Good afternoon. Andrew here. At the 2025 DealBook Summit, I sat down with Jimmy Donaldson, who is better known on YouTube as MrBeast, to discuss his career and the attention economy. Donaldson was joined by Jeff Housenbold, the chief executive of his company, Beast Industries, which is valued at $5 billion. Below, we have some highlights from that conversation. Over the coming days, we’ll be sending you emails with excerpts and takeaways from all of the interviews and task force panels at this year’s DealBook Summit. You can also watch all of them on YouTube or listen to them as podcasts. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.)
What MrBeast said at the DealBook SummitJimmy Donaldson, the 27-year-old content creator and businessman known as MrBeast, has the most popular channel on YouTube, with more than 450 million subscribers. He has parlayed a portfolio of fast-paced videos featuring stunts, games, philanthropy and challenges into a $5 billion company, Beast Industries, that includes chocolates, toys and a Saudi Arabian theme park, among other ventures. At the DealBook Summit, he was joined by Jeff Housenbold, the chief executive of Beast Industries, who joined the company in 2024. Donaldson and Housenbold discussed how to attract an audience on YouTube and how MrBeast began. The below highlight from the conversation has been edited and condensed. Andrew: We’re trying to understand what we’re calling the attention economy, and you somehow have figured this out in a way I don’t think anyone else has, on a level and a scale nobody else has. And so I’m trying to understand what you think it is you figured out? Jimmy Donaldson: Yeah, basically, how do you get people to watch your content? I mean, what’s interesting, 2 percent of all humans’ time is spent on YouTube. And obviously, it wouldn’t be that way if it wasn’t constantly serving you videos you like. So the more you study social media algorithms, the more you realize it’s just a reflection of what people want to watch and consume. And it does a very good job of figuring out what you’re interested in and serving you it. And so in our case, if we want to make a video people all around the world would watch, obviously it can’t be culturally relevant or things like that. It needs to be things that are more intrinsic to humans. Like, no matter where you are in the world, you understand love, right? So this might sound weird to people, but one of our more recent videos is, as a joke, we found a couple that broke up four years ago and then we offered them $300,000 if they spend 30 days chained together. And so that obviously seems silly, but that’s something that no matter where you are in the world, you understand that. WATCH: MrBeast on Cracking the Attention Economy LISTEN: MrBeast Isn’t Looking for Controversy Andrew: Do you think you appreciated this when you were 15 years old? Donaldson: No. That’s why no one watched the videos. Andrew: So you have Amazon, the second season of your show coming out in January. Why do you need them if you’ve got a billion followers on these other platforms? Donaldson: When you go to YouTube, you don’t go there to watch a 10-episode series. You go to Netflix or Prime Video. You can tell a phenomenal story, but over more videos, you can get them invested in a brand. It made sense as we’re building the production to make longer content. Jeff Housenbold: What I think is good — Jimmy has an innate ability to tell a story globally. He understands virality. He has a platform, and we appeal to Gen Z and Gen Alpha. We go into a room and say, That would be great for YouTube and that for animation and that for drama. So we’re taking all these amazing ideas and stories and putting them on the platforms that make the most sense. Andrew: How far can this business go? You know, you’re talking about getting into finance, getting into all sorts of other businesses. What does this ultimately look like? Housenbold: Our mission is to be the most impactful entertainment brand in the world. And so if we’re sitting here in 10 years, I hope that comes true. That we’re creating content that entertains, inspires and educates, and that we’re helping to make kindness viral and that we’re using Jimmy’s fandom and our ability to tell stories and to connect on a human level to make the world a better place. Andrew: At the beginning, I asked what your mother thinks about you doing all of this, and you said she’s cool with it now. She now works for you. So what did she do for you? Donaldson: I don’t know. What do you do? Andrew: I didn’t realize, Mom’s here? Donaldson: Yeah. What do you think? She said it’s great. Yeah. She was like, “Go to college or move out,” and I didn’t have enough money to move out because no one was watching the videos. So it was a community college, not like we could support a real college, but so I would act like I was going to college. Andrew: Hold on. You would act like … Donaldson: Yeah. I would get in my car and drive and then I’d just work on videos in the car and then I’d come home and be like, “Yeah, I went to class.” I also changed the phone number so they wouldn’t call her and they’d just call me. And I was like, “So I probably have, like, three or four months before she’ll find out I have straight zeros,” and then I counted to a hundred thousand. So I literally counted one, two, three, four. I counted for 40 hours straight, which was one of the first videos that blew up because the whole world was like, “What an idiot. Why did he do that?” But it got attention and I made a little bit of money and then I told her I had straight zeros and then she cried and I moved out. But then a couple months later the channel took off and she was like, “Oh, this is cool.” Housenbold: To continue the story, he was making enough money from YouTube that he was making more than his mom. Donaldson: That’s when it really clicked. “Oh, OK. You’re not going to be homeless. I’m good.”
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