NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 MrBeast\u2019s new CEO hit Wall Street Wednesday as YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson\u2019s media empire looks to develop long-term brand partnerships and, in turn, unlock more funding for its charitable content.<\/p>\n
Venture capitalist Jeff Housenbold took over MrBeast leadership last summer with a mandate to professionalize an ever-growing entertainment company. YouTube\u2019s most popular creator had reached record audience levels far outpacing its startup days, while vowing to reassess its internal culture amid multiple controversies<\/a>. But, despite joining Nasdaq\u2019s closing bell ceremony on Wednesday, Housenbold said their strategic plan does not currently include a public offering \u2014 or any active funding rounds.<\/p>\n \u201cDo I want to make banger content? Yeah. That\u2019s cool,\u201d Housenbold told The Associated Press. \u201cBut what can we do with that banger content? Generate profits, make a sustainable business that gives us greater ability to impact people\u2019s lives around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re marching quickly to profitability, so we don\u2019t have to raise additional capital,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Instead, MrBeast is focused on securing multi-year exclusive advertising deals as opposed to single-video brand partnerships. With 416 million subscribers and legions of impressionable young fans, Housenbold argued that MrBeast is uniquely positioned to deliver more bang for companies\u2019 marketing bucks by pointing that \u201cfirehose of attention\u201d at them.<\/p>\n Along the way, Housenbold said he is encouraging Donaldson to tout the channel\u2019s charitable works<\/a> \u2014 which often feature quantifiable stunts such as building wells, removing ocean plastic or covering cataract surgery costs. The company, in his view, \u201ccan do good while doing well.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe more people who like us \u2019cause we do good, the more people watch our videos,\u201d he said. \u201cThe more people watch our videos, the more we\u2019re able to drive in fees from our advertising partners\u2026 the more we can invest in more content to do more good in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n New projects such as the Amazon Prime reality show and a James Patterson novel from HarperCollins aim to diversify the genders and ages of his audience. Housenbold said that base has historically consisted mostly of 8-to-25-year-olds and men.<\/p>\n But Housenbold acknowledged missteps in last year\u2019s production of \u201cBeast Games,\u201d which prompted allegations of \u201cunsafe\u201d conditions from some contestants who said an unorganized set led to injuries, irregular food provision and lacking access to medication. While describing most of those reports as \u201cinaccurate,\u201d Housenbold said they were \u201cbetter prepared\u201d for the second season\u2019s recently wrapped shoot.<\/p>\n \u201cBuilding sets for a 10-episode show is different than a 22-minute YouTube video,\u201d he said. \u201cThe scale, the size, the sophistication, the safety, the security, the cost effectiveness of doing that. We didn\u2019t staff up enough for \u2018Beast Games\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Ringing Nasdaq\u2019s closing bell Wednesday with Housenbold was the winner of the $10 million grand prize awarded in that inaugural \u201cBeast Games\u201d season.<\/p>\n Jeffrey Allen, the father of a child with creatine transporter deficiency, has promised to put some of his winnings toward existing treatments and research for a cure to the rare genetic disorder. He said the Association for Creatine Deficiencies, where he is a board member, added 1,000 new donors in the weeks following the final \u201cBeast Games\u201d episodes\u2019 release.<\/p>\n He hopes Wednesday\u2019s visit will draw more attention and money to all rare diseases.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is where companies that are bringing true change to the marketplace come to listen to other companies,\u201d Allen said. \u201cSo, there\u2019s no better place for a budding rare disease nonprofit to come and show, \u2018Hey we\u2019re trying to change the world, too.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP\u2019s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP\u2019s philanthropy coverage, visit https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/philanthropy<\/a>.<\/p>\n James Pollard, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 MrBeast\u2019s new CEO hit Wall Street Wednesday as YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson\u2019s media empire looks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-19190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}