Apr 8, 2024 · 1h 18m · how-i-built-this
Mythical: Rhett and Link
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of 'How I Built This', Guy Raz interviews Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal about their journey from childhood friends in North Carolina to digital media pioneers who built Mythical Entertainment and its flagship show, 'Good Mythical Morning'.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 34.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 3.7 Guest teaching 2.1 Guest disagreement 0.3 Guy pushing back 0.1
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 42:14 Refusing Alka-Seltzer hangover angle
Link and Rhett describe the one hard stance they took against a sponsor, adamantly refusing to pitch hangover cures to their younger audience.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 51:40 Pushing on the obsession with TV gatekeepersGuy Raz challenges why the duo kept seeking traditional television deals when their independent digital audience was already thriving.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 1:00:29 Explaining the 2014 YouTube watch-time algorithm shiftRhett educates the host on how YouTube's pivot from click counts to suggested watch time turned their daily back catalog into explosive channel growth.
Guy holds their own ▶ 33:27 Framing the early lack of digital monetizationGuy Raz demonstrates strong historical knowledge of the mid-2000s creator economy by highlighting how YouTube lacked any standard business model at the time.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Call-In Announcement and Listener Business Mentorship Opportunity | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Introductory monologue and teaser by Guy Raz explaining the show format, call-in opportunity, and setting the narrative context for Rhett and Link's media empire. | |
| Childhood Origins, the Blood Pact, and Early Faith | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz explores their childhood bond and small-town North Carolina church background; Rhett and Link share the story of their literal blood pact in first grade. | |
| College Years: Campus Crusade Comedy and Meeting Emcees | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | The guests describe discovering collegiate video skits at Campus Crusade meetings and realizing their innate talent for clean, subversive sketch comedy. | |
| Leaving Engineering Careers for Full-Time Ministry Comedy | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about transitioning out of secure engineering careers into full-time faith-based comedy; Rhett and Link detail the low-salary fundraising model. | |
| Pioneering Digital Comedy: RhettandLink.com and Early Video Podcasts | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Rhett and Link explain their early website and pioneering video podcasts on iTunes before YouTube was taken seriously as a platform. | |
| Hollywood Opportunity: The CW's Online Nation and Network Disillusionment | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | The duo detail their brief four-episode experience hosting The CW's Online Nation and their rude awakening to network television writing. | |
| Pitching in Hollywood Lobbies and the Realities of Industry Gatekeepers | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Rhett and Link humorously describe pitching absurd movie ideas devised on the spot in Hollywood studio lobbies. | |
| Pioneering Internet Brand Sponsorships and the Cornhole Song | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | The guests explain creating cold-called brand sponsorships and CPM agreements for YouTube videos before the Partner Program existed. | |
| Mid-Episode Break: Teasing Alka-Seltzer and Viral Commercials | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Rhett and Link recount their Ustream weekly show and securing a road-trip brand deal with Alka-Seltzer while pushing back on hangover marketing. | |
| The Red House Furniture Commercial and the Local Ads Breakthrough | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | The duo discuss crafting intentionally viral local commercials, culminating in the breakout Red House Furniture ad and national news recognition. | |
| Signing an IFC Television Series and Relocating to Los Angeles | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Guy questions why traditional television remained appealing despite internet momentum; Rhett explains the validation of institutional gatekeepers. | |
| Mid-Roll Interlude: Moving Past the IFC Series | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | The guests describe the cancellation of their Commercial Kings IFC series despite the Chuck Testa commercial blowing up virally online. | |
| Launching Good Mythical Morning and the 2014 YouTube Algorithm Pivot | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Rhett and Link detail the inception of Good Mythical Morning and how YouTube's 2014 algorithm shift to watch time supercharged their extensive catalog. | |
| Carolina Reaper Stunt and Fostering Relational Community | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Guy and the guests discuss their viral Carolina Reaper stunt and how extreme spectacles served as gateways to everyday conversational connection. | |
| Deconstructing Faith, Evolving Content Tone, and Comedic Roots | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | The guests reflect on deconstructing their evangelical faith, adapting their comedy style, and how their background shaped their creative work ethic. | |
| Scaling Mythical Entertainment, Executive Leadership, and Mythical Kitchen | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy inquires about scaling Mythical Entertainment into an enterprise, hiring executive leadership, and branching into spin-offs like Mythical Kitchen. | |
| Enduring Creative Drive, Wind-Up Car Philosophy, and Friendship | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Rhett and Link share their wind-up toy car philosophy of resilience, career longevity, and prioritizing lifelong friendship over everything else. |
Statements from this episode (19)
Link Neal Carried a High School Blood Pact for 18 Months
“It seemed more legally binding, which is why I carried it around in my wallet for a year and a half before I lost the entire wallet.”
Keeping college comedy secular enabled Rhett and Link's YouTube career
“Well, and that calculation, which was kind of accidental, is honestly the reason that we're sitting here talking to you today, because it was the fact that we were making comedy that could be divorced from that Christian setting. And just some of those sketche…”
Rhett and Link initially avoided YouTube because they had a website
“And people were asking us at the time, in, in 2005, early 2006, people would say, why don't you guys have a YouTube? And we'd be like, because we have a website. You know, YouTube is for people who can't make their own server.”
Rhett and Link joined YouTube after fans reuploaded their videos
“We only did it because people started taking our videos from our website and uploading them to YouTube, and they were getting thousands of views versus hundreds of views, and we were like, oh, we should do this on purpose.”
Rhett and Link earned $8,000 per episode on The CW
“I actually think that, if I recall correctly, we each got paid 8000 dollars per episode. So by doing eight episodes, we each increased our annual salary by 50% from what we were getting.”
Rhett and Link's 2007 YouTube sponsorship charged $2,000 upfront and $20 CPM
“With the help of my dad, I, like, put together a little contract where it was, hey, you give us 2000 dollars up front to make this music video, and then we have a 20 dollar CPM.”
Rhett and Link made $25,000 from a 2007 sponsored cornhole video
“We probably ended up making, like, 25 grand off that video.”
Rhett and Link signed a Ustream deal for $500 per show
“We inked a deal to do a weekly show broadcast live.
For 500 dollars a show.
500 dollars a show, and we said we'll do it, we committed to doing it for a year.”
Rhett and Link charged Alka-Seltzer $42,000 for a 2008 video sponsorship
“When we came back with 42,000 dollars, because it was 2000 per video, because we were like, we don't want to tell them too much, like, they're asking for 21 videos, but like, we gotta keep this affordable”
Mr. Safety advised Rhett and Link to charge $10,000 per sponsorship
“And I remember him telling us, Never accept less than 10,000 dollars for a sponsored video, and we were like, oh man, I think people might say no, but we started saying that and started getting yeses”
Rhett and Link made around $200,000 when IFC contacted them
“These are wild guesses just based on some of those numbers, but I think that we had a little bit more than doubled probably individually of what we were making, so we're probably working at around like 200,000 revenue coming in.”
Orabrush paid $300 to sponsor Good Mythical Morning's first episode
“They pay 300 dollars to be the sponsor of that first episode.”
YouTube funded 12 episodes of The Mythical Show for $100,000
“We were like, 30 minutes of content times 12. We have to hire a team to help us do this. And we, like, worked the numbers, and it came to, like, 92,000 dollars. And then we just, like, well, I guess we should just round up to a 100,000 dollars. We just didn't …”
Good Mythical Morning eclipsed all prior Rhett and Link content by 2016
“In that 2014, 20 15, 20 16, though, that three year period, Saw Good Mythical Morning eclipse everything that we had ever created.”
Good Mythical Morning's retention came from authentic friendship, not stunts
“And I think that we started to realize that what kept people coming back was that we were, they, we were letting them in on, ah, our friendship.”
Rhett and Link publicly stepped away from Christianity in 2020
“20 20 was the first year where we kind of told our, is our coming out stories, like, hey, we're not Christians anymore”
Christian comedy has lower standards than traditional comedy clubs
“We had this safety net when you do things in that Christian comedy and Christian conferences... And the standards are so much lower. You don't have to be as good.”
Mythical Entertainment scaled its staff from five to roughly 100 employees
“And so, you know, I actually, I don't know exactly what the graph is in terms of how the team grew, but it certainly feels like it grew from that five to around a hundred or so Pretty geometrically.”
Making decisions merely sets up future decisions, not expected outcomes
“Our philosophy has always been pick a direction and go. Make the best decision that you can, but just know that all you're really doing is setting yourself up for another decision to be made in the future, and the outcome isn't going to be what you envisioned.”