How Brands are Using Social Media & AI in 2026

In this episode of the GaryVee Audio Experience, I sit down with Sean Evans, the creator of Hot Ones, at Dell Technologies World to discuss the shifting landscape of media, technology, and attention. I encourage you to bring common sense back into the boardroom and stop relying on fake reports that don't measure actualized reach. We also discuss why the "seven or eight" out of ten consistency is more valuable than a viral hit and why AI is the greatest tool for human progress in sectors like healthcare. You’ll learn about:The Power of "Practical Optimism"Why Consistency Beats Virality Every TimeHow to Build a Brand through Honest Value ExchangeHow to Protect Your Children from the Internet

• 0:00Speaker 00

  We chase no virality as a marketing agency. And I show them that it does not correlate to business results the way you would think. In fact, it's really profound. Your seven and eight statement was very important. I hope a lot of people heard that. It is hitting singles and doubles as often as possible instead of striking out or always trying to hit a grand slam. I would show your kids, here are nine million people that went viral for a second because there's nine million examples of virality over the last 15 years that literally a month later led to nothing. Nothing was created and nothing was meaningful. And then make them sit down and watch Star Wars

• 0:39Speaker 00

  and explain why this piece of content led to a trillion-dollar outcome. It's about education. It's about having real conversations.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  Welcome Gary and Sean to Dell Technologies World.

• 0:57Speaker 03

  Thanks so much for having us.

• 0:58Speaker 00

  Thank you so much.

• 0:59Speaker 02

  Awesome to have you here. All right, so we know all of you come to Dell Technologies World to learn and to be entertained. And we are so confident this session is going to do both. Right now, media and technology are being disrupted by the exact same forces. So in an infinite world of content, AI-curated algorithms, attention is incredibly scarce. And trust is both harder to earn and more valuable than ever. So you and the audience, it isn't your just job to deliver technology anymore. It's to help people believe in it. So who better to help us learn about capturing attention and unshakable trust

• 1:44Speaker 02

  than Gary Vee and Sean Evans? Give them a round of applause, everyone.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  All right, so Gary, you are one of the foremost gurus on monitoring and looking at how attention happens. What do you think companies still misunderstand about how people discover information and decide what's worth paying attention to?

• 2:11Speaker 00

  You know, I think the bigger a company is when it comes to deploying their marketing, the more likely that they have fake reports. And so the industry of Fortune 500 land has a really tough challenge and I'm empathetic. How do you actually capture or measure if people paid attention?

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  Right? There's a lot of proxies, but it's very hard to actually measure it. I think, to answer you directly, I think what companies continue to get wrong is, I think it's about time that we bring common sense into the boardroom. And I, yeah, thank you. And, uh, and, and that's what I spend most of my time thinking about. You know, what is a potential reach moment versus an actualized reach moment? When big companies talk about television ads, they'll say, yeah, but it still works on sports. Yeah, it works on sports when it's Super Bowl, because common sense, for everyone here, we know that people want to watch the Super Bowl ad.

• 3:17Speaker 00

  But last night's remarkable Knicks game. Thank you. Um, when those, when those, when that game was going into timeouts, nobody was like, oh, I can't wait to see the commercials that are about to play. And that happens with social media, that happens with digital, that happens with print. So I would say the biggest issue is that we've become completely reliant on reports that most people in this audience know are not actually exactly right, but the company measures that way. And I think we have to have more courage to have real conversations in the boardroom. Uh, and, and, and that's the real answer.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  I love that. It really is about evolution of measurement and being honest about it, right? Not putting things in front of you that tell you a story that may not be exactly true.

• 4:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, we need to be honest in here. Like, there's an entire advertising ecosystem that have created these reports, and they're making money, but I think it's hurting brands and businesses. Um, and, and I think people know better, and I think we need a little more courage, a little more common sense, a little more truth, and a little less corporate checking the boxes and inertia.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  I love that, and I think we can all learn from you, Sean, um, in that area. You started Hot Ones back in 2015. Absolutely amazing. Is there anyone who does not know what Hot Ones is?

• 4:42Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Love it. So I think, maybe tell us real quick, how did that idea come about?

• 4:52Speaker 03

  Well, it really came about as a matter of survival. Like in 2013, 2014, every magazine pivoted to becoming a YouTube channel. So if you're working at a magazine as a writer, you had to come up with a viable media property and video property quite quickly. Otherwise, you were going to lose your job. And in this magazine office, there'd be celebrities walking the halls all the time. So you're like, well, maybe I can do a celebrity interview show, like maybe because of my proximity to it, maybe I can pull this off. And then, you know, there was a problem that we were trying to solve for, which is celebrity interview shows are boring. Why are they boring? Because everyone's in this PR-driven flight pattern. So we thought about, well, what can we do to disrupt that?

• 5:36Speaker 03

  And then the best dumb idea ever was, well, what if we had the meat increasingly spicy chicken wings? Over the course of the interview is a way to break them down. And then we shot a pilot and that was almost 12 years ago and we haven't stopped shooting episodes since.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  And 12 years later, over 30 million people still tune in for 30 minutes and watch your show. So what do you think that tells us or what have we learned about what audiences actually want versus what we think they want?

• 6:06Speaker 03

  Well, I think that there's a lot of looking into the crystal ball about what audiences want. But to me, it's always been anecdotal or like to me, it's always been personal. Like I grew up on escapism television and the 30-minute time slot, the comfort viewing sitcom. That was a really important part of that experience for me. And I think that there's this tendency, especially these days, to kind of over-index on like either side of the polarity. Whether it's like short-form vertical video, there's a ton of that that's a highly competitive and congested space. And then on the other side, you have, you know, like marathon-length four-hour podcasts or even if you go to HBO, like any sort of like Standard drama now, like episodically, they can be the length of a feature film.

• 6:50Speaker 03

  So I've always thought that the 30 minute sitcom time slot is a little underrepresented. You know, something that invites a comfortable seat on the couch and a blanket and a snack. It also invites the next episode without it feeling like a time commitment. And then the reason why I think people watch is because there's something eternally compelling about the world's most famous people absolutely getting crushed by hot sauce and eating Blair's mega death sauce with liquid rage and having A-list Academy Award winning actresses eat the bomb beyond insanity. So I think it's that unique novel hook combined with what is hopefully a thoughtful, career spanning, unimpeachably good interview show alongside of it.

• 7:32Speaker 03

  And then when you combine those things, that's how I think you can have a show that lasts a long time.

• 7:37Speaker 02

  And I love that because that 30 minutes is something that generations grew up on and it still is true today. And so in an infinite world of change, people still want it.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that's always going to be the case. Like you don't really need to worry about consumer behaviors and think about the trends and all of these new things. Like do you stick to the things that are classic and you just understand people where sometimes you want to just hang on the couch and watch something and connect with it and escape from the real world for a while, then just like give people what you know they'll always want. And then the interview is the oldest construct in the history of media. You know, there's no poking holes in that either. So it's just putting those two things together and then practicing it and staying consistent over that time.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  And that's amazing. And I think we're all trying to learn, you know, in a fast changing world, what we want to change and what we keep the same, right? So Gary, I'll go to you. What does the evolution of media teach us about how people adopt new ideas? Especially when those new ideas may be unfamiliar, complex, maybe even a little scary, like some new technologies.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  I mean, you know, I was a profoundly poor student, uh, but I got very good grades in history. And I never really understood why until maybe a decade ago. I'm like, oh, I, you know, this was part of my entrepreneurial, you know, framework. I use the history to tell me the future. The evolution of technology and the evolution of the media landscape go very hand in hand, right? Would, you know, I always think back to, I, that was a funny way to set this up. I don't always think back to, but I often think back to the printing press and the fact that amongst the first million books ever printed,

• 9:30Speaker 00

  a shockingly high percentage was religious, you know, uh, content. And, and I think has had a profound impact on society. What is always true is that our attention moves to different platforms. You know, I'm shocked by how many people don't realize when the television was invented, the radio and newspaper people made fun of it as a bad technology and made fun of sitting for 22 minutes or 30 minutes and watching a sitcom. And that was going to ruin the children. And even more interesting to me, the kaleidoscope. If you want to go and be more optimistic that our kids are not going to be ruined,

• 10:11Speaker 00

  go read all the articles about the kaleidoscope and how that was going to ruin all the children. When this new mediums, the internet really is the one that we all lived through. When the internet came along and it created new distribution, attention went away from print and radio and television. Not completely, but more attention went to this new medium and an entirely new world was spun up. Sean would never, I would never be sitting here today if the internet didn't exist because no one would have greenlit the things we did. We didn't need to get greenlit by YouTube to start the wine show or Hot Ones. And so. What that allows is for a lot of different voices.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  We are now at scale because of social media of an unlimited amount of different voices, which is creating so many micro fractures, so many micro communities, so much fragmentation, which is a real challenge for businesses from a marketing lens because we were all taught to have a brand positioning and then be consistent. The reality is, is you need to be more relevant to as many different consumer segmentations as possible to create that consideration to actually grow your business. That's whether you're a media entity, whether you're a business, whether you're a personal brand that's trying to start a side hustle. So what it teaches you is that it always moves.

• 11:37Speaker 00

  What's unique about right now is that so many people have weight with their opinions about everything. And that's a level of information that is far more nuanced and confusing for the end consumer than it was when Walter Cronkite told us all what to think in 1964. And that is creating a lot of tension and concern, but I'm quite optimistic about the human race and I have a funny feeling we're gonna figure it out.

• 12:06Speaker 04

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• 12:36Speaker 05

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors, great tasting hydration no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade: Hydrates Better Than Water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist. I have a feeling we're gonna figure it out also.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  Sean, what about you?

• 13:10Speaker 03

  No, I mean, I agree with a lot of what Gary said, you know, especially the gatekeeping of an idea that doesn't really exist anymore. And I often think too about the experimentation that it took early on. Like if Hot Ones tried to go through some sort of traditional route before the internet and technological breakthrough, like we would have been canceled after a year, after two years, you know, like we had to find our perspective and figure out who we were. And that's all been very positive, but yeah, it's, there's, I think about when, you know, like Gary was talking about the TV coming along. There used to be these paradigm shifting breakthroughs in media that would happen once a generation, you know, like radios dominated for a long time and then TV and

• 13:54Speaker 03

  color TV and cable and these things used to happen once a generation. Now I've only been doing media, you know, I've had a career in media for a decade and a half and I think there have been like at least four or five of those paradigm shifting moments, you know, like the reason, you know, we have the success we do is because we sort of arose that grew in the concrete at the exact same time that eyeballs were leaving linear network TV and then going towards the internet, which coincides with celebrities wanting to chase the eyeballs over to the internet as well. And then I've lived long enough to see that torch get passed from YouTube being like the eyeball dominant king with the crown to then TikTok. And then, you know, I think if you look at this new crop of young people who are, have

• 14:39Speaker 03

  found, you know, nouveau fame or it's really like a streaming revolution that's happened. And that's, you know, that turns me, who was at, at one point at the forefront of this change towards YouTube, now that makes me like the old dusty establishment guy, you know, and then that's going to happen continually, like every three or four years. And so I think we're just in a state now where it's just a perpetual wild, wild west.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  And how do you think about then when to follow or when to stay in that?

• 15:10Speaker 03

  I, to be honest with you,

• 15:14Speaker 03

  It's one of those things where I've always just been informed by the tried and true classics that have been going on for decades and decades and decades before me. Like, I'm actually someone who looks back more often than I look forward. And maybe, you know, there'd be some differences of opinion here, but I think about, there's a giant graveyard of media companies that all did what you were supposed to do, and chased the algorithm, and followed the audience wherever it was going, and pivoted to short form, and then what did that leave them with? Or I think about Quibi, which is like this platform that was totally optimized for exactly how people are watching. "We're gonna do short-form, vertical video, we're gonna have celebrity involvement, it's gonna be connected to a high-concept show."

• 15:59Speaker 03

  And then as far as media platform launches go in my lifetime, that's probably the biggest failure of them all. So there's this tendency, I think, to always try to buck the trend or chase the thing. But if you look at the most durable properties in all of media, from the Super Bowl to Saturday Night Live to these soap operas that have been on for 65 years, these are things that are not defined by like strategic pivots at the right time. You know, these are things that have been defined by their consistency, and that creates a level of trust with the audience that's been unbreakable for a really long time. So I'm somebody who thinks that timeliness is overrated and timeliness is underrated.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  I love that both of you actually really love history and look back in order to move forward. Do you actually have that in common?

• 16:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, we have many things in common: our love of history, our shocking good looks.

• 16:57Speaker 00

  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. But I think, if I may, the other thing that I'm fascinated by of what just transpired is, and this is just a statement about Earth and our society, but it's very real in business, we have an inherent infatuation with ore.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  It's either this or that. I can tell you what is incredibly clear to me, including some of the tried and true. When you understand how to fall in love with "and", I think it gets much, much better. Right? So, what, you know, Super Bowl, for example, deployed almost a thousand creators for short-form content as an add-on to the experience this last year. To Sean's point, it is not their steak or the, you know, the main meal, but it is a side dish to the reality of understanding where attention is. And I think when you're a marketer, it becomes even more compoundly more important than, let's say, a content or a pillar of media.

• 18:10Speaker 00

  And so, I would just caution everyone here on AI or analog, social or long form, short-form, long-form, algo or print. The reality is, is that everything can work if you're actually good at it. Let there be no confusion. Because I've been there from day one on YouTube. There are millions of people who tried to do the show that Sean and his team did, who failed. And they were 30 minutes long, and they sucked crap.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  And Sean's show does not, does not. And in fact, you do something so beautifully well. You have an amazing ability to build trust and then create a space where people can be vulnerable. Part of it's the hot sauce, probably. But, you know, tell us a little bit about your process.

• 19:02Speaker 03

  You know, I think when I'm interviewing a guest, I think it's important that I know everything that I possibly can. So, I marinate in their lives. If Ariana Grande is coming in the studio, then her music's the soundtrack of my life for a week. If Matthew McConaughey is coming in, then I'm ending every night with a double feature. If we got Gary Vee, I'm just doing a full content download. I'm just gonna make sure that I know as much about him as possible. I take notes of all the things that I'm just naturally curious about. I put them all in a big, long list and then pull from that. The ten topics of interest that I think over the course of an interview, each wing can peel a different layer from this person. And then I do a little armchair psychology, try to figure out who they are,

• 19:47Speaker 03

  and then execute that vision of how I think it's gonna go against the reality of actually being in the room. Obviously, when you're doing an interview, it's complicated because you're creating this rhythm, this sense of rapport, this trust with someone you've never met before in your life. And then you're doing it in this ridiculous concept, or this ridiculous setting of being on a TV show. And then the absurd context of eating these scorching hot chicken wings along the way. So it's a lot to juggle, but overall, I just feel like, somebody who approaches the work with a positivity and a cheerfulness and a joyfulness. And I'm there for my guest, and I wanna dance with them and be supportive with them and have this real human connection

• 20:30Speaker 03

  or these human moments where everything about it is so artificial from the outside looking in.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  And it is so, so authentic. And I've actually seen you be interviewed, and everyone asks you, who's their favorite? Who's the funniest? What's this? But what I wanna know is, or what we wanna know is, who actually inspires you the most? What guest inspired you?

• 20:50Speaker 03

  Well, my earliest core memories of falling in love with entertainment was when my mom was out of town on business. Like, the fun cheeky thing me and my dad got to do is he'd let me watch Letterman with him. And I remember the lights, camera, and action of it all. And, you know, the Ed Sullivan Theater is packed, and the curtains open up, and Dave takes the stage. And I think that broadcasting was the true, first true abstract concept that I ever understood. Where I'm like, here's this guy who's doing a show in New York, and he has this profound effect on my dad's life in Chicago. But my dad's just really one of millions. I was like, wow, what magic broadcasting is, where he can make a whole country laugh, or feel something emotionally, or reflect. And I thought that that was incredible. And then I kinda just really became a freak,

• 21:35Speaker 03

  a talk show-obsessed freak. I would put Howard Stern on like a data disc and take it to study hall and listen to him. I went to study broadcasting. ...journalism and ended up doing exactly what I knew I was gonna do all along. Even my summer job was doing architecture tours of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan just so I could get in front of these audiences time after time. And then it's been really amazing on the other side of it to have all of these guys that I look up to, whether it was, you know, Jimmy Kimmel, who's done this show, or Conan O'Brien, who maybe has done one of the great episodes of Hot Ones ever. I was on the Kennedy Center stage with Stephen Colbert, you know, like all of these guys who really inspired, who I was really inspired by and looked up to of, you know, and how

• 22:20Speaker 03

  become people that I kind of compete with, which has been crazy.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  And so interesting that those shows too leverage the platforms you leverage now, right? They film in a very traditional way, but they, the...

• 22:32Speaker 03

  But everyone's chasing the YouTube series, yeah.

• 22:34Speaker 02

  Exactly, absolutely. So I want to ask both of you, because you also do a lot of interviews, you know, what earns trust fastest in a conversation and what can break it fastest?

• 22:50Speaker 00

  I mean, from my perspective, I think I overly rely on my intuition. I think we forget that we're animals and very quickly, in a job interview, if I'm making public content, us two right now, us three, excuse me, you two right now, like, I'm paying attention and if it doesn't feel good in my tummy, then the trust is starting to erode. And then, and then there's a logical part, right? When you're asking very direct questions and they're dancing their best dance and I think the audience is incredibly smart.

• 23:31Speaker 00

  I think one of the great mistakes of many is disrespecting the audience and their intelligence. And I think when you go down that hallway, you lose trust very quickly.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Ah, that's beautiful. What about you, Sean?

• 23:45Speaker 03

  I think with a guest, you know, I like to see a nice shoulder drop and that's how I know they're trusting and that's kinda how I sequence an interview sometimes where it's like the first question will be about the project that they have coming up, that gets the publicist to take a seat and then hopefully from there you can have this thoughtful, career-spanning interview. So, in the second or third questions, there's little things that I throw in there to show that we're meeting you halfway here. You know, like if I'm gonna have you eat a wing doused in Blair's Mega Death Sauce with Liquid Rage, at the very least, I can do my homework, alright, and let you know that I care about you and your journey and that's ultimately how it goes. Like, we kind of trauma bond over this thing and then whoever goes on Hot Ones, it's one of two ways. It's like, they either never wanna see me again or we

• 24:29Speaker 03

  become best friends and our paths cross again over the years. So, I think that that's it, is just in showing that you're meeting your guest halfway. You know, like, no one who I interview needs to be interviewed by me, you know, they're all very successful people. So, I just try to make sure that like, you know, you're not coming in here for no reason, like, we're gonna, we're gonna celebrate you in this moment. And then I think with the audience is consistency and I mean that in like, the watch experience of almost every episode is a seven or an eight. It doesn't have to be a 10 or whatever and every once in a while, you're gonna have things that don't work, but hopefully you have more classics than you have bricks. But I think like, if you live in that seven to eight, that's,

• 25:13Speaker 03

  you know, the audience shows up to you because they have an itch that they need to be, that they need scratched. You scratch that itch for them, you do it for a long time consistently and then they'll just, they'll trust it.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  Well, and I love that because, you know, every day, we, you know, we don't show up as tens as human beings. And so, you know, it's very, very relatable. So, Gary, you and I have a lot in common that we absolutely love brands. Brand is at the heart of what we do and what we love. And so, how do you go about building trust with your brand?

• 25:48Speaker 03

  Me personally?

• 25:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:53Speaker 00

  It's really funny.

• 25:56Speaker 00

  This place where my brain just went ties in quite a bit to Sean's career. My breakout moment, the start of my journey, was 20 years ago, February, when YouTube was only five months old. I started a long-form wine show on YouTube. And it was incredibly early. There was literally nobody there. If you got a thousand views, you were a hero. Almost all the content on YouTube was ripped off IP content from television. And I remember why I started it. I was running my father's wine shop, and I wanted to make videos to sell wine. I was thinking more QVC than I was thinking content.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  I sent a stock guy to Best Buy to buy a camera. He came to my back, we set it up, and I went to go film my first episode. And literally, this is insane to think about, because how profound it was. The red light goes on, and in that nanosecond, I was like, "Oh my god, I'm about to taste these three wines. I've never tasted them before. They're supposed to be good, but I'm not... I can't tell the audience that it's good, even though we're trying to sell it, if I don't think it's good." Just like, in a nanosecond. That show, the wines were exceptional. I was gonna say, were they good? They were good. But really, that show blew up for me

• 27:22Speaker 00

  because I was literally tasting wine and telling the world not to buy wines that we were selling.

• 27:30Speaker 00

  I guess ultimately, like, I always think about, like,

• 27:35Speaker 00

  people are always like, "How do you be cool? How do you be relevant? How do you be cool? You be cool." Like, how do you win trust? You be trustworthy. Like, back to the point I made earlier. I just intuitively felt it from the nanosecond, even though I had a different intent when I filmed the first episode, that I was there for the audience, not for my dad's liquor store. And I think brands need to realize that they have to bring value in their content, in their advertising. If everything is "Buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff", you know, it's gonna get very easy for them to tune you out. And so I think it's a value exchange when you're building brand, which is why humor works.

• 28:19Speaker 00

  You know, if you look at the history of commercials, humor's always over-indexed. It's why making you cry works. If it's emotional, you brought someone value, you took them to a place. And so I think most marketing infrastructures around the world are not bringing value with their output. And so for me, if you look at all my content, there isn't a piece of content that I've ever put out in my life that is what's in it for me. And I think the reason most influencers and creators never grow is they make content because they want the likes, they want the followers, they want the brand deals, they want you to think they're pretty, or smart, or cool.

• 29:04Speaker 00

  They're really not thinking about... And so it's why my content evolved from business tactics to a lot of mindset and perspective stuff, because I realized the most valuable thing is getting people out of their insecurities and getting to a place of building more self-esteem so that they'll actually do something. So I basically can't think about making a piece of content without... Why would somebody watch this? What's in it for them? And that is my framework.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  And that is an incredible foundation. That is also why you're very, very successful and authentic. So we've seen this shift in media. We've continued to see both your brands grow tremendously. How do you think about, besides what the audience wants, when you're trying to introduce something new, how do you think about adoption?

• 29:56Speaker 04

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed Sponsored Jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.

• 30:26Speaker 05

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero Powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors, great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade: Hydrates Better Than Water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  I mean, for me and my companies, I think about it through the framework of dictatorship.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  Tell us more.

• 31:04Speaker 00

  You know, when I'm trying to get 5,000 employees across the six companies I'm most actively involved in, I push it down nicely. You know, it's nice dictatorship. But, you know, when you're pushing down something that is meaningfully offense and oftentimes really required to make sure your business continues to stay alive, you know, I'm passionate about it. You know, I over-communicate with the company at scale to why. But I think where a lot of organizations fail is when they're executing something mission-critical, they're not clear enough with their employees and they're not emphatic enough in the speed in which they need to execute it,

• 31:48Speaker 00

  especially if you have more and more employees. So for me, I think about it as mission-critical and I treat it as such.

• 31:56Speaker 02

  I love that. I love that. That tops down mission-critical and speed is more important than ever.

• 32:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I think, listen, we're in a moment right now that's incredibly complicated.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 32:06Speaker 00

  You know, the AI thing is big. And there's incredible amounts of fear at the employee level of, are we trying to implement, like, oh, you want me to implement this thing that's gonna make me lose my job? And I think leaders are doing a very poor job overall, being authentic with their employee base, and are losing a lot of trust. Seven months ago, I got in front of all 3,000 employees at VaynerMedia, the marketing firm, and I said, "Listen, this AI thing is inevitable." I said, "But for the next three to five years," and this is what I still believe, and I believed this two years ago, "I really don't think it's AI taking your job. I think it's people that are using AI that are taking your job."

• 32:48Speaker 00

  And so I recommend all of you, whether you work in this company forever or go do something else, it is in your best interest professionally to understand how to use this tool. And then I used history. I showed them how many people did not want to use typewriters when they were invented in offices, and on and on and on, and so...

• 33:07Speaker 02

  Again, that history.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  It helps. It helps contextualize, because people are like, "Oh, what's gonna happen?" And when you show them that everyone was scared of electricity when it was first invented, and, by the way, I don't know if you know this, the saying was if you brought electricity into your home, you were bringing demons, demonization. And, you know, when people see that, they're like, "Okay." It gives them a little bit of context and maybe a little bit of hope, that like, there's been other times where big new things were invented that we take for granted, and yes, things change, and there's always micro, you know, issues. When, when search engines exploded, a lot of Yellow Pages salespeople lost their job. You know, when Amazon was invented, a lot of bookstores got beat up.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  When electricity was invented, a lot of people that lit lanterns on the main streets of America lost their job. Yes, things happen. Um, but there's also new things that emerge and new opportunities. And, you know, I think practical optimism is uncomfortably rare right now. And I implore all the leaders here, whether you manage three... People or 3,000 or 40,000 that practical optimism, which is different than delusion. Is a framework that I think works for the masses. Otherwise, you're hiding, it gets weird. And you'll disappoint where you're like, no one's gonna lose their job from AI. And then six months later, you have 500 people laid off because of it. You're dead at that moment. And I implore people to be as authentic as possible during these times.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  I love that. We talk about it in the terms of grounded optimism, but I love practical optimism. So I'm gonna stay on the AI topic for a second. And Sean, I'm gonna go to you because it is accelerating everything. You know, what is one thing you think AI will dramatically improve in the media landscape?

• 34:54Speaker 03

  You know, I don't know, like I'm a... I'm still wrapping my head around the whole thing. Like, you know, I've got a Claude app that I use every once in a while. It's like, you know, it's kind of like a better Google, you know? But overall, I have like a kind of the, um... Like the screen time of like an elderly person, you know what I mean? Like I have a very like responsible, healthy amount of screen time. I'm not like so into it. And like, like I said, a lot of what we do is inspired by the past. But also like exactly how we make the show now is exactly... Or how we make the show now is exactly how we made it like 11 or 12 years ago. So I might be one of the people that's just gonna get run over by it because I'm still just like looking at it from the outside, not fully sure what's going on.

• 35:38Speaker 03

  Like I'm 90 years old, so I'm kind of in a wait and see on it. I'm just in a wait and see.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  What about you, Gary?

• 35:46Speaker 00

  Overall, my most, the most exciting thing about AI is medicine. The amount of people in this audience right now who are going to have a loved one who lives dramatically longer because of this technology is going to humble a lot of people that are crapping on it right now in a very profound way. It is stunning where this is going and how many people are gonna early detect things. And I'm just so happy about that. And I think, um, you know, losing a job is really scary, but losing a loved one is dramatically more scary. And so I see it profoundly big thing. I'm spending a lot of time in that space.

• 36:27Speaker 00

  Neeko, a new startup that a lot of people are gonna find out about by the founder of Spotify is this incredible machine that is...

• 36:36Speaker 00

  A 22-minute experience that will do skin work and heart work at such a low cost. I mean, there's some crazy stuff happening. And I comfortably predict a lot of you will find great joy and love in AI in the health sector, especially when it impacts you. And I think that's pretty cool.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  We're gonna head into Q and A shortly. But before we do, we're actually gonna bring you back to 2017. Because this is not the first time these two gentlemen have been together.

• 37:03Speaker 00

  Oh, nice.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  Almost a decade ago. Gary was a guest on Sean's show. Sean interviewed him, and we actually have a clip. So let's take a look.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  I think also what drives me is sort of this chip on my shoulder thing, where I see other things that are bigger and more popular.

• 37:20Speaker 00

  Is there an audio version of this show?

• 37:23Speaker 03

  No, it's just the straight.

• 37:24Speaker 00

  I'm so pissed right now. Like, this needs to be a podcast. We literally need to transcribe this entire thing right now.

• 37:32Speaker 03

  Dom, get busy.

• 37:32Speaker 00

  Dom, I'm sure you're not writing a blog post or a Medium article or LinkedIn post or something on Reddit that is a recap, six paragraphs of this interview either, right?

• 37:42Speaker 03

  We just upload and leave.

• 37:44Speaker 00

  Right, but it's about creating the other forms of media. Podcast yesterday. Podcast yesterday. On the popularity of this, you're gonna be a top 300 podcast in two seconds. That's gonna create a viral loop. Then people are gonna watch the video. You gotta be in every format. Another thing, you need to do this live at cultural events.

• 38:02Speaker 03

  We're there, we're there.

• 38:03Speaker 00

  Good, thank God. Everything else, too. Got it?

• 38:06Speaker 03

  Dom, I hope you're taking notes.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  Oh, actually really amazing, a decade later. Fascinating. So, Sean, how'd you use Gary's advice?

• 38:16Speaker 03

  Well, first I wanna say, I don't know if you saw his wing paddle, but he was, I think, the first inductee into the Clean Wing Club.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  No way.

• 38:26Speaker 03

  For Gary, that was like a no water, no milk, clean the wings performance. That stands the test of time, even to this day.

• 38:34Speaker 00

  I mean, every month, someone comes up to me and references the pure insanity.

• 38:41Speaker 03

  It was crazy.

• 38:42Speaker 00

  Because I think... Eating hot sauce is just a mental game. I just refused to let those hot sauce beat me.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  That's right, that's right. But you also gave great advice in addition to that, fighting through the fire. And one thing that we did do is the Hot Ones Live situation and doing it at cultural events and doing theater performances and things like that. You know, I went back home to Chicago a couple of years ago and it was great. We had like a screening of the episode and then a surprise appearance from David Beckham and we had like 300 people in the crowd and everyone's eating wings along with the format. And it was like this big dinner as theater experience and then Ludacris performed. I had all my friends and family there and it was like such an amazing event.

• 39:32Speaker 03

  And that's something that we've repeated a few times over and from the great Gary Vee, from the great Eye of Gary Vee and then Into Reality. So that one we definitely took with us.

• 39:44Speaker 02

  Absolutely, classic. I will say my team had an epic time editing that video down because there were a lot...

• 39:53Speaker 03

  He's got a filthy mouth.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  A lot of expletives, that's all I'm gonna say. It was hot, for sure.

• 40:01Speaker 00

  I do curse a lot. You know, I'm a Jersey boy from the 80s.

• 40:07Speaker 02

  Love it. All right, Gary, so if Sean asked you the same question today, now, what would you say?

• 40:13Speaker 00

  I would say that long-form content, post-produced, similar to what I was talking about, but in a different way today, I would tell Sean and his team to build an infrastructure, probably an open claw that you could ingest the entire episode to. Take the historical YouTube success of the show and understand which clips are most conducive to do well on social, organically, to bring awareness. You know, a lot of people...

• 40:46Speaker 00

  Rightfully so, demonize short-form content because much like long-form content, there is a lot of slop and things that aren't great. However, when done right, it is the gateway drug to build awareness to the long form. And so, written, audio, video clips in an environment where the AI is doing what it does best, which is analyzing things at scale very quickly to create the written and short-form content to be distributed across all 10 social media platforms. Social media, whether you like it or not, and by the way, on the record, I'm a very public figure with my business content, but I'm inherently very private.

• 41:29Speaker 00

  I'm much more like Sean, if I wasn't an entrepreneur and a businessman, I probably wouldn't use social, I'd never post my family or my personal life. So I understand, but from a business sense, the sheer scale attention that sits in the top 10 platforms on social is so extraordinary. Big businesses continue to underestimate it, entrepreneurs continue to underestimate it. I don't like to fight against what humans are actually doing. I don't judge where they consume, I don't judge what they like. I just try to understand it and execute within it.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  Free advice, and you didn't even have to eat hot wings. All right, we're gonna go now to audience Q and A. So we have a team backstage, and thank you for sending in your questions. So from Alan, Sean, who has been your favorite guest on Hot Ones? And what has been your least favorite sauce?

• 42:27Speaker 03

  Well, Gary Vee, of course, at the top of the list, the crown on his head. I always think that if you're new to Hot Ones, or if you haven't seen the show, watch Conan O'Brien, or watch Gordon Ramsay. If you like those episodes, chances are you'll like the show. If you don't like those episodes, it's okay to just stop there. There's nothing here for you. And then, the worst sauce, and it was on the table, I think, back when Gary did it, was the... The bomb beyond insanity, which we've now, we're now thirty seasons deep and we do a whole new lineup of sauces each season, but the bomb has held its place there because it has a reputation that's larger than the hot sauce lineup itself.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  And for whatever reason, people have tried to pull it off the table before and I dive in front of it like a bodyguard every time. And I don't know why, it's just the cross that I bear, it's the worst sauce, but I've eaten it probably more than any other hot sauce in the world.

• 43:24Speaker 02

  Oh, I love that. All right, Gary, your take on AI agents entering boardrooms in the next ten years, how will that shape, and the next ten years' shape of AI world? So, AI entering the boardrooms?

• 43:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, agentic AI agents is a foregone conclusion. It'd be like if we were here thirty years ago when I launched ecommerce website, like, what do you think about the internet? I think it's real. You know, what do you think about the mobile device? I think it's real. What do you think, I mean, it's such an honor to say this year, what do you think about a computer? I think it was going to enter every home and every business. So, how's it gonna shape? It's going to commoditize certain jobs. You know, being a note taker was a real thing. That was a real career for a very long time. That is not a career anymore. You know, even admin work with the way that these AI agents are gonna be able to look

• 44:22Speaker 00

  at your calendar, look at the available, you know, other party's calendar, book the meeting for, I mean, it's just, it is a level of efficiency that is unparalleled. And so, how is it gonna shape it? In the same way that the computer, the internet.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  The steam engine.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  And electricity, you know, this is profoundly substantial technology.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  And isn't it wild that we don't really know yet because it is moving so fast? And it's, we know bits of it, but it's, it's unbridled, really.

• 44:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's very big. And I'm, I'm happy that a lot of people are cynical to it or scared of it. I think that's good. I think, you know, when something's this big, it's good to be cautious and thoughtful. I don't like when people are blindly, like, in my day, I walked sixteen feet of snow to work, like, I don't like when people over-romanticize yesterday to demonize today and tomorrow. And so, I think you have to find your balance.

• 45:24Speaker 02

  I love that. All right, for Sean. For organizations that are not naturally entertainment-focused, like universities, healthcare, or technology companies, what lessons from creator media can they apply without seeming forced?

• 45:38Speaker 03

  Well, you know, you said something earlier where you're talking about building trust and, you know, talking about humor, or someone having an emotional connection with the thing that you're making. That, like, really, really resonated with me because when I think about my audience, it's more like these individual pictures show up in my head rather than like analytics or data on a spreadsheet. Because I think about, you know, the person who watches Hot Ones during their Thursday lunch break, and they work in a cubicle, they watch Hot Ones, and they know that they only have a shift and a half left until the weekend. So it's this dopamine hit that they get off of it. Or like, the couple that watches Hot Ones every Thursday night, and they get carryout wings, and it's part of this tradition. Or like, the father and son who watch it together

• 46:22Speaker 03

  because this is a show that's at the center of the Venn diagram of their entertainment interests. Like, I always think about that because I'm doing something for someone. You know, like, there's this warm hug that I'm kind of giving them over the show, you know, like, over the airwaves, like, through the screen, and that gives them something, and then now they're invested in it. And, you know, like, now they're hyped for the next episode, or maybe they'll see a Hot Ones bottle on a shelf at Whole Foods, and they'll want to get that. You know, like, there's all these things that happen, but it doesn't happen unless you're doing something for the person. You know, so, I always think like, yeah, I'm talking to an audience who's looking for entertainment, but, yeah, if you

• 47:05Speaker 03

  run a restaurant or whatever, and like, people love the burger. Like, just because burger sales tick down one month, don't try to like, start looking at breakfast trends, or what's going on with mocktails, or whatever. Like, people love your burger. Make sure that you protect and take care of the people who love your burger. So, I think that that works for like, every industry. It's like, well, if you want something back, like, what are you doing for people?

• 47:30Speaker 04

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• 48:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's been a big theme and a connection of the value, but also the human connection in the heart, right, showing up for people. For sure. All right. As a mom in tech, I see how algorithms shape what our kids think is successful. From your perspective, how do we help them value storytelling over chasing viral moments?

• 48:53Speaker 00

  You know, my point of view on that is by being a parent.

• 48:58Speaker 00

  And what I mean by that is, I think a lot about technology and children. I have a 16 and 13 year old. I also have been doing this for 20 years and have really watched from day one. I was an early investor in Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr back in 2006. So I've been on the journey.

• 49:16Speaker 00

  I don't think, I think we are in an interesting place in modern parenting where we don't realize how much power we actually have. For example, if this is really a big thought on her mind, I would teach your kids. I do this, by the way, internally in my company. We chase no virality as a marketing agency. And I show them that it does not correlate to business results the way you would think. In fact, it's really profound. Your seven and eight statement was very important. I hope a lot of people heard that. It is. Hitting singles and doubles as often as possible instead of striking out or always trying to hit a grand slam.

• 49:58Speaker 00

  I would show your kids, here are nine million people that went viral for a second, because there's nine million examples of virality over the last 15 years that literally a month later led to nothing. Nothing was created and nothing was meaningful. And then make them sit down and watch Star Wars and explain why this piece of content led to a trillion dollar outcome. It's about education. It's about having real conversations. And for example, a lot of people like the algorithms are raising our kids, the algorithms are exposing who you are. Just so you all know, we live in interest media. I will tell you right now exactly what you're currently intrigued by if you handed me your

• 50:41Speaker 00

  phone right now and I would open up your TikTok or Instagram because we, the algorithms aren't feeding you, they're feeding what you're showing it because it's trying to keep you on it. The algorithms didn't change us, the algorithms exposed us. And that is a pill society is not ready to swallow because we are in the era of pointing fingers at everything instead of thumbs. I think we need to be parents. Wow, that's beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Hey 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 the show.

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