The Lesson of Obsession: Robert Caro and Mr. Beast

How to successfully compete in the arena of attention.

Over the past few days, I encountered two very different creators. First, I visited the Robert Caro exhibit at the New York Historical Society. Then, I read “HOW TO SUCCEED IN MRBEAST PRODUCTION,” a remarkable little document by top YouTuber James “Jimmy” Donaldson aka “Mr. Beast.”

I don’t watch Mr. Beast’s content but I inhaled much of those 36 pages, skipping only the YouTube minutiae. The document lays out goals, expectations, principles, and lessons for new team members of Donaldson’s production company. I suspect he leaked it to inspire young ambitious outliers to apply and if you run a team with ambitious goals — hedge fund, startup, anything creative — I highly recommend you analyze the booklet for its clarity and structure (also, The Goal is the one book he recommends).

At first glance, Caro and Donaldson couldn’t seem more different: thousand-page biographies vs. a YouTube channel whose most popular video is “$456,000 Squid Game In Real Life!”

However, both owe their success to an intense passion and awe-inspiring obsession with mastering their craft. Where they differ is not just their medium but their goal — and this is where I found a foundational lesson about creative work.

New York Historical Society

“This channel is my baby and I've given up my life for it,” Donaldson writes. “I’m so emotionally connected to it that it’s sad lol.” Caro likewise has given his life to his work. Or you could say that his work has given him life. “As you get into a chapter, you get wound up,” he explained in Working. “You wake up excited—I don’t mean “thrilled” excited but “I want to get in there,” so I get up earlier and earlier.”

Caro is meticulous and methodical. It takes him about a decade to finish each book. One reason is the research — he famously “turns every page” of the available records and conducts countless interviews. To better understand Lyndon Johnson, Caro and his wife moved to the Texas Hill Country for three years. “Why can’t you do a biography of Napoleon?” she joked.

In a recent profile, Caro explained that decisions about the Vietnam War were made “not in the Cabinet or the National Security Council” but during “something called the ‘Tuesday Lunch.’” “Every Tuesday at 1:30,” President Johnson “and four guys” discussed the war “in the family dining room on the second floor of the White House.

Despite “about 8 billion books” on the war “no one even knows.” But he knew. And because he wasn’t “feeling that room,” he had to visit the White House and sit in that room before he could continue to write.

It’s right next door to the master bedroom and the two girls’ bedrooms, Lynda Bird and Luci. You can hear the people out on Lafayette Avenue. So when they were eating dinner or they were sleeping, they were hearing, ‘Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?’”

Caro lays the foundation of his books by going the extra mile again and again. By deeply understanding a person or situation he brings them to life.

The other reason his work takes such a long time is that he intentionally moves slowly.

When I decided to write a book, and, beginning to realize the complexity of the subject, realized that a lot of thinking would be required— thinking things all the way through, in fact, or as much through as I was capable of—I determined to do something to slow myself down, to not write until I had thought things through. That was why I resolved to write my first drafts in longhand...

Caro outlines the entire book on a corkboard and boils down his paragraphs “over and over and over” (Jillian Hess published excellent notes on Caro’s process). Even so, his daily writing quota is still a wild 1,000 words…

Donaldson/Mr. Beast seems to do the opposite: he has a whole team of producers to churn out videos. But he shows the same obsession with research:

I spent basically 5 years of my life locked in a room studying virality on Youtube. Some days me and some other nerds would spend 20 hours straight studying the most minor thing: like is there a correlation between better lighting at the start of the video and less viewer drop off (there is, have good lighting at the start of the video haha) or other tiny things like that.

And just like Caro endlessly rewrites until he gets it right, Donaldson scrutinizes every detail of his work:

The longer people watch, the better a video will do. This is why I’m such a stickler about every single second of content. Hook people at the start of the video, transition them to an amazing story that they are invested in, have no dull moments, and then have a satisfying payoff at the end of the video with an abrupt ending.

There is a difference though and it lies in what gets each of them excited.

Caro talked about the thrill of digging through raw files and “making them yield up their secrets.” He wanted to “illuminate how power works in our country, so that we can recognize it when it is wielded around us.” The search for truth became his flow state.

“The goal of our content is to excite me,” Donaldson writes. “If I'm not excited to get in front of that camera and film the video, it’s just simply not going to happen. I’m not fake and I will be authentic, that’s partly why the channel does so well. And if i’m not excited by the video, we’re fucked.”

But what excites him about a video, he explains, “is what I believe will make the audience happy.”

“I’m willing to count to one hundred thousand, bury myself alive, or walk a marathon in the world’s largest pairs of shoes if I must.”

His explicit goal is not to make “the best produced videos” or the funniest or highest quality ones — no, simply the “best YOUTUBE videos possible.” He achieved that goal.

TikTok’s predecessor musical.ly began its life as an education startup. On a train ride, its founder watched a group of teenagers taking selfies, singing, and making videos. He realized that people craved entertainment more than knowledge. The bet on education went against human nature.

“Once you have someone for 6 minutes,” Donaldson explains, “they are super invested in the story and probably in what I call a “lull”. They are watching the video without even realizing they are watching a video.” This will not happen with one of Caro’s books. They require effort. Their length and density can be exhausting. They reflect a lifelong obsession and a burning desire to pass on what was learned.

There is nothing wrong with a little mindless entertainment but a better answer to boredom is to be curious and engaged. If you’re looking to do any kind of creative work, you must guard and carefully invest your attention. Donaldson understands this as well. Writers, he explains to his team, “need to inhale inspiration.” Caro’s work fits the bill.

Jerry Seinfeld once quipped that “adulthood is the ability to be totally bored and remain standing.” Donaldson solved this problem of boredom masterfully which is why his Mr. Beast channel most successfully competes for attention.

Caro mastered his subject, Donaldson mastered his platform. Or perhaps: Donaldson mastered his audience — his subjects. To learn from him, don’t binge on his content but observe what it does. If you keep watching past the first minute, that is your lesson.

Caro, 88 years old and working on his final volume on Johnson, competes against time. He finds himself in a race against the finiteness of life to illuminate how power was acquired and wielded, how it worked, and what it revealed.

For Donaldson, the fact that you are paying attention is enough. If he has to walk across the country in clown-sized shoes to make you happy, so be it.

To succeed in the worlds of business and media, study Mr. Beast.

To leave a legacy, study Robert Caro.

To perfect your craft, learn from both.

Thank you for reading,

Frederik