Another Story of Overnight Success

In one of his recent podcast episodes, Lex Fridman interviews Jimmy Donaldson, best known as Mr. Beast. In case you don't know—I didn't, I know it now because of my kids—Mr. Beast YouTube's channel has over 128 million subscribers. Some of his videos have 300 million views.

It's easy to think of Mr. Beast as an overnight success. Alas, my kids thought he had started his channel last year. That's not his story. Mr. Beast began posting videos to YouTube in 2012, at the age of 13. None of his videos went viral until 2017. His story is about consistency, learning how to do better and more engaging videos, over time. Luck played some part in his success, as it does in anyone's life. But nobody can deny his effort and the huge amount of work behind his channel.

I'm not particularly fond of Mr. Beast's channel, but I can admire his consistency. That's what I would like my kids to notice about Mr. Beast. Most overnight success stories are about years of work.