Honestly, when you start to understand how much money Мистер Бист has, you realize that the guy isn’t just a YouTuber — he’s a real businessman with a multi-billion-dollar empire.

For two years in a row, Donaldson holds the position of the highest-paid content creator in the world. In 2021, he earned about $54 million just from videos, and Forbes suggested that in the following year his income could grow to $110 million. At the same time, journalists estimated his total net worth at half a billion dollars. But the most interesting part is that in 2022, Donaldson was considering options for attracting investment into his content studio, and if that had happened, the value of his main asset could have reached $1.5 billion.

The blogger himself says that the key to success isn’t in chasing the goal of becoming a billionaire, but in focusing on building a great company. His approach worked so well that even Harvard Business School invited him to give a lecture.

And here’s how exactly he built this empire. First of all, it’s not just one channel — it’s an entire network. On the main MrBeast channel, there are 142 million subscribers; Beast Gaming has 32 million; Beast Reacts has 22.5 million; and there are several other smaller projects. All videos are produced in Greenville, where Donaldson himself grew up. There’s a studio there, which is now being expanded into three major centers. He hired about 50 people to work in the studio — scriptwriters, editors, and assistants. Many of them are his friends and family members who believed in the project from the very beginning.

Then he decided to go further and opened a network of MrBeast Burger restaurants. The idea appeared in December 2020, when the blogger rented a small snack shop in the same Greenville and organized a giveaway of free food. On opening day, the line of cars stretched for more than 30 kilometers. Today, the chain has more than 300 locations in the United States and several abroad. The catch is that these are virtual restaurants — you can place an order only through an app, and it’s prepared at partner cafés. In three months, they sold over a million burgers. In August 2022, the first real offline restaurant also opened.

Another source of income is Feastables snacks. These are the MrBeast Bar chocolate and MrBeast Cookies cookies, which are sold online and in Walmart supermarkets. Donaldson marked the launch in January 2022 in a truly royal way — he organized a giveaway with cash prizes and a contest for those who found golden tickets inside the chocolates. The finalists were required to prepare desserts, which were evaluated by Gordon Ramsay himself. The winner received a chocolate factory as a prize. In the first few months, Feastables sold $10 million worth of products.

So that’s how it turns out that Мистер Бист transformed YouTube into a platform for launching an entire corporation. Each line of business operates like a separate company, but they’re all connected by one brand and one vision.