zlacker

[return to "How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)"]
1. shalma+Ho[view] [source] 2024-09-15 22:53:46
>>babelf+(OP)
One distressing trend I've noticed becoming ubiquitous on HN is that any writing that is confronting to a consensus worldview becomes flooded with highly upvoted comments that are, in essence, excuses for why it's not necessary in this instance to re-examine your priors.

He's making low value content/the culture of the company is horrible/he's a fraud/it's more luck than skill. The actual critiques are personalized to the content and, to one extent or another, valid, but the social purpose of the critiques is universal which is that I felt uncomfortable that reading this might mean I have to re-evaluate my worldview and I'm going to dive into the comment section and upvote all the people telling me actually, I don't have to do that.

I actually spent over an hour writing 750+ words of my takeaways reading this document and shared it privately with a few founder friends of mine and I briefly considered also posting to share with the community but I took a look at the comments and took a look at what I wrote and decided I didn't have the energy to face the endless onslaught of nitpicks and misunderstandings that are driven, at the end of the day, not by a genuine intellectual desire to reach an understanding, but by the need to prove emotionally that others are not taking this seriously so I don't have to either.

All I can do is be vague and say I think this was an enormously valuable piece of writing that is worth engaging seriously for what it is as it might change your worldview in several important ways.

But also my larger meta-point is that there's a now near ubiquitous "sour grapes" attitude that's pervaded HN that makes it an extremely unpleasant place to hold a conversation and people reading should be aware of this systematic bias when reading comments here.

◧◩
2. screye+5K[view] [source] 2024-09-16 03:30:01
>>shalma+Ho
Could you elaborate on the takeaways that challenge existing priors ?

The points in the OP boil down to:

* Focus on your product

* Hire well

* Be extra diligent towards bottlenecks

* State your metrics clearly

* Communicate often and immediately

________

These are standard guidelines for running businesses. HN commenters are unimpressed because there are no novel generalizable takeaways from his document.

For a few years, Adam Sandler was producing low-brow schlock that made 100s of millions in the box office. It was effective. It's not clear if there was a takeaway

________

There is 1 takeaway from Mr. Beast that appears generalizable.

Sometimes, for a short duration, you hit gold. During that time, obsessively extract all value you can. Merch, videos, exploitation, what have you. For a solid minute, you're Midas. So touch as many things as you can. Be shameless beyond recognition.

Too often, businesses see their hockey-stick moment as a sign of long term sustainable growth. That's a lie (in expectation). A moment is all it is. Wring out your business for every dollar you can extract, liquidate as much as you can, and bail before you're past the crest of the wave.

I'm confident that Mr. Beast's Youtube stardom will die in a few years. But, he will leave behind a legacy of obsessive extraction that is unlikely to be matched for quite some time.

[go to top]