Open Source: MrBeast’s operation hits its first big snag, outside of Greenville hometown

I’m Brian Gordon, tech reporter for The News & Observer, and this is Open Source, a weekly newsletter on business, labor and technology in North Carolina.

In the beginning, which was 2017, MrBeast belonged to Greenville, North Carolina. His Eastern North Carolina hometown of 89,000 was where the teenager named Jimmy Donaldson filmed his first viral YouTube videos. The main participants in these early stunts — whether it was tipping pizza delivery people $10,000 or taping cash to trees — were Greenville residents. Bret Oliverio, owner of the popular downtown Greenville bar and restaurant Sup Dogs, estimated roughly a hundred of his employees have appeared in MrBeast videos, with more than a few winning. I spoke to some of them earlier this year (including one who won a private island.)

As the fledgling content creator exploded into a YouTube sensation, MrBeast, now 26, expanded his scope. Donaldson still shoots videos with his crew of fellow 20-somethings at a $14 million studio in North Greenville, but he also shoots at exotic locales. His competitions still feature North Carolina contestants, but today people apply from far and wide to get a chance at winning six-figure cash sums, or a car, or cars, or a private jet, or a house.

MrBeast now has 316 million subscribers, more than any other account on YouTube. He still belongs to Greenville, but also belongs to the world — or at least the global population of teenagers who comprise his target demo.

Donaldson appears in videos boyish and affable, with a stiff grin across his apple-cheeked face. In interviews outside the viral hits, he speaks of his single-minded obsession to be the biggest YouTuber possible. He has broken YouTube into a science and will meticulously study what pacing, language, and narratives draw viewers.

But with his most audacious project yet, a forthcoming $5 million reality competition on Amazon called “Beast Games,” Donaldson is receiving his first substantial dose of negative headlines.

This summer, around 2,000 contestants gathered in Las Vegas for the first step in the “Beast Games” contest. Some described miserable conditions inside the Las Vegas Raiders football stadium, with delayed access to their medications, inadequate meals, and injuries from the physical challenges. The New York Times documented some of these reports in August. Then this week, five “Beast Game” contestants filed a class action lawsuit against Amazon and two Raleigh-based companies tied to the series, one of which is directly linked to MrBeast. In addition to alleged lack of food, the defendants claim they experienced sexual harassment and were mischaracterized as volunteers during the shoot.

Amazon declined to comment on the allegations, and I haven’t heard back from the MrBeast team or his lawyer.

MrBeast has pulled off large-scale competitions before without reported hitches. His most-watched video, a recreation of the hit Netflix show Squid Game, featured 456 contestants and multiple elaborate stunts. But 2,000 is more than four times as many people. And a Las Vegas football stadium is not the familiar confines of his North Greenville studio. And producing a series for Amazon is different than his well-calibrated process for YouTube. The lawsuit will play out and “Beast Games” presumably will air. MrBeast will remain insanely popular.

But perhaps with this program, the world’s biggest YouTuber — who dreams of being even bigger — tackled something too unwieldy.

Clearing my cache

• Johnston County, the No. 4 fastest-growing county in the state, landed a 200-jobs deal this week as the British rice manufacturer Veetee Foods Inc. promises to open a manufacturing plant in the town of Selma, about 32 miles southeast of Raleigh.
  
  

• Durham’s ag-tech startup Pairwise raised $40 million in Series C funding, money the company says will fuel its production of pit-less cherries and seedless blackberries. Last year, I sampled the company’s palatable mustard greens at its Research Triangle Park lab. Pairwise’s $40 million haul follows previous funding rounds of $25 million and $90 million.

• North Carolina State University received $19 million through the federal CHIPS Act to fund four more semiconductor research projects. The award comes after the U.S. Department of Defense last year named NC State as one of eight regional hubs for developing microelectronics.

• The Morrisville biopharma company Liquidia announced two pieces of positive news this week. First, it raised $100 million. Second, it won a federal court case against rival United Therapeutics. The court found United Therapeutics interfered with the launch of a generic drug from Liquidity, causing losses of more than $137 million.

• Two years into the Triangle tech beat, I’m still learning about companies with footprints in the area. This week’s example is Merz Aesthetics, which produces dermatology solutions like fillers and injectables. While its parent company is German, Merz Aesthetics is headquartered in Raleigh. And on Wednesday, the company cut the ribbon on a new local research and development center.

• The Vietnamese automaker VinFast released earnings this morning. Its losses increased from the previous quarter while its sales also rose (though VinFast-affiliated companies accounted for about half of these car purchases.) During an investors call, VinFast said delaying its promised North Carolina electric vehicle plant until 2028 will enable the company to focus more money on growing its operations in Indonesia and India.

• North Carolina has invested big on lithium-ion, and in the latest boon for this local alternative battery sector, Forge Battery announced Friday it will receive $100 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to expand production capacity at its promised lithium-ion factory in Morrisville.

National tech happenings

• The Federal Reserve dropped interest rates for the first time in four years — a sign officials are more confident in the handling of inflation. Now, they seek to prevent the job market from softening further.

• On Monday, the Biden administration awarded Intel up to $3 billion in additional CHIPS Act funding, a boost for the once-dominant U.S. chips maker that’s looking to reclaim market share.

• U.S. officials say they’re still gathering information about this week’s exploding pager device attacks in Lebanon. Israel has vowed to continue fighting Hezbollah, the target of the attacks, while Hezbollah’s top leader has promised to retaliate over Israel crossing “red lines.”

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