The Future of Business in 2026: Live Shopping and AI

28:36So I think that when you're trying to put content out online, when you're trying to differentiate yourself from whatever AI is out there, the faster you get the reps in that allow you to get comfortable to put your 100 % self online, I think that's how you win this game. But that's not even online. That's just the thing that people come to me to ask about. It's just in life. It's in careers, in relationships. It's everything. Yeah, I mean, I've been spinning that song since 2009 on the internet. I could not agree with you more. What changed in 2026? because I know that you, 2025, you were building business, Gary.

29:14You were building VaynerMedia and all the different, you know, you have a whole bunch of companies underneath it. What's the 2026, Gary, bet? Leaning more into brand Gary Vaynerchuk again, Gary Vee, and leaning more into VeeFriends, my Pokemon Marvel Sesame Street, and living a motto, which I only live, like every seven or eight years, I'll come up with like a yearly motto. It's very rare for me to do stuff like this, but I have one this year, which is called intentionality and impact. I'm being very intentional around my 10 businesses, my 50 executives that are kind of roaming, that are homies, that are like doing different things within my ecosystem, and I'm measuring everything on impact.

30:02So it's a very sports year. It's a very, I like sports so I'll use it. It's a very like one of those psycho football head coaches that like sleeps in his office to four in the morning and like for the big game. Like if the whole year is a week of a big playoff football game, I'm in the office watching film, talking to my players and my other coaches from seven in the morning to three in the morning, coming home, giving the family a kiss, sleeping for four hours and going back out. Like real intentionality strategy. and then I'm gonna measure the results on impact. Like if my players are trying hard in practice on Thursday before the big game and they're trying hard and they're the best kid but they dropped four passes, like they may get benched.

30:44I can't measure on intent or loyalty or karma or vibes like I tend to like to measure on. 2026 has to be around impact and that's because I feel like I do that every five years or so. You know, since COVID it's been a different game for me, different circumstances, million different variables. And I don't know, I feel, and honestly, I'm just doing that because I intuitively feel I need it and I want it and I want it for my organization and my people and the ecosystem and I'm excited about it. It feels natural and intuitive and that's why I'm even doing this podcast, right? I haven't done a lot of shows, but I want to be more out there because Gary Vee, the brand, is the top of the funnel of all my, people will listen to this podcast, rediscover or discover me, or change their mind about me.

31:31because I went deeper. It's not just one 30-second clip on social. Right, Scott? And that may lead to them showing up to my pickleball team's game in Central Park this summer because they go down the rabbit hole of Gary. They learn about all the different things I do. And for them, taking their kids to a pickleball match in Central Park is the joy and all the good stuff they get from me in the next nine months. That will be the thing. And I think about things like that. So when you say you're measuring, you're measuring differently in 2026. You're measuring on impact as opposed to some of the other vibes, good feelings, whatever that list of things are.

32:07What does that actually mean though? I'll explain. Yes, you're top of fun. I'll explain. More and more podcasts. I'll explain. But what does impact mean? I was talking to somebody on my team on the VFriends team who's been with me a long time talking about VFriends social media and she said, XYZ, XYZ and I said, but it didn't get any views. That was it. And that's not an answer. That is a Gary Vee answer. But it's not a Gary Vaynerchuk answer to that person around this issue the last 12 months, and it is now. It's just a merit year, you know? Because I know that person works 12 hours a day. I know that person is carrying the load of other people.

32:42And it goes to like, hey, if you want to succeed, you may have to hold the people underneath you accountable. I, at my best, motivate and create safety. I, at my worst, create entitlement. Because I'm a superhero. I protect everyone. If I'm doing the hunting and the gathering for everyone, I always say, tough to be hungry if you've been fed. I am my worst. Feed everyone financially and emotionally.

33:14You know, you're very specific about how you want to make impact in 2026. I know you speak a lot now about AI. You speak about AI influencers. You speak about live shopping. I saw your setup that's just set up for live shopping streams. So I hear you're speaking about Substack a lot. I know you just did a partnership and an investment at The Stand. So there's a few key plays, right? So I want to understand because you have a great ability to see shit way ahead of when the rest of the world sees shit. So I just mentioned a couple key things. we can go in a couple different directions but out of those four things I just mentioned what's the most exciting or pick one good news because now you primed everyone's palettes let me bounce around and go rapid fire so everyone gets their lick on what they heard from you I'm pumped about Substack because I'm happy for writers even though Substack is becoming more of an overall social network because they got video the fact that people that write fiction and non-fiction or journalism can actually get people to pay them$199,$399,$699 a month, that's now accepted, not all content is free.

34:26And like, people can make a living. They used to be a third tier writer at a magazine that wasn't giving them a chance, now can be a personality on Substack and like keep all the economics for themselves. I'm intoxicated of this opportunity for writers. I am not one of those people. My writing comes from me talking and being turned into writing. Live shopping. There are millions of people trying to be famous influencers. Many of them do not have the ability or destiny does not have it in them for them. However, they are destined and are capable of being salespeople. They are destined to be stars of the QVC meet social media era we're in, which is live social shopping, TikTok shop, Twitch, whatnot, eBay live.

35:09We're in this incredible era of this next massive opportunity, which is humans are stores and personalities and are selling in feed of these social media apps and these new standalone apps like Whatnot, huge opportunity. It is the side hustle. It is the career change. It is the empire that many people will build. They will sell stuff of their own or other brands' stuff on social and build huge, huge opportunities. Stand Store, investor, advisor. It is a place to sell digital access or digital products. There are many people who have a million followers on Instagram but don't get brand deals. They talk about cooking and they can make a$29 e-book, you know, cookbook on Stan's store.

35:57Literally make posts on social, say go in my bio and buy the book and we'll change their life. I've like been blown away by people in this Stan challenge I did last year for eight weeks that had never sold anything in their life. Anything. And were able to sell digital products. That's hard. You know, or one-on-one meetings or whatever they want. So I recommend people checking out Stan's store. What was the fourth one? Well, you talked about AI influencers and that's a big thing people are worried about. Well, why would you worry about something that's an inevitable outcome?

36:32Like, I don't know why people were scared about AI. Like, we were scared about electricity, made the world better. We were scared about cars and planes, made the world better. We were scared about television, typewriters, the internet, home computers, mobile devices. I know a lot of people are like oh but you don't get it Gary made the world worse no it didn't you might have an ideology around you know like the good old days like the data supports what I'm saying not what you're emotional about like do you know how many Scott for everyone who's worried about like losing a brand deal because of an AI influencer they're gonna have their mother live seven years later because an AI is gonna diagnose a cancer earlier than a human can like this is a ludicrous conversation yes people are going to lose their jobs people lost their jobs when Google came out there were 60 ,000 people selling yellow pages advertising that lost their jobs I mean you know like when the tractor on farms was invented almost everybody worked on a farm 150 years ago everyone's like oh now everyone's is gonna be out of a job.

37:44No, no, we got better jobs. We built corporations, we built media companies, we built inventions. I don't understand what people think here. You might be in trouble. Like the person listening right now, you might be a 45 year old designer that works in Adobe that doesn't have a single creative idea in your life and you take dictation from someone and you go and Photoshop and make it and now that is being replaced by Nano Banana. Like yes, you might, but again, as this conversation started, you know this is coming so where does accountability and self-reliance jump in? Like, you know, this is life.

38:21Like, this is life. Like, we are all gonna face adversities in the macro and the micro. You might have a perfect life, perfect life right now, and tonight your spouse is gonna tell you that they went to the doctor and they've been terminally diagnosed. Now you have a very shitty life. This is life. This is why I have gratitude so much, Scott. Today's a good day. No one died. It's a great day. It is a great day. No, I think that, so I think that people, they live in fear. And Scott, I want to say something. I'm sorry. Yeah. There's a lot of people that don't know me that just said, easy for you to say, you won.

38:57No, no, no. I won because this is how I thought in my teens and 20s. Scott, you know who's interesting to interview? Not me. You should interview the people that knew me from 15 to 25. They'll give you the answers to the quiz. Because the people on the other side right now don't believe me because they view me as successful. And they think everything coming out of my mouth is because I am successful. And I know the reason I'm successful is because everything coming out of my mouth was there before I was successful.

39:32People look for every single reason as to why they're not where they want to be. and AI is just another excuse. Correct, and the answer is in such a very simple place, in your fucking mirror. I got the answer for all of you right now. Every one of you, I got good news and I have to do this to myself too, so this is nothing I don't deploy against myself. Tonight and tomorrow morning, look at that mug in the mirror. That's the one. That's your problem. That's the issue. And I know you're used to hearing it and it's cliche for a reason. it's out in the ether for a reason it's called it's fucking true you are capable no matter what you think listen if you're so bougie that you're used to your luxuries and you don't have the humility to take a step backwards to make yourself actually happen who's happy whose fault is that like if you don't have if you have so much insecurity aka ego that you can't trade in your BMW for a Toyota to get that extra hundred bucks a month or 200 or 300 in your lease back into your pocket so you can save for a year to then do the thing that you're saying you don't have the money for.

40:47Well, whose fucking fault is that? The government's? It's just yours. It's just yours. It's just yours. Scott, do you know how many people blame Trump for all their problems and then blame Biden for all their problems and now we're blaming Trump again for all their problems? A lot. I'm aware. I have a huge company that analyzes the sentiment of everything being said on social media. Like, Scott, do you know there's a 39 year old woman right now listening to this that blames everything on their mom? They're 39, Scott. Was it 22? Was it 18? Was it 25? Was it 30? Was it her 31st birthday? When was she supposed to take on the accountability?

41:26Meanwhile, she's spending money on dumb shit. How about therapy? How about meditation? How about exercise? How about listening to podcasts like this 24-7? Kudos for listening to this. Where is accountability in your ecosystem? I blame myself for shit that's logically not my fault.

41:46I'm gonna say that slow, it's an important sentence. I blame myself for shit, circumstances, issues that logically are clearly not my fault if the world judged it. I'm like, no, Gary, why are you doing that? Sam was such a dick. well I didn't have to engage with Sam. I could have sniffed out Sam. Scott, do you know how many people say that they get walked all over? I say nice guys finish first a lot and I get so many people triggered by that. Fuck that Gary, you're so delusional. I'm a nice guy, I get shit on. I'm like, you're not a nice guy, you're a manipulator. You're doing nice things with the expectation of someone doing something nice in return.

42:28Being nice and being kind and giving means without expectation.

42:38Do you think, do you think, because you are the epitome of why I created this podcast. You're the epitome of tactical plus mindset. Yeah. That's the goal. I agree. Do you think that your mindset and the things you talk about, because you keep going back into it and leaning back into it and I gave you the floor and you could have gone into operator mode and talked about the most practical sub-staff. And you do. Well, by the way, here's, Scott, I apologize for interrupting you. Everyone, don't get mad at me but I'm going to a moment. Scott, I know they can all chat GPT it, bro. How do I use sub-staff?

43:19Ready? Let me help. I own a flower shop. I listen to Gary V on Scott Clark's podcast. He talked about sub-staff. This is literally the prompt in audio form to chat GPT. I listened to Gary. I want to use Substack to drive my business. What are the five best tactics?

43:36The fucking tactics are worthless, Scotty. Why you're not doing the tactics is the interesting part. Why you don't have the discipline. Why you don't have the habit. Scott, me and my trainer just had such a great morning today. I wanted to go in the gym today with the same energy that you want someone to come to your house right now with a sword and cut your face off. And I woke up and I did not want to go and I was thinking about everything I could text him. Look at my throat, listen I'm a human, like I'm like, you know? And I fought and I got there and we did soft tissue and I'm working on reactivating my glute med because my muscle detached from me at 18 when I hurt my back and trying to get my adductor and QL better, this is for all the trainers everyone, I'm going through a great mission and all this and like, man, the joy I had leaving the gym this morning at eight o 'clock in the morning, leaving the gym at eight o 'clock in the morning after being working last night to midnight because I'm in the trenches of crypto Twitter, building up VFriends, NFTs, because NFTs are rising again.

44:39The greed era is over when the collector era and all this stuff, right? And like, I know what it feels like to be lazy. I don't want to work on my health and wellness. I want to eat garbage and never work out. It is in me. It was how I was brought up. I don't want it. I hate it, and for the last 12 years, I have fought daily to be better, and it has profoundly been good for my life. I want people to do that around their self-esteem versus their insecurities, and I want them to do that around their work ethic and their business strategies and things like that. But the business strategies are declining in value, the mindset's increasing in value.

45:15It's rare. It's very rare. That was the question. The question was, what do you think has the most impact? When you're measuring for impact, Is it the tactics, is it the strategies, is it the mindset? And I believe the same thing. You can Google every single tactic on earth. Building a business is hard work but it's not complicated. Everything you gotta do. And there's people like me that you're right. I got some weird ass luck of pattern recognition and curiosity and like, yeah man, I do intuitively have a little bit of like, I've got the gift, no different than Beyonce's got a voice gift and LeBron's got a bass.

45:55I have a gift of taking very early information and kind of knowing how the checkers are gonna play out while everyone, how the chess moves, excuse me, are gonna play out while everyone's still figuring out if it's a game of checkers. I'm already into checkmate and chess. That is my great business skill. I'm very grateful for it. And the fact that I'm intellectually, that I am intellectually generous. and by the way, I'm talking about me right now. There's a lot of people like me that we live in a 2026 world where you have characters like me that are running around that can actually see around quote unquote corners and then out of being perfectly parented by the best mother of all time want to go out and give that information away for free at scale and are good at it so it shows up in your feed?

46:44What? The only thing that's left is your relationship with yourself your relationship with yourself, how you feel about, Scott, I think I'm the best of all time. I'm acutely aware I'm not, but that's how I feel. And that's the starting point of me being kind to everyone else. Because you can't be kind to everyone else if you're not kind to yourself. No wonder everyone's a dick face. They hate themselves. But my question to all of you that just resonated with that is, why? Because if you do not like yourself, I want to remind you that someone else put that in your mind. that is not your true essence with you.

47:21And I am here to take that shit out of your mind.

47:28You need zero validation from anyone else, but I think that that ties into something that a lot of people struggle with. I think they're always looking for outside validation. Yeah, I think I got so much validation from my mom and from the merit of results in business and sports that it became my framework, right? I had this loving parent, and then I was addicted to merit. All I cared about was business and sports. School's not merit, Scott. Class participation is subjective in 35 % of some grades.

48:01Sports is merit. Miami lost last night. We're filming this right after the national championship. I have no idea what Scott's doing. That's for context. Miami University lost to Indiana. The end. I don't know. I'm in Miami. Yeah, the end. They lost, right? I know. Now they had an incredible year and actually made a great run, but they lost and Indiana won, right? VaynerX does$400 million in revenue. We have one of the biggest agencies independent in the world. People can say GaryVee, you know this about me maybe, because you're like really in tune. People sometimes in my comments are like, what does this guy even do?

48:38Because they think I'm a motivational speaker. Or a rank. I know this. I know what you do because I'm in the marketing world, but a lot of the people that my peers who know you have no idea. Correct. That's not subjective. When people are like, what does this fucking guy do? All you do is yap, yap, yap. I'm like, okay, but I also do this. Then even deeper, some of the biggest things I've ever done, I don't even talk. I was the co-founder, co-created the idea with Ben Leventhal of Resi, the restaurant app. I co-created that. Even people that do research on me don't know that. I started a wine brand called Empathy Wines that I sold for tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars to Constellation Brands.

49:18That is a huge success of a creator creating a brand. The thing that Logan Paul or Mr. Beast or others get a lot of accolades for. Most people don't even know that part of my story. I do many things. My sports agency is red hot. My restaurant group is red hot. I'm building the next fucking Pokemon in people's faces and they can't even see it. I'm one of the most successful authors. I'm one of the most compensated public speakers in the world. and most of all I'm a nice guy and guess what? Most people don't know that and I'm okay with it brother. It keeps me up. I can rant on it right now when you bring it up as a context point.

49:54I'm saying all this to explain to people I don't need the cheering. I need to see if I'm good or not. I'm curious Scott. I want to see if I can build all these. Am I the greatest business juggler of all time or not? That's what I'm trying to figure out. Why? Why are you trying to figure that out? Why have you, because that's what I can figure out. Why don't you go all in? Because it's fun. It's more fun. I'd rather make less money and be happy. I like it. It's joyful. I'm creative. I'm a little bit more creative. I'm a little hippy-dippy. I'm a little bit more like fucking a nomad. I'm like one of these funny fucking, I'm like one of these funny people.

50:37I'm funny, bro. If I didn't have business, I'd be like a really interesting, like gypsy kind of weird ass dude. Long beard, talking about spirituality. Like, I don't know, because I'm an entrepreneur and I'm creative.

50:54That's it. It's fun. It's more fun for me to juggle 11 businesses, three break and fail, eight do well, but they make half the money if I went all, you know this, Scott. If I went all in on VaynerMedia, it'd probably be doing 2.3 billion right now. I'd have a lot more money. But I don't, I didn't want money when I didn't have it. The fuck do I want money now when I have it?

51:24What do you say no to? I need to say no to a lot more. One of my great weaknesses is I'm obsessed with maybe skewing to yes. But I say no to, you know, I say no to people wanting to do anything during two things right now in my life for sure. Sundays when the New York Jets play or when my son has a basketball game. That is no. No, no, no.

51:52I say no to my teams when they're presenting information that means nothing. I say no to one hour meetings when I know they're 15 minutes. I say no to my leaders who are trying to deploy manipulation or politics on their teammates. I say no to the universe of people that are listening right now when they want to blame anybody but themselves. Today we helped a... Latte for Sam. ...coffee shop get an insurance quote simply and easily and made sure... A floral delivery van was able to make someone's day. We're the Hartford, with decades of experience insuring millions of unique small businesses. When it comes to your small business insurance, one size absolutely does not fit all.

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53:54What scares you now? The death of my family. Still? Still. Nothing else. Literally nothing else.

54:05Nothing else is, everything else is controllable. Gary, are you scared of like a civil war in America? I'm like, no, bitch, I'll go to New Zealand.

54:18I don't know, like, and by the way, I can afford to go to New Zealand in a good way, but I have the mentality of going to Peru with a dollar. So now what? How do I lose, Scott? They freeze my assets here. Like, let's say, like some weird civil revolution in America, and they freeze my assets. One, I got a million buried in the backyard. Two, let's say I can't get to it because I got to go now. I'll start from the beginning in Peru with my family. We'll go. We'll have a garden. It'll be nice out. Let's go. Like, who gives a fuck?

54:52I love this. I love this idea. This is something that has made me able to take risks. The idea of like, who gives a shit if it fails? If worst case scenario happens, if everybody's alive, healthy, well. You wake up tomorrow. Scott, how can I live in a world where you start a podcast in a year and be like, did you guys hear? Gary lost all his money, made five bad decisions. I guess everybody was right. I was a fan. I had him on the show four years ago. I guess the guy was over his skis. He wasn't as good as we all thought. Why would I live my life on that? Who gives a shit? I'm gonna live my life on tattletaling and gossip?

55:27The fuck are we in? Fourth grade? Friends, we're not in fourth grade. I'm not worried about the whispers

55:39and let me tell you why Scott back to adversity if I could go through my childhood in the 80s and early 90s in New Jersey where grown ups my friends, parents and teachers looked me dead in the face as a 9 year old an 11 year old, a 14 year old, a 16 year old and said you are going to be a loser in this earth if I could deal with that Well, of course I can deal with everything now as a grownup. This is why adversity is good. They said I was going to be a loser because I got bad grades, everyone. They couldn't see the charisma. They couldn't see the salesmanship. They couldn't see the competitiveness.

56:14They couldn't see the tenacity because that was the rules of society back then. And I think today we don't see the kindness. I think we all don't judge people enough by how kind they are. But I think those will be next generation winners. In fact, I have a comic book. I don't know if you do videos, Scott but even if you don't we got a good YouTube put it up there this is one of my favorite I want every kid on earth to fall in love with this kindness is the ultimate strength I'm like literally making like I'm living my truth I'm like I'm gonna make a fucking feature film out of this, Scott I'm gonna have everybody lined up at the Chinese theater in LA I'm gonna make Kind Warrior fucking Superman if it's the last thing I do why?

56:54because kindness needs to be put on a pedestal not money not followers not check marks, not status, not handbags, not Mercedes, not private planes. Kindness, motherfucker. Who the fuck are you? Not what do you have. I feel like the world has lost a lot of kindness since COVID. Me too. And bro, it was good news. It's been happening because we've become more materialistic. I love capitalism. I'm an entrepreneur. But extreme capitalism and technology, I love, as we talked earlier, but we don't have respect for our elders anymore. We've lost civility. Politicians have become complete shitheads. They're like fucking teenagers.

57:38And parenting has not held accountability. We need more moms smacking their 14-year-old son when they're disrespectful. A lot of things have happened. It's not one thing. You know what? I need your last opinion on this because this is real. I feel like social media is the most powerful tool for good but also for bad. And I think social media is to blame for a lot of lack of kindness. I don't think so. I think it's a great exposure. It's an empty, there is no social media. Scott, there is no social media. It's just people. Do you blame podcasts for ruining the world? Never. Okay. Well, guess what?

58:21There's a lot of podcasts that spew unlimited hate. Brother, there is no social. There is no podcast. There's humans using social. There's humans using podcasts. This is a parenting pandemic of the last 40 years. This is a mature empire issue. This is an entitlement issue. This is a self-esteem and insecurity issue. And this is a lack of loving yourself issue, which then shows you're worse because then you start hating others because you started with yourself. We need to get to some real old school values and we need people that are in good places like myself spewing love and hope. But practical optimism.

59:04I'm not out here on some delusional, this is the secret, everything's kumbaya. You have to fucking work. And that's that. I gotta go, I love you. I love you so much too. Thank you so much for having a second to come on. Where do you want people to connect with you? They can find me. they can find you. I appreciate you, dude. Have a good one. You too, man. Hey, everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.