[HN Gopher] How to Succeed in Mrbeast Production (Leaked PDF)
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How to Succeed in Mrbeast Production (Leaked PDF)
Author : babelfish
Score : 376 points
Date : 2024-09-15 19:24 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (simonwillison.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (simonwillison.net)
| Firerouge wrote:
| Any ideas what is being referenced with this quote?
|
| > Do not leave consteatants waiting in the sun (ideally waiting
| in general) for more than 3 hours. Squid game it cost us $500,000
| and boys vs girls it got a lot of people out. Ask James to know
| more
| jsheard wrote:
| _Willing to Die for MrBeast (and $5 Million)_
|
| https://archive.is/lDVoz
| al_borland wrote:
| > "I Spent 50 Hours In Ketchup"
|
| Mr Beast throwing out viral video ideas sounds like the Family
| Guy joke generator from South Park[0].
|
| Doing a quick web search, it seems several people have made idea
| generators based off his formula.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTC9j0QpCBM
| rootsudo wrote:
| This is a great "leaked" pdf and honestly, shows the evolution
| (or degradtion) in media. Typical phrases, e.g. sign of the
| times, if it makes money of course it exists, etc etc but really
| it's great insight.
|
| I personally don't/wouldn't do this, but I can't ignore the money
| making machine youtube has become / the producers of said videos.
| hypeatei wrote:
| So basically:
|
| Come up with contrived BS that caters to younger audiences,
| micromanage anyone who is holding you up, and attempt to game a
| blackbox algorithm on a site you don't pay for (YouTube)
|
| The whole modern social media / influencer sphere seems like a
| huge bubble that will pop eventually. Google has already started
| wiping inactive accounts[0] presumably because storage isn't
| truly infinite or cheap. I imagine YT will also take the same
| path eventually.
|
| 0: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/12418290?hl=en
| j_maffe wrote:
| How does it fall under the definition of a bubble? Sure, view
| counts contribute to more views. But that's not the main
| retention mechanism of these videos.
| hypeatei wrote:
| I see it as a bubble because they don't have to pay anything
| to host or publish content even though there is a cost there
| (storage, streaming, etc..) so they're essentially hoping
| that YT can keep providing a free service with ads even if
| they're running at a loss.
|
| It's not clear if YouTube is specifically profitable, because
| Alphabet only separates revenue, not profit. But, I would
| imagine they're not running huge margins or even at a loss
| given their recent crackdown on ad-blockers and Google's
| overall fight against them with things like manifest V3.
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| YouTube just generated over 8 billion in quarterly revenue.
| YouTube has been a bonafide business for content creators
| for ~15 years. Nothing about this says "bubble".
|
| It's inevitable that every business changes with time. And
| on a long enough horizon collapse is inevitable. But that
| doesn't make it a bubble.
| postalrat wrote:
| When people realize they can spent a fraction of what they
| pay for advertising and get the same results.
| j_maffe wrote:
| Do you have any proof of that?
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _contrived BS ... micromanage ... game a blackbox algorithm_
|
| The relatively higher production cost warrants hyper
| optimization (as an org) and demands high agency (of
| producers).
|
| > _younger audiences_
|
| Internet is so vast in that making something for the 0.1% is
| still an audience of millions.
| userbinator wrote:
| These influencers' accounts are certainly not inactive.
| hypeatei wrote:
| No, but the cracks are starting to show. My point is that YT
| may go down the same path and get stingy with video storage.
| j_maffe wrote:
| You're really overestimating the cost of video storage and
| streaming compared to the kind of revenue they're able to
| get.
| agos wrote:
| people who work in marketing/growth are already saying that
| influencer marketer rates have steeply declined. we can only
| hope!
| worldsayshi wrote:
| Here's to hoping but that could be caused by a number of
| things. High interest rates for example might make companies
| unwilling to invest in some types of marketing.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| I think it's easy to believe that something will eventually go
| away just because we feel that something is not good in some
| way. But things only go away if people change their behaviour
| around those things on mass.
|
| There's a growing sentiment that a lot of social media is more
| bad than good for us. But people don't just stop with a
| behaviour that they know is bad for them. We need a lot more to
| change a behaviour that has become established.
| guerrilla wrote:
| This is a good point. See alcohol and tobacco. People are
| smoking less though, aren't they?
| cbanek wrote:
| I think people are starting to drink less too. Now doctors
| are starting to ask patients how often they drink and
| advising them to drink less and less frequently.
| aswegs8 wrote:
| Imagine doctors routinely asking their patients if they
| spend too much time on their phones. Would feel a bit
| intrusive but for some vulnerable populations like kids
| it might be a good thing to ask about.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| Yes, press the play button on the world map here:
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/which-countries-smoke-most
| tarsinge wrote:
| Yes, see the sugar industry. I find it quite similar how both
| use brain hacks. It makes behavior extremely hard to change
| once people are hooked.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why are we calling it anything other than what it is,
| addiction. You mentioned sugar. Others mentioned
| alcohol/tobacco. In the end it is just addiction. If we
| can't talk openly about the actual problem, then it will
| never be solved. Just like the war on drugs. As long as
| people want it, others will provide it regardless of
| legality or self harm
| worldsayshi wrote:
| Yes, and now I will argue against myself a bit but it's
| also important to remember that addiction is not
| inevitable. It can be fought on a population level over
| time. Just take a look at this graph. Press the play
| button on the world map:
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/which-countries-smoke-most
|
| I think social media lands somewhere between tobacco and
| sugar. We don't need tobacco. We need carbohydrates but
| not refined sugar. Social media can be useful sometimes,
| but is often a disservice. The feeling of usefulness
| probably makes it more addictive than smoking. At least
| for me.
| hnpolicestate wrote:
| Ever see Dhar Mann brainrot videos? I don't see it going
| anywhere. It's a big reason why films aren't good anymore.
| Content producers cater to the intellectual tastes of their
| respective societies. Long story short, we get what we deserve.
| Long live Criterion Collection for the handful of us who
| abstain from mass produced trash.
| KPGv2 wrote:
| There's plenty of good film and TV out there, and you don't
| even have to look hard to find it. I find this attitude to
| not just elitist but lazy and ignorant.
| morkalork wrote:
| Sadly it doesn't get nearly the amount of attention it
| deserves. Just picking adult animation as another example,
| for every series like Scavengers Reign (cancelled after 1
| season), there's what, two dozen low brow family guy
| knockoffs?
| hnpolicestate wrote:
| Scavengers Reign was excellent.
| hnpolicestate wrote:
| Btw. It's also seeped into video games. Compare Star Wars
| Outlaws to Star Wars Galaxies or KOTOR. Scary.
| orwin wrote:
| KOTOR, both of them but especially the 2nd are built on
| concepts (post-nihilist existentialism amongst other, to
| me it's the most obvious) that drive the story. I feel
| like nowadays, AAA games want to avoid philosophical
| stuff, or rather keep it way too simple, and we have shit
| stories (fallout 4/Skyrim. An exception though for
| Fallout 4 Far harbor DLC).
|
| But we still have good non story-driven AAA games.
| klondike_klive wrote:
| Wait Scavengers Reign was cancelled?
|
| That's depressingly typical :(
| hnpolicestate wrote:
| The population craves lazy and ignorant marvel nothingness.
| Don't get mad at me. Go talk to them.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Try this fantastic movie:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nycksytL1A&t=1s
| BoingBoomTschak wrote:
| Using elitist as an "automatically win any debate" witch
| word never paints you in a good light, FYI.
| Unbefleckt wrote:
| I do get a sense of relief downloading a movie recommendation
| and being greeted by the Criterion logo.
| nolok wrote:
| I certainly hope the irony of this exchange isn't lost on
| the both of you, the mass produced Criterion products being
| seen as the saviors against the wave of mass produced
| products.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| mass produced for a different audience, however
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| I, like many people, lamented about the media dumbing us down
| with lazy, brainless content. What blew my mind was when I
| read someone online respond to this assertion: "you have it
| backwards, the media is delivering what the market demands".
|
| As with most things it's likely a bit of both. But deep down
| I suspect it's mostly the market demanding trash.
| jongjong wrote:
| This resonates. Movies lack depth nowadays, especially
| cultural depth.
|
| They do sometimes convey interesting messages and they are
| well produced and captivating but they lack soul. I think
| about films like "Forest Gump". Personally, I really liked
| the film, maybe other people didn't like it as much but I
| found it to be unique and culturally enriching. I'm not even
| American but I could relate. Modern "movies" usually don't
| have enough character development; or if they do, it's highly
| generic. Any character development in modern movies is
| focused on making the character relatable to the most common
| denominator among the masses so they lack individuality.
|
| It's even telling that we have separate words "film" and
| "movies". It reminds me of the book "Brave New World" which
| is set in the future; they have something called "Feelies"
| which is described as a complete visual and sensory
| experience but they don't teach you anything; they are all
| focused on very narrow physical experiences. Everything in
| BNW is designed in a way to reduce people's awareness and
| reduce diversity of thought to the point that they never
| think to ask certain questions.
| mrkramer wrote:
| Crazy ideas and sensationalism usually works in the showbiz and
| in the media industry. This is just applied to YouTube or in
| another words: Old wine in new bottle.
| agumonkey wrote:
| there's something truly special about this era, we have so much
| comfort and "data" yet no one foresaw the enshittification of
| the web space even though it seems the exact same cycle that
| happen in any space.. when attention, fame and money gets
| involved .. most neurons are "working" at milking and abusing
| the mass. Same exact sleigh of hands really..
| joshdavham wrote:
| > "contrived BS", "mircromanage", "game a blackbox algorithm"
|
| Wow! There is a lot of bad faith in this comment. This is
| hacker news, not X, can you please be more thoughtful here?
| zulban wrote:
| The guy has earned a net worth of maybe $700 million starting
| with YouTube. Saying it's all a bunch of contrived bullshit
| hides the fact the he is obviously brilliantly talented and
| dedicated at making a business from YouTube. If you or others
| blow off a document he wrote or an interview he gives because
| most of his videos are "just" gaming an algorithm then you must
| not be a very curious person.
|
| I don't like coffee but I still might learn about the business
| since it's so big.
| abeyer wrote:
| Maybe... but I read it more as (and tend to agree with) blow
| it off because it's explicitly an approach that makes the
| world a worse place in almost every way except perhaps your
| bank account balance. It's possible to be successful without
| being mercilessly amoral and there's a big difference between
| not personally caring for a product vs thinking a product is
| toxic and holding your nose anyway for the sake of a
| paycheck.
| np_tedious wrote:
| If you really think that, then you should be all the more
| interested in what it means to execute on that allegedly-
| harmful effort well vs poorly
| abeyer wrote:
| While there's merit to the "know your enemy" approach, I
| wouldn't expect everyone to take it.
| oulipo wrote:
| exactly
| zulban wrote:
| You seem to be arguing there's no use in learning about
| immoral businesses.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Sure, there are different ways to be commercially successful
| and most probably require immense talent and hard work.
| Doesn't really contradict any particular value judgment of
| the type of content he produces though.
| debacle wrote:
| His interviews are just another part of his business, and
| evidence shows that much of what he says during them is not
| factual.
| oulipo wrote:
| that's exactly the problem... why the fascination with
| "money" and "big"?
|
| The world has real problems... called environmental collapse
| and climate change. Why not working on those
|
| It's actually EASY to make money selling shit. It's HARD to
| solve a real problem to make everyone's lives better
| brookst wrote:
| I don't disagree, but surely it's even easier to bemoan
| that other people aren't doing enough of the right things
| than it is to devote one's own life to those kinds of
| problems.
| sixothree wrote:
| I am as far from a fan as you can get. But calling it shit
| just demonstrates how little people understand, not how
| refined their tastes are. It reflects poorly on you guys.
| brookst wrote:
| I like your perspective but I don't think liking coffee is
| the right comparison. It's closer to reading a manual for a
| successful casino, where a lot of it is about manipulation
| rather than creating value. Obviously Mr. Beast isn't as far
| out ethically as casinos, but IMO more in that direction than
| coffee tea preferences.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Both perspectives are somewhat true. Mr. Beast is building
| the best YouTube videos. It is a quality product and it is
| entertainment. It's garbage for education or self
| improvement but it's legit for entertainment and you can't
| dismiss entertainment as a net bad for the world, not
| completely.
|
| You both are right and wrong in a way. Parent poster who
| only had negative things to say is totally out of touch.
| sverhagen wrote:
| "Best" and "quality product" by a certain metric, ka-
| ching. I assume that the leaked PDF lays out what the
| metrics are that matter to them, but the article kinda
| skipped over how it's a choice what to consider "best".
| There's a lot of "quality" videos on YouTube by different
| metrics than MrBeast videos, that I enjoy watching quite
| a bit more.
| latexr wrote:
| > Mr. Beast is building the best YouTube videos. It is a
| quality product and it is entertainment.
|
| Hard disagree. Is he making the most profitable, most
| clicked, or most viral videos? Maybe. That's objectively
| quantifiable and I'll give you that. But "best" is very
| subjective. I wouldn't give a rat's ass if Mr Beast
| stopped making videos and deleted his account today. His
| videos are the audiovisual equivalent of junk food: not
| good for you; negatively addictive; and big shady
| business.
|
| Give me Folding Ideas any day. Now those are some quality
| and entertaining videos. The kind I save up to savour
| with some wine. That's my definition of best. Yours will
| differ, but that's the point.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@FoldingIdeas
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Most Entertainment is the equivalent of junk food.
|
| Wine is toxic for your health. You think Mr. Beast is
| junk food based on an opinion while wine is
| scientifically proven to be garbage for your body. Yet
| here you are watching educational videos while downing
| liquid poison. You do more damage to yourself than
| watching a Mr. Beast video and not drinking wine.
|
| The difference between you and people who watch Mr. Beast
| is raw snobbery. Sheesh. If you don't understand why
| someone would watch a video purely for mindless
| entertainment and no educational value I don't think you
| understand humans or how humans work.
| hypeatei wrote:
| I read this post because I was curious about how these
| operations work. What I found is:
|
| - Making good YOUTUBE videos is paramount, not quality videos
|
| - Be quirky and crazy in videos using a blank check
|
| - If something goes awry or you need it faster, also use a
| blank check
|
| - Some advice related to thumbnails and titles (relying on
| YouTube's current algorithm which could change the next
| second)
|
| The only thing I found semi useful is how he classifies
| employees using the A, B and C system (e.g. A is top tier, B
| can be trained to be top tier, and C is dead weight)
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| The problem is our society teaches us to separate a thing
| from the externalities of the thing. If it really was just
| about learning then there wouldn't be a problem. You can
| learn from anyone.
|
| However, it's not just about learning. People are easily
| influenced by the author of what they're learning from.
| They'll read a Steve Jobs autobiography and learn some
| interesting business insights, but also hold him in higher
| regard and perhaps feel like it's ok to be a raging asshole.
| People look up to successful people.
|
| It's entirely appropriate to remind people that it's not all
| sunshine and rainbows and perhaps this person has toxic
| effects they need to be aware of.
| nialv7 wrote:
| I don't like how much people tie success to the amount of
| money someone earns. (or how many views someone gets on
| YouTube, for that matter)
|
| There are many people who I consider successful that have
| never earned 700 mil, and there are people who made billions
| I don't give a fuck about.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| His comment has merit. The Beast business is fundamentally at
| the mercy of YouTube, the algorithm and their business
| priorities. In fact Beast's intentional focus on making the
| best _YouTube_ videos highlights this. Beast is a high-touch
| content farm, but ultimately still a content farm and
| vulnerable to the exact same risks as any other one.
| serjester wrote:
| Can you do better?
|
| If 100's of millions of people are watching something, then
| clearly it has entertainment value.
|
| His management philosophy might rub people the wrong way but
| it's hard to dispute it's effectiveness. Nor do you have to
| work there.
|
| His success is all the more impressive given he started with
| nothing and how competitive the space is.
|
| On some level he's the personification of the youtube algorithm
| - don't blame him, he's just giving people what they want. On
| some level this feels like the same outcry parents had to video
| games in the 90's.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Not saying Mr. beast content isn't valuable to millions of
| people, but I think "It makes money so it must be valuable"
| is a terrible benchmark.
|
| It's also the case that people can succeed in spite of their
| management philosophies. If you only look at the people who
| have made it you miss out on all the people who tried similar
| approaches and did not, which is needed to figure out the
| effectiveness of a strategy before adopting it. Classic
| example are people trying to be like Steve Jobs who are not
| successful.
|
| And on the value side - There are a lot of exploitive ways to
| hook people, and you can think something is exploitive / a
| local minima, without being an elitist.
|
| Mr. Beast specifically seems fine to me in a similar way that
| porn is fine. I don't think it crosses over to exploitive,
| but I don't think it's crazy to make that argument and I
| don't think people are primarily motivated by sour grapes or
| jealousy.
| CaptainFever wrote:
| > but I think "It makes money so it must be valuable" is a
| terrible benchmark.
|
| The GP never said this. They didn't say it was good because
| it made money, they said it was good because people like it
| and watch it. I like it and watch it. I agree with the GP.
| doe_eyes wrote:
| > The whole modern social media / influencer sphere seems like
| a huge bubble that will pop eventually.
|
| Before teenagers were looking up to YouTubers, they were
| looking up to TV celebs, musicians, sports players, and so on.
| You had entire publishing empires built around following such
| celebs around and reporting on their private lives.
|
| I don't think this is hugely different. The tech has evolved
| and the formulas have been perfected, but it's still catering
| to the same obsessions and urges that we had for a good while.
| bgun wrote:
| People like Mr. Beast have managed to discover psychological
| attention hacks that are not too dissimilar from sex or fear-
| based content (porn or a lot of political ads), but more
| insidious because it's much more tame and "fun" on the surface.
|
| And while I don't think either can be made explicitly illegal
| without some pretty nasty second-order effects on freedom of
| expression, we can't expect the likes of Google to provide a
| social fix here. Government will need to take note, label, and
| activate against this at some level. The TikTok ban means we've
| noticed this can be dangerous at least when rival nation-states
| are involved, but the call is coming from inside the house.
| refulgentis wrote:
| YouTube Shorts is really dark, there's stuff that makes David
| Foster Wallace's 1996 vision of people hyperglued to a TV
| look prescient instead of allegorical.
|
| There are many, many, videos that are literally the adult
| version of baby videos -- ex. Squeezing rainbow colored Play-
| Doh through a sieve, really bizarre just pure visual
| attention hacking.
|
| Your comment reminds me that's the local optima for YouTube x
| creators and it's just sort of contracting the work of
| actually producing content out. It doesn't care what it is.
| Just hours consumed.
|
| The abuse of FOIA for police bodycam content published with
| light commentary... Zoom court sessions enabled turning
| judges into stars on a show they have no part of it...
| nicomeemes wrote:
| Well, at the very least Black Mirror will have plenty of
| ideas for next season.
| wussboy wrote:
| I'm not sure it's still "Black". I think it might just be
| "Mirror".
| sixothree wrote:
| Wow. Your feed is pretty messed up. Here is my youtube
| shorts feed:
|
| - how programmers _actually_ review code
|
| - 3D Printed Latch Mechanism
|
| - I Always Thought This Border Was Straight (about a border
| in australia)
|
| - You need to go to a "better" place! (rescue of an injured
| raptor)
|
| I think YouTube is a lot like twitter (5 years ago), in
| that what you view and follow affects what you're fed.
| taberiand wrote:
| This is true, but it's a constant fight with the
| recommendation system, requiring a fairly strict approach
| to flagging "not interested" and "do not show this
| channel again" etc - as soon as you watch one junk-food
| video in a lazy day, prepare for another round of
| moderating tangentially related garbage.
| taberiand wrote:
| I think schools need to start teaching "How to Train Your
| Algorithm" classes to kids, early and often - with a focus
| on critical thinking and how advertising companies
| manipulate them.
|
| Couple that with regulations that require the companies to
| give greater control to the user over video feed
| customisation and I think it's possible to reign in the
| arms race for attention.
| j45 wrote:
| Online Advertising, and childrens videos have been doing it
| for a lot longer.
| oulipo wrote:
| Exactly... it feels weird that someone like Simon would fall
| for this and not see through it for what it is... someone
| spending his life being very efficient at building shit to sell
| it to an audience who's too lazy to consume anything but shit,
| all that paid by a capitalist system running on oil to allow
| all this shit to happen and enrich the shitster...
|
| We don't need to falsely pretend that those guys are
| interesting in any way... we should teach our kids to see
| through the bullshit, and ask to be less efficient, and more
| kind
| simonw wrote:
| What did I fall for here?
|
| I think this is a really interesting document, despite having
| very few lessons I would adopt for my own work (as I said at
| the bottom of the post).
|
| I would be thrilled to read documents providing a level of
| cultural and operational detail like this from ANY company.
|
| Another one I find really interesting is the 37signals
| handbook: https://basecamp.com/handbook
| brap wrote:
| Google wipes inactive accounts because they're often used for
| spam and malware.
| renewiltord wrote:
| On one side, an army of HN commenters: "Repeat after me. Don't
| build on someone else's platform."
|
| On the other side, Mr Beast:
|
| > _Your goal here is to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible.
| That's the number one goal of this production company. It's not
| to make the best produced videos. Not to make the funniest
| videos. Not to make the best looking videos. Not the highest
| quality videos.. It's to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible.
| Everything we want will come if we strive for that. Sounds
| obvious but after 6 months in the weeds a lot of people tend to
| forget what we are actually trying to achieve here._
| sirspacey wrote:
| Yeah this hit hard for me as well.
|
| I've studiously avoided building on platforms, but very
| different mindset to decided to be the best player on that
| platform.
|
| Lesson learned: don't make it about something else. Win the
| algo.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| Fine Arts would like a word with you
| kelnos wrote:
| For every MrBeast there are tens (hundreds?) of thousands
| (millions?) you've never heard of. And for some of them, it's
| because the platform pulled the plug on them.
|
| If someday YT decides to pull the plug on MrBeast, he might
| start singing a different tune. Or not, I mean, his millions
| and millions of dollars will probably make him feel better.
| codexon wrote:
| Building on someone's platform is a gamble.
|
| It paid off for Mr. Beast.
|
| Maybe it will pay off for you, or maybe you will get banned
| before you make enough to retire or create another company.
| This is prime example of survivorship bias.
| tpmoney wrote:
| I read that as less about "building on someone else's platform"
| (though that's still a risk they're taking) and more a youtube
| / media content producer version of "perfect software doesn't
| pay the bills, shipping software does". I've known plenty of
| good developers that if they didn't have hard deadlines and
| people reminding them about what the real goal of the company
| is, would spend 6 months developing a perfect, provably correct
| PDF to JSON converter for reading any possible design of tables
| in all PDFs. Missing the fact that they only need to parse the
| tables in the CSV files that the vendors are sending us so we
| can invoice the customers.
|
| That quote reads like its reminding people that youtube and a
| youtube production company job is not where you go to make art
| house silent films.
| whizzter wrote:
| There's a difference, video is probably transferrable to an
| extent (with their capital they could probably buy/launch
| beast-tube quickly and kids would follow).
|
| Building your software to depend on Google API's and then be
| banned from Google would put you in deep trouble, building on
| Google systems but not relying on their API would still allow
| for an migration.
| echelon wrote:
| YouTube is fine as a distribution channel for now. Though
| there is some risk of being extorted or losing access, the
| bigger threat will come some years down the road when video
| is a legacy distribution format.
|
| Diffusion at the edge is going to change a lot of things.
| Especially since it won't have to encode to linear formats.
| throw10920 wrote:
| Is this supposed to be a gotcha of some kind? I don't see any
| point or value in this comment.
| jack_riminton wrote:
| I was fully expecting to read a load of nonsense, but it chimes
| quite a lot with military training, which shouldn't actually be
| that surprising.
|
| e.g. if someone is your bottleneck make them aware, give them a
| due date, check in regularly, in person comms is better than
| written etc.
| smsm42 wrote:
| > "I Spent 50 Hours In Ketchup"
|
| > In general the more extreme the better.
|
| I may be sounding like "get off my lawn" guy right now but should
| there be some realization that these people are a cultural
| analogue of if not heroin than at least cigarettes? They are
| making a good living from making things objectively worse in a
| society by tickling the base instincts of the addicts. I am not
| calling for government intervention or any of such BS but is it
| too much for me to expect at least some cultural pushback here?
| smcl wrote:
| Maybe more "old man yells at cloud" but I am kinda with you in
| thinking it's trash. The thing is that every generation has had
| its own equivalent swill for kids, this one is no different.
| His channel won't last, there's too much baggage around it, but
| it'll get replaced with something equally trashy.
| smsm42 wrote:
| I have a lot of memories in my childhood, but I can't
| remember anything on this level. Sure, I grew up in a very
| different environment than the US, but even in the US - say,
| was there a constant stream of content aimed at kids that is
| optimized to be maximally extreme and maximally attention-
| grabbing? All I can remember was cartoons - but were kids
| spending hours glued to the screen watching cartoons? I
| surely wasn't.
| dymax78 wrote:
| Having been a young kid in the 80s, what I recently
| discovered was the primary concern with parents at the time
| (because, I genuinely don't remember) was using those
| afternoon and Saturday morning cartoons as a vehicle to
| sell products to kids - a barrage of advertisements. Seems
| pale in comparison to extreme behavior that potentially
| endangers others, e.g. deliberately crashing your airplane
| for views/hits.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Don't afterschool cartoons every weekday and several hours
| of Saturday morning cartoons qualify? IIRC that was the
| usual habit of children a few decades ago.
| aniviacat wrote:
| And such is the age old tale of old people forgetting what
| they were like when they were children.
|
| The younger generation always has been, and always will be,
| totally so much worse than the older generation.
| tqi wrote:
| I think it's worth reflecting on why you feel that way. I don't
| see how other people are spending their time is something I
| need to push back on...
| juunpp wrote:
| > I am not calling for government intervention or any of such
| BS
|
| Why is this BS? It wouldn't be unheard of to pass stricter age
| restriction laws so that at least the kids are not so easily
| exposed to brain damage. Same thing with the drugs you
| mentioned.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Yes, but there's a difference between drugs and this. The
| lack of evidence that they are the same or even similar for
| example.
| smsm42 wrote:
| > Why is this BS?
|
| Because the cure would be way worse than the disease. Both
| parties don't have my best interest in mind, but only one
| party has the power to ruin my life. I am not inclined to add
| to that power any more that it is absolutely necessary. And
| we're so far beyond that point that any addition at this
| point is extremely suspect.
| jrflowers wrote:
| I like the idea that entertainment made for broad appeal is an
| existential threat to society worthy of comparison to drugs
| that kill hundreds of thousands of people per year. People have
| been appealing to the lowest common denominator for forever and
| yet the world soldiers on.
|
| Your larger question of "why haven't they made things I don't
| personally find appealing illegal yet?" is worthy of
| exploration, though I don't think many posters here are in a
| position to dig into it deeply for you
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Meh, we don't know what the counterfactual of a different
| media environment would be. For example, it seems not-even-
| crazy to believe that media's addictiveness has played a
| major role in sedentary lifestyles which in turn is a major
| contributor to several of the top causes-of-death in the
| developed world (far greater than drugs).
| smsm42 wrote:
| It's not just "broad appeal". Shakespeare plays were made for
| broad appeal (he was a professional playwright, after all).
| Mozart's music was made for the broad appeal. I see nothing
| wrong with the broad appeal. It's what this appeal is made to
| and how. Humans have a lot of ways to appeal to them, and
| this particular way of appealing targets very base very
| addictive psychological mechanisms that ultimately hurt the
| person - just like addictive substances do. They don't make
| the users better or smarter or calmer or anything like that -
| if anything, they make them dumber and more attention-
| deficient. That's my problem with it.
|
| > why haven't they made things I don't personally find
| appealing illegal yet
|
| You are not good at reading, are you? I specifically said "I
| am not calling for government intervention or any of such BS"
| because I knew you are around and you are going to
| maliciously misunderstand me. But I guess the joke is on me
| since you didn't even bother to read that part.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Comparison to drugs is a bit extreme, but I think that some
| level of concern about MrBeast-style operations and the
| content they produce is warranted.
|
| It's not just broad appeal, but the mass reach of YouTube,
| the audience targeting and tight feedback loop it enables,
| and the resulting race to the bottom for who can make the
| most stupid and/or shocking videos, which in turn informs the
| tastes of the masses. Where does it end? Will it eventually
| get to the point that the only profitable YouTube channels
| are MrBeast-style because nothing else can bring in views?
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Is it shallow entertainment? Sure.
|
| But sometimes you want to eat a soggy kebap and not a Michelin-
| star gourmet meal, and that's fine too (and I can't stand
| people who malign what other people enjoy because it's "not
| pure enough").
| smsm42 wrote:
| Sometimes? Sure. All the time? You'd likely to hurt yourself
| pretty badly doing that, eventually (and maybe sooner than
| you'd realize). Nutrition-wise, I think, people starting to
| understand that. Information-wise, not so much.
| paulcole wrote:
| Do you think you should go to a Michelin starred restaurant
| every night?
| throw10920 wrote:
| I don't know what subculture you're living in, but in several
| of mine there absolutely is pushback against this, with people
| avoiding consuming this kind of content and trying to prevent
| their children from consuming it, too.
|
| Now, the question why the _larger_ US (or English-speaking)
| culture isn 't uniformly doing the same is much more
| interesting, but there's no known reason for this and most of
| the common explanations are both somewhat political, and not
| backed up by much evidence, so discussion often degenerates to
| talking about why your theory is more plausible.
|
| I wish we knew.
| userbinator wrote:
| IMHO it's quite divisive; there's a significant percentage of
| the population that's addicted to this sort of content, and
| there's another which actually finds it _boring_.
|
| I've watched a few MrBeast videos and similar content, out of
| curiosity. It just does not appeal to me, in the same way
| that "influencer" content and celebrities don't.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| It's boring in part because it's so blatantly formulated
| and packed up to be something that, for lack of better
| explanation, shouldn't be formulated or packaged.
|
| It's like going to the store to buy fun. It doesn't work
| that way. Excitement and wonder occur organically and
| typically in real life, and at the very least as the
| product of something truly awesome. In the case of Mr
| Beast, it seems like the ostensible happiness and
| excitement of the crew and contestants is combined with
| money to convince viewers something really great is
| happening. But it's simply not. It's vapid and fluffy, and
| really loud and obnoxious.
|
| But I also feel a bit like Mr Skinner wondering if I'm out
| of touch. Yet... This stuff probably would have weirded me
| out as a teenager, too.
| tpmoney wrote:
| I get the feeling, but at the same time, this feels like normal
| culture gaps. I don't get "sponge bob square pants" but there
| are people out that that insist it was if not a pinnacle of
| animation entertainment, then a hugely creative and
| entertaining show that deserves its place in the pantheons of
| animation. And all those huge 80's era properties that so many
| have years of nostalgic memories of, like transformers, he-man
| or voltron were all "cynical cash grabs" and 30 minute
| commercials for toys. So much so the concerned parents of the
| time demanded the government step in. Now the jury might be out
| on whether that generation is worse than previous generations,
| but if they are I don't think it's going to be because
| transformers was a toy marketing gimmick instead of high art
| with a strong moral message.
|
| Kids I know find all sorts of things ridiculously amusing and
| entertaining and it all seems stupid, brainless and mind
| rotting to me. But then again, the stuff I found ridiculously
| amusing and entertaining at that age was (I can attest, having
| gone back and watched some of it) was just as stupid, brainless
| and mind rotting. Some of it is not having a "sufficiently
| developed palette" for humor and entertainment. Some of it is
| because that humor and entertainment was genuinely new to me at
| the time, where as now I've seen it before so when it shows up
| in the kids stuff, it's not entertaining anymore. It's sort of
| the reverse of the "Seinfeld isn't funny" issue. We're not
| looking at something in the past and wondering why it was so
| great because it's been out shadowed by what it inspired.
| Instead we're looking at something from today and wondering why
| it's entertaining because we've been entertained in the same
| way in the past.
| tmoertel wrote:
| From the referenced doc:
|
| > CTR is basically how many people see our thumbnail in their
| feeds divided by how many that click it.
|
| That's actually 1/CTR.
|
| Another example of math fluency not being required for success at
| the top.
| KPGv2 wrote:
| whether you're looking for CTR on one end of the continuum or
| 1/CTR on the other end of the spectrum, you're looking at the
| same thing, just without understanding what one word means
| smsm42 wrote:
| I think it's a good example of understanding how people think
| is good for the success at the top. Out of 1000 people asking
| "Wtf is CTR now?" maybe one needs a precise definition usable
| for immediate conversion to the programming code. That's the
| person for whom CTR and 1/CTR difference is important. The
| other 999 need to understand what's this term is used to
| measure and where it comes from - and for them this explanation
| is just fine. They are not people who make decisions or
| calculations based on it - those already know what CTR is. They
| are random people that need to fit a new thing into their
| mental model - and they won't even notice the difference,
| especially given the followup explanation.
| ajkjk wrote:
| ... Sounds like a person with plenty of fluency made a typo.
| mrkramer wrote:
| I respect his dedication and grind....I prefer more YouTube pop
| culture and YouTubers than TikTok and TikTokers. YouTube is so
| much better.
| j_maffe wrote:
| The grind to do what? Make an endless stream of shit content?
| Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
| talldayo wrote:
| Trying to discern whether YouTube or TikTok influencers are
| better than the other is like picking which tooth you want
| pulled. Both are so gratingly painful even compared to normal
| cable television.
|
| I have really no respect for the people that abuse a broken
| status quo to only improve their own personal standing. The
| fact that a lot of HNers seem to look up to Mr. Beast is almost
| as tellingly acerbic as the reliance on Steve Jobs for
| intelligent business quotes.
| mrkramer wrote:
| >Both are so gratingly painful even compared to normal cable
| television.
|
| This is the new type of cable television and it's free. Yea
| sure I pay it with my data but at least I don't need to spit
| out money every month to watch it.
|
| >I have really no respect for the people that abuse a broken
| status quo to only improve their own personal standing.
|
| Again, entertainment on YouTube is free....even YouTube
| stopped bothering me to disable my ad-blocker so MrBeast is
| not getting a penny from me. I might buy YouTube Premium at
| some point in the future tho.
| talldayo wrote:
| Well hey, I'm on the same page. I don't pay for cable these
| days, nor put up with adblockless YouTube in the first
| place. But content on YouTube - particularly _popular_
| content - is a race to the bottom worse than _Keeping up
| with The Kardashians_ ever was. I 've watched Mr. Beast
| videos (at the behest of my ex) and haven't found anything
| except hyperactive filmmaking married to absurd and ill-
| considered ideas. It's deconstructed short-form
| entertainment in ways that TikTok is probably envious of.
| Truly, they've cracked the marketing code for an ADHD-
| addled era of content consumption.
|
| And therein lies "the problem" - this shit is garbage. I
| like _some_ YouTube content too, but holy fucking cow is it
| worse than everything that came before it. TVFilthyFrank
| was just doing the same thing _Jackass_ did with fewer
| safety considerations and lower production value.
| Historians making documentaries are basically recouping the
| task of _The History Channel_ on a smaller budget with
| fewer regulations on construing truth. At the end of the
| day, as much as I hate cable television, I cannot honestly
| say anything on YouTube comes close to the production in an
| episode of _Top Gear_ or _Game of Thrones_. It 's garbage
| all the way down, supported by marginal advertising, kept
| out of Google's Graveyard by horrific levels of rentseeking
| and AdSense monopoly abuse, and ultimately propelled by
| sensationalist and meaningless content tailored to offend
| as few people as possible. Content on YouTube is terrible
| in new and terrifying ways.
| mrkramer wrote:
| >I cannot honestly say anything on YouTube comes close to
| the production in an episode of Top Gear or Game of
| Thrones.
|
| >Content on YouTube is terrible in new and terrifying
| ways.
|
| Most of the YouTube's content is amateur UGC(user
| generated content) and it works pretty well for what it
| is.
| refibrillator wrote:
| Direct link to the PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YaG9xpu-
| WQKBPUi8yQ4HaDYQLUS...
| jesprenj wrote:
| Or the actual PDF file instead of Google docs:
| http://splet.4a.si/dir/How-To-Succeed-At-MrBeast-Production....
| jonathanyc wrote:
| > I want you to look them in the eyes and tell them they are the
| bottleneck and take it a step further and explain why they are
| the bottleneck so you both are on the same page. "Tyler, you are
| my bottleneck. I have 45 days to make this video happen and I can
| not begin to work on it until I know what the contents of the
| video is. I need you to confirm you understand this is important
| and we need to set a date on when the creative will be done."
| [...] Every single day you must check in on Tyler and make sure
| he is still on track to hit the target date.
|
| This sounds to me a lot like the idea in software engineering of
| being "blocked on" something. I wonder what jargon other fields
| use for the same concept. Could be cool to have a table cross-
| referencing jargon across fields, haha.
| baxtr wrote:
| Are we sure this got "leaked"? Or is this merely part of the not
| leaked production PDF?
|
| It will generate a ton of attention. Who cares if it's bad?
| simonw wrote:
| As far as I can tell this was leaked to a person who's been
| having a high profile disagreement with MrBeast, by either a
| current or former staff member.
|
| Maybe it's a fake or a deliberate release, but it doesn't read
| like the at to me. There is a ton of commercially sensitive
| information in here. Not to mention that note about the
| expensive squid game incident which I doubt they would have
| included in a document for public consumption.
|
| I don't think MrBeast needs to farm for attention outside of
| his current very successful video tactics.
| ants_everywhere wrote:
| > I don't think MrBeast needs to farm for attention outside
| of his current very successful video tactics.
|
| Well he is in the middle of a PR push responding to the
| claims from former employees that he fakes his videos and is
| generally fraudulent
| latexr wrote:
| Mr Beast's company has been getting a ton of negative attention
| for how it works and how it treats employees and contestants.
| It seems plausible it was leaked as another example of toxic
| culture.
| egorfine wrote:
| > Since we are on the topic of communication, written
| communication also does not constitute communication unless they
| confirm they read it.
|
| Excellent.
| jellicle wrote:
| The bulk of content on Youtube today is some stock video footage,
| an AI-generated script read by a computer voice. Maybe a human
| spends a few minutes cutting together the video footage? But
| almost entirely automated spam designed to feed Youtube some pink
| slime and rake in the $.
|
| Compared to that, Mr. Beast is fine art, worthy of the Louvre.
| Zanni wrote:
| Surprising reference to The Goal [1], which Mr. Beast "used to
| make everyone read ..." and still recommends. The Goal is a
| business novel about optimizing manufacturing processes for
| throughput and responsiveness rather than "efficiency" and is
| filled with counter-intuitive insights. Presenting it as a novel
| means you get to see characters grapple with these insights and
| fail to commit before truly understanding them. Excellent stuff,
| along the lines of The Phoenix Project [2], with which I assume
| many here are already familiar.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goal_(novel) [2]
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17255186-the-phoenix-pro...
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Theory of Constraints is fascinating because, as MrBeast points
| out here, it _seems_ extremely obvious. I 've had numerous
| interactions on this site where a person dismisses an insight
| from ToC as "obvious" and then 2 sentences later promulgates
| the _exact_ type of intuition that ToC disproves.
| Zanni wrote:
| Yeah, this is the brilliance of the novel format. Someone
| presents an insight, and it can see obvious _in isolation_
| but then seems obviously wrong in context. "Of course we
| should favor throughput over efficiency" is obvious until you
| realize it means, for example, allowing idle time on
| incredibly expensive machines to favor responsiveness, which
| just seems wasteful.
|
| In the novel, you get to see the characters bang their heads
| against these "paradoxes" again and again until it sinks in.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Interesting -- I'll have to read The Goal! I've only read
| the reference material around ToC, so this sounds additive
| :)
| tpmoney wrote:
| >is obvious until you realize it means, for example,
| allowing idle time on incredibly expensive machines to
| favor responsiveness, which just seems wasteful.
|
| Weird how things that seem to make sense in one context
| seem to make no sense in another context. If you told me a
| factory runs their widget making machine at 70% capacity in
| case someone comes along with an order for a different
| widget or twice as many widgets, at first glance think
| that's a bad idea. If your customers can keep your widget
| machine 100% full, using only part of the machine for the
| chance that something new will come along seems wasteful.
| And through cultural osmosis the idea of not letting your
| hardware sit idle is exactly the sort of thing that feels
| right.
|
| And yet, we do this all the time in IT. If you instead of a
| widget machine told me that you run your web server at 100%
| capacity all the time, I'd tell you that's also a terrible
| idea. If you're running at 100% capacity and have no spare
| headroom, you can't serve more users if one of them sends
| more requests than normal. Even though intuitively we know
| that a machine sitting idle is a "waste" of compute power,
| we also know that we need capacity in reserve because
| demand isn't constant. No one sizes (or should size) their
| servers for 100% utilization. Even when you have something
| like a container cluster, you don't target your containers
| to 100% utilization, if for no other reason than you need
| headroom while the extra containers spin up. Odd that
| without thinking that through, I wouldn't have applied the
| same idea to manufacturing machinery.
| krrrh wrote:
| This sounds intriguing. Of note for anyone with an audible
| membership: The Goal is in the free library.
| potatoman22 wrote:
| Reading through the document, this company seems hellish for its
| employees. I wonder how the pay and perks are
| joshdavham wrote:
| I really liked his distinction between A, B and C-team players.
| This could be a really good framework for recruiting in an
| ambitious startup.
| RandomThoughts3 wrote:
| I personally deeply disliked the semi-cult like explanation
| that anyone moving out was basically not good enough to be
| there in the first place.
|
| Apart from that, it's the good old Netflix playbook: empower
| managers to remove adequate team members with good severance to
| give space to good team members. The danger is letting it
| deteriorate into stack ranking if you are not careful with the
| deleterious effect on team work associated.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Canada is a country of all C players
| rasengan wrote:
| Obligatory dogpack404 link [1]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/@DogPack404
| kurisufag wrote:
| who is dogpack404, and why is posting their links obligatory?
| pockybum522 wrote:
| This reminds me of how every corporation I've ever seen operates.
| Why is this strange or interesting?
| simonw wrote:
| Other corporations seriously have employee handbooks with
| sentences like this in?
|
| "... instead of starting with his house in the circle that he
| would live in, we bring it in on a crane 30 seconds into the
| video. Why? Because who the fuck else on Youtube can do that
| lol."
| wongarsu wrote:
| They identified something their customers (viewers) like and
| the competition can't provide, and play to that unique
| strength. That's pretty standard, they just give an example
| instead of obfuscating the principle in management speak.
|
| With some rewording this would be perfect for the USP slide
| of an investor deck
| tpmoney wrote:
| They do, but usually you'll find it worded something like
| "Deliver high value, seamless and synerginized entertainment
| that frontalizes our strengths and inspires diverse
| modalities of consumer satisfaction"
| GaggiX wrote:
| Mr.Beast is in some big controversies right now, and it's
| honestly much more interesting than this PDF, I expected to see
| the "no does not mean no" section in this PDF.
| asmor wrote:
| It's there, on page 19.
| simonw wrote:
| I think this document predates the current scandal - the page
| 19 reference is to
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/02/style/mrbeast-beast-
| games... where the more recent scandal is
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna164777
|
| (Sorry, my mistake: the page 19 bit is indeed "no does not
| mean no" which is unfortunate wording given a current
| scandal! The scandal I referred to is the one about leaving
| contestants in the sun for three+ hours)
| GaggiX wrote:
| I wonder why it wasn't mentioned in the article.
| ttepasse wrote:
| The unwavering fixation on metrics like Click Thru Rate, Average
| View Duration and Average View Percentage explains why so many of
| my previous channels get formulaic over time. It sounds like a
| small thing, but for some reason the thumbnails/titles with the
| Youtube face enrage me the most.
|
| Thankfully there are still enough channels which are not that
| optimized.
|
| But I wonder: How would the scene of Youtubers cope, if Youtube
| suddenly changes its algorithm to something completely different?
| I remember the tears in SEO-land, when Google did it.
| throw10920 wrote:
| There's a disincentive for YouTube to change because it'd make
| both creators (to a greater extent) and users (to a lesser
| extent) unhappy.
|
| It's almost like the situation of buggy hardware
| implementations of networking protocols being so prevalent that
| software has to adapt to it, and vice versa, leading to lots of
| silly non-compliant (or non-optimal) behavior because it's
| disadvantageous to fix _your_ behavior before upstream
| /downstream fixes _theirs_.
|
| I think the better ways to fix this would be either _gradual_
| change, carefully-crafted regulation, or a new platform
| entirely that 's not owned by an ad company.
| db48x wrote:
| There are various browser extensions that you might like.
| Clickbait Remover for Youtube, DeArrow, etc. They remove the
| thumbnail images and replace them with a frame from a random
| time within the video, and replace or modify the video title to
| make it less sensational. I also recommend Sponsorblock.
| ocean_moist wrote:
| Lot of people critiquing this, but you can't deny the success. I
| think a lot of the advice is applicable to startups.
|
| 1. KPIs, for Beast they are CTR, AVD, AVP, will look different if
| you are a startup. I am willing to bet he knows his metrics
| better than >95% of startup founders. Because he is literally
| hacking/being judged by an algorithm, his KPIs will matter more
| and can be closely dissected. Startups aren't that easy in that
| sense, but KPIs still matter.
|
| 2. Hiring only A-players. Bloated teams kill startups.
|
| 3. Building value > making money
|
| 4. Rewarding employees who make value for the business and think
| like founders/equity owners, not employees.
|
| 5. Understanding that some videos only his team can do, and
| actively exploiting and widening that gap.
|
| The management/communication stuff is mostly about working on
| set/dealing with physical scale. You need a lot more hands
| dealing with logistics, which requires hardline communication and
| management. In startups, the team is usually really lean and
| technical, so management becomes more straightforward.
|
| I am also getting some bad culture vibes from the PDF and really
| dislike the writing style. I think it's important not to
| micromanage to the extent he is--it's necessary, maybe, for his
| business. Not for startups. Interesting perspective, reminds me
| of a chef de cuisine in a cutthroat 90s kitchen. The dishes
| (videos) have to be perfect, they require a lot of prep and a lot
| of hands, and you have to consistently pump them out.
| simonw wrote:
| I'm with you on the management vibes - it doesn't sound like a
| culture that I'd enjoy.
|
| That's one of the things I find so interesting about this
| document: it does feel very honest and unfiltered, and as such
| it appears to be quite an accurate insight into their culture.
|
| And that's a culture that works if you want to create massive
| successful viral YouTube videos targeting their audience.
|
| How much has that specific chosen culture contributed to their
| enormous success in that market? There's no way to know that,
| but my hunch is it contributed quite a bit.
| oulipo wrote:
| but ask yourself why would you want to "create massive
| successful viral Youtube videos"... what does it bring the
| world, literally?
|
| Those guys are just selling shit to people that are so lazy
| that the only thing they consume is shit
|
| It's not a "success".. or it's a "success" for very wrong
| metrics.. it's as stupid as saying Hitler or Attila were
| successes
| IAmNotACellist wrote:
| That's the thing. You have to love that, and that's
| probably something only people who grew up watching YouTube
| can feel at a deep level. Generational divides happen like
| that often.
| Loughla wrote:
| Bingo.
|
| I do not understand the attraction of nearly all YouTube
| creators and celebrities. I don't get the appeal. All the
| videos sound the same and have the same stupid looking
| tag lines to get you to watch them. Outrageous actions
| for attention are deeply troubling to me.
|
| And I'm also SUPER aware that it's because it's not for
| me. I'm not the target demographic at all, and never will
| be.
|
| At some point you have to realize that the world moves
| on, and that's just part of getting older. It feels
| awesome when you're 18-24 and everything is relevant to
| you. It feels way less awesome when you're over 40 and
| everything seems to be out of control.
| sixothree wrote:
| Honestly it sounds like a deficiency on your part and
| that you need to explore some. Because I follow a lot of
| smart, talented, nerdy, and interesting creators. And my
| feed is nothing like what you described.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Well, one could argue that when you're over 40 a lot
| _more_ is actually directed at you because that's when
| you've got the most money to spend. Cars, properties,
| services, vacations, kids etc. Everything might start to
| seem to be out of control, but major products finally
| start to seem to hit the right spot for your taste and
| promise that control in some sense.
| noizejoy wrote:
| YT has RSS feeds for every channel.
|
| So I've switched to using RSS to follow the specific
| niche creators that add value for me. As a result, my YT
| experience is entirely unlike what the YT algorithm
| suggests.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Similarly, I use Ublock Origin to remove basically every
| element of the site except the search bar, subscriptions
| and the video player itself.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| YouTube caters to every niche. Including the more
| snobbish demographic who "claims" they don't understand
| the appeal of YouTube videos (aka don't understand humans
| and entertainment in general)
|
| Check out stuff by Johnny Harris , veritasium, etc... for
| more educational stuff.
|
| Also I didn't like the ageism comment. I'm about your age
| and I can definitely understand the appeal of Mr. Beast.
| I feel a lot of the disdain for him is more snobbery than
| anything. Some people think they're better or too good
| for that type of entertainment. If you truly don't
| understand the appeal I think that's actually a sign of
| autism. It's unlikely you're autistic and it's more
| likely to be snobbery disguised as lack of understanding.
|
| Entertainment is usually mindless anyway. It's not like
| Shakespeare is some higher form of entertainment. It's
| all snobbery that segregates these things. Transformers
| has more technical complexity and represents a bigger
| human achievement then Shakespeare.
|
| The technical know how of thousands of people utilizing
| technology decades in development combined together to
| achieve the transformers movie to tell a story with more
| clarity then the equally cliche story of Romeo and
| Juliet.
|
| It's all mindless entertainment and class based
| prejudice.
| coupdejarnac wrote:
| Johnny Harris makes well produced videos that contain a
| lot of old information and misinformation. If any of his
| videos cover a topic you're an expert in, you'll see
| immediately.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Then choose some other educational channel in which there
| are thousands.
| teddyh wrote:
| I also often see the same said about Veritasium.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| No veritasium is pretty legit imo. Johnny Harris is not
| bad, I've heard the same criticism too. I think he won an
| award in journalistic integrity at one point.
|
| Theres no YouTuber without criticism. Referring to no one
| in particular: There's even offensive snobbish garbage
| comments equivalent to the banality of Mr. Beast videos
| here on HN yet this doesn't reflect the overall vibe
| here.
|
| Don't try to bring my overall point down by attacking one
| particular aspect of one particular example. What should
| the snobbery of some of the commentary on HN here render
| the entire site moot? No. My point stands regardless.
| jakjak123 wrote:
| Yes, thank you! And I dont even watch Mr Beast, but I
| admit I immediately want to click on that <<I spent 24
| hours in ketchup>>
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| It offers entertainment value. The educational component
| of it is it offers education into human psychology when
| people are presented with challenges and reward, etc.
| etc. etc.
|
| Mr. Beast videos are actually insightful and educational
| in certain contexts. It's just snobbery all the way down.
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| I'm 39 and thoroughly enjoy MrBeast videos. They're
| clever and fun and exciting. Pretty amazing a lot of the
| things that only he can pull off. And he's been pulling
| off impressive stunts for _years_. He's incredibly well
| capitalized at this point, but he grinded there and has
| been doing novel videos from the start.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| By broad definitions of "pull off", if the accusations of
| faking things and changing rules are to be believed.
| simonw wrote:
| I don't personally want to do that, but I'm still
| interested in what I can learn about organizational design
| and culture from their success in their chosen field.
| chongli wrote:
| Question is: can this be learned from and applied to
| other industries which are not focused on extreme growth,
| such as more traditional industries or B2B work? I'm not
| sure.
| simonw wrote:
| I plan to take the idea of critical components and keep
| that in mind for the future.
| Loughla wrote:
| >what does it bring the world, literally?
|
| I'm betting over 90% of what we do, collectively, really
| doesn't offer any true "value" to the world for however
| you're defining value.
|
| Which means that your measurement is bad because it's based
| on your opinion.
|
| Just like your comparison to Hitler. For supporters of
| Hitler, the things he did were amazing. But that was just
| their opinion.
| Bayko wrote:
| I agree. Almost all of us are writing CRUD apis and react
| components at work what are we contributing to the world
| of value? Hmm nothing I say!
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| At least we're not teaching kids to gamble and eat
| chocolate.
| vasco wrote:
| What are they doing? They gave free cataract surgery to a
| huge number of people across the world, built wells, have
| distributed an ungodly amount of food and the list goes on.
| Just google the foundation and stop being grumpy. My bet is
| you will not be able to give away a tiny fraction of what
| they have in your whole life, even with all their flaws.
| jacoblambda wrote:
| They also run illegal lotteries targeting children and
| fake the majority of their videos.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5xf40KrK3I
| vasco wrote:
| None of the philantropic actions I mentioned are fake.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Fallacy of consequentialism. Yes, tons of people got free
| cataract surgery but that's a band-aid solution to
| cataract surgery being artificially locked behind a
| paywall all those people were unable to bypass, and the
| paywall still exists and is still preventing multiple
| factors of that group from accessing the same surgery.
| And wells in the developing world has been a charity
| money sink for decades at this point, instead of asking
| "well where's the well you're going to build" why don't
| you ask "why do so many people all across the world lack
| clean water?"
|
| And the answer to that question is that it's not
| profitable to provide clean drinking water to people who
| can't pay for it. Not that it's not possible, not that
| it's not a solved engineering problem, clearly it is
| because some fuckin YouTuber pony's up the cash and
| suddenly there's a goddamn well. The only reason it's not
| already there is because we decided someone has to pay
| for the problem to be solved, and if none of the people
| who need it solved can afford it, we let them continue
| drinking dirty water and die from preventable illness
| because they were born in the wrong income bracket.
|
| And by the same logic, why does Mr. Beast have this money
| in the first place? Because he's making bullshit videos
| about """solving""" these problems, because presenting
| loud, stupid nonsense to a western audience, for free, so
| they can be showed video ads in the midst of it, is worth
| enough to pay for these fucking wells.
|
| To make this completely fucking clear: the _attention_ of
| a western, young audience who 's parents have money to
| spend and may, MIGHT, influence them to buy a product, is
| worth more than providing _clean fucking drinking water_
| to entire villages of people who live in a non-western
| place, with enough leftover for Mr. Beast to draw a
| frankly unethical salary for what he 's actually doing,
| and providing to the world. That level of inequity
| between two groups of people is the grand fucking canyon.
|
| And, to make this other point extra clear, that's not Mr.
| Beast's fault. He's acting completely rationally within a
| system that has utterly lost the plot in terms of what
| _actually has value._ The fact that unhinged amounts of
| money are going to a frankly, by all accounts I can find,
| quite amoral man who has cracked the code for generating
| loud, obnoxious nonsense that children will consume on an
| industrial scale so equally morally bankrupt companies
| can shove advertisements down their eyeballs and convince
| them to buy shit they don 't need, so much so that he can
| spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to make yet more
| loud, obnoxious bullshit, is the problem. All of this is
| so completely and thoroughly disentangled from any notion
| of what anyone actually needs, and the fact that tons of
| people on this board and elsewhere still manage to call
| this system the most rational economic system yet
| discovered while looking at this complete fucking
| nonsense is astonishing to me.
| vasco wrote:
| That's great that you've figured out all the problems of
| the world, but I was simply answering "what have they
| done" to a mis-characterization that they are simply
| time-wasting machines.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| They are time wasting machines. YouTube is, and Mr.
| Beast's production company is by virtue of the fact that
| it would die immediately if YouTube went away, because
| nobody would buy that shit in a theater, on a blu ray, or
| in iTunes Store. Same reason TikTok and it's associated
| content is also bullshit, literally the only reason
| anybody watches that garbage is that it's free.
| CPLX wrote:
| I honestly think these videos are horrible and chasing
| those engagement metrics is basically the opposite of
| creating art.
|
| But one thing that did help me gain perspective is a
| comment that these are literally global products where
| English is a second language at best. They're designed to
| really be the least common denominator.
| j45 wrote:
| First time entrepreneurs are also learning how to build
| culture. No excuse, but still.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| > How much has that specific chosen culture contributed to
| their enormous success in that market?
|
| You see this across industries. Even Google, in the early
| days, was people working crazy hours, sweating the details,
| and just generally grinding. It is something like a law of
| nature that extraordinary results require extraordinary
| effort from extraordinary people.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| How does that align with Dan Luu's article "95th percentile
| isn't that good"[1] and the general observation so many of
| us have that the companies we work for and interact with
| and buy from are executing so badly on so many fronts?
|
| That is, most programmers aren't good programmers, most
| managers aren't good managers, most salaries aren't good
| salaries, most salespeople aren't good salespersons, most
| workflows aren't efficient, most team communications aren't
| effective.
|
| If Dan Luu is right, it shouldn't take extraordinary effort
| to do better (excepting the case where "trying" is
| extraordinary). If he's wrong why does it take Herculean
| effort to outdo a bunch of average companies?
|
| [1] https://danluu.com/p95-skill/
| johnny22 wrote:
| a small focused group of tryers is probably a big help
| cellis wrote:
| Because of switching costs. If you start a _new_ thing
| this is definitely the case. It's often said that a new
| product (startup), can't be a marginal improvement; it
| needs to be _10x_ better. 95 percentile is not 10x
| ozim wrote:
| I think what you are missing:
|
| - not everything is worth doing extraordinarily as no one
| will pay for excellence of some services or goods
|
| - being exceptionally good at something doesn't guarantee
| someone will buy from you, people might just don't like
| you or your branding
|
| - there are bunch of other market forces that you have to
| overcome and Dan seems like was writing about being 95%
| on a single thing
| greesil wrote:
| At face value, this is not a culture that would reward risk
| taking. It's very operations focused. Get x done on day y or
| you're fired. Maybe they do value risk taking on the creative
| side?
| nrp wrote:
| That's one of the most interesting parts of this document.
| Many people will read it and think "I would never work at a
| place like that," and many others would think "that's exactly
| the environment I want to work in!"
|
| More startups should be this transparent about their
| stated/desired culture (even if unintentionally).
| grecy wrote:
| > _I think it 's important not to micromanage to the extent he
| is--it's necessary, maybe, for his business_
|
| I think it's pretty clear he has figured out how to "master"
| YouTube better than anyone else ever has by a very wide margin.
|
| So if he doesn't micromanage, how can he teach people how to do
| something that nobody else has ever figured out how to do?
|
| It's not like people will show up and be good at what he wants.
| There is no school for this, no "Here's my past experience".
| None of that matters at his level of success.
| fabianhjr wrote:
| > 4. Rewarding employees who make value for the business and
| think like founders/equity owners, not employees.
|
| That is simple to do but not something many companies want to
| do. Just give employees equity via mutualisation. (Real
| ownership not discourse ownership)
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| There's a difference between writing down that you hire
| A-players in a document, and hiring the unqualified personal
| friends that he does in practice for all kinds of production
| roles
| threeseed wrote:
| I always love the "just hire A-players" line.
|
| As though startups are trying to hire mediocre people instead
| of having no choice.
|
| And that 95% of startups don't know their metrics. Pretty sure
| almost all do but again don't have the skills or resources to
| meaningfully move them.
| gkoberger wrote:
| Agreed, but Mr Beast can hire A-players. So he's not giving
| this advice to others, but rather setting internal
| expectations.
| kjksf wrote:
| It's more about willing to fire below-A players quickly
| rather than having a perfect hiring filter that only lets A
| players in.
|
| Looking back at 7 companies I worked at: they all had a tough
| hiring filter to get in. But most of them also had not that
| great people that they were not firing.
|
| Firing people is hard even when you know you should do it.
| You have to be a heartless bastard to not have a problem
| firing people.
|
| It's even worse when the company gets so big that a game of
| building empires starts in which case managers have an
| incentive to grow headcount to grow power, even if that
| headcount isn't very good.
|
| The document even talks about what MrBeast considers a
| B-player.
|
| Made a mistake once? That's fine. Fuck ups are a price of
| ambition.
|
| Made the same mistake twice? Need to be told the same thing
| multiple times? Not an A player so fired.
| latexr wrote:
| > Lot of people critiquing this, but you can't deny the
| success.
|
| You could say that about literally any shady business. Imagine
| seeing a PDF proving tobacco leaders knew for decades that it
| caused cancer and saying what you did.
|
| Being monetarily successful does not mean you're good or
| shouldn't be criticised.
| ahmedfromtunis wrote:
| I'd love to see that document and I'm sure there's a lot to
| learn from it and a lot of knowledge to use for the good of
| humanity.
|
| The fact that a shady business used some tactics to advance
| its cause doesn't automatically condemns the means.
| MeetingsBrowser wrote:
| Most shady businesses can be boiled down to, "we exploit
| people for personal gain".
|
| Which is always bad.
| ahmedfromtunis wrote:
| Actually, that's what most businesses do, not just shady
| ones.
|
| Your telecom operator? It exploits that you miss your mom
| but too lazy to visit? Your grocery store? That you are
| hungry but can't grow your own food.
|
| What documents like this reveal is *how* these businesses
| are exploiting you and the means by which they are
| guiding you to achieve their goals.
|
| These methods are valuable knowledge regardless of
| finality. The same tactics used by big oil can also serve
| environmentalists to convince people to adopt clean
| energy, for example.
| dayvid wrote:
| This is actually a really good document for someone who is a
| junior or assistant. I've worked a variety of jobs and didn't get
| much documents on training like this, mostly compliance stuff.
| You could take a lot of it out and get good points on managing
| people and taking ownership for tasks. It seems redundant or
| basic, but a lot of these things aren't explicitly mentioned,
| usually informally only.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| It is nice to see the red flags in writing ahead of time. After
| all "boys will be boys"
| xrd wrote:
| I have kids and I'm really bothered by MrBeast. I had to buy
| goddamn chocolate bars at Walmart because of him. I acknowledge
| he is creative and driven but the content is such crap, with a
| few exceptions that my kids point out.
|
| But, what's the alternative?
|
| For example, I love 3brown1blue videos. But, it is too advanced
| even for my eleven year old.
|
| Mark Rober videos are great, and my kids love them, but he's even
| inside MrBeast's orbit. And, he's not putting out as much
| content.
|
| What are the good channels that create creative and stimulating
| videos that are a benefit to humanity.
|
| Does YouTube kill those channels?
| debacle wrote:
| > I had to buy goddamn chocolate bars at Walmart because of
| him.
|
| Nah, you didn't. You're the parent, if you don't like the
| content, don't let your kids watch it.
| np_tedious wrote:
| Idk much about him but stacking school busses on top of each
| other with a crane or driving a train into a sinkhole seem like
| pretty interesting things to do. Better than geeking out over
| the bloodiest Mortal Kombat fatality or whatever I was doing at
| that age. What's an example of the more "crap" content?
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Why watch youtube at all? It's not obligatory.
| maltalex wrote:
| > But, what's the alternative?
|
| Good question. I'm also on the lookout for quality content for
| my kids. I recently learned that YouTube Kids can be put into
| whitelist-only mode, and that specific channels, videos, or
| collections of channels can be picked individually. Google
| aren't making it easy, but the option is there.
|
| > Does YouTube kill those channels?
|
| I don't think it's about YouTube. Mr Beast is good at what he
| does, and manages to produce very marketable content. It's
| fast-food entertainment. It's a newer take on what's been on
| our TV screens for decades in the form of reality TV and game
| shows.
| ChiefNotAClue wrote:
| It doesn't kill them per se, but it doesn't seem to promote
| them either. The good content takes a lot more digging to find.
| Not an easy task, considering how bad the search on YouTube is.
| redox99 wrote:
| I don't think buying some chocolate bars is such a big deal.
| Just like buying some Mickey Mouse toy or sticker is fine.
|
| And nothing wrong with some entertainment videos, some leisure
| is good. It doesn't need to be all educational.
| cynicalsecurity wrote:
| An alternative would be to use YouTube Kids instead of a
| regular YouTube and to ban MrBeast's channel. Problems solved.
| Jun8 wrote:
| Try Vihart on YT, eg this one is one of the most awesome
| explanations I've seen:
| https://youtu.be/VIVIegSt81k?si=yRlWlEf2-rEICgtk. And kids love
| this stuff.
| userbinator wrote:
| _good channels that create creative and stimulating videos that
| are a benefit to humanity_
|
| Restoration and repair videos could be a good choice, although
| there's also plenty of fake clickbait content there too now. I
| usually actively avoid content with sensationalised titles and
| look for smaller non-profit creators.
| saltcod wrote:
| We successfully moved to restoration videos. They're great.
| Agreed with everything said about both Mr Beast and Mark
| Rober. Not what I want my kids watching a lot of.
| raydev wrote:
| The funny thing about those chocolate bars is that (I think)
| they're better than the century old brand names they're
| competing with.
| guywithahat wrote:
| I know this is beside the point but I remember the first time I
| bought a Mr Beast bar, I bit into it, and realized their
| standard bar was actually a pretty dark chocolate. I think they
| changed the labeling but I imagine there must have been a lot
| of kids who bought the candy bar and hated it lol
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >But, what's the alternative?
|
| The alternative is grabbing The Little Prince or My Neighbor
| Totoro and watching or reading it with the kids. I have a very
| simple rule, if something isn't good enough to be engaging for
| parents and kids just throw it the hell out. Why would I feed
| something to my kids that I wouldn't eat myself?
|
| We have enough stimulating works of fiction, inspired works in
| fact. You can just throw Youtube into the garbage.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| I see a lot of hating on mr beast for being so mechanical in
| driving views but blame the game, not the player
| mhh__ wrote:
| MrBeast's videos are total slop that I would put serious effort
| towards preventing my children watching if I had some but reading
| this it's immediately obvious why he's successful.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Some dramatic takes in this thread. Is watching a mr Beast video
| really that much worse than watching Friends or Spongebob or Game
| of Thrones?
| kurisufag wrote:
| never saw GoT, but I wouldn't think so. you put an episode on
| and all of a sudden half an hour has passed.
|
| all these things are just convenient timeskip tools.
| dcchambers wrote:
| At least your two examples try to tell a story. They have some
| artistic integrity.
|
| Mr. Beast has one goal: Eyes on content. For a long as
| possible. There is no artistic vision - every decision is made
| in the name of profit, attention, and addiction.
| shalmanese wrote:
| This, fr, is a better explication of "founder mode" than anything
| pg & co have put out about it so far.
| alphazard wrote:
| The bit about A, B, and C players is good.
|
| I had been thinking about this as learning ability (fluid
| intelligence) and institutional knowledge both following a power
| law distribution. Mr. Beast refers to A and B players as being
| sufficiently high in learning ability and only differing in their
| position in the institutional knowledge distribution.
|
| Packaging this effect into a 3 category model definitely makes it
| easier to operationalize. The severance part is important too,
| since there would be hesitancy to terminate even obvious "C
| players".
| trhway wrote:
| Dependencies and critical components - so much of software
| development fails because these aren't understood and managed
| accordingly.
| dcchambers wrote:
| The poor grammar drives me crazy. I get that I am not the target
| employee, but if I walked in to a job and was handed that on my
| first day I'd walk right out based on presentation alone.
| simonw wrote:
| It is at least self-aware on that front: the first page says
| "Sorry in advance for all the run on sentences and grammar
| issues, I'm a youtuber not an author haha."
| dcchambers wrote:
| That shows a total lack of self respect in my opinion. You
| don't have to be an author to put even the tiniest effort
| into your writing in a professional letter like that.
| tpmoney wrote:
| Modern culture is very big on self deprecation and not
| having respect for the tiny details. If you don't hold
| yourself to standards, you can avoid people dragging you
| when you fail to live up to them. Better to say "I'm not an
| author ha ha" and have writing full of flaws, knowing the
| only people that are going to give you grief about it are
| people that "take it too seriously", then to try and
| present a well edited and highly professional piece of text
| and have a mistake missed in editing become the focal point
| of a bunch of pedants who want to tear you down for being
| high and mighty. It's a balancing act to be sure, but
| that's the current side of the spectrum the culture trends
| are on.
| latexr wrote:
| He's also rich and could easily afford a one-time editor.
| Heck, I'm sure one of the devoted employees would offer to
| improve it for free.
| guywithahat wrote:
| One thing I find interesting is that y combinator content (like
| Michael and Dalton videos) don't talk much about team intensity
| and culture aside from cliche terms, but successful teams obsess
| over it. I mean he's literally saying he'll give you $1000 to
| study the handbook, and the handbook says average employees
| should be fired immediately (in all caps). I've never heard
| something like that come from y combinatory, but I've seen other
| successful teams do similar things
| victor106 wrote:
| this is interesting.
|
| what are some resources that you can learn on how to create viral
| titles on existing content?
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| One of the key details missing from the analysis being done in
| this thread is that Jimmy was iterating and figuring out how to
| optimize every part of his content for years before he really
| blew up in popularity. Having a loop where you keep publishing
| content and analyzing all aspects of it is the ultimate key to
| success, given enough time and resources.
|
| As I understand it, MrBeast helped fund the creation of ViewStats
| [0] in order to gather more data on thumbnails and channel /
| video performance over time. Then this knowledge is applied to
| their own content in order to make it even more successful. At
| this point there's probably multiple people who specialize just
| in thumbnail optimization.
|
| Another key detail about MrBeast production is that they target a
| global audience, so they hire famous voice actors of every major
| language to do their voice-overs. A few years before YouTube
| supported multiple audio tracks, they had different channels for
| various languages and regions. Now it's just a drop-down in the
| video settings. Many products fail to take internationalization
| and localization seriously, so their products are unable to
| penetrate non-western markets.
|
| Speaking of international reach, I saw in an interview a few
| years back that MrBeast was trying to expand to the Chinese
| market, but none of his public interviews since then have
| discussed how he's doing there. This goes a bit against the
| extreme focus on YouTube as his primary platform. A quick search
| on bilibili (which I believe is the Chinese equivalent of
| YouTube), shows his latest video hitting 1.6 million views and 8k
| comments, which isn't bad but it doesn't really compare to the
| amount of attention that he gets on YouTube. It seems like even
| the most skilled content creators in the West still struggle to
| break into the Chinese market.
|
| [0] https://www.viewstats.com/
| jesprenj wrote:
| How do they get $1 million+ from a single video? AdSense or
| sponsors?
| shalmanese wrote:
| One distressing trend I've noticed becoming ubiquitous on HN is
| that any writing that is confronting to a consensus worldview
| becomes flooded with highly upvoted comments that are, in
| essence, excuses for why it's not necessary in this instance to
| re-examine your priors.
|
| He's making low value content/the culture of the company is
| horrible/he's a fraud/it's more luck than skill. The actual
| critiques are personalized to the content and, to one extent or
| another, valid, but the _social purpose_ of the critiques is
| universal which is that I felt uncomfortable that reading this
| might mean I have to re-evaluate my worldview and I 'm going to
| dive into the comment section and upvote all the people telling
| me actually, I don't have to do that.
|
| I actually spent over an hour writing 750+ words of my takeaways
| reading this document and shared it privately with a few founder
| friends of mine and I briefly considered also posting to share
| with the community but I took a look at the comments and took a
| look at what I wrote and decided I didn't have the energy to face
| the endless onslaught of nitpicks and misunderstandings that are
| driven, at the end of the day, not by a genuine intellectual
| desire to reach an understanding, but by the need to prove
| emotionally that others are not taking this seriously so I don't
| have to either.
|
| All I can do is be vague and say I think this was an enormously
| valuable piece of writing that is worth engaging seriously for
| what it is as it might change your worldview in several important
| ways.
|
| But also my larger meta-point is that there's a now near
| ubiquitous "sour grapes" attitude that's pervaded HN that makes
| it an extremely unpleasant place to hold a conversation and
| people reading should be aware of this systematic bias when
| reading comments here.
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