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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)

#641

Post by TrackerFF »

dayvid wrote: post #78

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.

You are correct. There are way too many assistant roles in the creative industry that come with little to none real job training, just “watch what I do, or do as I tell, and never make a mistake twice or you’re toast”.

I think it’s due to the sheer amount of candidates, and the total power some superiors have over you.

It’s a sink or swim strategy, but you’re also swimming with sharks.

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

#642

Post by wrasee »

oulipo wrote: post #635
latexr wrote: 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.

Exactly!! we need to stop conflating "efficiency" with "success" Being efficient at destroying the planet is NOT success If anything we need to go slower and gentler (environmentally, socially, economically), not "faster"

But also perhaps not conflating “success” with morally positive outcomes.

Being efficient at destroying the planet is to successfully destroy the planet.

I think the original point was precisely to separate the concepts that make something successful - to be successful at what you do - from a judgement on the outcomes - the thing that you are doing.

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

#643

Post by arder »

gzer0 wrote: post #364

This point caught my attention, as my experience has been quite different, though in completely different industries. How does one go about finding genuinely good consultants, in any industry? > "Use Consultants Consultants are literally cheat codes. Need to make the world's largest slice of cake? Start off by calling the person who made the previous world's largest slice of cake lol. He's already done countless test…

This, like a lot of the advice is "Things that worked for me that likely won't work for you". A lot of people are going to talk to Mr Beast that won't talk to you, Mr Beast is doing a variety of one off projects that he'll never need to revisit. Mr Beast has a shit tonne of money and a shit tonne of resources. For all those reasons, it's something that he can do that you probably can't.

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

#644

Post by simonw »

oulipo wrote: post #627
simonw wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

but that's the point... why do you call it "success" (I mean I get it: they are "good at making money" and "efficient" so you call it a "success" because that's what the capitalist society is pushing you to say / feel without asking yourself deeper questions) Would you say that "heroin" is a success because it's very good at making people dependant? You should probably use the term "they are very efficient at what th…

My definition of the term “success” does not include “I respect and approve of their goals”. I define “success” as “they achieved ambitious goals”, independently of my opinion of those goals.

There are plenty of successful politicians who I disagree with on virtually every issue. I would still classify them as “successful” and I am still interested in understanding how they managed to achieve those goals, despite disliking what they have done with those skills.

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

#645

Post by TrackerFF »

potatoman22 wrote: post #41

Reading through the document, this company seems hellish for its employees. I wonder how the pay and perks are

Seems like your average creative industry company, to be honest.

Underpaid, overworked, expectations of “total dedication”, for the off-chance that you can rise to the top or branching out.

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

#646

Post by barrkel »

shalmanese wrote: post #217

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…

You are absolutely right that a large % of people, when confronted with evidence of the kind of obsessive focus required for unusual success, have mental antibodies activated which reject the message, to preserve their ego and sense of self-worth.

Don't dismiss the entire community because of the loud people and their upvoters though. There are other people here, and they don't necessarily browse HN at a high enough frequency to outvote or outcomment the majority.

(I personally think the document is very good, on-point, and great advice for ambitious young people. I'm no longer that young any more, and I'm also aware of a different side: when you push really hard, you can end up burning out. That's the other side of the intensity the document advocates. You can burn out. It's the single biggest reason I don't push so hard these days.)

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

#647

Post by winternewt »

userbinator wrote: post #134
throw10920 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 explanation…

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.

Not only boring, I am stressed out by it. I feel like I'm losing valuable seconds of my life watching it, and it makes me feel depressed and disconnected from society to think about how popular it is.

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

#648

Post by mihaic »

pembrook wrote: post #365
mihaic wrote: 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…

I've seen what you describe often, people that are simply bitter and spew hate. But does jealousy and bitterness invalidate their point of view?

I've founded two start-ups in my life, both still generating revenue and still alive but practically failures for their intent. The first one failed primarily since I didn't know how to execute, had no understanding of business model and distribution, all the classics. The second one I think should have been much more successful were it not for a lot of random factors: covid, scheming employees, much harder sales cycles, etc. You may think I'm rationalizing this, but I've had enough self-doubt to reach this conclusion.

I am jealous of the people that founded start-ups 10 years before me, and which gave bad advice that I realized too late to be bad. But at the same time, does this invalidate my view that the entire ecosystem is deeply corrupt and unfair?

Success and failure are a matter of luck and circumstance to a large degree. This implies that outside of a fee meritorious success stories (see the original 90s video of Bezos arguing why book are best to start as a niche), most success stories in the startup world have no more merit than your own, so why wouldn't you expect negative feelings to exist?

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

#649

Post by cdrini »

oulipo wrote: post #638
ocean_moist wrote: post #77

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…

A lot of people here (and in tech in general) are conflating "being efficient" with "having success"... that's clearly because people in tech generally value efficiency but we have to take a step back collectively and understand that "being efficient at producing addictive video for teens to sell ads for shit they don't need" is BAD, not a "success"

I don't think it has anything to do with efficiency, but with effectivity. You could argue producing addictive videos for teens is Mr beasts goal. And he is very effective at doing that. And actually yes, successful at that goal.

Success doesn't really have a moral component, it's relative to the stated goal. You could argue it's not meaningful or moral or worthwhile or valuable, but you can't deny that he has achieved success.

So the thing you can take away from someone like mr beast is "what made them so effective?". A lot of his strategies could be useful for other, more worthwhile goals than his! So there's something that can be learned. I think that's what people mean, not that "people in tech generally value efficiency".

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