How I Make Decisions for My Businesses | Nilay Patel

0:00I think when you have a people based business, if you don't understand how disproportionate culture is, I think you'll lose. And what I mean by losing is there's unbelievable amounts of businesses out there that are winning financially that don't have good culture. It's not good. It's anxious. It doesn't need to be toxic. It's just not great. It's like a job. It's like whatever. You know, for me, those companies are missing out on top line revenue and profit. I'm telling all of them, get everyone feeling safe, accountable, but happy place. I call it honey empire. Honey over vinegar, but we're trying to build an empire.

0:28So my name's Gary Vee, head of VaynerX, the advertising holding agency, a YouTuber. You have a lot of things. Welcome to Decoder. Thanks for having me. Decoder is a show about structure and process and decision-making, and you have the most of that, from what you can tell. You just have a lot going on. Let's start at the very beginning. How are your companies structured? How does that work? VaynerX that you just mentioned that a lot of people don't know about, you know, they see the Gary Vee of it all, but they don't realize that there's a 1 ,500, 1 ,600 person global company. VaynerX, the main company is VaynerMedia, the company I started in 2009 with my brother AJ.

1:08That's the advertising agency. That's the Mad Men, Madison Avenue thing. We do media and creative together, which is a little bit of an innovation in today's marketing world, which means we spend the media and make the content. That probably, that has 1 ,200 or so of the employees, New York, LA, Toronto, Mexico City, London, Amsterdam, Singapore, Australia, and a lot of other people in the APAC region. So that's that. And then the next biggest companies in VaynerX are the Gallery Media Group, which houses purewow.com and 1.37pm. So that's publishing, similar to what Jimmy and all of you are doing.

1:50Then there's the Sasha Group, named after my father. That's an agency for SMBs. so we're getting so much inbound especially given my career on like more mom and pop businesses not the Pepsis and the Chase exactly so we wanted to create something of that that's been really fruitful James Rossini runs that there's Vayner3 which is an innovation strategy company AI blockchain VR QR that's more like a Bain and McKinsey company Avery runs that that's going well Vayner Speakers speaking bureau Zach runs that then there's Eva Nosadam which is Madison Ave spelled backwards it's Iva Nosadam Productions, which is a production company that makes our commercials.

2:30We do a lot of Super Bowl, a lot of different kind of commercials. The Jimmy John's Young Gravy ad recently, the Cheetos thing. We do Dwayne Wade a couple years ago when he retired for Budweiser, those kind of things. So that's the production company. So that's kind of like a big ecosystem of ours. There's VaynerCommerce, a commerce business. So that's that world. then there's the moonlighting I do helping out my dad with the original business Wine Library talking to my best friend Brandon Warnicke so that's that world so Wine Library and WineText.com that's going super well especially WineText get a text a day reply get discounted wine there's VaynerSports my brother AJ and Greg Genski are the co-CEOs of that AJ left halfway through the Vayner journey and wanted to do something he loved that's become a very big business we just announced the basketball division with Babe Frazier who was Mello's right hand for all those years.

3:24But we're very big in baseball, Bo Bichette, Justin Turner, many others. Football, Kirk Cousins, Aiden Hutchinson, many others. UFC, Stephen Militich, Corey Sandhagen, many others. So that's going super well. Then there's VFriends. I've always wanted to buy a intellectual property. So I used to think I was gonna buy the Flintstones or Gumby or the Smurfs. The NFT thing came. I'm like, wait a minute. This is a place to launch it. I launched VFriends a couple years ago, so that's my intellectual property, a business grounded in blockchain, but also expanded to the real world. And then there's a little tiny room these days, though it's been a big chapter over the last decade of the Gary Vee of it all, right?

4:05You know, all my content. I'm really not public speaking anymore. I am writing a new book, but it's taken me a little while with how busy I am. And all the content creation, the podcast. So that's historically been a business in itself, though. So when VFriends came up, it sucked all the energy out of the Gary V of it all, because I've got to really run that. So then there's obviously my investing. I do a lot of angel investing, some through a fund with Phil Toronto and my brother AJ, VaynerFund, three. And then there's boards I sit on, nonprofit and public or private. So yeah, busy. So you mentioned VaynerHatch, 60 other people, that's the big holding company.

4:48That's got the ad agency and a bunch of other stuff. then you mentioned some companies that are not part of it. How do you decide what's in, what's out? What's in VaynerX, what's not in VaynerX? So the reality is that I do view VFriends and VaynerX as the two cores, but there are moments when AJ needs me on VaynerSports. There's gonna be moments as Eric Wattenberg builds out our production company where I'm gonna have to fly to LA and pitch a show for a big opportunity on Netflix. It's gonna happen. so I decide based on two chiefs of staff and three admins whose full time job is to take all the inbound that comes in my text and my slack and my email and strategize we spend a lot of time you know during the week thinking about the three weeks ahead we're always you know lots of 15 minute meetings instead of 30 trying to make a lot happen and then you're in it's almost like being in the news business you know like like all of you you have your editorial strategy but then you know it's like in the sports media business you have your strategy for today and then Aaron Rodgers gets traded to Jets officially and that's going to change up and that's what being an operator at a high level I think with multiple things going on is I have my strategy for this week but anything can happen in the next hour that blows out three hours and then those three hours have to get back in the books because those are top five percent things in a world of a million things being thrown at you and so it's a constant flow.

6:09How much do you delegate? you said you had an enormous people are they actually in your slack your admins have like full slack access to your scary scarier than that my admins have access to everything yeah my iCloud my email i live a transparent life with my admins like you know they're in my they're in signed into all my social um yeah i keep it very transparent with them because i need to be able to navigate quickly and they need all the data points so i i delegate tremendously yeah i don't think you really can I would argue that for a lot of people listening or watching all of their limitations on the growth of the things they're operating um by the way whether that's a family that you're operating and not delegating enough to the oldest child or to a friend or an aunt or a grandparent or if you're running a business or like me many many many businesses delegation trust uh the lack of ego of thinking you do everything the best is an incredible thing that I most look at when I'm trying to help a friend, family member, or an investment to figure out why they're not scaling.

7:11When you think about delegation, there's the admins, then you've got companies. You've got people running your companies. How do you decide, okay, these are the people who are going to be in charge of this company inside of VaynerX, and this company needs to be outside of VaynerX with a different leadership structure? Outside of VaynerX has been easy. Steve Ross, the owner of Dolphins, is a business partner of ours and couldn't own a piece of the sports agency, so we spun that out. And then with Vayner... So VaynerSports and VaynerWatt are the only things outside of the company. VaynerWatt, because Eric needed to be such a significant partner, it needed to sit out of the structure.

7:42But most things will go into VaynerX if they're in that service world. And the way I'd really decide that is pretty simple. I either really know or I really don't know. And let me explain. Avery, who runs Vayner3, or Jeannie, who runs VaynerToronto, they were executives that were here three, four, five years doing great work that made me confident to send Avery to APAC or Jeannie up to Toronto. Then there's guessing. You know, I made a subjective guess on Gabby who runs LATAM in Mexico City. I made a subjective guess on Daisy who'd been in for a couple months to take over EMEA UK, Europe. And then in those scenarios, you go in optimistic.

8:27You go in focused on trying to help them. And then in a 12, 18, 24, 36 month window, So you're making a final decision if you made the right call. Are you telling them here are the metrics I'm judging you on? Make the number go up? Not really. I'm really, yes. They can't go out of business. Yeah. But I'm a little, you know, I'm not publicly held company. I'm not looking to exit. So I, you know, I'd like them to be fiscally responsible. They can't be completely aloof. But I would argue that what I most focus on is like, if you do not have the people that work for you, and I mean all of them, not your direct reports, incredibly happy with you, feeling safe.

9:06I think when you have a people-based business, if you don't understand how disproportionate culture is, I think you'll lose. I really do. And what I mean by losing is there's unbelievable amounts of businesses out there that are winning financially that don't have good culture. It's not good. It's toxic. It's not good. It's anxious. It doesn't need to be toxic or that serious. It's just not great. It's like a job. It's like whatever. you know for me those companies are missing out on top line revenue and profit and so you know i think for me i'm telling all of them get everyone feeling safe because there's so much fear in the world and get everyone understanding how unique the marketing strategies we have are or in v friends what we're actually up to or whatever company it is vayner sports how well we are in marketing off the field get the court messages down and understand them but most importantly build a safety, happy, accountable, but happy place.

10:01I call it honey empire. Honey over vinegar, but we're trying to build an empire. You know, this is not for fun. And so those are the metrics. And that is a struggle for people on the outside. Everyone out here, these big buildings, is being trained to win on the P &L, not on the culture. This is actually my next question. Please. So you've got a big holding company. You've got lots of empowered executives. We talk a lot on this show about divisional structures, versus functional structures. A lot of tech companies are functional, right? Tim Cook runs marketing and he runs product and it all rolls up to him.

10:36And at the end of the day, they somehow produce an iPhone. Other companies are divisional, right? You've got just a stack and you've got some redundant functions in them. How is VaynerX structured? A little bit of a mix of the two. You know, the reality is, I do a lot of casting on leaders. Yeah. You know, what's interesting is we're a 13-year-old company, with VaynerMedia, VaynerX is even younger. That happened when I bought PureWow. We started building it six years ago. A lot of this has to do with, you know, HQ, the VaynerX of it all has its leaders, but we keep that pretty thin and we give a lot of power to the leaders of divisions and companies, but you are micromanaging and creating redundancy while you're, it's almost like a kid riding a bike.

11:23You've got to give them training wheels especially if they're from the outside. When I bring in new leaders from the outside, I'm gonna create some cushions. Just because the reality is we do it very differently, both the craft and the culture. And so once someone is able to cross over the hill, then I think we can make it far more autonomy-based. But I like to be close to people that have enormous amounts of control, though I have no interest in micromanaging them. So I'm in the business of bat phone. I'm in the business of making them feel safe. Did you say bat phone? Bat phone. There's a crisis, you gotta call Gary.

11:59Even more, I just. Do you have a special bat phone? No, everyone has the same number, but it's funny, it's not yes, crisis, it's more, just keep me close, use me. You know, so many of these leaders, actually, ironically, we had a global offsite yesterday. So many of them want to prove to me they can do it, and I keep telling them, hey, I know you can do it. The problem is, you've been doing it for 20 years on the outside, there's 7 ,300 nuances here. Text me and ask. Like, I'm not judging you. I'm here to help you. I work for you. But outside executives struggle with that. They don't believe me.

12:35And it sometimes takes three to five years for me to break through of like, I'm not kidding. Like, you're not gonna get fired by missing your numbers, but you definitely become vulnerable if people aren't happy. And the quickest way for people to not be happy is for you to be scared of me and it, which then trickles down. Do people use your name to get what they want? I feel like at a company that's called VaynerX, run by Gary Vaynerchuk. You mean executives with each other? Yeah, Gary wants this. Is that happening a lot? I'm sure. I'm sure that's happening. The cool thing is, as a 13 year company, we have almost 100 people that have been here for nine years or longer.

13:11We have crazy retention. And I think what's awesome about that, when I hear this, I would say six, seven years ago, probably a lot more than today, there's too many people entrenched in too many places that know the truth of it all, that it's almost like a double negative. There's so many family members in so many different places that I think it's harder to get away with that, but I'm sure that happens every day. Yeah, I'm always just curious. Especially when your name's on the door. What's cool is I have such an aggressive open door policy that ironically, the junior people use me more than the senior people at times.

13:46And so a lot of people are comfortable, even like a year in, only meeting with me once, but based on everything that they know to email me and be like, hey, my boss's boss boss said this. Is this true? And I'm like, no or yes. Like, you know, it's it's I couldn't encourage leaders that are listening here more on finding as many five and 10 minute slots to say hello to a new employee. Like just that breaking the ice of it all is massive. Yeah. This brings me to, I think, the decoder question you're describing, right, this process you have where you make big long terms, strategy, you have a vision, and then you're very reactive to things that are happening to you, incoming information all the time.

14:23How do you make decisions? So I'll answer that. And I love how you put that. I literally operate on macro patience and micro speed. I make decisions based on a lot of things. One, my intuition. I really do believe that I think a lot about what do we know today that people didn't know 100 years ago, a ton, a ton about the body, the mind. I always ask myself, what are people gonna know 100 years from now that we don't know today? My favorite running thesis right now is that we don't talk enough about the gut, the intuition, the operating system that this is. We know this is, but we don't talk enough about this.

15:02And so my big guess in 100 years is this is understood a lot more and is like a normal part of life. Intuition you mean? That's right. Not your microbiome? Both, by the way, ironically. It's funny, I was about to say that, but that's exactly right, both actually. How much of an impact on your life this is. So intuition is very big. Pattern recognition is enormous. For the 23-year-olds, harder. For everybody who's 45 and older, massive. Experience matters. These gray hairs start to add up, right? They do have value. And so pattern recognition. Number three, a complete utter focus on intent and lack of fear.

15:39Every decision I make I know has good intent, truly. thus rendering me very confident that if there's ramifications or I made a misstep that the apology is always there that the correction is there the vulnerability, the humility I'm not scared of making a wrong call and I think that's a huge part of my decisions and then tons of data the reason I want the back phone which is really more just check in and let's keep talking is I can make fast decisions when I'm sitting on a lot of information and so I'm talking to all my employees all the time virtually, through text or in person, mainly to make me have the ability to go fast in the future.

16:17One of my biggest beliefs is that most CEOs don't spend enough time judging the judges. I am judging my 40, 50 most senior people on how much I value their word blindly, like Marcus and Hannah, my chiefs of staff who I'm looking at across the window right now because they've been here for nine and 13 years, or less but a road to it for an executive that's maybe running a company or an office that's only been here for two or three years. I can't be blindly with them yet. I don't have enough data. But that's the framework I work in. So I'm just talking to you here in person. You're very animated.

16:53You're very charming. You're very direct. I have discovered that when I'm very direct in digital communication, I come off like a huge jerk. How do you do all the things you do and communicate digitally with your team? I don't communicate digitally. You don't? You're not slacking? You're not? I do, but I'm petrified of it. I tell everyone, if it's something real, get out of text. The misinterpretation of the written word digitally is a monster. People will consume it based on their framework. Or when I do it and I have to give any level of direct, I'm coming with a heart emoji and a sun right behind it.

17:31I do that a lot. And I do that a lot because I'm petrified that someone's losing the tone. We had a, Cole just joined our team. He just joined our WhatsApp where my team works. on our content. He doesn't know me. And if I've got something to say right now, he might think on his first day, like, wait a minute, Gary's actually full of shit. He's not as nice. Like, I need to put that heart emoji. I think people need to, the voice memo, so they can hear my voice. I'm petrified to deliver even neutral to slightly candorous feedback in just written word. I think it's a massive mistake. I have completely gotten my leadership team off of the long email that's talking about, like, today we've had, I mean, I'm like, it's crazy.

18:10You're scaring people. So, you know, again, if it's with Sid, who I've been with for eight or nine years, I can do anything. He knows it's, meaning in written form, because he knows it's coming from a good place. But back to your point, when I'm being direct, which is, by the way, ironically, Gary Vee, in interviews, my content, great at candor. Gary Vaynerchuk, the executive, has struggled historically with candor. I hate negativity. I hate, I've always seen candor as something that would scare people. I had misunderstood for the majority of my career. So I call it kind candor. If you're delivering candor, you need to be empathetic that the other person on the other side is not gonna feel great.

18:51Even if it's like truly fair, they're still gonna feel bad about themselves. So why not have compassion and try to make them feel a little bit better by referencing something you've struggled with or just fixing the tone? So I think about that a lot. Yeah, I always think about it in terms of you can tell people it's okay to feel bad and then you can work through it together. But that first step is really hard. Yeah, or you could really put it on yourself as a leader and try to make them feel less bad. Yeah. Like there's absolutely a way to make someone feel slightly less bad when you're telling them that they're not good at their job.

19:23Let me talk about Gary Vee with you. You brought up this other character, Gary Vee versus Gary Vaynerchuk, the executive. Yep. The business of Gary Vee seems as complicated, as chaotic as anything. And it exists on social platforms that are ever changing. Yes. We were talking to your team just before you sat down about just how much video of you is logged every single day. Yes. And what an enormous operation is. Is Gary Vee, that's a character you're playing. No. No. Oh, it's me fully. It's just the context of the room is different. Right now I know that we have a long form video and audio execution.

20:00and I do believe that being slightly entertained or engaged and this was something I did subconsciously when I first started speaking. I didn't, it just, I have intuitive understanding that you're more likely to get your message across if people actually pay attention. Yeah, fair enough. Right? So, no, I don't, there's nothing that I've ever put out on the internet that is shtick or fake. Yeah. It's just that the context is different. If I'm having a company offsite that's trying to navigate a$350 million a year business. You can imagine with 15 people, that's gonna be a very different tone and tenor yesterday than me doing a podcast on one of my favorite media platforms out there.

20:42Like I'm just gonna be more excited. I know that somebody's running on the treadmill right now, walking their dog, driving in their car, and I want them to continue to hear the words. And if it's like super serious and mundane, that might not be the energy you're looking for. I'm also aware that my energy might be too much for someone. This is like too hyper. and that's okay. This is just what naturally happens to me when there's cameras going. And so, no, it's not character life. It's just a slightly more animated version of myself, given that I get more excited when I think there's more people involved.

21:11But when you have this many people following around with cameras, logging everything you say, ingesting it into what sounds like a very impressive air table system, I'm very jealous of it. You're a reality show, right? I mean, like you're producing a daily reality show and that naturally has to heighten whatever loudest characteristics you have. I don't know about that. I'll explain. If you look, I would argue that YouTube is the platform that I do least well. Yeah. Mainly because I'm not overly passionate from a reality TV show standpoint, meaning I'm not trying to rate. I don't want the vlog to be overly successful from like winning an Emmy or getting a lot of viewers.

21:52I'd be fine with it. I'm trying to document way more than I'm trying to entertain. A big part of the vlog was done because I lost both my grandfathers before I got to know them and I thought it would be neat that one day in 67 years this would exist. I also knew that it would bring awareness and demand, but I really wanted it as a blueprint for people to see like, this entrepreneur thing is not so fun. Like it's not as easy as, it's not cool as it's become. And so, for example, there's nothing that I do day to day that has anything to do with the vlog. It's just a documenting framework. I can ask you, do you ever turn it off?

22:34Yeah, a lot. What's quiet Vaynerchuk like? The weekends, the holidays. You're out there like flipping Beanie Babies, man. Very. I think what I've done really well is, back to them following me around, is I've garage sailed three times in the last three years. I'm just very good at content creation, of maximizing what I do. So, no, I mean, on the weekends, I'm spending time with my family. I'm decompressing. Quiet me is still hyped. Like, I'm excited, I'm happy. I'm incredibly motivated and grateful for having a life. I think that people take for granted. I'm on the board of Charity Water. 850 million people on earth, more than 10 % don't have access to clean water.

23:22I find it very hard to not be excited about life when we live in a first world country where both my parents are alive, where I have great siblings and a family. Like, I'm very fortunate. And so gratitude is a huge, like I think people have envy and jealousy and dwelling and complaining DNA And that's a drainer. But when you're grateful and optimistic, you're kind of just excited for like, I'm pumped when a weekend is this sunny. I actually noticed today when I was working out that it was really sunny. And then my brain said, I hope this weekend's gonna be nice. Like I'm grateful for very simple shit, which makes me excited and calm.

23:58When you think about the image you put out into the universe, I watch your TikToks. I love your TikToks. You're always talking to an audience. Yes. It always seems like you're addressing some room. Yes. that's the majority of your content your audience does not see that you're just walking on the treadmill and you're happy that it's not outside or that you're quiet with your family you have a very particular kind of image do you worry that you're leading people to believe that you're always on and that they should themselves always be on no i don't worry about that at all i think for example i think people find what they're looking for like yeah like i've been very aggressive of like i don't want to share my personal life i have tons of challenges i speak about vulnerabilities.

24:37I'm a public figure. People know about my stuff. Like, no, I really don't. I understand the question. I think that it's time that we have a more thoughtful conversation around this. Meaning, I as a human, when I consume content at scale, never believe that any of the people that I'm consuming are showing you every single thing of their life, nor do I believe it's as good or as bad. I think that's a very lazy intellectual point of view. and so you have that point of view because you grew up with it i mean i grew up with the internet i grew up with well i get it and youtubers right but it grew up with you right it didn't exist and it slowly has gotten to where it is now and you've seen that whole transition i think about our young audience they're fish and they don't know about the water right they just grew up in a world where influencers exist in a world where youtubers exist where being a youtube star is a career path that you can tell your parents when you're five years old, right?

25:31And so you have this view where like, this isn't all real. And you're making the reality show, all of us are making the reality show. And you have an audience that doesn't know that it's a show. Well, I think the way you framed it up is a little awkward. Let me explain. I think everything I show is real. It's just not the complete part of my life. And there's certain things I decide not to share. You know, I think, I also think when I think about this, when I was a kid, pre-internet, we looked up to stuff too. You know, my big question is, where's parenting in 2023? Like, I think that - But you are that figure for a lot of people.

26:09Young man in particular, you are that figure. Yeah, but I, you know, that is such an extraordinarily deep challenge, right? Like, you know, when I think of being someone that someone may look up to, I'm humbled by that. And so much of the way I create content understands that to be true. But I could never comprehend, you know, the complexity of actually being someone's parent or, you know, someone loses a parent and who replicates or fills that void. You look at that kind of from a human journey and there's many inputs that fill that void. I think that's right. I do think that there's incredible intrigue that I have about the sheer volume of people that are putting out information in the world.

26:55but I feel like that has always been the game. Like there's an entire generation of boomers who live their life like Mickey Mantle because he was the one that they looked up to. So it's always existed. What I'm actually optimistic about is there's way more ways to look at things today. And I think how people choose their paths is interesting. You talked a lot about being adaptable and the experience. There's a tension there, right? You in particular are very good at using your experience to adapt to new platforms in particular from YouTube to Instagram to TikTok to NFTs if that pans out. How do you think about that tension?