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How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

simonwillison.net

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Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#411
I know virtually nothing about Mr Beast other than that he's massively successful due to dumb videos that apparently raise lots of ethical questions.

That's not an endeavor I'd be interested in participating in, but I did find the PDF fascinating and read all of it.

A good bit of his guide is about 1. taking responsibility for delivering what you are expected to 2. keeping the big picture in mind

Plenty of folks could benefit from that advice and the examples he provides to make it more concrete.

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#412
post #366
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that the sour grapes attitude actually comes from an understanding of the world, and how everything has been turned only into profit maximization? And that the nitpicking is merely a failure to express that understanding of the world, especially since it seems like pro-status quo commenters don't care to learn more? I think I'm one of the sour grapes commenters often, and I've very often tried to…

Right, a challenge with an artifact like this is that the writing is good. And it's a lengthy read. The early commenters almost by definition haven't read it and can only comment about their opinions on the creative output of Mr Beast As someone who has assiduously avoided watching his videos (because of this opinion), I was impressed by the document because it is incredibly practical. The advice about communication,…

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Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#413
post #387

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 t…

Hating on "nitpicking" is the funniest thing to me. It's a bold admission that one has abandoned attention to detail. Huge red flag.

Yes, correction of a detail is good and not a problem. But using that to mock the central point is a popular strategy in discourse.

In the disagreement hierarchy(https://paulgraham.com/disagree.html) this is level 4 or 5, but pretending to be level 6. Like using a bug to say that the software lacks basic value.

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#414
post #303

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 t…

So true man, the best part of this site are the positive and thoughtful folks. It's pretty easy to be negative and find flaws in things, it's more difficult and constructive to find the positive and try to learn.

There's positive thoughtfulness, critical thoughtfulness, and knee-jerk reactions of both kind as well.

At least personally I appreciate both kinds of thoughtful comments, and it's what's keeping me coming back here. Equating valid criticism with "negativity" on the other hand honestly seems pretty toxic/cultish to me.

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen a Mr. Beast video prior to reading this. I thought there was some interesting stuff in it (I have a recent professional interest in video stuff, though let me reassure everyone I don't plan to show up in any), some standard-issue "trying to keep a founding team culture going" stuff, and some stuff that read like self-gratification. I didn't write the PDF off. It's worth filing away. I'd be interested…

> I take your point, but also get why people might have viscerally negative opinions about this particular subject? I don't think it's just the fact that his videos are expensive click bait where he throws money around... it's the fact that he has some very shady, borderline illegal(maybe actually illegal?) practices. the livestream marketing the chocolate to children to win entries into giveaways that he then scrubs…

I'm sure there are management lessons to be learnt from the Mafia ;) There are other tech companies the skirt things like regulatory and other borders.

I'm not a fan of Mr. Beast but it's quite a phenomena and human nature being something universal I'm sure there are some interesting nuggets from how that business is run.

I also don't get or watch reality shows from more traditional media.

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#416

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…

Is anyone seriously denying the success?

What's definitely a valid target of criticism are the methods, though.

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#417
post #374
post #200

> 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.

Ignoring the ethics of Mr Beast, he is producing real videos at an incredibly high volume and they consistently do numbers. None of those videos is easy to make. Sure, it's maybe not great to be so impressed by logistics or supply chain of a tobacco company, but from a business and systems view some of it is interesting

> Ignoring the ethics [...]

I think that's very straightforwardly the point of contention here. Some people are doing that and are discussing the business aspects; others aren't.

I don't think any particular discussion is more appropriate than the other, as long as people are in agreement on which one they're having.

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#418

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 t…

I think there's plenty to learn from it, but there's two big problems when applying his approach in a more generalized way:

a) The youtube market is not like other markets, his strategy is successful because (among many things) the youtube algorithm promotes frequent posting. He knows youtube very well, but it's clear from his other business ventures that he's not good in other markets. I don't think you can translate ALL the stuff there into other markets.

b) There's a lot of unhealthy stuff mixed in with the parts that seem like they drive his success. If somebody does X, Y and Z and gets insane levels of success, they may not realize that it's X and Y driving the success, and Z is actively harmful. But I guess it depends on what you consider "harmful" - some might think "harmful" means "hurts the bottom line" and some might think "hurts those lowest on the rung". Either one of those might be true. It's like people who think being an asshole like early Steve Jobs is the way to be a successful leader, when he arguably achieved more lasting impact when he mellowed out.

With that context, I think some of the critiques you mention have substance.

"He's making low value content" -> I think this is true, because he's optimized for the market he's in. I think it's a legit critique that this strategies may not be sustainable or applicable to "high value content". He even expressly says this: "Not the highest quality videos.. It’s to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible."

"the culture of the company is horrible" -> I absolutely think this is worth talking about, and I find it hard to see building a long term company on his approach. The myth that you need to push people to breaking points to be successful is poison.

"he's a fraud/it's more luck than skill" -> Well anyone saying that is just wrong. He obviously is very good at what he does.

Personally, I don't think it's a good long term business strategy to depend so much on a single larger company, one who has a history of changing the algorithm without warning or explanation. But it's a good, but painful, short term strategy, and he will come out of it perfectly fine whenever he suddenly becomes irrelevant. But there are others who won't/haven't come out with much, and I think it's good to have a discussion if this is right or not.

But there are good things there, the critical components, the importance of communication. The direct feedback of "You are my bottleneck" is good, but it easily could turn into passive aggression and ways to pass the buck. I'm sure there's plenty of low quality comments here, but don't just write off all criticism as virtue signalling or whatever. There are def lessons in here, but that doesn't mean it's all above questioning.

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#419
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that the sour grapes attitude actually comes from an understanding of the world, and how everything has been turned only into profit maximization? And that the nitpicking is merely a failure to express that understanding of the world, especially since it seems like pro-status quo commenters don't care to learn more? I think I'm one of the sour grapes commenters often, and I've very often tried to…

> Have you considered that the sour grapes attitude actually comes from an understanding of the world I would argue the opposite. Often the comments that OP is describing are people who have very little knowledge of the topic at hand, only strongly held emotional feelings based on some narrative that appeals to their bias. The problem is, HN is a crowd of people who grew up believing they would all become the next St…

The HN community is way more diverse than that, though you're probably spot on for a slice of the community. At least in my experience they are nowhere near the majority.

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#420
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that the sour grapes attitude actually comes from an understanding of the world, and how everything has been turned only into profit maximization? And that the nitpicking is merely a failure to express that understanding of the world, especially since it seems like pro-status quo commenters don't care to learn more? I think I'm one of the sour grapes commenters often, and I've very often tried to…

> Have you considered that the sour grapes attitude actually comes from an understanding of the world I would argue the opposite. Often the comments that OP is describing are people who have very little knowledge of the topic at hand, only strongly held emotional feelings based on some narrative that appeals to their bias. The problem is, HN is a crowd of people who grew up believing they would all become the next St…

>The problem is, HN is a crowd of people who grew up believing they would all become the next Steve Jobs...a decade or two later, the chips have fallen, and most of us have not become that (yet many have had to watch their former peers become wildly successful). So what we have now is a community of bitter, frustrated, and resentful people hurling those feelings onto whatever the topic of the day is.

Your description well fits someone who is not on HN (and is well known for being very anti-HN). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40826280>

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