Want to Build a Business or Personal Brand? Listen to this.

In this episode of The GaryVee Audio Experience, I talk about why interesting content matters more than follower counts and why relying on just Instagram and TikTok can hold you back. I share how I think about live streaming, distributing content across platforms, and putting employees first. I also discuss why I'm building businesses for joy and freedom rather than maximizing dollars or chasing approval. You'll learn about: Interesting Content Over Follower Counts Moving Beyond One Or Two Platforms Going Live On TikTok Putting Employees Before Yourself Choosing Joy Over Status

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  I have, to me, the GOAT of all GOATs. If you're watching this on YouTube, you know exactly who I'm talking about. If you are listening to this, I have Mr. Gary Vaynerchuk here. How are you, my friend?

• 0:17Speaker 00

  I'm well, thank you. How are you?

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Now, I'm wonderful. This is for the record books for me. You inspired me and so many others, and I just want to say thank you there. Your resume, obviously, founder of VaynerX, CEO of VaynerMedia, creator of V Friends. What have we done?

• 0:40Speaker 00

  Well, I haven't won a Super Bowl.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 0:42Speaker 00

  That's a very, very big focus of mine.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  I need my Jets to get me one, so...

• 0:48Speaker 00

  I've done a lot, and the coolest part of, you know, I'm sure all of us listening know, one of the great things about entrepreneurship is the creativity lens. You know, I think about a lot of things, you know, not to eat up the oxygen of resume, but currently, I'm really in my prime, like, the Restaurant Group, VCR Group, with Capons and Ito and Flyfish as our center jewel. I still kind of secretly run the family wine business with my friend...

• 1:18Speaker 01

  No kidding?

• 1:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  I was gonna bring that up.

• 1:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, my friend Brandon Warnicki, my best friend, since I was 14, runs that, but I speak to him literally every day about the business. Vayner Sports is a monster. Me and AJ have built a really big sports agency.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Break this a little down for me.

• 1:34Speaker 00

  Please.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  This is my own curiosity. Vayner Sports, VaynerMedia, VaynerX, like...

• 1:39Speaker 00

  VaynerX is a holding company. Where VaynerMedia... So, VaynerX is marketing. Is a marketing production, is a production, media, creative, market... Marketing company. Within it is VaynerMedia, the crown jewel.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  Two other junior, but soon to be equal VaynerMedia's, Chuck Media, which used to be known as Sasha Group. I rebranded it, so now, like, my whole last name is in there. VaynerChuck, Chuck Media, and Tamara Group, which is named after my mom. And then Gallery, which is a publishing art, purewow.com, Covetour, and then the Speaking Bureau, Vayner Speakers. So, that's VaynerX. Outside of VaynerX is Vayner Sports, because my minority investing partner in VaynerX is Stephen Ross, the owner of Dolphins, and he can't own any piece of a sports agency, by NFL rules. So, AJ and I had to put Vayner Sports outside of VaynerX. Then there's Vayner Watt, which is something I've just started talking about,

• 2:37Speaker 00

  which is a three-year-old TV production company, with my partner Eric Wattenberg. So, Vayner Watt. So, you'll start watching Netflix, Hulu, Amazon shows in the next year or two, and in the beginning, see that logo, Vayner Watt. So, we'll be spending more time in Hollywood. The Restaurant Group, the Wine Store, the alternative sports investment. I was on CNBC last week. My wiffle ball ownership, we just won a World Series.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Congratulations.

• 3:04Speaker 00

  Pickleball, thank you. Pickleball, unrivaled, the three-on-three women's basketball league, the sailing league. Like, we're, me and AJ are building a very big portfolio of alternative sports investments. So, I'm pretty active in that. My personal brand, you know, the content and all that is an entity in itself.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Of course. Do you actually have it, like, as a true entity?

• 3:27Speaker 00

  No. I have a personal LLC, which it might interact with at times, but... So, you know, quite a bit of stuff, all of which, you know, I'm very active in.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  And so, I'm definitely... I go on this rant early on, not for bravado, but more to create permission for the entrepreneurs that are listening, who want to do more than one business, in a world where a lot of the entrepreneurs we look up to tell you to focus on one.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  I was gonna ask, how do you do all that? Because I would sit here, so I run kind of a consulting team for businesses, small businesses. I would tell most people to say, like, if you don't get focused, you're gonna screw the pooch here.

• 4:15Speaker 00

  I think there's a little bit of Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders in me. I just think I'm actually capable of doing more than one thing. Like, they're just the truth. So, there is a level of, like, and by the way, on the record, it's nothing to do with me. My mom and dad had sex at the right second, and gave me DNA that allowed me to... So, I do think that's true. And just like Bo and Deion, like, it's hard to do that. It's rare. So, I do think it's rare for someone to be able to meaningfully run... You know, every business I just mentioned, every one of them does over eight figures in revenue. These are all 10, all of that. I mean, and we didn't even get into V Friends.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Do you get that? Do you understand?

• 4:52Speaker 00

  I do, I do, I do. But I also don't think it makes me special. What I think is special about what I'm doing and why I'm intoxicated of still doing podcasts like this is, I'm not trying to maximize dollars.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Explain that.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  Well, I'm not so sold that all these eight businesses are actually maximizing my financial upside. I think back to your advice. I think if I want 100... We didn't even mention V Friends, which is getting a ton of my attention. It's my Pokemon, Marvel, Disney business.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  I mean, it is so cool. This is for my daughter, by the way.

• 5:27Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  I have a five-year-old, like...

• 5:29Speaker 00

  One of my favorite things about V Friends is it's a massive girl-dad brand. Two of the five hottest characters in our universe is Fearless Fairy and Ambitious Angel. And so, anyway, I believe if I went 100% of V Friends, or 100% of VaynerX, or 100% of Vayner Sports, or 100% of VCR Group, or Vayner Watt, or Wine Library, that, there's a chance I would make more money.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  And you don't care, not because you don't care about money, because you just have more passion and other, you would rather do...

• 6:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, I got Ds and Fs in school, because I...

• 6:06Speaker 00

  So, I've never done anything about money. From 22 to 34, I gave 100 hours a week to my parents. Left with nothing. You know, sometimes people try to razz me in comments with my, all the content. And they're like, "Don't listen to him. He inherited his family's wine business." Not only did I not inherit it, I built it. I currently do not own any of it. My father owns all of it. And I gave up my greatest youth years.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. You said you exited at 34, 35?

• 6:36Speaker 00

  At 34, I left. I definitely didn't exit shit. I left the business and started VaynerMedia, and started it in a conference room smaller than this little studio we're in, with my brother and three of his friends, because I had no money. Right? And so...

• 6:54Speaker 01

  And so, you go start a business with...

• 6:55Speaker 00

  How old are you?

• 6:56Speaker 01

  45.

• 6:57Speaker 00

  Right. Think about 34 years old, not having a, literally not having any money. Like, did not have enough money to pay a lease for a couple thousand dollars a month, because what had happened was, I did save up a lot of money, even though I was making 65, 75, 80,000 a year when I was 25, 29, 30. I was living a $24,000 a year lifestyle. I had a shitty apartment by the liquor store and did nothing. So, when you don't do anything and you don't spend any money, you can save. And that, and right before I started VaynerMedia, I had invested all my savings into Facebook and Twitter.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  You literally went for the moon, like...

• 7:37Speaker 00

  Moonshot.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  I'm going for it.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  Going for it. By the way, it was $200,000. It wasn't like it was a billion.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  It's everything you have.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  But it was everything I had, to your point. And I was 33, and I had resentment built up, because I built up a $50 million business for my dad, and he wasn't paying me anything. And his answer was, "You'll inherit this when I die." And I'm like, "Dad, we're 22 years apart. You have great genetics. Like, I'm gonna be fucking 74 when I inherit this shit." So, that's why I had to leave, because I wasn't in control. But I was okay with that, because I knew what I was doing from 20 to 30. From 22 to 30, I had no problems. From 30 to 33, it was starting to build up of, like, fuck, I'm getting fucked here a little bit.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  You did have a little bit of that.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, I don't, I don't...

• 8:21Speaker 01

  I don't study you as much as anybody, like, you don't talk about it.

• 8:24Speaker 00

  No, because I don't want to paint my father in the wrong picture. Because I don't think it was so much his fault. I think every immigrant that's listening, that grew up, like, with a gas station or a deli, knows in immigrant families, not American families, like, the mindset is, you give it all to the business and you inherit it when you're old. So, I don't think my dad was trying to fuck me, but I definitely started feeling some sort of way. The business was doing 3.8 million when I started running it. Now, I'm working 120 hours a week, every day.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Did you and dad have this conversation where you said, "Dad, I'm getting frustrated"?

• 8:58Speaker 00

  Me and my dad fought tirelessly. We had many arguments about, not really that part. That started to happen at 30. What we fought about was just like how we treated our employees, how to run the business, like, day-to-day shit. But yeah, from 30 to 34, there was a four-year buildup of me being like, fuck, I'm... And AJ was also coming. My brother's 11 years younger than me.

• 9:24Speaker 00

  At this point, he's 19 when I'm 30. He's going to college. And he's like, "I'm not fucking working for dad."

• 9:29Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, were you like, "Bro, you gotta get in here, I'm out"?

• 9:32Speaker 00

  No, I wasn't mad. I was like, I thought when he was 14, "Bro, get in here, we're gonna do this." Bro was smarter than me. Bro at 15, at 15, was like, "Bro, I'm never going to fucking work for dad." So, I knew in the back of my head for a while, I'm like, "Oh shit, if I want to be in business with my brother, it's gonna have to be outside of Wine Library." But anyway, going to the point, I've made no decisions on maximizing finances. And if my financial team was sitting here, they'd be like, "Yeah, he's an idiot." Like, he doesn't maximize against taxes. He doesn't do safe shit, like, real estate and... And some people are like, "I'm just living for joy. I'm not scared of going backwards. I'm not scared of the judgment of the entrepreneurial community if I lose it all."

• 10:15Speaker 01

  No kidding.

• 10:16Speaker 00

  Real talk, brother. We don't know each other like that. I'm telling you, you look at Train's body language, like, I... All the propaganda I put out every day of not listening to anyone, it's real to me. Like, okay, like what? Like, I'm not living for the cheering in the comment section. I'm wildly humbled by the way you started this podcast. Like, the warmth is like real. Like, my goat, are you kidding me? Like, look, I'm literally even getting goosebumps. Like, that's insane.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  You're my goat, bro.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  But I'd be okay with disappointing you by like losing everything, because I'd hope you'd learn from whatever the fuck I did to go to that.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  By the way...

• 10:54Speaker 00

  Does that make sense? I view myself as a proxy to the game.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 10:58Speaker 00

  Selflessly to the game that gave me so much, more than the selfish things the game can give to me.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 11:04Speaker 00

  I'm not in the game of entrepreneurship for a yacht. You know this about me, I've never posted anything bougie.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Never?

• 11:11Speaker 00

  Ever.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Like, to the point of like, "Come on, buy yourself something so nice."

• 11:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, because for me, nice is, I already bought it, which is optionality. I don't want a 13th home. I want what I have, which is, I can do whatever the fuck I want.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  How do you do, so, let's go to that. How do you have time to do anything? I mean, I literally...

• 11:33Speaker 00

  People, people.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  One of the things I'm great at is developing relationships with my employees. To me, the way I think about business is employees first, customers second, me third.

• 11:49Speaker 00

  I think one of the biggest reasons so many people here are not winning is they want what's in it for them first. I'm gonna start this t-shirt business, because I'm gonna make $4 million, and I'm gonna get a million followers, and I'm gonna hook up with a bunch of chicks, or a bunch of guys, or I'm gonna go on shopping, I, I, I. My brain is like, what's in it for Train to work with me? And then I'm in it for like, what's in it for someone who buys V Friends, right? Like, I hope I build, I'm Walt Disney, and that one day they'll wake up in 19 years, they might have bought it for their daughter, but one day in 19 years, they might go in the attic and be like, "This is worth $4,000." Like, you know, like, I think about that a lot. And then if all of that's true, if Train has an incredible career and makes lots of money,

• 12:33Speaker 00

  if you and your daughter have a collectible that's worth $4,000 from a box you bought for $300 one day, well, if those things are true, well, then I fucking really won.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  You won.

• 12:43Speaker 00

  Like, if those things are true, then I really won. And so, my selflessness with relationships with other humans is actually the ultimate selfish card. Uh, it comes natural to me. I do naturally think about other people. But the reason I'm winning is, let's break it down. VCR Group, David Rodelitz. David Rodelitz is the active CEO and operator. I am definitely his like right hand in thinking, supporting.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 13:11Speaker 00

  You know, the NFT restaurant was a brilliant move. It really worked out. By the way, if you all remember years ago, my NFT restaurant, it's fucking crushing. It's called Flyfish Club. You know, I'm there for those big moments, to think through stuff, to support with, VaynerX supports our restaurants really well, because we have a lot of employees in Manhattan. So, why does VCR Group work? Because of David Rodelitz. VaynerWatt. Eric Wattenberg was 20 years at CAA, was a big dog at Wheelhouse, which does a ton of TV shows that did really well. Like, why is VaynerWatt working? Because of Eric Wattenberg. I'm there to like sell a show, to be the magic at times, to star in shit. He's got a, like, if anybody goes on Delta right now, look up Wine Game.

• 13:53Speaker 00

  Like, I'm in that show. Watt did that production. He asked me to be in it with Carmelo and Chef Andres. Why does Wine Library work? Because of Brandon Warnicki. Brandon Warnicki's their day-to-day, I'm his thinking partner, but he's in the trenches day-to-day. Why does VaynerSports work? Because AJ's a fucking gangster, right? So, why does V Friends work? Because I'm the one, in those businesses, I'm the one B or two.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:19Speaker 00

  In V Friends and VaynerX, I'm the one A. I'm the guy. But Andy Krainiak and John Troutman, my right and left hand, and May New, like, there's a lot of people at V Friends, and then VaynerX, JT, Kalen. Ultimately, at the highest level, Mark Yudkin, my general counsel, like, my, my true, like, if we were a mafia, my true confidant, you know, like, if I was the boss, like, Yudkin's taking that walk in the backyard, saying, "Are we whacking Johnny or are we not?" Like, he's my guy, right? Like, Anthony Latino, our new CFO, he's been my brother's best friend, one of my brother's best friends since they were six. He was the number two in finance for the last decade. Like, do you know what kind of peace of mind it is when I have a $400 million revenue business?

• 15:03Speaker 00

  And the CFO is someone who I remember pooped his pants when he was six?

• 15:08Speaker 00

  So, family business dynamics. Like, whether they start as family, like Marcus Krasastik, who runs International for VaynerX, who was also Anthony Latino and AJ Vaynerchuk's best friend in first grade in their Three Musketeers. Do you know what kind of peace of mind I have about Singapore? And like, what I do is I convert people into family. JT, Kalen, Mark Yudkin, Eric Wattenberg, David Rodelitz, where it starts as family. Brandon Warnicki, 14-year-old best friend, AJ Vaynerchuk, my actual brother, um, you know, Anthony Latino, Marcus... So, to me, the reason I, like, ultimately, if, I always thought that my autobiography was gonna be called "The Bridge", because I pulled from very opposite directions.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  Competitive fucking gangster will slice your throat, but I'll love you to the death. And like, you know what I mean? But even like, sitting here, I'm like, huh, I wonder if I should, my autobiography should be called "Family.Business." Because I think it's family business. 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.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  I'm gonna do something I've never done with podcasts, because you're so prolific. I'm actually gonna read some quotes that I love from you, and I want you to do a deeper dive.

• 16:27Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  But before we go there, you put out a book about two years ago.

• 16:30Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Day trading.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  Attention.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Attention.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Two years is a long time in social media.

• 16:37Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  What has changed from that book two years ago to today?

• 16:42Speaker 00

  Everybody, go to garyvee.com/attention. It's a 50-page deck that is the sum up of that book. I'm even saving you 20 bucks of buying the book.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  Buy the book. Buy the book. Buy 10 of the books.

• 16:54Speaker 00

  The book is still incredibly relevant, thank God.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  No, I agree, by the way.

• 16:57Speaker 00

  Uh, which I'm shocked, actually, I'm shocked by that. Usually, it moves too fast. Here are the updates that are not in the book. Live shopping and live streaming are the two biggest changes.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  No kidding.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  I would tell you, you, you, you, you. The number one thing you should do every morning is go live on TikTok for an hour and just talk to the random people that show up on the stream. There's no place that gives you discovery like TikTok Live. Instagram Live, you go live, it pings all of, as you know, it pings all your followers.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:26Speaker 00

  And they come on, and if you're not entertaining them, they drop off, you lose half your audience immediately.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:32Speaker 00

  And it's all people who know you. They follow you.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  TikTok, that's right. TikTok, you go live, you just randomly show up in people's FYP, and that's how you get discovered. It's the number one brand building. It's the number one mistake I'm making right now of not doing it every morning.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  I need everyone to rewind that right this second. That is the best game, because my next follow-up question. The book is very relevant. Today, though, I think you just answered, what platform for growth, for attention, for awareness, for...

• 18:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, no. Back to the book. I, I said it's shockingly relevant, because so much changes. I could also argue it's not as relevant, because it changes so fast. So, we've got TikTok Live going live. We'll get to live shopping in a second.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  So, Justin Holby has to go...

• 18:17Speaker 00

  Justin, you need to...

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Hey, what's up, guys? We wanna go talk about whatever?

• 18:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're like literally live, and the way I would do it, Justin, is you're looking at the screen, and you're like, "Yo, I'm an entrepreneur. I help small businesses. Let me tell you what's on my mind." Had a meeting last week with a guy with a car wash, where he's fucking up, is he's, his expenses are out of whack, or his customer acquisition, or Google AdWords is not working anymore, because everyone's going to ChatGPT and Claude, and so the SEO game. And then people are just listening to you?

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:41Speaker 00

  And then like, JohnnyPants49's like, "Wait, tell me more about SEO." And you're just interacting with them, not presenting.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  You're presenting, interacting. Substack? So, I'm incredibly bullish on Substack, which, do you know much about it?

• 18:56Speaker 01

  No.

• 18:56Speaker 00

  I could tell by your reaction, I'm excited. You gotta look at it. Are you a writer or no?

• 19:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 19:00Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Funny, English major at UCLA.

• 19:02Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Not a writer.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  Neither, same, but I have a team that transcribes my words in podcasts like this into writing.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:10Speaker 00

  So, Substack is a massive newsletter platform that's starting to be a newsletter slash Twitter X. Massive. Next, Threads.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  It's happened. Fucking Zucks is a gangster. It's happened. I myself am like pushing myself harder on Threads. Threads is like a weird Twitter alternative, like it's there.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  No kidding?

• 19:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's there.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  I don't use it at all.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  Twitter's gotten better too. Long form on Twitter, writing like three paragraphs on Twitter, doing five minute videos, posting on Twitter, Twitter, X continues to grow.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Now, everyone's so concerned these days with growth.

• 19:48Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  You know what you didn't mention is Instagram. I lean heavy on Instagram and you might say, Justin, you are...

• 19:54Speaker 00

  I love Instagram. It's an incredibly important platform. The reason I didn't mention it yet is my assumption is everyone's on it. And my knowledge is that everyone's over dependent on it.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  I agree. I'm one of those, for sure.

• 20:10Speaker 00

  So the reason I don't bring it up is because I know all of you have already focused on it. I think it's become most people's vulnerability. I would argue that people have become over reliant on Instagram and TikTok in pop culture influencer business. And that YouTube Shorts, Facebook Blue, the classic Facebook.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  I love Facebook.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  Facebook's a monster. If you're not making content daily for Facebook on here, everyone, you're making a massive mistake. Facebook, you know, like a fan page, like the classic brand page. Snapchat Spotlight for people under 30 that are trying to target people under 30, excuse me, like me, I'm not under 30, but I target under 30. So Snapchat Spotlight.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  I didn't even know Snapchat was still a thing. I gotta shoot, she's like, I'm like, DJ Khaled.

• 21:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, so if you go to Snapchat, right? If you go to Snapchat, there's a part of it that is literally, as you can see, just like Instagram, but like, look at this person's data on the right. Like, there's a lot of, you know? Yeah, like, basically Snapchat has its own, look at the data on that. Look how much interaction there is.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  That's insane.

• 21:19Speaker 00

  So literally just posting.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  And that's nothing. That's not an influencer. That's not Gary V.

• 21:23Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Some random...

• 21:24Speaker 00

  Well, that's the other thing. All these algorithms now, everybody is on the same plane. No matter how many followers you have, if you make good content, you can get 4 million views. That's the big innovation of where social media is now at. We're at interest media, not social media. It doesn't matter how many followers you have in your social graph. It matters how interesting your content is. Someone listening right now, who's never been on Snapchat Spotlight, who wants to break out, might, on their third post, because they've been inspired by me, with four followers on Snapchat, might get 40 million views. That's intoxicating. I don't know how that doesn't get everybody up at night and to make content on all 10 platforms. LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts, these are monster platforms. So the biggest thing going on right now in marketing is everybody's a one or two trick pony.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  When they should be posting at bare minimum, which I hate that they do this, but I'll take it. Post the same fucking video on all 10 platforms and I call it a day.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Even if you use one of those companies that...

• 22:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, which I don't love because you're not maximizing the nuances, changing the wording a little bit, because as you can imagine, under 25 year olds on Snapchat versus what you would post on LinkedIn, there's gonna be a nuanced difference.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 22:34Speaker 00

  But you could make the same video and post it on it. Maybe you change the first three seconds, maybe you change the headline. You definitely change the copy that you support it with.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  So why is social media no longer social? I think it's just voyeuristic at this point.

• 22:47Speaker 00

  Well, it's not social because the term of social meant your social graph. Your people would follow you. It was always voyeuristic. Like, it was always, it's always been the same. The reason it's interest media now is the algorithms benefit good content, not people with followers. Which should make everyone listening intoxicated. Because now, no more, that's right, no more excuses of like, oh, I missed it. Gary, you've been doing it for 20 years. I'll never be like you. You sure will. Alex Earl was unknown three years ago.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  This is so great. You've been known to say patience for me is macro. Tenacity is micro. You have to be tenacious at the task at hand, but patient in the overall mission.

• 24:08Speaker 00

  I would argue one of the most misunderstood things about me is that I talk about like, oh, you're 40. Like, a lot of people like to take jabs at me saying, oh, fucking get... I'm 50. I'm saying when I make content. Hey, you're 40, you have time. A lot of other content creators like to razz on me on that. They're like, I love Gary Vee, but he always talks about 50, you have time. He's wrong. You have to fucking like go hard now. No one goes harder than me. I have 14 active businesses and work 12 hours a day minimum. When I talk about patience or like, you're 30, 40, you have time, friends, I'm not saying lay on your couch and jerk off all day. Like, I'm talking about, don't use the fact that I'm 28 and my life is over. If you believe that, your life is over. Have a good relationship in the macro about life,

• 24:53Speaker 00

  but go fucking hard day to day to actually achieve what you're crying about. And I think people miss that when I talk.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  I've said the fifth law of success for me is removing your time expectation on the result you want.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  100%.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  That's my way of saying...

• 25:11Speaker 00

  That's my point. Well said, and that's my point. And again, my point is also choosing optimism over cynicism. Like, it's not very complicated. If you think it's over at 43, if your brain, if your soul, if you're talking to yourself and saying, I fucked up, I married the wrong girl. I fucked up, I should have went with those buddies on that startup. I would have made so much money. I stayed in the same... If you're looking backwards, how the fuck are you gonna, like, you're gonna lose, you're gonna run into a fucking wall and break your neck? My point is that if you've decided it's over, it's actually over. I actually don't believe there's any truth in life. I just believe there's perception. I just believe your life is your, like, how you see it.

• 25:56Speaker 00

  Like, I don't know, like, I think the world's great. I have a funny feeling a lot of people listening here think everything's fucked right now. So I don't know, like, that's what I mean. Like, my perception is that, yes, there's a lot of things fucked up, but this romance of the 90s. I love when it was like, the 90s had it so good, the 70s had it so good, the 40s had it so good. Friends, do you know how much fucked up shit was going on?

• 26:22Speaker 01

  We just didn't see it because there's no social media.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  Yes, and because, you know, like inflation and separation of wealth. And like, I understand what everyone's complaining about. Let me make it very clear. Here's a data point that's not subjective, it's objective. It's black and white. There are more millionaires in their 20s right now than ever before. So everyone crying in Gen Z that we don't have opportunities? What about your contemporaries who are crushing it on social?

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Why would someone need to go to social right now? Because we just gave a macro look of all the platforms, what it could do. If you don't run a Gary Vee style business, if you don't try to get clients, what would be people's needs to be on social?

• 27:01Speaker 00

  Well, if you don't have a B to B or a B to C business, or you aren't interested in building up your profile so that you can get brand deals, your NIL, your name, image and likeness. If you're not trying to sell something, which is B to C, right? Wine, you know, V Friends, or you're not trying to do B to B. I'm on LinkedIn all day because I'm trying to get Coca-Cola, BMW, American Airlines to be clients.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  For VaynerMedia.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  For Vayner. So that's, you know, I'm not, VaynerMedia doesn't sell to these people. It sells to Fortune 500 companies. So if you're not selling to the world, stuff, if you're not selling B to B, or you're not trying to build your NIL, right? I am building Gary Vee because I get paid $350,000 to give a one hour speech. That's absurd.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Insane.

• 27:48Speaker 00

  I can't even believe I said that out loud. So I'm monetizing at all three levels. NIL, right? I signed seven, eight figure book deals. I get paid six figures to give one speech. I get offered millions of dollars and tons of equity to be in business with businesses like Stan and others. NIL. I do B to C, clearly. Like, everyone, please go to V E E friends.com and check out my collectible universe. And then I do B to B, right? If you're a Fortune 500 CMO, please go to VaynerX.com and, you know, fill out the form and let's have a meeting. If you're not doing one of those three things, I have no idea why to fuck someone's on social. For example, you know this about me because you know me well. I don't put out my personal life at all.

• 28:33Speaker 00

  I, in fact, how about this? How about I got a curve ball and a half for you? If I wasn't doing what I'm doing for a living right now, I probably would not have a social media account because my interest in gossip, in voyeurism, in rubbernecking, in being a yenta, in knowing what my friends vacation, is zero. I interact with my friends on text and phone calls and over dinner. I interact with my friends on, now listen, real talk, at 50, not a businessman, maybe I would have a Facebook to see like, I'd go once every six to eight weeks to see what my high school friends are doing.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  NIL, let's bring up NIL, which I don't think a lot of people, thank you for explaining that. I'm one of those people that argue personal brand over company brand. You need to brand Gary V before Gary can go launch VaynerMedia the way it's...

• 29:31Speaker 00

  I think it's and. I would argue, I understand why you're saying that. And I'm very bullish.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Look what you did with K Swiss.

• 29:38Speaker 00

  Brother, I wrote Crush in 2009 that makes this argument. I'm with you. That being said, I do think you can do both. And I think it can go both ways. Melanie Perkins built Canva and then built up her personal brand. And Canva's a multi-billion dollar company. So like, I think you can go, you see what I mean? Look at Elon and Zucks. Their businesses were built, I'm just, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, Sarah Blakely. Spanx was built before her brand. What I'm saying is it's and. And you can pull up either at any time. So you could be Gary V for four years, NIL monetized, and then start a business off that equity. Right? A cereal brand or a sneaker.

• 30:21Speaker 00

  But you could also build a business that's doing, the Gruen's CEO, who just sold his company for a billion dollars to Unilever, he can now decide if he wants to be a personal brand. Right? Stephen Bartlett built his brand, he's building a ton of businesses against it. Right? But like, Cody Sanchez was doing business, now she's building her personal brand, which will create more businesses. What I'm saying is it's very, I'll use fighting, it's very left.