MrBeast's Production Evolution

A story about MrBeast's evolution from making zero-budget videos to running a massive production operation, as told by Shaan Puri.

"He started off making videos with no money, just him in his bedroom doing dumb stuff. He'd do things like saying Logan Paul's name 100,000 times, or taking a plastic knife and sawing through a plastic table for 48 hours. He just sat there with a jagged plastic knife trying to cut through the table.

Even at that time, he understood what would get somebody's attention, what would make them laugh, what would make them watch - what's a little bit of a spectacle. Those were low-budget spectacles, now he's doing high-budget spectacles.

When we visited his studios, it's like a 50,000 square foot facility. Imagine a giant airplane hangar. On one end they're building sets - it's like a Hollywood production. There's 4 production teams individually creating different videos at the same time because they're all gonna get released next month. He's now investing about $1.5 million per video just on the production.

The first brand tried to give him a $5,000 sponsorship. He talked to the guy on the phone for an hour saying 'Make it $10,000 - more people will click. 10,000 just that number, 10 grand in the title is gonna get way more clicks than 5.' They agreed to $10,000, and he immediately gave it all away to a homeless guy. That video got like a million views, the advertiser was happy, and then they started offering $20,000, $30,000, $50,000, $100,000. Eventually advertisers were willing to pay nearly $1,000,000 to be part of these videos, but he's willing to take that and pour it all back in."