The #1 Way to "Make The Most Out Of It"

0:00This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

0:08I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People. This episode's guest is Gary Vaynerchuk, or more widely known as Gary Vee. He is an entrepreneur, social media influencer, speaker, author, and investor. He started in his father's liquor store business, but his goal is worldwide domination. At least buying the New York Jets. His current focus is VaynerMedia, a digital ad agency with large brands as customers. In fact, Gary's agency created three ads for the 2020 Super Bowl. Here's an interesting factoid you'll learn in this episode. Guess whose Facebook stock he bought. If you're interested in social media, entrepreneurship, marketing, and kicking butt, this is the episode of Remarkable People for You.

0:58I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. And now, here's Gary V.

1:08Give me the Gary V. elevator pitch. Well, it depends on what elevator I'm in, right? The main thing I do for a living is I'm the CEO VaynerX, a holding company that owns VaynerMedia, owns PureWow and 137PM, owns VaynerSpeakers, Tracer. It's a marketing agency infrastructure where we do, we're really just mad men 2020, right? We're an advertising agency that is obviously very digital led. We have a production facilities, publishers, and then about 800 people in an agency in Singapore, London, New York, LA. So mainly I'm the CEO and chairman of a communications service business. I like that. So in two words, you're Mad Men 2020.

1:58Yes, sir. I like that. Two words. I need Mad Men to be back and I'm only going to be able to use it for a couple more years. You're not going to know what that show is anymore. I need to go viral on Netflix. Like a two word elevator pitch. So how did you make this transition from flipping wine to becoming a thousand person agency? You know, as you know, and some of the people in this audience that are listening know, I grew up in the wine business. The Wine Library TV thing on YouTube and Twitter in 2006, 7, 8 was probably when the tech world or just this modern communication world started to hear about me.

2:35I started investing in a lot of the startups. I did well. This is where you and I got to know each other. That whole Web 2.0 movement shared my thoughts. Some of those thoughts around business became more obvious, more prevalent. My brother, AJ, who's more than just a brother to me, we're just like deeply close, you know, 11 years younger than me. He's coming out of school. It's 09 post. We're only seven, eight, nine months removed from the 2008 crash. And brands are starting to reach out to me and say, hey, why do you have 400 ,000 followers on Twitter and we don't have a Twitter account? Real brands like Pepsi and Campbell's and Mondelez and ESPN.

3:15I mean, just big companies. And so I knew I wanted to build bigger businesses than the one I built for my dad, for myself in this next chapter of my life. And I knew that I didn't know anything about corporate America. And I thought, you know what, if I'm going to try to build big companies, I might as well take a little period here and learn the context from some of the biggest companies in the world. And I'm not going to work for anybody. So why don't I start a business to service those companies? I'll make a couple bucks while learning fortune 5 ,000 land, which was very foreign to me because at that point I understood small family business life.

3:54I understood Silicon Valley, social media, web 2.0 dynamics, but I definitely didn't understand GE or Pepsi or chase. So we started the company with the hope of eventually my biggest hope was to buy nostalgic brands and reboot them. so I thought I would start the company and in five years the economy would collapse again and during that time I would buy something on the cheap and shut down my agency take some talent that I had and be on my merry way I thought that Netflix and Amazon and Facebook were going to disrupt the world dramatically and I thought Wall Street would continue to reward people for cost cutting not growth of business and everything that I thought in 2009 was right except the economy still hasn't collapsed.

4:43So I've been waiting for an economic downturn, not necessarily on the back of a pandemic, but just economic principles. And so everything's been in play the same way since. I think the thing that I didn't realize was I was going to be able to make a bigger impact on Madison Avenue than I thought, and I would be in it longer than I thought. And that's kind of where we're at now. That's how we got to 1 ,000 and global. I'm on my mission. I think everything's overpriced guy now. Startup valuations on day one, publicly trade companies on multiples of EBITDA, Series D companies, private equity companies, just there's a lot of money in the world.

5:21And so I'll wait till there's a correction. I'm patient. I'm a young man. I'm 44 years old. So I've got time. I think people are impatient when they're up to their missions in life, let alone business. And so that's kind of what I'm doing, mister. But when you say you're going to buy a company, are you talking about a Pepsi, General Motors? I don't think I'm going to get to that level. But at the time when I thought about it, I thought that I would buy like Blowpop or K-Swiss, the sneaker, like a small, nice$200, $150 million business. Big. I was sitting on a lot of Facebook stock, very early Facebook stock.

6:01I was confident that that would work out. I believed in myself that I would save money. I've done a lot of things that I thought I would. Tumblr was a nice exit for me. I was in very early. So there was things brewing that made me confident that I would have some cash and then I would continue to build reputation. I would let me raise capital if I needed. What's happened, guy, is that my ambitions for like something that would cost me a hundred million are probably now sitting today at something that may cost me 500 million to a billion. big percentage of my own money big percentage of some outside monies so i don't think it's as big as pepsi co but could it be buying sierra mist it's not gonna be buying unilever but could it be buying small swabs a big brand like like basically ultimately now can i buy instead of something that trades on four or five x revenue or six x revenue could i buy something that trades on one x revenue at the tune of 300 million dollars now instead of 40 million dollars or $100 billion?

6:57Yeah. And so that's kind of how I'm thinking about it. But the truth is, if this goes another five to seven years, and I continue to grow in other areas, maybe that becomes$2 billion. And all of a sudden, it goes from K-Swiss to Puma. And so I don't know. That's kind of out of my hands. That's when will the world do its correction? Where will I be sitting with liquid and relationships to capital. And of all the companies you've mentioned, none of them are digital platforms. Everything has a physical product. That's right. I'm not the inventor of Facebook and Uber. And I'm, and I don't think I want to reboot my space or friendster or, or anything like that.

7:40I want to reboot physical things. Like I'd rather buy Pete's coffee chain. I'd rather buy blow pops. I'd rather buy Ocean Pacific, Timberland Boots. That is, I don't know if it's ironic, it's surprising to me that you would think that Gary Vee, Mr. Digital Ninja, would buy a digital company, not somebody making sneakers. For me, everything's digital, right? So to me, digital is now oxygen. So I don't think I have to buy a digital company. I think I need to buy a traditional company and use digital DNA to reboot the arbitrage. You talked about investing in Tumblr and Facebook. How did you pick those investments?

8:26And so in 1996, for context for new listeners, I launched an e-commerce wine business that really grew my family's business. I email marketing and Google search SEMSEO really was a big backdrop of my growth in the early 2000s. Then, and you'll appreciate this because you did it as good as anybody, then blogging hit the scene, right? in 2001, two, three, four. And I was devastated because I wasn't capable of writing. And I knew that this blogging thing was gonna be huge. And I watched very carefully as you and Waxy.org and Neil Dash, Andy Bio and Slashdot and Dig and all these written base internet things that were happening.

9:09I was like, man, that's next. And these guys and gals are gonna win. And they did. Many people built real things on it. And so that was like the one chapter of the tech revolution of the last 20 years that I kind of had to watch because I didn't have the ability to produce because I just really still to this day don't have the writing ability. My books I record and then a ghostwriter structures it and transcribes and helps me structure it. So for me, when YouTube came out, it really changed my life. Like first it was Odeo. Ev Williams is one startup that probably didn't work. And then quickly after that, why it didn't work, the Apple podcasting.

9:50The podcasting thing seemed interesting to me, but it was YouTube. I started the wine show right away because I thought YouTube was the next thing. When YouTube established itself as the next thing, that also gave me double confidence that I was onto a bigger talent than being a wine retailer. I was right about e-com. I was right about email. I was right about Google AdWords. I've been right about the blogging revolution, though I didn't participate. and now I was participating and write and winning on YouTube, which really gave me a lot of confidence going into social. I was watching Friendster.

10:23I started getting serious about doing a little bit on MySpace as a business, not as a human. And so when Twitter and Facebook, and when Facebook started evolving from just college, but especially with Twitter, I was like, this is next. This is it. This is the next chapter of the internet. And I decided that when YouTube sold to Google for$1.7 billion, and you were so in the mix at this time, so you know this, please tell these youngsters that are listening, that number seemed like a trillion dollars.

10:551.7 billion in 2006 or seven, whenever that went down, that was like, it was a huge number. And then I was reading about Ron Conway and others making some money on their angel investors. And I was like, what's an angel investor? And I Googled it. And I was like, wait a minute, instead of being right and helping my dad build his business for him on these innovations, I'm going to, I'm going to invest. I've got a couple bucks saved up. I've spent no money on anything for the last 10 years. Let me invest it. And, uh, I went to South by Southwest 2007 and met Blaine Cook, the original CTO of Twitter.

11:32And then I went to San Francisco and met up with Chris Messina, factory Joe at a coffee shop. And he took me to Twitter's office when I had eight employees and I built some relationships there. And when Blaine either, you know, I don't know the story. I really actually don't. Whether he got forced out, because if you remember, Twitter was always going down. Whether he got forced out or not, when he was moved along at CTO, he got very passionate about selling all his shares. I spent a lot of, I would say more than three phone calls in three hours convincing him not to do that. He didn't listen.

12:06And me, Kevin Rose and Fred Wilson bought all his equity. And then I was meeting with David Karp a lot in New York because that was the big New York social network. It kind of advising him from my, advising, that's not fair, sharing with him thoughts that I was seeing. He was interested in it because he was coming from a different perspective. I was really one of these, and you know this guy, I was a unique character in Web 2.0 and 06, 07 because I didn't come from hardcore tech. I didn't come from geek tech TV. I didn't come from the blogosphere talking about technology. I was coming at a complete left field as a wine video blogger, but I was a businessman and a marketer and more of a social anthropologist than I realized at the time, which led to a lot of people listening to me, at least not that I was right or wrong, but I was creating thoughtful conversations.

12:59So Tumblr offered me equity in their, think about how different the world used to be. They allowed me into their B round at a$14 million valuation. and then i got very close with facebook and mark zuckerberg and dave morin and some of those men and women and uh somewhere in 2008 randy mark's sister called me and said mark and i are curious if you're interested in some equity you've been such a good part of the family we know you don't have any our parents are selling some equity because they want to buy a house on the west coast to be closer to us when they can. I mean, she didn't even finish the first word of the sentence, I wired the money.

13:43That was the biggest investment I ever made and the most confident I've ever been in an investment. And that's how I got into it.

14:07Hey everybody, I hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy. If you were limited to one social media platform, which one would it be? That's a great question. If I was limited today to one social network, what would it be? I would probably still say Instagram at this moment. It just has too big of my audience there. I can direct message so I can engage. I would say Instagram still. As opposed to TikTok? As opposed to TikTok. TikTok is the most important emerging platform, has the potential if the product evolves over the next half decade to take that spot.

14:49But to answer your question properly, like in truth, if this was the moment, that would be what I would hold on to. Okay. And do you have any - Twitter would be hard for me to let go of, because it is no question where I'm most native in my interaction. I replied or engaged with somebody on Twitter every single day for the last 13 years. So it's hard for me to give that one up, but no question it would be Instagram because what I would do is probably start replying to every comment in my Instagram. And are you, are you using some kind of social media tool to do this or you're just on the Instagram app?

15:23I'm native. If you look at my, I'll give you my phone. There you go. If you look, it's all native. If you look at my phone, I think phones are really a big tell on somebody's life. If you look, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, community, which is my texting platform, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Snapchat. So, you know, really good insight to how deep I am and it's all native. What's your advice for being an Instagram god? I mean, what does one do? I think they come, you know, goddesses come in many forms on Instagram. I think it comes down to staying in your pocket. I'm going to take advantage of giving you a compliment or too while I'm on your show, because let's just get very basic on this.

16:04You are a legend in this industry of like technology and communication. I think something you've done remarkably well, which is what makes you relevant today as you were a decade ago, as you were a decade prior to that, I think people have to stay in their pocket. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, Everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result?

16:40Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. Okay. I think it's very important to speak about things you know and evolve, right? So there's so many subject matters I'd like to talk about more. Cryptocurrency, cannabis, AI, 5G. There's a lot of things I'm dangerous in, right? I'm a headline reader. I know a little bit more than the average bear. But I think what has made me work on Instagram and every other platform for that matter is I'm very passionate of staying in my lane. and when I share my opinions and hypotheses, not when I'm thinking I'm right or giving advice.

17:25A, I don't think that I'm right or give advice ever. I think I'm sharing opinions, hypotheses, and observations. And I think that's important because I think some people become audacious and I think I speak in a way that may seem audacious, but I'm very careful with my wordsmithing and I do stay in those hypothesis, opinions, and observation zone. Number two, I talk about things I know. Again, whenever I hit your radar back in that pocket, because it had to be in that era, I spoke about wine because I know about wine. And I spoke about business because I at that point already built a very big business.

18:00And I spoke about communication because I understood how social worked because I learned a lot on email marketing and watching blogging. And that worked for me. And that's where I continue to stay. And I think what I'm good at is understanding context. So one thing that I think has also worked for me is I don't think about tools to aggregate my content across all different platforms because I think the context of the platform matters. So what I do well on Instagram is I understand the visuals and videos and written words that are more native to the consumer on an Instagram platform that may vary on LinkedIn, that may vary on TikTok, that may vary on Twitter.

18:39And that's really worked for me. So it's been the content and the context and staying in a lane of what I know and believe. And that's really worked for me. Staying consistent, caring about my community, being grateful for any level of attention I've ever had from the first follower to where I am today. And I think those principles have really worked for me. And how do you define your lane? I think my lane is practical entrepreneurship. But practical entrepreneurship, that doesn't exactly parse two beautiful pictures on Instagram. Yeah, I don't think I'm doing beautiful pictures on this film. As a matter of fact, every time I try to take a higher quality res, ironically, my latest post is a high quality res photo.

19:18It's me holding up sports cards. I'm not doing well with a high quality picture. I'm doing well when I'm putting out a quote and then writing seven sentences of copy that add context to it, not just being there for inspirational posts. yeah i mean like listen i believe in inspirational stuff because inspirational stuff is the manifestation of of practical optimism right i believe i believe in it however if you just post it without the seven sentences to contextualize it which is like look being optimistic is a good idea but sitting on your couch and sleeping all day and being optimistic's a problem and so you know you may want to do something about it so i think finding that balance of of that helps but to your point, as a matter of fact, guy, when I started getting very serious about Instagram four or five years ago, I got a lot of pushback from photography friends who were like, that's not what you're supposed to be doing on Instagram as if there's a supposed to be.

20:17What I'm doing on TikTok is I'm not dancing on TikTok either. And I've amassed an enormous following and impact there and I'm putting out what I know. And so that's what I focus on. You're not doing any switches with JLo or anything like that? No. And I wish I could do switch like JLo and A-Rod did a good switch and I'd like I was thinking about doing one with G-Rock believe it or not actually I still might actually could I what's the first app you check in the morning the first app I check in the morning is my calendar app my email app and my text app to make sure there's no fires because I'm an actual CEO as a human it's right now it's eBay because I'm looking up sports card prices.

21:00It's Instagram. It's Instagram DM. It's definitely Twitter. They're all happening pretty quickly. That group. This is while you're still in bed or this is? This is while I'm in bed, grab my phone, pick it up, walk, brush my teeth, poop, shower, come back out, keep looking at it, start dressing, keep looking at it, run to the, you know, out the door, keep looking at it. Why do you drop so many F-bombs? Why do I drop so many F-bombs? My intuition on that, my belief is because I cursed a lot as a kid because I grew up in a pretty diverse kind of lower to middle class New Jersey neighborhood. And it's pretty much been embedded.

21:43It's how I've communicated my whole life. There's a lot of times where people get mad at me or sad or don't want to consume my content that I think about it. There's been times early on in my career in 2009, 10, when I took the stage where I tried not to, but I did. Anytime somebody reaches out and says, look, in this interview or in this speech or in this meeting, we prefer you not curse. That's very easy for me. I always take off my shoes if that's the rules of the house. but if I'm left to my being, I like communicating the way I communicate. Then why did you create the Clean Gary Vee podcast?

22:20So there's a curse-free YouTube channel like your point and podcast because there was a lot of parents reaching out to me and saying that my message was really helping their children and they were noticing that their kids were listening to me and they started seeing good behavior but they were noticing that the kids were hearing it either in the car when they thought they weren't paying attention. One guy wrote me a very long email. His kid would have headphones on and he thought he was playing video games but he found out about a month or two later because the kids started getting better grades and started dealing with a bully issue and he was like how is this happening and he's like I listened to Gary V on the way to work with you and he was stunned because the kid wasn't playing music he was listening but the kid was like nine and he was like Gary listen that's been great but by the way I also heard him drop an f-bomb the other day outside and I'm not ready for all that I'm a pretty good Christian boy and we don't do that And I'm like, and so like I kept, you know, I always listen to feedback.

23:13I'm not going to necessarily change or censor myself because I don't want to. There's no other real reason. But I wanted to give a platform for people who did enjoy my message, but not some of the words that I chose, the option to consume it. And a lot of teachers and educators and parents and counselors have been very grateful for that channel and been able to use it. And there's just a lot of general people who prefer to hear it beeped out or, but, you know, and so I don't think it's a good idea to create friction to the end consumer. I also don't think it's a good idea to change yourself for a small group of consumers.

23:48And so I think I've tried to find a happy medium. What about people who say Gary Vee is open and transparent and authentic and real because he swears? They seem to make this connection that profanity equals all those good things. I try to correct, you know, I, I, a lot of times you'll see people say that when they're defending me. Like we really analyze that data a little bit to see, are people saying I'm real, keeping it real out of just left field? Or are they doing it normally? Or in response to take somebody shitting on me for saying it and a far percentage was in response to when people get at me.

24:28so occasionally if I feel like there's a little bit of that too much going on I will I have dm'd probably in the last decade hundreds of people and say hey there's an ungodly amount of people who don't curse that are as real as me maybe more real than me so let's not just be lazy in the same way that some people are lazy that Gary's not intelligent because he curses let's not be lazy that I'm so authentic because I curse, the end. Okay. I think you probably will agree with me with this. You and I have seen many communicators and executives and humans that we know that don't curse, that are authentic and not authentic.

25:05And we've seen many communicators, executives, presenters who you can tell they're forcing, they're cursing and other people, it comes easy to them because it is their authentic self. And I think one thing I fear of is as my profile has grown, that there's some youngsters coming up the ranks who are forcing cursing because they think that's what's working, not that I know what I'm talking about. And so I think it's important for me to communicate that, that what you need to do is be, what you need to be good at is being really you the way that I'm really me, not be like me. But on your TikTok, don't you swear a lot?

25:39And isn't that a youthful platform? My TikTok audience is skewing well over 18 by average. So yes, do I think there's 12 and 13 year olds that catch me cursing on TikTok? Yes. Do I think there's a single 13 year old in America that hasn't heard that word 43 times a day in their school, let alone what they're doing on their computer? I mean, I think it's laughable. I mean, I literally have parents. This is real now. I've had parents tweet me being mad at me for cursing. And then I'm a funny guy. You know, I'm a little bit of a weird character in this way. I then go into their Twitter account and And literally, literally see them sharing Beyonce songs with cursing in it.