I noticed an interesting case—MrBeast has held the title of the highest-paid YouTuber on the planet for several years. At one time, Donaldson earned about $54 million from video content, and then his forecasts soared to $110 million. Journalists estimated his net worth at roughly $500 million, and that was a few years ago. Then it only got bigger. At some point, he even looked for buyers for a stake in the studio, and if the deal had gone through, the value of his main project could have reached $1.5 billion. Wow.

What’s interesting is that MrBeast says the path to a billion isn’t about setting that goal for yourself. You just need to make your company cool—and everything else will follow. The guy is so immersed in it that he even came to give lectures at Harvard. That’s how he built all of this.

The foundation of his empire is a content studio. But it’s not just one channel. He has an entire network of projects: the main MrBeast with 142 million subscribers, then Beast Reacts, MrBeast Shorts, Beast Philanthropy, MrBeast Gaming, MrBeast 2—each with tens of millions of viewers. All of this is produced in Greenville, where he grew up. There, they also develop the studio, planning to expand to three major centers. About 50 people work on site—writers, editors, assistants. Many of them are his friends and family, who have been with him since the very earliest days of the channel.

Then he decided to try food. In 2020, he launched MrBeast Burger—first as a free giveaway in Greenville. On opening day, the line of cars stretched 30 km. Now it’s already more than 300 locations across the US and abroad. The twist is that these are virtual restaurants—you order through an app, and they cook it at a partner cafe. In three months, they sold a million burgers. Later, they also opened a physical restaurant.

There are also Feastables snacks—chocolate and cookies—that are sold online and at Walmart. The launch in 2022 was done in a big way: giveaways, golden tickets in chocolates, and a competition with Gordon Ramsay on the judging panel. The first few months brought in more than $10 million in revenue. And this is what MrBeast’s wealth looks like—from a YouTuber to a real entrepreneur with a portfolio of businesses. The guy just focused on making great projects, and the wealth came on its own.