Shaan recaps Camp MFM — a 48-person retreat at MrBeast’s compound in Greenville, NC — sharing detailed observations about Jimmy Donaldson’s evolution, mindset, and operating style. The conversation covers Jimmy’s obsessive all-in culture, the Prime energy drink backstory, a series of “tiny talks” from billionaires and operators in the room, and Shaan’s personal takeaway: laser focus on building the largest content brand in entrepreneurship.
Speakers: Shaan Puri (host), Sam Parr (host)
Cold Open — Jimmy Is an Outlier [00:00:00]
Shaan: Amongst this group of very successful people, it was very clear that Jimmy is an outlier. He’s an outlier because of his mindset, because of his ambition, because of his level of obsession, because of his work ethic, because of his absolute disregard for social norms. So let me just tell you some things that stood out.
Welcome Back / The 23andMe Affiliate Scheme [00:00:18]
Shaan: What’s up, Sam. I’m back. I’m back from Camp MFM.
Sam: Camp — is it even called Camp MFM if only one of us went?
Shaan: I don’t know, we have to debate that. But I’m back. I have so much good stuff to share. This is a crazy event, honestly. It’s kind of a batshit crazy event.
Sam: I’ll give it batshit crazy. It is so interesting.
Shaan: I have so many notes. I’m going to share with you — but first, I saw something completely unrelated that I’ve got to tell you about.
Sam: By the way, before we even get to all of that, we have to explain that you hosted this big event. Now you’re going to tell me some amazing thing you just saw.
Shaan: So before I tell you about Camp MFM, I’ve got to tell you about this evil genius affiliate marketing play that I saw somebody share on Twitter.
It involves 23andMe. So basically this guy points it out, he goes, “Check this out, this is the most evil genius thing I’ve ever seen.” And he points to this tweet that a user — her name is Stella — posted. She says, “Hey, my friend Elizabeth is looking for an unvaccinated sperm donor.”
Sam: You’re halfway there.
Shaan: She said she’s looking for somebody who’s blue-eyed, white — I’m vaccinated, by the way — 5’11” or taller, blah blah blah. So it has this set of requirements.
Sam: Big go.
Shaan: Yeah, big go. But then there are some things in here that make you raise one eyebrow. First one: she says “follows a healthy, meat-focused diet.” Specific but okay. Second: “no Jewish or African ancestry.” Slightly racist, but okay. Then it says “must be natural insemination — she will not do IVF.” So she doesn’t want to do the normal sperm donation process. She wants natural insemination. Which means basically any white guy who’s unvaccinated.
Sam: So basically anyone who lives in Missouri.
Shaan: Got it. So then she tweets again and says, “Hey, that last tweet got so much inbound, I just want to add some detail.” She reiterates the criteria, but adds some photos of the girl. She says, “As you can see, she is beautiful, pure-blooded European” — code word — “intelligent, has a childbearing body.” And they post a bunch of pictures. It’s like this kind of hot model-looking girl.
So this guy points out: this tweet got almost three million views. And if you DM the person, they send you a link and they’re like, “Hey, cool, you’re interested — awesome. She would love to naturally conceive with you. You just need to satisfy all the criteria — take this 23andMe test and submit your results, and that’ll confirm you’re eligible.” But it’s an affiliate code for 23andMe.
This girl — there’s probably no girl. What it actually is: some fat guy in his basement is tricking tons of guys who are like, “Maybe I’ll impregnate this hot European model. I just gotta take this 23andMe.”
The normal 23andMe referral bonus is $20 per person. If you do the math on this funnel: three million people see this tweet, let’s say one tenth of one percent actually go do it — that’s 3,000 people. At minimum, that’s $60,000 in affiliate revenue off one tweet.
Sam: Isn’t this crazy?
Shaan: Next week, 23andMe is sitting down in their marketing meeting like, “All right, let’s look at the data and see who our target demographic is. Wow — apparently our new users love Jorts. Should we have a bunch of white guys named Todd wearing jean shorts in our commercials? Is that our new target demographic?”
Sam: Everything just skews and they’re like, “I guess Twitter’s our best channel, and Stella appears to be our best retailer. Who is Stella? Should we be advertising on Twitch?”
Shaan: Is this evil or is it evil genius? Because it’s a fine line.
Sam: I think it’s evil genius. So let’s go on to the next part.
Camp MFM — Was It Good? [00:05:30]
Sam: All right, so let’s start with the following: was it good, was it great, was it life-changing?
Shaan: I’m going to go with life-changing. That’s how it was for everyone I spoke with who went. The worst was “great,” the highest was “life-changing.”
Sam: That’s a good high NPS.
Shaan: So let me just explain what we did. We basically took 20 people to Greenville, North Carolina — which is the middle of nowhere — and stayed at Mr. Beast’s house. So last year we did this thing once and realized: if we bring a bunch of interesting people from the business world, a few entertainers, and some people that Mr. Beast knows in his world, this can become a really interesting event. We did it again this year. I have some highlights and some lowlights — where do you want to start?
Sam: What I actually wanted to ask you about was the evolution of Jimmy, aka Mr. Beast. Because my perception of him last year — how old is he? Was he 24 last year?
Shaan: 25 now.
Sam: Okay, so he’s super young. Here’s my perception of him when I met him last year. He clearly had this “it factor” — I hadn’t met anyone like him. When we talk about Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, these conquerors — he had that. It was very clear this guy was crazy focused. But he still had some aspects of a normal 24-year-old. He felt a little impatient about certain things, and there were other times where it’s like, “Oh, you’re just a normal 24-year-old.”
Then this year I heard from someone who’d gone the year before: “Dude, Jimmy has evolved so much. He’s still only 25, but he’s morphing into this proper visionary where I believe he’s going to take over the world.” Was that true?
Shaan: A lot of that is true. You could see the evolution, which is kind of crazy.
MrBeast’s Scale — Biggest Creator on Earth [00:08:00]
Shaan: For people who don’t know, Jimmy is basically one of the most famous people on planet Earth. It’s kind of bizarre when you look at the numbers. He is the biggest creator on the biggest app in the world. He’s the number one most followed creator on YouTube. He’s almost the number one channel on YouTube — there’s only one channel bigger, which is like this Indian music channel. He’s the biggest on YouTube, he’s the biggest on TikTok. The two biggest entertainment apps in the world — he’s basically number one on both.
Sam: Wasn’t the stat like one out of ten people on Earth sees his videos once a month or something like that?
Shaan: Dude, you can look at this a hundred ways and it’s insane. More people watch his content than watch the Super Bowl — every month. His average video gets 80 million unique views. It’s hard to even fathom that. And then you go outside with him and wherever you are, it’s Michael Jackson levels of fame.
Sam: Was it really?
Shaan: You can still see it. It still happens. So that’s the first thing — it’s just hard to even wrap your head around that level of fame and success at this age. He’s running a billion-dollar company. His company is worth well over a billion dollars.
Sam: Is he running it? Is he the CEO?
Shaan: He has a CEO, but the CEO reports to him. He’s the owner.
Jimmy’s Changes Since Last Year [00:10:30]
Shaan: So what changed from last year? First: the guy lost 30 pounds. After last year’s Camp, he watched video of himself playing basketball and was like, “Oh my God, I got up so slow and out of shape — forget this.” And you can see that — the type of person who can become the number one creator on YouTube by obsessing and focusing for 10 years? That guy can transform his body in a year too. He’s on an extreme bodybuilder workout program, he’s got bodybuilder meals, he’s got a trainer who follows him around. They built a gym right outside his studio that we went and hung out in. He’s big.
He was like, “I only have three goals this year: grow the channel, get big, and sell chocolate. Those are the three things.”
That’s another interesting thing. Last year when we talked to him, he had like 10 things he was doing. Oh, I want to do this mobile gaming thing, I’m doing this over here — because why not, right? He could do any of those things. And one of the things I texted Ben — Ben Levy, my business partner who organized the whole event — I texted him: “It’s embarrassing, man. Jimmy has literally at least 1,000 times more opportunities than us.” This podcast creates a lot of opportunities. You know where we are in the tech world. But he has at least 1,000x more opportunities — and he does less. He says yes to less stuff than we do. We’re doing four things. He’s doing two. That shows how poorly we’re staying focused and committed to what actually matters.
If this guy can say no to literally a thousand — maybe ten thousand — better opportunities than what we’re saying no to, that’s something to learn from.
Shaan: What else changed? His channel has basically doubled in the last year. He’s added like 100 million more subscribers. And his chocolate business has taken off.
I really underestimated this chocolate business, Feastables. When I had a chance to invest at the earlier rounds, I was like, “Chocolate company? I don’t know. Why chocolate? Your audience is young, but chocolate’s kind of low-priced.” And last year when we were with them, I think the results were like… it might be okay? It was kind of number three on his list. He was like, “Oh, I got Beast Burger — the virtual restaurant chain that’s doing like $100 million gross.” They’ve since shut that down. And chocolate was like number three, maybe, last year.
Now it’s like: every day I wake up and think, “How do I sell more chocolate?” That level of hyper-obsession. He’s going to do hundreds of millions in chocolate sales this year. His clear path is: there are five chocolate companies that matter, valued in the billions up to $30 billion. “We are eating share like crazy. These guys can’t touch us when it comes to marketing. We are just blowing through the retail doors.” The main thing is getting into Walmart — and who can drive more people to Walmart than him?
Sam: It’s pretty obvious now that’s going to be a billion-dollar-plus business.
Shaan: I would bet he sells that chocolate brand for $6 billion. That’s my guess. If we fast-forward three years: Mr. Beast sells the majority stake in the chocolate business at a $6 billion valuation.
Jimmy as an Outlier — Mindset Deep Dive [00:15:00]
Sam: What about his mindset? You said he focused more. What else changed?
Shaan: So Joe Rogan has this thing he says about David Goggins: “He’s uncommon amongst uncommon men.” This room was really interesting because I don’t know the average net worth — even take out Joe, who’s worth like $7 to $10 billion — this is a room of very, very successful people. Average probably like $100 million net worth or something. And amongst this group of very successful people, it was very clear that Jimmy is an outlier. His mindset, his ambition, his level of obsession, his work ethic, his absolute disregard for social norms.
So let me tell you some things that stood out.
He was very humble. He’s like, “I’ve made every mistake you can make trying to run this business. I’ve hired and fired like six CEOs. I thought, ‘We’ll hire the Disney guy — surely he’ll know things.’ No, he doesn’t know anything about YouTube, that’s not going to work. We hire this person over here and they build the whole thing out, and I realize, ‘Oh my God, they built this wrong, we’ve got to get rid of all that.’” He’s like, “I’m only 25. I’ve only been doing this for a couple of years. You guys might have been doing this 20 more years than me. I’m just making things up. I’m sitting here in North Carolina just making things up. I don’t even have access to people like you on most days to even ask questions.”
The Cloning Method — How He Scales Himself [00:18:00]
Shaan: So we were like, “What worked for you? How have you scaled this thing up?” He goes, “Oh, I just create clones.”
Sam: What?
Shaan: Yeah. He’s like, “I wanted to clone myself, because I know I could do this but I don’t have the time. So I literally have somebody essentially move in with me and I duct tape them to my hip. You’re going to follow me everywhere, to everything. For the first six months, all you’re going to do is shadow me — just learn exactly how I think, what I want, what I do, and why I do it. Then in six months you start doing those things yourself.” He’s like, “I’ve basically cloned myself several times now, and then they clone themselves. That’s what we do.”
Sam: So he literally has the guy live with him?
Shaan: Yeah. We’re like, “But what about his family and stuff?” He’s like, “Yeah, I mean — you want to do this or not?”
One of the guys who’s his right-hand man now — last year when we went, this was a guy who’d been a random contestant in one of Jimmy’s challenges. You know the kind: “Live in this circle for 100 days and you get half a million dollars.” This was the guy living in the circle. He had a background in video production, some experience. They recruited him after that experiment to work with Jimmy. Now he’s with him 24/7.
I was like, “Dude, you’ve got kids. This is a Saturday — are you supposed to be working?” He’s like, “Yeah, I work every day, all day.” He’s like, “I made a deal with my family. I said, look — I’m coming out here. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You’re not going to see me for the next nine months. Hopefully after nine months I’ll have set up a system where I’ll be back a little bit more. But this is an adventure and I want to go on it. This is the pinnacle of my career.” And this all-in mentality was just so pervasive.
The Board Game Story — Hiring for Extremity [00:21:30]
Shaan: Here’s another simple example. The guy who’s currently his assistant — we were like, “How’d you get the job? Did you interview? How did he pick you?” He’s like, “No interview. They really wanted to play this board game, but Amazon Prime was going to take two days. So one of his guys hit me up because he knew I had the game. He said, ‘Fly here right now. We want this game now. We don’t want to wait two days for Amazon Prime, we want to play tonight.’” So he just got on a flight, came, and handed them the board game. They were like, “Cool. If you’re willing to do that, you can make it here. You want a job?”
Sam: You’re extreme enough.
Shaan: He was describing how they filter for this, because they were trying to figure out: how do we keep this culture as we scale — people who are just all-in? He’s like, “Now when I interview people, we do these psychographic tests to figure out your personality profile. But then I’m going to spend an hour convincing you how hard this is going to be and how much you’re going to have to sacrifice. And I can see — do they flinch? Do they start asking about vacation policies? Or do they get excited about going on this mission? Our mission to Mars.”
I thought that was fascinating. He’s basically breeding this insane work culture. The quality of people he has around him from last year to this year has leveled up so much.
Thumbnail Obsession — Data Junkie Mentality [00:25:00]
Shaan: He just breaks all social norms. So like — we were asking him, “How do you describe yourself? Are you an entertainer? A chocolate guy? A businessman? A YouTuber? What do you call yourself?”
Sam: I don’t know. A business builder?
Shaan: He said: “I’m a data junkie.”
Sam: No way.
Shaan: Yeah. He’s like, “I basically just studied the algorithm, I studied the platform, and I figured out what’s going to work. And I decided I’m going to study this more than anyone studies anything.”
Then I found out what they do with thumbnails. We’re over here — when we put up a thumbnail for our YouTube channel, we put up one thumbnail and sometimes we’re like, “I’m not sure if that’s good.” And then we’re like, “Screw it, we’ll A/B test.” That’s it, A and B. You know what he does? He will test hundreds of thumbnails in rapid succession during the window when they first release a video. They cycle through hundreds of thumbnails programmatically to find the winning one.
And they also think about: our loyal hardcore fans come first during the first 24-hour period. But after that, it’s going to be more browsing viewers who don’t know Jimmy at all — they don’t want to see his face. Let’s just put this bathtub full of snakes — or whatever the challenge is — as the thumbnail.
Sam: Jack told me about that. And I go — “Jack, is he doing that because he’s so big, or is he so big because he did that?” He said the second one. He’s so big because he did that.
Shaan: He doesn’t do that now because he’s successful. He’s successful because he did that.
Total Addressable Market — Playing the Biggest Game [00:28:00]
Shaan: Another random nerdy takeaway: he is attacking the biggest TAM on YouTube. TAM — total addressable market. I could think of a viral idea, something kind of juicy. But his ideas are like — a seven-year-old in the Philippines, a 25-year-old in the United States, and a 40-year-old woman in the UK would all be interested in his video.
Because his video is something you don’t even need words to explain. You could literally explain it with a thumbnail or a hieroglyphic: “Man trapped in room — 100 days.” I’m interested. What is that? Or: “Two people. First to leave the circle loses — one million dollars.” Okay, I get it. Or: “FBI agent tries to catch me.” Very simple premises that appeal to a really broad audience.
I hadn’t really appreciated that before. I thought he was making viral, click-baity stuff. What I didn’t factor in was: he will only pick ideas that can literally appeal to a billion people. That’s just different than what most people do on the platform. Most people — our channel, for example — we talk about stuff that’s meant to appeal to a narrow niche in a deep way. He plays a different game: appeal to the entire world in a small way.
Jimmy vs. Mr. Beast’s New Movie Studio Mindset [00:30:30]
Sam: Someone had said that Mr. Beast has hundreds of employees. At first I was like, “How do you need hundreds of employees?” But then I had to rethink it. I’m like — he’s actually a movie studio. It just so happens that instead of theaters, it’s on your phone or your TV. This guy has built the new Paramount. The new Warner Brothers.
Shaan: And it’s crazy fascinating, because I did this a little bit with newsletters but nowhere near that intensity. You take a small thing — something people think is small — and try to blow it up. At the time it was email. People thought it was just something you disregard. I’m like, “No, we can get five million subscribers and turn this into a business.” And of course it was only a fraction of what he did. But that’s basically what he’s done with YouTube. He’s like: what’s this one small thing that people are dismissing? And he built a whole studio around it.
Uncommon Amongst Uncommon — Observations on the Room [00:33:00]
Shaan: The other thing: if you talk to him, he’s like, “It’s impossible to do what I’m doing better than me. Because I’m going to spend 10 times more than anyone. I use every waking hour of my day to think about this. I hire all the best people in the world. I reinvest all of my profits back into this. I’m going to do this — and I think in decades, not years. So how could you beat that?”
And if you abstract this away — forget that he’s doing it for YouTube channels — there’s something to be inspired by and learn from. If you are willing to work in decades not years, every thought in your brain consumed by “how do I do this better,” you reinvest all your money, and you spend as much as you can to make the best product possible and get it into as many people’s hands as possible — can you lose? How could you possibly lose with that equation?
A lot of people can say that. Very few people can actually do it.
Sam: Do you think Jimmy is cash-poor? Like everything is tied up in the business?
Shaan: I don’t want to speculate too much, but I think the reality is he is a venture-backed startup. He raised venture capital and is doing what Airbnb or Facebook did — “I’m going to lose a ton of money every year building up market share so that then I can become a $10 billion or $100 billion company.” He raised $50 million-plus and invested all of it into content to build this enormous following. Then he used that to launch a chocolate business that’s going to be worth billions, plus his back catalog is worth a lot, plus sponsorships and ad revenue, plus any other business he launches. He is a movie production studio in terms of operations but more like a venture-backed startup than a traditional creator.
Saad, Joe Gebbia, and Different Models of Success [00:37:00]
Sam: You also had Saad there. Saad’s 32. He’s got businesses nobody will talk about because they’re not that famous, but I imagine he’s in the realm of being a billionaire. And Joe Gebbia who’s a multi-billionaire. Did you learn different perspectives on how to crush it based off of being around those three examples — Jimmy, Saad, and Joe?
Shaan: Yeah, 100%. A couple quick observations.
One observation: there were probably two or three more billionaires at this event. So you get to see a range — how do people act, how do people think, how do people operate? Saad is like: small team, simple business, unsexy, not going to be famous, doesn’t want people knowing his name. He wants to be able to walk around. He travels the world with his son for two weeks out of every month. That’s what he wants in his lifestyle.
You talk to Mr. Beast about kids and he’s like, “It’s a shame people have kids, man. They go soft.” He just — the general feeling is: it sucks that people start off really ambitious, trying to do big, awesome things, and then either get tired, worn out, disillusioned, or they just shift their focus to family. And he’s just like, “That’s not gonna be me.”
So you have two totally different perspectives. No judgment — there are many ways to win, and each person should choose the game they want to play.
Shaan: Observation number one: the smartest and most successful people in that room were the quietest. They were the ones doing the most listening. The least bragging. The least “you did that? I did something similar — let me tell you about me, me, me.” It was the people who were the least successful that were talking the most. And I’m guilty of that — I’m in the “talk the most” camp. So I was like, “Damn, that’s a real takeaway.” The ratio of two ears to one mouth — double the amount of listening compared to talking, if not more. And that was just so obvious to me at this event.
Shaan: The second thing: the people who were the most successful in one area — more often than not, if I asked them about some random side-quest hobby, they were also world-class at that thing. Joe was super successful with Airbnb, and he’s also extremely fit. Jimmy — the day after our event, he’s like, “What are you doing tomorrow?” He’s like, “Oh, I’m flying in all these — I play this one board game that’s super niche called Dune. There’s no tournament for Dune, so I created one. I’m flying in the French champion, the British champion, the German champion — the best players in the world — to come compete with me. I did this last year and I won.” He’s like, “When I play, I binge this thing. That’s my way of unwinding — to become world-class at this random niche strategy board game.”
We’ve heard these stories before. Peter Thiel is also a grandmaster chess champion. Travis Kalanick was ranked number three in tennis globally. And Jimmy literally won the competition against the best champions in the world at this board game. They were so upset they were like, “We’ve got to run this back.” He’s like, “Great, let’s do it again this year.” He put up $20,000 in prize money. No prize pool previously existed because it’s such a niche game.
Once you develop that laser beam — that ability to focus obsessively and achieve excellence — and you hone it on your main thing, if you ever shift it to something else, you just burn right through it, because you’ve practiced the art of obsession, focus, and breaking something down to its core parts and rebuilding it.
Prime Energy Drink Backstory [00:44:00]
Sam: Someone mentioned to me that Prime must have come up in your conversations. My mind is like — a billion dollars in sales, that’s worth a really high multiple because of how fast it’s growing. Billions of dollars in value created off a creator. Did you learn anything interesting about Prime?
Shaan: Yeah. So they did over a billion — $1.3, $1.5 billion in what’s kind of its first full year. It launched in 2022, so the 2023 numbers are the first full calendar year of business. That’s Bonkers. What business does over a billion dollars in revenue in its first year?
But the founders — they’re not kids. They’re in their 20s but they’re not nobodies. They’re sneaker flippers, actually. That’s how they got into business — selling sneakers. And then they created something called Alani Nu. You know Alani Nu? It’s this posh drink for women — like the Equinox of energy drinks. Think partnerships with Kim Kardashian. They did the Kim Kardashian flavor. And Alani Nu does over $100 million in profit per year. That itself is probably a multi-billion dollar company that they built before Prime.
So these guys — they hold a holding company called Congo Brands. They don’t want people to know about them. You go to LinkedIn — great picture. You go to Congo Brands — not much story. If anybody asks who owns Prime, they say Logan Paul and KSI. In reality, these guys own 60% of that company. Logan and KSI own like 30 to 40%.
Shaan: And that brand Prime — my guess is it ends up being a $20 billion brand. Celsius, the energy drink — Celsius just sold 8% to Pepsi for $550 million. So Celsius is valued at $6 billion. Prime is bigger than Celsius, or it’s going to be. So what an insane story.
And Jimmy — Mr. Beast — he was like, “I call that Congo Brands guy every day. He is so smart. So much smarter than everybody else in this space. I am just getting so much learning from that guy.” He’s like, “That’s why I like to meet people I can learn from.”
Sam: What’s crazy is if you Google those Congo Brands guys, you get basically nothing. No interviews, nothing. That’s insane.
Shaan: Moving in silence like lasagna.
Lowlights — Basketball, Hosting Exhaustion, Losing $10K [00:48:30]
Sam: Let me hear the lowlights.
Shaan: The worst thing was not getting to invite everyone. We only invited 20 people this year — we invited fewer than last year, because last year was a lot to manage. We had almost 30 last year. We targeted 15 this year to cut it in half. It ended up being 20. But that was the worst part, because it’s really hard to say no to people or not invite friends. You’re trying to create an event where there are new people, and so you just can’t always do it.
Another thing: I hate hosting these things. I know it’s good — there’s so much value in hosting. But it’s socially draining. I feel exhausted. You say this about the podcast sometimes — I feel drained after these. And I’m okay with work, it’s just: socially, at the end of the night every one of these events, I am so people-out. I’m an introvert. I want everybody to have a good time, and I can’t control if people are having a good time.
Sam: You’re basically working the whole time.
Shaan: Exactly. Last one: basketball kind of sucked. It was sloppy. The overlap of people who are super successful and interesting — and also good at pickup basketball — is surprisingly low. Also, people lie. We’re like, “Yo, do you play?” They’re like, “Yeah, love to.” They show up. You don’t play, do you.
And actually — I lost $10,000. Last year, we were all hanging out by the basketball court and Jimmy just casually goes, “Hey Shaan — if you can make this half-court shot, I’ll give you $10,000.” No conditions, no “if you don’t make it I get something.” I was like, “What the hell, Jimmy?” And I made it. Number five or something. He gave me $10,000. This year, I lost $10,000 doing the same thing.
Sam: You lost $10,000 to a multi-billionaire?
Shaan: One thing to lose $10,000. Another thing to lose it to a multi-billionaire. That has a little extra kick to it. I basically paid for 15 minutes on his jet.
And because we lost the final championship game, we had to do the ice plunge in the freezing cold lake. So that was also part of the penalty.
Tiny Talks — Billionaire Lessons Shared at Camp [00:53:00]
Sam: Can I tell you one of the things you did at this Camp?
Shaan: Yeah. So last year I was too afraid to structure it. I was like, “Yeah, we’re just gonna hang — it’s gonna be cool, it’s gonna be casual, it’s gonna be great.” And actually, you need structure. The best thing last year was when somebody finally impromptu was like, “Hey, so — do you guys want to do intros? An icebreaker? Who are you guys and what do you do, can we learn from each other?”
So this year I arranged it. At night, people would do what I called “tiny talks” — a five to ten minute flash talk on their thing. Because everybody in this room is world-class at something — otherwise you wouldn’t be in this room. Tell us what you’re world-class at and how you do it.
So Mr. Beast did his YouTube masterclass. He’s like, “Here’s my channel, here’s the analytics” — just logs in, screen shares. “Here’s how we think about this, here’s what I did, here’s what worked, here’s what didn’t, here’s this trick we do on our thumbnails.” You couldn’t pay for that. Joe Gebbia did one on his first startup before Airbnb and the lessons he learned.
Sam: One of the talks — the title is “How I Went from Zero to $1.3 Billion in Real Estate in 10 Years.” What’s the one-sentence summary?
Shaan: This guy has an unfair advantage that lets him play the game differently, and I should just give him my money to invest. And that’s what I’m doing.
Sam: Unfair advantages do exist. When you have them, press your chips into the table.
Shaan: Another one: “Why I Bought 23 Gas Stations, and Was It a Good Idea?” So last year at camp, somebody shared how they owned 10 gas stations or so. One of the guys went and bought 23 gas stations after that. Funny story — it probably was a good idea for him because he’d sold his business and needed something that would give him a lot of depreciation in year one. Gas stations do that. So in that sense, smart move. But now he holds all these assets and has to figure out if they were the right thing long-term.
Another guy did a presentation on why venture capital mostly sucks and why people play the game totally wrong — and he is a VC. At the end, he did this thing called the “Mount Rushmore of Death.” He was like, “We were asking, ‘Dude, how did you even think to invest in that one company that took off for $3 billion?’ He goes, ‘Well, I was taking like a thousand meetings a year, like most VCs do, just inundated with data. Then I stepped back and I was like: I’m not going to do constant inbound meetings worried about missing the next big thing. Instead, I’m going to figure out where the next big thing will live, and then go find it.’”
So he did this thing called the Mount Rushmore of Death: the four things that cause death more than everything else combined — heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and dementia/neurodegeneration. Eighty percent of all deaths. So he went and looked for what’s the best company in biotech that attacks one of those four in a plausible way. He ended up finding a big winner in that space.
Another guy talked about the three D’s of buying businesses: death, divorce, and distressed. The best opportunities come when you can buy a business from somebody who died and the kids don’t want to inherit it. From somebody going through a divorce who has to sell. Or distressed — somebody took on too much risk and you can buy it for less than the intrinsic value. One guy there had been looking at buying a business, would have had to pay like $15-20 million on top of the inventory. Instead, he now owns the whole business for the cost of the inventory alone. And because it was one of his suppliers, it cut his cost of goods in half.
Sam: Those talks sound badass.
Wrap-Up — Shaan’s Takeaway: Laser Focus on Content [00:58:30]
Shaan: All right, let’s wrap up. And let me make one suggestion: don’t turn this into a business. This is perfect as it is. Don’t screw this up.
Sam: Camp MFM is awesome.
Shaan: Of course not. This is perfect. Number two: do it again. Number three: keep it at 20. When we made the list of people we would want to come, the list was 142. So you had to go from 142 to inviting 15. That was terrible.
Sam: I don’t regret my decision, but I had massive FOMO. Ramone and Jack were giving me updates. Val and Ben and Nick. I would just text people like, “How’s it going? Is it fun?” They’d send pictures. Everybody at the thing was just calling it “Shaan’s bachelor party.” “I’m so happy to be at Shaan’s bachelor party.”
Shaan: Which is hilarious because I didn’t have a bachelor party — but if I did, this is exactly what I would have wanted. A group of guys who are all a lot of fun, tons of jokes, play basketball, play poker, talk business. The ideal bachelor party.
Sam: So by default I always get an invite.
Shaan: Dude, you blew us off this year.
Sam: You know how it is. People were like, “Where’s Sam?” I was like, “Oh, you know, he just had a baby.” They’re like, “Wasn’t that like three months ago?” I was like, “Yeah.” They’re like, “Then it was two and a half months ago.” And I made the commitment that the first three months, I’m home.
I was laying with her — shirtless, she was in her diaper — changing her diaper, and she pooped all over me somehow. As I was getting a text from Ramone like, “Yeah dude, now we’re lifting weights and doing all this stuff.” I was like, “Oh cool — let me wipe this poop off me real quick.”
Shaan: Any tips on how to get diarrhea out of…
Sam: She literally puked on my face this week. I was holding her at my shoulder and she threw up, and I got puked all over my face. Reading these texts. Seeing Nick Pjuber do a DEXA scan. Joe Gebbia jumping in a lake.
Shaan: He has a DEXA in his gym. We put Nick on it and played a game where everybody had to guess his body fat percentage. I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of fat shaming, but he loved it. It was great.
Sam: That’s baller. I definitely wish I could have been there. All right, that was a good episode. Good recap.
Shaan: Laser focus on content. That’s my takeaway. In fact, during Camp I realized — I should have just listened to you four years ago.
Sam: The thing is, you don’t really have the same level of inspiration and motivation from Mr. Beast here on the podcast. But it just sucks that you couldn’t have listened. Laser focus. On what exactly?
Shaan: On content. Specifically because — you’ve got to know who you are and what you’re into. For me, I think I’m probably a B+ entrepreneur, but I think I could be A+ in the content game. It would be nearly impossible for me to be A+ as an entrepreneur. It’s not where I’m naturally as talented, plus I don’t enjoy it enough to go that hard. But I do feel that way about making content.
So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to try to build the largest content brand around entrepreneurship. Around people who are into the same stuff we’re into. MFM has been awesome and it’s kind of shown that can be true — but it’s never been something I’m laser focused on. And I also don’t think podcasting is the right vehicle to do that. Podcasting is not viral. What you want is to be able to spread your gospel to as many people as possible. The problem with podcasting is it’s like bottom of funnel — it’s where people form a deep relationship. It’s not where they meet you.
Sam: Do you get envy when you think about it? I’ve thought about that as well. I’m not into content creation as much as you, so that’s not going to be the path for me. But I have used it as a miniature Logan Paul / Prime thing — very, very miniature.
Shaan: Are you prepared to be a 38-year-old YouTuber hanging out with a bunch of 22-year-olds?
Sam: I didn’t say I was going to do YouTube.
Shaan: I know you didn’t say that, but I’m still going to make fun of you for it. Noah Kagan — my good friend Noah — he runs a really successful business worth hundreds of millions. But he has a YouTube channel and I always make fun of him: “Dude, you’re a 42-year-old YouTuber hanging out with 22-year-olds who still like yoyos. Like, what are you doing? Grow up, Peter Pan.” So that’s what I’ll be making fun of you about.
Sam: You and I had to do a photo shoot recently because MFM wanted to update the channel picture. In that photo shoot we had to stand there and do like ten emotions. They’re like, “All right — act like someone just said something stupid and you think they’re full of it.” And every picture is inevitably just shock face. I hated it. It was horrible.
Shaan: There was one where you had your hand up like you’re about to smack someone. They’re like, “You’re angry.” And then you did this slap hand thing.
Sam: I was like — what are you doing? And then they had to use my hands for different numbers. I just had to hold up five, four, three. I hated doing that.
Shaan: But that’s gonna be you now. Congratulations.
Sam: It’s hard for me to be a little — but I hope you enjoy it. It was just like — a lot of YouTubers are actors, they’re performers, they’re entertainers. We sort of started this just like, hang out. And now when we go places and people are like, “Oh my gosh, I need your autograph, can I take a picture?” I’ll be like, “And this is Sam.” I’ll introduce you too. Don’t worry.
Shaan: I know you didn’t say YouTube necessarily. But I’m still going to make fun of you. Don’t let reality get in the way of what I’m going to mock you for.
Sam: All right. Good episode. Good recap.