The Barbell Effect: Navigating the Future of Extreme AI and Analog

0:00Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College Deal. Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college pc. Ready to soundtrack your summer? With Red Bull Summer All Day Play, you choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best. Are you a festival fanatic, a deep end DJ, a road dog, or a trail mixer?

0:43Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track. Red Bull Summer All Day Play. Red Bull gives you wings. Visit redbull.com slash bright summer ahead to learn more. See you this summer. Let me tell you why you like AI. humans forever, for the rest of time, a thousand years from now when they look very different, will always choose convenience. And will always buy time. This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. You're in the front of a room where 90 % of people can actually pronounce Gennady Alexandre's name. It's a rarity. Let me give you more details about this room and what we're up to here next four days.

1:28We have more than 150 high-level entrepreneurs, founders here, people who know how to build, how to operate, how to scale businesses. But sometimes with business success, it becomes more challenging to find rooms where you can be more transparent, honest, vulnerable about challenges you're facing in a business. And find communication that's non-transactional but still useful. And that's what we are building here. business event but in very intentional setting on top of community layer. And it seems like lately people don't want to listen more and more things because it's actually easier to find anything in your eyes stuff now.

2:12But people have a lot of demand for safe environment. Is it something you observe as well? Yeah, I think I don't think anyone here is confused. like standard information is a commodity. You know, intelligence, information is at our fingertips. And now with AI, it's nuanced and contextual. Back to safe environments, I think also to this room, everyone's incredibly aware that there's incredible emotion in society today. There's unprecedented level of judgment. People have always struggled with judgment, but now so many people live a far more public life than they have in the past because people are putting themselves out there digitally.

3:06And so, yeah, I think safe environments is what all of us have always gravitated to. Normally that's a mother or a father or a best friend or a spouse. But then when I think about what's going on here, you know, for so many of us here, when you're an operator, when you've achieved something, for many of us here, when you've achieved something from zero to something meaningful, finding other people that have been through those journeys, dealing with the same things. You know, for a lot of people that come from zero and achieve something, and now they have children who are spoiled, being able to talk to someone else who's going through that same thing, it's a connection.

3:47And so, yeah, I think safe environments have never been more important. On the flip side, what I also know about this room is being vulnerable doesn't come as natural to our culture as other places. And so, you know, finding the strength to be able to be vulnerable and tell people in here the truth, not half the truth, is a challenge for a lot of people. but I think when people get over the hump, and that's why one of the reasons I'm here is supporting events like this because this is a rarity. I know you know that, and I'm happy to be here. Appreciate it.

4:36You've personally navigated through massive paradigm shifts simultaneously while having massive pressure on you. You're running huge, the largest independent media company in the United States, almost 3 ,000 employees. Officers from Singapore, London, Manhattan. During same time when AI reshaped content creation, media, algorithms. You also run another company, we will touch on that later, that built partially on a layer of digital collectibles while blockchain regulations are not clear still yet. So how do you personally operate during times of constant change, pressure, FOMA, and keeping focus on clarity?

5:24This is so special for me to be with all of you because there's a real answer to this question that most people would not understand, but I think many of you will. the way I navigate through all the turmoil is because I'm not scared to go back to Vabrusk and live in a little shed you know I don't know again I don't know everyone's story here but there are two versions of people that come from very little and achieve success the ones that get there and become scared to ever go back and the ones that have absolutely no fear to go back. I'm in the second group. My ability to navigate everything I navigate is because I'm not scared to lose everything because I don't think everything is money and notoriety.

6:16I think everything is health and my family.

6:21And I appreciate that. And I will say, I also don't judge the people in this room that aren't in that place. In fact, I'm compassionate and empathetic for the people that are not in that place. I also understand not being in that place. But for me, I have no interest in success to buy fancy things or do fancy things. The only reason I do what I do for a living is because it is my favorite game. I don't want to be successful to go golfing or to go sailing or to buy a boat or to go fishing or to go hiking or to go to a sporting event. I don't want what this game of entrepreneurship can get for me.

7:12I want the game of entrepreneurship.

7:18So, you know, so to explain, I mean, you saw what I'm doing in there. I'm working. Like, I have 3 ,000 employees in just one of my eight most meaningful companies that's global, like five minutes before I came here, I'm literally texting with people about problems. Right? Like you all know this. The more that happens, the more problems you have. Right? Like it's not complicated. So, but a lot of us in this room like the problems. You know, some people are just firefighters. I like to fight fires. I like to play the game. So I don't even know how to live any other way. I like your full concept of, you call it practical optimism.

8:07You just said. Yeah, I mean, I'm incredibly optimistic. My mother is incredibly optimistic. My father is incredibly cynical. Hey, everybody. 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. You know, how many people here have very opposite parents, positive and negative, just by show of hands? Raise your hands if you're one of those people. So for 20%, 30 % of this room, you know, maybe at this point in your life, maybe you don't know, it's a huge advantage to have two very opposite parents because you can see the world completely.

8:47And so I've been successful because I have incredible optimism. I have my mother's DNA plus she raised me so it was compounded. But I can't see the world without hearing my father's voice that is incredibly classic Soviet. You know, everybody's fucking you. Everyone's stealing. Everything's bad. Everything's fucked up. Everything's a conspiracy theory. So it's impossible for me to be delusional. But inherently I'm optimistic. And so I call it practical optimism because I always am optimistic. I'm always hopeful. The other thing is I'm also very fortunate that I lack what many have, which is insecurity.

9:34So it's very easy for me to give to people because if someone fucks me, I don't care. I mean, if someone fucks my father, he hates them for life. For me, I don't see it that way. I'm glad we touched on that. You always have a lot of practical optimism to borrow for the whole room. I want to touch on another question of yours, intellectual property. Before that, you wanted to acquire previous intellectual property and flip it. That's a fascinating idea as well. But recently you created your own company and while operating many businesses, you call this specific company potentially your legacy company.

10:19Yes. Can you tell our audience what is intellectual property, why you have so much conviction in that, and introduce us to your friends as well? So for everyone here, especially given the talent in this room and looking around the room, I can even sense many people in this room are going to have another one or two or three businesses in their life. I cannot push you harder for intellectual property. I'm sure this room is fairly educated enough to know what's going on with AI and I have a funny feeling you all know this is not gonna stop today it's just gonna keep going if you play out the chess of AI one of the few things for sure that will be left and quite lucrative is owning intellectual property whether that's your masters on music or whether that's the image and likeness of characters or stories.

11:15For everyone in this room who's creative, and I'm very creative, but no one really knew that publicly for a long time because that's not what I was talking about, but behind the scenes, creativity, ideas, stories come very natural to me. It's why I'm a good communicator. So I couldn't push more of you. I hope I inspire just one person here that if you've had a character in mind or an idea or a story or a movie to really create it. I created VFriends five years ago because I wanted to create something that looked like Disney, that looked like Pokemon. I mean, Pokemon is worth$90 billion. You know, and it's fun.

11:58And so, you know, another thing that does not come very natural to our part of the world, I think grown-ups do not have enough joy, do not laugh a knife, do not act youthful enough. And so five years ago, when I saw that the blockchain was starting to get to a place where I thought consumers could start understanding it a little bit, because I was very active in the blockchain in 2014, 15, Ethereum, Bitcoin. But as you know, because you know my content, I didn't speak about it often. You could find a talk here and there because I don't like talking about things that I don't think are ready. But when I thought it was ready, five years ago, I created this universe.

12:43You're right. For anybody who knows what Scooby-Doo is or Care Bears or Transformers. No Pagody. What's that? No Pagody. Yeah, exactly. Those were the things I was thinking about. Things that used to be important. Cartoons, characters. Casper the Friendly Ghost, Woody Woodpecker. I wanted to buy one of them for$100 million,$50 million and refurbish it, make movies, toys, collectibles. But when the blockchain was ready, I made my own universe, thank you so much. I see the characters at the table. But honestly, as much as I'd love for you all to learn and collect VFriends, what would be much more interesting is if one of you here is very creative.

13:28Your whole life have been thinking about a character or a story or an idea. I could not push you harder right now to do it because owning intellectual property is one of the very good businesses of the next 25 years. So AI is stealing our jobs and fictional characters stealing our businesses. No, I think AI is, at least for the next decade, is exposing the truth. You know, I think what AI is going to do in the next decade is going to be very beneficial to a lot of people here. I think AI is an incredible exposure of the people that are actually creating the value versus the people that are a small piece of the process and are a commodity, and I think AI is gonna eat up in the short term.

14:18It's very hard to predict how far this can go in a 10, 15 year period, but at least for the next five or so years I think AI is the accelerator of the most strategic and the most creative. and I think a lot of us in this room will benefit greatly professionally. However, everyone of us also needs to be prepared for AI to kill us and our businesses and that's a very interesting relationship because when the internet did that in the late 90s, it took a long time. If the internet was gonna kill you, like a bookstore with Amazon in 1996, it took seven to 10 years. AI can take 17 months and kill you.

15:03And so we all have to be prepared for how fast this new game is and I'm very prepared. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about both extremes. This could be the great, you know, look at VFriends. I can make a VFriends movie that looks like Pixar in 24 months for a couple hundred thousand dollars that would have cost me 90 million dollars to make. on the flip side VaynerMedia my 400 million dollar a year agency we make most of our money by making content that's a problem so you know just living life so whether AI takes me to the moon right like our astronaut here where is she there she is or if AI takes me back to Babrusk I'm ready for either

15:55You also have been talking a lot lately about rise of so-called analog business. Why so? And what specific formats of businesses, communities, events you think are underrated now and might have momentum in the nearest future? I'm very excited for a lot of you about this. So I've been talking about something called the barbell. Extreme digital, AI, more social, more digital, more digital, more digital. but what it's creating is the beginning of analog. Analog. Bougie coffee shops. Drive-in movie theaters. Look what we're doing right now. If you pay attention to gen alpha, 12, 13, 14 year olds, some of you may have children in that age.

16:41They saw what their older siblings have dealt with with digital and they're pushing back a little bit. They don't want smartphones as much. they're asking for dumb phones, right? You're seeing this. If you look at the data around concerts and sporting events and golf and bowling and pickleball, it's very clear to me that over the next 10 years, what are we in, 2026? I think in a 20-year window, in 10 years it'll be 2036, but I think it's gonna feel more like 2066. I think the technology is gonna be very fast now, but I also think that people are gonna be acting more and more like 1966. So I think this next 10 years is gonna push us into extreme digital and extreme analog.

17:36And in that is incredible opportunity. If we start going into more four-day work week, now you have three days of leisure. if we're so efficient that we could be done at 3 o 'clock because our agentic agents are doing our work, what are we doing from 3 o 'clock to 10 p.m.? And so I think there's incredible business opportunity in the real world. I have a restaurant group that's going very well. We've got about 7, 10 restaurants. The next restaurant, I'm obviously more like the chairman, not the active day-to-day. I'm pushing my group to open a restaurant where when you walk in, you have to put your phone in a locker, and then you have to go sit at communal tables.

18:23I think this is coming. I can see even by some of your, we know it. We can feel it. It's coming. And when you know something's coming, and it's still not here, that's when there's money to be made. It's basically subconsciousness push to the extreme digitalization, and it's already happening. You know this, because you know my content. The number one thing I believe in, number one, is humans. We are the most adaptable ever. Everyone's like, oh, this is gonna kill us. That's what they've been saying for 17 trillion years. You know, we are so adaptable that we are sensing what's coming with AI, and so we're starting already in our actions to do things that are analog, and I think it's gonna be beautiful.

19:09I actually think it's very interesting to live in that kind of world, right? the incredible advancements of what AI can do in effectiveness, efficiency, output, innovation, but then the disconnect. And I think the last 10 years, we've been closer to the digital stuff, and that's why people feel burnout and things of that nature, and I think you can see the early signs. Thank you, great stuff. Let's open up to the questions, please. I know a lot of people here. Okay, first of all, let's clap your hands. Thank you for this introduction. Okay, guys. Let me also say real quick, I apologize. On the questions, obviously we just talked about what we talked about.

19:47I also know that I've been putting out content for 20 years and some of you have seen some of that or have different businesses and questions. I'm thrilled to talk about anything, not just what was talked about between Konstantin and I. So please and thank you for having me. What's your name, my friend? Max. Max. Have you been bankrupt in your life? Have I been bankrupt in my life? No, sir. Okay, thank you. Okay, IRS guy, thank you.

20:14I do want to build on that question because it's a great question by Max. Can I tell you why I've never been bankrupt? I've never, you know, it's very funny, Max. A lot of people think I do very high-risk behavior. And I do by standards. But I've never bet everything and I've always lived within my means. From 22 to 34 years old, I never made more than$60 ,000 a year. but I lived like I was making$25 ,000 a year, right? So I've never been bankrupt because it's back to being very practical and I don't think business is gambling. Oh, I've been broke. I mean, when I started VaynerMedia at 34 years, my father, I built my father's business from three to$65 million a year, worked at his business 100 hours a week and he paid me$60 ,000 a year.

21:09so I it depends on what you define as broke right but when I started VaynerMedia my biggest company have I ever been up no because I don't gamble you know I invest and I build I don't tend to do things that I think have a high chance of not succeeding and put too much in so everything's been kind of more like that, you know, I went through a divorce, so, you know, so there's that part, but no, my behavior doesn't speak to, it's more, I'm a marathon runner more than a gambler. Okay, thanks so much. Okay, next question, please. Hi. Hi. Can I ask on Russian? Yes, you can speak Russian. Yeah, I understand.

22:01A little bit. No, I speak a little bit. I understand. What's your name? My name is Anna. I am very proud of you and what you are doing. My question is, if you had only 30 seconds to give the most important advice to someone who only starts to develop their social networks, what would you say? Life is a self-aware game. Right? At the end of the day, the number one thing you need to do is this. You need to play for you, not for anyone else. The second you understand that, everything is possible. Does that make sense? I'll translate it later for her. It's okay. Can you ask one more question? What's that?

22:46She asks if she can have one more question. Oh, yeah, of course. You are just a great media empire. Please tell me, what are you now bringing in the team, so that every employee was the most effective employee? and what employees do you already have to change on AI? Ok, I don't understand. So, I mean, in the world of AI, which AI you specifically use in your business? I see. Maybe you already use some AI to replace some of the boring human in your business. And the number one thing, yes, I mean, there's definitely, I mean, I don't know, so a couple things. Replace is not even where I'm thinking.

23:21I just had a meeting with all 3 ,000 of my employees in the marketing company, and I told all of them, I have no interest in replacing any of you because I'm gonna be competing with companies that have people and AI. AI is not gonna replace you. People that use AI when you don't use AI is gonna replace you. So, but for me personally, my open claw is my life now. How many people here are using open claw? Like, for the people that raise their hands, we know. it's fucking harnesses, personal computer, I mean it's absurd what's going on with me and my open claw, we're gonna fucking dominate the world.

24:06And so obviously I use everything that any normal modern human is using whether that's clawed or open AI or Gemini, but the open claw, the harness, the personal computer, that's the step everyone in this room is gonna take in the next 24 months that is going to open up unprecedented opportunity. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, next question. That's exactly what it's possible. I'm from Dubai, I've been here, we have two start-up. There's one problem. When you do a big project, the Russians love these projects, a big infrastructure project plus a concept. The venture, who here are the decisions, they focus on the problems.

24:57They don't understand that there is a concept. But all the people, all the big companies built infrastructure and ecosystem. Take Apple, take other companies. They made big money on big ecosystems. But when I come here to venture, they say that it is very wide, I have to take only one part of the problem,

25:34I got most of it, but I want to make sure I don't lose it. I mean, he said like sometimes he has a project with a big scale idea, but the venture investors, they try to focus him on something smaller, like divide that in a smaller problem, should he keep fighting one big investor for the whole problem or divide it? Couple things that I think about. Number one, when you're asking for money, you're not in control. Right? So if you're asking investors to give you money, you see, what's that Russian saying about whoever pays for the music gets to pick the song. That's right, so you're asking investors for money.

26:19They're always, if you're the big thinker, they're a fucking investor. Right, they're not the innovator, they're not the operator, they're not the dreamer, they're always gonna wanna make you go smaller. You have two choices, keep asking more people for money that see your vision, or accept the truth of the smaller project And then once you have the money, do the bigger project.

26:52We have Pris Studio. It's Dubai Chocolate. Very nice. Thank you, brother. Yes. Thank you, my friend. Bribe is always welcome. Always. Like a true Russian. You never come without a gift. Hello, Gary. How are you? I completely agree with you that these legacy protection systems are currently the best bet against AI. And why I call them legacy protection? Because I'm afraid that governments or just market practices could take them away. I mean IP protection. I mean patents. I mean trademarks. Could be. And copyright. And you know, there's some parts of the world that don't honor the protection now.

27:41Yeah, yeah. And currently, I bet against AI with my IP. And I completely agree with you that this is my competitive advantage here. And you will be able to use AI to enhance your IP. Sure, sure. But at the same time, currently, for example, Apple and Google, and especially Apple, if I come to Apple with my patent, they just take away any competitors that infringe our patent. So there is no problem there. But I'm afraid that one day these legacy systems could leave us and then we're done. Basically, entrepreneurship is not awarded and like these first initiative is not awarded with... The upside?

28:40Yeah, with the market rewards basically. What do you think about that and should we be afraid of that? That governments and corporations do not protect us. What's your name? My name is Alex. Alex, I think you're too scared.