MrBeast Shares His Best Business Advice

Summary

Podcast Title: My First Million
Episode: MrBeast Shares His Best Business Advice
Host/Author: Hubspot Media
Release Date: February 13, 2025

---

Introduction

In this electrifying episode of My First Million, hosts Sam Parr and Shaan Puri sit down with renowned YouTuber and entrepreneur Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast. The discussion delves deep into MrBeast's journey from a struggling content creator to a multimillion-dollar business mogul. Through candid conversations, MrBeast shares invaluable business insights, his unique approach to content creation, and the philosophies that have driven his unprecedented success.

---

Origin Story: From Struggles to Success

MrBeast opens up about his early days on YouTube, grappling with inconsistent uploads and minimal views. Reflecting on his 100th video, he admits:

Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast) [00:15]: "People say it takes 10,000 hours to master or something. I'm like, that's when you start."

He reveals the internal tug-of-war between pursuing YouTube and his initial aspirations in baseball, exacerbated by his battle with Crohn's disease. This period of uncertainty was pivotal, leading him to fully commit to YouTube as a viable career path.

Jimmy Donaldson [02:05]: "I was really into baseball and I wanted to play baseball in college... YouTube. I was probably like 14, 15 at the time."

---

Business Philosophy: The Rule of a Hundred

One of the standout segments of the episode is MrBeast's "Rule of a Hundred," a strategy he advocates for anyone looking to excel in their field. This rule emphasizes the importance of persistence and continual improvement before seeking external advice.

Jimmy Donaldson [11:27]: "You're taking a hundred videos. Improve something every time. On the hundredth one, then ask question."

MrBeast explains that producing 100 pieces of content allows creators to refine their craft organically, making adjustments and enhancements with each iteration. This methodology not only fosters skill development but also builds resilience against early setbacks.

Shaan Puri [12:22]: "If you do that 100 times... they don't need me after that. You figure it out."

---

Commitment: Burning the Boats

A recurring theme in MrBeast's narrative is his unwavering commitment to his goals, encapsulated in the metaphor "burn the boats." This approach signifies eliminating all fallback options to fully dedicate oneself to a singular objective.

Jimmy Donaldson [05:16]: "Burn the boats."

He recounts how he deceived his mother into believing he was attending community college, allowing him the freedom to pursue YouTube without the pressure of academic expectations. This decisive move was crucial in his transition from content creator to entrepreneur.

---

Building a Team: Cloning for Efficiency

To manage his expanding empire, MrBeast introduced the concept of "cloning" himself within his organization. This strategy involves training dedicated team members who can operate autonomously, making decisions that align with his vision.

Jimmy Donaldson [25:31]: "Whenever I'm doing something that's a problem... have someone on my hip and have them learn how to do it. Essentially clone you to do that task."

By creating these "clones," MrBeast ensures that his business operations remain smooth and scalable, even as he focuses on larger, strategic initiatives. This delegation allows him to maintain oversight without being bogged down by every minor detail.

---

Ethical Entrepreneurship: Feastables and Child Labor

A significant portion of the conversation centers around MrBeast's venture into the chocolate industry with his company, Feastables. Disturbed by the prevalence of child labor in West African cocoa farms, he committed to ethical sourcing practices.

Jimmy Donaldson [49:16]: "I want to make the best product possible... none of this is as simple as I'm portraying it."

He details the steps Feastables takes to ensure a living income for farmers, fair trade certifications, and collaboration with child labor remediation systems. This dedication not only addresses a critical social issue but also sets a benchmark for ethical practices in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) sector.

Jimmy Donaldson [49:36]: "So 100% of our farmers are paid a living income... We routinely audit the farms."

---

Reinvestment Strategy: Plowing Profits Back In

MrBeast's success is largely attributed to his relentless reinvestment of profits back into his ventures. Whether it's funding larger YouTube projects or scaling his businesses, reinvestment remains a cornerstone of his financial strategy.

Shaan Puri [44:54]: "His edge is that he takes all the money he makes and then he reinvests it."

This approach ensures sustained growth and innovation, allowing MrBeast to stay ahead in the competitive digital and business landscapes. By continuously funneling resources into his projects, he amplifies both his reach and impact.

---

Overcoming Obstacles: Making the Impossible Possible

A defining characteristic of MrBeast is his ability to turn seemingly impossible ideas into reality. Whether it's a week-long challenge or acquiring iconic landmarks for content, he approaches challenges with a problem-solving mindset.

Jimmy Donaldson [31:43]: "I hate when people tell me something can't be done... Let's make the calls, figure it out."

This tenacity is evident in his endeavors, such as potentially acquiring TikTok, where he showcases his willingness to explore unconventional solutions to achieve his goals.

Jimmy Donaldson [57:44]: "If TikTok's willing to sell... I'm up to like 35 [billionaires] who have, like, unironically reached out."

---

Surrounding Yourself with Creativity: The Power of a Think Tank

MrBeast emphasizes the importance of surrounding oneself with creative and driven individuals. By fostering a collaborative environment, he ensures a continuous flow of innovative ideas and effective problem-solving.

Jimmy Donaldson [21:01]: "If you really want to come up with like great ideas, you need to surround yourself with other very creative people."

He draws parallels to Steve Jobs' Creative Inc., highlighting the value of daily reviews, real-time feedback, and an egoless culture in driving excellence.

Jimmy Donaldson [22:33]: "We have at least five people... they just pull the best out of me."

---

Blocking Out the Noise: Staying Focused Amidst Criticism

Throughout his journey, MrBeast faced skepticism and criticism, especially during his early content creation days. However, he underscores the importance of ignoring negative noise and maintaining focus on one's vision.

Jimmy Donaldson [43:29]: "Everything you guys have been flattering me with... bullying for in high school."

By filtering out distractions and surrounding himself with supportive and like-minded individuals, he ensures that his dedication remains unshaken, propelling him toward his goals.

Jimmy Donaldson [44:03]: "It's also just finding the right people to be around."

---

Fitness and Discipline: Personal Growth Parallel to Business Expansion

Interestingly, MrBeast intertwines his personal fitness journey with his business growth. By prioritizing physical health, he maintains the discipline and energy required to manage his expansive enterprises.

Jimmy Donaldson [54:36]: "I can't think about this kind of stuff every single day... environment that just makes being jacked very natural."

This holistic approach to growth ensures that he remains mentally and physically equipped to handle the demands of his businesses.

---

Future Endeavors: Expanding Horizons

Towards the end of the episode, MrBeast discusses potential future projects, including the ambitious idea of acquiring TikTok. This move exemplifies his forward-thinking approach and willingness to explore new frontiers.

Jimmy Donaldson [56:34]: "Everything is just, it's... making calls, figure it out."

His vision extends beyond YouTube, aiming to influence and shape larger digital platforms, further consolidating his position as a leading entrepreneur.

---

Conclusion: A Blueprint for Success

This episode offers a comprehensive look into MrBeast's business strategies, personal philosophies, and ethical commitments. His journey from a young content creator to a business magnate serves as a testament to the power of perseverance, innovative thinking, and ethical entrepreneurship. Aspiring entrepreneurs and content creators can glean invaluable lessons from his experiences, making this episode a must-listen for anyone aiming to make their mark in the digital and business arenas.

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Jimmy Donaldson [00:15]:

  "People say it takes 10,000 hours to master or something. I'm like, that's when you start."

• Jimmy Donaldson [11:27]:

  "You're taking a hundred videos. Improve something every time. On the hundredth one, then ask question."

• Jimmy Donaldson [25:31]:

  "Whenever I'm doing something that's a problem... have someone on my hip and have them learn how to do it. Essentially clone you to do that task."

• Jimmy Donaldson [43:29]:

  "Everything you guys have been flattering me with... bullying for in high school."

• Jimmy Donaldson [49:36]:

  "So 100% of our farmers are paid a living income... We routinely audit the farms."

---

This detailed summary encapsulates the essence of MrBeast's insights shared in the podcast episode, offering listeners a rich and engaging overview of his business acumen and personal philosophies.

Transcript

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Let's go.

[Sean Evans]

So here we go. I have it here. This is the MrBeast secret.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I don't know if I should be concerned.

[Sean Evans]

I guess you faked going to college.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Oh, that. That's a juicy one.

[Sean Evans]

On your 100th video, you wrote your stats.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I did do that. I remember that.

[Sean Evans]

It's not like at 100, you were rich and famous.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

People say it takes 10,000 hours to master or something. I'm like, that's when you start.

[Sean Evans]

But, you know, like, nobody does this. Right.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I don't understand why.

[Unnamed Guest]

So we want to do an exercise.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

To see if I can come up.

[Sean Evans]

With a viral idea, but with a budget of $1,000.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, exactly.

[Unnamed Guest]

So we're gonna do a random word generator.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

They're gonna think this is rich. All right, so it gave us the word grandmother. So what's a viral idea with a grandmother? I mean, bro, if you actually want, like, a mega banger, I feel like.

[Unnamed Guest]

I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it. Like, no days off on the road. Let's travel. Never lose.

[Sean Evans]

What's up?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

How's it going, boys?

[Unnamed Guest]

Hey, how you doing?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Let's go. So it's been two years. Lots to update people on then.

[Sean Evans]

I think your business has grown, like, 10x since then.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Probably something like that.

[Sean Evans]

Yeah, yeah. It's wild to see. In fact, actually, this is kind of where I want to start, because you walk in, we're in your. We're in your office. This is like, Jimmy's actual office. And it's easy to see the size and scale. And now it looks like. Of course, you know, like, this is all. Yeah, this is all happening. But I like to see that journey. And I actually want to play a clip for you. It's going to be.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

So we're starting off with the origin story.

[Sean Evans]

It sounds like you're going to hate this.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

This letter room.

[Sean Evans]

You're going to hate this. What would you bring? Let's. This is from a video on your YouTube channel called Quitting.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Oh, God.

[Sean Evans]

I don't know if you remember this.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Oh, God. Do you know what you're about to hear? I remember uploading this video. I cannot. I do not remember a single thing I said in this video. You guys make it really hard to. To quit. It's been a month since I uploaded to YouTube, and to be honest, I was pretty sure I was done with YouTube. I. I kind of want to start uploading. Like, I feel like my YouTube channel has so much potential. I'VE made over half a thousand dollars of money off of this channel. Half of this channel could grow. Like, money aside, just, I could become famous, which would be awesome in and of itself. So I don't know, I might start up with. Is this AI.

[Sean Evans]

This is you, dude.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I don't remember saying any of that. Whoa.

[Sean Evans]

How wild is that, dude?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Oh, my gosh. I was making $500 a month. Why would I quit?

[Sean Evans]

And in the thing you're talking about, you're like, you know, I've been busy with sp.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I just haven't been as consistent.

[Sean Evans]

And then what you said was, you were like, the comments have kept me going. Yeah, you're like, I logged in today. I wasn't planning to upload, But I saw 20 comments, and you know what? I think I might. I might keep uploading.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, that was. That was also around the time I got Crohn's disease, because I was really into baseball and I wanted to play baseball in college. And so I was all in on baseball. And it was constant tug and pool, where it's like, one day I'd wake up and I'd be like, I want to be trying to play in the mlb, which I had zero shot of. I never would have. But, you know, you're delusional when you're a little kid. And then the next day I'd be like, no, I want to be a YouTuber, and this is more realistic, and I can make money. And then I got Crohn's, and I went from 200 pounds, and I was weightlifting every day down to 139, on the verge of dying, and I lost every ounce of muscle I had. I was like, well, I just made this easier. YouTube. I was probably like 14, 15 at the time. And then, yeah, that's.

[Sean Evans]

So sometimes life is working for you.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, that was probably around that time there, too. So it's probably going through Crohn's during that and trying to figure out, like, am I doing YouTube? Am I doing baseball? Because I'm a very all in kind of guy. Wow.

[Sean Evans]

And so, I mean, just to hear.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

500Amonth.

[Sean Evans]

No, no. Half a thousand. Yeah, I never even heard that. That's amazing.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I was richer than I thought back then. So I made. No, I was definitely capping. I was not making 500amonth. Or maybe I had one month where I made 500. And I was like, okay, maybe someone from school might see this. And I want to. As I was like, when I graduated from high school, I was making nothing. I was I was not making $6,000 a year back then.

[Sean Evans]

Dude, you had this great quote. You go, I started making videos when I was 11. No one watched when I was 11. No one watched When I was 12. No one watched when I was 13. 13, 14. Is anyone ever gonna watch these things? 16, nobody's watching. 17. Oh, I'm about to graduate high school. Still no one is watching my videos.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yep. And 18, no one watched that. I think it was around 19 where I started to really figure it out.

[Sean Evans]

And I think, so why are we doing this episode? Right? Our audience is not trying to be YouTubers. It's mostly business founders.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Hey, it works for you.

[Sean Evans]

Yeah, yeah. I'm kind of a YouTuber now. You got me. What I like about you is that your approach to whether it's YouTube, selling chocolate, losing weight, whatever it is.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah.

[Sean Evans]

You have a certain mentality. I think you are wired differently. I think in 20 years, I'm going to be able to look, I'm going to show my kids and be like, yeah, before Jimmy was president, you came on my podcast. We sat at this little table. So I honestly think you're wired differently. And I want to share those with audience that anybody could use, whether you want to be a swimmer, you want to be a YouTuber, you want to be a business person, whatever. I also called your assistant, called your. Your thumbnail guy.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

They didn't even tell me that.

[Sean Evans]

What? So here we go. I have it here. This is the Mr. B secrets.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

And so I don't know if I should be concerned.

[Sean Evans]

We're going to go through these. These are nine of what I consider to be your rules. Now, you could tell me if. If these are bullshit.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Are you making this a game? He's laying them out in front of me.

[Sean Evans]

Here you go. So we're gonna play this game. And each one of these is, to me, a rule of Mr. Beast. It's something we've seen about the way you operate. And I want you to kind of talk about these. So this is number one.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Okay. Burn the boats.

[Sean Evans]

Burn the boats. So burn the boats. Your mom wanted you to go to college, and I guess you faked going to college. You pretended to go. What is the story?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Oh, that. That's a juicy one. So. Well, first off, we didn't have the kind of money to go to a real college, so it was just like a free community college. But, yeah, my mom, because she grew up pretty, traditionally the, you know, military, worked her whole life. But then 2008, she lost everything when the real estate collapsed. And so lost all her savings and stuff. Like, we, we went bankrupt and had to file for bankruptcy. Like, so she's like, very paranoid. She just wants her, her kid to like, go get a job and like not fuck up and not do any. She's very risk averse. And so that was a constant tug and pull. Because I'm like, I want to be a YouTuber. Homeless. And she'd be like, but then you could be homeless. I'm like, okay. I mean, it is what it is. I don't care. I'm going to be a YouTuber. And she, it just never clicked in her head. And to her it's like, if he doesn't get a college degree, he's like, my son's a failure. I just wasted 18 years. Like, he's, he's not going to be able to provide. So for her it was like, either college or my life's ruined because that's just how her brain's wired. And because she went through so much. And so when I was like, I don't want to go, she was just like, then leave. Get out of the house. Like, I can't. I just, I just can't bear the sight of my son just sitting around and, you know, just throwing his life away. And I didn't have enough money to move out, so I was like, frick. And luckily the community college is so cheap, it's not like she was wasting money on it. So I was like, okay, I'll go to college. And then, I mean, I just flat out lied to her. Like, I was like, I'll, I'll do it. But you know, I had no intention of actually doing it. And so I went just to see what it was like. And I was like, well, maybe I'm like being a little dramatic. And I went to class for like a week. Horrible. It was so boring. I mean, I swear, like the teacher was just reading out of the book. And I was like, why, why do I have to. I could just read the book. Like, what are we doing? You know? And I said that to some of the people around me and they're like, yeah, that's what education is. Stop complaining. And I'm like, I just was. My head hurt. And so then I was like, it is what it is. Like, I have like a six month time clock. I have to make enough money where I can move out because once my mom knows I'm, I'm screwed. She's going to kick me out of the house. Honestly, I, I would want to leave the house Because I know it's going to make her depressed and. And very sad.

[Sean Evans]

And so you just didn't go after that?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, so I would go every day. Go. And then I would just sit in, like, this, like, I had a really old, like, Dodge Durango that was super used with a lot of miles. And I would just sit in the Dodge Durango and, like, edit videos and I film at night. And I would.

[Sean Evans]

You come back and be like, school was great.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I was just like, yeah, you know, she beck, how's college? And I was like, you know, and then move on. And I just wouldn't tell her that I'd stop going.

[Sean Evans]

But you burned the boats. You're like, all right, I got six months.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Exactly.

[Sean Evans]

I got to either make it or.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Somehow I figured it. I don't even remember. But we. I had a month where I made 20 grand right before it was time. Like, the. The window was almost up. And then I just told my mom. I was like, I haven't been going. I'm failing. I found a place down the road. It's 700 bucks a month. Sorry. She's like, all right.

[Sean Evans]

Hey, real quick. I'm trying something special for this episode. Let me know if you like it. We were talking to Jimmy, and before these episodes, I do 30, 40 hours of research and prep, and I make detailed notes that, for me, make it super easy to remember all the key takeaways. Well, for the first time, I'm actually going to give those notes to you so you can get them for free. In the description below. It's my notes, the key takeaways from this episode. Go ahead and grab it. It's down in the description below. Is this kind of a strategy for you where you're like, I don't think it's a strategy.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

It's more my personality. I'm a very obsessive person. Like, I. If you told me to, like, do a hundred things, I would struggle at it. But if you told me to think on this one thing every second of the day for the next 10, 10 years, like, I can do that pretty easily. So I like to just obsess over something. I like to dream about it, wake up, think about it, think about it, think about it, think about it, think about more, Work on it, work on a. Work on it, think about, think about it, dream about it, and just do that every single day like that. For, to me, it comes very naturally. So what was your observation?

[Sean Evans]

We just went to Walmart with Jimmy. Give me your. We haven't talked about this.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Most your audience probably doesn't know I sell chocolate. We have a Feastables. It's a chocolate company. And I'm sure we'll go into that at some point. Yeah. So festivals.

[Sean Evans]

This episode is brought to you by Feastables.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

So I took them to a Walmart just because it's my favorite thing to do in my free time. I go walk up and down chocolate aisles in different retailers. And so I brought him along.

[Unnamed Guest]

He was telling us everything about merchandising. Everything. Not just about Feastables, but about competitive chocolate companies. He was showing us like talking numbers of sales.

[Sean Evans]

Dude. I thought, like influencers. It's just like, you give them a product, they're like, oh, this. Okay, guys.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Hey, buy this.

[Sean Evans]

You know the chocolate game inside and out. He was in the aisles, like reconfiguring the SKUs, making everything straight.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I like landed in D.C. for a layover to then fly to North Carolina. And then I got off the plane to go to my connecting flight and I was like, wait a minute. And I just opened up like Google Maps and I searched Walmart's and I was like, I could just drive there and hit 25 Walmarts on the way home. And so then I. It was like 10am and then I just skipped my connecting flight, just rented a car and I drove from D.C. visited every Walmart on the way to North Carolina. I didn't get home till like 9pm and I just like, it was like.

[Sean Evans]

I wonder if the CEO of Hershey's has. Has done that.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Probably not.

[Sean Evans]

I wonder if he's doing it. And then the guy, it's a problem. Your friend who was like, have you gone to Walmart with him? They're like, he's like, yeah, I don't know. Jimmy has like a badge. Like if something's out of stock, he just goes in the back and restocks it himself. Did they give you like, do you have some way of like.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Well, it's a, it's a vendor's license. So a lot of people have vendor's license, like beverage like Coca Cola. They. So they have a direct sales network where you can fit like theoretically 10,000 chocolate bars in a pallet. You can only fit 500 Coke cans. So it's like a lot harder to store 10,000 cans of Coke than is 10,000 chocolate bars. So for that they have Coke trucks that some Walmarts, they go to every single day and they'll just take the product and go put it in the back for the Walmart in places. And they'll go stock the shelves and everything. So Walmart's pretty transparent about that, which I was when I first got into the CPG game. I was like, no shot. Like they're just going to let us do it. But yeah, if your products out, stock on the shelf and you have a vendor's license, you can go in the back, scan it in and put it on the shelf. Smart. Yeah. I mean, you could argue it's not a good use of your time. And I don't know why I do it. It's kind of therapeutic. I love going to Walmarts and fixing the product. And I like just observing it, like, what it looks like on the shelf, seeing what the competition is doing, just seeing who's grabbing it and buying it.

[Sean Evans]

It's like those memes, like, men won't go to therapy, but they'll do this. This is your thing.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Organize a chocolate aisle in Target or Walmart.

[Sean Evans]

So let's do rule number two. This one.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Go ahead.

[Sean Evans]

You can. We can reveal this. I think you know what this one is.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Rule of a hundred.

[Sean Evans]

I know I gave it a name. So this is. I'm going to quote you on this. So this was somebody you know. I'm sure you could ask this a million times. Okay, how do I, you know, what advice do you have for me as a YouTuber or how do I be successful on YouTube? And you said this thing that to me was like, every creator should print this and put it on their wall.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Oh, God.

[Sean Evans]

This applies everything. You go, look, your first video's not gonna get views, period.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

You're taking a hundred videos. Improve something every time. On the hundredth one, then ask question.

[Sean Evans]

To me, that's the rule of a hundred is before you come, ask for advice, it's like, have you made a hundred videos? And every time try to make one thing better? And that's like, also very achievable, too. It's not like some insurmountable thing to do. It's like, all right, I'm going to make my intro better. I'm going to make my editing better, or whatever it is. And that. And the beauty of what you said was, I think the way you said it, you were like, if you do that 100 times, and I say, come talk to me after you've done the hundred people, 99% of people just don't do it. And then the 1% of people who do, they don't need me after that. Like, you figure it out. Which is.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

It's more of a metaphorical Mindset, because that's the thing, it's most people who, like, need advice is just go do it and learn through failure. I'm a big fan of just trial by Fire. Go do it, fuck up a bunch of times, and like, get 0.1% better. And then do that for a couple of years.

[Sean Evans]

I have a couple other pictures to show you. So this is one. This is one of your thumbnails.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Oh, God.

[Sean Evans]

During your ride.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

That's still on my channel.

[Sean Evans]

So I went and I looked at your, your, your first hundred. I was like, all right, let me see. He said the rule of a hundred. Let me go look at his first 100. And I saw this. And like, today you're probably known as like one of the best, smartest thumbnail people in the world, right?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Black Ops 2, shotgun gameplay with commentary, PS4 or Xbox.

[Sean Evans]

Just, I suck at making thumbnails, which is honestly dope because most people, if they feel like they're bad at something, they just don't do it. They shy away. And then you have this other one, which is like your hundredth video. On your hundredth video, you wrote your stats.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

You go, oh, my God, subscribers. I did do that. I remember that.

[Sean Evans]

730 subscribers. So on your rule of 100, it's not like at 100 you were rich and famous. Yeah, right?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

And Honestly, yeah, probably 150 of them are me asking people on Xbox Live to subscribe. Like when I be playing Call of Duty and like a game chat, I'd be like, yo, subscribe to my channel. So what do you see?

[Unnamed Guest]

People get wrong about the rule of 100.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Most people just aren't as obsessed with improving things. They get, like, pigeonholed in the box and they're like, oh, I just need to improve. I mean, this applies to everything, but I guess specifically content, I'll be like, oh, I just need to write better jokes or I need to have better camera or this. And then it's. It's not. It's just a mindset. Like, every single. Every single thing can be improved. There's no such thing as a perfect video. You know, from. I mean, you can go as low as you want to, like the coloring to what you're wearing, to how you speak, to how long the video is to. I mean, there's nothing that you can't improve. And so, like just having that mindset where you're always trying to get better, then, like applying that to everything across the board, not just narrowing on this one little thing, but also with this, honestly, A lot of people are mentors. They just don't listen. So they'll ask me for advice and like, the ones who will listen, they'll take their revenue from like 30k to 400k a month or their goals, subs or whatever it is. I can show em how to hit it. But a lot of times people ask for advice, I'll say it and it'll be like, in one ear and out the other. And like. So those are the worst.

[Sean Evans]

I use this because I was studying Seinfeld recently and I don't know if you know, Seinfeld has this daily thing. Seinfeld's now like 70 years old. He's still like in the stand up comedy game. He's the only standup billionaire, like, ever. So he's the only comedian who's a billionaire. It's pretty crazy. And so I was like, all right, what can I learn from Seinfeld? And one of the things he did was he was like, every day for like the last 45 years, I wake up and my first two hours of the day, I write. He's like, I write jokes. He's like, guess what? If you want to get good at jokes, you write jokes every day. And he's like, every day I just try to make it one better than the other. They talk about writer's block. He's like, that's nonsense. He goes, my rule is I sit down, I don't have to write, I just can't do anything else. And he's like, and then that makes me write. And I've been doing that. And he has this yellow legal pad of all the pages he ever did, and he literally laid them out on a road. And you, like, paved the whole road. It became like a yellow brick road, basically. It's incredible.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

You know how many hours that is? Two hours a day for 45 years. 30. 30,000 hours, right? Yeah, that's, you know, that's the thing. People say it takes 10,000 hours to master something. I'm like, 10,000 hours. That's. That's when you start, you know, first like that. Like, that's the mindset you need with, like, the role of 100. It's not because 10,000 hours, what is that? It's only like eight hours a day. Four years.

[Sean Evans]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

It's not that they got crazy, but to a lot of you, 10, you know, that's the saying, 10,000 hours in your master. I think it should be 100,000 hours, to be honest. I think 10 is too easy.

[Unnamed Guest]

So if Seinfeld is like locking himself in a room and saying, I can't do anything but write jokes. Do you ever have to do that?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Or is it. No, this is what I live for. Yeah. So, I mean, I just. I wake up, I walk in the studio, and normally this whiteboard over here, we erased it, I guess that wouldn't be leaked, but it have all the businesses, all the prowls, all the bottlenecks. Anything I could do to push things forward, and it's all listed out, and there'd be probably three or 400 things, and then we'd go through at the start of each week, and we just pick what needs to be done to what should we prioritize, et cetera, et cetera. So it'd be like feastables. It's like, you know, ethical sourcing. Here's three things that need to be done. Here's all the major bottlenecks that if you stepped in, you could push it forward. Content, toys, lunchly, whatever. So that's more how I structure my days is like. Because we just have a lot going on, and it's just like, making sure what I'm working on is the most efficient thing. Because if there's like 10 people sitting around waiting on me to make a decision to go work, that shouldn't be a Friday thing, that should be a Monday at 9:01am thing. You know what I mean? So it's very even. Just. Just figure out what I need to accomplish in a week. And then even the order of what we do is very important.

[Sean Evans]

You want to do this third one? Yeah.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

You want to. Jimmy, let's do this bad boy. You can make anything viral.

[Unnamed Guest]

So in your. Can we talk about your leaked.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, of course.

[Unnamed Guest]

The document succeeded.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah. You did a podcast on it.

[Unnamed Guest]

So we want to do an exercise.

[Sean Evans]

Exercises. A challenge to see if I can.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Come up with a viral idea.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Okay. The problem here, I'm. I'm down for this. The only. The ironic thing is the only one here who will actually know if it's viral or not is me.

[Sean Evans]

You're grading yourself here.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I know.

[Sean Evans]

It's that meme where Obama's putting the metal on himself.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Exactly. Because you guys could be like, I don't think they'll get 100 million views. And I'll just go, no.

[Sean Evans]

But here's the stipulation. Take a normal thing.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah.

[Sean Evans]

Make it an interesting viral idea, but with a budget of $1,000, because it's easy to sell. Oh, Mr. Beast would just put a million dollars.

[Unnamed Guest]

On the line 10.

[Sean Evans]

Okay, 10 grand. 10 grand.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Okay.

[Sean Evans]

And you said you used to use random word generator all the time, so we gave you a random word generator. If you hit, uh, I don't know.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Generator, Random words you could pick.

[Sean Evans]

You can flip through a few until you find a word, find the actual thing.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Like so to give a little context to your viewers. The thing is, like, you could spend seven days. This is something I've said on other podcasts. I think this drives it home. I spent seven days buried alive, right? That got hundreds of millions of views. Me laying in a coffin. It's like, holy shit. Put a coffin 10ft underground, cover with 20,000 pounds of dirt. I'm literally in a coffin for a week. That's. That's cool. That's viral. That was seven days of me laying down. I theoretically could have, instead of doing that, laid and just a bathtub for seven days. No one would have gave a fuck like that video would have. But in theory, it's the same amount of time, at least from a filming perspective. Logistically, maybe not. But in theory, both for me, just laying down for seven days. But one is super fudgeing viral, the other no one cares about. And so that's like the power of ideas. Like an idea with the right idea, you can do the exact same amount of work as a different idea, but get 50x the return. So that's, that's why I'm so adamant about generating good ideas. All right, so I just hit random. Create random words. Chocolate. Chocolate. They're going to think this is chocolate. This is a random word generator, bro. They're not going to. They're going to think this whole thing. Grandmother. All right, they gave us the word grandmother. So what's a viral idea with a grandmother that could be done for $10,000? I mean, bro, if you actually want like a mega banger, I would do I completing 100-year-olds bucket list.

[Sean Evans]

Oh, so you meet a grandma.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, I find a grandma. I mean, if you really wanted to, I wouldn't say I would do this, but if you wanted like a viral video, I find a grandmother who's like terminally ill and I'd take her and her grandkids and, you know, do everything in the bucket list for them. I brought a cool idea like don't do this title, but she will die in 30 days. So I fulfilled all her wishes that you clicked that.

[Sean Evans]

That's so good. Hold on, we gotta do another one. Okay, you passed. You passed the test. I just.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Bro, this is a lifestyle I can make things.

[Sean Evans]

I like the magic tricks.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Drawing. You want to do that one?

[Sean Evans]

Yeah, drawing.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Okay. The next one here was drawing. I mean, well, so you want it for 10 grand because the first thing I thought of is for drawing is drawing the world's largest picture. But that would be more than ten grand. Actually. Weirdly enough a lot of videos go viral on YouTube where people are just like customizing phones or things like that. I depends is if, if I'm like a really good artist, I would do like TikToks go super viral where they like find two like a guy, a couple on a street and they like sketch stop them. But, but, but they, they sketch them like really ugly, but they like stop really beautiful people and then they're. They turn their artwork around. They're like, what the fuck? And those, those do really well. Like it'll be like a very handsome guy, but they'll do their face like really round and like with buck teeth. And it's always those do really well. On TikTok, I've seen some get 100 million views. So that would be one way you could do drawing. I mean even. It's just if you're a good enough artist like and if you're not, just get good and study and be good. I would like you could design like a hospital floor or something for like make a witch kids and like do like cool artwork or something. If there's like some film you could put up over draw it and like do a design that they just peel off a couple days later. Like that wouldn't be that expensive and that'd be cool. Like I surprised make a wish kids with, you know, their favorite characters or something. Yeah, I mean the. How many? One.

[Sean Evans]

When you're brainstorming, are you usually just kind of by yourself? Are you like, what's your cre. Like if I said you got to come up with something, what would you do to set yourself up to come up with great ideas?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, because in transparency I have teams now and so I don't. I'm not as like I used to do this all myself. Now I pay a lot of people to do it and I just like work with them on the back 10%. But I mean, yeah, the, the. If you really want to come up with like great ideas, you need to surround yourself with other very creative people. I mean I, I'm not going to say their names, but I have at least five people that I. If I really needed to solve something, I would call, I'd fly them down. It would Be boom, boom, boom, boom. Me in the middle. And we, we, we could solve anything, like, creatively in terms of virality or anything like that. They're just like, really, really good. Like, one's good with thumbnails. One's like the smartest guy I've ever met when it comes to titles. Another, he's just a fucking freak and he says the craziest stuff, but it's very, like, inspirational. And so you need, like, that, like, shotgun that's constantly shooting out stuff. And then like, another guy, we would describe him more as like a sniper. Like, he's not gonna say much, but when he says it, you're like, dang, that's good. Um, so, yeah, I just have like my go to people who are, like, very creative and like, yeah, they just pull the best out of me. It's very important you have that. Like, I think didn't Steve Jobs call it in, like, Creative Inc. Like his think tank, and they had a thing.

[Sean Evans]

Where they were like, at Pixar, they have a book called Creativity Inc. Or Creativity Inc. Yeah. And he said, it's not. People think, oh, we just come up with the best ideas. Right away. He goes, no, it's. He goes, the creative process is taking something that sucks and removing suck. And so he's like, yeah, we sit there, we watch the first version and it sucks. And then we. We trust each other enough to be like, yeah, that kind of sucks. But here's what sucks about it. Go back, try again, try again, try again. He's like, by the end, by the tenth thing, we've just removed all the suck and all that's left is the good bit.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, I was just.

[Sean Evans]

Do you buy that? Is that.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, I was just at Pixar is at the Steve Jobs building. And I was just with some of the employees out there working and just seeing how they go about it. And like, they're doing daily reviews over there, which is like, you know, every day. Like, what they work on. They're showing to, like, the director and stuff and getting, like, real time feedback. And they're very, like, egoless. And it was very cool to, like, see their culture and how they go about it. Like, because they. I mean, in terms of animated films, they're second to none.

[Sean Evans]

Right.

[Unnamed Guest]

I remember a couple years ago when we talked to you, you said that coming up with ideas was still the thing that you felt like you had the most trouble handing off to anyone else. It was like the thing that you still just like, excelled most at and.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Couldn'T train so many great people at that now. Okay, Yeah, I mean, I, I have enough ideas for the next five years, so that's not a bottleneck at all. Like, I have too many. Like, I, I would just start listing them off, but then the problem is everyone would steal them. So, yeah, yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

My friends, if you like mfm, then you're gonna like the following podcast. It's called A Billion Dollar Moves, and of course, it's brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the number one audio destination for business professionals. Billion Dollar Moves. It's hosted by Sarah Chen Spelling. Sarah is a venture capitalist and strategist. And with Billion Dollar Moves, she wants to look at unicorn founders and funders, and she looks for what she calls the unexpected leader. Many of them were underestimated long before they became huge and successful and iconic. She does it with unfiltered conversations about success, failure, fear, courage, and all that great stuff. So, again, if you like my first million, check out Billion Dollar Moves, it's brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Again, Billion Dollar Moves. All right, back to the episode.

[Sean Evans]

Okay, great. Let's go to the next one. All right, so we have. That's three of the rules. Number four. I'll flip this one. Cloning.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yes.

[Sean Evans]

All right, so the backstory of this one is last year when we were doing our camper event. It's basically a room full of business people, billionaires, all, whatever. And you started describing how you run your company. And you were 25 years old at the time. You're now, now you're 26 with these people.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Double my age and 20 times the experience of me. Correct.

[Sean Evans]

And so they're. We're listening and we're like, so who is this guy? This guy's been following you around all day. Who is this? And how do you run this? How do you train people? And you were like, you described this process of cloning, and I swear I saw like, five billionaires make a note to themselves. So can you describe what is your cloning principle and what does that mean?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, well, the thing is, like, as a founder, because I assume a lot of your viewers run founders and investors. Like, you're constantly having to put out fires. You're constantly having to do things, and that's a flaw. You're always going to be putting, like, having to work on stuff, but you should view anytime you have to work on things as a flaw. And it's like, how do you. What's the fastest way to stop working on something every time you work on it, have someone on your hip and have them learn how to do it. Essentially clone you to do that task. And so anytime I've, I don't ever work alone anymore because anytime I'm doing something that's a problem and like someone should be doing this in six months. And so that's, that's just like the cheat code to doing it.

[Sean Evans]

And it's cloning, not training. Why?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Well, we would call now that I have hundreds of employees now, I think we're probably closing out on 500. So it's a lot more training. But clones are more like the all in people who are going to like run your company one day and make like. And have the upside to like live with you. And you know, because like someone who's making $40,000 a year, they're not going to live with you and follow you around 15 hours a day.

[Sean Evans]

And you know, early on you had that you had people.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

You still have people like that. But it's like that's, that's just a small one of it. So. Yeah, of the. On the core team. Yeah, 100%. It's just like the thing is, the more you know about everything going on, the better because a lot of what you do in one part of one vertical business, in finance or in this or that affects other parts. And so the more you understand the whole business, the more you understand the ripples you create across things, the better, efficiently and better you can do these kinds of things. And so just having a clone who knows everything about the whole business as opposed to just one section, just makes it where they can just make decisions so much faster at and they can cut through red tape. And it just makes it so much easier for you to just like. Because like when you're in hyper growth scale, you don't know like what the next fire is going to be or the next things is to fix. And so you just have a couple of versions of yourself. It's just so nice because it's like, oh, this thing over here in editing is falling apart. All right, clone that. You followed me around for the last three years. You know what I would do? Just go fix it. You know what I mean? So I don't have to go fix it.

[Sean Evans]

Every part of a company is not like, it's not like you look at a thing, you're like editing. Editing is its own thing. No, editing is people editing.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Right?

[Sean Evans]

Everything is people. And so what I liked about the way you were doing it was I think on the outside people hear this, like, follow you around all the time, live with you. That's crazy. I would, you know, that's. That's harsh. I met the people doing it, and they were like, this is the greatest opportunity.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Exactly.

[Sean Evans]

I came here for this. I wanted to. I want to be great. He's given me the opportunity to be great. Not everybody wants this. I really want this.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

You can either go to college for, like, not even four years, go to college for three years, or you can follow Sean around for three years and like, just all day, every day. And the version of you that follows Sean around for three years will make way more money. You'll be way more experienced, way more valuable to him. Or you could just go to any one of his competitors and you'll make ten times more than if you guys.

[Sean Evans]

Have heard the Warren Buffett cloning story.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

No.

[Sean Evans]

So Warren Buffett, when he was young, he wanted to learn investing, right? So he goes to the guy who wrote the book on investing, Benjamin Graham, and he's like, Mr. Graham, I want to. I'm Warren Buffett. I'm a big fan of your work. I want to work for you. I will work harder than anyone you know. And you know what? I'm willing to work for you for free. Because this matters so much. I want to learn from you. And Ben Graham goes, son, your price is too high. And he was born, was like, surprised. And then later he's like, he was so right. I got so much more out of working every day at Ben Graham's hip than him getting my free labor. Actually, the value exchange was like, completely. He was correct. And that always stuck with me because it's so true. Like, dude, how do you. If you want to learn, that's the best way you could possibly learn. And as a founder, you know, ultimately you want judgment to scale. So it's like, if people in your company can think, what would Jimmy do? And get the right answer? Now you got two. Jimmy's right, you know, like, for the most part.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

And then other times it should be like, what would Jimmy do? Okay, Jimmy's not always right. In this instance, he's an idiot. Let's go call him out on it.

[Sean Evans]

What will he say when I tell him what I'm actually going to do?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah. And then they think even one step further, which is like, my, like, long term clones are great. They'll be like, okay, well, Jimmy's going to want data backed. He's not going to care about an opinion. So I'm going to just go do all the research and grab the data and then they'll. They'll ask me something and I'll say, blah, blah. And they'll be like, I knew you were going to say that. And they'll hand me things. I'll be like, what about this? I knew you were going to say that. And I'm like, oh, great.

[Sean Evans]

And by the way, it's not just you. Even other. There was like a guy, he was also cloning people. He's like, yeah, I'm the. I'm the main guy for this part of the business, so I need to be training people. So this is how I'm doing.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Zero to one is so difficult, but then one to three, you know, like, is so much easier. So that's like, the hard part is like training that for like downloading I'll pick or anything. Like writing the videos, right? Like, obviously, I used to write all the videos myself. Taking all that and getting where someone else could do it without, while keeping the essence of, like, what makes it viral and what makes it good and not feeling too corporate and scripted, because we're not scripted, et cetera. Like, going from zero to one, that took like five years. But then, you know, him training the next two people is great because I don't have to do it. And he trains those two, and those two train the next. And so it's just like that first clone is so imperative, and then they can do the rest.

[Sean Evans]

That's great. You want to do the next one?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

All right, sure. Possible is possible. Fuck yeah.

[Sean Evans]

Impossible is possible. All right, so this is. I asked your. I'm friends with Rohan, the guy who runs your TikTok.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah.

[Sean Evans]

I go, tell me the thing where you realize, like, this guy's built different. This guy thinks differently than a normal person would. I was like, that's the story I want. He goes. He goes. I don't know how to explain it. This is the quote. Jimmy will give you an impossible mission, but he'll say it in a way that makes it seem totally possible. Then he leaves the room and you're like, God damn, this is impossible. He goes, for example, Jimmy came to me and said, I need 10 million TikTok followers a month, Ron. He goes, and every month I told Jimmy it's impossible. Like a hundred times. And he told me, do it 500 times. He told me to do it 500 times.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I think we had two months where you in $10 million.

[Sean Evans]

That's what he told me. He goes. He goes. I. He goes, I didn't do it most month, but I did do it like, you know, two months and we got way further than we ever would have got had he not laid down, like kind of this impossible gauntlet. So, yeah, that's one story. I'm sure there's like a thousand of these, but, like, do you live by this?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I guess.

[Sean Evans]

How would you. How would you talk about that?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Well, I don't try to just give people KPIs that I think are impossible just to torture them. I just, like, I think most people, they're. When you ask them to do something, like, very incredibly difficult, like what I first did, I want to bury myself alive for a week. Like, people's first inclination is just. That's not possible. And like, technically, almost anything is possible. It's so. It's just like. So my first thing is just like, why do you say that? Like, let's go through the gambit. And then they'll always be like, well, it's just not possible. And then you just have to be like, go do the fudgeing research. And then they'll come back and it's like, is it too expensive? Because we can figure out ways. Is it too unstable? We can navigate safety or whatever it is. And so it's like, I hate when people tell me something can't be done. Just tell me the cost and like, what the problem where the bottleneck is. Yeah. And then if, like, then let's look at those and objectively, if it's too expensive or something that's not worth investing the time into or what, then that's fine, and then I'll kill it. But just tell me something, because, like, half the stuff I did, if I just listened to people when they told me it wasn't like I wanted the Eiffel Tower for a video. Not possible. Why? Why? Why is that not possible? Go get the fucking Eiffel Tower. Like, until the head of the president of France tells you no, it's possible. Like, I don't.

[Sean Evans]

Then when he says no, ask his kids, see if they have some sway.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Well, that's a given. While you're on the phone. Like, we just filmed a video where we had the three pyramids of Egypt. And we were like, you know, spending like we were there for 100 hours, this crazy video. We explored the pyramids. It's like my favorite video ever. Same thing. Like, you can't just have the three pyramids. I'm like, did Egypt tell you that? Like, what do you mean? Go make some phone calls. You know what I mean? And it's just constantly, even today, when I'm not with my core group that I've trained very well. It's just always like, you can't do that or, no. Or they'll go make a phone call or, okay, fine, Jimmy. We'll go try to get the pyramids. They'll go away. They'll come back a day later. You can't have the pyramids. I'm like, who'd you call? This Taurus guy who, like, works at the pyramids. I'm like, okay, call the head of tourism. Like, how do you get their number? Okay, well, that's different. You didn't ask me how to get the head of tourism's number. You asked me. You just told me it was not possible. So now, please don't do that again. We gotta figure out what the problems are. Let's figure it out. And then we make calls, and you figure it out. And next thing you know, it's. And so it's just like. That's a big thing that you have to, like, if you really, in my opinion, want to innovate and do things that are, you know, I've never been done before, and push boundaries. You have to, like, have a mindset amongst your people that it's not nothing is impossible. It's just, how much does it cost? How do you do it? And then you just make an objective decision.

[Unnamed Guest]

It seems to me like, when you solve these impossible problems, you have to think on, like, a lower level rather.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Than a higher level.

[Unnamed Guest]

Have you heard the story of Elon getting his rockets from Texas to Florida where they launch them?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

No.

[Unnamed Guest]

So the normal way everyone gets their rockets to Florida is on a barge.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Right.

[Unnamed Guest]

But it takes, like, three months and costs a bunch of.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Didn't he fly it there?

[Unnamed Guest]

He drove it there. He's like, no, we're going to drive it instead. And they're like, well, it's way too big.

[Sean Evans]

Like, well, first answer was, it's impossible. Just can't do it.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah.

[Sean Evans]

He said, let's go. And he has a great line, which is, physics are the only laws. Everything else is a suggestion. And he's like, is it physically impossible to get it to Florida? No. Okay, we agree on that. Great. Now let's continue to figure out where the bottleneck is. And it's like, oh, the boat. Too long, too expensive, whatever.

[Unnamed Guest]

And so, you know, oh, well, it's impossible to get it through overpasses. And so he's like, well, what would be the shortest way to get there without encountering a single overpass?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

So they go.

[Unnamed Guest]

They do this, like, extremely circuitous route all on back roads. And they're like, but even if we do that, there's still a problem with power lines and telephone wires. And so they have, like, some of the smartest people on earth driving in a van in front of these rockets with big poles, and they just push up the telephone wires, go under, and then they go to the next telephone wires. And it's just like. You just have to, like, approach it like a caveman almost, to, like, beat the impossible. Do you find that's the case a lot?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, quite a bit. And a lot of it is just a willingness to. It's just people who have love what they do and people who really love problem solving will will, you know, figure these things out. And so it's just having the right person in the right seat at the right time who, like, actually wants to go deep. And, like, people. There are certain people where you give them something else seems impossible, and they will be giddy and they'll be, yeah, I can't wait. Like, I have people like that where I could call and be like, what's something?

[Sean Evans]

They don't wake up until it's. Until it's hard.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Well, it's like, I guess if I wanted a different world, wonder if I was like, I want the Taj Mahal for a week right there. Like, people are coming. If I called and said that, like, I promise you, they would smile and be like, okay. Like, they would see that as a challenge. They'd go to war to figure it out. And then. Not in my company, but just there are other people that you would say that. And, oh, my God. You know, and so you just gotta get the right people who just deeply enjoy solving problems and, like, see it as a challenge. And, like. Like, there. There are people built that way, and those are the people that really succeed in that environment.

[Sean Evans]

And even a different example that's not getting the Taj Mahal or the Eiffel Tower. One of my favorite videos of yours where I. The first time I was like, all right, respect. It was before I met you.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Okay?

[Sean Evans]

I was like, okay. Respect was. Ben was telling me about you, and he goes. He. He made a video, said, I'm going to cut through this table with a plastic knife.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Oh, my gosh. I remember this weirdly very well. I was sitting in high school, and I just, like, I had a. I don't know, after lunch, I just had a. I put the plastic knife in my pocket for some reason, I don't remember why. And then I just put my Hand in my pocket. I was like, oh, plastic knife. And then I just started like scraping against the desk. And I was like, oh, wow. I'm like, kind of like I could cut this desk in half. Like just like your stupid little high school desk. I just did this for like 5 minutes till like the teacher was like, what the fuck are you doing? Stop. And then I just was like looking at the little indention. I was doing the calculations in my head. I was like, it'd take me like 10 hours to cut through this according to my math. I was like, fuck it. I think that would be like a video where people would be interested. So I went to the store on the way home and I bought like a thousand plastic, like the cheapest plastic knives I could find. And then I just got this like 20 fold out table and I just went in my room, hit record on the camera, and I just went it down. Because the plastic knives would get dull after like a minute. And I was just cutting through it. And I think that. I think that took 12 hours to cut through the table for last two days.

[Sean Evans]

But that's what I'm saying. It was no money. It was no money. It wasn't Taj Mahal. It was like creativity or. Well, first, boredom. Boredom is the key. It was like, how Einstein.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Well, and it's like so dumb. It's just like, like the. How many leaks does it take to get to a center of 55? How many plastic knives does it take to cut a table? Half. It's just like, people are like, what a.

[Sean Evans]

Did you do with one, by the way?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Or no, no, probably thousands. Okay, gotcha.

[Sean Evans]

That's insane, by the way. That's a spoiler. I think that one we kind of copied number eight, which is no, no doesn't mean no way. And there's a big difference between no.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

It'S possible and no doesn't mean no. Exact same thing. Yeah.

[Sean Evans]

And I like the clarification you had, which was like, you're not just like the asshole boss that's like, I need this impossible thing done. You know, whatever. It's more like, hey, I want to do this impossible thing or I want to do this great thing. No. Okay, let's get curious before we just, like make a decision here. Why? And let's try to understand it. And if it truly is no, which it rarely is, fine. But it's usually not. And then the cool thing is if you do that in the company, do it once. People are like, oh, wow, that was interesting. Do it twice. By the Third time you do it, people are like, all right. Like, that's the way, right?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

It's contagious 50 of times.

[Sean Evans]

It's like a religion. People start to believe when they see it.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Right, Yeah, I need your employees. For me, it tends to take a couple dozen times for it to say.

[Sean Evans]

I'll keep pointing at it. I'm like, guys, remember what we said? And then what happened? Let's like, yeah, let's take that. And that's a rally cry for us now. Like, we could do all these things, right? Let's. Let's immortalize that.

[Unnamed Guest]

Hey, can I tell you a Steve Jobs story real quick? So Jobs once said that design is not just how something looks, it's how it works. And a great example of that is my new partner, Mercury. Mercury has made a banking product that just works beautifully. I use it for not just one, but. But all six of my companies.

[Sean Evans]

Right now. It is my default.

[Unnamed Guest]

If I start a company, it's a no brainer. I go and I open up a Mercury account. The design is great. It's got all the features that you need. And you could just tell it was made by a founder like me, not a, you know, banker somewhere who hired a consultant in an agency to try to make some tool. So if you want to be like me and 200,000 other ambitious founders, head over to mercury.com and open up an account in minutes. And here's the fine print. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group. Group and Evolve bank and Trust Members. Fdic. All right, back to the episode.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

All right, we got three more to go. There we go.

[Unnamed Guest]

Consultants R. Cheat code.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, and honestly, because I wrote this, they're referencing my thing I wrote a couple years ago. I would update that to just say, like, experienced people or cheat codes. The right ones. Because it doesn't. Because, like, my handbook, I guess if that's what you would call it, leaked on Twitter. And like, there you go. My production bible. So many people were like, consultants. And even consultants are, like, putting this on their website.

[Sean Evans]

Like, even Mr. B endorsed on LinkedIn.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, I know. Like, so many consultant tweets are like, yes, you validated our industry. And I'm like, well, I wasn't specifically talking about McKinsey. You know, it's just more like, you know, especially with us because we do so many random, weird things. I mean, what did I say in here?

[Unnamed Guest]

Consultants are literally cheat codes needed to make the world's largest slice of cake. Start off by calling the person who has made the previous world's largest slice of cake. Lol. He's already done countless tests and can save you weeks worth of work. I really want to drill this point home because I'm a massive believer in consultants. Because I've spent almost a decade of my life hyper obsessing over YouTube, I can show a brand new creator how to go from 100 subscribers to 10,000 in a month on their own. It would take them years to do it. Consults are a gift from God. Please take advantage of them in every single freaking task assigned to you. Always, always, always ask yourself first if you can find a consultant to help you.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Exactly. Because we do so many weird, different things. Like, oh, we're gonna bury me alive. Call David Blaine. He buried himself alive. You know what I mean? Like, because.

[Sean Evans]

How's that phone call go?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Great. They're usually like, well, we don't have David Blaine's phone number. And I'm like, okay, I'll DM him on Instagram. And I'm like, here's his phone number. Call him. Figure out how he didn't die. You know?

[Sean Evans]

But you do these things. Like, one night I was just hanging out at my house, get a call, NC number, pick up.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Oh, yeah, it's usually I go on walks and then I just, like, I literally just close my eyes and like, flip through my contacts and I'll like, stop. And you know when it's on S, you'll be there and I'll just be like, just have a random name. And I'll be like, teach me something. Sometimes the calls are one minute, other times are 20. And yes. Like, you gotta always be learning.

[Sean Evans]

I feel like you're saying that almost like it's a normal thing, you know? Like, nobody does this, right? Like, that's like.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I don't understand why that's.

[Sean Evans]

I kind of started to steal it because I was like, why not? I'm also like, I'm obsessed with learning.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah.

[Sean Evans]

And something like, maybe the mechanics of it. I was confused. Like, so I call these people, then I just say, like, hey, teach me something. Stop. Well, yeah.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah.

[Sean Evans]

Teach me something. What's. What's something?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

What's funny is, the more you do it, the more people come to expect it too. So, like, I'll call someone, they won't answer. And then they'll be like, let me guess, you're on a walk. Sorry, I'm busy. And then I'm like, I don't even have to respond. I just get it, you know, because at the Start. You'll, you know, you'll go on a walk and you'll call 20 people and you'll have conversations with 10, because you know, these high caliber people are always busy. And the other 10 will call you throughout the next 24 hours. And it's like a nuisance because you gotta be like, oh, I was just born on a walk. I was just born on a walk. I was so. But now they. Everyone just gets it. Protocol. Yeah, yeah. They're just like, yeah. So it's like so funny that I've become known for that. And like, people will answer and like, sometimes I won't even say anything. They'll be like, all right, here's what I've learned. It's like, great, because then I just like, these are people who are, you know, some of them running companies are doing billions of dollars a year in revenue and they're learning tons of things. They're always experimenting. And I just get this five minute brain dump of everything they learn. Suck it out of them. And then I'm like, here's what I learned because I always. A big part of this, if you wanted to go well, is you have to add as much value, ideally more than what they're giving to you. So I try to help them in any way I can. And then you hang up and you go to the next one.

[Sean Evans]

Another one that is in the kind of consultants art, cheat codes is we do these talks at our event. So at our basketball event, it's kind of like, play ball all day till we're like, dead tired. And then at night it's like we're hanging out. And the first year we did it, I remember because I created the events. I was kind of the host. I was like, I don't want to be like forcing, like a conference vibe. I was like, really, like, tiptoeing around. I was like, I don't want this to be awkward. But it was actually more awkward because nobody knew who anyone else was. You did this great thing. You, like, grabbed a chair, you put it in the middle of the room. You're like, hey, sit down real quick. You go, all right, who are you? What's your story? And then they would like, start to tell, like a long winded story. But what I liked was you would have questions. So like, we had a real estate guy and instead of being like, all right, teach me about real estate, which the guy doesn't know how to start, you were like, if I had $10 million, what would be the best way to turn it into A hundred. Through real estate.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah.

[Sean Evans]

And then he talks for, like five minutes.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Like, cool.

[Sean Evans]

God, I should give it to somebody. Like, you make sense onto the next. And I was like, I love the power of kind of like the right question, the right person.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

And honestly, in group settings like that. Another thing, too, is just not being afraid to cut people off, because some people are just so not aware that, like, there's 20 people and even rambling for 30 minutes. And I'm like, I feel like they got another 15 in them. And three of those people are on their phone. Those two are checked out. Those five are too nice to say anything. I'll be the one who's like, hey, we get it.

[Sean Evans]

All right, I got the next one. Block out the noise. Okay. Block out. You want to do block out the noise?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Sure.

[Unnamed Guest]

So here's the quote. When you're small, people say, you're too obsessed. You're a weirdo.

[Sean Evans]

Get a life.

[Unnamed Guest]

Be realistic. This is from you. People will try to convince you that you're out of your mind for wanting to do this. Then when it works, yo, your drive, your tenacity. That was great.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yep. Everything you guys have been flattering me with throughout this podcast are the exact same things I got low key bullied for in high school. It's like, hilarious that now these grown men are like, yo, this is fucking awesome. You're like, all in. Impossible is not impossible. No doesn't mean no. And you just, like, love this shit. And, like, and in high school, that's what a fucking nerd. Get a life, like, loser. Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

That's why, that's why you call it block out the noise.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Right?

[Unnamed Guest]

Because the same things that people admire when you're successful are the. Are the things that people are going to try and tell you to stop.

[Sean Evans]

If you had listened, you wouldn't be Mr.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Beast, right?

[Sean Evans]

Like, we wouldn't be here right now.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Everyone else, then, yeah, just normal job. But the thing is, it's like, it's. The big takeaway is it just means you're not around the right people. Right? Because, like, obviously if I was around you guys when you were younger, I'm sure you guys wouldn't have been like, oh, what a weird, obsessed nerd. You would have been like, yo, this is sick. Let's grow together. Or we would have, you know, maybe when we were 18, we wouldn't have that much emotional intelligence, but we would have, like, flocked together. So it's. It's also just finding the right people to be around. And if you're having to block out a lot of noise. Then you're just like, you have a serious problem.

[Sean Evans]

It's a signal.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah. Like, you really gotta change who you are because that's really it. I mean, if you're the smartest person you're hanging around, make, you know, the, the one with the most ambition and everyone else is just bringing you down. Like, you're literally just going through your entrepreneurial life with like a 10 pound weight shackled to your leg.

[Sean Evans]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

Last one. Let's go into reinvest everything.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yes, sir.

[Sean Evans]

Can I give you my. My version of this? I think people know you reinvest a lot of money to almost a comical extent. Like, we made a hundred grand last month.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Great.

[Sean Evans]

We're investing 101 this next month. Like, yo, Jimmy, where'd you get the extra?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I got the largest unscripted streaming deal in history and somehow lost a ton of money on it.

[Sean Evans]

These games. Yeah, yeah. When we were here the first time, somebody was like, you know, what do you think's his kind of like his edge? I go, his edge is that he takes all the money he makes and then he reinvests it. He takes all the hours he has and he invests it into the channel. Then he gets the best people and he like, gets them to believe that they should invest it. And he doesn't ever want to quit. I don't think this guy's gonna like, get rich and retire like every other YouTuber. I was like, that's like a kamikaze level of commitment. Like, I don't think that's right.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

You used to call it a kamikaze.

[Sean Evans]

I was like, because how do you, what do you do. What do you do with somebody who's willing to just like plow it all back in? Like, yeah, that's a. That's not the person I would want to compete against.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah.

[Sean Evans]

So that's kind of. I guess that's why to me, this is.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I mean, you just described it perfectly. I don't even have to say anything like, yeah. I mean, ideally, you find the passion that you love and you're all in. And it's, you know, you shouldn't have to like, force yourself to go get up and write. It should just be what you love.

[Sean Evans]

To do, you know, what's the CFO telling you as you. At the beginning now, now it's kind of known, but at the beginning, when you're describing your approach, CFO was like your mom at the beginning, right?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah. Well, I mean, at the beginning, it Was me. My mom and a couple of friends are high school, so she was 10 jobs. I was 20 jobs. I mean, now they just are. I mean, people kind of normalize to your weird craziness. So they're more.

[Sean Evans]

But that's. Now what. At the beginning, what was that like?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I mean, everyone thought it was deranged. You know, like, oh, why? Why do you like. Because, I mean, I was everyone. You know, a big budget YouTube video used to be 10 grand. I was the first one to ever spend a million dollars on a video. And 2 million.

[Sean Evans]

This is. This is probably the best example, right?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Like, yeah, I got a brand deal for $10,000. I've broke. You keep saying CFO. Like, I had a CFO back then. Like, you know what this was? This was me and, like, paying a guy I went to high school with, like, 10 bucks an hour to help me. But I, I. And me going, mom, what are taxes Help. I didn't make money. Do I pay taxes? And she's like, yes. And I'm like, but, yeah, we. I got a brand deal for $10,000. And then I just went outside like this. I used to live like two minutes. Like the 700amonth apartment I was telling you about or duplex was like, literally two minutes down the road from this. And so I just got the 10 grand. I was like, wire me the money. They wired it, withdrew it, and gave it to this homeless guy on the side street.

[Sean Evans]

Were you not tempted to, like, have money for the first time? Pocket five, give five.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

So I pocket five, spend on a different video. What else do. What else do you do with the money?

[Sean Evans]

It's like, there's a story of Zuck when he got offered $1 billion for Facebook early on, and they were like, mark, we should talk about this.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

And he's like, oh, if I got this money, I would just start a new social media platform. And I like the one I had.

[Sean Evans]

I like the one I had. This is, like, legendary.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, it's the same thing here. It's like, I could pocket it, but I just make different videos and I just want to film this one. I mean, it's literally the same thing.

[Unnamed Guest]

It reminds me a lot reading about Walt Disney. This is what he was famous for because his brother Roy.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I love your podcast on it. Thank you.

[Unnamed Guest]

Was like, the business almost done.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Makes you take over the world. Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

Roy would, like, pull his hair out of, like, walt, can we please just, like, save some money? And he had, like, a compulsion almost to take all the money. He. He like, Felt bad keeping any money. He's like, no, it has to go into making better shows.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

Do you feel that? Like, does it.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

No, it has nothing to do with, like, wanting to keep my. It really has nothing to do with money itself. It's just I want to make the best product possible. And so it's like, here's the product I want to make. And I'm always having to settle because we can't spend $10 billion on a YouTube video. You know what I mean? Like, because I would love to go buy everything in every single store in this entire city and donate it all to charity. You know, that'd be $200 million. I can. But so it's just like, it's more, you know, like, this is what I want to make, but I have to dial it back. And it's like, well, now we have a little bit more money, so I just dial it back less. There's nothing. I don't really care. You know what I mean?

[Unnamed Guest]

Like, so by the way, you just came up with that number?

[Sean Evans]

Yeah. I was like, he's done the math, lionel.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

It costs $15 million to buy everything in a Walmart. But, yeah, 15 million.

[Sean Evans]

Have you done that? Is that one of the things we're going to?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah.

[Sean Evans]

Nice.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I think that's a banger. And we're donated all to charities, so it's cool.

[Sean Evans]

What's your, like, ambition? Right? So it's like, Ben in 40 years is doing the pod.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Don't ask me 40. Ask, like, 10. 40 is too far. You're going to give me anxiety.

[Sean Evans]

Okay, what's like the. But it's like, what's the dream? Dream.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Right now I can't do 40 because. But. But for the, like, next five, the big thing I'm focusing on, which I was telling you guys about in the car, is just feastables. Why people listen, what can you explain.

[Sean Evans]

About your business empire?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, yeah. Well, specifically, like, chocolate might seem so random. Why it's the largest YouTube in the world selling chocolate. Well, right now, 70 of the world's cocoa comes from West Africa, Cote d'ivar and Ghana. And majority of the people who work on those farms are actually kids or, like, child labor. So it's like 46% of labor. So I guess it's not majority. So I should correct this number. 46% of labor is illegal child labor. Yeah.

[Sean Evans]

You just want to talk.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah. So when I got into selling chocolate, I just learned about that and I talked to, like, Exacts, a big chocolate company as I was like, so what I hear, like this child labor thing, like, is this just like, we're just cool with this? And like, well, it's just tells always been. And there's not really anything you can do about.

[Sean Evans]

I'm like, that's the way things have always been.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Like, I literally. I said to one, I think. I don't remember the exact. I'm going to butcher, but I was like, Elon's put it, like, gonna put people on Mars. And you're telling me we can't not have little kids farming our chocolate. We can't just find people over the age of 18 or whatever. And they're like, well, it's not that simple. And I'm like, what the. So that kind of like pissed me off. And rule number eight. Yeah. $70. I'm like, yeah. What you mean to say is that would hurt the billions of dollars in free cash flow you're spitting off in your margins. But anyways, so I was like. I went down that path like two years ago. I was like, okay, well, you actually.

[Sean Evans]

Went to West Africa.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Evans]

Worked on the farm.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

But before even that, it's just like. So then I was, we're going to start referencing our piece of paper here. So then consultants are cheat code. So I was like, what is the largest ethically sourced chocolate company in the world? Who's the ones doing it? Right? So have you heard of Tony's Chocolate? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're. They're great. It's. It's a European brand, but they're like. A reporter used to call out big chocolate and be like, there's a lot of child labor. You guys aren't ethical. And like, they would just ignore them. And so then he's like, fuck it.

[Sean Evans]

He started it, right?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah. And he started a chocolate company. Um, and that's Tony's Chocolate. Because, like, the lonely.

[Sean Evans]

And it became like a $200 million.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

It's doing pretty well. And so I was like, let me get in contact with these people. And I just started talking to them. I flew them here to Greenville, like the next week. And we were just like. I was like, teach me everything about child labor, how we can remediate it, what should we be doing on our farms, etc. And like, I just had like phone calls with them every single day. Studied. And then the next five companies that are also doing ethical things, I just absorbed everything they're all doing into my brain. And I was like, cool. All right. I know what we need to do. Step one, like, the main Reason why there's child labor is just poverty. Like most of these farmers are making a dollar or less a day. So like, if you're getting paid a dollar, how can you hire someone that's over the age of 18 to work on your farm? So you end up just using kids because they're cheaper, free. So step one is you, you just have to pay them a living income. So 100% of our farmers are paid a living income. So I can go super deep. I'm going to keep this mile high because I know not everyone is as passionate about the chopstick industry as me, but this is what I live and breathe. But to. So what is a living income? Right? Because obviously a living income in America is completely different than in West Africa. So there's a living income reference price where they look at the cost of like bread and living and inflation. And it's like, you know, if a farmer sells you like a metric tons of cocoa, they need to make this for them to be able to live roughly and be able to. So we pay 100 of our farmers living income reference price. So there could be an instance where you're a farmer, you give us a shipping container of cocoa and you're like, you know, we want eleven hundred dollars. I'm like, no, you want thirteen hundred dollars. Is thirteen hundred dollars. Now make sure there's no kids on your farms, you know what I mean? Like, or kids in illegal child labor. And so that's, I mean, I'm oversimplifying everything. None of this is a very complex thing. And there's these, we're talking about tens of thousands of farms. There's millions of farms there. And this is not, none of this is as simple as I'm portraying it, but I'm just doing my best to generalize it all. So you pay your farmers living income. All our beans are fair trade certified. And then we work with clrs, which is the child labor remediation system. And then they routinely audit the farms, interview the parents, interview the kids, see if the kids are going to school, working on the farm, etc. And then if, you know, they identify cases of child labor following up and getting the kid out of the child labor and stuff like that, which all the. And then we also just little things because it's. Since it's all root of poverty, the more money you help them make, the easier it is for them to, you know, stop using illegal child labor on the farm. So we have coaches that will like represent 200 farms and they'll help them get more yield and like educate them on things they could be doing to grow more for trees or have more trees or well, you know, occasionally give them wheelbarrows or things like that so they can just, I mean a little something as simple as a wheelbarrow. I mean it's a big difference between carrying 10 cacao pods. Theoretically, again, generalizing everything or being able to carry 40 in a wheelbarrow, like that's technically makes you four times more efficient. It's not again, making up numbers. Yeah, so my goal is just to make Feastables the largest ethically sourced, solid company in the world. And you know, if we can do a billion dollars a year in chocolate sales ethically while being profitable, then I can use that as a model to you know, on my videos talk about big chocolate and all the unethical things they're doing and just be like, look, it's possible to be profitable to not do it at scale. There's no excuse. Besides, they just don't care. And then, you know, we'll see what happens when I get to that point.

[Sean Evans]

Last year when I was here, I asked I think your, your right hand guy at that time I was like what's, what's yalls focus for the year? And most people don't have an answer at the tip of your tongue. His was like instantaneous. He goes, I think you had a number of the number of YouTube videos. 22 or 26 made 26 bangers sell a lot of chocolate, get jacked.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah. And he said it like that fast every day.

[Sean Evans]

And you got in great shape from the last time.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Can I. Yeah, I. Was it. Was I still fat last year or was that the first year? No, first.

[Sean Evans]

First year was. I mean I don't fat but like.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

You know, I was a walrus. I was £240. Yeah, I'm right now I'm 190. So I probably had started lifting at.

[Sean Evans]

The last one we did. And in this year you're like like.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

So year one I was 240 pounds. Year two I was probably 215, 220 pounds. And now I'm 190. So yeah, I'm like probably 25 pounds lighter. I can't wait to ball.

[Sean Evans]

How did you, what'd you do? Like what was your approach to getting jacked or like how did you approach it?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I. I'm very heavily influenced by the people around me. Like if I spent too much time with you, I'll start speaking like you're acting like you thinking like you so I'm very cautious of that. So I just put a lot of jack people around me. And then like, my, my metric of success was like, how frequently are random people just handing me chicken breasts or like, you know, something high in protein? Like, you know, because like, they're, you know, all the, like my old friend group, you know, all the time they'd be like, oh, we just ordered pizza or this or that. And it's like, it just makes accomplishing my goals so much harder. And it's like the ratio of people ordering pizza to the ratio of people ordering protein was just way off. I mean, this is just how I analyze my life because I, I like, I'm so all in on business. Like, I don't think about this kind of stuff. So I need an environment that just makes being jacked very natural. Like, the weightlifting is pretty easy, right? You just go to the gym 45 minutes, five days a week. But it's the. Yes, the food that, that is a, that's not a thing you turn on and off. That's the thing that you have to be consistent on for a very long period if you want to achieve results. And like, I just, I can't think about like that every single day. And I just. And it's like there are just times where I'm at low points and it's just a lot harder to be disciplined. And I just know if, like, you know, I always have people who are just eating healthy. It's just. It takes something that feels hard and kind of makes it fun. Like when you're doing it together and learning, you know, it's just so just around myself with other people trying to accomplish the same thing. Just like anything in life, this is what.

[Sean Evans]

I was living in Australia and I literally bought a plane ticket with no plan one way to San Francisco because I was at this Tony Robbins event and he said, proximity is power.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Dang. Love it.

[Unnamed Guest]

Did you, like, hire anyone too, to help you? Do you have, like a trainer around or a coach?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

He follows me around all day, every day. He said, jack, dude, sitting downstairs, you'll notice he's. He's the one who looks like he could be on a bodybuilding stage.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Or usually in a tank top, you know.

[Sean Evans]

Somebody just sent me this. You posted TikTok an hour ago.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Yeah, I just got out of a meeting with a bunch of billionaires. Tick tock. We mean business. This is my lawyer right here. We have an offer ready for you. We want to buy the platform America deserves. TikTok, give me a seat. At the table. Let me save this platform. TikTok. Yes.

[Sean Evans]

Are you going to buy TikTok?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

I tweeted out yesterday that I was thinking about buying TikTok and honestly, kind of as a joke, and then I had even a lot of people coming to this event. So many billionaires text me. I mean, I'm probably up to like 35 who have, like, unironically reached out and, like, I want to put money and I want to do it. And then like, two separate groups that have, like, very serious bids together for it. Also, like, yo, get involved in this. And they're. I'm like, my phone just blew up ever since that tweet. So then I made that TikTok because it's like, yeah, I was joking. But now it's like, oh, okay.

[Sean Evans]

And I predict it right now. This. I think this is going to happen because I think it should happen. It'd be smart, right? Any ownership group that's doing this would be smart to have you.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

As long as TikTok's willing to sell. Yeah. Everyone interested in buying it wants to get us involved.

[Sean Evans]

Yeah. I don't know the political side, like, how. What's how. That's all going to be forced to divest, but if they are. Yeah, that's good.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Well, it's going to be banned if they don't. It's just a question of is TikTok going to sell or not? Yeah.

[Sean Evans]

What would you do?

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Oh, God, Bro, we just. We're winding the podcast down. Are you really about to start another five hour talk? Truthfully, I would have to surround myself with like, the 10 greatest algorithmic people in the world, and I'd have to spend like a week with them and just like, absorb. Like, I have no idea what I would do right now.

[Sean Evans]

Jimmy, this has been a pleasure. Thanks for doing it, man.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Excited to hoop Camp 5. We'll do another one every two years.

[Sean Evans]

We like the Olympic cycles every two years.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg are in the other room.

[Unnamed Guest]

We gotta.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

You gotta crank out this podcast. Don't come ball with them.

[Sean Evans]

All right, boys. We did it.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

All right. Great. Out of here. Thanks, boys.

[Unnamed Guest]

I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it. Like, no days off on the road. Let's travel. Never looking back.

Hey, Sean here.

[Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast)]

Quick break.

[Unnamed Guest]

To tell you an EV Williams story. He started Twitter, and before that he sold a company to Google for $100 million. And somebody asked him, they said, Ev, what's the secret, man? How do you create these huge businesses, billion dollar businesses? And he says, well, I think the answer is that you take a human desire, preferably one that's been around for thousands of years, and then you just use modern technology to, to take out steps, just remove the friction that exists between people getting what they want. And that is what my partner Mercury, does. They took one of the most basic needs any entrepreneur has, managing your money and being able to do your finance or operations. And they've removed all the friction that has existed for decades. No more clunky interfaces. No more 10 tabs to get something done. No more having to drive to a bank, get out of your car just to send a wire transfer. They made it fast, they made it easy. You can actually just get back to running your business. You don't have to worry about the rest of it. I use it for not one, not two, but six of my companies right now. And it's used by also 200,000 other ambitious founders. So if you want to be like me, head to mercury.com, open an account in minutes. And remember, Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve bank and Trust members. Fdic. All right, back to the episode.