MrBeast

James Stephen “Jimmy” Donaldson was born on May 7, 1998, in Wichita, Kansas, and raised in Greenville, North Carolina. He began posting videos to YouTube in early 2012 under the name MrBeast6000, starting with gaming and commentary videos. His breakthrough came in January 2017 with “I Counted to 100,000!”, after which his videos became increasingly elaborate, built around expensive stunts, endurance challenges and giving away large sums of money, cars, houses and other prizes.

Donaldson built Beast Industries around his channels, including MrBeast, MrBeast Gaming, MrBeast 2 and Beast Philanthropy. Beyond YouTube, he founded the virtual restaurant brand MrBeast Burger and the chocolate brand Feastables, and launched Lunchly. He also created the reality competition series Beast Games.

His philanthropic work includes Beast Philanthropy and co-founding Team Trees, which raised more than $24 million for the Arbor Day Foundation, Team Seas, which raised more than $30 million for ocean cleanup, and Team Water in 2025, which raised more than $40 million for WaterAid. He is known for reinvesting much of his earnings into ever larger productions and charitable projects.