In a candid conversation that could shape the future of social media video, YouTube's biggest star, MrBeast, directly advised Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on a critical fix for Facebook's video ecosystem. The exchange, which took place on the a16z Podcast hosted by Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry in March 2025, saw Jimmy 'MrBeast' Donaldson leverage his experience with 378 million subscribers to push for a feature he considers non-negotiable for global growth.
The Core Gripe: A World Beyond English
MrBeast, known for his extravagant philanthropy and viral content, cut straight to the point. He highlighted a fundamental advantage he enjoys on YouTube: the ability to add multiple audio tracks to a single video. This allows his content to auto-play in a viewer's local language, such as Spanish for Mexico or Portuguese for Brazil. "70% of my audience doesn't speak English," Donaldson explained, revealing that these dubbed versions pull in tens of millions of views. The absence of this feature, he stressed, brutally tanks viewership because people in non-English speaking regions simply cannot watch comfortably.
He framed it as a top priority for any platform serious about creators. "If I were CEO, that's the first thing I'd fast-track," MrBeast stated, emphasizing that creators drive everything and platforms must help them reach more eyes and boost engagement. His argument tapped into a stark global reality: only about 20% of the world's population consumes content primarily in English, with top YouTube viewership coming from India, the US, Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico.
AI as the Universal Translator
Zuckerberg, the billionaire head of Meta, was receptive. Acknowledging that most Meta users also do not use English as their primary language, he pointed to artificial intelligence as the potential solution. This aligned perfectly with MrBeast's own experiments. The creator shared that he is already using AI to dub his voice into other languages, finding it boosts audience retention by about 1% compared to using human voice actors.
"It sounds like me, so people stick around longer," MrBeast noted, expressing excitement about the rapid pace of technological improvement. He painted a near-future picture where a creator could simply post a video, check a box, and have it automatically dubbed into 20 languages almost instantly.
Zuckerberg's Response and the Bigger Picture
Mark Zuckerberg called the suggestion "a good one" and hinted that Facebook could potentially roll out such an AI-powered dubbing feature within a year. The discussion underscores a significant shift in the digital creator economy, where a platform's success is increasingly tied to its tools for unlocking non-English audiences.
MrBeast's own global business ventures, like Feastables chocolate and MrBeast Burgers, demonstrate his practical understanding of scaling across borders. This exchange between one of the world's most influential creators and one of its most powerful tech CEOs signals that breaking language barriers through AI is no longer a luxury but a necessity for platforms aiming to dominate the global video landscape.
