Leaked MrBeast Guide Has The Tech World Captivated, Conjures ‘Founder Mode’

• A leaked insider guide from MrBeast is being released to the tech world.
• Tech workers and investors dig into the YouTuber’s views on hiring, management and more.
• Is MrBeast the ultimate leader in “founder mode”?

MrBeast is the most popular YouTuber in the world. He’s also Silicon Valley’s hottest new thought leader.

A leaked workplace guide from the 26-year-old creator, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, has been making the rounds in the tech world for the past few weeks, making the rounds on X, LinkedIn and other social platforms. At one point, it was featured as a top post on startup accelerator Y Combinator’s Hacker News site, as founders, tech workers and investors skimmed the 36-page document.

In the guide, titled “How to Succeed in Manufacturing MrBeast,” which Business Insider reviewed with two former MrBeast employees, Donaldson covered topics that are top of mind for business people. He wrote about how he identifies highly productive workers for his company and why it’s important to be “obsessive” about completing tasks. He also presented his views on effective management. (You can read the full guide here.)

The YouTuber’s approach to leadership immediately drew comparisons on social media to “founder mode,” a fiery concept that advocates for managers to be more active in their companies. The idea came from an interview with Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky and was popularized in a September blog post by Y Combinator’s Paul Graham.

“The MrBeast memo is a clear manifestation of founder mode,” said Tom Alder, who writes a weekly growth hack newsletter called Strategy Breakdowns.

Donaldson’s guidance “demonstrates an intense, hardcore mindset that non-founder-led companies rarely possess,” Alder said.

A hardcore founder who writes like a real person

MrBeast’s guide is the latest “hardcore” corporate document to go viral in the tech world. Netflix’s cultural note was once a hot topic among tech workers, and Jeff Bezos’ Always Day One mantra has inspired company doctrine at other Big Tech firms, including TikTok owner ByteDance.

“Leaks of internal emails and memos are religious texts for the tech world,” Alder said. “A point artifact that becomes more compelling as time goes on, as those companies become more prolific.”

Of course, not everyone agreed with MrBeast’s workplace manifesto.

One commenter on the Y Combinator post described it as “crazy nonsense from a culture workshop boss / would-be cult leader.”

Donaldson’s business practices have also come under scrutiny recently, particularly surrounding the filming of his upcoming show with Amazon.

But the widespread popularity of the MrBeast guide among tech entrepreneurs and startup founders shows how, in just a few years, influencers and the creator economy have become legitimate business figures in the tech and media industries.

Donaldson is not only the best YouTuber (with 317 million subscribers and counting), he has also expanded beyond social media into several business ventures, including merchandise and products. He aims to earn $700 million in revenue in 2024, according to a set of court documents from earlier this year.

“To me, it’s another sign that the YouTube creator space has hit this incendiary moment where you have to think about these kinds of things to build a big business now,” said John McCarus, founder of executive search firm Content Ink . of the popularity of the MrBeast boarding guide.

Keeping it casual while demanding exceptional work

Donaldson, who has expressed his admiration for tech visionaries like Steve Jobs, brought an informal tone to his guide that feels different from other leaked company documents.

Yes, MrBeast wants “A-Players” who are “obsessive, learn from mistakes, coachable, smart, unapologetic, believe in Youtube, see the value of this company and are the best in the world at their job. ,” as Donaldson wrote in the guide. But he also doesn’t care about workplace decorum, as an executive of a larger company should.

“I think this resonates because it’s so contrary to the current trends in work culture today, which seem bland by comparison,” Rachel Roberts Mattox, a brand developer and marketing consultant, said of the MrBeast document.

“Don’t sell employees on a list of benefits they’ll enjoy, such as hybrid work and flexible schedules and unlimited PTO, while emphasizing how to ‘play nice’ with other departments for optimal productivity,” Mattox said. “On the contrary. He says if you’re not obsessed and don’t agree with unapologetic micro-management and radical accountability, quit now.”

Donaldson’s casual and unpretentious writing style was a big factor in helping him spread across the tech world, industry insiders told BI.

“It feels authentic,” said Marc Cohen, an early-stage tech investor at Unbundled VC. “It feels like it was written by an individual rather than a corporation. And when you do that, you get a message.”

“I really liked how the document is very raw,” said Abhishek Sharma, senior product marketing manager at fintech AI startup Rafa.ai. “If you look at the other company documents, it’s very fluffy, very corporate jargon and very nice, nice pictures. And that was straight Google Doc.”