Why Adaptability is Essential in Business

In this episode of The GaryVee Audio Experience, I sit down for a long-form guest interview and go all the way back. I share the three moments I knew everything was about to change — the first time I used the internet, the day I used ChatGPT, and the day the iPhone came out — and why I knew that everything built on top of the iPhone was going to win. You'll learn about: • The Three Moments I Knew Tech Was About to Change Everything • Why the iPhone is the Remote Control of Our Lives • Why Humble Beginnings Build a Different Hustle Muscle • Why Love In the Home Makes You Unstoppable • Why Your Parents Being Your Role Models Is an Advantage

• 0:00Speaker 00

  What did you see early on with the Ubers and the Facebooks? And what did you see early on that others didn't see?

• 0:08Speaker 01

  This, I'm doing show and tell, that this was about to become the remote control of our lives. What I, what I predicted for myself properly was when this was invented. And I would tell you, besides the day I saw the internet and the day that I really played with ChatGPT, that first day when my brother AJ called me, the only other moment where I was like, oh shit's really about to change, was the day the iPhone came out. I went and got it, I turned it on, and within an hour, I'm like, okay. Like, oh, that was it. Because you know, and the kids, you don't know this, up until that point, yes, BlackBerry, but not the same way on your computer.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  The internet was now on your, with you at all times. Like, literally until that point, you could do some browsing on the BlackBerry, but it was janky. This was a screen that looked good, and I was on Ylibrary.com, and it was just like I was at home. And I realized that the iPhone was gonna change the world, and that meant everything that was building on top of it was gonna win. This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

• 1:21Speaker 00

  Alrighty, big boy off air, I've been waiting on this one right here. Gary Vee.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  My man.

• 1:27Speaker 00

  Welcome, bro.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me, it's a real pleasure.

• 1:30Speaker 00

  Okay, I'll offer you some gum to start off with. You know, so I can chew it and swallow.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  You saw that?

• 1:37Speaker 00

  Nick, Gary, you really swallowed all your gum, bro?

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Every single piece, my sister's with me, she knows the real truth. I have swallowed 99% of every piece of gum I've ever chewed, and I chewed a lot of gum in the 80s.

• 1:50Speaker 00

  So the myth, is it true?

• 1:51Speaker 01

  What's that, the myth? I mean, I don't know what it's really doing, but so far I'm good.

• 1:55Speaker 00

  Well, let me tell you, man, if swallowing gum gets me in a position that's true...

• 2:01Speaker 01

  They just started eating it.

• 2:02Speaker 00

  Oh, I got it, you're talking about. But I really just wanted to sit down with you, man, because for one... I'm a fan first. I really look at what you do.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Thank you, man.

• 2:11Speaker 00

  Not only do I look at it, I need to start applying it. Because it's different when you look at something.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 2:17Speaker 00

  If you're not applying it, and if you're not doing the execution, then that's a problem.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know this. You know, let me give flowers back. You're such a true legend of like, the era that, you know, so many of us grew in, grew up in, and you know this. You've had so many of the artists and others that we admire come through. And the ones that came through only once, versus the ones that came through multiple times. That word "execution" was a part of it.

• 2:45Speaker 00

  Yes, sir.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Right? Both mentally and actually physically. And so, I appreciate that. And, you know, longevity is earned, you know? And, um, and I'm humbled by it. But again, you've been in the front row seat, and you yourself have done it. You know, there's a lot of people have done your game as well, and to be relevant that long, you know, wasn't just luck, or the great looks that we were gifted.

• 3:13Speaker 00

  Right, right. Yeah, I take that. Obviously, besides chewing that gum, you need some fucking lumps.

• 3:19Speaker 00

  But that's not what we're here for.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  There's a lot of beautiful Brock people.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Yes, that is facts.

• 3:24Speaker 00

  But you come from very humble beginnings.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:26Speaker 00

  And we've had a chance to kind of dive into that, and I come from humble beginnings as well, bro. But yours, everybody have their story.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  And for those that probably don't know my story, take me down that humble.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  You know, I, uh, I'm the byproduct of the American dream. I was born in the Soviet Union, the USSR. And for a lot of people, you know, I was a bad student except for history. But a lot of people struggle with their grades in history. When I was born in the USSR, it was like being born in North Korea today. Like, you can't leave. So, the odds were very stacked against me of where I started. Got very fortunate that my family was able to get out. In the late 70s, the USSR was running out of money, and they were starting to sell people. For, I was actually traded for wheat, wheat. Because the country was investing all of its money into weapons to keep up with the US. And it was running out of money.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  You know, when people are scared of communism and socialism, there's a reason. It hasn't worked in the last hundred years. And so, we got out, uh, please.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  Did you say you were... Traded for wheat?

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Wheat. The United States traded wheat to the Soviet Union to let some people become refugees to get out. And we were part of that small group of a couple hundred thousand. So from the get, I've been completely driven by gratitude because my odds are so unlikely. My family immigrated to Queens, New York, and that's where I spent the first couple of years in the United States. And then we moved to Edison, first Dover, New Jersey.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  What is that like when you first get here, New York? And especially at that time, New York was a different fast pace.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  It was also a very tough era. New York City was bankrupt. It was not pretty. I was very young. I was four, five years old when we were there.

• 5:22Speaker 00

  Those are sponge years.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  They are, and I remember it pretty well. In fact, you know, I look back on it very fondly because my great-grandfather, Shia, so my grandmother's father, my dad's grandfather, him and I spent a lot of time together at that time. Because my mom had just had my sister, and she was obviously with me at all times. But when she was taking care of my baby sister, I remember going to the park with him. You know, it's very funny. My whole life, I felt like an old soul. And I wonder how much of that was DNA? And then I wonder how much of that was just my environment? Because I would spend a lot

• 6:05Speaker 01

  of time... My mom tells me stories that I don't remember, that I would go outside, and I would go and like call all the 70 and 80-year-old old men by their first name and speak Russian to them, and chop it up with the OGs, you know? And you know this, you know, and I thought it when I first walked in here, it ran through my mind, like, coming up in anything, and then when you're in a position to be the OG, there's a lot of wisdom that we can spit on the kids, you know?

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, not always, you know this, we were kids too.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Right, definitely.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  There was OGs trying to tell us shit that we thought we were too cool for, what have you, but I, I think I absorbed a lot of that, of that wisdom and, you know, when you're young, you don't know any better. It wasn't that I knew that we were struggling. We, we lived very humbly, you know, this is studio apartment, one bedroom, you know, my sister's, my sister's like bassinet or whatever she sat in was literally a car seat that my cousin Bobby found in the trash. We come from real humble beginnings, but we were also fortunate. My father worked his face off.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  We moved to New Jersey first over, then we grew up in Edison, New Jersey. And we moved there in 82 when I was about to turn seven. And, you know, I'm straight out of like wonder years, right? Meaning like everybody outside playing sports, you know, I was always hustling from the beginning. Lemonade stand.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  Different though, because there's a different kind of hustle muscle when you come from very humble beginnings.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know this. When you're not fed, you've got to go get your own food. You know, and so not only did we grow up with humble beginnings, but even when we went from poor to middle class, our mom was frugal. So we didn't, we didn't have, like, at some point old, when I was older, I was like, wait a minute. We, we kind of got somewhere, but we were still living as if we had nothing because my mom didn't spend money on anything.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  Live like that a little bit now?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  I don't, but, but, and I do, let me explain.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  I think someone would challenge that.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I, I, yes, I, I do and I don't. Let me explain. I value time so much and have my whole life. I also genetically was given the gift of generosity. I also, from the time I was 10 or 11 years old, kind of knew that I would never have a money problem. Like that young. Even as a child, I'm like, oh, money's not going to be my problem.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  How did you know that?

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Because I was making it.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  And when did you first started making money?

• 8:50Speaker 01

  You know, when you do a kind of a deep dive, and I don't like going into deep dive. Yeah. I have these conversations, right? But first, y'all, how young were you? I'm selling lemonade, I'm washing cars, I'm shoveling snow when I'm seven, eight, nine. Really early, really early. Afraid of work? Not afraid to roll your sleeves up? No. And not afraid to go out and get your own? No, our whole fam is work ethic oriented. You know, like, our parents had no choice, it came down to us. Like, you know, we, it's, in fact, it's put on a pedestal. In the household that I grew up in, there was a couple of things that were just unsaid,

• 9:31Speaker 01

  or said, but working hard was kind of like oxygen. You know, it was like, there was no other way to even think about it. There was really no choice. And then we also saw it. Our father worked every minute, we, you know, every minute. We didn't see our dad when we were young, he was working. And our mom worked her face off. She cooked every meal, she cleaned up after all of us, she like did everything. And so we didn't even know any, and again, when you grow up in a neighborhood where everyone's kind of working and it's just like, everyone's working, it's like, you know, when we first moved to Edison, I would say it was lower middle class, you know, on its way to middle class, we had the wrong side of the tracks, a lot of, you know,

• 10:15Speaker 01

  we went to Martin Luther King Elementary School, that's all y'all need to know. You know what I mean? Like, you know, we went to MLK. Down here in Beverly Hills. Yeah, you know, like, we went to MLK and like, there was, you know, we were far from living it up, and there was people that had it worse than us. I don't know if you even remember this, but like Eric Godfrey's dad wore the same clothes every day. Like, like, like, like, when I, like- You were his dad? My, you know, but like, like, we had friends whose parent wore the same clothes every day. You don't think about it at the time, because it's your environment. Now, as I'm older, I'm like, and it, what I just said to her, I don't think I've ever even said to her, it's my sister off camera, like, things are coming clearer to me as I get older, and I'm like-

• 10:59Speaker 01

  It's, listen, if you were born, everybody's watching. This is something I will die on this hill. If you were born into a family that does not have much pool table, doesn't have much by today's standards of everybody needs something, but you have love in the home, you're unstoppable.

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• 11:37Speaker 04

  You sound horrible.

• 11:38Speaker 05

  Oh, I feel worse. This flu is not playing around. Dad, you promised you'd be in my band, and it's showtime.

• 11:46Speaker 04

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• 11:48Speaker 03

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• 11:52Speaker 05

  Hit it. Yeah.

• 11:54Speaker 03

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• 12:04Speaker 00

  Let me tell you, you know this. I'm from a family of eight.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:08Speaker 00

  Single mom, seven kids.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  And what number are you?

• 12:12Speaker 00

  I'm six. I'm second to the youngest. And it's wild because I tell people the same thing. We didn't have money at all, but we were very affluent in, I love you, and family bond, and being tight, you know what I'm saying? And it's wild when I ask you, how did you know? We had bouts of homelessness growing up, right? So, and it wasn't that my mom had any drug problems. If she was...

• 12:37Speaker 01

  You just had seven kids. There's a lot to take care of, yeah.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  And you get into this slippery slope. So we had a couple bouts of homelessness, right? And I remember we were living in a motel, not a hotel. All eight of us in, you know, a standard motel, what? 395 square feet, 420 square feet, whatever that is. And we're living there and I remember I told my mom, like, how you say you knew money wasn't gonna

• 13:00Speaker 01

  You knew.

• 13:01Speaker 00

  I always knew that I was gonna be famous.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  You just knew.

• 13:05Speaker 00

  Five years of age, eight, I used to write autographs to people. And for some reason, all my autographs said, best wishes, best wish. You know, to Gary, best wishes, Kurt, Kurt McGovern.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 13:17Speaker 00

  And so I remember one time we were in the motel and I told my mom, I said, Mama, say one day, because I always told people I was gonna be famous. I said, one day I'm gonna be famous, I'm gonna be rich and I wanna buy you a house. So we'll never be evicted and you'll never have to move again.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:33Speaker 00

  And it's wild because even like, what, like with you and your mom in the church, the New York Jets jersey, there's just some things that you

• 13:41Speaker 01

  It's real.

• 13:42Speaker 00

  No, it's just real. And so with me, when my mom, when I told her, Mom, you know, one day I'm gonna be rich, I'm gonna buy you a house, we'll never be evicted again. She told me, she could've said anything in the world, Gary, she said, I know you will. Now to a ten-year-old kid.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 13:59Speaker 00

  My mom could've said anything, she could've said, Kurt, please, you know.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 14:03Speaker 00

  I gotta get this rant, like, you know, she could've said anything that could've shit on a ten-year-old's drink. So at that time, not that it was a burden or I had to, but I always had this drive that I gotta do this for my mom. My mom worked hard. I never, like, with you saying that your parents worked hard, there was a lot of love, you probably didn't have to go outside of your household.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  For validation, yeah.

• 14:27Speaker 00

  Validation.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Ever.

• 14:28Speaker 00

  My mom was right there.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  It's, it's the toughest question that I get asked in interviews. They're like, which business, like, what do you look up to? And I'm like, I, I hate it because there is no answer besides my parents. But when you say no one, you come off like you're audacious or you think you're special. And I know that most people, we had it and there's, and we had it and that's why we're sitting here. When your role models are your parents. You're in a very advantageous position. Like, I just, I never needed validation from the outside world because I had so much of it in my four walls. And it's really an unstoppable feeling.

• 15:12Speaker 00

  It's a different drive.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  It's a different drive. And when you want to do it, you know, I was very motivated to do right by my parents my whole life. And clearly, you were as well. And you know, our stories are common. There's so many people. Like, it is one of the great stories in our society of the kid that says, "Mama, I'm gonna buy you a home." It's like, you know, I'm in the sports business. My brother and I have a sports agency. And, you know, a lot of athletes.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  You're in a lot of...

• 15:37Speaker 01

  I'm in a lot of businesses. I'm in a lot of businesses.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  I say, "Dot, dot, dot." Like, "Oh, I do this, I do that."

• 15:44Speaker 01

  It's another tough question. Like, what do you do? I'm like, "A lot of things." I'm juggling. Yeah, man, it's really great. And it's like, you know, it's so... It's, you know, you just chopping it up like that reinforce it. I like, I always like to hear the other versions because it reinforces, because you never want to be a focus group of one. One thing that I always promised myself when I started to realize, "Oh, shit, I'm gonna be talking a lot in my life," is like, never say anything just from my situation. Observe everyone else's. What are the common themes? You know, because you want to bring value to everybody on the other side of this camera. And I think a focus group of one is dangerous because it might be too circumstantial. But what is very clear is, if you grow up in that home, it makes you unstoppable.

• 16:26Speaker 00

  Did you know that? And not did you know that early on, but is that... Did you take it as a burden? Or you took it as a mission?

• 16:35Speaker 01

  I took it as a mission.

• 16:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, same.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  I took it as a mission. I, you know...

• 16:41Speaker 00

  Probably a mission that you didn't know that you were... I knew I was on some kind of journey, but mission is probably a word that's like, "Oh." But I knew that I wanted something different.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  You know what's interesting with me is that... And you've got, you got me, I appreciate what you're doing right now. You're putting me down an interesting, I opened an interesting door right now. That's why I'm kind of looking down. My game's interesting to me because my shit has always been, I'm gonna use a music reference because I admire you so much. My great joy is to just be in the studio. If I was a musician, y'all, I just like being in the studio. I never needed to prove to anyone, yes, I wanted to make my family proud, but if I'm being incredibly raw, I just wanna be in my kitchen cooking for me, with me, my game. I'm in a cocoon, it's just insular.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  I never needed to prove it to anyone that didn't believe in me. I just, it, it, yeah, came, that's where I'm a little different. A lot of people get to the top because they have energy that they need to prove something. Often to their mom or dad, sometimes to others. Opposite sex, no girl like me, I'm gonna get rich and get all the girl. I, I didn't have any of that fuel. For me, I just wanna be in the studio and I wanna do my art. I didn't have musical ability, I had entrepreneurial ability. For me, some of my best moments are just me with myself on a long flight. Sometimes even when I'm dreaming, I'm thinking, I can feel it. I just wanna cook up the next invention, I wanna execute it, I wanna create my meal.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  All these ingredients, all this opportunity, and I'm not scared to fail. Like a scientist, right? When shit doesn't, I'm like, here it is, this potion, watch this, and it doesn't work? That's almost equally as exciting as if it does work. I'm in it for my craft.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  I see the same thing, and, and people have it in different verse, very verse, but I always tell people, they can look at some things with me, right? And they'll say, oh, certain things I do already, oh, I love your phone text, oh, I love this, I love that, right? And there's certain things that people will say, "Man, you're always winning." I'm like, "No, not really." And I always tell people, I say, "I have more fails." There's more L's in my chat than W's in my chat.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  100%.

• 18:58Speaker 00

  I have way more fail because I threw so many things up against the wall. Now, you could look at the wall and you will see the things that stuck. But if you drop your eyes just a little bit, it's all these fucking things, these darts.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  The other thing that you did, and I think we all do it because the world's been around for a while. Thing I always admired from afar that you did is, we all have our games. And we're all playing in our lanes. But you have plenty of L's, I do as well, we all do. But the thing that I really like is that you were able to, and I think I do this as well, and many others do, is in your game, whether it was Z100 doing it, you know, like in New York, or something you called in DC, what I think the best players in the world today do is it's hard to invent something. You know, it's not like we're here in 1649 and we can invent it from the scratch.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  I think your iterations in your genre were authentically you, and the audience can smell it, right?

• 20:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, when I first got hired, Gary, for one, are you familiar with people about the Far Side?

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 20:07Speaker 00

  I was a bodyguard for the Far Side.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  I knew that as well.

• 20:09Speaker 00

  So before I got into radio, I was a bodyguard for the Far Side. And that was just one of those things where I kind of stepped out on faith, even though I couldn't see the whole staircase.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  It was the opportunity that was presented to me. And at first, I wasn't gonna take it. Literally, I had this hip-hop line that if you called it, it was my way of getting into the clubs for free. You'll call it Tuesday night, "Hey, Guadalajara, what's going on?" You know, and you'll call a regular line, and I'll tell you about the club life. Someone heard that by the name of Rick Cummings. And the Baker Boys, who did the morning show and Friday Night Flavors at Power 106 in LA, they called and said, "Hey, you know, we got this guy that wanna talk..."

• 20:51Speaker 01

  What year was this?

• 20:51Speaker 00

  This is 1994. This year, Memorial Day would be 33, about closing on my 32nd year. Closing on my 33rd. It was supposed to be one night. And it was just one of those things, man, where I got in and I said...

• 21:07Speaker 01

  And you tasted it the first night, yeah.

• 21:09Speaker 00

  And when I, then the second night, he called me back, said, would you like to try for another night? And I'm thinking thirty-five dollars an hour times for, because I'm ready to go on Lollapalooza tour with Far Side and Wu-Tang and all this stuff, right? And I said, well, let me just try. I stepped on faith, even if I couldn't.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  And you knew it. You knew it.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  It's just something that.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  By the way, I, I lived it, I lived it a few months later. Ironically, just talking about hip-hop. I went into my friend Big Dave's, he was from Staten Island, so he was banging Wu-Tang all day back then. And now, in that moment, in that dorm room, was the first time I saw the internet.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  And the first, just like you felt, you know, it's like, I always say this, it's like, there's sharks in the world. And you give a shark one bleep of blood from a mile away, and they're shooting at it. You felt that that night you were on, you're like, right? Same for me on the internet. Literally, I didn't grow up with computer. Like, we, I didn't, we didn't grow up that way. Like, I'd never been on the internet. And I was on the internet in ninety-four in that dorm room. And in one second, and I mean one second, I'm like, this is it.

• 22:19Speaker 00

  And whose dorm were you in?

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Big Dave's.

• 22:22Speaker 00

  Where's Big Dave at?

• 22:23Speaker 01

  I don't know, but Big Dave, I know this is a good story for you. And it was, it was actually, it wasn't even Big Dave, it was Big Dave's room, because he was the alpha of the room, they had four roommates. It was actually Pete from Maine who had the computer with the internet on it. And it just completely, I just knew, and I know what you're saying when you were on that night. By the way, that's what happened to me the first time I took the stage. I was thirty-one years old, the first time I ever gave a public speech.

• 22:48Speaker 00

  Were you a public speaker?

• 22:50Speaker 01

  No, I was a wine retailer, and then I started this wine show on the internet. And then I started making business content.

• 22:57Speaker 00

  You say the wine show, like, you start this one, you know, but that, that's very innovative.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, I started a YouTube show twenty years ago, February. A daily YouTube show.

• 23:11Speaker 00

  What made you understand that?

• 23:14Speaker 01

  I'm gonna use music as my comp, given your incredible career. I, by nature, am an A and R. 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.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  I, by nature, when I see things happening in society, I'm like, "That, that, yeah." Just like the best A and Rs of all time. You know, I watch the documentaries and the music stuff. I always loved the A and Rs. Like, I went into this dive bar and I saw fucking, you know, Motley Crue and I knew it. And I'm like, "Fuck, I understand that feeling." Because that's how I feel about TikTok, or live shopping, or the internet, or YouTube. I understand. And by the way, you might know this because this is what you do. Like, whether it was Gunna or Dochi, like, I do it in music sometimes, too. Because it's all the same game. I don't think I have the same ear in music that I do in technology and consumer behavior. But it's all the same game. Like, you know, it's all the same game. It's like, "Do you feel? And do you understand where things are going?"

• 24:16Speaker 01

  And with YouTube, it was very simple. I was doing internet stuff, selling wine on the internet. And then this YouTube thing hit, and it was video on the internet. It wasn't complicated.

• 24:27Speaker 00

  It sounds genius now. Because when we look in the rearview mirror, everything sounds genius.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 24:33Speaker 00

  But when you're looking through the windshield, you notice that's like different kind of shit.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  But you know what's funny? I look at pop culture historically. I think about MTV all the time, all the time, right? So I don't know if you all know this, who are watching. Many of the biggest acts in music in the early 80s said no to making a music video for MTV because they thought they were giving away their music for free.

• 24:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  You know this. So, they thought it was giving away their music for free. What the Princes and Madonnas and Michael Jacksons and Twisted Sister and Duran Duran understood was it was free promotion. So, life is simple. You find what you're looking for. This is why so many people eventually get money and then go on defense. So many people go from zero and get to a level, and then they stop because they're scared to lose it, instead of realizing it's the foundation to build on top of it. So for me, YouTube was easy. I'm like, "Oh, this is television."

• 25:35Speaker 00

  But who was watching?

• 25:37Speaker 01

  No one.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  Right.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  No one, but again, let's just use like, you know, obviously.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  But you knew something was there.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  But it goes back to like, you know, my favorite music genre that you touch on a lot. Hip hop, no one was listening. And then, and eventually everyone was listening. Everything has to start at something. I always laugh when the rock, again, going back to history. All those rock and roll people that were shitting on hip hop, I always laugh because I'm like, but rock and roll was new too. It wasn't like when rock and roll hit, all the jazz people were like, that's bullshit.

• 26:13Speaker 00

  That's not music.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  And, and by the way, you know, when EDM, when that started popping, I watched my hip hop friends saying, that's bullshit. I'm like, don't do that, don't do that. You know, you see it now with Korean pop or reggaeton, like, like shit's always gonna be moving. And as the great poet said, never get high on your own supply. And so, a lot of people interpret Biggie's line a lot of different ways. My point of view is, whatever makes you money, might be the vulnerability of the next chapter. And too many people get locked in, like our era. We may shit on mumble rap, but the kids like it. And so like, who are we?

• 26:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  You understand?

• 27:00Speaker 00

  Because I know, my radar, I have a 19-year-old son and I have a 17-year-old daughter. So I use them a lot for my radar.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 27:10Speaker 00

  And.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  It's the reason to have kids.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  A hundred.

• 27:15Speaker 00

  Thank you for adding to my career, now pay me back. But yeah, so I always kind of check the radar. When I first got into radio, Gary, like, if I had been, I always, you say, I'm unchange resistant, I'm unchange resistant, but I know how to change. When I first got into radio, my first commercial was on reel to reel.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  I'm playing albums and I'm playing CDs and cards. And that world started to evolve.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  And become digital.

• 27:43Speaker 00

  And you can fight it, but the more you fight it, and the way that we see things now, some people are fighting against change.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  I tell the old heads all the time, the number one way to get the kids to respect or be interested in the shit we came up with, is not by shitting on their shit. It's by trying to understand their shit, which then you'll get respect if you respect them first. And then you can introduce Big Daddy Kane to a kid that's all about, you know, the Migos at the time. I remember.

• 28:17Speaker 00

  I've never given a history lesson. I said, "Oh, that's just not music."

• 28:20Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 28:21Speaker 00

  They don't want to hear that.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Of course not.

• 28:23Speaker 00

  But we start to see that even more so because now, things are going even faster.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  So fast.

• 28:28Speaker 00

  To make you a dinosaur. I remember sitting in the station and talking about AI. And it felt like we went from zero to a billion.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  In a heartbeat.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  And now I question everything I look at.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Well, of course. Every single person in three years will not believe a single thing on the internet. That's a crazy concept that is going to be foreign to all of us. But again, back to music, I was there on day one Napster. And that shit was crazy. Like, again, a bunch of kids in here, you have no idea what it felt like to be like, yesterday, the only way you would have access to music is if you went to the fucking mall and bought the CD or your friend had it, and now you press a couple of buttons and you have it? You didn't even fucking understand.

• 29:21Speaker 00

  And it felt like it was just, like it appeared.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  It always does.

• 29:25Speaker 00

  Everybody had, yeah.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  It always does, but you know this. It feels at the moment that it appeared, but then when you understand it and look back, it was a step of a million little things. And the question becomes, when do you find it? It goes back to people just A and Rs. You know how people like hate on the band that they loved when no one knew them? Right? That's such a cliche thing. You loved it when no one knew. Now they're, you know, when they were a dive bar band or somebody, you loved them. Now that they're selling out, you know, arenas, you hate them. They sold out. You know, I just don't understand that framework. I understand why people do it, but the reality is, is that there's just so much opportunity when you embrace change.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  And there is almost guaranteed defeat when you resist it.

• 30:16Speaker 00

  Have you always been that guy?

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, because.

• 30:19Speaker 00

  Seeing something.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Yes, and I'll, I'll, I finally have a good analogy for it. I.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Use Star Wars for it. Like, and I use like the jungle. Like, I feel like if you love the jungle, you can't just love it when you're a young lion and you're killing everyone. If you actually love the jungle, then you have to be prepared to be an old lion and let the young lion kill you.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  I love entrepreneurship so much that it has been the foundation of what has built my life, but I'm equally prepared for it to kill me. If AI is the technology that kills me, I'm okay with that. Because you can't love the game. This is why I fuck with athletes.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  Athletes go from being... Like, watching LeBron right now is so poetic for me. He's still crazy. He's still doing shit that makes no fucking sense. But like, going OG, like, I remember when Kareem was getting older. Or when Larry Bird's back went out. Or even Kobe, even though he ain't crazy in his last game, RIP. Like, what I love about sports is even the best, you can watch, in your eyes, deteriorate. And we all see it. In life, too many people try to hold on. What they do is they start to demonize and shit on the game that built them everything, right? So how could you be a hip-hop head that grew up in the era when we had the Fat Boys and Beastie Boys and,

• 31:55Speaker 01

  you know, all this crazy shit when everyone was shitting on it and you had to live just for yo MTV Raps? And now it's the biggest genre in the world? Well, if you grew up with that and you benefited from it, you can't shit on K-pop or on a new version of hip-hop because then you're disrespecting the game that put you on. And so for me...

• 32:18Speaker 01

  I've always been that guy and I'm even more of that guy than I realized because when I got older, five, 10 years ago and I said, "Wait a minute, you got all these people that love entrepreneurship and capitalism in the game, but then I started to meet the 70 and 80 year olds that were ahead of me. And I was like, "Wait a minute, they're using their money to pay off politicians to keep their money." I'm like, "That's cheating." I'm like, "That ain't the game." "You're not good enough to compete with me anymore, so you want to change the rules of entrepreneurship? Because you're the old lion and you don't have that 19 hours a day energy. In the summer, you want to be in Ibiza and Saint-Tropez on your yacht, while I'm in the fucking office cooking.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  The fuck are you trying to change the rules for?" And I promised myself I would never become that guy. And I will not be that guy and I'm not that guy right now. And when I watch people on the come up that make content that gets more views than me, that start companies that are bigger than me, I don't have jealousy or envy. I have fucking hat tip and respect.

• 33:19Speaker 00

  I get the same thing when I look at certain, like even podcasters. I'll look at it and at one point people used to say, "Oh, podcasters, man, that's the graveyard." Podcasters used to be people that so-called couldn't get a radio job.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 33:33Speaker 00

  Oh, they can't get a radio job.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  That's exactly right.

• 33:35Speaker 00

  Now, you look at podcasters and you look at content creators or you look at influencers, whatever those may be, and they're running the game. And I could sit here and say, "Man, I've been in here 32 years and there's some people that's lapping me." But I look at what my next moves are.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  That part.

• 33:53Speaker 00

  And what I'm gonna do.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  That part.

• 33:55Speaker 00

  You know, for longevity or even to walk out the way that I want to walk out.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  That part.

• 33:59Speaker 00

  But there's so many more opportunities now.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  In 08, when I wrote Crush It, my argument was that the influencers, there wasn't a word for it at the time, that the internet people were gonna win. And I got so much shit from my Hollywood friends. I used to come here and they're like, "That's so stupid. This is Hollywood." And they were like, "Movie stars, TV stars." And I'm like, "Your history. You don't understand your history." When, when the television was invented, if you had a TV show, you were lesser than the radio.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  The radio was the fucking epic. You were lesser then. Like, uh, how about the silver screen movies? You know, we're of the age where a movie star? Now, now, if you're a star on a Netflix show, fuck that. If you're with Kaesha, if you're a streamer on Twitch or Kick, you're more famous than fucking starring in a feature film. Distribution changes, fame changes. When, before us, if you were a pilot, an airplane pilot, you were famous as fuck.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  If you were a pilot, do you know that athletes, professional baseball players for the Yankees in the 50s, would get jobs in hardware stores in the offseason? Because that's how little they got paid?

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Fame changes, shit changes, that's just the way it is.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  How about chefs? When we were kids? If you were a chef, if, what do you do for a living? I'm a chef. Oh, you're the help. Right, right, right. Now you're fucking famous as fuck. So, I don't understand how people don't understand that shit changes and you're more than welcome to hold on to your romance, say that you're keeping it real, that you're an OG. You can say whatever the fuck you want, but the market doesn't give a fuck about your opinions grounded in your self-interest.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  My man, the market does not give a fuck about you holding your opinions based on your self-interest.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  What did you see early on with the Ubers and the Facebooks? And what did you see early on that others didn't see?

• 36:14Speaker 01

  This. I'm doing show and tell. That this was about to become the remote control of our lives. What I, what I predicted for myself properly was when this was invented. And I would tell you besides the day I saw the internet.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  And the day that I really played with ChatGPT that first day when my brother AJ called me, the only other moment where I was like, oh shit's really about to change, was the day the iPhone came out. I went and got it, I turned it on, and within an hour, I'm like, okay. Like, oh, that was it. Because, you know, and the kids, you don't know this, up until that point, yes BlackBerry, but not the same way on your computer, the internet was now on your, with you at all times. Like, literally until that point, you could do some browsing on the BlackBerry, but it was janky. This was a screen that looked good, and I was on WineLibrary.com, and it was just like I was at home. And I realized that the iPhone was gonna change the world,

• 37:17Speaker 01

  and that meant everything that was building on top of it was gonna win. So, I didn't know Facebook, or Uber, or Instagram, or Snapchat, or TikTok, but I knew that the platform, whoever was winning there, was really gonna win. And again, it seems crazy to say now, but at the time, a lot of people thought the iPhone was gonna be a flop, remember?

• 37:39Speaker 00

  What year was that?

• 37:41Speaker 01

  What year was that? Can someone look it up? It was, oh, hold on, I'm gonna guess, oh, 2000, hold on, before you say, Ma, let me guess. You said it? Oh nine? Oh eight? Yeah, it was, it was after WineLibrary TV, but before I started Vayner. Seven, that's what I thought, yeah.

• 37:58Speaker 00

  Geez.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  So, that was a monumental day, that was a big bet. And then, I just, you could just feel, you know, I was in the game since 96.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  Did you tell people that this is a game changer?

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, but those people at the time were like my sister, and my dad, like, nine people, I had no platform to tell anyone, I think.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  Even friends, did anybody think like you were crazy?

• 38:23Speaker 01

  At that point in my life, I think I was creating enough success. I think when I launched WineLibrary.com in 1997, people thought I was crazy. When I told people that people were gonna buy wine on the internet, my father's friends that were in the liquor business, "This is crazy, I'm excited there's some kids here." Here was the normal conversation for me in 2007. "Yo, I'm gonna launch this website, you know, the internet, uh, world wide web." We didn't call it the internet yet. "The world wide web, I'm gonna put Dad's store on it and we're gonna sell wine on it." And literally the liquor salesman and the people I knew would say things like, "Why would I buy it on the web? I would, I'll just go to the store."

• 39:04Speaker 01

  It was just like not in people's heads.

• 39:06Speaker 00

  At that time, that is a very realistic question.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Well, let me give you one right now. I believe some of the kids in here, grandkids are gonna marry an AI robot. I believe there are people in this room right now whose grandkids are gonna marry, marry, their significant other in life is going to be an AI robot. Thoughts? Right? So like, she said... Anja's ready, she's like, "Ready."

• 39:33Speaker 00

  Anja can do another hour with you.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  You know, so, you know, to me, when I said I'm gonna sell wine on the world wide web, it seemed foreign. Right now, I said this, and people might giggle, people might fuck that... But like, for real though. You know, as if we don't have enough problems with race and religion marriages. You think it's been tough with race and religion? Wait till your granddaughter brings home 887494. This is my husband. You know, like, like shit's about... And that's just the way it is, cuz...

• 40:07Speaker 00

  I love my wife, right?

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:09Speaker 00

  Oh my God, always sometimes I did have a robot. And the reason why I say that because I could tell my wife like, oh baby, you know,

• 40:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:17Speaker 00

  I'll see you with the robot tonight.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Bro, some real shit though, like people like giggle now because it seems so far away, but we're not going to be giggling in 25 years and we're going to be dealing with that. You know, people don't like change. It's why people struggle with race and religion. People don't understand, don't have enough empathy, compassion, sympathy for something different. People are not ready for their child to be dating a robot. And it's going to happen.

• 40:42Speaker 00

  And you know what's crazy? People could probably look at this and if we put this in a vault to people say, oh, they were right on point.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 40:50Speaker 00

  And the thing about it, I remember when people said, oh, we're going to have electric cars. I'm like, electric cars? Because the Jetsons, everything that I saw in the Jetsons, I'm living now. Food being cooked.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Let me, let me, let me.

• 41:04Speaker 00

  Talking to people.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  Let me, let me, let me use that bar to set up another convo that I hope helps people listening. We're now going into full Jetsons and I think one of the biggest opportunities in the world is to go Flintstones.

• 41:18Speaker 00

  Like go back.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  Let me explain. I believe we're in a very interesting moment, which is why I'm putting it on wax right now. Because I think I'm going to be very right about the next decade. We are about to go into an extreme digital. This AI thing hasn't even started cooking. Friends, this hasn't even started cooking. Because of that, I'm seeing analog explode. Gen Alpha, the under 15 year olds are the first crew that are like, nah. Did you see, did you all see this weekend? All the commencement speeches at college?

• 41:48Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  And anybody that brought up AI, all the kids booed.

• 41:51Speaker 00

  Booed.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  You saw that?

• 41:53Speaker 00

  Arizona, the, what was the Schmidt?

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, Eric Schmidt from Google.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  Oh my.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  So, so 15 years ago, when any of the tech people went to these colleges and talked about the new technology, social, mobile, all that, they got cheered, they were the heroes. This is because people are starting to struggle with how much digital there is. People are anxious. So I think some of the biggest opportunities in business, this is the only reason I'm saying it, hopefully somebody runs with it.

• 42:21Speaker 00

  I say it.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 42:23Speaker 00

  Give me a chance.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  But you know what? If you know this, it's all execution. I'm ready for this? I'm about to say it? None of you fuckers are gonna do anything about it? Do you... People ask me all the time why I give away all my best stuff. I'm like, cuz no one's gonna do shit.

• 42:37Speaker 00

  You're not gonna use it.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  No one's gonna do shit. You ain't doing shit. You'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but people don't do shit. Anyway, before I get on that rat, back to this. Analog. This was the holiday season that the most kids under 15 asked for flip phones, not smartphones.

• 42:54Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:55Speaker 01

  If literally 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds, if you have nieces, nephew kids, you'll know. Others don't if they don't have a kid in that age. You're starting to see that crew ask for stuff.

• 43:04Speaker 00

  My daughter, she asks for like film cameras, Polaroids, like things like that.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Vinyl?

• 43:11Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  You saw?

• 43:12Speaker 00

  She got vinyl, she got a turntable.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  People are starting to really check out. I think you're gonna start seeing like, I think there's gonna be a digital detox. I think much like Shabbat, like Friday, I think there's gonna be one day a week where people completely... It's gonna happen cuz there's just so much and we're humans, we adapt. For example, let me give you an example. I'm just gonna share one of my best business ideas that I'm thinking through. I'm thinking about starting a drive-in movie theater.

• 43:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  And you see, you see, right? Look at the reaction, like, we just are looking for different experiences. I have a restaurant group that I'm very proud of, that's doing very well. I'm not the act, I'm a partner, but I'm not the operator day to day. But I'm pitching my partners to open a new restaurant where when you walk into the restaurant, you have to put your cellphone into a locker and the tables are community tables. People are just start... I just see it. I see it, I see it, I smell it, and I think it's gonna be wonderful, but it's gonna be both. While we check out for a day and while we go to drive-in movie theaters, we're also gonna be so digitaled out.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Everyone here is gonna have an open claw, running 45 different agentic AI agents, shopping for them and analyzing. We're going into this very extreme world and I think, I'm actually very optimistic about this. I think as we pull very digital and we start the beginnings of pulling very analog, in there, just like a bridge, is gonna come some strength and we're gonna reconcile. And in our extremes, we're gonna find balance and I'm excited about it.

• 44:50Speaker 00

  A gift and a curse.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Of course, everything is. Everything's a gift and a curse. Every big technology, the internet was a gift and a curse. Like, by the way, electricity, you know, was demonized when it first came out. Like, of course, and people are gonna lose their jobs.

• 45:05Speaker 00

  Atomic bomb, a gift and a curse.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, when the atomic bomb came out, everyone thought it was the end of civilization. We found, why do you think America and China are chummy chummy? Cause they both have it. It's like a fight. Like, you know, notice like when both people have a gun, everyone's like, alright chill chill chill. Right, like, right? Because, because, right, like, everyone's laughing, that's spinning around in a little bit. When somebody has one thing and the other doesn't, shit goes bad. When only one person has a knife and the other one just has their fists? It's a problem. But when both people pull out a fucking Gat, everyone's like chill chill. And that's what hap- and at the time, when the atomic bomb was dropped in Japan in the 40s, nobody would have guessed.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  If I sat here on video and said, let me tell you what 70 years from now is gonna look like. 12 countries are gonna have an atomic bomb. Like, who would have ever guessed it would have never been dropped again? It's because it's balance. It's balance. And, and I just think that that's what's about to happen. Everyone's scared, everyone's all fucked up. I already see analog rising, and I think analog's gonna, you see what's happening with music festivals, sporting events, they're all popping off more and more and more. And so I think we're gonna get to this extreme place, and then you as a human can decide when you wanna go crazy digital? Or when you wanna go analog? And that I think is gonna be a very good societal moment.

• 46:31Speaker 00

  Talk to her about what you've learned and what we're missing when it comes to social media.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  That, it's like, it's a weapon. It's a tool, but you have to know how to use it. I think of social media like alcohol.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  So everyone's all fucking mad at social media right now. I don't know if you know this, kids, but alcohol was banned in America for a period of time. It was called prohibition. We decided that alcohol was so bad that we had to ban it in America. Banned. That shit didn't work.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Because humans are humans and we're gonna find our way and it created the rise of organized crime and all sorts of fucked up. There was all sorts of shit that got fucked up because of it.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  It's no different than a screwdriver or a hammer or a knife.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  It's how you use it. What I know about social media is it is one of the greatest tools for good. If you have love to share with the world, you have a platform that is free and you can literally reach the whole world. On the flip, if you've got hate and negativity, you can do the same. But what I've learned about social media is it's the great exposure of human beings. If you want to point to it and say, "It fucked up everything," well, then you gotta start thinking about this. It fucked up everything for you. And you've decided that. And so how you use it. If you don't know, for example, parents always come at me, like Gary Vee though, "It's fucking up the kids." I'm like, "Good, be a parent."

• 48:10Speaker 01

  If you think social media fucks up your kids and you're a parent and you have a 12-year-old, then fucking man up and be a dad and take it off their phone.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  I have a funny, right, like, right?

• 48:22Speaker 00

  And the reason why that hit me different is because I have a daughter. And my daughter has anxiety. And I always said, "Man, we didn't get her that phone." But then there's times I'm like, "We got her the phone." You know? And...

• 48:39Speaker 01

  And by the way...

• 48:39Speaker 00

  There's days where I'm like, "Oh, you know, we gotta put our..." Because I find myself on the device way more.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  It's discipline. Like, again, sitting around and saying, "Alcohol fucked everything up," versus my relationship with alcohol. And by the way, for every parent that's watching, people had anxiety before the internet.

• 49:01Speaker 00

  Right.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  We used to cover it up. Everyone's like, "What's going on with depression and suicide?" I'm like, "Let me tell you how depression and suicide were handled in 1939. In 1954, in 1962, when your uncle committed suicide, you all thought he had a heart attack."

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Bro, shit doesn't change as much as people think. What people don't understand is the world has been... You know, like, people used to cover shit up.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  People used to cover shit up, my guy. Like, it's just the world changed. Now everyone's sharing everything, which is fine. But like, we didn't just get anxiety. I love how people are like, "There's so much anxiety." You know who was anxious? When you were a kid in 1954 in America, and you had to do an atomic bomb drill in class every day. "In case there's an atomic bomb, go underneath your desk." You don't think that gave... Could you... Yeah, exactly. You imagine being 11 years old and being in class, and you have to do a drill, not a fire drill? You gotta go under your desk? There's also other things. Kids go to school now and worry about having a school shooting. You don't think that's adding to stress? There's just... We are so one-dimensional.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  We always blame the new thing. In a world where we're way more in control than people realize. The big issue, my guy, is that these politicians got everyone believing that you're not in control on both sides.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Friends, I'm just gonna take a public service announcement. You have to listen for a second. They're both doing the same thing. "Be scared of this, and I can help you." "Be scared of this, but I can help you." "Be scared of the billionaires, I can help you." "Be scared of the immigrants, but I can help you." That, my friend, is the problem. These politicians have everyone thinking they can help. Meanwhile, I'm always putting out content saying the truth. Love, not hate, which is the following. "Yo, y'all, I can't help you. You can help you." And that is where we're at right now, my man.

• 51:13Speaker 00

  You say you put out content.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 51:16Speaker 00

  How important is content? Because I'm in a content war.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:20Speaker 00

  It's wild because I remember when you waited for a commercial to come on TV. Or you waited for a trailer to show in the theater.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:32Speaker 00

  Even when you think about the Super Bowl, people paid for Super Bowl ads for prestige, the six million, eight million dollars. But I see the Super Bowl commercial in my phone.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:41Speaker 00

  And the thirty seconds that they could play on the TV, there's probably a minute, minute and a half that they'll release on social media. I get everything from social media or right there on my screen. How important do you feel that is? That you can go directly to the consumer now?

• 52:01Speaker 01

  To answer your first question, the world is only about content. When the printing press was invented.

• 52:07Speaker 00

  Content.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  The printing press. We now have books. Before we didn't. Now we do. The first institutions to print the most books were religious institutions. Today, all these years later, the world is highly based on religion because the religious institutions were first to move on the printing press. The world is content. There is nothing else. Before then, it was stories around the campfire, the philosophers that were under a fucking tree. And you'd go see fucking the philosopher and chop it up. This is, this is what it's always been. So content is life. It is even your family's stories. Like, everything is content. It's how humans live.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Where content is relevant, how content gets distributed, which is what you're talking about, that shit changes forever. That will always change. You know, back in the day, you would have to go to a wall and carve it. I got one. Here's my favorite one. Do you know that when the canvas for art was invented, that the word on the street was, "That's not real art"? Real art is only when it's etched into buildings.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  So, you know, what's real? What's this like? You know, distribution will change forever, my man. Distribution of content will change forever. There will be a day where the internet is not the primary source of distribution. I for sure don't know what it's gonna be, but I know that nothing lasts forever. I know that it change. I'll give you one that I know is coming. This. This is coming. This is gonna look just like a beeper and a pager one day.

• 53:52Speaker 00

  I see, I see.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  The glasses, bro, the glasses are coming. And they're gonna completely change.

• 53:58Speaker 00

  Glasses we're seeing now?

• 54:00Speaker 01

  No, no. It's gonna be AR at first with a mix of VR, but like, the glasses are coming. It's so obvious. It might be six to nine years, but when I tell you, we will clip this and post it in 15 years, the phone, the cellphone, the most important device in society right now, will look like an artifact.

• 54:22Speaker 00

  And what do you feel when you say the glasses? Like, what are we?

• 54:26Speaker 01

  So, I've worn some of the glasses that are coming in years to come. I don't even know how to explain it. It's so crazy. It's so intuitive. The one version that I played, you have a wristband, Facebook has put this out, Orion. It's just so intuitive. It's kinda like the phone. You just know. Like, you're not gonna need the phone. Like, it's all gonna be there, voice, the audio. Even now, the basic Facebook glasses, the Meta glasses, the audio's crazy. It's better than the AirPods. I don't know how many of you've worn the Meta glasses, but if you listen to music right now, forget about six years from now, if you're into music, go get a pair of the latest Meta Ray-Ban or Oakley or whatever they got out there, glasses, and put music on it, it's better than AirPods.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Right now. So, you see the screen, you see everything. I played Pong. In the beta test that I did, I played Pong with a guy that was in Japan or China. I don't remember. It said, "Call Ray." He showed up. I'm wearing glasses. And he's like, "You ready to play?" I'm like, "Yeah." And he goes, "Bloop." And then I go, "Bloop." And it was like dramatically more entertaining than 90% of the things I do now. Like, it's just here. And again, when people hear me talk about this and be like, "Nah, this," I remind them, if your great-grandparent saw what the world looked like right now, they'd be like, "What the fuck happened?" Shit changes. It's just the way it is.

• 55:50Speaker 00

  I want to zoom through some of these with you.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Please.

• 55:52Speaker 00

  I saw when you said that no one asset in the world is attention.

• 55:56Speaker 01

  What else is there? Right? Can't change the world if no one's listening. When Martin Luther King gave that speech.

• 56:03Speaker 00

  I have a dream.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  Do you see how many fuckers were on the lawn, let alone television, internet? Let me ask you a question. If MLK gave that speech in the woods and no one was there, what the fuck do you think would have happened? Nothing. Attention is... When you're teaching your child to be a better person, when you're sitting with them and teaching them a life lesson, the framework of attention dictates everything. It is the number one asset.

• 56:29Speaker 03

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• 56:43Speaker 06

  Honey, that flu keeping you up?

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't got this.

• 56:48Speaker 06

  You need NyQuil Intense Flu.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  Undo your flu symptoms with NyQuil Intense Flu. The nighttime sniffling, aching, aching fever, best leave with a flu medicine. You do got this. Use as directed, keep out of reach of children.

• 56:58Speaker 00

  Snow over social media is interest media.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  Everybody who's watching knows this. 15 years ago, you would get content from the people you followed. Now, if I open up everyone's phone, I will know what you're into currently. Soccer, cooking.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Bikini clad girls, like, you know, whatever you're currently into is gonna be in your feed. And so you now get things you're interested in, served up to you, not content from the people you follow. And that's a big deal. It's a big deal. You should double click into it if you're watching.

• 57:33Speaker 00

  I did a full digital detox. I unfollowed everyone.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 57:37Speaker 00

  And I was like, well, maybe nothing will pop up. Now all the suggestions pop up.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  That's right. And, and by the way, you don't even need to like and follow. If you sit for an extra second on that UFC video, more than sitting when you're going. If you just sit on it for three seconds and the next one's cooking and it's one second, and then another one's boxing and you sit on it for four seconds, next week you're getting fighting content.

• 58:03Speaker 00

  I did something that you, you suggested, right?

• 58:05Speaker 01

  Oh, you searched and did like and?

• 58:08Speaker 00

  Puppies started coming up.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  So.

• 58:11Speaker 00

  I can literally turn on my phone right now and I, I had, I didn't follow any puppy shit.

• 58:19Speaker 00

  And literally, bro, I, I went in, I did puppies, I did rainbows.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 58:25Speaker 00

  And then I did health.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:27Speaker 00

  Generic.

• 58:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 58:28Speaker 00

  I can go to my phone right now and I guarantee you.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:31Speaker 00

  And this, but it's, you said, oh, the next thing, it started kinda.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  Immediate.

• 58:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Everybody, cause we're out of context, let me tell you what my man here did. Everyone's like, oh, the algorithm fucked me up. Facebook fucked me up. China and TikTok fucked me up. We're fucking me up. I'm fucked up. It's not China, motherfucker. They don't care about you. It's you. It's you. Like, it's you. So I said to people, you don't believe me? Let me show you. And this is for all y'all. Literally right now, go into TikTok and Instagram and search. Go into search and search World Cup, sneakers, puppies, rainbows. Just search it. Like a couple of posts, follow an account and tell me what your account looks like tomorrow.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  Because the reason you're getting all this politics and negativity and conspiracy theory is because you're rubbernecking. You're looking for negativity. It's you. Algorithms didn't change you. They exposed you, motherfucker. They exposed you.

• 59:31Speaker 00

  Right.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  Facebook didn't make you a racist. You're a racist.

• 59:35Speaker 00

  You racist motherfucker.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  But it's real, bro.

• 59:39Speaker 00

  Plastic is the new VHS.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  Plastic is the new VHS.

• 59:43Speaker 00

  And that came from, like, say for instance, um, cash.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 59:49Speaker 00

  Oh, cash is king, cash is king. I would walk around, I would always say, man, I gotta have cash in my pocket. My kids could have a dollar and it could be Halloween and they'll still have that fucking dollar in their pocket.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  Bro, I grew up, my sister knows this, I used to really roll with cash. Like, my entire net worth was in my pocket my whole life.

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  Gotta see it.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  Forget about, plastic ain't even it. Like, I don't even carry credit cards, it's all phone. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

• 1:00:15Speaker 00

  Conversation this morning, like, literally, I can go into my kitchen and my daughter's credit card is sitting in the kitchen.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:23Speaker 00

  Because.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  She doesn't need it. Cause her credit card's right there.

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, trust me, I know it, I pay the bill. I love when I go out with my daughter and she'll be, oh dad, I got it. And she'll, and I'm like, no you don't.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  I paid for it on the back end, thank you.

• 1:00:37Speaker 00

  But yet, it's that thing.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. And bro, that, that's just minor leagues. Wait till the glass, wait till your retina is paying.

• 1:00:44Speaker 00

  Oh my god.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, bro, like, all that is, is it's less friction, less friction, less, you already know it, Amazon already did it, right? In the, in the airport, I think even in LA, right? You can go grab the food and walk out and you're paid, right? Like, no cashiers, with AI now, shit's gonna go so fast.

• 1:01:02Speaker 00

  He losing that human touch.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  Yes, but, but if this was 1939, people would say the television lost a human touch, the telephone lost a human touch, the typewriter. Do you know how many people had feelings about the typewriter?

• 1:01:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I took all that fucking typing class.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  Me too, and I got an F. But, but, but every generation says, people said the car, the car was gonna ruin up. Like, everything's ruining us and nothing ruined us. People need to stop sleeping on humans. On some real talk, people need to stop sleeping on humans. Everything was gonna ruin us and everything advanced us. You can be upset about everything, there is no debate that the world has never been in a better place. People are healthier than ever, there's like all the conflict you feel, it's still less. Shit used to be really fucked up, my guy. Like, I don't think people understand, like, we've made a lot of progress in the macro. In the micro, there's always fucked up shit.

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  In the micro, there's always fucked up shit. Somebody's watching this podcast and tonight, they're gonna get punched in the face because they're on the wrong side of the tracks in San Francisco, New York, and I know see. See, Gary Vee, you're wrong. On an individual level, there's always opportunities for anything. But in a macro, things get better with technology, not worse. That's been proven for 300, 400 years. What do you want from me? What do you want from me?

• 1:02:25Speaker 00

  Who's gonna get left behind?

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  People that fucking dig in their heels to yesterday. People, ready? AI's not taking your job, someone that uses AI is gonna take your job. Like, what, like what?

• 1:02:43Speaker 00

  Look about the person that's in school now and that degree by the time they graduate.

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  Don't get me started. This was some shit that I was very historically correct about. People thought I was shitting on college because I was bad at school. I was shitting on college because I would talk to unlimited people, getting messages from them. They're $150,000 in debt and their University of Indiana degree wasn't getting them a job like it was 1984 anymore. Education's all twisted. It's all twisted. What are we, we, we, how can we possibly, with all the technology we have, still be rewarding kids to memorize something and then spit it out and then forget it? We gotta change all that, we gotta change all that.

• 1:03:24Speaker 00

  My son just started his online store.

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:03:27Speaker 00

  For anyone that's doing that drop shipments and what?

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Live shopping.

• 1:03:32Speaker 00

  Live shopping.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  QVC of social media, TikTok shop, whatnot. It's about to eat up the world. This is, this is 1996 all over for me. In 1996, I knew that e-commerce was gonna change the way stores worked. In 2026, I know that live shopping is gonna change the way we know e-commerce. What's better, going to a website and looking at a picture of a dress? Or watching a human being in video form explain the fuck out of that dress? Potentially charismatically. What's better? Everyone's like, "Oh, I like real life because I like going to the store and having someone talk." Good, that's that. Live shopping is the biggest, for everybody who's watching, if you sell something, you got a fashion brand because you made 10 t-shirts. Like, you know that one.

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  Sell on live shopping.

• 1:04:22Speaker 00

  Thank you, brother.

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me, Legend. Really. It was a real pleasure on the show.

• 1:04:26Speaker 00

  Appreciate it.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  It's a real honor for me, too.

• 1:04:28Speaker 00

  Man, you did so many of these, I would have to go on ice, my fucking...

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  I'm very Eastern European touchy. I'm very touchy.

• 1:04:35Speaker 00

  Also like a...

• 1:04:40Speaker 00

  Jerry V, off-air, I love it, man. Now, you've been given the tools. Go build it.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  100%.

• 1:04:47Speaker 00

  Thank you, bro.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  Amen.

• 1:04:50Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  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 journey. See you later.