People should not do that, though. There are better things to dedicate lives to.

> There are better things to dedicate lives to.

Then those aren't people Jimmy wants to hire for his company. There are hundreds of millions of teenagers on this planet that want to stake everything they own to make a YouTube channel and reap the rewards - ownership of their work, being their own boss, potentially lucrative amounts of money, microcelebrity if not greater levels of fame, etc. Some will do it, and some won't. Jimmy is very clearly talking to those people.

I know because I was one of them, making my first few hundred dollars ever from adsense at the age of 14 (till I was demonetized a year later and my channel got taken down for copyright, but hey, you learn). I've since grown a bit a taken that energy and it's helped guide me as I learn to make my own startup right now - it's the same adrenaline rush and pursuit of the American dream.

It's interesting to me that you did this with YouTube, as I did the same when I was 16 (almost 20 years ago now) but with AdSense. I earned about $70 (mostly off my buddies anime site) which I never collected. Seven years later Google sends the money to my state's unclaimed fund. Even more years later I finally collect that $70 check.

Just wanted to share some fond memories.

Yep, I get it. This is all true. What I'm saying is that, in my opinion, it's also bad and those people (and perhaps you) ought to choose a better path. I recognize that many of them won't. There are lots of things I think people (including myself!) ought not do, which we still do anyway.

who are you to dictate what people do with their lives and deny them their free will?

Not who you are responding to but I think it is more a case of, long term it might not work out as intended for them. They are more than free to pursue this goal with all their might, but don't be surprised if in a few years they are burnt out and scrambling for the exit.

That said, it might work out, who knows? But at some point it looks like gambling with your time and energy trying to seek fulfillment. Again, they are free to do this, just try not to harm others in the process.

even if it doesnt work, an employee was compensated for labor on mutually agreed terms & one comes out with valuable experience (and arguably a stronger ability to build something better than MrBeast if there is misalignment with MrBeast principles/values)

> who are you to dictate what people do with their lives and deny them their free will?

Spot the overly sensitive libertarian... there's always one of you in these threads.

They are not dictating anything, they are giving their opinion on what they think is worthy of one's life.

An opinion would be stated like "I believe" or "I feel". The GP comment said "people shouldn't", which is a directive/command. Words actually mean specific things, who'd have thought?

And who would think that context matters to derive meaning from words. "In my opinion people shouldn't" is the very obvious meaning of "People shouldn't" when a rando with no authority whatsoever comments on an obscure internet forum.

So, you can look at my comment history to find me waffling about whether every opinion ought to be prefaced with "I believe". Lots of writing advice suggests not doing that, because it's obvious from context and thus redundant, but I find that there is almost always at least one comment like this one when it is elided, which does make me question this writing advice.

Having said that, in this case, I think this is just wrong:

> "people shouldn't", which is a directive/command

I think this is a misreading of the word "shouldn't"... It does not mean "are forbidden to". I honestly struggle to see how you could possibly read it as a "directive/command", especially in a random comment on the internet rather than, like, a legal document (where it wouldn't appear anyway).

I think it's pretty clearly a value judgment, and thus fairly clear that it is a subjective opinion, as all value judgments are.

> I honestly struggle to see how you could possibly read it as a "directive/command"

I feel like they don't. I believe it's just an attempt at making you refrain from giving your opinion in the future, because reading your opinion bothers them.

If so, I'd say that sickos like me who waste their time opining on random facets of random posts on HN are pretty unlikely to be put off by this sort of pushback. We're all degenerate opiners here! :)

Note that I'm not dictating anything to anyone, simply stating my view about what things are or aren't good, which I'm certainly entitled to.

Or, you can go work there for 1-2 years, learn a lot and move on. Maybe to some more relaxed work, or start your own venture. It actually sounds like a place where you might learn something.

Yep, to the extent that this is a sensible thing to do, this is the sensible way to do it. This is clearly analogous to working in high-pressure finance shops or in startups for a fairly short period of time in order to drink from a firehose.

The problem is that the kind of people who are ambitious enough to think this sounds like a good idea often (maybe usually) get sucked deeply into it.

But yep, I do think it's a reasonable model if you can avoid that outcome and get in and out early in your career.

>There are better things to dedicate lives to.

Everyone seems to think that they have the answers to this question... Family, friends, community, god, volunteering at the local soup kitchen..

All over your own wants? If you are a video creator/ creative and that's what gives you energy and all the feel good chems, why not work your ASS off for THE CREATOR of our generation?

Cause from the way i see it, success and the confidence* it brings, solves all other issues.

*As long as you can avoid the pitfall of arrogance.

Because, in my opinion, this is a worse thing to do with your life than the many better options.

I don't have some One Right Answer to what the best thing to do with your life is, but I'm comfortable having a personal - but strong - opinion on a rough ordering that, for instance, puts family and friends much higher than a life dedicated to "THE CREATOR of our generation". Maybe you think that sounds impressive? I think it just sounds very sad.

This is what we call a cult.

You can call it whatever you want, it’s obvious you’re never going to be part of it.

the audacity to ask other people to give up their life for helping you fulfil your dream and even sell it to them as them fulfilling their dream.

is it the same "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" shtick the american dream brainwashed americans with?

if you have that much drive and want to invest so heavily in work - do yourself a favour and do it as a leader where you call the shots and have the equity instead of as a follower.

see theres leaders and theres followers ... but id rather be a dick than a swallower

THIS. I would like to tell you a bit of a personal story and this may shed some light on your question. Disclaimer* I am American.

I was working at Tesla on the CapEx team, and unless you were doing something "interesting", like going to Tahoe or something, then you were expected to be in the office on Saturday and Sunday.

I worked my ass off, pulling 70 hour weeks, catching naps in a conference room when there was a big push. I learned to be energized by my work, seeing the factory cells come together gave me this giant rush. Eventually, I got the thought you had but i worded it differently. "I will never be Elon, working for Elon".

So when Covid hit, i got put fully remote and started having some conversations with potential clients to launch my own consultancy. After a couple of months, our managers told us to start coming back into office. I had gotten some traction with the consultancy, so i decideded to "do [myself] a favour and do it as a leader where [i] call[ed] the shots and have the equity instead of as a follower."

At first it was great! I was learning an absolute ton, designed my own website from scratch, wrote a bunch of automation code, my sales ration was like 85% because i was just calling on all my old associates and references of references... life was great!

Then after i scaled, I realized I wasn't actually doing anything... I have these meetings, and my schedule is always swamped with evaluating this peice of software/this person, generating "Work" for different people, and i freaking hated it! I stopped learning... I had no peers, only employees. I had "Mentors" but my consultancy was so nitch so outside "Executive mentorship" i had no one to guide me. I tried to focus on growth opportunities within the company, scaling different verticles as different companies and other things to keep my mind working, but i slowly but surely lost interest. I couldn't push myself 70 hours a week because i didn't have anyone pushing me, and i hated "Consulting".

but every chance i got i would be watching drone videos over the Giga Texas progress. I kept up with every SpaceX, Tesla update ever...

And suddenly i realised, i deeply missed working at Tesla... i don't want to be Elon...

But that Elon is building some pretty cool shit, and factories, robots, automation is super cool and fun.

So i sold my consultancy for 1.5X revenues (Pretty shit deal but i wanted out). It didn't give me fuck you money but i could have chilled for a bit...

but now I'm happily working my ass off back at Tesla, fulfilling Elons dream. But i get to "Give up my life" to get to play with robots all day. I'm learning a ton again, i love my team, and i've never met a smarter group of people.

Very interesting personal experience, thanks!

I agree that doing meaningless work is soul crushing even if well-compensated.

It seems like it ought to be possible to do meaningful work without working 80 hour weeks, but maybe not!

And owning your own business isn't necessarily an easy 40 hours a week and don't think about it when you're not working, but sounds like you did have a lighter schedule? Or actually you didn't mention that! If you traded a 70-hour week as a well-compensated employee doing meaningful work for a 70-hour week being your own boss with possibility of making more money doing meaningless work -- yeah, I would make the same choice between those two! But I'd rather not have a 70 hour week, be reasonably compensated, and do meaningful work, if that were an option...

How could anyone not think that entertaining literal millions of people is meaningful work? For some people, video production is their calling and having an audience is their life's dream.

sure, but holding a mic boom for entertaining millions of people is not meaningful work

I (ggp) actually don't agree, contributing proper mic boom holding to a project you find important and valuable and meaningful can be meaningful. Every contribution is meaningful.

I guess to me the crass eyeball-harvesting of MrBeast seems like exploitation of everyone involved with the only meaningfulness involved being profit. But I realize based on stickfigure's response that different people find different things meaningful, fair enough. Which is different than saying "just getting lots of money is meaningful for me" -- that is a different axis than meaning, and I'm unlikely to be swayed otherwise, although some people don't need meaning they just need money. It was hard for to imagine anyone is doing it for anything but the money at MrBeast, but different people are different and some of them are hard for me to imagine, fair!

Ever watch the Jackass movies? I know plenty of MFA-toting snobs that think it's high performance art. And I don't disagree.

I read the PDF; profit wasn't on the list of KPIs. In fact there was quite a lot of invective against it; he'll kill expensive projects just because he didn't think the quality was good enough. Of course $$ is related, but the focus really is on the eyeballs.

I worked in porn for a while. I found the work fun and meaningful. Not every mission involves saving the world.

Isn't what makes something meaningful in the eyes of the beholder? It might not be sending rockets to mars or curing cancer, but if you perceive it as meaningful, then it is.

what would you say are the chances for tesla to actually deliver optimus and start a commercial humanoid robots operation in the next 5 years?

no idea - I'm working with fanuc and kuka robots on the line, not those robots.

this read like a post written by Grok or Elon himself NGL

He is fricking 26 years old. He hasn't given his life for anything. At the moment he is, yes, but likely after some years he is retired on his yacht.

Some things leave a permanent mark on you. Try being a workaholic a few years and tell me later how easy is to disconnect, and rejoin with familiy and friends.

Yeah, working constantly for a few years leaves permanent marks. You know what makes it better in ways we'll never have? Millions of dollars, luxury yachts, and fame. Mr. Beast isn't a doctor. He isn't a teacher. He doesn't fight our wars. He makes entertainment for children. He'll be fine.

I think parent comment was referring to employees who are willing to dig in and sacrifice a few years of their lives for MrBeast productions, not to Jimmy Donaldson (though I could be interpreting it wrong).

That's like me saying I've given up my life to have the job that I have currently and live where I do. Or you've given up your life for however you spend it.

It just about makes some sort of sense in the context of something like giving up a professional career in a developed country and moving to a remote African village to do aid work, but giving up your life to make a tonne of money creating viral YouTube videos is an absurd description.

Giving up your life for many millions of dollar is a choice.

His employees are probably payed well, but obviously don't make as much as he. So I guess asking them to give up their lives for less compensation is to say their lives are or less value...

No, it's to offer them a chance to make a lot of money in exchange for a lot of work.

No one is forced to work there and they are not taken advantage of.

Any of them are free to start their own channel and outcompete him! It's literally how he did it!