- 11 hours ago
My Next Guest Needs No Introduction - Season 6 Episode 2 -
MrBeast
MrBeast
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00:00One of the many things enviable me having been in a similar arena myself yeah you'll look back on
00:08this one day and realize geez I had the greatest job in the world thank you I hope so yeah except
00:13maybe for today no today's one of the fun days I'm not like jumping off a building or anything
00:18I'm just showing them around it's fun come check this out have you ever seen a million dollars in
00:22cash this is crazy stuff we do big videos we had to build the largest soundstage in North America
00:27it has that new warehouse smell we get 200 million views of video and we get views all around the
00:32globe all these cameras here rolling 24 7 you're starting your own country aren't you I would love
00:37to own a country that sounds fun oh this is scaring me Jimmy you gotta promise me always always use
00:43everything here for good never for evil this whole episode has been convincing David that I'm not evil
00:57oh my god thank you folks okay please thank you ah that's very nice thank you ladies gentlemen I am
01:12Dave Letterman former TV celebrity what a what a wonderful night in Greenville am I right about
01:18that folks or is it Greenville is it Greenville or Greenville huh Greenville by the way this is quite
01:28a night for me because I I feel like I'm visiting a world about which I knew very little this is a big
01:34thrill I'm very excited about it and for me this is going to be an educational experience and I hope you
01:39folks feel the same way I'm thrilled to meet our next guest tonight he is from Greenville
01:44in the world of the internet no one even comes close he has over 400 million subscribers on YouTube
01:53he has donated huge amounts of money to various good causes he's here tonight famous as Mr. Beast
02:00please welcome Jimmy Donaldson how's it going everybody thank you for having me nice to see you
02:12likewise no problem is this me yeah it is okay how's it going everybody oh gosh this is gonna be fun
02:21you know this is our first time ever meeting so this is gonna be interesting yeah I and I like it that
02:28way I'm so excited and so full of enthusiasm about this event and I didn't want to ruin that by meeting
02:34you yesterday for dinner or this morning for breakfast not that you invited me but still yeah
02:40please have a seat you're from Greenville I am well uh this isn't where I was born but I moved here
02:48when I was whatever eight or nine tell us about yourself as a kid uh not the easiest to work with uh why
02:54why not I well I just for whatever reason when I was turned 11 I really fell in love with making
03:00videos and now how did that begin what did you see that caused that uh truthfully they're one of my
03:07favorite creators when I was 11 posted a video about how he's doing YouTube full-time and like 11 year
03:12old me was like this is his job now that really just made me go all in because when I realized you
03:17could do that for a living I was just like I don't want to do anything else I can just make videos and
03:21like take care of my mom and and you know provide and yeah and the thought that you could make money
03:27to take care of your mom yeah I mean it's not she we made enough money it's not like we were crippling
03:33poor but yeah at the time I think she was working two jobs and you know there are definitely trade-offs
03:37like I wanted a computer to be able to make videos and we couldn't afford it and certain things like
03:41that but it's not like it was horrible it's just probably middle class and how soon then did you
03:47start making money where you were able to realize that this might actually take take place many many
03:52years and that's that's the thing is yeah I had no idea like I didn't have any mentors to teach me
03:56how to edit how to hold a camera how to upload videos so it was a long brutal process of just
04:02self-training and um yeah it's I mean like I uploaded videos from 11 12 13 14 15 so we're talking about
04:09four years straight no one watched them you know and you know at the time I thought it was making great
04:13content slowly transitioning away from you know uh gameplay to IRL stuff so just bear with me it's
04:19going to be a little awkward at first and take some stutter um yeah that takes some time to get used to
04:25but uh
04:29I'm gonna try I don't know that's the video did you do other kids stuff did you play little league
04:33did you play basketball you were in school obviously I played a lot of baseball growing up in sports
04:39but the the problem is around 15 I got Crohn's disease that's an intestinal disorder yeah what is
04:44that your uh immune system starts attacking your own body so like your digestive tract gets inflamed
04:51because it thinks your own track is is somehow attacking you it's an autoimmune disease even I
04:55don't fully understand it I've been explained it at least a thousand times and are you on medication
05:00yes yeah so I started taking medication for it but so at that point though I lost like whatever it was
05:05like 70 pounds and so that was goodbye to sports in school yeah exactly so then I was like all right
05:09this sports thing so it was like 50 percent YouTube 50 sports and then I just went all in on YouTube
05:14around 15. um and now your mother works here correct she does yeah well this is a tremendous story yeah
05:20well she doesn't have to work here she just likes to well I know but you got plenty of money now
05:26and the fact that you were 11 hoping to raise money to help mom and then today now she's working
05:32yeah there's there was one time I think when I was like 19 so you uh you do sponsorships on YouTube
05:38videos and uh um just trying to make sure he understands what I'm saying you know like on your
05:46show you know how you promote products yeah we do the same thing in our world right um I'm just teasing
05:51but um one time we got offered my mom's yearly salary to just promote something in a video and that's when
05:58I think it really hit for my mom because like I showed her this uh brand deal we got she's like
06:03that's my yearly pay in this in like a week and I was like yeah and then that's around when I was
06:08like you should probably quit your job and just help me by the way give us an idea where the heck we are
06:14and what has gone on in here yeah well you guys are in the middle of uh one of our studios uh
06:20was this the first one uh no so uh the first one we first started I just got a little office space
06:26probably like a little bigger than this platform we're on that was like 500 a month and then I
06:31rented like a fire department shut down so they had like this place where they kept the fire trucks and
06:35then there's no studios here in Greenville it's not like California or New York so one thing we
06:40have a lot of here are churches so uh then I bought a church and just you know can you tell me what you
06:45had to pay for the church um there we had a price whatever it was probably like 1.1 million and we
06:51were at like the final finish line and then he was uh the person negotiating was like you know
06:56I feel moved by God not to sell you this and I was like what if I add another 100 grand he's like okay
07:03so then I got it wow yeah that was um 100 grand that's what gets God on board um apparently
07:10and then we outgrew that and then we got this building and then the building over there is one
07:13of the largest sound stages in North America good heavens uh what sort of programming came out of this
07:19building oh a lot we put a million dollars or something in here and then a bear and as much
07:24money as a guy grabbed out he got a key 50 grand is currently being eaten by the bear now I know where
07:30you get a million bucks where do you get a bear uh what was it a black bear grizzly you think grizzly
07:35bear yeah it's super trained since birth it's never had an accident so I actually have a video of me
07:40putting a donut in my mouth and then it eating the donut I didn't die sad news from Greenville
07:45you're talking about the town and I would guess you have a certain percentage of the town that you
07:50do employ making youtube videos yeah think about that 20 years ago that sentence wouldn't mean
07:57anything to anybody would it youtube's 20th anniversary I was just at it was like five days ago but you
08:02know for the first five ten years no one took it seriously and there wasn't really any way to make
08:06money uh you know uh years and years ago I met one of the guys who founded uh twitter and and I said
08:12well describe what that thing is and he said well it's the nervous system for the world yeah and I
08:19don't know I thought that made pretty good sense now I I think there are variations of that these days
08:25but that's what he was calling it then yeah what is youtube oh boy um well the thing is over two
08:31billion people use it so it's like for some people it's just a place when you're eating dinner that you
08:36just watch funny videos for other people it's where they source their news um for other people it's you
08:41know it's how they stay up to date on politics so it's like so massive at this point that it means
08:45different things for everyone and it's so global everyone on every country uses it um so I mean it's
08:50kind of everything anything you want to consume on a tv it's youtube but you understand for people of my
08:55age yeah it's all a little you feel like somebody's sneaking up on you like whoa what was that yeah
09:00well that's youtube okay I'll get used to it yeah well the the thing is that's that's interesting is
09:05almost anything you access the internet on points towards youtube so it's kind of just turned into
09:10obviously when you're my age it was television but since there's just been so much access and
09:15obviously you don't need a subscription it's free everyone's just you know transitioned over you don't
09:20watch television do you no okay I understand you have a person uh tied up losing weight and well he's
09:28not tied up well but yes right over there in the field I uh I put a giant circle and then I put a guy
09:36inside of it and I said if you lost 100 pounds before you leave the circle I'll give you 400 000
09:39dollars and so he's been in that circle for 180 days now this is illegal this is completely illegal
09:46well he can leave whenever yeah how long has he been over there 180 days I'll get him out okay
09:57this is the gym in the middle of a giant red circle in the middle of a giant red circle you don't have to
10:04yell I like that though okay uh whoever's that in this we'll get we'll give you a drone shot where you
10:08can show a top down of the circle we'll give you a drone shot so you can get the top down of the
10:12circle that's for your editor not for the product okay so this is the control room so these are all
10:21the cameras monitoring match we have all these cameras here rolling 24 7. she's watching in real
10:27time and then she's taking notes here that our editors can reference so you're chronicling everything
10:31that the cameras are recording oh my goodness let's go say hi whoa whoa
10:40come say hi this is like a four seasons in here yeah it's nice this is fantastic hi how are you hi
10:47i'm dave dave nice to meet you pronounce your name for us majd smell it m-a-j-d he calls you mad
10:53there's a d in it there's a d in it oh why am i just finding that no magic is fine 180 days when
10:58do you think this is all going to be done for you today might be the day now how will you take care
11:02of yourself when you if you achieve the goal hopefully when i achieve the goal yeah continue
11:07to do the same exact thing so you isolate yourself at home no i'm not isolating myself at home that's
11:12good but no nutrition physical activity sleep all the habits that i've built just taking them with me
11:17it's prioritize my health and who defined the menu for you that's something you did or you want to show
11:22them your kitchen so yeah so i have i have a grocery store so anything anything that i want right i could
11:28request here we are at the piggly wiggly for god's sake we refill this every other day for him
11:32with anything he can want to live a happy and healthy life and you feel that this experience has
11:36been nothing but positive for you this is a blessing yeah here how about this ask them again
11:40i'll leave so you can answer honestly yeah it's not because jimmy's here i i love i love that he
11:45thinks that but it's not let me talk for a second of course keep your voice down because i know
11:49i know they're listening blink once unless you're too weak to blink okay david david david check this
11:58out this is a replication of the 99 and a half pounds that match has lost whoa this is a realization
12:03moment i mean this is literally another human being he was bad look at this yeah i can barely lift this
12:09exactly and that was on you that was on yeah and i couldn't believe it when they brought it in i
12:13couldn't believe that this was on me again this is one of those things where you see this and you
12:17realize oh yeah you you got a hold of something here buddy yeah well mad god great pleasure meeting
12:22you know i've heard a lot about you and i thought well this is god awful but now like so many other
12:28things here i feel completely different and confident that this is a good thing this is the
12:32theme of his visit he thinks i'm evil he's not he might isn't he is no i'm not this whole episode
12:38has been convincing david that i'm not evil he's yes jimmy is not evil seems like a decent man
12:44thank you with a good heart i got a decent man i keep trying to make comparisons between your career
12:52in communication and my career and communication and there's very little overlap if if there was no
12:59internet and you had the creativity and the energy and the drive that you had when you were 11 without
13:06an internet where would you have taken that i don't think there would have been an avenue because
13:11obviously you would have to go to network television or something exactly yeah and they'd be like you're
13:1511 go away that's yeah and or if they were that kind about it yeah no they don't want to hear anything
13:20from somebody who's 11 or has a better idea yeah so all of that i mean it's a certain it's a right
13:26place right time kind of thing 100 well also a lot of what i do what gabs the world is such weird stuff
13:33like burying myself alive for a week or other stuff like that that network television probably would be like
13:38yeah we're good so it's like a big opportunity for us is that there are no gatekeepers there's no one
13:43i have to go convince to let me do things i can just do whatever yep and and now uh because of things
13:49like you and youtube network television is is struggling where it used to be supreme yeah in
13:54the world of communication uh tv stations ever tell you you couldn't do things you wanted to do
13:58uh no oh really yeah we are different i've been very lucky in my life i worked at a local station in
14:11indianapolis indiana wlwi and i got to do everything i wanted to do and i think you'll see that once
14:16again we've fallen to the prey of political dirty dealings and right now you can see what i'm talking
14:21about the higher-ups have removed the border between indiana and ohio making it one giant state
14:27personally i'm against it so i was really really never want to like blow up a car or something
14:32and they're like yeah uh the closest we came to that one night i had been in florida and on the
14:36way home bought a bunch of fireworks in one of the carolinas in those days tv would sign off around two
14:42in the morning and we monkeyed we built a replica of the tv station and we loaded it with fireworks
14:48and so while i was reading the thank you this concludes our broadcasting day and then we play the
14:54national anthem and then we triggered the fireworks and blew up the station
15:01for now this is dave letterman wishing you a pleasant good night look at you i'm proud of
15:06you thank you we did the same thing we just put a thousand fireworks in a car and saw if it would blow
15:11up so we're the same yeah we are just different generation like blood brothers thank you
15:27you know i'll tell you what that's fascinating to me and there was another point that we have something
15:32else in go in terms of burying people alive yeah you've buried people alive as well just hear me out
15:39jimmy i want to be buried alive okay up to my knees no we we do full body i know i don't want that oh
15:47really it would kill me look at me i can't sustain well it's in a coffin you can use the same one i
15:52used we've done you know i saw that video and i found that disturbing oh that was scary this is
15:59gotta be terrifying this is pretty much most people's worst fear oh my god that dirt is terrifying
16:06brace yourself drop the payload oh god i feel like i need to hold the roof
16:14oh my roof is shaking what upset me about it was your buddies your goon squad friends friends they're
16:22they're up there like tailgating yeah like it's a hoot like it's a party what the heck are you doing
16:29right now these vibrations are kind of hurting my head here i'm freaking out your buddies should be up
16:36there worried silly calling 911 or something or calling your mother for god's sake yeah don't tell
16:42my mom when i do those videos she'd freak out we try to keep you know i tell her when i finish
16:46i can see sunlight well the thing is you want humor in it so if it was just me laying down
16:51it's like you know it's crazy and still cool but if it's me laying down then every day you know they're
16:56fucking with me while i'm down there it makes it way more interesting at some point it was explained to
17:00me that uh you cracked the code to uh youtube viewing yeah is it like a mathematic code yeah it is
17:08mathematics well no so basically i've studied virality so much that i just know that someone literally
17:13being buried alive is way more clickable and interesting because of the tangible danger uh
17:19yeah exactly the perception of there's some danger plus it's easier to understand and it's just
17:23better so i was always curious like why does one piece of content get 100 views and other pieces of
17:27content get 100 million and so you start studying videos and we would study at the start i'd do it
17:32manually you said we who's who's we here um back in the day just a couple of my friends uh you're in
17:37school at this point no this is right after i dropped out of college dropped out of college how many
17:41years you get uh well i made it two weeks yeah i hope my mom's not here she doesn't like these
17:49stories but you really should think about continuing your education uh well i think we're fine now
17:55uh i think it's good for some people other people like for me i just can't stand sitting in a classroom
18:00and watching a teacher read out the book it's the most boring thing i've ever done in my life like
18:04i would rather be living in a box than do that so and that's just how i felt the problem is i didn't i
18:09wasn't making enough money to move out so and my mom was like you know if you're going to live in
18:13my house you're going to what's your mother's name sue sue but to me i just call her mom obviously and
18:18so she was just uh pretty adamant on it because she like you didn't grow up with youtube so she
18:24didn't understand this like oh my son in this tiny town is going to be like famous like this doesn't
18:28make any sense so i went for two weeks and i was i just couldn't do it so then i just would leave the
18:33house and i'd go work on videos in my car let's go back to the code now so tell me more about the code and
18:37what what you came up with and is that equation universal uh yeah so basically when i was studying
18:42why certain videos do better than others i just uh i started just studying hundreds of videos and
18:47then thousands and we started collecting more and more videos and what they all kept showing is like
18:52the more satisfied the viewer is the more likely a video is to be promoted there is no like gaming the
18:56algorithm or like math it's essentially just like videos that people click on and watch get promoted
19:03videos that people don't click on or don't watch like fully don't get promoted okay so wherein is the
19:07code what have you what have you learned about essentially is for a video to do really well
19:10on youtube you just have to make videos people want to watch and so that is more studying like
19:16human psychology and like you know what do people find interesting especially like we get 200 million
19:21views of video and we get views all around the globe so for us we have to make content that's not
19:25based on culture because the second you tie a culture into it it's only specific to that country
19:30it has to be things that are very intrinsic like everyone no matter where they are in the world wants to
19:34feel loved right so if you do a video and like the theme of a bitter segment is about being loved
19:38that's something that would apply to everyone in the world whereas if i made a piece of content and
19:43the bit was about trump right that would appeal only to americans which would then you know the rest of
19:47the world wouldn't care so it's just like making content that's intrinsic to humans don't have cultural
19:52references and someone whether they're in japan you know china india or america it would be interesting to
19:57them so the the secret to the code is uh humanity humanity and great content we have many many many
20:04things in common with our fellow humans yes exactly oh i have a a youtube channel as well i don't believe
20:10that all right at least you don't run it you're calling me a liar oh no i don't run it okay uh but
20:17we hear all kinds of things shorter is better and then you hear no longer is better what what should
20:21we be posting what kind of stuff the truth is whatever your audience wants so well i don't i don't know
20:26that there's an audience yeah so you you uh just type in youtube.com analytics and then it'll pull
20:30up the analytics yeah and then and then it'll show you retention charts of where people click off
20:36i don't i don't because i would find that it would hurt me to see people all right go go to your team
20:41and be like team retention chart flat good retention chart dip means they click off bad
20:47do politics ever play a part in your videos no i like i just don't think that's really the place
20:52for it especially because a lot of our viewers are teens and so it just doesn't really make sense and
20:56it's also just not something i'm interested in does each one have to be bigger than the previous one
21:01they don't have to be bigger but ideally they are the thing is there's there's different levers you
21:05can pull right one video you can give away more money i can spend more time you can build better
21:10sets you could have better lighting better camera there's all different ways so just in general they
21:14need to improve but it's not like it's one variable there's like a hundred variables that you can pull
21:18on a big part of it is have you ever heard of the purple cow effect
21:21okay i i don't know why i even ask uh basically if you're driving down the road and you just see a
21:27cow you're not gonna care you'll never think of it again who cares you've seen it a thousand times
21:31but if you're driving down the road you see a purple cow you'll think about it you'll probably
21:34think about the next day like why the fuck is that cow purple it'll just like stick in your brain a
21:38little more that's the purple cow effect and it's the same way with spectacles and youtube videos
21:42like the more original and out there the video is the more you're like oh i gotta see that that's that's
21:47crazy right like burying yourself alive or lighting the world's largest firework like
21:51that like in a sea of normal video normal video purple cow spectacle this video is completely
21:56different than the median of what you see that the more of that effect you get the more people
22:00gotta watch if that makes sense and so i'm going to take you to a prison i built i got a real cop
22:05i know it's a real cop yeah they're in there and i i don't know no no it's cool it's really cool you'll
22:12like it let me ask you something honestly because i feel like you and i are kindred souls okay
22:19something sinister happening here like human sacrifices i didn't say that well here get in
22:24i'll show you around wait a minute let's wait a minute no we'll get into it well what's all this
22:28over yeah i'm going to show you i'm driving you want to drive please uh you got to turn it on it's
22:34you just you do that okay here we go we'll see you guys at the prison set how old are you uh 27.
22:4127. you're starting your own country aren't you i would love to own a country that sounds fun oh
22:46this is scaring me jimmy oh don't worry they will all make sense soon state prison next exit oh my god
22:57so you could if you wanted to have your people arrest me and put me in the prison oh yeah of
23:02course i mean that's a real uh functioning prison that we built like i don't feel safe here jimmy you
23:08got to promise me looking around here always always use everything here for good never for
23:14evil right in here yeah and then just slam into the gate
23:21okay you got a nice wide shot of the prison
23:25so inside this prison is a cop a thousand inmates not a thousand there only two two this time one is a
23:33cop cop and then the other is an inmate inmate federal penitentiary exactly ponzi scheme if they
23:39live in here for 100 days i will give them four hundred thousand dollars so follow me inside all
23:42right here we go if anything happens you know who to call all right
23:50how's it going boys how are you now who's who who you're the cop and and you're the convict
23:56and i notice you seem to be friendly with this guy this is stockholm syndrome stuff
24:01i've been in here less than a half an hour and i want out yeah i knew he was going to say that
24:05even though he's having a great time when you were a policeman did you ever imagine being on the
24:10inside never never does this change your attitude about prisons and prison reforms and protecting the
24:17law yeah actually it does in the sense that i think that every police officer whether in the academy or
24:23as a rookie should experience what it's like to be in the prison to know what prisoners go through and
24:28also to be a little bit more proactive and more interactive with the people on the street to
24:32try to prevent them from going in so when this video is put up and people will see it young people
24:37in particular you think it will be an excellent deterrent based on the things that i tell them i hope so
24:42yeah good luck to both of you whoa man it's it's creepy it's so creepy jimmy creepy
24:49what it is so anything you conjure happens yeah you know what i'm frustrated by i'll get an idea
25:00that i really think is fantastic and then people will talk me out of it does that ever happen to
25:04you no if i think it's good i just go i don't care let's do it and have you ever been proven
25:09wrong in a humiliating fashion yeah i think there's a video back in the day where we saw like
25:1650 000 magnets could catch a cannonball midair and everyone told me that was stupid
25:21it did not stop it yeah it didn't touch the cannonball so maybe if i throw it slower it will
25:27i was like yeah you guys are right i was stupid because physics would have just told me it wouldn't
25:31have worked but i i like to find out yeah but magnets and steel do work maybe we run it back on
25:36your show but with a million magnets all right where do you hey producer can we get a green light on that
25:42you're talking about things that cost a lot of money yeah you have a global company one of the
25:49hallways upstairs the people from two dozen countries yes uh with little head shots like
25:55hungary like japan on and on and on what what do those pictures rep and who are those people what
26:02do they represent we dub our videos in uh you know every language on earth or at least all the big ones
26:06and so we those are our voice actors so have you ever heard of the show naruto i don't know what
26:11you're saying yeah it's fine i knew it's one of the biggest animes in japan oh yeah i heard of it
26:15oh okay oh really no but anyways it's a really big show so the voice actor of the main character
26:21on this animation is also my japanese voice actor in all these languages where we translate our videos
26:35we hire really famous voice actors to do my voice so then people in the culture like get excited about
26:40it's a big deal it's like if you spoke spanish and then you were dubbing your show for an english
26:47audience in america and you had the rock voice you people would be way more interested because
26:50like oh the rock's doing his voice over as opposed to if you just grabbed a normal voice actor that was
26:55a big thing for us and why we were able to get so big is um you know up until three years ago we didn't
26:59do dubs but now we're in hindi we're in spanish we're in um portuguese i mean every language we're in
27:05beast games our show we did 40 different languages you know i worry about this it just seems like you're
27:09bleeding money yeah can you afford all of that uh well on the studio side uh yeah we do lose a lot
27:16of money every year but that's why you're kidding me uh yeah you're losing money every year uh on the
27:22studio side which is why we do things like we sell chocolate and we do other businesses to help
27:26subsidize it but yeah the chocolate makes more money than the tv or the youtube production oh yeah i mean
27:31anything does because it didn't make money last year the studio wow i had no idea yeah well we're spending
27:36you know five or six million dollars on some youtube videos and they definitely don't make that
27:40kind of money no kidding yeah so i thought that that was the engine that drove the empire well it
27:45is from the view perspective right because you put five or six million dollars in a youtube video
27:50gets 200 million views and that allows us to sell more chocolate or do other things that those make
27:54money and funnel back in it's like television ad space costs somebody money yes sir and so they buy
28:01the ad space from you or from youtube uh depends so you had the commercial breaks on your show those
28:08are like youtube pre-roll ads that youtube sells but did you ever do product placement or brand deals
28:12on your show no no okay um well we do and so that we sell on our own yeah now i understand i know a
28:18little bit about product placement it's crazy lucrative is that correct well yeah of course obviously
28:24because basically every video we're making is getting like similar amount of unique viewership to the
28:27super bowl so it's like you know you can it's like in the last 90 days uh 795 million different
28:34humans watched a mr beast video on the main channel so like if you wanted a product to be known by as
28:38many humans on the planet as possible i i can't think of a different way you could get as many eyeballs
28:43on something than through our videos so you're nudging up close to a billion viewers in that example
28:48yeah in the last billion viewers yeah better way of putting that it that really helps people
28:52understand is around 10 of people on the planet have watched one of our videos in the last 90 days
28:5711 years old trying trying to figure out a way to make money to support you and your mother
29:01yeah do you think about that it seems like it's not humanly possible no it's it's definitely crazy
29:07an even crazier way to put it is less than 10 years ago i was in high school i had to raise my hand to
29:11go use the bathroom you know and now i have 400 employees it's just remarkable at that scale somebody
29:17says we need 1200 cameras well we don't have well fine figure it out figure it out wow most people just say
29:22well that's not possible but it technically anything's possible it just costs a lot right
29:28like that's not possible well is it five million dollars is it 20 million dollars oh you don't know
29:32so you just said it's not possible without doing the research like go do the research and usually
29:36you'll find after you do the research things are a lot more possible than you think
29:40you ever get so lousy in a mood that you start screaming at people and firing them on the set
29:44no i've never fired have you ever thrown a fit anywhere i mean obviously we all get frustrated
29:48have you like i'm sure you've done i am mr fit yeah uh i can't tell you seem nice but for me i've
29:54never fired anyone on the spot you shouldn't have to grill people constantly you shouldn't like great
29:58people just do great things we do big videos but space surprisingly is a huge bottleneck for us so
30:05we had to basically build the largest soundstage in north america alongside our other studio so we could
30:10actually be working on multiple videos at once you know what this is like you ever been to akron ohio
30:14no they have blimp hangers where the goodyear blimps are this is the size of a blimp hanger yeah
30:19this thing's massive it has that new warehouse smell it does that's a new warehouse yeah and that's
30:25soundproofing too hey once there's some more sets it'll absorb that that's a little annoying hey can't
30:32stop okay all right the other warehouse doesn't have an echo let's go there we'll talk there thanks jimmy
30:37now we're coming into the other studio this is where we chop the thing yeah your stage was right
30:47over there oh my god we just redesign it so you've got all of your camera gear here yes sir this is
30:52where we store it whoa okay check that out these are little gopros we broke the world record for most
30:59cameras recording at the same time we had over a thousand of these gopros out there you know you
31:04could make a fortune shooting passport photos have you thought about that uh have you ever
31:09seen a million dollars in cash this is crazy stuff these are all these are all ones yeah
31:17has anybody ever tried to pass them it's real money yeah i don't know boys you want to say hi to
31:24david hi this is nolan hey hi nolan this is chandler hi chandler i was used to be our janitor
31:29hi i'm dave this is carl so they're gonna join us and we're gonna go do the match way in let's see
31:34if he's lost 100 pounds all right they're ready hi everyone come over here david some of the boys
31:42here and like two three of you stay over there yeah okay so i gathered all your best friends even
31:48david letterman david letterman yeah he told me he was a fan of his show so i brought him out good
31:54luck this could be the final wave reveal the results
32:00i'm about to count to a hundred thousand you don't believe me
32:30just watch this video a first big video for you is you count to a hundred thousand yes sir
32:36one two three four five six whose idea was that uh well so funny enough back to naruto the show i
32:45was telling you about i it's 700 episodes i started watching it 101 102 103 104 105 106 and i was like
32:52what's something dumb i could do while i'm watching this that i could turn into a video so this is like
32:56kind of productive 1001 1002 1003 1004 and then i was like you know if i counted to 100 000 that would
33:03probably go viral 22 851 22 852 22 853 22 854 22 855 this was all your idea yes wow and while while i was
33:11watching the show i just sat there counting uh and without breaks you go right through uh yeah i might
33:17have like a bathroom break here and there but yeah it was just grinding out it was it was miserable
33:31and then uh yeah i just filmed it it was 40 hours of counting and posted it and um that one was word
33:36of mouth because people were like wow this guy's an idiot and then you know they kept sharing it and
33:41news stations covered it and everyone's like what is this idiot doing but it was great because it got my
33:45name out there nine thousand ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine
33:53one hundred thousand
33:58what am i doing with my life you mentioned philanthropy and uh i watched a lot of your
34:03videos now what is the the number that you've produced did we cover that already videos uh across
34:08our channels we've probably made a few thousand okay so that's a lot of work and the first one i saw i
34:13thought mr beast he has to be evil because that's an evil sounding name okay mr beast yeah jimmy not
34:18evil okay mr beast evil i agree there it has some evil connotations yes but then uh i watched a hundred
34:25wells in africa oh crap one down 99 more wells in africa to go you're gonna love this video i mean it froze me in
34:37my chair i thought holy crap this is art this is grand this is thank you this is motivational literally
34:44the entire neighborhood and village around this school can use this well this thing can basically
34:49pump non-stop for 30 years a hundred wells in africa now did you get a lot of response to that oh yeah
34:55yeah i mean so we that video got 200 million views every video we do you know there's gonna be one or two
35:01percent people who have something to say about it like you know a youtuber shouldn't be doing this or
35:05whatever everyone thought it was a good idea but so when i do good a lot of people are like why don't
35:09governments do this you shouldn't be doing it and i'm like you get criticized for philanthropy is
35:14that correct yes yes but i think that comes with the gesture because i know people they're bono for
35:21example he is if there's a cause he can't get there fast enough and everybody says well you're just
35:27doing that to call attention to yourself and he says if that's what you think fine but i am helping
35:32people exactly is that the the deal with you well for us it's just uh yeah people think we're trying
35:37to use it for views or whatnot when you know we can make anything go viral the the thing for me is
35:42like we i know a lot of people watch our videos and i and i know a lot of younger people do so i want to
35:46do things that you know inspire them to do good and you know like uh when we do these philanthropic
35:52things a lot of kids see that and go i want to go do volunteer work i want to have a net positive impact
35:56instead of you know being someone they look up to who's like promoting drugs and alcohol or whatever it's like
36:00being a role model for younger people to like hey doing good is cool and so that's a big proponent
36:04behind it how many different countries in africa did you visit i think it's like five or six five
36:09or six so the how do you the paperwork i mean there's got to be a guinness award for the paperwork
36:15that you have to sign up for well what you're saying here is exactly why our videos do so well
36:20because it's like it was a very very hard task like that was a video we worked on for over a year
36:25to like get with charities to plan like because a lot of wells that are dug are like 50 100 feet but
36:30then it doesn't have much of a reserve and they kind of go obsolete after a couple years whereas
36:34we wanted these wells to be functional 20 yeah 30 years and there's there's more obstacles than just
36:38digging a well a lot of it's political a lot of it's topographic obstacles so it's an amazing
36:44accomplishment now yeah now do you pay people who are over there digging wells to accomplish this
36:50is that how it works obviously my production team isn't the experts in the world so we'll try to find
36:54who are the most knowledgeable on it and so some of them will work with the charity give them the money
36:57others you know will work with the local team and put them in but the the goal was to get as much
37:02impact as possible because you can dig a well in a community that you know whatever has to walk like
37:07five minutes to get clean water or you could dig a well in a different community like one we went to
37:11we landed in zambia drove like four hours into the middle of nowhere like this community village is like
37:17you know remote has no connection to the outside world and the kids there every morning they have to
37:21walk for an hour with buckets they fill the buckets up of water in a river and i'm just watching them and it's
37:27not like it's kind of brown water it was very disgusting looking and i was like super curious
37:32and i walk upstream the river and i literally see cows like i mean to be frank like pooping in the
37:36river and like and downstream these kids are just collecting water and they have to walk an hour back
37:40and they don't have electricity or any real way to heat and clean the water and they're sick and it's
37:44just like it's crazy and so that's one of the hundred wells we built we built it there and like and then
37:49will these be sustained now do you do you maintain them you yourself yeah and so we set aside some money to
37:55do routine check-ins every couple years and make sure they're still working and provide repairs if
37:58they need them and so in that case it was pretty game changing because then post well you know that's
38:04two hours a day the kids don't have to walk and now their sanitation is way better their health is way
38:08better everything was just completely transformed it changes every if you don't have clean water like
38:12you can't clean your hands you can't brush your teeth effectively it literally changes every aspect of
38:16your life you grow taller you're healthier you get sick less you can work more and then when you factor in the
38:20two hours of walking hour there and back and so we did 10 and i was like the impact's crazy so that's
38:24why we ended up doing 100. just give me the number for 100 for that project yes to to end up on youtube
38:31what did that cost that video so it was probably around three million in building the wells and then
38:36probably a million and a half in our employee cost so four and a half million is anybody else doing
38:40things like this no not at that scale or at least not on youtube i mean i'm sure like bill gates or
38:45people who are giving away billions of dollars are but uh in terms of what on our social media and
38:50things like that not even close yeah so now this is interesting uh you're some kind of creative
38:56genius excuse me uh and you're socially awkward or maybe that's my oh i thought this interview was
39:03going well i'm sorry is that the vibe you guys are getting i thought it was pretty good i didn't i'm
39:09sorry i didn't think i said that loud no no i i i am very awkward so uh well we can agree on that now
39:17listen where does the philanthropic part of this come does it comes because somebody says hey jimmy
39:25you have so much money let's start doing good things or did it grow parallel to the i want to
39:31develop youtube content i mean i could come up with some story about how you know this is what i exist on
39:37this planet for or whatnot but i just think i have a lot of influence and i should just use it for
39:41good thanks for that because it it it inspired me and i thought there ought to be something i can do
39:46and i will find small things that i can do and and by the way small things just as good as big things
39:51really thank you so now let's talk about this i'm again i'm stunned because coming into this i thought
39:57you were making all your money on the youtube deals yeah uh and then now i'm under the impression
40:02that this uh the feastables it really is the source of revenue yeah that pulls the rest of the
40:08company we'll sell a couple hundred million in chocolate this year whoa yeah uh and why chocolate
40:14how chocolate what about this all right now are you putting somebody out of business is hershey's now
40:18packing up uh well they do 12 billion a year in revenue so you know maybe we're just chipping away
40:24a little bit would be 12 billion in hershey's and these sell at what billion did you say uh no billion
40:28just come 100 million right now hopefully a few billion in the future but how it really started
40:32was i thought it'd be cool to recreate willie wonka's chocolate factory wow yo welcome to my
40:40wonderful creation and so we built willie wonka's chocolate factory i did that because i just thought
40:44it'd be really cool and now i have this chocolate company and people were really liking it and i was
40:48like oh i guess i have a chocolate company now and then as i'm running it i'm like looking under the
40:53hood and i was like well there's a lot of unethical things that happen in chocolate companies for
40:57example this is fascinating yeah the thing is how many kids do you think are in child labor on cacao
41:01farms in west africa how would i know i i'm hoping zero yeah sadly there's over 1.5 million in child
41:08labor over there and so i started asking other chocolate companies and they all gave me the same
41:12answer which is it's just the way it is like it's just if you want to make chocolate you got to use
41:16child labor there's no way to do it without it i was like it's kind of weird so then that's where i
41:21started like uh 2023 2024 i mean i was spending probably half my time on just figuring out well
41:26how why is this a thing like there's got to be some way you can source it more ethically and
41:30basically the reason there's a lot of child labor is because farmers make less than a dollar a day
41:34over there so like farmers literally can't afford to hire grown adults so like the root cause of
41:40child labor is just poverty so for us uh fair trade which is uh a global organization they have this
41:45benchmark that called a living income reference price i'm summing it all up don't get bored but uh
41:49uh it's uh basically if a farmer took a shipping container of cacao and sold it to us for a
41:54thousand dollars but um the living income reference price says no you need to charge us eleven hundred
41:59dollars or you're gonna have to use child labor we'll pay a premium we'll go no you're undercharging
42:03us here's extra money make sure you're ethically sourcing the cow so we pay all our farmers a living
42:07income reference price all our beans are fair trade certified and then we do routine auditing um on the
42:13farms and you know to check for child labor and that kind of stuff so um it's just kind of those three
42:18things which all come back to just more money so it's it's really just a money thing um and yeah
42:23so we did that and here we are two weeks of college yes thank you and so the the goal for us is really
42:34like right now we're way smaller than all these other big chocolate companies um and they're like
42:39well if you were at our scale that wouldn't be possible or that wouldn't be profitable we have a
42:42fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders we got to be profitable so we just got to keep growing
42:46being ethical and being profitable and then eventually it's like you guys have no excuse
42:49we've achieved skill doing it ethically you should do it as well so try some of this you go for it oh
42:54gosh i mean it might be a little too sweet for you we'll see typically the older you are i don't
42:59appreciate your judgment well people people your age typically like their chocolate a little darker
43:05holy fuck is that good let's go
43:18yeah but you know as you get older you can't really take the sweetness so yeah
43:23no seriously it's it's delightful oh let's go uh so okay let's talk about you have a fiancee
43:29i do uh her name tia tia what does tia do how did you meet does she work here as well uh no not
43:37everyone in my life works here just 99 of them so we were filming a video where we stopped in south
43:44africa and uh have you ever heard of uh an influencer named logan paul yes yeah so he was there with me
43:52and then one of the days he just dragged me out and um i just bumped into tia and she was there just
43:58coincidentally yeah yeah so we ended up going to dinner and i just met her there and i was like
44:02oh that girl is very beautiful and i asked her what she did and she said she was an author and she
44:06just seemed very intelligent and i was like oh this is interesting then uh i went home i would like
44:12try to play it's cool i because i flew back to america and i i waited like two days and then i was like
44:17yo i dm'd her on twitter can you send me your book and so she sent me her next book that wasn't
44:22released yet i was like whoa that's awesome anyways you want to talk about it and then i got her on the phone
44:27changed the subject because i knew nothing about the book and then uh yeah we just hit it off
44:31wow and uh soon to be married one yes this december oh good well congratulations that's great
44:41somebody said to me i should ask you if you feel like this has been also so all-consuming that you
44:46have missed things in life i mean you do have to make a lot of sacrifices like what um i mean all
44:51throughout my teenage years i i mean i definitely was an outcast like i did not fit in like you know
44:55socially awkward it's socially awkward yes but you also obviously but you it's more like you know
45:00you don't have time to watch whatever shows are relevant or stuff so you don't fit in and you don't
45:04really get uh jokes or because i'm studying you know how to make content how to make money how to build a
45:08business whereas other people are watching south park so i like i had a teacher one time unironically
45:14asked me if i was mute because i talked so little because i didn't fit in and i think a lot of people
45:17who watch this might resonate with it is like you're kind of like uh like a a weirdo until
45:26you're successful then it's like looked at it's like oh that was genius that was work ethic but
45:29until you're successful it's not viewed as work ethic it's almost like you're an idiot almost you
45:33know to put it bluntly yeah in hindsight it looks good but when you're living those moments it's not
45:38as glorious right your mom's like you're gonna be a failure you're gonna be a homeless and everyone's
45:41like you're a freak that only talks about one thing get a personality and things like that
45:44um is there something bigger in your future that you're planning and i don't know about
45:52i mean truthfully right now i spend most of my time trying to get kids out of child labor and make
45:57content so i like don't even think about that right great the other thing that's interesting about you
46:01many things in every video i've seen you're exactly the same you're the same guy you're unflappable
46:07you're cheerful and you're encouraging don't don't throw the money it's like that and the face that
46:14you make on the thumbnail photos to get people to click because without your face they're not
46:18going to click is the same face i make when somebody wants a selfie let me let me see your face i can't
46:23come on let's see i'm not a zoo animal i'm not a zoo animal there you go all right now here's mine
46:31wow yours is actually pretty good so let's take a selfie okay come on let's do it oh gosh in front of the
46:37the crowd yeah is that your dog yeah that's my dog dutch yeah all right all right i got you i got you
46:44here we go there we go you got yourself here thank you for having me jimmy ladies and gentlemen
46:56what do you think that was great that was fun all right yeah
46:59are you ever going to bring back the talk show oh good lord no look at that we did that for 30
47:10years my you know that's longer than i've been alive i know isn't that crazy but i think about it i i
47:15could never even that was every day for 30 years you just realize you do miss things you know because
47:22you get your head singularly focused on that daily output and life goes around you you know yeah
47:30do you think i'm going to get sick of this one day no i i see this being a very positive
47:36uh step in the stairway to bigger better things let's go i don't think you'll get sick of it but
47:42you will i i think that you strike me as somebody who doesn't have a great deal of patience for the
47:49status quo it's fine and then we go on to the next and go on to the next yeah evolve it over time
47:55that's what i'm trying to say hell yeah so why don't we uh we walking i got it follow me
48:19so
48:25so
48:27so
48:29so
48:33so
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