Derek Thompson

Jeff Bezos was saying there is something special about having a day one mentality to refresh one's sense of curiosity day by day. And you could take that idea and port it to other parts of life and say, oh yeah, that's a way to live. Or you could take Steve Jobs' ode to simplicity and say, there's something beautiful here that I could transport to music or to visual arts.

But there's a section of the Mr. Beast quote that really, to me, nails the distinction between him and previous corporate leaders. He says, quote, Your job here is to make the best YouTube videos possible. It's not to make the best produced videos, not to make the funniest videos, not to make the best looking videos, not the highest quality videos.

But there's a section of the Mr. Beast quote that really, to me, nails the distinction between him and previous corporate leaders. He says, quote, Your job here is to make the best YouTube videos possible. It's not to make the best produced videos, not to make the funniest videos, not to make the best looking videos, not the highest quality videos.

But there's a section of the Mr. Beast quote that really, to me, nails the distinction between him and previous corporate leaders. He says, quote, Your job here is to make the best YouTube videos possible. It's not to make the best produced videos, not to make the funniest videos, not to make the best looking videos, not the highest quality videos.

It's to make the best YouTube videos possible, end quote. I think I could talk about this excerpt for an hour. I don't think we have an hour. But let me tell you what I hear there. I think most people in creative industries have values that exist in tension between art and commerce, right? I want to produce podcasts that many people listen to. I also want to learn something.

It's to make the best YouTube videos possible, end quote. I think I could talk about this excerpt for an hour. I don't think we have an hour. But let me tell you what I hear there. I think most people in creative industries have values that exist in tension between art and commerce, right? I want to produce podcasts that many people listen to. I also want to learn something.

It's to make the best YouTube videos possible, end quote. I think I could talk about this excerpt for an hour. I don't think we have an hour. But let me tell you what I hear there. I think most people in creative industries have values that exist in tension between art and commerce, right? I want to produce podcasts that many people listen to. I also want to learn something.

A musician wants to sell at a stadium. They also want to make music they're proud of. Am I unfair in suggesting that this memo very cleanly obliterates that tension. The job here is very explicitly not to make anything resembling art. The job is to satisfy the YouTube success gods. Clicks, duration, the end.

A musician wants to sell at a stadium. They also want to make music they're proud of. Am I unfair in suggesting that this memo very cleanly obliterates that tension. The job here is very explicitly not to make anything resembling art. The job is to satisfy the YouTube success gods. Clicks, duration, the end.

A musician wants to sell at a stadium. They also want to make music they're proud of. Am I unfair in suggesting that this memo very cleanly obliterates that tension. The job here is very explicitly not to make anything resembling art. The job is to satisfy the YouTube success gods. Clicks, duration, the end.

And I don't even think that Mr. Beast is a bad person or that this memo is somehow unusually demonic in some kind of way. I am more interested in it as an artifact of Gen Z work psychology. Like, what do you think we learn about the forces acting on this generation by reading this memo and taking it seriously?

And I don't even think that Mr. Beast is a bad person or that this memo is somehow unusually demonic in some kind of way. I am more interested in it as an artifact of Gen Z work psychology. Like, what do you think we learn about the forces acting on this generation by reading this memo and taking it seriously?

And I don't even think that Mr. Beast is a bad person or that this memo is somehow unusually demonic in some kind of way. I am more interested in it as an artifact of Gen Z work psychology. Like, what do you think we learn about the forces acting on this generation by reading this memo and taking it seriously?

That answer pulls together a lot of ideas for me that I hope I'm able to communicate in this response. Um, I think one of the obvious but sneakily profound facts of the internet is that it makes outcomes clear. We know how many people a tweet reaches or a post reaches. We know how many people upvote our Reddit comments. And it's impossible to forget these positive and negative feedback loops.

That answer pulls together a lot of ideas for me that I hope I'm able to communicate in this response. Um, I think one of the obvious but sneakily profound facts of the internet is that it makes outcomes clear. We know how many people a tweet reaches or a post reaches. We know how many people upvote our Reddit comments. And it's impossible to forget these positive and negative feedback loops.

That answer pulls together a lot of ideas for me that I hope I'm able to communicate in this response. Um, I think one of the obvious but sneakily profound facts of the internet is that it makes outcomes clear. We know how many people a tweet reaches or a post reaches. We know how many people upvote our Reddit comments. And it's impossible to forget these positive and negative feedback loops.

We are shaped by them in ways that we haven't been so explicitly shaped by a numerate feedback system in previous generations. And it seems to me that this makes people who are participating in the online attention economy more explicitly outcome-oriented, less focused on process, and more focused on what are the numbers.

We are shaped by them in ways that we haven't been so explicitly shaped by a numerate feedback system in previous generations. And it seems to me that this makes people who are participating in the online attention economy more explicitly outcome-oriented, less focused on process, and more focused on what are the numbers.

We are shaped by them in ways that we haven't been so explicitly shaped by a numerate feedback system in previous generations. And it seems to me that this makes people who are participating in the online attention economy more explicitly outcome-oriented, less focused on process, and more focused on what are the numbers.

And there's a way in which this approach deadens art, I think, because it fixes our attention solely on the final question of how many people clicked on this link and how many seconds did they remain on the browser tab. But there's actually, I think in your answer, a really smart way