*BLUF
Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson’s Beast Industries swallowed Step, a Gen-Z fintech with 7M accounts and $500M in backing.
MrBeast knows money…
…but does he know what he needs to know about money?
Good morning,
"Professor Campbell, did you see MrBeast bought Step?"
If like me, you responded without knowing who or what these are.
Congratulations: you and I are “unc”.
Time to fix that.
Onwards,
Austin Campbell
Teaching students at NYU Stern
Teaching c-suites at Zero Knowledge
ZERO IN
BACK UP
🎬 BEAST INDUSTRIES
Beast Games on Amazon Prime. Beast Mobile in the pipeline. 468 million subscribers on YouTube — the biggest following in the world.
What does that attention get you?
$250M Feastables Revenue $20M profit (2024) | $5B Series C Valuation | $5B Valuation Bitmine investment chaired by Tom Lee |
While most marketing and media struggles to reach anyone (especially under 25), MrBeast understands what everyone wants and no one gets: distribution.
Distribution doesn't stop at numbers. Do you have the audience you want? Do they come back willing to listen and wanting more of?
BACK THAT UP
🏦 BANKING NOT BEAST
America is overbanked. One bank for every ~80,000 Americans.
JP Morgan Chase has 80 million customers. Every other bank? Fighting over scraps.
Fighting over fewer and fewer customers who increasingly, hate banks and why wouldn’t they?
4,700+ U.S. banks | ~80M Users per bank | ~0.01% Avg. bank account yield |
Enter Step. 7 million bank accounts. Energetic. Earnest.
1 mission (to educate, they say).
BELOW THE HOOD
💀 BEAST AT THIS BIZ?
Feastables: $250M revenue and $20M profit in 2024.
But a candy bar ≠ a bank.
BACK THAT UP
⚔️ BANKING = BATSH*T
Banking requires balancing both an appetite & a discipline for risk.
Banks pit their optimists against their pessimists. Management makes all the major calls. Regulators make sure the whole thing doesn't blow up.
Ask Step how that works. Step’s partner bank, Evolve Bank & Trust, caught Fed cease-and-desist orders in 2024 over AML and data security.
Step's pipeline to launch credit products? Killed. Step’s revenue expansion? Frozen. All before Beast showed up.
⚔️ BEST IN BANKING
MrBeast has the best, but banking needs the very best:
COMPLIANCE COP
Keeps bankers out of jail.
RISK OFFICER
Ensure banks don't break.
CUSTODY CHAMP
Knows where the money is.
ZERO OUT
🐻 BEAST MODE, MAX
Most banks and banking vets don’t know a skibidi from a 🚽.
MrBeast cracked consumer distribution on Gen Z and Gen Alpha, growing segments that Hollywood and Madison Avenue have spent billions failing to convert.
🏆 BANKING MODE, MAYBE?
If this works — Beast becomes the biggest celebrity-to-mogul to exist.
If not — he wouldn't be the first. History has a high pile of bank failures.
Brand? YES.
Brand Media + Merch? YES.
Banking? Depends on who he listens to.
ZERO INSIDER
Spoke with Tony Edward of Thinking Crypto Podcast about the problem: not TradFi’s people— but their system.
See me on TikTok and snag my SBF saga, “Stealing The Future” here: Repeater, McNally Jackson, Random House, Amazon.
ZERO ON
1 More on MrBeast’s bank? Jump to Zero Insights. Missed out? Sportsbook Stew, 2026 Crypto Grows Up, Bera Bares All.