Why 2026 is the Year to Start a Business

In this episode of the GaryVee Audio Experience, I sit down on the CoinDesk Gen C Podcast to talk about why AI is the biggest thing since the internet and why too many people are stuck in "no culture" instead of "maybe culture." I share why the human being is the most underrated thing in the world, and how a 16 year old in rural Peru or the outskirts of Pittsburgh now has unprecedented opportunity. I also discuss why this explosion of AI is the precursor to the explosion of analog, and why brand is about to be put on a pedestal in the agentic era. You'll learn about: • Maybe Culture vs. No Culture • Unprecedented Opportunity for the Have-Nots • Why Algorithms Expose People • The Coming Analog Renaissance • Why Brand Goes on a Pedestal • Optimism About the Human Being

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The thing that inspires me is that there's a 16 year old kid right now, literally listening to this in the suburbs of, in the outskirts of Pittsburgh, or in rural Peru. At, literally, if they had the internet, which third world countries have unprecedented access to the internet, she or he can do something. They can build, they can vibe code something. They can build an agentic. They could service clients that are unaware that they can be so effective and efficient with AI. They can become renowned or famous using social. They can, they can make content from TikTok affiliate and have one video get 500,000 views and make $40,000. I spoke to a woman yesterday who's a TikTok affiliate

• 0:45Speaker 00

  who made $400,000 in December making 30 pieces of content. This is unprecedented opportunity for the have-nots.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  Gary, welcome to Gen C. Literally since the first episode when Avery and I started the podcast, we were like, the ideal guest will be Gary, and of course now that she's no longer one of our hosts.

• 1:10Speaker 00

  I waited.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. But we wish you the best. Gary, I want to just start with, this is like such an unprecedented time in business. You are someone that a lot of people go to to say what's going to be next. So, in a world of AI, in 2026, with all the kind of chaos that seems to be happening, how are you managing both your, your brand and all the related companies, as well as all of your clients?

• 1:38Speaker 00

  You know, I think with thoughtful optimism, while, while trying to be very strategic about the humility that needs to be deployed by anyone that has it going well. You know, I think a lot about the mid 90s, right before the internet really became a consumer trend. There was just a lot of companies that felt remarkable. I think about Toys R Us quite a bit, given, you know, the things I'm into and as a retailer and toys and collectibles and, you know, they misunderstood the moment.

• 2:18Speaker 00

  And I think that for me, I know that AI and all these other things will be in the short term, you know, demonized, there'll be stigma around it. But that's only based on what humans do with very big technologies, electricity, the internet, you know. And so for me, for my clients, for my brands, for my personal brand, I think curiosity's important. So everything that I hear from AI or blockchain, or even like governments passing laws, everything is a maybe, not a no. And I think right now, too many people listening to, actually, people listening to this, I think, are in maybe culture.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  I would say the masses outside this window are in no culture. And in that no culture, they will be vulnerable. And what I mean by no is people that are overly romantic about yesterday, people that are overly concerned about, can any of these technologies or trends hurt my business? Without realizing that if you don't jump on board and, you know, use these tools and opportunities, that's, that's the problem, right? If you're an animation studio, and you're like, this sucks that us, normal people, can do animation in a way that they learned how to do for 20 years, and you don't jump on board and start using Higgs field, or Nano, or these things, that's the problem.

• 3:47Speaker 00

  You know, because the invention's out, the genie's out the bottle. And so, I think I'm in a very thoughtful place, because, you know, I've always been underdog. You know, I was scrappy underdog the whole way, so every new big change was big advantage. I find myself with real businesses now. And so, they can be disrupted very heavily, and I don't want to be a hypocrite. I don't want to make the mistake that I've been talking about for 30 years, and I, I'm not going to, and I don't plan on it.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  You've been quite successful at being able to see where things are going.

• 4:25Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  You know, whether it's social, whether it's e-comm, you know, then into AI. When you look at this moment, what's inspiring you for the future?

• 4:36Speaker 00

  I think what's inspiring me is that there's a... I love merit. You know, right before we started this, we were talking about the Knicks. I love sports. You know, the Knicks beat the Cavs last night. There's no like, was there... You know, I mean, I guess there's cheating and stuff, but you know what I mean, right? Like, the score was a score, everyone knows it. It's not like politics or the Constitution, where people debate it, but you know? Or judges, 6 to 3, like, it's just clean. And I like that about business, though it's not as clean as sports. There's a lot of fooling around potential, taxes, and you could play. What I love about big technology shifts is there is a little bit of like, opportunity and merit.

• 5:19Speaker 00

  The thing that inspires me is that there's a 16-year-old kid right now, literally listening to this, in the suburbs of, you know, in the outskirts of Pittsburgh, or in rural Peru, that literally, if they had the internet, which, you know, third-world countries have unprecedented access to the internet, she or he can do something. They can build, they can vibe code something. They can build an agentic. They could, they could service clients that are unaware that they can be so effective and efficient with AI. They can become renowned or famous using social.

• 6:03Speaker 00

  They can, they can make content from TikTok affiliate, and have one video get 500,000 views and make $40,000. I spoke to a woman yesterday, who's a TikTok affiliate, who made $400,000 in December, making 30 pieces of content. You know, this is unprecedented opportunity for the have-nots. And so, you know, it keeps getting built on, right? The personal computer, then comes the internet. Then the internet evolves into this social place. Then the algorithms within social become very merit-based, not on how many followers you have. Then AI comes along and low-cost technology to make you profoundly effective,

• 6:48Speaker 00

  that if you put in the work... It's kinda like getting into shape pre Ozempic and steroids. You know, like back in the day, like if you ate well and you went to the gym and you did the right things, anyone could, even if they maybe didn't have the predisposed DNA or the environment too. And technology wise, I think we're there. It's a level of opportunity that is profound. And it's making me very optimistic because I think that's lovely. 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.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  And I was listening to what you did, I think it was on Tom Papa's show, where you said this is the biggest financial opportunity for someone under the age of 25 ever.

• 7:36Speaker 00

  Ever.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  And you said AI's bigger than the internet. I was thinking, think of all the millionaires and billionaires that have been made on the internet. AI is even bigger than that.

• 7:45Speaker 00

  You know, whether it's bigger or not, because the internet's fucking big. You know, like it's, you know, but like, I don't know, like I really, you know, I keep looking at this light above your head. It does feel electricity like. It feels even more, you know, because it affects the real world. You know, like when we get into robotics and, you know, it feels like everything will be AI'd out, you know, everything. And so, whether it's bigger or not, you know, I don't even know how one judges that. It's definitely the biggest thing since. You know, the mobile device in between, that was very big for me. That was probably my best subconscious understanding.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  Meaning day one iPhone, I go to the Short Hills Mall in New Jersey, I get it. I turn it on in my library and within one second, I'm like, oh, this is it. This is it. Like everything's different now. You know, and if you remember, like a lot of people were very, first of all, BlackBerry was red hot. And it was expensive. And I don't think people understood app culture and the internet being at your fingertip. And it changed everything, right? There is no... Uber or social, the way, it's just, it's a whole big thing. Anyway, nonetheless, this feels like the biggest thing since the internet for me.

• 9:05Speaker 03

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• 9:35Speaker 02

  And I think you said that AI deserves its place on the sort of innovation Mount Rushmore.

• 9:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  You know, is that where the Bloomberg Press is? What are your other faces on that?

• 9:49Speaker 00

  That's a fun one. You know, I, yeah, I think the printing press is like really there. I think the television is there. I think the internet is there, the personal computer, the mobile device, the steam engine, electricity for damn sure.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  Things that fundamentally change society.

• 10:08Speaker 00

  It's almost like we're getting lulled into misunderstanding how big this is, right? It feels like it's been around now for the last two, three years. And like, it's like, has it, you know, and it kind of feels like internet 95, 96. Like people are like, oh, it's big. And you kind of like, is it? Cause like, I haven't felt it yet. And then like, it feels like overnight you feel it. I think social was the same way. I'm like, man, this MySpace thing is big. And then it kind of took like another five to seven, even 10 years where people were like, whoa, social really transformed. Television too, by the way. You know, took a while for everyone to get on, da, da, da, da, da.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  So, yeah, yeah, I think we're in a, I'm, in fact, it's fun to be on this show. Cause I actually think the blockchain, this relationship with AI, is actually going to make a lot of normies understand the value of the blockchain. A ledger of truth and ownership in a world of deep fakes and fake and fake and fake and fake and fake.

• 11:13Speaker 00

  I think the blockchain is going to shine with this AI overlay in society.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  I want to dive into that in a second, but I want to think about how you you speak a lot about entrepreneurship.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  And so it feels that AI is allowing people to be entrepreneurs in ways they never were. I rewatched your conversation, I think it was from 10 years ago, with Larry King. And in it, you say, "I know where I start and I know where I stop." And I was thinking about it through the lens of now, if I'm working with Claude, the places I stop, Claude can now take over.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  And does that fundamentally change how an entrepreneur thinks? In terms of, "Oh, I don't need to now build out this entire team. I can find assassins who can do the things I need to do really well. But I can still keep going without needing to find a developer, without needing to find a UX person."

• 12:10Speaker 00

  Yes. You know, this is, this technology really benefits the architect more than the masons.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  Really?

• 12:23Speaker 00

  You know? The most creative, the most strategic are going to have a very nice chapter.

• 12:33Speaker 00

  You know, and that's just kind of, you know, the reality of it. And so, yeah, I think, and you know, it's a really tough thing for me to think about. For example, as someone who really does adore merit, you know, you know, maybe one could argue that the last 50 years, the most creative, the most strategic, did not actually get what she or he deserved. That because there was so much cost and overhead and tax on executional parts, that, you know, if there was a queen god of merit and she came down, she's like, "Actually, the, you know, the songwriter didn't get enough of the economics."

• 13:17Speaker 00

  Or the painter, or the person that came up with the idea. I don't know, but no question.

• 13:27Speaker 00

  It is shocking to me how much the creative, the strategist, the architect is going to benefit from this technology.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  Alright, so you mentioned blockchain. What was interesting to you when you first started to learn about it?

• 13:48Speaker 00

  Well, first, including AI, nothing was more challenging for me to understand than Bitcoin. You know, in 13, 14, 15, I don't remember which South by Southwest it was where Aaron Battalion, the former CTO of Living Social, broke down the blockchain for me. He was really teaching me about Ethereum, actually. Because I'd heard of Bitcoin, because I was a nerd of culture at that time, but it really didn't register.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Once I understood ownership, I remember the example for me was, you know, a deed or, you know, a marriage license. I thought a lot about like, wow, you know, what really hit me was I, Wine Library, when I launched it, the server that the website was on was in the closet of my liquor store. And when the power went out, this is real, when the power would go out, which would happen once or twice every year or two because of a storm in New Jersey, literally the website was down. So there was no cloud, there's no Amazon services. And so I remember understanding like, oh wow, every document?

• 15:05Speaker 00

  Like no more like fire in a building and like really important documents are gone. So it was first ownership, you know, like, oh wow, I digitally own this, like, you know, the joke that they made about NFTs for five years, like, why are you buying that ape? I can screenshot it, now I have it too. I always thought that was so funny. I was like, oh wow, they really don't understand. That's like me taking a photo of this building and being like, I own this building, you know, like, you don't. So ownership, you know, that, that truth, that providence. And then obviously that bled later into one of my great passions, which is collectibles and identity and community, but that was the first thing.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  And there's a, I'm friends with a number of people who were in a famous call you created around crypto puns.

• 15:56Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  You know, it's Mr. Beast, and it's Nick Tran, and Bobby, and Michael Paul, and all those people. And I remember Bobby telling us about you basically saying, "Here's why I'm in on this thing," which inspired, I think, a lot of those people to get interested in the technology. What at that time were you seeing that others weren't?

• 16:20Speaker 00

  I'm very big on timing of when the masses are ready for something, you know. On that call, which, you know, has been wildly over embellished. I mean, yes, there was that call. I mean, I do that call all, I mean, I did that call about comic books last week, and I was tweeting constantly about NFTs at that point. I thought people would collect them forever. I believe that right now. You know, I'm very aware, literally yesterday, I had lunch with someone, and I showed them that $400,000 worth of Bored Apes were bought in the last 24 hours. They were on-the-ground stunned.

• 16:59Speaker 00

  They, they, and 99% of the world, think NFTs were scams and a fad. That person, who's incredibly successful and a proper business person, I said to them, "You're shocked, right?" They said, "Yeah." I said, "You didn't think there was $400,000 sold of NFTs in the last 30 days, period, let alone one project in the last 24 hours?" He said, "Absolutely." Reminds me a lot of the internet in 2000, when all the stock prices collapsed. Greed will always set something back. There was an enormous amount of greed in NFT culture in that 12-month, 24-month window that ultimately hurt it. But what I saw is what's happening today. It's a collectible.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  It is a collectible. Just like comic books and coins and stamps and sneakers and canvas art, handbags, vintage clothes, watches. NFTs are a collectible. They will forever be a collectible. And in fact, we are filming this right before Memorial Day 2026. One of the most exciting things for me that I'm gonna do this weekend is, I already blocked it on my counter for three hours while I drink some really good tea. I am literally doing homework on artists and projects. Because I believe this is very similar to late 60s and early 70s, when contemporary art here in New York City was considered a fad.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  And people who bought up Andy Warhols and Jackson Pollock's did quite well. And I do believe, like I said, in August of 2021, that 99% of NFTs will be worth zero. But I believe that means 1% will not. And I believe, based on where NFTs are right now, whatever the 1% are, and I do not claim to know, though I do think CryptoPunks is one for sure that will make it, they are grossly underpriced, whatever that 1% is.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, they were showing at Art Basel in Hong Kong, and Art Basel in Switzerland. I mean, I think any movement, I think about, you know, who can name a cubist other than Picasso or maybe George Brock, right? The fact is, there were thousands of artists trying to be cubist work. And so you just gotta find those people.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  That's right. There was, you know, when hip-hop was said that it's not music, and it's not real. You know, you know, Sugar Hill Gang, or LL Cool J, or Russell Simmons, or what have you, these people we know. And the nine trillion other rappers that were trying to make it in the Bronx and Brooklyn and... Queens, we don't know, and that's just how everything is.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  That's funny you say that because I have this theory, and you were raised in Queens.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Like you were from this world too, I was raised in Manhattan. But that hip hop was the primitive of almost all part of culture.

• 19:53Speaker 00

  Oh, I could not agree with that more.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  You know, the idea that like, I don't know how to make music, so I'll get some turntables and I'll make my own. I can plug it into a, you know, an outlet in the park and I can play for people. You know, sampling to me is early MemeX.

• 20:06Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  And so I always tell people to look at early hip hop as an inspiration for where you can go if you just really have the will to do it.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  I could not agree more.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  You mentioned, okay, so this moment happens with, you understand blockchain, maybe you pick up some Ethereum or Bitcoin. You get excited about CryptoPunks, Word Apes, whatever, you launch V Friends.

• 20:30Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  Which at the time was really one of the most successful collections out there. While it's super hot, is when you're saying 98%, 99% of these things are going to zero.

• 20:39Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  Was the community of NFT holders who are very opinionated.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Like, were they dragging you for why you put a gun on the industry?

• 20:51Speaker 00

  Not really. It's almost like no one gave a fuck, you know, to be frank. I think everyone was just so caught up in the gold rush. You know, like, I got a couple of messages from thoughtful people and be like, yo, why are you saying that? I'm like, because it's really hard. Like, what I'm accomplishing right now with V Friends really requires a good operator. And it was very clear to me that the kids that I was meeting, because I was looking at every collection, were, you know, I'd just gone through investing in so many web 2.0 companies and 99% went to zero. You know, it fell on deaf ears predominantly because I did pick the white hot moment.

• 21:32Speaker 00

  I mean, I think ironically, those videos came out in that August that I think might have been the top volume.

• 21:41Speaker 00

  Not really. Not really. I mean, I did it because it's what I believed. And that's what I do for a living. Like, everything that's about to happen in this interview is what I believe. So, um, no, it wasn't like, "Oh, fuck you, Gary. What the fuck are you doing? You're the Pied Piper and now you're shitting on it." I just think people didn't care. Again, that was the punchline. I didn't feel like 99% of the people that were collecting were collecting. They were flipping. People were saying things like, "Community, community." What they meant was cash, cash. You know, like, "Let's all keep buying this up so it goes up." It was just very clear to me that this was things gone awry. It reminded me a lot of the junk wax era in trading cards in the 90s.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  When I first got in in 86, 87, 88, it was collectors and a little bit of speculators. By 92, it was speculators. You were gambling. You were like, "This quarter, Browning Nagel," a famous Jets second-round pick. People were buying thousands of his rookie cards and hoping he would be Joe Namath. It's happening a lot in sports cards right now. But at least, trading cards at that point had been an 80-year collectible. Um, NFTs were new. There was a lot of speculation. COVID, the US printed all this money. People were taking their stimulus checks and buying watches and Dom Perignon and NFTs. And it was just very clear. Um, there's a reason why trading cards rebounded so quickly.

• 23:11Speaker 00

  They have the history of being a collectible. But I think the NFT market's in a very good space right now. You have a very, a much smaller group, but they're real. And they're really collectors and they care. Or, there's a percentage holding on, hoping to get back to the old prices. Um, but you have some builders and, you know, I'm excited about where the space is right now.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  When you think about your businesses and where you want to go, you know, I love the audacity of thinking as big as you do, right? You talk about wanting to own the New York Jets, or you talk about being friends, becoming the next Pokemon or Disney.

• 23:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  Um, are those, how much of that is like North Star, so we're always keeping a future vision? Or is there literally a roadmap?

• 24:01Speaker 00

  I mean, the Jets thing started in 4th grade. So I think that is more like a childhood dream that really got real in my teenage years, early 20s. And then the calculus changed. When I wanted to buy the Jets when I was 18, 22, 24, these franchises didn't seem so out of reach. They were in the hundreds of millions and I thought I could get there. Now they're in the tens of billions and that's a little bit more of a long putt. But I still believe. I still want to try, right? If that makes sense. V Friends, Pokemon's the most successful intellectual property in the world right now. That's a big one.

• 24:44Speaker 00

  Ironically, I feel more confident that I can make V Friends a top 10 intellectual property than I can buy the New York Jets. With the Jets, I have to get very fortunate that my maximum moment of economic power also aligns with if the Johnson family ever wants to sell it. I'm not in control. With V Friends, I'm in control. I'd love to be a Disney, Pokemon, Marvel, Star Wars. I'd be very proud of my efforts if I pulled off a Transformers, He-Man, Care Bears, My Little Pony. I'd like to be minimally in between those kind of tiers. And we're off to a nice start. I feel very confident.

• 25:26Speaker 00

  But I would say, no, I don't think, I mean, I'm definitely not doing it for show. You know, a lot of times, it's really funny to watch how social media plays. There was something funny a couple of years ago where that was the clip and somebody in the comments was like, "This guy's so full of shit. He's just doing everything for show." And like 4 people that I went to junior high with that I don't think I spoke to in like 14 to 25 years, all jumped in the comments being like, "I was there in 86. This has been what he's been talking about." So, you know, I do it for myself. Now I talk about a lot of my stuff publicly for the last 15 years, but I have a pretty clear roadmap on the V Friends part. The roadmap with the Jets is I need to amass as much wealth as humanly possible and get outrageously fortunate that it becomes available at a time where I can do something about it.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  When I look at the opportunities that you created, a lot of it feels like you are seeing asymmetries that a lot of people don't see. And I remember watching early videos of you where you were going to like, you know, yard sales.

• 26:29Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  And being like, "I can buy this mug for $2 and I go on eBay and sell it for $10." Where you were already successful at that point.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  So it seems like part of the fun for you is also seeing that there's these mismatches and how do you take advantage of it?

• 26:42Speaker 00

  I do love that. And those videos started trash talk because I started getting emails and direct messages that were like, "Hey, you're talking about investing $50,000 into a startup." Like, "I have $18 in my Wells Fargo." And I was like, "Okay, let me do something about that." And so I was like, "What did I do when I had $18?" And I was like, "I did garage sales and I flipped on eBay. This is how I taught AJ business." And I knew it was real, the flip life and the arbitrage. That was one of the great chapters of my life, that 17, 18, 19. Because I still get messages, still, of like, "You changed my life in that era. I learned how to buy and sell and flip."

• 27:25Speaker 00

  You know, whether it's someone who says they make an extra $15,000 a year, going to flea markets and garage sales and goodwill and that's meant something to the family. All the way to kids who are like 30 now that said, "That was a starting point." You know, buying a mug for a quarter and selling it for $5 and now they do, they train on Wall Street. You know, that was very fulfilling because you're right. And you could probably see it through the video, like, deep down, I'm still a garage sale kid. And I like, like, my inner family and friends know this. Me going to a garage sale tomorrow, buying, you know, a trinket for a dollar and selling it for $39 on eBay is definitely something I get more joy of

• 28:08Speaker 00

  than landing a $3.9 million client at VaynerX. No question about it. But teaching the audience on that one, that chapter was one of my great chapters of doing what I want to do with my content, which is bring value to the people that consume it.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  And I think one of the things I really respect about what you do is anyone at any point in their career can look at it and find something.

• 28:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Something inspires them.

• 28:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, I appreciate that. And also, I have real energy to be there in the moment. People ask me a lot of times of like, you know, "Don't you get tired saying the same kind of stuff?" Or sometimes people want to razz me and be like, "You've been saying this for 15 years. It's like the biggest compliment." You know, I don't want to make up net new things. I want to talk about what I believe. But I just know that the post this morning, I mean, I've made unlimited content about, "You're young, you have time." The post I posted just now, before I walked in here, you know, I think it's titled "For 17 to 25 year olds." Like, for a 19 year old, when I said it 15 years ago, they were four. It wasn't their time. You know, and like, there's many people who've come up to me or messaged me that said,

• 29:19Speaker 00

  "You know, I heard you wah wah wah, like Charlie Brown wah wah wah." Like, it was all noise. And then like, one day, I just needed it. And the message met the person. It's very intoxicating when you have a lot of energy to want to leave a positive deposit. It keeps me incredibly resilient, tenacious, and consistent. I'm proud of that. And it feels nice to want to leave a positive deposit. And you know this, I've been doing this a long time. I feel like what I do is needed more than ever because negativity and cynicism is incredibly loud today compared to when I first started making the kind of

• 30:00Speaker 00

  positive, practical content I made. And so, there's almost a sense of responsibility at this point.

• 30:07Speaker 02

  And do you think we are entering an era, you know, we see Meta letting off thousands of people, we see people really freaked out. I have a 24 year old daughter, right? She still has to figure out what she's going to do.

• 30:18Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  It's a challenging time.

• 30:22Speaker 02

  But there does seem to be this interesting like liminal uptick in everyone wants to understand and figure out their specific place in the system. And I think about not only all the collectible, but the rise of all collectibles. We can't stop us seeing pack rip videos of Pokemon or One Piece. We can't stop seeing people who are flipping watches.

• 30:43Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 30:45Speaker 02

  But now I think about polymarket. Now I think of 24/7 stock trading, which is coming lately.

• 30:50Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 30:50Speaker 02

  And it just feels like, is everything a trade? You know?

• 30:54Speaker 00

  I think everything has, I think that is very inherent in humans. You know, shiny rock for sheep wool is like a trade that we don't think about today. Right? These vegetables for that cloth. I think it's inherent. Um, I do think unfortunately, we're in a very materialistic, I think, you know, Madonna nailed it. Like, I think we're a little, like, we're, like, it's, it's wild. I love all this stuff, but I'm, I'm very not materialist. I don't want the stuff. I'm interested in like the community. I, I think collectibles is winning on community more than people realize. I think live shopping is winning on that more than people realize. People are lonely. They're looking for community.

• 31:38Speaker 00

  Um, but yeah, I think greed is, you know, unfortunately, I think gambling culture is rising. I don't think that's good. I think there's a very big difference between investing and gambling. So I think some of the stuff you're seeing is gambling, culture rising. I do think it's materialistic. I do think it's a little money hungry. Um, and then there's good things. I think it's creativity. I think it's trade, which I think is good. I think it's community, which I think is great. I think it's escapism. You know, being in love with One Piece and reading manga, like, that's good. Like, in a, in a way. So I think there's a lot of good and a lot of bad mixing. Um, and I think it'll flush out. Like, I think unfortunately, there'll be a lot of pain.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  And I think fortunately, there'll be a lot of growth. Um, we'll find our equilibrium. But yes, I think that's what's going on.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  And so going back to AI, AI also feels like it is.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  Taking what used to be months down to minutes.

• 32:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  And so someone who has a mentality who is smart enough to figure out where they want to put their energies also has this co-pilot with them that can help figure out the data piece of it, the operations piece of it, whatever it may be, so that the individual can focus ideally on the passion.

• 32:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, that would be, that's, I hope so. I hope so. And I think so for many, and for many others know. I mean, you know, social media, you know, you probably know this, the 2006, 7, 8 era of Twitter, kids, the 2007 and 8 era of Twitter, you have no idea, was pure Nirvana. Like, every conversation in there was like hopes and dreams, and we can do it, and we're going to change the world, and everything's going to get positive, and at scale, when you took away these 2% of optimistic builders, and you got to society, it got more negative.

• 33:36Speaker 00

  Social media algorithms today that are incredibly demonized didn't change anyone. They exposed everyone. And I think you're going to see the same thing happen with AI. I think it's going to expose people. So highly creative, highly happy, highly productive, highly strategic people are going to get incredible benefit. And I think people that are just hiding in an office right now and just getting by, I hid through a system for 16 years. It was called the education system. I know I did nothing. I know that machine pushed me through because of their wants and needs. They wanted to be a blue ribbon high school, and they needed everyone to graduate. And I sniffed that out early, and I'm like, oh, I don't have to do anything. They're going to push me through.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  I think those people are going to get exposed. And my hope is them hitting rock bottom, losing their job, may lead to them going on the offense and realize they weren't passionate being a paralegal, but they're passionate about snowboarding, and maybe they can create something in this ecosystem. That is my hope.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  We just had our event consensus.

• 34:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  It's one of the largest in the crypto space.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  And I spoke to a lot of marketers, crypto marketers, but some general marketers as well. And I asked them the question of, right now, as a marketer, you are trying to attract other humans to your product.

• 35:01Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  What happens in a few years when AI agents are making financial decisions for folks on purchases?

• 35:08Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 35:08Speaker 02

  And so the idea of marketing to synthetic beings is very different than the idea of marketing to humans.

• 35:14Speaker 00

  I don't know if you're going to be marketing to synthetic, because synthetic is going to be executing what human has set up, right? Like, I'm going to set up my agent to do X, Y, Z. Buy me the best price on cereal. You know, there's still a human that had to at least make decision one for a while on like what I want my agent to do, right? In fact, I think people are about to learn a lot about the value of marketing and brand. Let me give you an example. If my agent is doing a lot of shopping for me in the background, and it's been buying the same deodorant, but I see an ad or I get affected by marketing and want this new

• 35:55Speaker 00

  deodorant, I'm going to go in and reset the rule, right? What I think agentic attacks is convenience. Right? It's the ultimate convenience.

• 36:13Speaker 02

  But is it the idea that you're saying, hey, I want, you know, anytime Jordan 10s in black come out in my size and you find it under this amount of dollars, you can make a purchase for me? So that is the convenience side? That's someone who's saying, I know that I want this specific thing?

• 36:28Speaker 00

  Or, I mean, that's fashion, but I think, which sits in a slightly interesting space, I'll go back to it in a minute. What about uploading your entire history of Amazon purchases? Putting it into a large language model so it understands the average time you tend to want to reorder certain things? And the data's incredible, right? Like, Amazon has a pretty good sense that you order toothpaste every nine and a half days, or weeks, or months, or whatever it may be. And your agent is just like living. Like, and you might have a couple of extra beers in the fridge because of it, and this, that, the other thing.

• 37:11Speaker 00

  To me, it's going to, we're about to find out, all of us. Everyone who's watching and listening, and the five of us in this room right now. We're all about to find out which things we really care about and which things we don't.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  You know, you know, I don't know if everyone here is obsessed with the toothpaste they use. But I can tell you, for me, as long as it's clean, like ingredient-wise, I don't care which brand it is, and that agent's gonna do good work for me, right? Um, but there are gonna be things that I do care about. Sneakers is definitely one. Where I'm not like, you know, just go get, you know, maybe I'll set it to your point of Jordan, dah dah dah dah. I would never do Jordan because I'm a Knicks fan. I hate Michael Jordan on the record.

• 37:54Speaker 00

  So, it's gonna be really interesting. I'm really excited about it. Um, and as a retailer by heart, I'm definitely curious about how disruptive, which I think it will be massively disruptive. But agentic agents, synthetic, that's gonna be really exciting and very challenging territories for retailers and brands. But I have this funny hunch that brand is about to be put on a pedestal because it feels like the thing that can change a human's opinion and make them go into the agentic framework and change something.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  So, the idea of, yes, I'm gonna let it do the things I want, but I...

• 38:34Speaker 00

  Until I care that it does it, right? Do the things, but occasionally, oh my god, I love that ad. Let me go, I want that bubble gum, go in, you know? It's gonna get hard to get people off their norms. It's gonna be more challenging than ever to change people's buying behavior because it's gonna be so convenient and so tech-ed out in the background, which raises the stakes for communication that can change someone's mind.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  And I assume in a world of, anything can be deep-faked, anything can be counterfeited. Going back to your earlier point, something that says, this is Reebok, and I am buying it because I, it's valid compared to the knockoff one that's made somewhere else.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  Part of, I think, the agentic commerce layer requires, we were talking about earlier, which is that I know what I'm getting is from where I expect it to be.

• 39:30Speaker 00

  Yes, and I also think, you know, it's funny where my head just went as you're going there, I think it's also going to, I think this explosion of AI is the precursor to the explosion of analog.

• 39:42Speaker 00

  I think we're going into a barbell.

• 39:45Speaker 00

  I think, you know, just sitting here and vibing with you, I'm like, man, this is gonna make people want to go to this store.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, when I was talking to Avery before you came in yesterday, I was talking to her, she said, "Make sure to ask Ari about the return of IRL."

• 40:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's my, it's my biggest thesis right now internally. I mean, on the marketing side at Vayner, we are making a massive push to experiential. I'm obsessed with analog. Stores, malls, I'm thinking about starting a business that brings back drive in movie theaters. I'm being dead serious. And I think every time I say it, people are like, huh, that sounds like a good Saturday after, like, I can, I can feel it. I can feel what's happening, which is, as we keep getting pushed to this unprecedented level of technology, there's a reason music festivals and sporting events and bar crawls and run clubs and, like, we're yearning for it.

• 40:43Speaker 00

  It's like, it's enough, we've tapped out, and, and, by the way, it's gonna be Ant. Like, in 10 years, we're gonna be more digital than ever. But I do think, you know, the flip phone and vinyl and, it's clear that we're nostalgic for a reason. Why do you think all these kids want the 90s?

• 41:01Speaker 00

  It's not just a fashion, it's the pre-internet era, right? The simplicity, the nostalgia, like, it's so clear. So, yeah, Avery's right, like, IRL's a big passion of mine, I'm thinking about a lot of businesses in that space, and as a marketing firm, we want to put on experiential events, trial, sample, like, go to the park and try these Doritos, because we're making this fun little experiment. But film it and put it on social, you know what I mean? That kind of stuff, yeah.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  And you've also mentioned that younger generations, like Gen Alpha, is sort of turning away from the phone, they're turning away from social. They want to be in the presence of.

• 41:39Speaker 00

  I think Gen Alpha looked at Gen Z, saw all that anxiety and angst and said, fuck that shit. And, you know, that happens a lot with, like, you know, that's very common with generations that stack on each other. But look, don't get it twisted, they'll be the bigger, biggest and best users of AI. They're just gonna have a relationship with it, kind of similar to post-prohibition alcohol. I think they're gonna have a better relationship with technology. Yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  And when you square that with your conversation with brands and your own team, you've got to be out there, you know, making more content, making the right content. Is it about, in an AI world where anyone can make anything, we have to just be the best and talk to those people more forever?

• 42:33Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah, I mean, you know, everybody has access to a social media account, everybody could make a website, like, this is execution.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  I guess my final question for you is, at our event, I was talking with a few people, Reid Hoffman was one, Raul Paul was another, and they seemed both optimistic and slightly skeptical of the future. You know, Reid, I said to him, you know, you're involved in PayPal, PayPal was money on the internet, he was involved in LinkedIn, identity on the internet.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  Now we're in AI where it's like, where whoever you are and want to be can grow at massive digital scale and with a team that you can use as a business design. Raul Paul said that we are entering a world where humans are no longer apex intelligence. And so what does that mean for us as a society? And so, I guess, how do you look at...

• 43:41Speaker 02

  People trying to navigate the future with the uncertainty around it. But because I think you are someone who always loves to take advantage of these moments of concern, these moments of asymmetry. How do you, like, what do you tell other people to say, "Actually, no, this is the best time ever." It's beautiful.

• 44:02Speaker 03

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• 44:34Speaker 00

  I'm always fascinated by people's inability to understand that the human being is the singular most underrated thing in the world.

• 44:44Speaker 00

  Our parents, my parents maybe, I'm trying to think if the Soviet Union did this, your parents, I'm assuming, but I shouldn't, lived in America? Correct. Your parents did drills in school to go under the desk when the atomic bomb was dropped on us. The atomic bomb was invented, I don't know if you're aware of this. It was dropped by us, by the way. If I told you in 1949, in 1946, if I told you, over the next 80 years, 10 other countries would get one, but not one would be dropped.

• 45:28Speaker 00

  I do not believe anyone would have believed it. We just tend to demonize the future, based on big technologies. Back to demonizing, when electricity was invented, when JP Morgan had it, pretty much close to where we're sitting right now, people were scared that he bought it. People did not go to JP Morgan's house, because they thought electricity had demons in it, and they did not want to go into the house.

• 45:57Speaker 00

  Listen, you were more than welcome to be scared of AI and think robots are gonna slice our throats and everyone's finished and it's all over and this all fucking blows. I just think that all these people are doing the same thing that everyone's always done. And I'm just incredibly optimistic about the human being and I believe we will figure it out and we always do and there will be unlimited, before anybody on the other side gets to it, let me jump in, there will be unlimited micro pains that come along with it. But you know what's funny? I didn't see everyone crying for the 100,000 Yellow Pages salespeople when Yahoo and Google came out. And where was everyone for the poor...

• 46:37Speaker 00

  Do you know how many immigrants spent 30 years driving a fucking cab tirelessly for 12 hours a day to get a medallion 20 years later? Nobody was crying when Uber walked in, right? And where was, where were you all when Amazon started making books very easily available? And all those third-generation bookstores went out of business? I find it interesting that now, when people are like, "Wait a minute, this might happen to me", that now we need to be cynical and pessimistic and create unrest. I don't know, I just believe in the human being. I think there's unlimited opportunity. It's happening right now.

• 47:23Speaker 00

  Why don't we do more shows on the thousands of people that have already created opportunities and have helped? I mean, I know a kid, because I'm working with him, who's 14 years old, 14, and has helped his family in Pakistan profoundly in the last 6 months because of AI. I'm happy for him. You know what's nice? Having clean water when you didn't have it before.

• 47:48Speaker 00

  You know, and so, yes, do I think some high-paying executive in a corporation making 330 a year who's not contributing all that much because they're an upper-management executive, do I feel horrible that they're gonna lose their job? I sure do. I'm a human being, I have a lot of compassion.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  But I don't know. I just think that, you know, the Silicon Valley crew is very good at hyperbolizing on both edges. They struggle with the middle. I like the middle.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  Thanks for joining, Jesse.

• 48:22Speaker 00

  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

• 48:33Speaker 03

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• 49:32Speaker 00

  Journey. See you later.