just spent the
last 20 years studying. Don't you go on your
own 20 -year journey. Just learn from them. Then
start your journey. You can learn so much from
people that have already accomplished things.
You can. But at some point in time, you also
have to learn how to be yourself. Agreed. Yeah.
You leverage it. You filter out the stuff you
want to keep or whatever. But it's like, I don't
know. It's just – there's – nothing more valuable
in life in my opinion at least entrepreneurial
wise uh than than having someone like that you
know it's massive and it's also creates a community
because like clearly you've done an amazing service
for these people that you helped and they'll
probably play it forward and if they pay it forward
and then they do it for other people like i do
that with comics and i see other comics do the
same thing where they help other stand -ups and
and and mentor them and take them on the road
and give them gigs and give them advice and you
see it grow and there's like a community that
comes out of that that's also it's very valuable
yeah and fun like new friends whatever fun friends
good times like that's one of the cool things
about your videos it's like it's not just you
having fun you have this whole gang of friends
and everyone's laughing and having a great time
and you look down it's like 50 million views
like holy shit I know which is beautiful on purpose
and that That environment, that feel is so hard
to get because, you know, most people want to,
again, with these big projects, you want to script
it because scripting gets budget down, gets filmed.
You can take a 50 -hour shoot and reduce it to
five minutes. Sorry, not five, five hours if
you script it. You can also reduce your budget
costs by like 60 % if you script shit. And so
that's why you don't see a lot of stuff like
what we do because no one wants to do it authentic
and just like let shit happen. You know, things
can go wrong or take way longer. They just want
to script it and then give, you know, the boys
lines and shit like that. part of the things
going wrong in your videos is what makes it fun
exactly yeah exactly and that's why i do it the
way i do which is now it's more normal but when
i was growing especially as i'm like bringing
people from la like hey can you help me or other
people try to help make this stuff happen it's
like so unorthodox and like everyone every person
has an idea of how you could like make things
more efficient and there are always points back
to like some form of scripting and it's like
no fuck no go away yeah that's uh I mean, look,
you've got a formula. And it's not even a formula.
It's just authenticity. Exactly. Like Chris,
one of the guys in the videos, he was my first
subscriber. He's been my friend. It's not like
I went to L .A. and hired some actor. He just
literally, he's been day one. And then the other
guy, Carl, he was my editor that Chris literally
just became friends with. And Chris was like,
I don't want to film unless Carl's around. I
was like, well, fuck. All right, Carl, you're
part of the team. And Chandler, the other guy,
was my janitor. And we had him in a video because
someone backed out or something. So we were like,
fuck it. You're here. Just go in. And then he
said one line like. It was a challenge where
they couldn't leave a circle, or last to leave
a circle wins $10 ,000. And he asked at one point,
he's like, can I throw my poop at the other contestants
to get them out? I was like, no. But people thought
that was the funniest thing ever, that he would
think about throwing his poop. And everyone's
like, we want the poop guy back. And so my janitor
ended up just, you know, and then he also became
really good friends with Chris as well in that
video. And so now my janitor is one of our people.
And so it's like we're all just friends. And
it's not like we're hand -selecting actors from
L .A. or New York. It's literally just like.
Just random guys from North Carolina that get
along well. Well, I think that's why it works
because no one feels like an actor and everyone
feels like just a regular person having fun.
I guarantee you they're all hanging out right
now, just doing some dumb shit like watching
anime or whatever. I know. I'm very grateful.
How we've gotten this many years, this many videos,
and they don't hate each other and they still
are friends. It's – I don't know. I feel like
I've gotten a little lucky there because they
legit hang out and do stuff all the time. I think
it's a little bit of trickle down from the top
too because you're so generous and you're so
friendly and you have such a good time and you
do enjoy this sort of camaraderie. That – like
all that kind of – it always is like whoever
is like the head guy, it trickles down to everyone
else in the environment. It really does. Like
you set the tone. Yeah, I agree. I'm grateful.
But it's like, again, I got a little lucky. I
didn't hand select or anything. It's just like,
oh, we're all friends. And somehow here we are.
Now they all have millions of followers. We're
all still friends, and they're not like divas
or anything, and it's been good. Well, listen,
man, it's awesome. I'm happy for you. I think
it's cool as shit. I think it's an amazing example
for people. And it's also for young people to
realize that there is this path, and it's not
just a path of like, moderate success. It's a
path of massive success. Gigantic 224 million
view videos. And it all is done by a regular
guy. Yeah. You just – you have to just – and,
you know, what is it? It's like if you don't
find what you love, you're just not – you're
going to quit before you get to that point. You
genuinely have to find what you love. If you
get any takeaway – sorry, it's like a habit to
look at the camera. Go ahead. Look at the camera.
Like you have to find what you love because if
you find what you love and you obsess over day
after day, week after week, month after month,
year after year for a decade, you're going to
achieve some form of success. But if you don't
truly love it, you're going to quit way before
you get like that compound. growth and and you
really get ultra levels of success so in my opinion
the easiest way to be successful just find something
you truly love and yeah wise words for mr beast
last question why mr beast where's that name
oh you know xbox live like xbox yeah it just
uh When I was like 11, I got, it was just like,
it randomized. And it was like Mr. B6000. And
so my username used to be Mr. B6000 on Xbox.
And that's what I used on my YouTube channel.
And then when I was like 14 or 15, I was like,
why the fuck is there a 6 ,000 in this? But I
was like, fuck. I don't know if it was getting
like 100 views a video, but I was like, fuck.
It's part of my brand. 100 views a video brand.
Whatever the fuck that is. Like, I don't know.
And I had like this, I removed the 6 ,000. Then
I put it back. And I just like, every month I'd
add. it back and remove it but then I dropped
to 6 ,000 and it was just Mr. Beast wise words
for Mr. Beast ladies and gentlemen thank you
thank you for having me my pleasure it was a
lot of fun I really appreciate it and congratulations
now I don't have to keep listening to my fucking
self sorry bye bye everybody