Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

simonwillison.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

981–990 of 1001 posts

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

#981

Post by gspencley »

atoav wrote: post #548
wrsh07 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 of Mr Beast" — in a discussion on the ethics of Mr Beast. Sure I get it, probably there are lessons in there ethically good actors could look at and use — but if you find yourself casting away the ethical doubts too easily, you might be in a dangerous spot to begin acting unethical yourself. It is totally possible to learn about the whole system with a morbid fascination while being constantly aw…

I don't expect to get a reply given how popular this article and discussion was and given how late I am but ...

What are the ethical considerations here?

The opening reply that kickstarted this particular thread was:

> You could say that about literally any shady business

But that user never bothered to qualify what exactly they consider to be "shady" about Mr. Beast's business.

Other than the fact that he has a hugely successful YouTube channel, I know next to nothing about him. I don't watch his content. From what I gather it is mass appeal entertainment.

I've read in some of the replies that he does philanthropic content and there are some un-cited claims that he "pockets" donations (that would be shady if true, but again - those claims were void of any links that would give them credibility).

Others seem to package-deal him in with all of YouTube creators, and they will cite shitty things that other content creators have done for clout as if Mr. Beast himself (or his company) did those things.

Most of the postings here seem to hate him for being successful at creating YouTube content that they personally don't like.

If you want to convince me that a YouTube channel is unethical, then point me towards the victims. Show me who he is hurting and make a clear case for how he is directly responsible for hurting them.

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

#982

Post by cudgy »

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…

This seems extremely idealistic. How many companies even know what the goal of the company is? Very few employees know this as many companies don’t know it either. Furthermore, there are many times when forgetting about the overarching goal and focusing on the goal that is right in front of you is the right decision. In fact, a strategy that many companies use to avoid this is to split the company up into smaller start up operations that are designed to specifically ignore the overarching goals of the company so that they can on their own perform at the best within their channel.

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

#983

Post by ocean_moist »

spencerchubb wrote: post #718
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…

I read the entire document and I don't understand where you saw bad culture or micromanaging. Some people may not like the fact that they pull all nighters, but that's a matter of opinion. Clearly some people do like the terms of employment, otherwise they wouldn't work there.

> bad culture

The let "let boys be childish" part and the overall psuedo-human tone kind of alarmed me. The random "hahas" littered around, seemed like a robot trying to be a human.

> micromanaging

He has a playbook/formula that works and all employees are solely focused on executing that vision. People have little operational ownership. In other words, employees don't have freedom in vision.

I even said it probably is necessary for the success of his business that employees don't have that freedom. I just would not enjoy working in a environment like that and I think employees (especially early ones) need to have that kind of operational freedom in startups (which is the context of my comment).

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

#984

Post by ocean_moist »

marxisttemp wrote: post #793
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…

> Rewarding employees who make value for the business and think like founders/equity owners, not employees. The best way to get employees to think like equity owners is to give them equity. But I guess the name of the game in our times is to somehow expect people with no equity to work even harder for the company than the equity holders do, right? Let me know how that works out.

I personally think (and I think the prevailing sentiment is) that giving early employees equity is crucial. There is no way I would do any work for an early stage startup (or, in general, if I can help it) with no stake in the company.

In bigger companies, it's a zero sum game. They don't really care about you because their scale makes it hard to identify who cares for them, so everything is just a business transaction.

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

#985

Post by dang »

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.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41550368.

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

#987

Post by dang »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #131
joshdavham wrote: post #49

I really liked his distinction between A, B and C-team players. This could be a really good framework for recruiting in an ambitious startup.

[flagged]

You can't post flamebait like this to HN, regardless of which country you have a problem with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: it looks like we've been having to ask you to stop breaking the site guidelines for years:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39281820 (Feb 2024)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35656288 (April 2023)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34844518 (Feb 2023)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18585046 (Dec 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18575831 (Dec 2018)

Continuing like this is eventually going to get your account banned. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please review the rules and stick to them, that would be good.

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

#989

Post by albrewer »

GaggiX wrote: post #65

Mr.Beast is in some big controversies right now, and it's honestly much more interesting than this PDF, I expected to see the "no does not mean no" section in this PDF.

If you read the content of the PDF instead of focusing on the problematic wording of the section title, you'll see that he doesn't mean it in a personal boundary context, but in a problem solving / sales context. Most people's default answer to ideas that are totally new to them is "no" and accepting that first no on its face means you don't get to achieve your goal.
Post reply on HN