You know, it’s interesting to watch how one person, over the course of a few years, built a financial empire that’s now valued at half a billion dollars. We’re talking about Jimmy Donaldson, known as MrBeast. The guy has held the title of the highest-paid YouTuber on the planet for two years in a row.

In 2021, his video income was about $54 million. Forbes at the time predicted that it could grow to $110 million the next year. MrBeast’s fortune was estimated at $500 million, and in 2022 he even looked for investors for his content studio. If the deal had gone through, the value of his main asset could have reached one and a half billion.

Donaldson himself has a curious thing to say: to become a billionaire, you don’t need to make it your goal. Just focus on building a cool company. And it seems to work—he was even invited to give lectures at Harvard Business School.

So what exactly does his financial situation consist of? Let’s start with the content studio. MrBeast isn’t limited to one channel—he has a whole portfolio of them. The main MrBeast channel has 142 million subscribers. Then there’s Beast Reacts with 22.5 million, MrBeast Shorts with 21.5 million, Beast Philanthropy with 12.6 million, MrBeast Gaming with 32 million, and MrBeast 2 with 21.5 million. All of this content-production machine operates in Greenville, where Donaldson grew up. There’s a studio there that’s currently being expanded into three major centers. The idea is that, over time, they’ll bring other content creators there as well. About 50 people work at the studio right now—scriptwriters, editors, assistants. Many of them are friends and family members who have been with him since the very first days of the channel.

Next comes MrBeast Burger’s restaurant business. In December 2020, he opened his first location in Greenville with free food. The menu includes burgers, French fries, drinks, and desserts. On opening day, the line of cars stretched more than 30 kilometers. Today, the chain has more than 300 locations in the US and a few abroad. The key thing is that these are virtual restaurants—you order through an app, and the food is prepared at one of the partner cafes. In the three months after the launch, they sold over a million burgers. In August 2022, they opened the first full-fledged offline restaurant.

There’s also the Feastables snack line. MrBeast Bar and MrBeast Cookies are sold online and at Walmart. For the January 2022 launch, they held a giveaway with cash prizes and a contest with golden tickets hidden inside chocolate bars. In the finale, participants made desserts that were judged by Gordon Ramsay. The winner received a chocolate factory. In the first few months, Feastables sold snacks worth $10 million.

That’s the portfolio of assets—and that’s MrBeast’s situation. It turns out his financial situation isn’t based on a single source, but on an entire ecosystem—content, food, merchandise. And each direction functions like a separate business.