(elevator door beeps)
(elevator music)
- Whoa, you're Mark Rober.
- I am, yeah.
- From, the internet.
- From the internet, that's the one.
- Yeah. - In the flesh.
- Can I ask you a couple of questions?
- I mean, I'm stuck in the elevator.
Let's do it.
- All right.
(upbeat music)
- So NASA engineer turned YouTuber, how'd that happen?
- I had a like a video about a Halloween costume.
iPad in the front.
iPad in the back.
Do a Facetime chat,
it looks like you have a hole in your body.
And it just went like viral while I was working at NASA.
And front page of CNN, a million views.
And I was like this is a cool feeling.
So, since that time, eight years ago,
I've done one video per month.
- Is that all you do now?
- It is, yeah.
So, I worked at NASA for nine years.
Seven of the tour on the Curiosity Rover.
And then I worked at Apple for four years,
doing product design in their special project groups.
And now I just do YouTube full time.
- Whatd'ya work on at Apple?
- I signed a very thick stack of NDA's
that prevent me from talking about that.
- Do you think you'll ever go to Mars?
- (laughs) I don't think my wife will let me.
- My wife won't let me implant a chip in my hand.
- Also the worst!
- Yeah. - Let's just rebel.
- Let's start a group.
- Yeah, let's start a group. - Let's start a group.
- A support group. - A support group.
Yeah, wives won't let us do cool (beeps).
- Yeah, I'm in it.
- Your videos get twenty seven million views on average.
Is this true?
- This is true.
It's actually the most on all of YouTube.
- What is the secret?
- I do like wholesome stuff.
I like doing things that are big and crazy.
You know world's largest Nerf Gun,
world's largest Super Soaker.
- Tell me about the glitter bomb.
- Yeah, I got a package stolen from my porch.
In hindsight it was like a three dollar thing,
and I had footage from like three cameras.
Gave it to the police and they were like
"What do you want us to do? Like we get so many of these"
If anyone can do something about this injustice, it is me.
I spent like 6 months engineering this thing with a buddy.
And it spins glitter
and then to make sure it gets out of their house
so, we can retrieve it 'cause
there's four phones recording inside
and we've sprayed some fart spray.
- What about the YouTube algorithm?
- I try not think about it, like,
I just try to make cool stuff.
I know I will not always be getting an average
of twenty seven million views.
A lot of that is like luck and when that happens,
yes, I have brought some stuff to the table
but, so much of this is right place, right time.
The beauty of that outlook is someday I won't be
the number one of all the views and that's okay
because if you recognize part of it's luck, like,
you don't have to beat yourself up, right?
You could still have an identity outside
of being the YouTube guy.
- You're now doing a Jimmy Kimmel show?
- We're doing a TV show where we're pranking people
who violate social norms.
So, like is someone doesn't pick up their dog's poop,
I'll build like a catapult and launch the poop
at their house or something.
- What if I'm that person?
- Then I will build a catapult
and launch it at your house.
I'm no respector of
non-dog-poop-picker-uppers. - Sometimes you run
out of bags.
- Yeah.
- It happens, okay, you run out of bags--
- No, you get a leaf, I've been there, I have two dogs.
- You get a leaf?
- You get a leaf or you call someone.
You can not, even if you plan
on coming back-- - I always come back.
- No, no. - I come back.
- But, they don't know that, like,
by the time you came back, my catapult's ready.
Like, it's at your house.
Like, the poop is in route.
You're coming this way, poop's coming this way.
- I'm really not a fan of you working like this.
Why does a guy from YouTube want to be on cable TV?
- He doesn't, and I've said "no" to that so many times
and even in this case, it took a lot of convincing
on Jimmy's part to be like "this is, you should do this."
And because he's in it, he's very hands on and
he brings like a bunch of A-players with him, like,
this made me excited about it.
And Discovery Channel is on board, so like a lot
of things made sense in this case.
- Something else that's gone viral is you mission
to plant twenty million trees.
That's a lot of trees.
- By 2020, we have two months.
We're gonna partner up with the Arbor Day Foundation.
We got them to agree for every one dollar we raise,
they would plant one tree.
So, me and Mr. Beast and bunch of our YouTube friends,
we all go together and said,
"we should tell our audiences about this."
(elevator door beeps)
- This is me,
really great running into you - Okay, yeah.
You too.
- Don't glitter bomb me, please.
Okay.
Watch out for flying dog poop.