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Joe Rogan Experience #1788 - Mr. Beast

Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson is an internet personality, businessman, and philanthropist. He operates several popular YouTube channels, a delivery based fast food restaurant, MrBeast Burger, and two philanthropic programs: Beast Philanthropy, and Team Trees.

MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson)guestJoe Roganhost
Jun 27, 20242h 32mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 15:00

    (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

    1. NA

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays)

    2. MD

      Um, I've, I've done quite a few. I've never ... Okay. Here, hold up. Just talk to me for, like, a minute. I-

    3. JR

      Okay.

    4. MD

      This is so freaky to me.

    5. JR

      Is it really?

    6. MD

      Yeah, to hear my own voice.

    7. JR

      Oh, we need to put this on the video.

    8. NA

      I mean, I'm recording it. I just need to turn on the microphone.

    9. JR

      Okay, good. We're recording already.

    10. MD

      You ... Have you ever had a guest, like, freak out about that?

    11. JR

      No, you're the first freak-out because of headphones.

    12. MD

      In tr- ... Not headphones.

    13. JR

      Is it weird?

    14. MD

      No, it's 'cause I hear my own voice. I'm very conscious of, of, of that.

    15. JR

      (laughs)

    16. MD

      So now I'm like, "Fuck, my inflection or whatever-"

    17. JR

      Mm.

    18. MD

      "... isn't, uh, f-"

    19. JR

      Sounds fine.

    20. MD

      Okay. No, I know it sounds fine, it's just ... Fuck. Whatever, I'll suck it up.

    21. JR

      (laughs)

    22. NA

      (laughs)

    23. MD

      You don't have, like, a button you can press to kill it?

    24. JR

      No. No, I-

    25. NA

      (laughs)

    26. MD

      What the fuck?

    27. JR

      So when you're playing video games, you don't hear yourself, right?

    28. MD

      No.

    29. JR

      Yeah, I don't either, but... Yeah, I hear it's different. Sorry.

    30. MD

      Oh, well.

  2. 15:00 – 30:00

    Uh, I mean, across…

    1. JR

    2. MD

      Uh, I mean, across everything, over 100. I don't know. It's been like-

    3. JR

      Wow.

    4. MD

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      And what are you? 23?

    6. MD

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      That's crazy.

    8. MD

      Yeah, it's wild. Uh, I think I just had the blessing of finding what I loved at a young age, so like ... 'Cause to get to this level, you, it takes, you know, a decade. Most people don't find what they love till their young 20s, so they'd be where I'm at in their 30s.

    9. JR

      Yeah.

    10. MD

      I just lucked out and found it when I was really young.

    11. JR

      It's that, but it's also your vision. The, the fact ... One of the things that I was really impressed by ... when I started looking into you after my daughter introduced me, is that you invest so much money into the show.

    12. MD

      All, all of the money I make. I don't, I don't, I don't ... Why do I need money?

    13. JR

      So you don't like go crazy? You don't have a Ferrari or anything nuts?

    14. MD

      No. I, I think living your life chasing like a nicer and nicer car and a bigger and bigger box to live in is kinda like a dumb way to, to go about life.

    15. JR

      Yeah.

    16. MD

      Yeah, so I, I actually (laughs) ... funny enough, I lived in like a super below average home, and I kinda learned why famous people don't live in, uh, below average homes, 'cause someone broke in, stole everything I own. So I had to, I had to get a little nicer house for security reasons, but before I was robbed, I mean like my place was like a little duplex, 700 a month. You, you get a roommate, it's 360 split. (laughs)

    17. JR

      Right.

    18. MD

      Yeah, it's ... And, uh, just drive a normal car. Well, now I drive a Tesla just 'cause of the, you know, getting off with gas and stuff like that.

    19. JR

      Right.

    20. MD

      But, yeah.

    21. JR

      So, you don't go crazy at all with cash?

    22. MD

      No.

    23. JR

      You don't know-

    24. MD

      I, I really try not to. I, I think that's like just a-

    25. JR

      (clears throat)

    26. MD

      ... a bad way to go about life. Also, it is a little hypocritical, because I, I run a, a nonprofit and, you know, we ... Uh, have you seen our Beast Philanthropy channel?

    27. JR

      No.

    28. MD

      Uh, can you pull that up as well? We do a lot of stuff for helping people. And so also if I lived in a $10 million mansion while I'm feeding people and trying to help people, also- ... in my eyes, it's also a little hypocritical as well. So, in every area, I just ... I feel like it's just better if I just live below my means.

    29. JR

      That's uh- is you- you're just very wise for a young man, 'cause a lot of 23-year-olds would be-... ballin' out of their fucking mind right now.

    30. MD

      Zoom out. Well, yeah, I- I also have some stories about that too, but-

  3. 30:00 – 45:00

    Wow. …

    1. MD

      um, I think Netflix in total has 220 million subscribers, and, and that video just crossed 220 million views.

    2. JR

      Wow.

    3. MD

      So, it was, it was a big dub.

    4. JR

      Yeah, I mean, obviously it worked. I mean, just incredible. Incredible that you were able to pull it all off during the time where Squid Games was really relevant-

    5. MD

      Yeah.

    6. JR

      ... 'cause like if that came out today, I'm sure it'd be really interesting.

    7. MD

      Yeah.

    8. JR

      But it wouldn't ... People wouldn't be obsessed with it-

    9. MD

      No one would give a fuck.

    10. JR

      ... like they were. Yeah.

    11. MD

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      'Cause when Squid Games first came out, I mean, it was a phenomenon for like a couple of months.

    13. MD

      Exactly.

    14. JR

      So you had a small window to act in.

    15. MD

      Yeah.

    16. JR

      And you gotta design everything and build everything and then-

    17. MD

      Uh, and I also want to put out there, I have some amazing people on my team, 'cause that video without, like ... I mean, I have s- arguably some of the smartest people in the world when it comes to just creating viral content and YouTube and stuff like that. Without them, that wouldn't be possible, 'cause it's not like I'm over there, like, designing every little set, and I'm, you know, custom building the Squibs that we're rigging on them and designing the app. You know, we ... It's, it's taken a long time, but like, I would literally, without a doubt in my mind, say we have the smartest people in the world when it comes to making viral content, and like, no one else can do this type of stuff. You have to be very nimble, you have to really think outside of the box. And it's like, one day you're trying to figure out how to secure a sub, the next you're trying to figure out how to go to Antarctica, the next you're building Squid Game in real life, the next you're burying me alive for 50 hours, you know?

    18. JR

      (laughs)

    19. MD

      It's like, you have to ... It's like, it ... You don't find people that specialize in this stuff, it's like just people, I don't know, who just have a willing to learn and adapt and like, you know, keep ... 'cause it's, it's all different, yeah.

    20. JR

      And how do you find these people? How do you find these people that you work with?

    21. MD

      Uh, I mean, it's been hard. A lot of them are just like lunatics that really love doing interesting things, 'cause it is fulfilling, 'cause like it's, it's different. It's not like you're going and doing the same cookie-cutter stuff every day. So a lot of people find that fulfilling, and usually it's people with good work ethic that want to learn, and then we kind of train them up. It's kind of been my best result, 'cause like I said, no one specializes in all that stuff, you know what I mean?

    22. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    23. MD

      Also, people who work in unscripted or like shows like that where it's not like a set, uh, plan typically do better in our environment. But like someone who worked ... Like, if you worked on Wheel of Fortune, you would do horrible in our environment, you w- you wouldn't even understand.

    24. JR

      (laughs)

    25. MD

      It's like, 'cause like, you know, we don't tell you what to do, we kind of like give you a little bit of reign to make decisions and you got to pivot and it's like n- no one know ... We've never built Squid Game in real life before. We don't know if it's possible to like build a 40-foot wall in this coliseum. It's like, they might cap you at 35. Well then now you have to decide, well, does 35 still look good on visual, on the camera and stuff like that? So it's like people who are also able to think for themselves a little bit.

    26. JR

      So, I- I- I mean, do you guys have like weekly meetings where you talk about this stuff? Do you-

    27. MD

      I mean, we, we work in the office every day.

    28. JR

      Are you working every day?

    29. MD

      Well, not every day, but you know, week days and stuff.

    30. JR

      Pretty close to it.

  4. 45:00 – 58:03

    (laughs) Yeah. …

    1. JR

      of the lives of the kids that are addicted to this TikTok. So instead of i- them being addict- addicted to, like, putting piss in the hand soap container-

    2. MD

      (laughs) Yeah.

    3. JR

      ... instead of doing something like that, like, "Ho, ho, ho"-

    4. MD

      (laughs)

    5. JR

      ... what they're doing is, like, uh, showing science experiments. They're showing innovation. They're showing kids, uh, accomplishing great athletic goals and it's-

    6. MD

      Mm-hmm.

    7. JR

      ... it's motivating people to do good things and improve themselves, which is totally possible here, but the problem is you would have to have some sort of a, like, a overview, like some sort of Orwellian restrictions-

    8. MD

      Oh, where to inject it.

    9. JR

      ... brought down from the governments to-

    10. MD

      Yeah.

    11. JR

      ... like, make sure that kids only see that kind of thing.

    12. MD

      But here in America, if you did that, like, people just wouldn't use it.

    13. JR

      Exactly.

    14. MD

      They'd be like, "Oh, well, fuck this."

    15. JR

      Yes, exactly.

    16. MD

      "I'm, I'm going, I'm going to Instagram Reels or YouTube."

    17. JR

      Exactly.

    18. MD

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      So do you put stuff on TikTok as well?

    20. MD

      Yeah. We, we use TikTok, um, so I'm, like-

    21. JR

      So you have, like, a team that does all that kind of jobs?

    22. MD

      Exactly. I'd say, like, one or 2% of my time go to TikTok. Like, 90-plus percent goes to YouTube-

    23. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    24. MD

      ... 'cause essentially, like, at the end of the day, like, the most, the, I can, I can hire, like, creative people to, to help come up with, like, bits. I can hire production people to help do the, the videos and editors, but the only thing I can't outsource is, like, me actually filming, you know?

    25. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    26. MD

      At the end of the day, that's, like, the only thing that, like, I'm the only person, well, that can do. So in an ideal world, I spend as much time as my, or much of my time as possible filming and not doing other stuff 'cause we have multiple different channels and, and stuff like that. So, like, peak performance would be me, like, 90% of my work week is just filming shit and, and nothing else.

    27. JR

      Yeah, I mean, when you're in the middle of all of this and you have all this stuff going on, whether it's the social media stuff and the filming stuff and the coming up with the new content and new ideas and then-

    28. MD

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      ... managing the fact that you have 100 fucking people working for m-

    30. MD

      Well, we haven't even gotten into the side companies or the side channels either, yeah.

Episode duration: 2:32:33

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