Legacy, Attention & Building Something That Lasts in 2025 | GaryVee x Maury Povich Conversation

0:00Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Gary V Audio Experience. On this one, we're sharing Gary's appearance on the iconic Maury Povich's podcast. Gary and Maury share a raw and surprisingly emotional conversation about everything from legacy and hustle to media history, missed opportunities, and what the future holds. They go deep on the evolution of media and its progression over the years, why attention is the ultimate currency, how eighth place trophies might be hurting our kids, and so much more. Let's get right into it. Today's guest is someone who needs no introduction, unless, of course, you've been living under a rock and didn't have Wi-Fi.

0:37He's a digital pioneer, an entrepreneur's entrepreneur, a five-time best-selling author. He is the owner-creator of VaynerMedia. But more than anything, he's somebody who speaks from the gut, leads from the heart, and never backs down from the truth. Gary Vee, welcome to On Par with Maury Povich. It is my great honor. Thank you, sir. No. Okay. So I'm starting out in this world. Okay. And then maybe I've done seven or eight of these things. You are a master at it. So what do you think the most important thing is? The thing that you were a master of long before I was a master of it. The reality is, is that when you think about podcasting or social media content or communicating, it's all the same thing.

1:26Sure. there might be some slight nuances but why you had your iconic career what's working for me is it starts with bringing value and value comes in all forms some people provide value by being remarkable journalists and interviewers right other people are good at being interviewed when i think about acting some people are incredibly classic actors who can crush on broadway down on the street, but others are incredible on the silver screen, though they can't do great on SNL because their improv skills are not as good. Value comes in all shapes and sizes. Beauty, humor, intellect. The secret to podcasting or any medium is are you able to actually give them, the audience, something of value.

2:16I think that's something you've provided for decades and that's why this is not any different. It's just a slight tweak. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, in a modern world. In other words, people now, probably more people now are listening or watching podcasts than are watching traditional TV. But to me, that's fun. And we were just talking before we set off. We're doing radio, you and I. Oh, sure. This is radio, my friend. Do you know that I did radio for the first four years of my life? Yeah. before I could get into television because we were talking back then in the early 1960s, you couldn't get on television without first being on radio.

2:59That's right. So I hung around a radio station and I ended up. Built your craft. Yeah. Then I believed still today after 60 plus years of this, the idea of radio and painting pictures with words was the unbelievable moment and method for anybody who wanted to get in the business. I would argue. Painting pictures with words. I would argue we're still living it. Obviously, we've had the support of the visual of video. But I would argue, when people talk about their favorite quotes from a movie, they're not talking about the visual part. They're talking about the words. And so, yeah, I agree with you.

3:41I mean, I think about this a lot. I think about baseball and how beautiful it is on radio and boxing and horse racing. And you start to understand why in the 30s, 40s, 50s, those sports did so well in America. I am a diehard football fan. American football. Obsessed with my beloved New York Jets. It is dramatically more interesting to watch a football game with watch and audio than it is to just listen. Same with the Knicks. And those sports were not as popular when radio was primary. So, you know, painting pictures is incredibly important, but the subject matter also has to be conducive to that medium.

4:26And that's what I think a lot about. It's very interesting when you talk about that, because I believe that there is more of a personal relationship to a sport from the radio broadcaster than the television broadcaster. I think that's right. The radio broadcaster is like a member of your family. Yeah, the intimacy is incredible, and you're relying on it because it's the primary source, and it is, in that scenario, the only source of information. To your point, there are people who watch sports with the sound off or with music playing in the background. I can visually see that Patrick Mahomes threw an interception.

5:0650 years earlier, I would have had to listen to Scully tell me that someone hit a home run, that Gil Hodges made an error. I had to hear him say it. You know, Harry Carey had to tell me that the Cardinals at first were doing good or bad and then later the Cubs were doing good or bad. Once television came along, a secondary sensory entered the equation and it changed the intimacy of that relationship. So when you're working in your father's wine and liquor store, do you have all these ideas that you have now? Did you have any idea, coming from Belarus as a toddler and growing up in New Jersey and working your father's store, that you would be this?

5:52Yeah. You thought that? Yeah, but it's not because of me. It's because my mother did such a great job. Oh, it's your mother. Of course. You know, when your mother is telling you you are capable of anything, you believe her. You know what my mother would say? What? Wait till your father comes home. By the way, my mother gave me plenty of that. The reason I was such a good kid and was disciplined was because my mother, though she built my self-esteem to the skyscrapers, let there be no confusion. She was not parenting in this modern world. There were consequences and ramifications for behavior that she did not believe was proper.

6:33So there was plenty of wait till your dad gets home. but what there was always was she did a couple things very importantly. One, she reinforced behavior heavily verbally. So for example, yes, I'm a successful entrepreneur but I will tell you that I associate as a nice guy much more and I will tell you that that is completely also formed and factored by not only my DNA but by how I was parented. When I was doing nice gestures, I can sit here and feel how I felt eight years ago, 41 years ago, when I opened the door for an elderly lady at a McDonald's in Plainfield, New Jersey. The way my mother reacted to that gesture.

7:18Right. You would have thought I won the Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah. But at the same time, I understand you went to work at a mall. You lasted one day. Yeah. I mean, like, you know, the reality is, is that I could, I'm an entrepreneur. snore you were born to do what you're doing i think so i know so you're just not doing six decades of it and wanting to do it right now it's in you same for me like there was never lemonade stands baseball cards comic books shovel like it would snow maury it'd be a snow day right every kid in my neighborhood this is the 80s in edison new jersey everybody's outside playing right what were you doing working shoveling yeah of course i was trying to convince robbie turnick and Eric Godfrey and Andy Greco and Marissa Byrd.

8:01I'm like, no, let's not sled. Let's not make a snowman. Everyone get their shovels. We're ringing doorbells and we're going to make some money. It was in me. You talked about baseball trading cards. Yeah. As a kid, you were doing this. Yeah. You grew up in an era where people were putting Mickey Mantles in their bike spokes. I grew up in an era where, for the first time ever, in the late 70s into the early 80s, wait a minute, are these worth something? Is this a form of art, an antique? Is this a collectible? And I was right there in the mid 80s, late 80s, and then into the early 90s, right as I was starting to mature as an entrepreneur.

8:38And so at the age of 12, 13, I'm not going to baseball card shows to buy cards. I'm buying a$100 table and setting up. At that age? At that age. And I will tell you that as I sit here today, you know, I turned 50 in November. as I sit here today, I would argue that more than half of my foundational business skills were formed in the malls, in the firehouses, in the Elks Clubs of New Jersey where I did shows as a preteen and as an early teen. You learn. You know what's amazing about business? It's similar to sports. Mommy and daddy can't hide you. Right? You can't hide. You play sports, If you strike out four times, you struck out four times.

9:26In school, in corporations, in politics, in university, you can hide. You can paint a fake picture. In sports and in business, you can't hide. And if I had a good or bad show, I couldn't hide. And it taught me. It was suffocating excuses. And I learned a lot of skills in those early years. So here's my trading card, my baseball card experience. I loved baseball cards. Baseball was, of course, dearest to my heart. Of course. Starting in the 1940s, I started collecting baseball cards. It's so far back, Gary, black and white. Yeah, no, I know. Black and white. I know. And I had them all. And I had them in a huge potato chip can.

10:14Huge. Yeah, they used to make those huge potato chips. I'd go away to college. Mom. Throws them out. Yeah, the classic story. I mean, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. Jackie Robinson, rookie card. Oh, yeah, yeah. Garrett, Ty Cobb. Yeah, 48 Leaf is Jackie's rookie card. Is that right? Yeah, 1948 Leaf. Wow. It's so fun to talk to someone like you. And when I talk to the kids that are growing up in the hobby, they don't realize that these were not considered collectibles at that time. We played games with them. Yeah, against the wall. Close to the wall. Flip. Yeah, no, I know. I know the history incredibly well.

10:55And that's why they're valuable. You know, for the hundreds of thousands or millions that were printed, all you kids ruined them all. So there's only hundreds of copies that are left that are in good shape. And that becomes the classic supply and demand. And then as kids like you grew up, knock on wood, became successful. What happens? You want a little piece of your youth. Nostalgia is incredibly ingrained. And so you want to go back and all of a sudden you can, I mean, me in my 40s was able to go back and buy the trading cards that I could have never dreamed of owning. I mean, I still remember the faces.

11:33Of course. I mean, not necessarily stars. Yeah. Just old names like Augie Galan and Luke Appling and people like that. I mean, it's just. I don't think you can communicate to someone under 30 what baseball meant in America when you were growing up. Oh, yeah, it was. I mean, the World Series. Football was a secondary thing. Distant, distant. I mean, professional football didn't exist in most, like, it was just, it wasn't on TV. The 1980, how about this, Maury? The 1982 NBA Finals, 82. Right. Game three, I believe, I could be wrong on that. Sixers-Lakers was aired on CBS as tape delay. Wow. That's how not popular the NBA was in 1982.

12:21they didn't even air it live I think Brent Musburger did the show of course he did he was amazing and so you know I think that people don't realize there's an ebb and a flow you also grew up in a time where the heavyweight champion of the world in boxing was arguably the most famous person on earth no question when I was a kid I was listening to the Lewis fights Billy Con Joe Lewis fights Iconic I mean look at the goosebumps I'm getting that's how much I enjoy that history I mean, and this is actually the whole punchline of my thesis in business and marketing. Attention shifts over time. What is popular?

12:58What medium? You just said it was a, I don't think people understand, when Joe Louis fought, the whole country shut down and was by their radio. Exactly. Now UFC, mixed martial arts, is more popular than boxing, and it's not happening on the radio, it's happening on streaming service, it's not even happening on television, It's not even happening on network TV. It's not even happening on cable. It's happening on what is called a streaming service which sits on top of the internet that would have been uncomprehendable when you were a teenager. So that's what I remind these kids now and everybody who's standing outside this studio right now if they're listening, do you understand in 50 years how the iPhone will seem like an archaic rock?

13:44and that is what I spend my time strategizing around. You really think you can see the future? No, I don't think I can see the future. What I do think is that I have an incredible passion and grounding in history which allows me to use those pattern recognitions to have a stronger insight of what may be true and then when you layer on top of that that I refuse to be ideological or overly emotional of how I make my money today, which protects me. What do you mean by that? Well, I'll explain. The biggest reason people don't adjust to the future is because they don't want the future to happen because it screws up the way they're making their money now.

14:32Is that why we have Bitcoin? I think we have Bitcoin for many different reasons, but it is why people like Jamie Dimon at Chase crapped on Bitcoin because Bitcoin's dangerous to banks. Got it? Humans, when they have financial interest, when they have emotional interest, will demonize new things that can make the way they make their happiness or money vulnerable. Makes sense. It's human behavior. But in that is the opportunity for the entrepreneur that is agnostic or unemotional of how they got there. I do not put yesterday on a pedestal. Yeah, but it's very interesting. You sound so sure of yourself and yet there are tons of mistakes you made.

15:22Well, I'm so sure of myself because I know I will make unlimited mistakes. Also, let's, if I may, I apologize. I'm talking about a very narrow thing right now that I've put a lot of work into. Many of my mistakes were because I hadn't swam that pool before. For instance, you were an investor in Uber, but not early enough. In a way that would make your head spin. The only human being that I acknowledged in my first book that I ever wrote besides my family was the co-founder and CEO of Uber, Travis. And yet, mistake number one, there's a great saying, I'm sure you've heard it many times scared money doesn't make money I had bought my first significant apartment in Manhattan weeks before Uber came across my desk I was not sitting with the kind of liquid that made me feel comfortable don't forget I'm an immigrant you've always got to have a little bit of cash under the bed right?

16:18Travis came and said we'd love for you to invest the truth is Travis and Garrett Camp who actually came up with the idea they were actually incubating it and somebody else was going to run it at first I passed because I didn't have the kind of liquid that I felt comfortable making a high-risk investment like that at the time even though I was doing much of that behavior before and then Travis decided to run the company this is somebody I unbelievably believed in did you know him personally? I knew him personally because I was growing up in what was called web 2.0 we were investing and speaking at conferences together he had a prior startup that was in the Napster space so he was a technologist for a long time at that point and he was ambitious and he was hungry and he was smart and um yeah i made a crucial mistake in passing twice in the angel round and for context for the listeners if i wrote a 50 000 check like i normally did at that point in my life it would be worth 540 million dollars today yeah brother it's a it's a dagger you know listen and And by the way, that's a fun one to tell as a story for everyone here.

17:27I would tell you the thing that has me happiest in my life, personally and professionally, is my capacity to be comfortable with this incredible truth, which is I will make mistakes daily. Daily, Maury. This is what I've found out over the years. Successful people, very successful people love to talk about their failures. I love losing. That's terrible. What is that? The next best thing from winning? I'm in love with micro losing because it's the foundation of macro winning. Right? Let me break it down. When I think Uber, it depends on how you want to quantify that. Many would listen and be like, you missed out on a half a billion dollars that you could have, you took two putts at it.

18:17Two short putts, Maury. Like to put in golf terms because I know you love it so much. I already knew Travis for years. I was in the circles. I understood it. When I tell you I missed two four-foot putts in a row, I'm up one stroke in the Masters on the 18th hole, four feet from the cup, and I miss both putts. I view that as a micro loss because I'll put that into context of, let's use Rory, who just completed his career at Grand Slam. Look, we can speak about Rory choking that Masters in the past. He almost choked it again. I was paying attention this time. But he didn't. And now he has a career grand slam and now Rory forever will be considered one of the great golfers, right?

19:05I kind of view the same thing with what we're talking about here. Micro losses. Choking at a major in golf is considered a major loss unless you win other championships. Then it becomes part of your lore. Well, he has other chances. Correct. That's the key. That's the key. For me, I'm going to have plenty of more flubs. I've got plenty. But the reality is I'm going to have enough wins to offset it. And most of all, and here is the whole punchline, my friend. I'm playing the game. Yeah, you're in the game. I'm in the game. Do you know what I love so much for you personally right now? Why I emphatically said yes to this?

19:48I'm so fucking happy for you that you're on the court. No, I mean it. I admire it. I look forward to doing it myself. I look forward to referencing this when I'm of your age to someone else. This, what you're doing right now, is the actual punchline. Not the Emmys, not the accolades. You know this. I never, ever, ever read good or bad notices. I get it. I'd never. I mean, I'm doing a current affair years ago. I remember. I got pounded from the critics. You know, what kind of tabloid trash? I remember. Started the talk show, do the DNA. This is the worst. This is over the edge. This is not right.

20:36You're exploiting people. I tried to defend it. I didn't care. I get it. Just didn't care. I knew what I was doing. I knew it was for the best. And that was it. Now, I started in talk shows in the 90s. It was the golden age of daytime talk. Twelve of us. I remember. Twelve of us from Oprah and Donahue and Geraldo and me and Jenny Jones, Joe Rivers. Sally, Jesse, Rappi. I mean, it was everything. Mattel Williams. It was massive. Massive. Ricky Lake. It went on and on, right? On and on. you think this right now, today, is the golden age of attention. Why? Well, I would argue that was the golden age of attention as well.

21:24I would say this is the golden age of human beings that do media and creative within social networks is the comp to what you and your contemporaries were doing on day tape television in the 80s and 90s. attention has always been the golden age right you know when uh walter cronkite was on at night right almost the entire country watched him 20 million a night just think about that 20 million a night when johnny right i mean geez some of these numbers are mash right i remember when seinfeld's last episode was coming and everyone's like will it beat mash and i was running around my i was a senior in college i was telling them and i was calling my dad i wanted people to know how much I knew about this.

22:07I'm like, it has no shot. And everyone's like, why? And I said, because the internet. But most people in mainstream media didn't understand how many humans were already on AOL chat boards and on bulletin boards. And there was just no chance that Seinfeld could hit that number because too much of the attention was fragmented to new mediums. But in 1980, when JR got shot by Dallas, there was no internet. You got a good history. of my business. My brother, when I tell you this is one of the great moments of my career because of how much I admire your career, but it's also what you represent to me, which is your career spanned one of the great half centuries of media history.

22:54Yeah, it's true. I'm very aware. I mean, not true that I mastered it, but it was true I was there. You were there, and to your credit, you gave it a real run, my friend. Wow, thanks. You gave it a real run. And so, but what that actually means is you represent something that I've always grown up enjoying, which is spending time with people who lived it. The reason I have such a good history is even in my teenage years, I would sit down with a 50, 60, 70-year-old stranger and ask them questions. Where were you when JFK got us out? McCarthy, what was he actually doing? World War II, when you're reading the paper, what did they say was going on in Germany?

23:33And I would just listen and listen and listen. Curiosity is amazing. It's the skill. In this business, in television, for instance, in my first job, I had this guy who, I mean, he basically was my patron. He was my patron. He was the general manager of a local television station in Washington where I first worked in the 60s. And I was so fascinated with television, not just doing it, but all aspects of television. And so I said, I want to learn about it. He says, my door is open. You can come in here. What was his name? His name was Bob Bennett. Bob Bennett. He was unbelievable. I mean, he lived until he was in his 90s.

24:16And I'm telling you, he and he would, by the way, later on when I was bouncing around, getting fired. And he was the guy that I used as my reference. He was the guy that the next station owner would call and say, should we hire this guy? I mean, he's been bounced around in a couple of cities already and he would always stand up for me. But he allowed me. I watched all the sales meetings. I watched him talking to the president of then Metro Media, which became Fox all the time. And he was arguing with him about the business. Should we put this show on? Should we not put this show on? What are we going to charge for this show?

24:51What are we going to do? And I learned more about the television business, listening to him and just asking him questions than I did at any time in my life. And later on, when I was doing a current affair, I was the only talent that could go with the salespeople to the various general managers and sell the show because I had a good background of the business. Talent never gets the background of the entire business. They just do their thing. I know. I know. It's incredible. Maury, actually, you just inspired me, if I may just twist it around and ask you a question. Growing up in that era, which on-air talents, either in radio or television, looking back now or at the time, did you really admire their interviewing skills?

25:43Who do you think really had it? Like that you were just like, wow, she or he, they really command it. They're leading the guests properly. They're setting up the guests. Who are some of the names? You know, I love giving flowers. Right. You know, that's why I asked you for Bob's name. I think, you know, I just like the idea of maybe Bob Bennett's family hearing. Robert M. Bennett, he was unbelievable. I mean, I wouldn't have had a future without him. I mean, I had been dead in the water in a couple of places that I worked. I love that. I would say, first of all, I go all the way back. Edward R.

26:18Murrow. Legend. The McCarthy hearings. It's everything. That whole era. I don't think people understand how profound that era was. You know, I was born in the Soviet Union. So I especially was interested in what was going on with communism and capitalism and all those stories. So I know that. I mean, he was the first person. Who stood up. Yeah. He changed the course of history. Right. Right. And what's going on today? First of all, I don't think a single person can change it. No, not the same way. The media landscape's different. Because of media, right? That's right, because it's fragmented. So if everybody, if half the country, at least half the country believes that the news is fake, then it is.

27:02Is that right? Sure. That's how life works. How you see it is how it is. It's why I push so much optimism. my biggest I was at an event last night with a bunch of kids who were building future AI companies wow and this young lady came up to me and she said Gary you're such a light of positivity like what do we do in this time where me and my friends all we get is negativity in mainstream media and even in our news feed in our feeds and social media and I looked at this young lady and I said then you are the news feed you are the algorithm I said if you go home right now and you type into Instagram and Facebook and TikTok positivity, good, happiness, optimism, and you search that in the search bar.

27:44And then the videos pop up and you like them all and you leave comments on them all. The next day when you wake up, the videos that are going to be in your feed are going to be positive. In life, Maury, one thing I've definitely learned, and I think this will resonate with you because you've had some spins around the sun, I believe that humans find what they're looking for. Yeah, I think so. If you're looking for positivity, you can find it. Unfortunately, right now, the politicians, modern parenting, we're in an incredible era where fear has a lot of momentum. And fear is having its moment. But I know something that history has taught me, which is fear never wins in the end.

28:29No. Here, I want to talk to you about these. Please. Day trading attention. Really? yeah the the media landscape you grew up in the speed in which it was innovating radio then television print direct mail things were happening in decades it's true i'm aware things are happening in hours here now so back to it's so fun to hear your context that i did not know about you your sales you know you know you lived it you watched how brands integrated into television First, it was product placement. Or it was named by a, GE had Ronald Reagan on TV. Right? Kraft, all that. Then we got into commercials. It changed.

29:13The content was the content. We'd had breaks. Then the advertising would happen. That took decades. Now within the phone, within these social networks, the way that the algorithm works on Facebook today is different than a week ago. Than a week ago. Let me give you a for instance. If you're trying to promote this podcast and the team outside is trying to get more people to listen. If they post a picture on Instagram today of me and you, that might or get - Well, first of all, you got 400 million. I get it, I get it. But I'm just saying algorithmically, you post it on your account and a certain amount of people will see it.