Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, said he lives to work and does not have a healthy work-life balance, as the creator behind one of the world’s biggest online followings described a schedule packed from minute to minute. He said it was a miracle if a day was less than 15 hours for him, and that his workday was literally planned down to the minute.
Donaldson made the comments after the release of the docuseries How MrBeast Works 18 Hours per Day, writing on X that he was laser-focused on making the greatest videos possible and building the business as large as possible. He said he was filming the second installment of his Amazon Prime competition series Beast Games while still producing his regular YouTube videos, which regularly draw more than 100 million views. His channel has 476 million subscribers on YouTube alone, making him one of the most watched creators in the world.
The scale of that output helps explain why his videos have ranged from spending a week living in a cave to being buried in a coffin. Donaldson also said he employs a body double to help stage and test thumbnail concepts, stepping in himself only for the final shot before moving on to the next task. He has said he hopes Beast Industries will one day rival Disney, and the company is already moving beyond content into financial services and telecom.
That expansion is now going hand in hand with hiring. Jeff Housenbold, the company’s chief executive, said this week that Beast Industries plans to expand its workforce by 50% in roles in New York, Los Angeles and Greenville, North Carolina. Donaldson has also talked openly about his finances, saying earlier this year that he had negative money and was borrowing money, and that if the equity value of his company were subtracted, viewers would have more money in their bank accounts than he does. He said he wakes up and just works, does not really think about his personal bank account, and is focused on making the best videos possible while building the business as big as possible.
The tension in Donaldson’s empire is plain: the creator who built a fortune in influence says he has little money in hand, because so much of his value sits inside the company he is still trying to scale. His team declined Fortune’s request for comment. For MrBeast, the story now is not whether he can keep pace with his own output; it is whether Beast Industries can keep growing fast enough to match the machine he has built.
