Why Adaptability is Essential in Business

0:00What did you see early on with the Ubers and the Facebooks? And what did you see early on that others didn't see? This. I'm doing show and tell. That this was about to become the remote control of our lives. What I predicted for myself properly was when this was invented. And I would tell you besides the day I saw the internet and the day that I really played with ChatGPT that first day when my brother AJ called me, the only other moment where I was like, oh, shit's really about to change was the day the iPhone came out. I went and got it. I turned it on. And within an hour, I'm like, okay. Like, oh, that was it.

0:46Because you know, and the kids, you don't know this. Up until that point, yes, BlackBerry, but not the same way on your computer. the internet was now on your with you at all times like literally until that point you could do some browsing on the blackberry but it was gang it was janky this was a screen that looked good and i was on winelibrary.com and it was just like i was at home and i realized that the iphone was going to change the world and that meant everything that was building on top of it was going to win This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

1:4699 % of every piece of gum I've ever chewed. And I chewed a lot of gum in the eighties. So the myth isn't true. What's that? The myth. I mean, I don't know what it's really doing, but so far I'm good. Well, let me tell you, man, if swallowing gum gets me in a position that you're gonna start eating it. Oh God. Yeah. Talking about, but I really just wanted to sit down with you, man, because for one, I'm a fan first. I really look at what you do. Thank you, man. Not only do I look at it, I need to start applying it because it's different when you look at something. Of course. If you're not applying it and if you're not doing the execution then that's a problem.

2:21Yeah I mean you know this you know let me give flowers back. You're such a true legend of like the era that you know so many of us grew in grew up in and you know this you've had so many of the artists and others that we admire come through and the ones that came through only once versus the ones that came through multiple times that word execution was a part of it yes right both mentally and actually physically and so i appreciate that and you know longevity is earned you know and um and i'm humbled by it but again you've been in the front row seat and you yourself have done it you know there's a lot of people have done your game as well and to be relevant that long you know wasn't just luck or the great looks that we were gifted Right, right.

3:13Yeah, I take that. I wish you'd need, besides chewing that gun, you need some fucking glasses. But that's not what we're here for. No, no, no. There's a lot of beautiful broke people. Yes, that is facts. But you come from very humble beginnings. Yes. And we've had a chance to kind of dive into that. And I come from humble beginnings as well, bro. But yours, everybody has their story. For sure. And for those that probably don't know my story, take me down to that humble. You know, I'm the byproduct of the American dream. I was born in the Soviet Union, the USSR. And for a lot of people, you know, I was a bad student except for history.

3:50But a lot of people struggle with their grades and history. When I was born in the USSR, it was like being born in North Korea today. Like, you can't leave. So the odds were very stacked against me of where I started. Got very fortunate that my family was able to get out. In the late 70s, the USSR was running out of money. and they were starting to sell people for, I was actually traded for wheat, wheat. Because the country was investing all of its money into weapons to keep up with the U.S., and it was running out of money. You know, when people are scared of communism and socialism, there's a reason.

4:27It hasn't worked in the last hundred years. And so we got out. Please. You say you were traded for wheat? Wheat. The United States traded wheat to the Soviet Union to let some people become refugees to get out. And we were part of that small group of a couple hundred thousand. So from the get, I've been completely driven by gratitude because my odds are so unlikely. My family immigrated to Queens, New York. And that's where I spent the first couple years in the United States. And then we moved to Edison, first Dover, New Jersey. What is that like when you first get here? New York, and especially at that time, New York was a different fast pace.

5:11It was also a very tough era. New York City was bankrupt. It was not pretty. I was very young. I was four or five years old when we were there. Those are sponge years. They are, and I remember it pretty well. In fact, I look back on it very fondly because my great-grandfather, Shia, so my grandmother's father my dad's grandfather him and I spent a lot of time together at that time because my mom had just had my sister and she was obviously with me at all times but when she was taking care of my baby sister I remember going to the park with him you know it's very funny my whole life I felt like an old soul and I wonder how much of that was DNA and then I wonder how much of that that was just my environment.

6:03Because I would spend a lot of time, my mom tells me stories that I don't remember, that I would go outside, and I would go and like call all the 70 and 80 year old old men by their first name and speak Russian to them, and chop it up with the old, the OGs, you know? And you know this, you know, and I thought it when I first walked in here, it ran through my mind, like coming up in anything, and then when you're in a position to be the OG, there's a lot of wisdom that we can spit on the kids. Are they listening sometimes? Yeah, not always. You know this, we were kids too. Right, definitely. There was OGs trying to tell us shit that we thought we were too cool for, what have you.

6:43But I think I absorbed a lot of that wisdom. And when you're young, you don't know any better. It wasn't that I knew that we were struggling. We lived very humbly. you know this is studio apartment one bedroom you know my sister's my sister's like bassinet or whatever she sat in was literally a car seat that my cousin Bobby found in the trash we come from real humble beginnings but we were also fortunate my father worked his face off we moved to New Jersey first over then we grew up in Edison New Jersey and we moved there in 182 when I was about to turn seven. And you know, I'm straight out of like wonder years, right?

7:33Meaning like everybody outside playing sports. You know, I was always hustling from the beginning. Lemonade stand. It's different though, because there's a different kind of hustle muscle when you come from very humble beginnings. Yeah, you know this. When you're not fed, you've got to go get your own food. You know, and so not only did we grow up with humble beginnings, but even when we went from poor to middle class, our mom was frugal. So we didn't have, like, at some point old, when I was older, I was like, wait a minute, we kind of got somewhere, but we were still living as if we had nothing because my mom didn't spend money on anything.

8:12Do you live like that a little bit now? I don't, but, and I do. Let me explain. I think someone would challenge that. Yeah, yeah. Yes, I do and I don't. Let me explain. I value time so much and have my whole life I also genetically was given the gift of generosity I also from the time I was 10 or 11 years old kind of knew that I would never have a money problem like that young even as a child I'm like oh money's not going to be my problem how did you know that? because I was making it when did you first start making money? you know when you do kind of a deep dive and I don't like going into deep dive.

8:53I have these conversations, right? But first job, how are you going to learn? I'm selling lemonade. I'm washing cars. I'm shoveling snow when I'm 7, 8, 9. Really early. Really early. You're not afraid of work. No. Not afraid to roll your sleeves up. No. And not afraid to go out and get your own. No, our whole fam is work ethic oriented. You know, like our parents had no choice. It came down to us. like you know we it's in fact it's put on a pedestal in the household that i grew up in there was a couple of things that were just unsaid or said but working hard was kind of like oxygen you know it was like there was no other way to even think about it there was really no choice and then we also saw it our father worked every minute we were you know every minute we see our dad when we were young he was working and our mom worked her face off she cooked every meal she cleaned up after all of us she like did everything and so we didn't even know any and again when you grow up in a neighborhood where everyone's kind of working and it's just like everyone's working it's like you know when we first moved to edison i would say it was lower middle class you know on its way to middle class we had the wrong side of the tracks a lot of you We went to Martin Luther King Elementary School.

10:18That's all y 'all need to know. You know what I mean? We went to MLK. Down here in Beverly Hills. Yeah. We went to MLK and we were far from living it up and there was people that had it worse than us. I don't know if you even remember this, but Eric Godfrey's dad wore the same clothes every day. You remember his dad? We had friends whose parents wore the same clothes every day. you don't think about it at the time because it's your environment now as i'm older i'm like and it what i just said to her i don't think i've ever even said to her it's my sister off camera like things are coming clearer to me as i get older and i'm like it's listen if you were born everybody's watching this is something i will die on this hill if you were born into a family that does not have much pool table.

11:12Doesn't have much by today's standards of everybody needs something. But you have love in the home? You're unstoppable. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web. Like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18+.

11:46So good, so good, so good. New summer arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack Stores now. Get ready to save big with up to 60 % off brands like Rag & Bone, Levi's, Adidas, and Free People. Join the Nordic Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. Let me tell you. Please. You know this. I'm from a family of eight. Yes. Single mom, seven kids. And what number are you? I'm six. I'm second to the youngest. And it's wild because I tell people the same thing. We didn't have money at all, but we were very affluent in I love you and semi bonded and being tight.

12:33You know what I'm saying? And it's wild when I ask you, how did you know? We had bouts of homelessness growing up, right? And it wasn't that my mom had any drug problems. She just had seven kids. It's a lot to take care of, yeah. And you get into this slippery slope. So we had a couple bouts of homelessness, right? And I remember we were living in a motel, not a hotel. All eight of us in, you know, I stand in a motel, what, 395 square feet, 420 square feet, whatever that is. And we're living there. And I remember I told my mom, like how you say you knew money wasn't going to. You knew. I always knew that I was going to be famous.

13:12You just knew. Five years of age, eight. I used to write autographs to people. And for some reason, all my autographs said best wishes, best wishes, you know, to Gary, best wishes, Kurt. Kurt is my cover. Yeah, of course. And so I remember one time we were in the motel and I told my mom, I said, mom I said one day because I always told people I was going to be famous I said one day I'm going to be famous I want to be rich and I want to buy you a house so we'll never be evicted and you'll never have to move again yeah and it's wild because even like what like with you and your mom in the church the New York Jets church there's just some things that you it's real no it's just real and so with me when my mom when I told her mom you know one day I'm going to be rich i'm going to buy you a house will never be evicted again she told me she could have said anything in the world gary she said i know you will now to a 10 year old key everything my mom could have said anything she could have said kurt please you know yeah of course i gotta get this rant like you know she could have said anything that could have shit on a 10 year old's drink so at that time not that it was a burden or i had to but i always had this drive that i got to do this for my mom my mom worked hard i never like what you saying that your parents worked hard there was a lot of love you probably didn't have to go outside of your household for validation yeah validation ever my mom was right there it's it's the toughest question that i get asked in interviews they're like which business like what do you look up to and i'm like i i hate it because there is no answer besides my parents but when you say no one you come off like you're audacious or Do you think you're special?

14:54And I know that most people, we had it. And we had it, and that's why we're sitting here. When your role models are your parents, you're in a very advantageous position. Like, I just, I never needed validation from the outside world, because I had so much of it in my four walls. And it's really an unstoppable feeling. And when you - It's a different drive. It's a different drive. And when you want to do it, you know, I was very motivated to do right by my parents my whole life. And clearly you were as well. And, you know, our stories are common. There's so many people. Like, it is one of the great stories in our society of the kid that says, Mama, I'm going to buy you a home.

15:40It's like, you know, I'm in the sports business. My brother and I have a sports agency. And, you know, a lot of athletes. You're in a lot of business. I'm in a lot of businesses. I'm in a lot of businesses. You just don't say dot, dot, dot. Like, oh, I do this, I do that. it's another tough question like what do you do I'm like a lot of things a lot I'm juggling um yeah man it's really great and it's like you know it's so it's you know you just chopping it up like that reinforce it I like I always like to hear the other versions because it reinforces because you never want to be a focus group of one one thing that I always promised myself when I started to realize oh shit I'm going to be talking a lot in my life is like never say anything just from my situation.

16:19Observe everyone else's. What are the common themes? You know, because you want to bring value to everybody on the other side of this camera. And I think a focus group of one is dangerous because it might be too circumstantial. But what is very clear is if you grow up in that home, it makes you unstoppable. Did you know that? And not did you know that early on, but is that, did you take it as a burden or you took it as a mission? I took it as a mission. yes same i took it as a mission i you know probably a mission that you didn't know that you were i knew i was on some kind of journey but mission is probably a word that's like but i knew that i wanted something different you know what's interesting with me is that and you've got you got me i appreciate what you're doing right now you're putting me down an interesting i opened an interesting door right now that's why i'm kind of looking down my game's interesting to me because my shit has always been i'm gonna use a music reference because I admire you so much.

17:17My great joy is to just be in the studio. If I was a musician, y 'all, I just like being in the studio. I never needed to prove to anyone, yes, I wanted to make my family proud, but if I'm being incredibly raw, I just want to be in my kitchen cooking for me, with me, my game. I'm in a cocoon. It's just insular. I never needed to prove it to anyone that didn't believe in me. I just, it came, that's where I'm a little different. A lot of people get to the top because they have energy that they need to prove something, often to their mom or dad, sometimes to others, opposite sex, no girl like me, I'm gonna get rich and get all the girls.

18:01I didn't have any of that fuel. For me, I just wanna be in the studio and I wanna do my art. I didn't have musical ability, I had entrepreneurial ability. for me some of my best moments are just me with myself on a long flight sometimes even when i'm dreaming i'm thinking i can feel it i just want to cook up the next invention i want to execute it i want to create my meal all these ingredients all this opportunity and i'm not scared to fail like a scientist right when shit doesn't i'm like here it is this potion watch this and it doesn't work, that's almost equally as exciting as if it does work.

18:40I'm in it for my craft. I say the same thing and people have it in different words, very words, but I always tell people they can look at some things with me, right? And they'll say, oh, certain things I do on radio. Oh, I love your phone task. Oh, I love this. I love that. Right. And there's certain things that people will say, man, you're always winning. I'm like, no, not really. and I always tell people I say I have more fails there's more L's in my chat than W's in my chat I have way more fail because I threw so many things up against the wall now you can look at the wall and you will see the things that stuck but if you drop your eyes just a little bit it's all these fucking things these darts the other thing that you did and I think we all do it because the world's been around for a while thing I always admired from afar that you did is we all have our games and we're all playing in our lanes, but you have plenty of L's.

19:33I do as well. We all do. But the thing that I really like is that you were able to, and I think I do this as well and many others do, is in your game, whether it was Z100 doing it in New York or something you caught in DC, what I think the best players in the world today do is it's hard to invent something. You know, it's not like we're here in 1649 and we can invent it from the scratch. I think your iterations in your genre were authentically you and the audience can smell it. Right? Yeah. When I first got hired, Gary, for one, are you familiar with the Far Side? Of course. I was a bodyguard for the Far Side.

20:17I knew that as well. So before I got into radio, I was a bodyguard for the Far Side. and that was just one of those things where i kind of stepped out on faith even though i couldn't see the whole staircase of course the opportunity that was presented to me and at first i wasn't going to take it literally i had this hip-hop line that if you called it it was my way of getting to the clubs for free you'll call it tuesday night hey guadalinda's going on you know and not you would call a regular line and i'll tell you about the club life someone heard that by the name of Cummins and the Baker boys who did the morning show and Friday Night Flavors at Power 106 in LA, they called and said, hey, you know, we got this guy that want to talk.

20:59What year was this? This is 1994. This year Memorial Day would be 33, about closing on my 32nd year. It's closing my 33rd. It was supposed to be one night and it was just one of those things man, where I got in and I said I got a kid. And you tasted it the first night, yeah. And then the second night, he called me back, said, would you like to try it for another night? And I'm thinking$35 an hour times four, because I'm ready to go on Lollapalooza tour with Farside and Wu-Tang and all this stuff, right? And I said, well, let me just try it. I stepped out on fate, even if I couldn't see it. And you knew it.

21:35Yeah. You knew it. It's just something that... By the way, I lived it a few months later. Ironically, just talking about hip-hop, I went into my friend Big Dave's. He was from Staten Island, And so he was banging Wu-Tang all day back then. And now in that moment, in that dorm room was the first time I saw the internet. And the first, just like you felt, you know, it's like, I always say this, it's like, there's sharks in the world and you give a shark one bleep of blood from a mile away and they're shooting at it. You felt that that night you were on, you're like, right. Same for me on the internet.

22:11Literally, I didn't grow up with computer. Like we, I didn't, we didn't grow up that way like i'd never been on the internet and i was on the internet in 94 in that dorm room and in one second and i mean one second i'm like this is it and who's who's dorm room big dave's i don't know but big dave i know this is a good story for you internet and it was it was actually it wasn't even big it was big dave's room because he was the alpha of the room they had four roommates it was actually pete from maine who had the computer with the internet on it and it just completely i just knew and i know what you're saying when you were on that night by the way that's what happened to me the first time i took the stage i was 31 years old the first time i ever gave a public speech were you a public speaker no i was a wine retailer and then i started this wine show on the internet and then i started making business content you see the wine show like it's like i started this one you know but that that's very innovative yeah Yeah, I mean, I started a YouTube show 20 years ago, February.

23:17A daily YouTube show. What made you understand that? I'm gonna use music as my comp, given your incredible career. I, by nature, am an A &R. 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. I, by nature, when I see things happening in society, I'm like, that, that, yeah. Just like the best A &Rs of all time. You know, I watch the documentaries and the music stuff. I always loved the A &Rs. Like, I went into this dive bar, and I saw fucking, you know, Motley Crue, and I knew it.

23:57And I'm like, fuck, I understand that feeling, because that's how I feel about TikTok or live shopping or the internet or YouTube. I understand, and by the way, you might know this because this is what you do, like, whether it was Gunna or Dochi, like I do it in music sometimes too because it's all the same game. I don't think I have the same ear in music that I do in technology and consumer behavior but it's all the same game. Like, you know, it's all the same game. It's like, do you feel and do you understand where things are going? And with YouTube, it was very simple. I was doing internet stuff, selling wine on the internet and then this YouTube thing hit and it was video on the internet.

24:34It wasn't complicated. It sounds genius now because when we look in the rear view mirror everything sounds genius. Correct. But when you're looking through the windshield, you know what I'm saying? That's like different kind of shit. But you know what's funny? I look at pop culture historically. I think about MTV all the time. All the time. Right? So I don't know if you all know this who are watching. Many of the biggest acts in music in the early 80s said no to making a music video for MTV because they thought they were giving away their music for free. Yes. You know this. So they thought it was giving away their music for free.

25:13What the princes and Madonnas and Michael Jackson's and Twisted Sister and Duran Duran understood was it was free promotion. So life is simple. You find what you're looking for. This is why so many people eventually get money and then go on defense. So many people go from zero and get to a level and then they stop because they're scared to lose it instead of realizing it's the foundation to build on top of it. So for me, YouTube was easy. I'm like, oh, this is television. Who was watching? No one. Right. No one. But again, let's just use, like, you know, obviously. But you knew something was there.

25:55But it goes back to, like, you know, my favorite music genre that you touch on a lot. Hip-hop, no one was listening. and then the and eventually everyone was listening everything has to start at something i always laugh when the rock i again going back to history all those rock and roll people that were shitting on hip-hop i always laugh because i'm like but rock and roll was new too it wasn't like when rock and roll hit all the jazz people were like that's bullshit and and by the way you know when edm when electron when that started popping i watched my hip-hop friends saying that's bullshit i'm like Don't do that.

26:31Don't do that. You know, you see it now with Korean pop or rigatone. Like, shit's always going to be moving. And as the great poet said, never get high on your own supply. And so a lot of people interpret Big E's line a lot of different ways. My point of view is whatever makes you money might be the vulnerability of the next chapter. And too many people get locked in. like our era we may shit on mumble rap but the kids like it and so like who are we yeah you understand because i know my radar i have a 19 year old son and i have a 17 year old art so i use them a lot for course radar of course and it's the great it's the reason to have kids a hundred thank you for adding to my career now pay me back but yeah so i always kind of check the radar when i first got into radio gary like if i've been i always just said i'm on change resistant i'm change resistant but i know how to change when i first got into radio my first commercial was on reel to reel i like the splice it i'm playing albums and i'm playing cds and carts and that world started to evolve and become digital and you can fight it but the more you fight it and the way that we see things now some people are fighting i tell i tell the old heads all the time the number one way to get the kids to respect or be interested in the shit we came up with is not by shitting on their shit it's by trying to understand their shit which then you'll get respect if you respect them first and then you can introduce big daddy cane to a kid that's all about you know the amigos at the time i remember i've never given a history lesson so that's just not music it's crazy they don't want to hear that of course not see that even more so because now things are going even faster so to make you a dinosaur i remember sitting in the station and talking about ai and it felt like we went from zero to a billion in a heartbeat and now i question everything i look at well i question of course here every single person in three years will not believe a single thing on the internet that's a crazy concept that is going to be foreign to all of us but again back to music i was there on day one napster and that shit was crazy like again bunch of kids in here you have no idea what it felt like to be like yesterday the only way you would have access to music is if you went to the fucking mall and bought the CD or your friend had it and now you press a couple of buttons and you have it you didn't even fucking understand and it felt like it was just like it appeared it always does somebody had yeah it always does but you know this it feels at the moment that it appeared but then when you understand it and look back it was a step of a million little things and the question becomes when do you find it it goes back to people just a and r's you know how people like hate on the band that they loved when no one knew them right that's such a cliche thing you loved it when no one knew now they're you know when they were a dive bar band or somebody you loved them now that they're selling out you know arenas you You hate them.

30:05They sold out. You know, I just don't understand that framework. I understand why people do it. But the reality is, is that there's just so much opportunity when you embrace change. And there is almost guaranteed defeat when you resist it. Have you always been that guy? Yeah, because. Yes. And I'll I'll I finally have a good analogy for it. I use Star Wars for it. Like, and I use like the jungle. Like, I feel like if you love the jungle, you can't just love it when you're a young lion and you're killing everyone. If you actually love the jungle, then you have to be prepared to be an old lion and let the young lion kill you.

30:58I love entrepreneurship so much that it has been the foundation of what has built my life, but I'm equally prepared for it to kill me. If AI is the technology that kills me, I'm okay with that because you can't love the game. This is why I fuck with athletes. Athletes go from being, like watching LeBron right now is so poetic for me. He's still crazy. He's still doing shit that makes no fucking sense. But like going OG, like I remember when Kareem was getting older or when Larry Bird's back went out or even Kobe, even though he ain't crazy in his last game, RIP. Like what I love about sports is even the best you can watch in your eyes deteriorate.

31:46And we all see it in life. Too many people try to hold on. What they do is they start to demonize and shit on the game that built them everything. Right. How could you be a hip-hop head that grew up in the era when we had the Fat Boys and Beastie Boys and all this crazy shit when everyone was shitting on it and you had to live just for Yo! MTV raps and now it's the biggest genre in the world. Well, if you grew up with that and you benefited from it, you can't shit on K-pop or on a new version of hip-hop because then you're disrespecting the game that put you on. and so for me i've always been that guy and i'm even more of that guy than i realized because when i got older five ten years ago and i said wait a minute you got all these people that love entrepreneurship and capitalism in the game but then i started to meet the 70 and 80 year olds that were ahead of me and i was like wait a minute they're using their money to pay off politicians to keep their money i'm like that's cheating i'm like that ain't the game you're not good enough to compete with me anymore.

32:53So you want to change the rules of entrepreneurship because you're the old lion and you don't have that 19 hours a day energy. In the summer, you want to be in Ibiza and Saint-Tropez on your yacht while I'm in the fucking office cooking. The fuck are you trying to change the rules for? And I promised myself I would never become that guy and I will not be that guy and I'm not that guy right now. And when I watch people on the come up that make content that gets more views than me, that start companies that are bigger than me. I don't have jealousy or envy. I have fucking hat tip and respect. I get the same thing when I look at certain, like even podcasters.

33:32I'll look at it and at one point people used to say, oh, a podcaster, man, that's the graveyard. Podcasters used to be people that so-called couldn't get a radio job. That's right. Oh, they can't get a radio job. That's exactly right. Now you look at podcasters and you look at content creators or you look at influencers, whatever those may be, and they're running the game. And I can sit here and say, man, I've been in here 32 years and there's some people that's lapping me. But I look at what my next moves are. That part. And what I'm going to do. That part. You know, for longevity or even to walk out the way that I want to walk out.