Here’s What the Next 5 Years Will Actually Look Like

In this episode of The GaryVee Audio Experience, I sit down with Gstaad Guy to talk about whose judgment deserves your attention and why curiosity matters more than cynicism. We discuss the difference between encouraging people and enabling them, along with my belief that advancing technology will bring renewed interest in real-world connection. I also share why choosing people who genuinely care about you matters more than access or status. You'll learn about: Choosing Whose Judgment To Accept Encouragement Without Enabling Bad Behavior Curiosity With Optimism And Practicality The Return To Real-World Connection Relationships Beyond Access And Status

• 0:00Speaker 00

  These are the beginning days of us going into old-school behavior. I mean, I feel like in five years, it's gonna feel more like 2050. It's gonna accelerate a lot. I think in the counter, though, I think you're gonna start seeing a lot more 1950 behavior from us. I think you'll start to see towns and neighborhoods do more communal stuff. Like a cul-de-sac that has 11 homes right now in a suburb that is not interacting. I think you'll see in five years more Sunday night, all the families are outside, there's like a table, like a community barbecue. This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Gary.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  Yes, sir.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for being here.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  Happy to be here with you.

• 0:45Speaker 01

  I'm very happy that you're here with me. We've been trying to make this happen for a long time.

• 0:49Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  You're hard meant to get old.

• 0:51Speaker 00

  Yes, I'm busy. I'm busy, but it was, it's no indication of my want to be on the show, so I'm glad it finally happened.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  I do believe that, and I appreciate it. You mentioned, before turning the cameras on today a couple times, I saw this opportunity, even with your office, made this bet, saw podcasts growing, made that bet. And that only solidifies my existing opinion of you before meeting you and after knowing you, that you are a man that sees things very early and places bets on things and people long before the trends follow. Has that always been who you are?

• 1:31Speaker 00

  Yes. Yes. Um, yes, in hindsight, yes. That is something that I like to do. It's how my brain works. You know, I, I tend to be very consumer-centric, so I think about people a lot. If you look at all my content, it's either about consumer behaviors and business stuff like that, or human psychology, or emotional intelligence. So, yeah, yeah, I think that, you know, the receipts now exist. I, you know, I feel comf- I hesitated for a second because it's like analyzing your own career, but professionally, I feel comfortable now in saying like, I have a comfort zone

• 2:14Speaker 00

  of spending a lot of time trying to pay attention to what's happening, and then using my intuition or, at this point in my career, pattern recognition to say, hey, this is not a one-day fad. This is the beginning of what could be a trend and can become a norm. And, um, yeah, I think, I think being a cultural anthropologist, a human strategist, a consumer, scientist, in a lot of ways is kind of what I do for a living, and then I layer my behavior on top of it, whether that's investing, whether building a personal brand on top of it, whether building companies around it. I do have great joy in trying to figure out the puzzle of what's happening right now

• 2:59Speaker 00

  that the rest of the world is not seeing, and what does that mean?

• 3:03Speaker 01

  I'm honored to feel like I'm a very, very small part of that.

• 3:06Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Because I've had two moments in my online career where I've had these stamps from people that are very meaningful to me very early on. I think a stamp, when the numbers are already there, is of course special, but when the numbers aren't there yet, and maybe even the self-conviction isn't there yet, having people in authority like you and like Virgil, Virgil Abloh, who followed me early on and gave me that thumbs up, like, I like what you're doing, keep it up, was huge for me.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  And I remember at the time when you, when you reached out to me, I think I had under 100,000 followers, had just been getting started, and I called my old friend Logan. I was like, Gary Vee, just, just DM me. And he said, you like my stuff? He's like, dude, trust me, that's a huge thing. He doesn't do that to many people. He does that to people that he really thinks are on to something. I hope that qualifies your self-belief and gives you the fuel you need. And it definitely did.

• 4:01Speaker 00

  You know, it's funny, I don't know, I don't think the cameras are strong enough to catch the goosebumps on my neck right now. To be in a place in my life where doing something like that means something to someone is so uncomfortably humbling, you know, I'm like genuinely feeling a certain way right now, like, I, you know, I was, we were talking earlier on camera when I was walking up with your man, like, I was the whiz kid in the wine business as a 20-year-old. Like, my identity in my twenties was articles in newspapers of like, whiz kid, Bill's internet wine business. And I remember it being such a big deal for many different reasons, but I was like, man, this is the coolest. One day, I'm not gonna be the kid, right?

• 4:46Speaker 00

  And, you know, it's so funny to watch culture right now. There's so much emphasis and ammo in youth culture, and one of the great weapons of someone in their twenties, if in a debate or on a podcast, is to razz the 30-year-old as old. I turned 50 in November, and I love being unk, and one day, I'm gonna be grandpa to the, to the universe, but for as amazing as being the whiz kid and having all these accolades in your twenties of what you were doing, especially for me because it's for my family business and for my family, the feeling of being in a place in your career where you can take one minute, because to your point earlier, these, these two things attach.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  I spend so much time in the trenches watching things so I can know what's coming, to know, you know, something I have a lot of pride in is, early on, I realized, wait a minute, if I just DM this kid and say, you know, keep going, that might mean something to them the same way that like an athlete would wink at me at a sporting event because I thought athletes were cool, and that meant everything to me. It's just so humbling and just like, it feels so good to, you know, to hear that for, for everybody's watching, who is in youth culture, who is winning in their twenties and thirties, I say this for real, it will be different, feelings will be different, but there's incredible

• 6:14Speaker 00

  feelings of joy and accomplishment in every decade you go through. They're just different versions, and you shouldn't fear them. You should actually be excited about them because all of them are great in different reasons.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, fully aligned, and I'm very grateful for that. I know you've spoken lots about getting over that early fear of being cringe.

• 6:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  I think that is possibly the most consequentially positively impactful decision I've made in my life, just getting over the feeling of being cringe, and also getting over the feelings that even my close friends imposed on me of feeling cringe. But the relationships I had, like even the tiny, it's, it's actually an exaggeration to call it a relationship, but I have with you online, but the feeling of seeing someone who's done there, I mean, far beyond your 10,000 hours online, your 10, 20, 30,000 hours of content, and seeing the potential versus what's wrong, seeing what's right, seeing what can be.

• 7:16Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Is, I think, something people struggle with at a personal level.

• 7:20Speaker 00

  You just set me up for one of my favorite sayings that I actually want to make more content about, which is judge the judger. You know, like, I, I had an interaction the other day in a business environment where the kid was pushing back at me very aggressively. He's like, but yeah, but X said, and Y said, and Z said, and I asked him very simply. I was like, hey, I'm gonna detach myself from this because I don't want this to come across egotistical. I'm like, can you remind me one more time what the five people that gave you advice on this business have accomplished professionally? You know, I was like, I was like, I might be losing five to one on my perspective on this, but I actually am a businessman, and these people are your random uncle that you

• 8:05Speaker 00

  don't even talk to that mu- like, is the number one thing people need to figure out. I could not agree with you more. It is judgment is the number one thing that people need to figure out. And I would ask all of you to get much better at judging, and I would, I say that as like a fun way to say it, but what I mean actually, because I, I actually dislike judgment quite a bit, be thoughtful on whose judgment you decide to accept. And, and more importantly, understand the motives. If you have a bunch of buddies and you're young, and you're going out and living, you know, insecurity is such a big part of life, the judgment of the opposite gender, or whoever

• 8:50Speaker 00

  that you're attracted to, you know, what, what they think, your friends think, you know, judge, understand where the judgment's coming from. Almost all judgment is someone imposing their insecurities on you. They can't deal with people making fun of them if they make funny videos online, so they're telling you, and so, that's right. And I think, um, I think that you only need a couple of the right words of encouragement from the right people, if you're the right person, to be able to take that energy and allow it to offset the volume of the opposite energy.

• 9:30Speaker 00

  No question, the reason I have a happy life, forget about a successful career, is completely predicated on the fact that I inherited my mom's DNA and then was parented by her, and even in middle school, let alone high school, college, or in my early twenties, the energy that peer pressure and my contemporaries' opinions of me carried very little weight.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Fully aligned. I had a boss in my past life when I was working a day job, who called me out on this once. And I had something I was thinking about was actually a girl I liked at the time. And I called her.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  Makes sense.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  And I called my boss and I was like, hey, I know this has nothing to do with work, but I want to ask you this thing. And she said, wait one sec, let me stop you there. How many people have you asked this question? Because it sounds like you're asking me this quite clearly.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  I feel like you've asked a lot of people for the same advice. I was like, oh, well. It's funny you say that. I've actually asked like my family and two friends and now you. She said, you're asking way too many people. And it sounds like you're not looking for truth. You're actually looking for confirmation.

• 10:45Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  You're just looking for that confirmation bias. You're waiting for someone to agree with you.

• 10:51Speaker 00

  Which is really enablement. You know, we've got all these new fancy words. Toxic positivity and, and, you know, and imposter syndrome. And like what you're actually looking for is someone to enable. It's enablement. And we all do that. And we all need to watch out for that. And some of us, I'm now pointing at myself. Some of us, one of our great flaws is we love people so much. We actually become enablers of bad behavior. That was a journey I had to go through in my twenties, thirties, even into my forties. I, I am half glass full. I am sunshine on a gloomy day. Like it is, I do see positivity.

• 11:32Speaker 00

  But what I was bringing to some of the people I love the most was enablement, not encouragement. And so that boss is very, very smart.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  I think bets in a work environment are of course an incredible thing. But where I find you've outshined a lot of the people that I'm exposed to is also betting on people. And I think knowledge can lead to a lot of bets in business environments and in life. But when it comes to people, I feel like there's an instinctual part that is a huge part of that, that I'd love to unpack and learn more about. What does it take for you to see a person and think this is someone I want to bet on?

• 12:13Speaker 00

  And you're right, it is fully intuitive. I'm going to give you a very interesting answer. It's the lack of fear of being let down by a human. I think one of the reasons I'm capable of betting on people is I'm not scared of them hurting me.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  The value.

• 12:30Speaker 00

  I tend to over get attracted to the purity of two things. Purely pure self-confidence. You know, just like someone I'm like, oh, that is an emotionally strong person who has a good sense of themselves through these communications we've had. That already puts me into a place of like, this is safe. And let's see if we can build, you know, skills around that. I would also argue something that I've had to, and I've already referenced this in this podcast. I've also been historically attracted to someone who's extremely insecure. And it's interesting because they're really the same thing. They're just the opposite side of the pillow. And that goes into enablement.

• 13:15Speaker 00

  And I, I would argue that to those people over the last 25 years of my career, I've brought a lot of love and a lot of chance. And I'm, I'm excited because I think about five to seven years ago, I started to get more clarity of like how I could tweak it. And the last five to seven years of me has been more candorous with those people, which has actually made me a better boss and mentor and friend to them. Ironically, you know, I used to think me telling them, hey, you're acting crazy. And you're hurting people around you because you're hurting. And you need to stop or you're going to get fired. I thought that was like hurting them. Like I was calling, I was poking their zit because I could see them. You know, I always say this publicly.

• 13:59Speaker 00

  You, you can trick the 99%, but you're not tricking the 1%. And that's actually who you want to win with. When it comes to human behavior, I have rarely been tricked. It is very hard to trick me because of that intuition. And, and I could see someone and I would try to manage them up through a lot of love. You know, to me insecurity came from a lack of, you know, positive reinforcement, love. Who knows what exactly their childhood trauma was, but I could see it. And I tried to subsidize it with good behavior. But what I realized was in the last decade is, uh oh, I was doing a little bit of enabling.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  I was letting them get away with bad behavior. I wasn't addressing it directly. And I would say net, net for all those people that came across my, my life. I think I did 70% of a great job because they were missing that love and positive reinforcement. I see you, you're capable. But those are the two groups of people I've historically been attracted to. That's what I look for. I'll give you some other ones. Curiosity. I'm intoxicated by a curious person. I myself am. And I believe that someone who is curious is living a life of maybe instead of a life of no. I'm incredibly anti cynicism.

• 15:24Speaker 00

  And so I find a lot of people out of cynicism or insecurity are basically in the business of no. Right? And I'm incredibly attracted to people that have a very big gear of maybe with a hope of it being yes. Right?

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 15:42Speaker 00

  And I think optimism and curiosity with a layer of practicality. Because, you know, when people are listening right now, optimism often is confused for delusion.

• 15:57Speaker 00

  You know, and there's a reason that some kid in your small town eventually becomes Lady Gaga. That was optimism with practicality. She put in the work and she knew herself. There's also a reason that everybody listening right now grew up with tons of people that said they were going to be famous rappers and athletes who did not. That's called delusion. And I think that fine line is something I'm fascinated by and also look for in people.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  I love your comment about the curiosity and the opposing cynicism that exists. I think the cynicism is the extreme

• 16:34Speaker 01

  opposite of curiosity. I think a more nuanced opposite, which I notice, which actually I'm not a huge fan of, is actually just nostalgia. And people who say, this is what it used to be.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  Romantic.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Romantic.

• 16:48Speaker 00

  Because it's funny, I love nostalgia because I actually think nostalgia, I define in my head as something that's grounded in something you really enjoyed. And I think it comes up a lot. I actually think nostalgia makes me think of a point that I want to make, which is, I think people need to be more youthful. I think people as they get into their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, need more play and need more, bless you, and need more childhood behavior. I would say, I agree with you. Romanticizing yesterday to demonize today. I'm really proud of you for such a young man to know that. I could not agree with you more. In fact, to recall something you said earlier, I don't know if I'm a huge fan of AI.

• 17:32Speaker 00

  I just don't like to be romantic about yesterday and delusional about the practicality of the world, which is it will always evolve. I'm a historian enough to know that people demonized electricity and the automobile and the plane and medicine and many, many, many other things. Humans are inherently scared in, at scale. Look, this one's real. Like when something's coming along at scale that can like take everyone's jobs, that's going to scare people. I'm empathetic, but I don't, I don't think crying about it on social media is going to lead to regulation by governments of banning AI. So I call that wasted energy.

• 18:15Speaker 00

  And all that energy of running around the internet and shitting on AI and having drinks tonight and shitting on AI. And this weekend, calling your buddies and shitting on AI. All those hours put into actually learning how to use AI feels just far more productive.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  And I think when it's putting a job at risk, of course, it's rooted in truth and it's reasonable. But I often find that the people who are the yesterday was a lot better than tomorrow. It's actually a personality trait of, oh, you like that restaurant? Used to be better. Oh, new one? Not what it used to be.

• 18:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  It's like this choice of everything was better before.

• 18:56Speaker 00

  They're weaponizing words to make themselves feel cooler.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 19:02Speaker 00

  You know, which only to, again, back to the 1%, only makes them dramatically less cool.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 19:08Speaker 00

  Like the 1% of cool in society, which, you know, I have a feeling you and I have some feel of. You cannot imagine when I am in the rooms or the environments of the 1% cool, how 90% of my feeling the entire night is compassion to the scaled insecurity that is the 1% cool.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Can we define the values and personality traits of the 1% cool?

• 19:35Speaker 00

  Overvaluing other people's opinions. You know, truly trying to accomplish financial and fame status so that people around them think they made it versus they themselves thinking they made it. But I think the thing that drives my compassion in Ibiza, in, you know, at Formula One, you know, the things that drive my compassion spike in my body when I'm in the rooms

• 20:00Speaker 00

  is just watching people jockeying for social status, for validation, for a photo that they can post on Instagram so that people think they're cool. I, I, I struggle deeply, deeply with the need of outside validation because I know it leads to very dark and lonely moments when one is not getting it. And I don't want that for people. I want people to be happy when they're not getting that or when they're not in the cool place or when they're not invited to the party. And I want them to be appreciative when they are. There's a way to make it good and then good versus what I think, I think you know what I'm saying, which is this is great, but when I don't have it, this is horrible.

• 20:45Speaker 00

  And those extremes worry me because I think that sends people into very bad places emotionally, which then leads to bad behavior, which then leads to potentially really challenging chapters in one's life. Hey, everybody, I hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  When I think of Gary, I think this is the man that makes the crazy bets. Back to my first thing that I mentioned. And I love on your social when clips come up of you in the early 2000s saying the things would be as they are.

• 21:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  I've never been more excited about the future, but I've also never had as much uncertainty about what our world would look like in a few years.

• 21:35Speaker 00

  I think that's a good call.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  I would love for this conversation to be one of those clips.

• 21:40Speaker 00

  Clips? Yeah, okay, let's try. You know, one of the reasons I'm in a pretty good place is I don't make up stuff that I don't believe for the sake of it. So, things that I think. I believe in analog. I think digital's getting so extreme and I think what AI is about to do and I think we, you know, when I said this a year ago, the room, I feel like was not like so locked in. I think we all know, all of us. The five of us in this room and the many millions that will watch over the next, you know, decade. This AI thing's fucking huge. It's not kind of like, ha ha, this is like the internet. And again, you guys are youngsters, I got to watch the internet up close and personal. Like, it was like, I lived a full life, I was 18. Full life without ever being on the internet

• 22:24Speaker 00

  and then now obviously a full life with being on it. This is big, big and so there's a lot of uncertainty. One thing I am, I don't know if I'm certain of it, but man, I would be willing to put a big bet on it, is these are the beginning days of us going into old school behavior. Meaning, I feel like in five years, it will be obviously 2031, but I think as we sit here today, it's gonna feel more like 2050. It's gonna accelerate a lot. I think in the counter though, I think you're gonna start seeing a lot more 1950 behavior from us. I think you're just gonna start seeing,

• 23:04Speaker 00

  let me give you a left field one that just popped in my head. I think you'll start to see towns and neighborhoods do more communal stuff. Like a cul-de-sac that has 11 homes right now in a suburb that is not interacting. I think you'll see in five years more Sunday night, all the families are outside. There's like a table, like a community barbecue. We're gonna, I think we're getting closer to a tipping point. Not fully there yet, but I think of it as like pendulum swings. So like, I really believe in analog. So for example, I'm a big believer in the size and scale that we're going into sporting events, alternative sporting events,

• 23:46Speaker 00

  festivals, not just music, food, you know, collectibles, one of the reasons I'm very bullish on collectibles is like people going to conventions and I just think we're gonna live outside even more than people realize. I feel like we are truly in the pre-dawn of actual unplugging. We talk about unplugging. Everybody talks online about them, it's back to authenticity. Unplugging, unplugging, okay. Like, cool, you took a hike for three hours? I'm talking about like actually. Like, I could see people actually spending a full week of just doing leisure events and I do think with AI's advancements, the five hour, the five day work week, this is where Europe might get a little checkmark.

• 24:31Speaker 00

  I do think four day work week in 15, 20 years could become more real because I think efficiency is gonna go through the fucking roof. And I think we're gonna have more time on our hands. And I think a lot as a businessman and as an anthropologist of human behavior, I'm like, okay, what if we really do go to a four day work week? Now you got three weekend days. That only makes me more bullish on these businesses that I'm thinking, like really 1950 stuff, like, like just being outside, being in the world. And then, but we're not gonna go just go outside and be like, we're gonna need things to do. And so bar crawls and beer festivals and I, just like literally anything and everything.

• 25:13Speaker 00

  And by the way, I've mentioned a lot of things that are like, like food and beer like, and then like just you overlay the health and wellness stuff. Meditation retreats, a lot more from the, you know, like the India and Asia behavior like, you know, people are gonna pay remarkable amounts of money to go to a four day event where the first two days they sit and don't talk. It's a silent retreat and the next two days it's like, you know, all the health and food and just like farming. And I just, I really believe in five years, the world looks more 1950 and 2050 than 2031 if we're sitting here today. So that's one thing I believe in. I, I just can't be scared of something that isn't true yet

• 25:57Speaker 00

  and has 11 different outcomes, not one. And I refuse to ingrain and embed myself into the negative outcome. And you know why? Because humans have proven historically that we adjust to new realities.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Fully aligned, love the optimism and I share the optimism.

• 26:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, but to your point, there is uncertainty, like, like I've put out a good trillion things in content in my life. I am highly compensated financially for my thinking. Do I think everything I've ever thought can be put into LLM and then predict what I think? Sure, so what the fuck does that mean? Like, I don't know, like, you know, but I'm, I also am a psycho. Like, I'm also fine if the whole world, if my whole career goes to shit. Like, I kind of weirdly romanticize about moving to Peru, making $30 a year and eating radishes from the ground. I don't know, like, I'm, like, I'm not scared of going to zero. I'll adjust to my new reality.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  One thing I'm concerned about that I'd love to hear your opinion on is the increase in temptation. And I think already in the past few years, thanks to just tools as simple as Shopify, entrepreneurs have unlocked, let's just say, an hour of their day.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Are some of them being social, spending more time with family and hiking during that unlocked added hour? Absolutely. Are many doom scrolling and falling into traps of temptation also? Absolutely.

• 27:30Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  And I find with, just looking at some data, attention spans are halving. And people are becoming more addicted to these temptations. How do you feel about the opposing power?

• 27:49Speaker 01

  The thing basically fighting against that time unlocked, which is temptations get stronger.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  I think they've always existed. I think that, I think about it similar to the way I think about alcohol. You know, we had to go through our society and our relationship with alcohol. To remind you, alcohol was banned in America, banned. It was illegal to consume alcohol in America, prohibition. And I think we went through that and we realized that it wasn't banning it. It was understanding how to educate society to have a relationship with it. Temptations have always existed, you know? And temptations come in different forms. Do you know what the biggest temptation vulnerability I have? It's not something sexual or, it's sugar.

• 28:37Speaker 00

  Like, my body is addicted to sugar and sugar's fucking bad. Like, like really bad, you know? Processed sugar especially, right? You know, so what do I think?

• 28:50Speaker 00

  I think you're bringing up a tremendous point. And I'm excited because I think we're now getting more thoughtful about it. Which means now we're gonna start having better conversations. And I believe in people's ability to have will and to have accountability. And I think that everybody, you know, everybody who's worried about children, I remind everybody that if you're listening, you're a parent, so be one. My mother was very forceful on making sure I did not do the things she didn't believe in. I've never done a drug in my life.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 29:24Speaker 00

  My mother fucking annihilated any chance of me dabbling in drugs.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Same here.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  Verbally and like, just like emotionally.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Physically.

• 29:36Speaker 00

  And luckily I didn't do it, so I didn't feel the physical wrath, but if I did it, I would have, the execution would, my mom has smacked me in the face, she's a Russian, I was born in the Soviet Union, you know, like we're a Russian immigrant family. So I would say to somebody who's listening right now that if you're worried about your 16 year old being addicted to their phone, you need to be a parent and take it away or restrict it or create new rules. I think we've become very

• 30:04Speaker 00

  passive in parenting and in our own disciplines, right? Like, whose fault was it this morning that I skipped my workout?

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Only yours.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Was it Mother Nature that she gave me this gloom? Cause fuck, when gloom comes, boy, does it get harder to go into the gym. Was it the phone that I grabbed and started doing my work and went through my content? Was it Instagram's fault this morning? That the feed had me entertained because we now live in interest media, not social media?

• 30:41Speaker 00

  Is it their fault? Because I'm a grown up. And if you're, you know, I love this whole, like, these platforms have made it so addicting. Every piece of food that is made by a company is built to do that? Every other form of entertainment is to do that? Why are we not mad at Apple for creating a device that can follow us? They're just putting media inside of it. I don't know, I, I, I believe we've become unbelievable at pointing fingers and we've become atrocious at pointing thumbs. And my thought on this is, there is no human amongst us that isn't tempted by something. And I think temptation has always been there.

• 31:28Speaker 00

  And if you have FOMO, like, if you're depressed in your life because all you see in your feed is guys that you wish you were like because they're around pretty girls, this claim that, well, we didn't know about those things before, it's just not true. Now, what is true is this is with us at all times. But what is also true is you have the ability to do this and walk away. And I think we've got to get back to a society of accountability. And I believe that society is spoiled because of 50 years of prosperity globally. And we are not reconciling that we've become a world of whining bitches.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Well said.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  I just think that you're, and I say that last part not to Raz. I say it as, maybe that's a jolt. I say it with delivery with the hope that for four people that are listening, me saying you're a whining bitch is like, yeah, I'm a whining, like, I do that sometimes. Like, you know, like, you need different medicines and hopefully somebody right now who's just been crying about everything, AI, social, governments, like, when is it you?

• 32:42Speaker 01

  As you continue to build incredible teams.

• 32:44Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  And specialization.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Maybe less necessary because we can use tools that specialize for us. What things are you looking for in people?

• 32:54Speaker 00

  A lack of fear of AI. Like, the AI thing for at least the next period of time, three, five, seven years, I don't know, is not going to be AI taking your job, it's people that use AI taking your job. That is very real. That is very real, it's already happening, that's not a prediction, that's like I'm watching it every day. Um, optimism, curiosity, adaptability, creativity. So, the prompting of it all, right? Like, it's been fascinating for me to watch people observe how I... Let me give you an example. The charms you're wearing right now. Right? Very on my mind right now, this trend, for about a year and a half. Dudes wearing the kind of bracelets you're wearing, I have one for V friends.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  I miss you.

• 33:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. So, you know, we're launching one, and the way I worked through that was about fifteen months ago, I literally, this literally happened. I went to Voice on ChatGPT and I was like, "Hey, I'm noticing the cool guys starting to wear bracelets with charms." Obviously, I'm aware of what's going on with Labubu and girls are always doing it. Why is this happening? What historic reference of jewelry and men? Is this about the collectibles thing that I'm seeing? Is this something different? I'm sure this has to do with them wanting to be cool in front of girls, and I get all that. How long term do you think this could be? What other things are going on? Which brands are leading at it? Which founders are speaking?

• 34:21Speaker 00

  Like, this is like a six-minute recording of me talking as a strategist. The output was remarkable. And, and so, I still, you know, what I just did right now, a lot of people are still using AI the way they use Google Search. I'm using To Think, and now we have Open Claw. And now we have AI agents. Like, I expect within twenty-four to thirty-six months, everything I'm buying, deodorant, carrots, you know, shoes, is being bought for me by my agents. Based on, if I don't care, price. If I do care, limited or hard to get. Like, there's so much coming.

• 35:08Speaker 00

  I mean, my partner in our private club, Flyfish Club downtown, he's building apps. Like, all day long, like every day. David Rawlins texted me this morning with an app for our restaurant group. That kid wouldn't know how to code a website if I paid him a million dollars four years ago. The world's changing around us, but he, David, is not scared of it, he's leaning into it. And so, you know, what I'm looking for is optimistic, curious, and practical. I'm looking for a cop. A curious, optimistic, practical person. A cop. That's what I'm gonna call it, I've decided to nail it. Right now, what I'm looking for in this next era is a cop. Someone who's curious, optimistic, but that last part matters, that practical part.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  Because we talked about delusional earlier. Like, so I am looking for those people that are curious, optimistic about all this, but are willing to put in the practitioner hours to actually be able to use it.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  I love that. Cops.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  Cops.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Let's get some cops. On this podcast, we always play a game of à la Poubelle versus fantastique. À la Poubelle in French are the things we want to throw in the trash.

• 36:16Speaker 00

  Love it. Love.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Fantastique are the things we love and want to sell.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  Love.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  Can you name a couple of things you're sick and tired of seeing that you'd like to throw in the trash? And a couple you'd love to see, would love to see more of?

• 36:28Speaker 00

  I'm just gonna go right at it. Personal brands on the internet that are using fear to prop themselves up. The weaponization of fear by humans. Not only do I want to put in the trash, I want to put it in the trash and then light a match and throw it in there. There is no worse way to build yourself up than on the backs of people that are scared because of you. So I want to throw that in the trash. I want to, I said this already, I'm gonna say a different version of it. I want to throw in the trash all the people in the world that want to build a big building and their strategy is to tear down everybody else's building around them so that their little building seems high.

• 37:11Speaker 00

  On the flip side, the thing I want to cherish is I try to live my life this way and I see it in others. I want to give massive flowers for all the people that are just, who want to build an empire, who want to build something, who want to leave a mark professionally, who do it just by focusing on leaving a mark professionally. And actually, and this is, this I couldn't have not even predicted about myself because I'm so competitive. But I'm really competitive in sports and board games. I am shocked how happy I am when people build bigger businesses than me. That I would have been wrong about. If I made predictions, if I made a twenty-five-year-old me video and somebody asked me in a podcast like this, like, "Are you happy if someone builds a bigger liquor store?" And that's what I was doing at the time.

• 37:56Speaker 00

  Or a career. I would have been like, "I don't think so." I would have been like, honest, I would have been like, "I don't think so, I'm like too competitive." I am stunned by the joys I have for watching people build big stuff. Yeah, there's words to it now. So, I would put, I want to keep cheering for those people.

• 38:14Speaker 00

  Group dinners. I got a touch on it earlier. I've come to realize outside of going to a Knicks or Jets game, or being with my family, or working, the number one thing I want to do in life, not golf, not sailing, not laying on a beach, is to have dinner with seven to ten people that are somewhere between an acquaintance to like a lightweight friend. Because with my real friends, I'm getting time, but like seventy people that are like business associate, you and our relationship right now, lightweight starting to emerge, especially after this. Like, eight, nine people, dinner, talk about all this stuff. Marketing, business, culture, sports. Like, the group dinner around

• 38:56Speaker 00

  with one, I do this quite a bit, one conversation, all eight people, one convo. No side combos. That to me, I want to put in the flowers pot and I hope that, I probably said that out loud to inspire someone, five or ten people listening to try it, you will love it. But make sure, everybody who's listening that wants to do this, make sure you're the conductor. No one can do a side conversation. The key to this, why it's different than getting together with eight people, because you know this at a dinner, these two people are talking, these two, it's you're all together and that bouncing around of ideas and strategies and thoughtfulness is profound.

• 39:29Speaker 02

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• 39:59Speaker 01

  He needs a moderator.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  Yes, you have to have a conductor.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  I love that. Is there a

• 40:06Speaker 01

  finishing thought you'd like to share with the audience? Particularly, while considering

• 40:12Speaker 01

  the unique nature of the Stadgai audience, many of which have tremendous access to wealth, have tremendous opportunity, and are listening today in search of Gary V inspiration?

• 40:24Speaker 00

  Don't be scared to lose the friends that you used to dream to have because you're old enough or experienced enough to know the truth. I think, when I think about this audience, if I'm mapping it to the way you set it up, we've touched on a lot of important themes, I think there's just a way for you to be happier. I just don't understand how that can't be the North Star. And I cannot be more empathetic. Especially because I've lived both sides of life, like I grew up with so little and over the last fifteen, twenty years, I've had access to so much. I'm so deeply empathetic to why it seems like XYZ brings happiness,

• 41:07Speaker 00

  but I could not ask you more to lock in to people that bring you net gain emotionally. Not access to a yacht, not access to a party. People that are building you up and actually care about you, not what you can do for them. You've got to allocate more time to those people. It is still okay to have dessert. Right? It's still okay to have twenty percent of that superficial sizzle, but you've got to live more with your steak. You know? You've got to get to a place of true loved ones. And here's the good news. There's unlimited high net worth fancy famous people that are the salts of the earth. Seek them out.

• 41:50Speaker 00

  If you still want to be in like, "Cool, Gary, but I want to be in all, I want to be in Saint-Tropez during this time, and I want to be in St. Bart's at this time, and I want to be at this party, and I want to be able to get invited to that thing." That's fine. In that, in these ten thousand people, there are hundreds, if not a couple thousand, that are remarkably wonderful. Spend more time with that. And stop enabling bad behavior, especially within yourself.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  I love it. Gary, thank you so much for taking the time today.

• 42:20Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  This was an incredible conversation, a great start to my It was gloomy.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Thursday.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, you know, just like the whole theme, it might be gloomy outside, but if you're sunshine inside, it's always good.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  It's always good.

• 42:36Speaker 00

  It's always good.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Thank you so much, Gary.

• 42:38Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me. Everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes, they're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.