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How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

simonwillison.net

611–620 of 1001 posts

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

#611
post #157
post #93

[flagged]

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.

they probably give 1% of what they make, this is just to trick people like you, but in reality they make the cash flow to them, not to people in need

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

#612
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Capitalising on suffering by alleviating it is still capitalizing on suffering. It's one step removed from Bumfights.

Exactly

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

#613
post #93

[flagged]

>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.

that's... my point... Hitler was evidently a bad person, but for their supporter he was great. That's what I'm saying to Simon... why taking such weirdos as figures of "success" when all they do is try to create addiction to shit content

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

#614

I don't have the energy for an intellectual debate, but personally, I have the sense that Youtube is net bad for the world and the monetization of Youtube has incentivized and amplified mediocrity, stupidity, and social decay. I don't follow or watch Mr Beast videos, but from what I've seen, they are largely driven by a money fetish and as far as "creativity", it feels on par with the more boring "What would you rath…

This type of criticism reads to me as a general hatred of what humanity actually is. Mr Beast exists because humans like to watch it. By blaming Mr Beast, you are putting the effect before the cause. There is no enlightened society that is only watching MIT linear algebra lectures for fun, it doesn't exist.

> This type of criticism reads to me as a general hatred of what humanity actually is.

No, that's really shallow. "Humanity" is a perennial struggle. If I'd be looking for a word for the lowest common denominator it would be "beastliness", to stay on topic of the thread.

That criticism reads to me as a general hatred of what beastliness actually is.

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

#615
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

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!

I'm not saying that most devs are helping the world anyhow. But I'm saying that those guys are not either. So we should not be "celebrating their success" as though they did something extraordinary

They just sell shit. Why should we rejoice because they do it efficiently?

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

#617
post #108
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 interesti…

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

You seem to see him as a "success", which means you have a weird definition of "success" (eg you see efficiency as success)

I see a lone tree planter saving the Sahara from desertification and not making a lot of money or being very "efficient on Youtube" as MUCH more successful than MrBeast for my values...

So indeed it seems that you were unconsciously attracted by "efficiency" as "success", which is a common trait of people in tech

And this should be REALLY questioned, because our planet is going to the shitters (environment, climate) BECAUSE of extreme efficiency (to suck resources out and waste it)

That's why we expect from people that they take such entreprise as that of MrBeast with a grain of salt and more judgment

Basically his document is: "how to be even more efficient at inducing addiction-like behaviors in teens so that Youtube can sell them more ads for products they don't need (wasting the planet) and that I can get a slight share of this which is going to make me multi-millionaire (although I don't really need the money)"

is that REALLY the behavior which merits to be called "success"? Is that the kind of behavior we want our kids (or ourselves) to emulate?

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

#618
post #593

I hate the actual content he produces - the first time I watched it, I kept thinking it's a trailer because of all the cuts and I wondered, where is the actual video, when I realized no, I am watching the actual video - but I have to commend the grind. He is trully obsessive about getting the most views, almost soullessly designing the perfect viral content, caring about every second. He literally starts with the thu…

It's just fast food content.

except it doesnt even feed you

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

#619
post #313

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…

> can't deny the success I don’t disagree that there is some value in this knowledge. But success has different definitions. I do not consider Jimmy successful. In relation to classical virtues, he hasn’t truly lived up to many. That would be success to me. He is popular and his business is rich. Some people consider that success, but not all. Not even in business and start-up circles. Edit: some people below (quite…

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

#620
post #503
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.

Imagine that our bitter enemies invented a superior logistics tool, known as the wheel. Should we even consider adopting it, given its clearly ethically unacceptable origins? If you think that this is an entirely artificial example, consider the fact that the same man designed the V-2 rockets which were hitting London during WWII, and the Saturn-5 rockets which brought astronauts to Moon: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w…

"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?

That's not my department, " says Wernher von Braun.

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