A leaked MrBeast handbook reveals the YouTube titan’s ‘secret weapons’ for success. Former employees say it wasn’t always followed.

In his guidebook, Donaldson repeatedly emphasized that he looks for staffers who are “obsessive” about their work, ready to fully own projects (and mistakes when they inevitably arise), and prepared to be creative in order to save money and get stuff done.

Donaldson wrote that one of his business’s “secret weapons” was “we aren’t stuck in any old ways of thinking and you can literally turn anything into content.”

The goal of the document, Donaldson wrote, was to help teach newer staffers the tricks of YouTube that he and his earliest employees mastered through lots of trial and error. But he also cautioned to not take the document too literally.

“What we do is complex and changes based on the situation,” he wrote. “I need you to repeat this in your head three times: ‘I will apply everything I read with a grain of salt.'”

Since it began circulating online, the document has been widely discussed within the creator community and in Silicon Valley. Interest in MrBeast’s business secrets isn’t surprising. He is YouTube’s top creator, with about 317 million subscribers (though that number will have increased by the time you’re reading this). He’s had a massive impact on his hometown, Greenville, North Carolina, where he runs his operation, including multiple YouTube channels and businesses, from merchandise to his snack company Feastables. Earlier this year, it was revealed in court documents that Donaldson aimed to earn $700 million in revenue in 2024 from his several YouTube channels, sponsorships, licensing and content syndication, and merchandise.

But things haven’t always gone smoothly for his business. Recently, Donaldson has faced backlash over several controversies, including reports surrounding the conditions around the filming of his Amazon show.

So, how do you succeed as an employee within the MrBeast empire, according to MrBeast himself?

Here are four of the main points that he hammered out in the document:

• First off, Donaldson said it’s important to be obsessive about making content for YouTube if you want to succeed. Watch YouTube, not Netflix and Hulu, he wrote.

  ​​”This is not Hollywood and I do not want to be Hollywood,” Donaldson wrote. “If that sentence is a turn off to you then you’re probably at the wrong job.”

• Making mistakes at the company is totally fine — even expected — but you have to fess up to them right away and learn quickly. “Say the negatives” out loud so there are no surprises when bad news comes up.

  “I’ve never ever ever once fired someone on the spot for messing up, you have nothing to be afraid of,” he wrote. “Own shit so we can address how to fix it and then move on.”

• Employees need to take sole ownership of getting tasks done in general. Avoid corporate bottlenecks at all costs.

  “Take ownership and don’t give your project a chance to fail,” he wrote. “Dumping your bottleneck on someone and then just walking away until it’s done is lazy and it gives room for error and I want you to have a mindset that God himself couldn’t stop you from making this video on time.”

• Find creative ways to save money, and use outside consultants to save time (though be skeptical of third-party vendors).

  “Every dollar we save allows me to give you guys more stability and hire more people to make your life easier,” Donaldson wrote. “In every single freakin task assigned to you, always always always ask yourself first if you can find a consultant to help you.”

  But, when dealing with people outside MrBeast’s company, “never take a No at face value,” he wrote. “Basically what I’m trying to convey is what we call ‘pushing thru no’. Don’t just stop because one person told you no, stop when all conceivable options are exhausted.”

There’s a lot more in the document, which we’ve published below, but these highlights capture some of the main themes that Donaldson repeatedly touches on.

The best employees are “obsessive, learn from mistakes, coachable, intelligent, don’t make excuses, believe in YouTube, see the value of this company, and are the best in the goddamn world at their job,” he wrote.

Did MrBeast practice what he preached?

How much are these business principles actually put into practice among staffers who work at MrBeast’s company? A fair amount, three former MrBeast employees told BI. They were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about their time at the company.

One former staffer said that the ideas in the document “ran rampant” and were often said word-for-word among MrBeast’s team.

Still, corporate ideals in writing aren’t always easy to apply in practice.

A second ex-staffer said that several points in the document differed from their experience working there. For instance, this person said that they felt a section on pages 35 and 36 that described a particular review process for getting promoted wasn’t really applied.

A third ex-employee told BI that despite MrBeast’s distaste for corporate bottlenecks, Donaldson himself would often be a bottleneck to getting tasks done, largely because he was known to change his mind at a moment’s notice.

Curious what else is on MrBeast’s mind when it comes to running a YouTube empire?

Read the full document: