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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)

#891

Post by aantix »

rurp wrote: post #885
aantix wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Youtube is net bad for the world Disagree. The outliers don’t determine the value of the platform. The videos of people creating, fixing, coding, diagnosing, doing every day random things - those are a gift to humanity. Those visual demonstrations transcend language. Because of this, YouTube is more important than Google or any written word website. Knowledge share is finally global.

Mr Beast and similar viral videos are hardly the outliers given that their traffic absolutely dwarfs the best educational videos. There is a lot of useful and interesting content on Youtube, but that's very much a niche use. The vast majority of watched hours are on content much closer to Mr Beast than learning how to code or a diy woodworking project.

The value isn't determined by watched hours.

No other streaming platform offers a video catalog that covers nearly all aspects of human activities.

This has never existed in all of humanity.

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

#892

Post by ngneer »

bayindirh wrote: post #698
doix wrote: post #689

There are lot of comments here disliking MrBeast and what not, but some of the advice can definitely apply to all organizations. > 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 YOUTUB…

> Replace "youtube videos" with whatever the company is trying to achieve. Some counterpoints: - Xerox knowingly didn't fix the problematic gear trains to guarantee periodic part changes, prioritizing money over "best copier possible". - Ford didn't fix Pinto's fuel tank, prioritizing cost minimization over "best possible car in its class". - Microsoft is did tons of shady things in its OS development history to prio…

I do not view these as counterpoints. You are making the same point, which is that the metric one optimizes for is extremely important. MrBeast is solely focused on maximizing revenue on the YouTube platform. The examples you cite also demonstrate the same exact metric (i.e., profit) in other domains. I know HP was in the habit of crippling its printers to extract more money, to add to your other examples.

Out of curiosity, what's wrong with Intel? Are you referring to their selling more capable parts for more money? If so, that does not strike me as a shady practice to maximize profits. More like how the best fruit goes for export, where it can fetch the most return.

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

#893

Post by throw16180339 »

latexr wrote: post #191
simonw wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.”

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.

He'd still have to work with the editor and review the results; that's at least a couple hours of work. This has a substantially lower EV than managing, networking, producing videos, etc. I'd make the same call.

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

#894

Post by cwyers »

bayindirh wrote: post #698
doix wrote: post #689

There are lot of comments here disliking MrBeast and what not, but some of the advice can definitely apply to all organizations. > 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 YOUTUB…

> Replace "youtube videos" with whatever the company is trying to achieve. Some counterpoints: - Xerox knowingly didn't fix the problematic gear trains to guarantee periodic part changes, prioritizing money over "best copier possible". - Ford didn't fix Pinto's fuel tank, prioritizing cost minimization over "best possible car in its class". - Microsoft is did tons of shady things in its OS development history to prio…

A good example here is Betamax. A lot of people lament that Betamax lost despite being better on a lot of measures: picture quality, etc. But what Betamax wasn't better at than VHS was runtime, and an early application of home VCRs was to time-shift NFL games, which ran longer than Betamax could record. It turns out that the end of NFL games is often the most important part, so people bought VHS instead of Betamax. So best is not some idealized thing, but depends a lot on what exactly you're measuring.

But also... this isn't doing well for Boeing? It's costing the money? I don't think Boeing is a template for success.

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

#895

Post by consteval »

chii wrote: post #659
oulipo wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

> is BAD, not a "success" that is your moral view or value. It is not a universal value. Economic success is indeed a thing, and it can be discussed separately from moralityl.

Not entirely true - bad things can be measured. Harm exists and has a value. The value, in this case if you wanted to derive, would be the amount of money consumers spent on random advertised things.

Sure it would be hard to measure - but you could argue that money is money consumers lost as a result of Mr Beast (or maybe YouTube as a whole).

For example, looking to the tobacco industry: they were incredibly economically successful because they leveraged the weaknesses of the human brain to sell their product, namely nicotine addiction. This is now largely considered immoral, but let's look past that.

We can still measure the badness, or harm, of the tobacco industry objectively. We see how much money was/is spent on cancer treatment, COPD treatment, etc. These analysis have been done before and it's pretty damning, billions of dollars. In some cases, the cost of tobacco straight up exceeds the profit. Meaning, from a communal economic standpoint, they are a net-negative. Yes, it's true, tobacco, while wildly popular, is economically in the red.

Of course, we live in a staunchly capitalistic, individualistic society. Communal economic cost/benefit is almost never looked at. Which is why we had the problems with the tobacco industry, and why the obesity epidemic grows. Mr Beast videos are not of this scale, but I would argue they are of this nature.

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

#896

Post by Hacktrick »

PedroBatista wrote: post #825
doix wrote: post #689

There are lot of comments here disliking MrBeast and what not, but some of the advice can definitely apply to all organizations. > 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 YOUTUB…

It's code for: "Your goal is to make this company the most MONEY possible" Given the current landscape of crass hype beasts with all the peacocking vs the "follow your heart" microaggressions crowd it's easy to see those texts were written, but just like today's "tech company's" that "invent" things that existed for decades already, this is nothing new and it's a sign of a culture with very little oversight based on…

While I agree with you, his goal is probably to make the most money. But I understand why he might not have phrased it that way. For any company their final goal is obviously to make the most money possible. But this goal is kind of unclear. It's better to approximate it like Mr. Beast does through saying that he makes the best YOUTUBE videos.

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

#897

Post by anigbrowl »

doix wrote: post #689

There are lot of comments here disliking MrBeast and what not, but some of the advice can definitely apply to all organizations. > 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 YOUTUB…

Lawyers finding problems and trying to stop things from happening instead of finding solutions. Security blocking things and not suggesting alternatives. IT blocking this or that instead of trying solve problems, etc.

Legit, but you're not thinking this all the way through. As an organization grows you'll have people whose primary duty is risk mitigation, without the executive authority to pick up the phone and spend resources on implementing, identifying, or seeking a solution. Indeed, if they spend too much time solutioneering, it will limit their ability to do the job they were hired for. Then they get punished for going too far. The sort of initiative-taking and ownership that works great in a startup can get someone fired in a larger org.

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

#898

Post by daedrdev »

caseyy wrote: post #313
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…

> 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…

> 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 was a tiny YouTuber 6 years ago with under a million subscribers, and has become the biggest despite tens of thousands of competitors who were better placed than him. The difference between just a few short years ago and now is what impresses me and makes me consider him a success, he has gone from a one man show counting numbers in his room to a million to the biggest on the platform with many other ventures.

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

#899

Post by r00fus »

kjksf wrote: post #219
threeseed wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.…

The major problem I see is: focusing on an individual, when it's the team that needs to be A-level. You can't just throw a bunch of A-players together and expect an A-team.

Expecting your workers to never make the same mistake twice is extremely harsh and only works if you are comfortable with a lot of volatility in team structure & in an employer's market.

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

#900

Post by throw16180339 »

seydor wrote: post #492

He already has a huge audience so whatever he puts in that PDF is not really useful to anyone else. Surprised that he says he studied youtube virality. It seemed that he got his ideas from 80s prank TV but over time his titles became increasingly audacious. Also surprised that his videos are being watched to the end. The clickbait generates curiosity for watching , but his vids are so predictable it s totally boring…

I think many readers would benefit from the sections on communication, ownership, and responsibility. I've seen way too many projects fail because of poor communication.
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