Gary Vaynerchuk: 92Y Talk With Stephanie Ruhle

Introduction

• Wow. Brother, with that you better deliver. I am not going to waste your time introducing the one and only Gary Vaynerchuk. There are people in this room who traveled 24 hours by bus just to see this man. So you better have something smart to say, Gary. #AskGaryVee is Gary’s fourth business book, his fifth book total. His first one about wine that’s where he got his professional start. I’m hoping you didn’t have wine before getting here, you can have it after because this is the moment, this is the hour where you’re going to learn. I love this word, I love this whole focus, learn a bit of Gary’s genius. And I’m going to start because Gary’s team gave me the first first question, and it’s just so special that I want to share it.

Genius Manifestation

• Genius does not have a timetable. When did yours first manifest, Gary? Are you kidding me with that?
• It was a sunny day.
• In Belarus.
• In a very serious note forget about the context of that word, I think it was around the time I turned 30 that I understood that understanding people and consumer behavior was something that I had. And that there was a way to deploy it against something besides selling more wine. I’m not comfortable with the word genius, Steph, but this singular thing that I think will allow me to create a lot of success in my life is predicated on emotional intelligence, and I started to understand it a little bit more in my early 30s.

Hard Work vs. Notability

• I actually want to go back to the word genius though because your success is based on really, really hard work. And grinding it out. And there’s a risk out there right now with all this enthusiasm and key terms like disruptive innovation and finding your genius and being your best self that there’s all this noise that it turns into a vacuum we’re forgetting you need to work really hard and be good at your job.
• Yeah, I think that we’re living through a period of time right now between “Shark Tank” between “The Social Network” the movie that people are confused and think that it’s just so easy to build a business where you make $1 million a year. The top 1% earners in America make $400,000 a year. We are not grounded in any level of practicality right now of what it takes to be the number top 1% executor in America. You make $400,000 a year pretax. I look at Instagram all day long and there’s people just spewing how easy it is to become a millionaire if you just sign up for my three-course thing. It’s just unbelievable the lack of practicality. One of the reasons I like producing the content that I’m producing now is it’s becoming very clear to people that it takes an enormous amount of work to be successful on top of which you actually have to have talent. Being good enough to run a business or be an entrepreneur that has a successful business is a talent. No different than singing, no different than being a basketball player.
• I’m terrible at basketball unfortunately. And when I say terrible, I put that in the context of who I am as an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, I’m an NBA All-Star. As a basketball player, I’m a below-average rec league basketball player. Right? I could be working on basketball every day since I was 12 until I was 25 and what I would be is an above-average rec NBA basketball player. This thought that if you just try hard enough or you work hard enough or you read enough books or what have you that you can become this thing that you weren’t naturally gifted with is wrong. What you can be is the best version of yourself in something. No matter how much I worked on cooking, I would not be as good as Eric in the front row. Right? It just wouldn’t be, it just wouldn’t be. It’s what he’s great at. It’s what he’s gifted at and it’s the work that he’s put in. And so I think the biggest thing, the reason self-awareness is one of the main things in the book, we have to start understanding what we’re good at and putting our energy against that because that’s where you can start having an impact. Whether that is a great fundraiser for NGOs, a stay-at-home dad, a radio personality, it doesn’t matter what it is, but we have gone way too far in the American dream of entrepreneurship and everybody’s going to build a million-dollar business.
• Well, is one of the problems the way we’re evaluating entrepreneurship is not about profitability but it’s about notability and having your name and face out there. Because you go to as many conferences as I do. And it’s sort of a round of the same voices over and over, and I wonder when are these people running their businesses. Are their businesses making any money? That has a lot to do with the world that you come from. Bloomberg knows that if they use those people to get more clicks on the website, they’ll get more views on their show so it’s a self-fulfilling machine, right?
• Is it a self-fulfilling machine or is it a symbol that we’re heading into yet another bubble?
• Another bubble.
• Are we going to look back at this moment and say “Ah, when the bubble burst it was right there when I asked Gary genius, when I asked Gary genius when I asked Gary V at what point did you become a human genius? Honestly, questions like that make me think of the year 2000 when we thought anything with the dot-com at the end was your recipe to be a zillionaire.
• Steph, I’ll be very frank with you. I really don’t give a fuck. (audience laughs) Let me tell you–
• That’s what I wanted to do on my Sunday at five, I don’t give a fuck.
• Let me tell you what I mean by that. I have no idea if we’re in the bubble or not, this, that, or the other thing, it’s just not what I think about. I think about executing and doing my thing. I’ve built two businesses in my life. I did them both during bad times. Wine Library happened right after 9/11 is when I really started hitting my crescendo. I lost an enormous amount of clients because they either died or they lost a lot of money, and I navigated my business through a very difficult time. AJ and I started VaynerMedia right when the financial crisis happened. None of these companies wanted to spend more money on marketing, let alone something they never heard of. I think every moment is a bubble. Because I know I’m going to win my craft, and that’s just what I think about. As an investor, I’ve been far more conservative in the last 18, 24 months because I kind of had an epiphany 20, 24 months ago, the people were coming in and they had no stomach for this, they were good students that had friends and relatives that got them into great ecosystem that got them funding. Everybody was chasing the start-up. There

was no practicality to revenue. It was all about raising the next round, and so I don’t look at start-up culture or entrepreneurship any different than the stuff you cover every day. Wall Street and shit of that nature, it’s all the same game, there’s a ton of stuff. What? It’s the same game, right? I’m not intrigued or it doesn’t seem like an interesting use of time to debate if something’s a bubble. To me it’s about execution, I like communicating. I put my stuff out there as a proxy that fulfills me. I like the admiration. My mother complemented me 500 times a day, so I need people to come and do this. I need that. I like that.

• Does your self-worth come externally?
• Yes.
• Are you afraid of that? That’s a risky place to be.
• No because I equally have self-worth internalized as well.
• I’m that awesome.
• No, I’m just that pulling from opposite directions. Right? As much as I want it, I don’t need it. As much as I really care what individual people say on the Amazon. On Tuesday somebody’s going to leave a one-star review of this book and I’m going to read it three times and really internalize it, and I’m going to really care and I’m really not going to care.

Income Sources

• How do you make your money, Gary?
• I make money in a lot of ways. Wine Library is a very successful business that I built that kicks me distributions at the end of the year on its profit. VaynerMedia’s going to do $100 million in revenues this year, and I’m in at substantial distributions from that. I’ll probably make several millions of dollars public speaking. I’ve got companies that will exit this year hopefully. If the bubble doesn’t burst. That will give me profit from that. I’ll probably go garage saling at random days this summer and buy some stuff and flip it on eBay make a couple thousand bucks that way.
• How can you be your best self doing all those things?
• I’m guessing if I’m a consumer product company that works with you and I see all your Instagraming and all your events and public speaking, I would pick up the phone and say Gary, I pay you a shit ton of money what are you doing out there promoting yourself. You should be working for me.
• Sure. I think it comes in a lot of different ways. First of all, nobody’s paying me, they’re paying VaynerMedia.
• That’s you.
• No, it’s not, that’s what you think it is but it’s not true. VaynerMedia is not me. I am Gary Vaynerchuk.
• So if you left, VaynerMedia would not lose clients.
• VaynerMedia would lose clients but not because of Gary V but because I’m disproportionately the operating CEO of the company and when you have a CEO that is great and runs a business and leaves a business loses business.

Business and Notability

• But that’s what I want to get to. We have so many people in this room who are entrepreneurs or…

Being Your Best Self

They want to be entrepreneurs but they have day jobs and they have lots of other commitments, and they look at you and all that you do, and they think, “I don’t have the time to compose a tweet.” Walk me through again how can you be your best self and all these different verticals and deliver on every single one? – Because I’m self-aware of what makes me tick. I need a lot of chaos. I’m the same person that comes the office and everybody’s head down and had headphones on. Can somebody please play music and make it louder? I need chaos. It is my oxygen. I need to be doing 4, 5, 6, 7 things, it’s when I met my best.

Results-Driven Business

And Steph, really simply this is a results-driven business. Your big girl, GE, and Pepsi and Unilever and J&J they’re not overwhelmed by the GaryVee mystique. They’re not keeping us and renewing us because I’m clever. Or because it’s fun or because I razz or because I curse. It’s because we deliver. I’ve built a company that is a machine, not me, that can deliver on the KPI for several different reasons. First and foremost, Madison Avenue agencies are not good at what they do in a 2016 world. There’s an enormous white space. That’s my sister.

Vulnerabilities

• Can we answer? – Yes. Sis, I’m on stage. – Why isn’t she here?
• Why aren’t you here? I love you more. Love you more. (audience laughs) So I’m able to– – She didn’t want to come? – She didn’t want to come. – She didn’t want to come. Eric came 24 on a bus from Sioux Falls and my sister didn’t want to come. – As my sister would say, I know that bullshit. I grew up with it. I think that it comes down to the fact that I just outwork most people. I’m working on VaynerMedia 10, 11 hours a day. That’s more than enough by most standards in the marketplace that I’m in. When you’re working 15 and 16, it gives you time to compose a tweet.

Health Wellness Fitness

• You decided about 18 months ago that as hard as you wanted to work and as committed as you were, you then made a decision in order for you to operate your best level you had to make health, wellness, and fitness a huge priority in your life that you hadn’t before. – Yes. – Has it changes your performance? – No. (audience laughter) – It’s made your selfie look better though? – Yes. It really hasn’t. My energy level is not up. I don’t feel that different. I feel stronger when I grab my suitcase from seriously I feel stronger. My energy level is the same. Mike and I were talking about it today. My energy level is the same. But maybe when I’m 59 or 72 my energy level be different. It just became obvious to me that that was a vulnerability for me and that I needed to address it and so I did.

Vulnerability

• That’s exactly what I want to get to. – Okay. – For you, you look for vulnerabilities across your life, against your businesses because you need to narrow the margin of error. If anything you spend a lot of your life risk managing. As you look across your life now, where do you see those vulnerabilities? What are you attacking and addressing? Because people are young don’t really think about risk management, they just are grabbing and going and grabbing and going, and they’re not necessarily paying attention to what’s around them. – You know in business, not a lot, to be very honest with you. Meaning in the business world, I feel very comfortable that things are going according to plan. I’m sure there’s something going on that I don’t see. As we sit here today, I don’t see a huge vulnerability. I’m building a very conservative business, client service. Think about what I did, Steph, for a second.

Consumer Product Businesses

• When I think Gary, I think conservative, totally. – You know it’s funny, I think I’m stunningly conservative. The story on this, six years ago at the height of my momentum I hanging out with Mark Zuckerberg and Travis and Sacca and all this stuff. I’ve just made all these great angel investments. Things are going super well I have a book that’s a year straight on the New York Times best-selling list with Crush It! I’m getting all these opportunities. Everything is going phenomenal I decide to take a step back and not do a start-up, which I could’ve made $50 million for in a heartbeat, not start a $100 million fund. Stick with me because as a real business and this is where you’re going with this conversation. I decide to build a client service business which is an eight times EBITA exit business because I thought the most stable and conservative thing I can do was to scale the skill set that I had around marketing and that I would build a client business and I got enormous pushback. I got made fun of by all my Silicon Valley friends this was the golden beginning of the era of this whole thing and I took a step back and I built a very boring 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s business.

Monster Businesses

• But it wasn’t boring because if you look at consumer product businesses, if you look at Fortune 500 companies they are desperate, I’m going to use this event’s word, for your genius. They couldn’t figure out. – I don’t know about that. Every one of my clients spends 80%, 70% of their money on television, print, and outdoor media and not on digital. And of the 30% they do spend on digital, 80% of that is spent on horseshit banner ads or pre-rolls on YouTube. They’re not so fucking desperate with their actions. – But hold on. But in theory, aren’t they but when it goes to practice if you look at any monster business you can look at finance, media, healthcare, whatever they are those are titanic size businesses that don’t make good decisions because they’re filled with middle management who make short-term decisions to preserve their own jobs. – Be careful not just middle-management the CEOs that you sit with every single damn day, every morning looking bright and peppy every fucking morning you sit with CEOs who make short-term decisions because they just care about their bonuses and their stock options in the 12 to 18 month period. – Yes, and the reason they hire you is because they can point to it and say digital look I pay Gary all that money. And then they can check it off their to-do list. – That’s 100% right. (audience laughter) – So that being the case, who cares about they’re making their digital spend in nonsense. They just need to get to one more day. – I do. I care. – You don’t, you just need to get paid by them. – That’s where you’re being confused. I do. Let’s take a step back. Why do I have VaynerMedia? I have VaynerMedia because seven years ago I decided the best course of action for me to buy the New York Jets was to buy brands, grow them, and flip them. I needed to buy big brands because that’s where the dollars were.

Building a Billion-Dollar Business

• I wanted to buy a business for $200 million and grow it to a billion-dollar business because the $800 million is a nice profit margin and that gets me on my path. What I needed to go learn what Corporate America and Fortune 500 companies were doing that I didn’t understand in entrepreneur and tech land. I don’t want their money, Steph, I want the client that actually lets me do my shit. If I’m only able to spend 1 million or $2 million when they’re spending 400 million overall, I can’t move the needle or understanding of my thesis or my bullshit actually works. I don’t want their fucking money. I can make more money speaking than having J&J as a client. I want their permission to reallocate those dollars to actually drive business results so I can learn at scale so once I fully believe I got it I can go do it for myself. That’s what I need. (applause)

Public vs Private Companies

• Makes sense, right? – In your experience, you are with private companies you work with companies that are run by founders, you work with public companies run by employees. – The full gamut. It’s important, I need the context. – Is there a difference in the way they conduct their business because those public companies are forced into short-term decision-making and the people who run as companies are employees not founders. Do you see a difference in their behavior? – Yes, because on the reverse so that’s bad but on the reverse so many of the kids in this audience and in the game right now when they get funding aren’t trying to build an actual business. This has been something I’ve been ranting on. It’s fun that you were skiing this weekend. I’ve been saying this over and over the last 90 days but you are more than allowed because the way you’re playing. I have people who are literally about to go out of business literally in the next 180 days if they do not raise money they are out of business that are literally skiing this weekend. Are you out of your mind as an entrepreneur? We are living through– – Yeah but they’re skiing with their friends that they met at Burning Man. That’s important. – Yeah. And you and I are both wise enough to know this. This is exactly what happened in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 when a lot of these Burning Man’s were invented. And a lot of those same people who were skiing on the weekend and then had an eight-year career working at Nabisco or NBC or Bain and McKinsey because when the money runs out they go and get jobs. And that’s what’s going to happen, which is quite sad because the 2016 Internet versus the 2001 Internet is very different. It is quite practical to build a business we can make 100,000 or $200,000 in today’s day and it wasn’t in 2000. And so all these entrepreneurs that are choosing the glitz and the glamour and the brand of it versus actually spending time to build a practical business are going to be quite they’re going to be so sad in three years when they’re in the cubicle working for somebody else realizing they wasted that opportunity to build something practical versus just shooting for the dream. – But Gary, they’re choosing to waste it.

Profitability

• Yes. – When you speak to many of these entrepreneurs and you ask them about profitability they say we don’t comment on profitability but can I tell you who is on my board and can I tell you how much money have raised. Great. You’ve raised money because there is so much VC money in California right now, it’s coming down from the sky and sure loads of people would love to sit on your board because it’s a free option. When are you going to see a shift is it going to be that unicorns are going to die this year that will face them to wake up? – Of course, of course. You know this world better than I do, you start the first year and China fucking goes (mouth fart sound) that starts making everybody scared here. Things have already tightened up. For example in the angel investing New York tech landscape, the idea of walking into these 10 to 15 firms here in New York and saying here’s my idea I want $4 million valuation has quickly become I want a $2.5 million valuation. You’re going to hear about an enormous amount of down rounds. – Then in a perverse way you actually like this because for you this is an only the strong will survive environment where a few years ago companies you invested in sure the valuations were flying through the roof but now this is a survival of the fittest. – I’m sitting on an enormous amount of paper money on Uber, Pinterest, Snapchat– – That you can’t get out of. – Nothing would make me happier than the market completely collapsing and me going to zero on those things. – That’s a lie. – It’s not a lie. – That’s a lie. It’s just not and let me tell you why. Because I truly first of all my behavior in parallel was not to completely just invest in that world. – You don’t want them to go to zero though? – If they deserve to go to zero based on meritocracy and market behavior than fuck it let them go to zero. I swear on my children’s life. Yes that is how I feel. Now I think that Snapchat and Uber and Pinterest won’t because I actually see them as good businesses but do I think there’s a ton of unicorns that will be exposed as rhinoceroses yes, I do. Do I think on a totally different level is there thousands of startups that are running around right now that will quickly go to zero? Yes, I do. I think that is my financial best interest. Because I’ve built a very practical business that kicks a lot of cash and I’m very intrigued to take the cash and buy shit on a nickel on the dollar as they go to zero because they couldn’t get funding. So maybe on paper I take one step back but I know exactly what I want to do during this war time. – Do you ever wish?
• Yes. – You’re going to say no. I’m going to rephrase it. We are telling young people today we are preaching the merits of joys the beauty of entrepreneurship. And not working for the man and fat cat corporate America. But are there lessons to be learned working for Corporate America? Is there a big positive and maybe are we painting too negative a picture of what it looks like? When I finished school I never asked myself should I go work for the man? I simply said God, I hope there’s a guy out there who will hire me. So have we gone too far and doing a disservice to young people coming out of school? I think we’ve gone too far in pockets. Let’s look at the big data. The data overall is not that many people are starting their own companies. There’s an unlimited amount of kids that can’t wait this May to go work for the fucking man. There’s plenty of practical. What I think we’ve done is we’ve told 2 to 4 million individuals who should have gone and worked for the man because they would have gotten a lot of value out of it and skills and learn

ings and stability that they too should be an entrepreneur and that’s where we got a little too far in our little bubble. By the way, that’s their fault. That’s you not being self-aware or auditing your own skills. That’s you hoping and wishing that you could build the next Facebook. And that’s my fault. For writing you a check. I had a meeting with a kid the other day, who’s going out of business. That’s it. That was the meeting was, “Hey man, I’m going out of business. Can you help me with some other stuff?” We’re going through the meeting and this is a kid that I wrote a $150,000 check into his business and he’s like going out of business and I’m sitting, I’m concerned not a good face because I invested and he lost. He goes, “Gary don’t worry, man, I learned a lot.” And I said I’m not worried about that, fuck face. You lost $150,000 of my dollars. What I’m most worried about, Steph– – My daughter’s here. – I’m sorry. Well don’t bring your daughter next time.

Audience Interaction

(audience laughter) Are you really confused of what I was going to say up here? I think I’ve branded myself quite nicely to know, I just think “f*** face” is pushing it. Look, I think that I was stunned, Who says that? I say it, Steph. Stay with me here. Alright, while you’re laughing. I’m with you. I’m with you with you. I was like this is insane. This kid literally thinks that I’m worried about what he learned or didn’t learn. We completely gone into bizarro land. Yes, but we’ve done that to him Gary. That’s great. Listen, I don’t think I’ve done s*** to anybody. And you guys know this, a lot of you are here, you know my spiel. This is why I’ve been talking a lot about on DailyVee which is this is how I roll. This is what I do, I’m not telling you you have to work 18 hours a day. You can be on the softball team. I’m not telling you have to reply to everybody. You don’t have to. I’m telling you this is what I do so that there’s no confusion that for me that the level of talent that I have, that outrageous all-time work ethic is part of the equation. You’re more than welcome to think that’s interesting, not interesting so, But he said, “Gary, I learned a lot.” I got pissed. The other thing I got mad about, I shifted I got mad I said, listen you have a problem here. You thought this was a smart move, easy money, you’ll learn, better than getting a job. I can always get a job. What you don’t realize is the email chain that’s gonna happen when you walk out of here with me and Dave Moran and Chris Sacca and First Round Capital and we’re all going to be like loser, loser, loser. So you can’t actually get a job. No, no he’ll get a job but it’s gonna be really hard to raise money again from the people that he actually wants to raise money from. Our reputation matters. Taking a loss is real. And there’s this whole kind of feeling that space that it’s not. Why is entrepreneurship taboo Why does he have to raise money again? Why does entrepreneurship– ‘Cuz it’s easier that way, Steph. That’s my point. Why does entrepreneurship have to be a career? Why is it now taboo to say I’m gonna get a job?

Entrepreneurship and Age

I’m going to say one more time, 97% of people say that exact thing. So you living in New York bubble– But we’re not celebrating those people. I agree. There’s a thing I did on Bloomberg before you were on Bloomberg. Years ago, it was TechStars. Were you at Bloomberg when they did that TechStars? I wasn’t. TechStars did a show where it was around TechStars on Bloomberg where they were following eight startups. The last episode was like a Real World event. There was people sitting there and talking about what happened on the show. You know how Real World is to the wrap-up show that’s what they were doing. I’m there with five other VCs. Seven companies go, Hi I’m Rick and we created donkeydonkey.com and we raised $4 million and everybody clapped and he would sit down. Hi I’m Stan we created loofyloofy.org and we’ve raised $7 million and he would sit down and everybody clapped. Finally this kid gets up and he goes Hey we’re Red Rover, we didn’t raise any money we got clients out of the exposure and we didn’t raise any money and kinda starting to get going, silence. I lost my s*** on TV. Shocking. I was like this is why this is all gonna be f*****. Because literally everybody just stood up and said hi I’m Johnny boogie-boogie-boogie and I give away 30% of our company and we clap them. These guys actually build a business and nobody cared. Hold on, back it up. Right there for an aspiring entrepreneurs when we say I raised $4 million I made raised $1 million that means I gave X percentage of my business. Do you believe that budding entrepreneurs realize what the implications of raising money actually means? 96% no. That’s a bummer. I think most people don’t get it. I think it was very attractive you’re young you’re gonna build the next Facebook and let’s go and that’s what happened in culture. Then right there you’re young, what do we say, I’m 40 so are you, does being an entrepreneurial genius is that only for people under the age of 35? What if you are 40, 50, 60 or 70 this whole entrepreneurship game isn’t in it for you because we keep using the word you’re young, you’re young what if you’re not young? A couple things on that front. It’s funny you said that. it’s something I’ve been spending some time thinking about a lot. Number one, if you’re at 35, 40, 45 and you’ve worked as a non-entrepreneur, you’re not an entrepreneur. First of all, I think anybody– And you couldn’t be. Sure can be. You’re more than welcome to be but you’re not a purebred entrepreneur. Listen, this is something that a lot of you go that I get razzed on online because I say that if you ever work for anybody else you’re not an entrepreneur because my definition of an entrepreneur is you can’t breathe at the thought of working for somebody else that’s my personal point of view on being a truebred entrepreneur. If you are a true entrepreneur the notion of working for somebody else is so devastating that you would rather live on a couch with your four buddies with f****** cockroaches and eat s*** food every day to try and build something. I truly believe that.

Entrepreneurship vs. Employment

What about the argument that we’re all entrepreneurs? And I can say that Stephanie Ruhle, Bloomberg Media, I work for myself. – You’d be lying to yourself. – And if you respect but why? Because somebody pays your paycheck. Google f****** entrepreneurship that’s not what it says. (laughter) – But why can’t entrepreneurship why can’t one take an entrepreneurship approach to their own self. – They can. They can. Again a lot of people that follow me know that the way I decipher from entrepreneur is I use the term “entrepreneurial tendencies.” I think you have them. You’ve been very smart in my opinion from afar, that’s why like you, that’s why want you to be here tonight. First of all, I knew would be some of them are probably confused, I knew it wasn’t going to be a cush interview. This is a cush interview. – But it wasn’t gonna be the normal Gary hey– It wasn’t gonna be when did your genius first manifest? Because I was wondering, yeah. That was interesting for me. More importantly,

I do think we can have entrepreneurial tendencies, I think that’s great. And I do the people need to be practical. I do think if you’re sitting in this crowd right now and you have debt from college or if you have you know how many people are dealing with real-life stuff? Including stuff like that nobody ever talks about. Including like I sit up here and be like be an entrepreneur and meanwhile you’re sitting in that audience and saying my spouse died. My f****** spouse died. My spouse died I’ve got two young kids, it’s not so easy to be an entrepreneur land. There’s real stuff that happens in people’s real lives. Here’s what I’m saying, we are living in the luckiest period of time ever for all of us. Because there’s something called the Internet. When your spouse died in 1972 you had no practicality after seven or eight or 9 PM when you got home to change your life. You kind of came home. The world shut down. You got rest is probably what you did or maybe if you were really hustling an overnight grave shift job. Now we have the Internet. The practicality of turning your life into an entrepreneur is very real. From 9 PM on ’til two in the morning every day everybody here is welcome for five full hours a day, which oh by the way is about the amount of time that most people actually work in their nine-hour day. Because these f****** bullshit hour lunches and the 20 minutes that you watch some random video on YouTube that your buddy sent you and you’re texting all day. – And you’re watching #AskGaryVee. You’re damn right. You’re damn right. People are really in these jobs to deploying only five or six hours and so there’s so much time to do your thing. The problem is people say things and then do different things. We say things, We say on Facebook what we like and on Amazon they know what we buy. Correct. As a nice point to sneak in there, Steph. I think more importantly– You don’t pay me to be here, you’re going to need to be nicer. – I’m being very nice. We say things like if Trump wins I’m moving to Canada and then we don’t. We say things like we say all the things that go against our, we say give a s*** about privacy and you’re giving away your data all the time 24/7 365. I play in a white space of what people say. We say they’ll never be on Snapchat it’s so stupid. We say things and then I’ve spent a career trying to figure out what we say versus what I think is eventually going to happen and then I bet my energy, time and money on that. Give me an example. – Facebook. Everybody said Facebook was just for kids. People forget Facebook. E-commerce let me start with my first career. E-commerce I was a 22-year-old kid and everybody told me directly in my face Gary you’re an idiot. Go open a second liquor store. Nobody’s going to buy wine on the Internet, the Internet is a fad. Who were those people? – I don’t know your contemporaries. They were on the Today Show saying that the Internet was a fad every single f****** day. – Wow. – And listen all the 40, 50, 60-year-olds if you’re fifty-year-old, sixty-year-old here you remember your first encounter with the Internet, I’ll give you one forward. Everybody in this room in 20 years is going to live in a virtual reality world. They’re gonna have a tough time even quantifying the difference between is this real life or is this virtual real life. When I said that right now as you for thinking about what I just said they said ugh. As I’ve been talking about this with people they’re like we’ll always be meeting each other. Of course. But if you don’t pay attention to how people are living our lives out there tonight where they’re looking at their phone even though they’re in the wild, we’re already living our lives in a virtual world while we’re in a physical manifestation. We’re already doing it. I think my whole life has been that. For e-com to email marketing “why don’t you catalogs instead it’s better what’s email” to the YouTube show I started that’s so stupid who’s gonna watch YouTube? Older people aren’t going to watch that it is going to be kids. Facebook’s just going to be for kids, right? My whole career has been that.

Challenges and Vulnerabilities

What did you do that didn’t work? – The things that I’ve done that haven’t worked have been more predicated on me thinking that I could run multiple businesses at a time. Let me explain. I’m only running one business right now. What is that? – VaynerMedia. I’m working, I do content for my personal brand, I invest but I’m not actively running the business. In 2009 when I started VaynerMedia I also started another web show called Obsessed TV, I started a social wine network called Cork’d. What happened? – I’m not done yet. And I started another social network for designers and developers called Forrst. I had a managing partner in all three of those businesses but I was relied upon to do my part. Whether it’s money, whether it’s marketing, whatever it may be. What happened was they all failed because I was over-promising what I was going to be able to deliver for that business out of having big eyes. I can work 18 hours a day but I can’t operate more than one actual business at a time. And that’s a struggle for me and it’s one that I feel like I’m getting caught in all the time. I secretly think I can do it again now even though I know I can’t. I’m very drawn to it but it is a vulnerability, I get big eyes. – You are drawn to bright lights and big ideas and you follow them. You are drawn to bright lights

• Yes. – There’s only a few things that we can’t control the world. We can’t control health, we can’t control the weather, and we can’t control time. You cannot affect them you can’t get them back. Is there anything you’re afraid of that you can look back and say I know I’m racing I know I keep going towards the shining light because I think it’s the right thing. There have to be things that you’re not tending to and in the dark of the night at 2:01 AM when you go to sleep what are you afraid that you’re missing?

Emotional Intelligence (Continued)

huge. There’s a lot of people that are going to be watching this and a lot of people in the room that if they even knew the information the other person knew they wouldn’t like them enough to do the deal. The amount of people that don’t do a deal because they just don’t like the other person or can’t stand the other person or want to hurt the other person is enormous. And so likability or charm or charisma is a very very big deal. And the soft skills.

• And emotional intelligence matters. – Well yeah, I think emotional intelligence is, we’re getting there it’s gonna be more obvious. I think it’s starting to become more obvious that we are in control. You know I think everybody got really excited that we’re able to see through Google data and through Facebook data that we’re controlling our output more than ever but what people are not talking about is we are controlling our input more than ever as well. And so people are starting to realize like oh I can’t control my behavior. I can’t control how I’m dealing with things, how I’m parenting, how I’m husband-ing, how I’m wifing, how I’m bossing but I can’t control my inputs. I know that when my Twitter feed is filled with negativity or people that think I’m a douche bag and literally are just spending all day long talking about how I’m a charlatan that affects my day. It’s funny when people talk to me, I’m like I’m not reading any of this stuff because I’ll have a bad day. We are very capable and smart and that’s how we’ve evolved to be able to control our inputs. And so I think that we’re about to go into a very interesting time where people are going to start realizing what I’ve been on a tear about and what I’m going to write about in my new book which is that this is the best time ever to be alive. And everybody who’s complaining and dwelling on s*** and worried about everything, and it’s just silly. There is no time to be alive that’s better than right now. Because when you can really start quantifying what’s going on and how much control you have in this world in this world. The government doesn’t control us, the system doesn’t control us, there’s nothing controlling us but us.

Future Predictions

And so my big prediction is we’re not even close to figuring it out. I have a funny feeling that the next 50 years are gonna be a little bit of everybody trying to figure out how to control our inputs the most because we know that we can control the most on our outputs and that’s just how we are as human beings and I think that’s gonna be a lot of what’s going on.

• You have a room full of people and there are many people that are chasing big dreams that they have set for themselves. What do you say to that person out there who’s a dreamer and has a goal that’s maybe as big as yours? – First of all I think there’s a very big misconception on this. I’ve really been spending a lot of time on success. I’ve been talking a lot about the one-hit wonder phenomenon. I actually think the one-hit wonder phenomenon is a huge success. I think having a song, a hit movie, an app, a company for six months, a year, a game that everyone’s playing for six months and you made 20 million dollars and you live the rest of your life is amazing. That’s huge. You won. I think the number one thing that’s happening right now is that people don’t understand the definition of success because they’re looking at the 1000 people who have won success in the way they want to, they’re envious of it, and they don’t understand that they’re looking at the one-hit wonders and I think one of the things that I’ve been spending a lot of time talking about is the fact that there’s only two places in entrepreneurship and this is good because this should give you optimism. There’s only two places in entrepreneurship. In the long long game. The short game is there’s three places. You either are making 50 million dollars a year in revenue or more, 5 million dollars a year or more, or 500,000 dollars a year or more. That’s it. And that’s very doable. That’s just straight math. You either want to build a 50 million dollar a year company or you want to make 5 million dollars a year by yourself with a couple of employees or you want to make half a million dollars a year with a very nice business that you don’t have to be in it every day but you make 400-500 grand a year. That’s it.
• That’s the math. – It’s the math. – I want to make sure we get to our final question. One of the key things you talk about is hustle and hard work. Give me your definition of hustle. – I think hustle is an underpriced skill. I think everybody in this room should be absolutely working as hard as possible. I also think that if you love what you do you don’t call it work. And I think the punchline and I know we don’t have a lot of time is for the people that are lucky enough to live that life where they’re actually working hard and they don’t even feel it I think those are the ones that end up the happiest because they’ve figured it out. And I’m not scared of hustle because I don’t consider it work.

The Power of Humans (Continued)

But I don’t because I understand there’s something called consequences. And the reality is, humans can also do amazing things. We’ve built pyramids, we’ve gone to space, we’ve created technology, we’ve composed beautiful music, we’ve written incredible literature. Humans have an incredible capacity for good and bad, and we often underestimate our own potential for greatness.

The Misconception of Quick Fixes

So going back to the idea of quick fixes, many people want someone else to solve their problems or fund their business, but they often fail to realize that there are no easy shortcuts to success. The market is ruthless, and it doesn’t care about your intentions or dreams. It rewards hard work, dedication, and perseverance.

The Illusion of a Minimum Income

The illusion of needing a minimum income, such as $400,000 or $1 million a year, as a prerequisite for success is a common misconception. Success isn’t about a specific income level; it’s about achieving your goals and finding happiness and fulfillment in what you do.

The Underrated Brand of Humans

Gary expresses his belief that humans are the most underrated brand in the world. He points out how media can influence perceptions and create unnecessary fears, like the fear of letting kids play outside due to exaggerated stories of kidnapping. Despite our flaws and potential for harm, humans also have the remarkable capacity to achieve incredible feats and make positive contributions to the world.

In summary, Gary Vaynerchuk emphasizes that there is no one-size-fits-all blueprint for success. Success is a personal journey that involves hard work, resilience, and self-awareness. He encourages people to stop looking for quick fixes and instead focus on their own unique path to success.

Emotional Intelligence and Big Data

I actually think because information is becoming commoditized by the Internet, it’s never been. I’m a complete byproduct of the Internet becoming important because I so over skew in emotional intelligence and under-skew IQ that I think I’m a preview of things to come.

Big Data Discussion

• Do you think we become too reliant then on big data? The fact that we talk so much about it takes out the element of surprise. I take you to the NBA Mark Cuban would say implementing big data is the key to having a winning team. And at the NBA tech conference Charles Barkley and Magic Johnson sat there and Charles Barkley said, “big data, big data, you know when a boy has basketball skills. Forget big data.”
• What’s the right lane? – Both, both. It’s just both. I love big data but do you know where my success in VaynerMedia’s for their client success comes with big data? Having the human ability to interpret it and turn it into something. And talent trumps all. What Barkley’s argument is and Barkley’s very right in a lot of areas and a little wrong in some other areas in my opinion and I know his argument on this which is talent is gonna trump anything. Basketball especially look is one the NBA title for the last 30 years. It’s been like the 11 guys. In basketball, one player unlike any other sport fundamentally dictates the outcome because they play both ways not like football and baseball right it’s just clear, right. That being said–
• You can maximize your talent. – You can maximize and that’s it. And you can maximize getting a role player who hits corner threes because that’s the highest percentage and so the Spurs have used that. The Rockets have used that to win more games. So, it’s both.

Key Takeaway

• What’s the number one thing you want everyone in this room to walk away with?

No Blueprint for Success

This question comes from Alana McMillan. That I think there’s literally 300 million different ways to win in the US. If that’s how many people we have. There is no blueprint there is no exact way. It only comes down to being able to factor in the 40 or 50 indexes, input points and context points around your life. And then navigating through that. What I really want is for people to understand don’t do it like me, don’t do it like you, don’t do it like Zucks, don’t do it like Travis don’t do like Cuban. Spend as much time as you can, Steph, I’ll be honest with you maybe you know the answer, I’m actually weirdly asking you if I knew how to help people create more self-awareness, it’s what I would sell. I don’t know if that becomes your therapy or some system I don’t know, I really don’t.

The American Way and Success

• My fear is actually the reverse in terms of with all the information with all the self-help with all the people on and Instagram saying these three easy steps. The fear is we are telling people as soon as you have a job if you have a job like, click, and when you meet a man that you like, click, and then you can afford a house and you have a baby all of these things are the recipe for success. Well, if you’re using some kind of Cosmo checklist for the recipe for success you’re going to end up very unhappy because success is internal.
• So I’ll go different way. Fine. But I actually think were in a much better place than we been in the past 60 years on this issue. – Why? Prior to this world where we had so many more opinions and platforms we had three channels. That told everybody that thing. There were three old white guys that owned ABC, NBC and CBS. That completely push down to them what it was supposed to be. Now at least we have a lot more voices and there’s more things to navigate.

Escapism and Judgment

• One thing when I look at your career, Gary–
• Listen, I get excited when you say that’s a good point because I know how you roll and it is a good point.
• I think it’s really good point. – Three people said this is the American way, woman you stay-at-home, man you do this everybody go work for the machine because that was in the vested interest of other people in the top. And so now at least to have more options.

Recipe for Success

• Find your American dream. Now look there’s a lot of bad from that because of a lot of hucksters that are selling you guys bullshit that would have never would’ve gotten on TV that you are now listening to because you know the renting a $300,000 car for the day taking an Instagram photo of it and saying yo it’s so fucking disgusting. – But hold on but is not those hucksters fault. So everyone in the audience who complains that the Kardashians were on magazine covers 110 times last year, it’s, hold on–
• 100% – It’s not the Kardashians’ fault– – it’s the market’s fault– – It’s not the media’s fault– – It’s the market’s– – The media will sell whatever you will buy. The problem is if you don’t like and stop buying it. – 100%. More importantly stop judging people escapism. Like I don’t care if you like, good for you. I like the Jets. That can be a waste of five hours a day. – Hold on a second, if we Lizzie it’s way more than five hours. – That’s probably right. I mean look the fact of the matter is is that everybody needs escapism. Everyone needs it. It’s what music and entertainment and everything is built on. I think were wasting too much time judging people’s choice of escapism. I’m saying don’t listen to these hucksters because I think going to be played out to be right because I know what their intentions are. I know them. There not doing the right thing. I’ll be very blunt with the 600 people in here I don’t care if you do it. I can’t. I can’t. I don’t have enough time or energy in the day to individually care if you figured out that there is no quick fix in building selling that put you at the top 1% of society.

Success and Paying the Price

• Okay, that’s the fear to Gary, that’s the risk. – Stopping being scared. – People who are rushing to say Gary solve my problem fund my business. – I have it everyday. I have it everyday. I’m very comfortable in that environment. I give answers every day to that. And I’ll decide what I want to do on an individual basis and if I lose then I deserve to lose if they lose they deserve to lose. I am an absolute believer that the market is the market is the market is the market. As so you can trick the market for a few minutes and we can be upset about all the fake entrepreneurs or the funded companies but there’ll be a day that comes and they’ll all be gone and it’ll be fucking awesome. And it’ll be awesome I’ll tell you why because that’s what supposed to

happen. Guys nothing good comes easy. What good stuff should come easy? I use this word audacity. If you have the audacity to be in the 1% which one more time which means you’re making $400,000 a year before taxes. Which is by the way of booby prize to most of when they think about entrepreneurship. I don’t know any anybody entrepreneur tech land or entrepreneur solo-entrepreneur that thinks $400,000 a year is the North Star. It’s much bigger than that. I get emails every day. Everybody thinks that 1 million a year is a minimum cost of entry to anything. Right?

The Price of Success

• Okay but Gary somebody always has to pay. – Someone has to pay This whole idea that I’m gonna build a multimillion dollar business. I want everyone to get free pre-K, there is no light, there is no gold at the end of the rainbow. Someone has to pay. So this idea that while no one thinks $400,000 is a lot of money when we going to click and realize oh shit it is. – Never. Our whole entire human race from the beginning of mankind is proven we will never do that. It’s just not a human way. And that’s fine there’s nothing wrong, great. By the way on the biggest fan of humans we’re still here. I actually think are the most underrated brand in the world. I actually believe that. – What does that mean? I’ll explain. I’ll explain. – (mockingly) The humans are the most underrated brand in the world. – Big media has done a really good job in convincing every mother in here that they should let the kids play outside. Because they fuckin’ reported on kidnapping until they couldn’t get enough of it. Now we have a generation of people that don’t want to put their kids outside yet were safer than ever because of devices nobody’s kidnapping anybody yet the propaganda filled us nice and good. What does it mean? I mean humans can do anything to each other. We should a blew each other up a long time ago with the atomic bomb. I can stab you in the face with this fork right now.

Introduction

• “That’ll be streaming on MSNBC.”
• “But think about this. Think about how much damage we’re capable of to each other.”
• “We do so little; the problem is mainstream media reports on that .01%.”
• “I really believe that. I really think, I really am a big believer in that. I’m stunned how good people are. I love it.”
• “Mainstream media reports.”

Topic: The Influence of Social Media

• “Okay, but here’s the great part, mainstream media reports on that because it’s the way the system works but the beauty of social media, the beauty of there’s more outlets today than ever. There are no longer three networks telling you this is the news today. Now you’re a news creator. You’re a content creator, that’s the beauty of it, so the criticism that you have is valid, but the barriers of entry have gotten so low that anyone in the room can decide this is what the narrative’s going to be.”
• “Arianna Huffington’s good news vertical is the biggest money maker she has within the Huffington Post.”
• “It’s about making a decision; you talk about Unilever; it’s CEOs like Paul Pullman that make a decision to say no, I’m going to put good in front.”
• “100%, I totally agree with you.”
• “I actually have a more optimistic view on this. I actually think once we wrap our head about privacy, we’re about to go through a real unbelievable era, I think I’m going to miss it.”
• “What do you mean?”
• “I think once we go through a full cycle, I think 80 years from today, humans are going to live a much happier life than we do now because there’ll be less privacy.”
• “I think once we all wrap our heads around. I think I live a happier life, and I’m a better man because I know a lot of people are watching me, and it’s changed my behavior, so I’m optimistic.”
• “Why? What were you doing before?”
• “Nothing.”
• “You just opened–“
• “Alex, Liz’s brother, my brother-in-law had a wedding. We went to Vegas, and I decided not to go to the Spearmint Rhino because I was exploding on Twitter at the time, and I thought it would be a bad idea if somebody took a picture.”

Spearmint Rhino

• “For those who don’t know what Spearmint Rhino is, it is the most well-known gentlemen’s club just off the Las Vegas strip.”

Privacy and Behavior

• “Right. Just little things like that–“
• “I looked that up.”
• “I just truly believe that when you’re living your–“
• “So had you not been blowing up on social media, you would’ve been front and center throwing dollar bills.”
• “And that’s right, yes.” (audience laughter)

Documenting Your Journey

• “Documenting your journey, Gary, if you are 22 to 32 in 2016, how would you document your journey as an entrepreneur? Would you show everything? The ups and the downs, especially?”
• “So this comes from something that I’ve been talking about, which is too many people are posing, are crippled by two things.”
• “One, they don’t want to put up content because they don’t think they made it yet and they don’t deserve to, which is something I believe in.”
• “So when I say to you, Gary, I don’t think that picture was very flattering of you; I don’t think you should’ve posted it.”
• “No, that doesn’t bother me. No, really, I mean people saying things like, I don’t know if you know this, Steph, but there’s a lot of people who want to be 22-year-old life coaches.”
• “I do actually. I find that intriguing, and so I’m trying to help some of them and say look, that’s a bad place to go because no normal person thinks that you’re a true life coach at 22.”
• “But I tell them look, you could be talking about your experiences as a 22-year-old looking at the world, and you can bring value to other people because you see the world differently than a 45-year-old.”

Branding and Self-Promotion

• “How important is it to brand yourself? For everyone out there who is an entrepreneur, they’re starting a business, how important is it to tie their name, their face to the business to make it a success?”
• “It’s only important if they’re good at it.”
• “So, for example, you know this, there is an unlimited number of companies that are successful that nobody’s ever heard of the CEO.”
• “There’s an unlimited number of people that are worth billions of dollars that nobody’s ever heard of.”
• “Right? It comes down to knowing oneself.”
• “For me, this is very important because of a couple of things. I think I’m good at it; there’s another important thing. I really genuinely like it.”
• “I like looking out there and seeing Chef and Eric, and I get to know people. I know them. I like it. I like people.”
• “So I put myself in the best position to succeed. I like people. The social network world was about people interactions; it was going to naturally work for me.”
• “However, I have tons and tons of startups and founders who ask me every day, they take my money, they want my advice, and they’re not into people, and they don’t want to put themselves out there and are very happy to put their heads down and build a good product.”
• “But are consumers demanding that they–“
• “No. No–“
• “I use Uber as an example.”
• “Nobody here gives a shit about Perry Chen; he’s fairly quiet. If they like Kickstarter, they’re going to use it.”
• “But here’s where you’re wrong; people give a shit about Uber and Travis.”
• “I’m not wrong; that’s just another different example.” (audience laughter)
• “Steph, I’m not wrong. Nobody here cares about– I don’t know the CEO of Nike.”
• “Mark Parker.”
• “Great, if you told me I’ll give you the fucking Jets right now, I couldn’t have answered that. And I don’t give a fuck about him or his life or his selfies, but I like these fucking kicks.”
• “It’s just another option.”

High School and Education

• “Hunterdon High School to give me access to my report card because I want to throw it on #ThrowbackThursday.”
• “I don’t think they have it.”
• “They don’t. I’ve been trying to get it. Because literally I only got D’s and F’s. I’d get a B in history; I’d get an A in gym, and I’d get F’s or D’s for everything else.”
• “Why? From the first day of high school until last day.”
• “I never opened a single book once ever. I never did one piece of homework in my entire four years of high school.”
• “Why?”
• “Because I knew I was, and I knew they were going to push me through. And that I needed the time hone my skills on my future and not figure out where Saturn was.”
• “So when I got home as a freshman in high school and then the new Beckett baseball card guide would come out, I would lay in bed for six hours and memorize the prices on everything because pre-cell phones and information when I went to the baseball card show on Friday if I had of the prices memorized that was an advantage over the other people that didn’t.”

Content and Curation

• “Seeing that that’s your story, is that your journey or is that a path you recommend for others?”
• “What are you going to say to your kids when they’re in the ninth grade they’re going to New York City’s finest and they say I’m not opening a book?”
• “I’m going to say if you have the chops to be an entrepreneur let’s fucking start right now but if not you need to explain to mommy and daddy what the fuck you’re thinking.” (audience laughter)
• “Do you think this is the year we’ve been saying for the last few years content is king, content is king and there’s so much content at this point, do you think we’re coming to a point in time we’re actually going to stop really curate and separate and say a lot of this is noise, here’s the high-value product?”
• “I think we do that every day and have done it for every day for our existence.”
• “So what I mean by that? I mean we choose this weekend to watch entire seasons of House of Cards because we decide that’s content for us and instead of watching something else or reading something else we chose that and I think the marketplace is already been on the marketplace I think that’s been happening all along.”
• “That’s what happens every day. There’s been more than enough content to fill our days for much longer than the Internet has been around.”
• “Once cable into 36 channels with the amount of newspapers and books that were produced we’ve been picking and choosing what is good every day.”
• “These people chose that this was the best of their time and this is what they wanted to do on a late Sunday afternoon I’m humbled by that because Sundays are tough. That’s family time this that and the other thing we do it every single day of our lives.”
• “And what I love is that there’s even more content now. There’s just so much.”
• “I know when I do DailyVee that’s the sitcom. That’s a 20, 30-minute video that they’re going to watch instead of watching something else. I think that will always go on forever.”
• “When you do DailyVee and you look back on it, are the days where you say that was garbage or do you get all great?”
• “I think it’s all great.”
• “Really?”
• “Sure. Because I think it’s all true.”
• “That doesn’t mean it’s great.”
• “Sure it does. For me, that’s what I want to make sure. One of the things that I’m most proud of is that DRock will always be able to tell somebody over a drink 25 years from now that like he didn’t tell me to do anything.”
• “I like that. I like people. So I put myself in the best position to succeed. I like people.”
• “I like happiness, optimism but I want to finish optimism that is loaded with practicality.”
• “So many of you in here, and I know you, you’re loaded with optimism without practicality. You wish you were something without really understanding who you really are. And in that wishing you change your behavior and you make yourself vulnerable for upside.”
• “Well, you’re doing it, Gary. We are out of time. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Thank you. Thank you for asking me to do this.”

Audience Interaction

(audience laughter) Are you really confused of what I was going to say up here? I think I’ve branded myself quite nicely to know, I just think “f*** face” is pushing it. Look, I think that I was stunned, Who says that? I say it, Steph. Stay with me here. Alright, while you’re laughing. I’m with you. I’m with you with you. I was like this is insane. This kid literally thinks that I’m worried about what he learned or didn’t learn. We completely gone into bizarro land. Yes, but we’ve done that to him Gary. That’s great. Listen, I don’t think I’ve done s*** to anybody. And you guys know this, a lot of you are here, you know my spiel. This is why I’ve been talking a lot about on DailyVee which is this is how I roll. This is what I do, I’m not telling you you have to work 18 hours a day. You can be on the softball team. I’m not telling you have to reply to everybody. You don’t have to. I’m telling you this is what I do so that there’s no confusion that for me that the level of talent that I have, that outrageous all-time work ethic is part of the equation. You’re more than welcome to think that’s interesting, not interesting so, But he said, “Gary, I learned a lot.” I got pissed. The other thing I got mad about, I shifted I got mad I said, listen you have a problem here. You thought this was a smart move, easy money, you’ll learn, better than getting a job. I can always get a job. What you don’t realize is the email chain that’s gonna happen when you walk out of here with me and Dave Moran and Chris Sacca and First Round Capital and we’re all going to be like loser, loser, loser. So you can’t actually get a job. No, no he’ll get a job but it’s gonna be really hard to raise money again from the people that he actually wants to raise money from. Our reputation matters. Taking a loss is real. And there’s this whole kind of feeling that space that it’s not. Why is entrepreneurship taboo Why does he have to raise money again? Why does entrepreneurship– ‘Cuz it’s easier that way, Steph. That’s my point. Why does entrepreneurship have to be a career? Why is it now taboo to say I’m gonna get a job?

Entrepreneurship and Age

I’m going to say one more time, 97% of people say that exact thing. So you living in New York bubble– But we’re not celebrating those people. I agree. There’s a thing I did on Bloomberg before you were on Bloomberg. Years ago, it was TechStars. Were you at Bloomberg when they did that TechStars? I wasn’t. TechStars did a show where it was around TechStars on Bloomberg where they were following eight startups. The last episode was like a Real World event. There was people sitting there and talking about what happened on the show. You know how Real World is to the wrap-up show that’s what they were doing. I’m there with five other VCs. Seven companies go, Hi I’m Rick and we created donkeydonkey.com and we raised $4 million and everybody clapped and he would sit down. Hi I’m Stan we created loofyloofy.org and we’ve raised $7 million and he would sit down and everybody clapped. Finally this kid gets up and he goes Hey we’re Red Rover, we didn’t raise any money we got clients out of the exposure and we didn’t raise any money and kinda starting to get going, silence. I lost my s*** on TV. Shocking. I was like this is why this is all gonna be f*****. Because literally everybody just stood up and said hi I’m Johnny boogie-boogie-boogie and I give away 30% of our company and we clap them. These guys actually build a business and nobody cared. Hold on, back it up. Right there for an aspiring entrepreneurs when we say I raised $4 million I made raised $1 million that means I gave X percentage of my business. Do you believe that budding entrepreneurs realize what the implications of raising money actually means? 96% no. That’s a bummer. I think most people don’t get it. I think it was very attractive you’re young you’re gonna build the next Facebook and let’s go and that’s what happened in culture. Then right there you’re young, what do we say, I’m 40 so are you, does being an entrepreneurial genius is that only for people under the age of 35? What if you are 40, 50, 60 or 70 this whole entrepreneurship game isn’t in it for you because we keep using the word you’re young, you’re young what if you’re not young? A couple things on that front. It’s funny you said that. it’s something I’ve been spending some time thinking about a lot. Number one, if you’re at 35, 40, 45 and you’ve worked as a non-entrepreneur, you’re not an entrepreneur. First of all, I think anybody– And you couldn’t be. Sure can be. You’re more than welcome to be but you’re not a purebred entrepreneur. Listen, this is something that a lot of you go that I get razzed on online because I say that if you ever work for anybody else you’re not an entrepreneur because my definition of an entrepreneur is you can’t breathe at the thought of working for somebody else that’s my personal point of view on being a truebred entrepreneur. If you are a true entrepreneur the notion of working for somebody else is so devastating that you would rather live on a couch with your four buddies with f****** cockroaches and eat s*** food every day to try and build something. I truly believe that.

Entrepreneurship vs. Employment

What about the argument that we’re all entrepreneurs? And I can say that Stephanie Ruhle, Bloomberg Media, I work for myself. – You’d be lying to yourself. – And if you respect but why? Because somebody pays your paycheck. Google f****** entrepreneurship that’s not what it says. (laughter) – But why can’t entrepreneurship why can’t one take an entrepreneurship approach to their own self. – They can. They can. Again a lot of people that follow me know that the way I decipher from entrepreneur is I use the term “entrepreneurial tendencies.” I think you have them. You’ve been very smart in my opinion from afar, that’s why like you, that’s why want you to be here tonight. First of all, I knew would be some of them are probably confused, I knew it wasn’t going to be a cush interview. This is a cush interview. – But it wasn’t gonna be the normal Gary hey– It wasn’t gonna be when did your genius first manifest? Because I was wondering, yeah. That was interesting for me. More importantly,

I do think we can have entrepreneurial tendencies, I think that’s great. And I do the people need to be practical. I do think if you’re sitting in this crowd right now and you have debt from college or if you have you know how many people are dealing with real-life stuff? Including stuff like that nobody ever talks about. Including like I sit up here and be like be an entrepreneur and meanwhile you’re sitting in that audience and saying my spouse died. My f****** spouse died. My spouse died I’ve got two young kids, it’s not so easy to be an entrepreneur land. There’s real stuff that happens in people’s real lives. Here’s what I’m saying, we are living in the luckiest period of time ever for all of us. Because there’s something called the Internet. When your spouse died in 1972 you had no practicality after seven or eight or 9 PM when you got home to change your life. You kind of came home. The world shut down. You got rest is probably what you did or maybe if you were really hustling an overnight grave shift job. Now we have the Internet. The practicality of turning your life into an entrepreneur is very real. From 9 PM on ’til two in the morning every day everybody here is welcome for five full hours a day, which oh by the way is about the amount of time that most people actually work in their nine-hour day. Because these f****** bullshit hour lunches and the 20 minutes that you watch some random video on YouTube that your buddy sent you and you’re texting all day. – And you’re watching #AskGaryVee. You’re damn right. You’re damn right. People are really in these jobs to deploying only five or six hours and so there’s so much time to do your thing. The problem is people say things and then do different things. We say things, We say on Facebook what we like and on Amazon they know what we buy. Correct. As a nice point to sneak in there, Steph. I think more importantly– You don’t pay me to be here, you’re going to need to be nicer. – I’m being very nice. We say things like if Trump wins I’m moving to Canada and then we don’t. We say things like we say all the things that go against our, we say give a s*** about privacy and you’re giving away your data all the time 24/7 365. I play in a white space of what people say. We say they’ll never be on Snapchat it’s so stupid. We say things and then I’ve spent a career trying to figure out what we say versus what I think is eventually going to happen and then I bet my energy, time and money on that. Give me an example. – Facebook. Everybody said Facebook was just for kids. People forget Facebook. E-commerce let me start with my first career. E-commerce I was a 22-year-old kid and everybody told me directly in my face Gary you’re an idiot. Go open a second liquor store. Nobody’s going to buy wine on the Internet, the Internet is a fad. Who were those people? – I don’t know your contemporaries. They were on the Today Show saying that the Internet was a fad every single f****** day. – Wow. – And listen all the 40, 50, 60-year-olds if you’re fifty-year-old, sixty-year-old here you remember your first encounter with the Internet, I’ll give you one forward. Everybody in this room in 20 years is going to live in a virtual reality world. They’re gonna have a tough time even quantifying the difference between is this real life or is this virtual real life. When I said that right now as you for thinking about what I just said they said ugh. As I’ve been talking about this with people they’re like we’ll always be meeting each other. Of course. But if you don’t pay attention to how people are living our lives out there tonight where they’re looking at their phone even though they’re in the wild, we’re already living our lives in a virtual world while we’re in a physical manifestation. We’re already doing it. I think my whole life has been that. For e-com to email marketing “why don’t you catalogs instead it’s better what’s email” to the YouTube show I started that’s so stupid who’s gonna watch YouTube? Older people aren’t going to watch that it is going to be kids. Facebook’s just going to be for kids, right? My whole career has been that.

Challenges and Vulnerabilities

What did you do that didn’t work? – The things that I’ve done that haven’t worked have been more predicated on me thinking that I could run multiple businesses at a time. Let me explain. I’m only running one business right now. What is that? – VaynerMedia. I’m working, I do content for my personal brand, I invest but I’m not actively running the business. In 2009 when I started VaynerMedia I also started another web show called Obsessed TV, I started a social wine network called Cork’d. What happened? – I’m not done yet. And I started another social network for designers and developers called Forrst. I had a managing partner in all three of those businesses but I was relied upon to do my part. Whether it’s money, whether it’s marketing, whatever it may be. What happened was they all failed because I was over-promising what I was going to be able to deliver for that business out of having big eyes. I can work 18 hours a day but I can’t operate more than one actual business at a time. And that’s a struggle for me and it’s one that I feel like I’m getting caught in all the time. I secretly think I can do it again now even though I know I can’t. I’m very drawn to it but it is a vulnerability, I get big eyes. – You are drawn to bright lights and big ideas and you follow them. You are drawn to bright lights

• Yes. – There’s only a few things that we can’t control the world. We can’t control health, we can’t control the weather, and we can’t control time. You cannot affect them you can’t get them back. Is there anything you’re afraid of that you can look back and say I know I’m racing I know I keep going towards the shining light because I think it’s the right thing. There have to be things that you’re not tending to and in the dark of the night at 2:01 AM when you go to sleep what are you afraid that you’re missing?

Emotional Intelligence (Continued)

huge. There’s a lot of people that are going to be watching this and a lot of people in the room that if they even knew the information the other person knew they wouldn’t like them enough to do the deal. The amount of people that don’t do a deal because they just don’t like the other person or can’t stand the other person or want to hurt the other person is enormous. And so likability or charm or charisma is a very very big deal. And the soft skills.

• And emotional intelligence matters. – Well yeah, I think emotional intelligence is, we’re getting there it’s gonna be more obvious. I think it’s starting to become more obvious that we are in control. You know I think everybody got really excited that we’re able to see through Google data and through Facebook data that we’re controlling our output more than ever but what people are not talking about is we are controlling our input more than ever as well. And so people are starting to realize like oh I can’t control my behavior. I can’t control how I’m dealing with things, how I’m parenting, how I’m husband-ing, how I’m wifing, how I’m bossing but I can’t control my inputs. I know that when my Twitter feed is filled with negativity or people that think I’m a douche bag and literally are just spending all day long talking about how I’m a charlatan that affects my day. It’s funny when people talk to me, I’m like I’m not reading any of this stuff because I’ll have a bad day. We are very capable and smart and that’s how we’ve evolved to be able to control our inputs. And so I think that we’re about to go into a very interesting time where people are going to start realizing what I’ve been on a tear about and what I’m going to write about in my new book which is that this is the best time ever to be alive. And everybody who’s complaining and dwelling on s*** and worried about everything, and it’s just silly. There is no time to be alive that’s better than right now. Because when you can really start quantifying what’s going on and how much control you have in this world in this world. The government doesn’t control us, the system doesn’t control us, there’s nothing controlling us but us.

Future Predictions

And so my big prediction is we’re not even close to figuring it out. I have a funny feeling that the next 50 years are gonna be a little bit of everybody trying to figure out how to control our inputs the most because we know that we can control the most on our outputs and that’s just how we are as human beings and I think that’s gonna be a lot of what’s going on.

• You have a room full of people and there are many people that are chasing big dreams that they have set for themselves. What do you say to that person out there who’s a dreamer and has a goal that’s maybe as big as yours? – First of all I think there’s a very big misconception on this. I’ve really been spending a lot of time on success. I’ve been talking a lot about the one-hit wonder phenomenon. I actually think the one-hit wonder phenomenon is a huge success. I think having a song, a hit movie, an app, a company for six months, a year, a game that everyone’s playing for six months and you made 20 million dollars and you live the rest of your life is amazing. That’s huge. You won. I think the number one thing that’s happening right now is that people don’t understand the definition of success because they’re looking at the 1000 people who have won success in the way they want to, they’re envious of it, and they don’t understand that they’re looking at the one-hit wonders and I think one of the things that I’ve been spending a lot of time talking about is the fact that there’s only two places in entrepreneurship and this is good because this should give you optimism. There’s only two places in entrepreneurship. In the long long game. The short game is there’s three places. You either are making 50 million dollars a year in revenue or more, 5 million dollars a year or more, or 500,000 dollars a year or more. That’s it. And that’s very doable. That’s just straight math. You either want to build a 50 million dollar a year company or you want to make 5 million dollars a year by yourself with a couple of employees or you want to make half a million dollars a year with a very nice business that you don’t have to be in it every day but you make 400-500 grand a year. That’s it.
• That’s the math. – It’s the math. – I want to make sure we get to our final question. One of the key things you talk about is hustle and hard work. Give me your definition of hustle. – I think hustle is an underpriced skill. I think everybody in this room should be absolutely working as hard as possible. I also think that if you love what you do you don’t call it work. And I think the punchline and I know we don’t have a lot of time is for the people that are lucky enough to live that life where they’re actually working hard and they don’t even feel it I think those are the ones that end up the happiest because they’ve figured it out. And I’m not scared of hustle because I don’t consider it work.

The Power of Humans (Continued)

But I don’t because I understand there’s something called consequences. And the reality is, humans can also do amazing things. We’ve built pyramids, we’ve gone to space, we’ve created technology, we’ve composed beautiful music, we’ve written incredible literature. Humans have an incredible capacity for good and bad, and we often underestimate our own potential for greatness.

The Misconception of Quick Fixes

So going back to the idea of quick fixes, many people want someone else to solve their problems or fund their business, but they often fail to realize that there are no easy shortcuts to success. The market is ruthless, and it doesn’t care about your intentions or dreams. It rewards hard work, dedication, and perseverance.

The Illusion of a Minimum Income

The illusion of needing a minimum income, such as $400,000 or $1 million a year, as a prerequisite for success is a common misconception. Success isn’t about a specific income level; it’s about achieving your goals and finding happiness and fulfillment in what you do.

The Underrated Brand of Humans

Gary expresses his belief that humans are the most underrated brand in the world. He points out how media can influence perceptions and create unnecessary fears, like the fear of letting kids play outside due to exaggerated stories of kidnapping. Despite our flaws and potential for harm, humans also have the remarkable capacity to achieve incredible feats and make positive contributions to the world.

In summary, Gary Vaynerchuk emphasizes that there is no one-size-fits-all blueprint for success. Success is a personal journey that involves hard work, resilience, and self-awareness. He encourages people to stop looking for quick fixes and instead focus on their own unique path to success.