Why Followers Don’t Matter Anymore in Business | Money Buys Happiness Podcast

0:00Gary. Yes sir. You've been saying that in the next five to ten years followers won't matter as much. Yes. Why is that? Because they don't matter as much right now. And what do you think is happening? You know, just to kick off the show right away, like, I don't predict. Yeah. I talk about things that are actually happening that I'm aware that I might just be a little faster to the observation because of what I do when I wake up in the morning. In the same way that I know some people are skinnier or stronger or better at golf, when I wake up in the morning, as I did this morning at 4.30 a.m., which is unusual.

0:32I actually believe in seven, eight hours of sleep, but I was in Oklahoma City for game one. Even on the way to the airport, you know, at 4.45 in the morning, I'm looking at what's happening in culture. Like, how's this Trump, Elon beef going? What's going on with the boo-boos and that fucking toy? Like, what are the It Girls doing? What are the fucking golfer bros from Yale doing? Like, what's the lacrosse girls at Duke doing? What's the Jamaican bros that like scape? I am a cultural anthropologist. And then where does that culture play out? Well, it plays out in social. Yes. Right? So then the next thing I'm looking at is like, what are the platforms doing?

1:11What's the algo doing? You know, is there a new feature? What's happening with live? Why is this happening? Why is this happening? Why is this happening? Why is this person popping off? Why is this person declining? So that all leads to when I started saying like, followers don't matter as much, that started happening three years ago. That happened when I was yelling about TikTok in 2017. That's why I was yelling about TikTok in some reason of 2017 and 18, which was, A, I knew that a lot of tension was gonna go there and that was good for all of you. Like, oh, you missed Instagram, you missed fucking Facebook and Twitter.

1:44Well, here's your chance. Ironically and not ironically, so many people that had 80 ,000 on Instagram that were crying that they didn't have a million couldn't go over to TikTok and get to their million because they had the insecurity of having no followers there. Yes. And they didn't want to start over. Yep, yep. Right? Whatever the fuck that means, all that life is is starting over. Yep, yep. Every day is starting over. Like real talk, especially for winners. So I think that, you know, I think we're there. I mean, like, and I actually think we will continue to decline, I think, meaning, now actually, actually, if I was sitting with, you know, Facebook, Meta, Zucks, the product team, TikTok, I would say, yo, you need to go to the extremes.

2:27On the left, like I think when I open my feed, there should be a toggle, two options. Left side, full interest graph. Just give me nothing, which is where some of the platforms are heading. Just give me nothing, but at this moment, I give a fuck about trading cards and comic books because of VFriends, the Knicks, the Jets training camp starting, wine. Like give me my, the 80s nostalgia, give me my shit. And then on the right, let me have 150 followers that I can have, but I want to see every fucking post from them. Okay. You like that? Yeah. Like that's what I would do if I like ran TikTok or Instagram or Twitter right now.

3:05That would kill. And I actually think there's no outcome that that doesn't become possible because I think it's pendulum swings. We only got content in 2008, 9, 10, 11, 12 from who we followed. Now we're starting to get to a place that I think it's going to keep going where you're just getting shit from whatever's popping to you. Yes. And I think for all of us, even when I said it, I could feel you two and the other three dudes in the room, everyone's like, yeah, that'd be fresh. Because I'm pissed that I'm, I mean, every day I get 50 comments in my feed that say, yo, Gary Vee, Gary Vee, where you been?

3:37Like, fuck, man, this is awesome. Fuck, you know, like, so like, and I feel that way about people I follow. So anyway, that's why I say it, bro, because it's already real. Yeah, you've been calling it interest media. Yeah, I think that's where we're at. Yeah. You know, social media was like your social graph, the people in your social circle. That's where this came from. I think we're fully in interest media now. When I open my app, I get stuff I'm into of the moment. And the second I start to deviate and get into something else, that shit starts to show up. The AI is getting that strong. Yep, very strong.

4:09Very strong. Okay, let me ask you this. How do you balance building something you genuinely love with making sure you're not leaving money on the table? Something out. Well, I don't know if it's selling out. I actually think it's selling in, what you're saying, right? Selling out's the reverse. At least the slang cultural term that we've all used, right? I think selling out is like if I decided to just become a fucking Wall Street executive. Because that would be me maxing out money. Yes. I think to your question, how do you do it by knowing going in? And this is my life. I knew going in from the get.

4:46I'm talking 18. I'm talking my watershed moments are 18, 22, 34, you know, going into college and just like really not wanting to be there and being like, I'm really gonna build my dad's business while I'm in college, launch the website, all that. Then 22, actually doing it. And then 22 to 30, 30 was like, fuck man, I have no money and I built a huge business for my dad and my dad's not a bad person, he's an immigrant. He's like, I'm not gonna pay you because I'm like, I'm not really paying myself either. It wasn't like my dad was making a million and I was making 50 ,000, but the business was getting all the money, but he owned the business.

5:21Like, you know, he was able to do shit with that asset. I was like, hello? And then 34, when I started kind of going on my own and doing my own shit, every one of those chapters, I knew going in that I was going to leave a lot of money on the table. When I wake up in the morning today, I know I'm leaving money on the table. So, but that's because that's the combo of having with myself. How do you do it? By being honest with yourself. I think one of the big issues for humans is they struggle with their relationship with themselves. Like they're deeply, you know, so many people are insecure, at least minimally insecure.

5:58All of us are insecure in some things. And I think we're delusional and I think we sell ourselves bullshit because we're selling other people bullshit and we start to believe it. So I think for anybody who wants to go into passion, there's millions of people who've done this. There's millions of people who've decided to be public servants who know they have some money-making talent, who decided they're gonna serve God or serve children as a teacher or serve the local community as a cop who are leaving money on the table. But it makes them tick. Listen, I understand those people heavy. I'm a little weird because I make a lot of money anyway, but fuck, man, I leave a lot of money on the table.

6:44In a real, real way. And I'm not even talking about not compromising by doing a$5 million deal for a cannabis on Mars company. I'm talking about, oh, I could do a private equity firm or I could be a hedge fund manager or I could be a VC full-time or I could just raise capital all the time. You know what I mean? Not like selling out, more just like making a decision that I'm gonna spend my day to day to maximize dollars. I spend my day to day to maximize my happiness that I believe is my happiness I define as what I know will make me happiest-ish today, 70, 80%, and that what I believe will make me happiest that I did it five and 10 and 50 years from now.

7:33So it's like a mix of like enough, like a lot of happiness today, 60, 80. And the reason I say 70%, last year, I would argue that when I woke up, I was happy in the macro, but my day-to-day grind last year, into the first half of this, into the first quarter, last 15 months leading up to the launch of this. I know VFriends is coming, but I also know that VaynerX is a fucking $320,$50 million business that I've gotta get proper and put the pieces in place. And like, so last year, you talk to Zach and Mike, you ask them like, what did Gary do last year? They're like, he was in that office in the corner from nine to fucking nine every day.

8:14That was it. And by the way, that's why I wasn't on a lot of podcasts. Like if you look last year, almost all my content, like for the hardest core Gary V fans, most of my content last year was refurbished from prior times. That's why I've been popping off a little bit more in the last month because I'm back. You know, I'm back. Feels like that. And I'm really coming back post Labor Day. Like really coming back. So I think 2026 is gonna be a year of Gary Vee. 2024 was the year of Gary Vaynerchuk, the operator, the businessman. And so it ebbs and flows. And like when I'm more creative, when I'm more chopping up with you guys, look at even the goosebumps.

8:51When I'm being more creative, I'm happier. But I have the resilience and the understanding and the lack of entitlement and the fucking grit and the fucking patience and all the shit I talk about to have had to have these last 18 months because that's what I fucking signed up for. I'm comfortable sleeping in the bed that I fucking built. Right? People go out and fucking have a child with two different people and then, you know, don't marry either of them and they're 25 and like, I have some fucking character homie friends. Like, not all my friends are bougie. I grew up fucking kind of a certain way and then like, my boys are like, Like, yo, this is fucked up.

9:32I can't chase my dreams. I'm like, bro, you fucked a bunch of girls and created a bunch of babies. You have responsibilities. You didn't have to do that shit. Sleep in the fucking bed you made. People fucking complain about shit that they created. It's facts. People complain about shit they created and then start looking for who to blame. The government. Their dad. You know, if my dad didn't fuck girls, you know, as if every son follows the exact path of every dad. Not true. So what, you know, of course, you share DNA, you see what you see, but like, this is the shit I think about. The self-awareness aspect of it.

10:10And the accountability. Yeah. To your point, it starts with self-awareness. If you're not aware, if like you can't see that you're fucked up, you're in trouble. Once you understand that, and you'll see it over time, everybody eventually sees it, are you ready to like own it? Or do you believe you can trick everyone into not seeing that you are that. Okay, that's interesting then. I want to ask you this question because I've been going back with Ernesto about this. So I drive a Range Rover back home, right? Yep. And I've been recently considering downgrading because I just personally am looking at it like - You're listening to too much Gary V content.

10:46Why? I'm like, why is there like, why is this massive car payment and insurance payment coming out of my account every month? Like, can I afford it? Yes. But also I don't really know if I care for it. But then on the flip side, I have this thought process of like, well, I'm an entrepreneur, money buys happiness. Maybe is that a part of the brand, so. Well, let's break that down. Money buys happiness, if it's not your happiness, I've never had a nice car. I've zero happiness on that. But, I'll buy a fucking six figure trading card. Like I bought millions of dollars of things, but yet have never had the jewel, you guys know me, enough-ish.

11:22You know, like, money buying happiness needs to be defined on what's your happiness. Now, the next part is also a problem, the brand. Look, you're sitting with a very popular entrepreneur. I'm comfortable, and I say this with all humility, but I'm in the mix as like top 25 known entrepreneurs. I'll go there, and I feel like I've got a little bit higher than that. I don't do that shit. And I'm not saying, by the way, I don't think I'm right. I don't judge. Sometimes people come in and be like, Yo, fuck you, Gary. You always say Rolex and Lambos. Fuck you. This is what makes me happy. I'm like, could.

11:58If that actually makes you happy, do you. But if you're doing it to get fucking girls, or if you're doing it to fucking posture and disguise, or if you're doing it because you think that people will then join your mastermind, well, then we gotta talk. That's different. That's different than you really know what a Porsche feels like. I would not know what it feels like. I don't get off on driving stick and understanding the smooth ride. I don't give a fuck. But on the flip side, I know owning one of the only Spider-Man rookie cards from 1966 Donnerus gets me off. And I have a very funny feeling, 99.99999 % of the people that just listened to that sentence are like, what the fuck is he talking about?

12:38That's stupid. And that's awesome. That's what life's about. Some people want to spend their money on sitting courtside because they both think it's good for the brand and it's bougie, but they actually fuck with basketball. And then I see people sitting courtside that are there for the selfie who couldn't tell you any of the 10 players on the court. That shit is what I'm interested in. Everyone's allowed to, first of all, by the way, on the record, my subjective opinions mean nothing. I'm one human being. I don't think I get to say how to do it. What I do and what I talk about and what I'm passionate about is I've lived a little bit of life and I see who's happy and who's not.

13:16I just see a lot of people that look happy on Instagram fucking taking drugs every night to just go to sleep to get the voices out of their head, that fucks with me. And I do not want others to go down that path. And I want the ones that are in there to break the fuck out and get the simplicity. I do think materialism is a problem. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think as a business owner at the beginning, there is an image you want to kind of have when you're dealing with people that might be signing big contracts for you or big clients? Do you see what works? It depends. Yeah, of course. It depends on what you're selling.

13:46But let me give you a story. It's all marketing, let's say. Yeah, but let me give you a, I wish AJ walked by right now. Do you know what the ultimate story of Vayner is? Tell us. In 2011, 2011, we signed a huge deal from not one of our biggest clients. We had much bigger clients, Pepsi, Campbell's, but it was like a mid-size, was it a magazine? I don't remember what. Dude calls AJ, because AJ, I took the meeting, but AJ was in the meeting. I was traveling. Dude calls AJ. AJ texts me, he's calling me. I could tell it was good. Because we always are like, if something's bad, Like, call me heart, so I'm good, you know?

14:20Like, it's, guys, please text with context. Everyone's fucking everybody up. Like, if you really call me, like, give that person, like, they think your mom died. Like, you know, like, fucking, like, give people context out there. We gotta fix this, it's a pandemic. Anyway, he's like, call me, I'm excited, because I knew it was good, because of the way, whatever emoji he put in or what he said. I call him, he goes, bro, we got the fucking thing. I'm like, we got the fucking deal? It was a good deal at the time, hundreds of thousands, which was big for us, we were small. And then he goes, guess why?

14:47I have no idea. He goes, the dude said the reason I went with you is because your offices were a piece of shit and I know that you spend your money on the right stuff and that's who I wanted to work with. Wow. So in that story, it was the reverse. Literally the actual reverse. Now, there are many people that look at it the other way. Look, if you're doing marketing services, the reality is you're actually only, and this is something I'm very comfortable saying because I've lived it and watched everybody else for the last 15 years in this space, your work is gonna be the punchline. Like real talk.

15:22Like if you're gonna build something big. And that's why I've always focused on we need to be the best. By the way, that was a lot of what last year was about for me. Getting VaynerMedia and the Sasha Group, which is the other big agency in my holding company, to get fucking great. Because social was changing. Marketing was changing. I had to teach them about live social shopping. I had to get everybody on board with fucking using influencers and creators in addition to the content we make. I had to get everybody on board with AI tools. I had a lot of things to get 2 ,000, 3 ,000 people from here to London to LA to Mexico City to Toronto to Amsterdam to London to fucking India to fucking, you know, Malaysia and Australia all aligned.

16:08That's work. Yeah, it's true. Okay, so let's talk about AI a little bit. do you think it's dangerous for humanity um of course it can be like like if if if russia and china and america and saudi and india create ai enabled robots that act like humans that can police and fight war like that's some you know gnarly shit yeah could get real scary that way yeah i mean i think i don't really even see an outcome of where they wouldn't do that Fair. True. That's what governments do. They try to protect their sovereign soil and they try to control their citizens. Okay, but from the flip side, let's say somebody in the marketing space or the creator space.

16:51Oh, you want me to go way down. Yeah. Yeah, like 10 levers down. Go ahead. How are you leveraging it? I know you've spoken about podcast hosts are going to be AI. Creators are going to be AI. A, what do you think is the timeline on that? I don't know. Do you be scared? How do you set yourself up? I'm scared every day. If you're an entrepreneur, you should be scared. If you're a creator, it sounds like you're an entrepreneur. You're trying to make money by being a person. Now, I wouldn't use the word scared. I would say, am I awake? Am I woke to it? Am I focused on it? Did I spend three hours on a flight yesterday looking at three different tools that could do tasks that my employees do, which eventually means my clients will expect, do I think about those things?

17:37Yes. Do I think about people, do I think about understanding how to police and maintain my intellectual property and my copyright? Yes. You think about these things. But yeah, I mean, look, in any big technology, you either take that sword or that sword will kill you. So what I would say to you guys is, you can be like, fuck, just as we were fucking getting going, when this shit came along, motherfucker. Or you could be like, we're gonna keep building our brand, which is always gonna matter, and doing this, while over here, we're gonna create a podcast with two girls that talk about fashion. You're allowed to do that.

18:17True. You're allowed. True. So, right, you could take the sword and be the one that wins. Yes. What if I told you, in four years, you're making three times the money that you make on this podcast with that girl's podcast that you just write the script in the morning for 15 minutes and that's life. It'd be amazing. Depends. For me, that'd be devastating. I'd be like, what the fuck else do I do with my other 23 hours? I'd be like, fuck, now I gotta start 10 more of these and I'm gonna go garage selling in the middle of the day. So it just all depends on what one wants, but what do I think? I think it's very big.

18:54Yeah. Like, big, big. Yeah. Like, big. And you're just saying just take the sword yourself. Yeah, I mean, And I think for you two young dudes, everybody in here, everybody, Mike, your man, Zach, you gotta kinda spend an hour a day, chat GPT, like what I do every day, I go to chat GPT, I'm like, what's the 10 best image apps created by, AI apps that were created in the last 30 days? Then I click them, then I download them, then I play with them. Like either you go to the gym, or you think about going to the gym. Yeah. Right? Right? Right, you got it? That's the analogy. Understood, makes sense.

19:30Right, either you go to the gym or you think about going to the gym. Either you go to the gym or you read about how to do the proper exercise. But until you're doing, you're not doing. And so like, all you five youngsters must be interacting with AI apps every day, must. At bare minimum, chat GPT and thinking and talking. Last time me and AJ at one in the morning after game were doing shit like, Like, who's Curtis Martin's WWF comp? Yeah. Who's LeBron James' NFL comp? Who's Lamar Jackson's NBA comp? Who's Gary V's cartoon comp? Yeah. Like, my NBA comp stream on Green, by the way, I was high. I like it, too.

20:10I'm so that person. I think that you guys need to use it every day. Yeah. Okay, I want to ask you this. Please, it's a little more personal to us. So, say so. We were just telling Zach off camera. He's been seeing it. We recently launched this thing on our social media where we're giving away$1 ,000 every single week. And what we do is we pick a random location all around the greater Toronto area. It's where we're from. We really niched into there. And we pretty much pop up with a reel being like, we got$1 ,000 cash. We're going to hide it in a secret location here in Branson, whatever. First person to show up,$1 ,000 is yours.

20:46Or we've recently integrated something where we said first 32 people to show up are going to participate in a rock paper scissors challenge that's fun for for the thousand bucks okay and in six weeks that we've done it once a week we've already grown a text community of just under 5 000 people okay we're waiting for the hints and obviously these what app are you using community or something else uh just mailchimp right now mailchimp basic and so i want to actually show you one if you want to pull it up and i just want your opinion on like we've obviously we run the podcast we do some other content series and then we've really dialed in on this and it's just been super viral.

21:20We've been getting more corporate sponsorships, sports teams wanting us to do their halftime show. Things like that, right? So this thing has 2 million views, 15 ,000 shares, ridiculous engagement. So we do it every week. It's been growing rapidly. It's kind of a double-ended question. One, are we like, do we say fuck it to everything else right now and just go all in on this because it's like... Well, I think there's a couple things. My first reaction, and let's break it down because it'll be fun for everybody. My first reaction is the audience is not high value. Okay, true. Right? Like as a shopper, like size of wallet.

21:55For sure. Right? LVMH has become a huge company because their average shopper spends$40 trillion and like, you know, other companies are struggling because their average ticket size of what they sell is like a buck 30, right? Because they sell pizza. Yeah, true. So I think one thing to think about is you're very young right now and is volume always the most interesting thing. Would you rather have 50 people who are million dollar customers or 500 ,000 that are$100 customers? True. So, by the way, I'm gonna say something also that's very important. Ish to what I just said. Like, I won't find a thousand bucks.

22:38I'm a human being. But my intuition is that you've got people who've got time on their hand. Because fuck, you running around Toronto to find some shit and play rock, right? who that thousand dollars is worth their time. It's entertaining. Look, you guys are smart. You don't need me. What I would tell you, like let me teach you how to use AI. Fuck Gary Vee. Go, hey, we're doing this. Upload the video. Be like, we're aware that this has been done a hundred times over the last decade. What has transpired to those people? What businesses were built? What worked for them? What didn't work for them?

23:14I'm teaching you guys how to prompt engineer right now. I can give you my opinions. I can give you my angle that I see it from. That has been valuable. That is what's been me. But this is where AI is going to become really valuable. I just gave you a prompt that you can do that will really help you and think it through. I think that's what you need to think about. Look, personally, on just gut, I would not go all in on just on that. I think that's campaign energy. Yes. I think that my intuition tells me that you guys have the talent to build something more sustainable and bigger. Okay. Okay, so with that being said, we kind of use it as a marketing tool right now as well, like a campaign.

23:55Makes sense. We do have an agency and we do have the network that we started like we spoke about last time. Makes sense. So it is a big marketing play. That's why I like it. But I don't go all in on a campaign. For sure. Fair. Right? It's fair. Right? By the way, do I think that could lead to an$8 million a year business? Could. Yeah. But all that energy, all that time. And again, it's what brand positioning is that doing for you? For sure. Today, again, I think too many people, let me say where I'm actually going. Okay. And then you guys can think about it. Okay. I think too many people are binarily addicted to the views and the followers without really breaking down the next part.

24:38Right? Not all views are equal. Yeah. True. not all followers are equal, right? And so you want to just break it down. And like, would you wake up in five years from now and being all in on this? And like, if everybody in the Toronto area around the world, like, hey, you guys are gonna hide the cash, guys. It's a lot of work to rebrand for another day. Like, there's a lot to think about. I think we see it as it fitting into the Money Buys Happiness brand already because of the name, obviously. I get it, of course. So I guess that's the way we're, and the text message community is a big thing that we believe in because if we build that thing to like 30 ,000 and we can pull up somewhere and 20 ,000 people are there, I think that as marketers, we see that as power.