Something people might not know about you is that you've won the lottery a couple times. Yes, that story. Yes. Where did I just put that out?
Was that a daily V recently? We got a, we got a, we got a search for it. By the way, I've never won the big lotteries. I've won the pick three in New Jersey.
Three numbers, not the big six, but here's what's crazy about the story. So I've won the lottery twice in a significant way for me at that age. The first time I was 18, and I was thinking about my, I was living in Hunter and County, New Jersey, thinking about Edison, New Jersey, where I grew up. And so much so that right before I went to my friend Brandon Warnicki's house, I stopped at the Crowsers of the 7-Eleven and bought the phone number, pick 3, pick 4, 7-5-6, 1-4-0-7.
And I'm watching, I'm literally at his house, and I'm like, let's put on New Jersey 12 or whatever, where they do the lottery. And literally 1-4-0-7, I played a box, not straight, which means I could come out in any order. And it was like 7-4-1, and then I jumped up off the couch when it was the first three numbers, and I'm like 7-4-1, if this is zero, I'm gonna shit my pants, zero! Explode, get in the car and drive back to Crowsers to cash in my tickets, and one like, I think it was like 300 bucks a piece, like $3,000, which was like a billion dollars at the time.
And then the other time I won, it was 9-6-3, another phone number of mine, and I watched it with my cousin Bobby's basically same story. I've literally won the lottery, picked 3-3-4, 3 times in my life. I played it probably like 500 times, because I did a lot from like 18-22, because I was at the liquor store, and before drawing, you're just at the cash register, like, oh, let me put it in a pick, right? I won 3 times, I've watched myself win it twice, I've only watched the Lotto on TV like 5 times.
It's super wild. That is nuts, that's so funny. You preach so much about patience, but I feel like you move quite fast. Yes, macro, patience, micro speed.
Okay, at the level that this company is at right now, it's 1,000 employees across different countries. 2,500, 2,500, okay, 2,500 employees across different countries. How do you still get them moving quickly on the things that are on social that are literally 72 hours, it's over? Like, how does that work now that it's grown to this size?
We have a team internally, and I myself still every day, if I see something, so for example, I realized one second video is on Facebook crushed. Instead of a photo, like today, still works, you should do this. If you post photos on Facebook, don't make it a photo, make it a one second video. It'll get dramatically more reach.
I will literally, when I'm like, wait a minute, this is working for me. Then I'll go check Wine Library, be for like, I'll check five, seven sources. When I'm firm, I will literally go to my inbox, go to team at Banger X and literally email the entire company. Mike, right?
I will literally randomly email every employee and the best part of it. All of what I have to say is in the headline, right? No grammar misspellings, 30% of the company just started, so they don't know how to read Gary. So they're like, what the fuck did he say?
And I'll just be like, yeah, one second. And that's their family business for me, even though we're a corporation. Now I run it and I live it and I feel it like it's like a mom and pop thing. Okay.
Now, what does that mean to other people that are working at starting their companies? I have like a three person company, so we're trying to make it culture as we build it up. So I'm curious. I mean, think rule one is like, don't be a dick.
Like nobody. Do you got to work on that? Yeah. Yeah.
Like it's real. Like, you know what's funny about that? Like, I think you guys will appreciate this. Like, don't be insecure.
The only reason people are assholes is because they're insecure. Like, yes, we're aware that like kudos to you that you're like, do you know what big of a deal it is to get the three employees? Like, I'm impressed by that in reverse. Don't don't do that.
Like, don't think you're somebody. Like humility is the fucking best. You know, like be nice, like over communicate at three people at 10 people at 20 people. Everybody should know you inside out when we have 50 to 100 people.
I knew everything about everybody. I knew everything about everything. Like, we were all fucking in it. How many people are now here in the in my office?
Well, since we're post COVID, we've out we have what how many are supposed to be here? Yeah, like 1100. How many are here 500? We have we have we don't have every day everyone in because we're at a real estate.
We have to address that next year. Wow. Yeah. That's going to be crazy.
Well, brain forgot to tell you is that it was at six, but because he's being a dick. Actually, it's not for this is bullshit. I would really say that you have to understand the following. The number one way to build something big is to make the first 10 employees family.
Now that doesn't mean over like in fact, you should be firing a lot to get to 10 because you know, you're you're hacking it when you're little. Are you were you trying to find people early on that were specialists or Swiss army knives and then nobody knew anything about anything back then? But now let's let's use now today. Yeah, it's a specialist.
Now it's real big, but like at the time I was double fucked because like I need a generalist, but nobody knew anything. I was just hiring kids and teaching them. I was paying people to teach them. Like when you talk to if you literally literally literally if you go to the people that work at Vayner in 2000, 11, 12, 13, even like deep down, they'll tell you like I fucking got lucky.
Like I fucking got paid. I got paid. This was 2012. Like people get paid 40k 50.
There's a lot like those numbers, but they're like I got paid to like launch my career because by being a painter for those years, I became the expert of social and look. I'm now the VP of this or yes. You go look at the link in profiles of the people that were here 11, 12, 13, like people are CMOs of fucking fortune 5,000 companies CMOs. How would you seek out these great people that were at other companies to come help build what you wanted to build here and build this vision?
Word of mouth of people as we started growing like we'd hire somebody from an agency. If they were good, I'd be like, yo, who else is like you? Start to build it up. Yeah.
And what's the cost of bringing on maybe a B or C to your player versus spending the extra money and bringing on that a player who really knows their shit? It depends. For us, it was unique. Nobody knew.
So I was looking for a personality, a work ethic, a like homey, like your brother and sister and cousin. In fact, everybody who was supposed to be an A player agency wise that I brought in all failed. They were too bougie. They were too in the old school.
They were lazy. They were sizzle, not steak. I'm obsessed with being B player in like skill and like brain fire power and a fucking downward cause. I love that.
You know what I mean? Is it still right now in your opinion posting great content at scale? Is that the game that we're in? Yes.
Okay. And what would you say to somebody who's like I'm only a great and by the way great content isn't judged by you. It's just organic views achieved. Not you spent money on paid media to amplify and like I got nine million views.
I'm like no it didn't. You paid for nine million views. It got is organic. And that's where people get fucked up.
Good. You brought up that you have to be really good and dialed on every social media to be great. There's people who are like really good and dialed on one. Maybe to like you said Instagram and TikTok is the excuse of maybe we don't have enough time or we just don't get the other ones.
Is that just an excuse? Like you just don't want to be that good. I mean or your content. Sure.
Yeah, you're making money. You're good. Yeah. Instagram, you know what else would be awesome?
A million on LinkedIn and 2 million on fucking YouTube and 500,000 on fucking X and 750,000 on snap. Like why not? What are your thoughts on his little speech that just came out talking about how they want to be one stop shop. They want you to come to meta and do everything for you.
I'm just curious. I saw that. No, I know. But I'm saying as far as like ad agency land goes, he's like it felt like that video.
He was like, I'm we're going to do everything. And even though they still have people running their ads, I was just curious what your thoughts were. If you saw what I'm talking about. No, I didn't see Mark Zuckerberg saying I'm trying to put you out of business.
No, but he just made this video and I saw like a lot of people in LinkedIn and marketing space. We're talking about this. Like, how's this going to affect agencies? I'm just kind of curious what your thoughts are that that he should do that.
Mark's job is to get every dollar for his company and you'll be able to have the best ones. Yes, which means there shouldn't be that many left. Just man. Yeah, because I'm willing to sell hot dogs.
Like Mark's job is to do that. And my job is to make sure I have a good company and that is very important. Facebook and Instagram, but so is event marketing, so is influencer marketing. So, you know, like so is being on top of culture, like teaching brands that they should do brand deals with Sigmund Stables is worth is $100 million agency in itself, right?
Like, so I have to have, so we're a leader in culture strategy. Like do brands know that the phase clan is about to have another moment because they're building back up or don't they? Probably not, right? There's also live social shopping.
Yeah, which you've been big on. Right. Metas nowhere on that. Zuck should be doing that too, but they're all focused on AI now as they should be.
Live social shopping is a fucking pimple on the ass of AI. So what do I think about that? I think that's makes sense to me and they should and Google should be trying to do that. And like they're all fighting and we're all fighting this fucking entrepreneurship and business.
When I think about it, I think I'm not like everybody else that says, Oh, they can't and that won't work and fuck Facebook. And I don't think it was like, Mazel talk good for you. I better fucking pay attention because you guys aren't fucking around and I better make sure that I have a ton of value. I have like 37 things I'm working on to offset what AI could do to us.
Like actually talk to me a little bit about that. Like what are some of the things because obviously I know you guys are integrating it. If you can, if it's like allowed or like, of course, focusing on things that are not AI oriented, experiential. Like I think event marketing is massive cultural.
I just gave you two of them. A third one is becoming JV departments, meaning literally Vayner is half your marketing department. My employees and the other half is your employees and I train all the employees. So like literally becoming the marketing department for everyone.
We call that Vayner Colab. It's very clever. Colab plus colab. So we do that for a lot of clients.
So we're you're marketing department and we all use AI. So like what, you know, tons of things. What about being in the culture? Like you just brought up FaceClan, right?
Do you think AI will ever get to a point where it's like it can detect other? Do you just kind of got to be in the. Of course it can detect it. You can literally go to chat.
You can be right now and be like, like, which IRL live streamers are most popping off, not named Kai Sinette and Aiden Ross. Like AI is my partner in this work because just information. I still have to be smart enough to prompt engineer. I still have to know who the fuck Kai Sinette and fucking Aiden Ross is to ask that question.
Yeah, kids know that shit. CMOs don't know that shit. Yeah, 100% early days when you were in these meetings and you're pitching them. What would you say when you're batting against companies that were much bigger than you guys?
I didn't even think about them. We were charging $5,000 a month. We were trying to get $60,000 a year when the companies that I've now become bigger than we're getting paid 8 million a year. Okay, what does it look like?
Now, if a company comes to you, what are you trying to do for them? Like what is I do? What would like in a perfect world? They pick everything like we want to do it all.
What does that look like? It basically are thesis is very simple. I do not want you to waste money on marketing anymore, either on the media side or the creative side. Here is how you should do that.
You should work with us. The end. Straight and simple. It's very simple.
If to your point, if they're like, all right, Gary, but like we can't do everything with you. I'm like, give me social creative and media because that is the game. Yeah, still all social. It's it's not even but you understand for fortune 5000.
It's just becoming social. Yeah, they're just starting to realize that you're not social. That's right. You're obviously talking about content at scale.
That's how you win. But if you don't have a great strategy, do you think that content at scale just leads to quicker failure? You're just sure, but strategy comes in shapes and sizes. Sure.
Like what's my strategy with beef friends? My strategy with beef friends is to get every single human being on earth to know what beef friends are, right? So like you talk about that. You said you're like, I'm willing to do 9, 10, 11 people.
I don't care. I will love that. I love you. You're like, I'm going to fight for these five or 10 people.
I'm going to do fans. You know, it's real shit to me. So like, what's my strategy? My strategy is scaled awareness.
You know, that's very broad. Underneath that, it's like, OK, I know I can crush with 15 to 45 year old dudes because that's my demo collectors. Like, it all gets nuanced underneath there. But yeah, I mean, if you don't know what the fuck you're doing, you've lost.
And so like, but strategy comes in all shapes and sizes. Macro, what are you trying to accomplish? You know, most corporations don't have strategy because they're just trying to hit numbers to not get fired. Or entrepreneurs and creators are the reverse.
They're just trying to make money fast. So it's so interesting. It's such an interesting game that people are playing. You brought up a niche.
And everyone's doing it. Yeah. And that's like, and I'm right. Yeah.
Like, you know what I mean? Like, by the way, some people will make fast money, but fast money is vulnerable. Have you seen other 25 year old dudes make fast money? Yeah, they go into a bad place.
They fuck like crazy. They buy dumb shit like crazy and then they're 28 and a ditch mentally. I don't want that for my boy. Like, I like it up front like it's fun for a second, but like that fun goes way quick.
People don't get it. People don't get it. But like, I think sometimes people think I don't get it. Like, you don't want to have fun.
I'm like, that's not what I'm saying. In fact, for all the dudes that are listening, if you go nice and slow and build it properly, you will have unlimited fun. 100%. You said you there was a video nine years ago that coast is pulled up and it was about like college graduation.
We both had seen it. College college people are getting ready to graduate right now. I was wearing a white t-shirt and that one. I was my first video I ever came across.
By the way, you and many that was in the parking lot. I was like, D-Rock stop. I just had a fucking jolt like one of those moments. I knew it while I was making it.
I'm like, this is going to change ship for me. And it did. It was one of my most viral videos of all time. What would you say to these college seniors?
Give me a graduate right now. Same. By the way, I ran that video the other day. And everyone's like, this is so wild because it's true, which is for everyone who hasn't seen it.
22 to 30 is when you go high risk and dream. Everybody tells you that now you're grown, go get a real job. That's insane. Twenty three year old dudes and ladies is when you can have four roommates and eat ramen.
And you have no kids or spouse to worry about and mommy and daddy are still kind of around kind of some. You know what I'm saying? Meaning like, even if they're not financially helping you, which they shouldn't be, but I know a lot of you get paid by your parents. Even if you're grown, they're at least there.
You know what I mean? At least you could crash it. Like at least you could live like I see no downside in living with your parents at 25 to chase your dream. You want to be a fucking actor.
You want to be a fucking, you know, you want to be a fucking influencer. Like like 22 to 30 is when you go crazy high risk after now, if you do it on your own dime, if mommy and daddy are paying for everything, then you're a fucking loser. But if you do it on your own two feet, living humbly going hard, then at 30, if you didn't pull it off, if you didn't become fucking Brad Pitt, if you didn't become Mr. Beast, if you didn't become fucking Zucks, then you go work for an insurance company.
People have it so wrong. 22 to 30 should be when you go crazy. Now that video was, it was, I called Babin when I was quitting my job with the Lakers and I was like, I need some advice. And he's like, you've called me last year at the same time.
You know what you got to do. And I had seen your video recently when I was quitting like a year ago. And it was crazy because obviously we never met and like the impact you can have on someone from never even seeing them as nuts. I feel like with social that sentence that you just delivered is single-handedly why I continue my content.
If that sentence wasn't the biggest thing I believe in the world, I would I would never be a public figure. Just remind you like I that's not what I was chasing. I was 31. I was like, I didn't make some wine videos to sell wine.
This is this internet. This YouTube thing is the next email, Google AdWords website. I was just following what I'd always done. 97, I launched a website that was insane.
98, email marketing. What? Everything was direct mail, newspaper and catalogs. 2001, I got the farm on Google AdWords.
What? Didn't exist one minute ago. 2003, blogging comes along. Oh fuck, I can't write.
I had to sit in my hands. It was devastating. 2003, 2005 was the toughest time for me in my career. It was like three to five blogging had exploded.
I knew it was going to be huge, but I couldn't write. Man, if you had chapter. But how cool is that, right? That's the one chapter when there was something that was happening in my entire career that I wasn't on.
It was blogging. That's why I went so hard on vloging because I was like video, I can deal. You could do video. I just kept writing.
That was it. And so, and I had no money back that I couldn't hire someone to write for me. Yeah, you briefly mentioned it earlier about changing up your YouTube strategy. So now I'm curious going into these next six, 12 months.
What do you think is the most important thing that you need to be focusing on for Gary Vee? Overall for let's go. Overall, you're going to really be blown away by my first answer. Okay.
Actually going back to being Gary Vee. Okay. I've been checked out of Gary Vee Land for two years. I've been head down Vayner X Vee friends.
In fact, even doing this podcast is me coming back. Like I like even what you guys clearly like daily Vee being back. Like I haven't done that in years post labor day. I'm rising like a Phoenix.
I'm doing tea with Gary Vee every day. I'm doing a new podcast show. I'm doing IRL streaming every day. Twitch.
Yeah. Okay. I'm going to be on tons of podcasts. I'm going to be fucking everywhere.
I love it. So the entire answer to your question is coming back to being primary Gary Vee. Secondarily, I am the godfather architect of the document. Don't create, right?
So that was like such breakthrough ideas, right? Like film everything and right. 2026 Gary is produced with purpose and document. Don't create.
So in 2026, I will make content around something I care about. I care about AI influencers. Instead of random clips of me mentioning it, we're going to make a proper 12 minute video where I really make a fucking video with the AI influencer topic. Do you feel like I know we've I know all of us here have seen a video and it's been an AI person.
We haven't known it. Yes. So let me ask you this in like a few months. Do you feel like, you know, maybe the verification badge will be blue with a green if you're a real person.
And do you think that when that happens that as soon as you see that green thing, you're like a purple thing, if it's a person. Do you feel like that starts to happen where people just swipe right by? No, you don't think so. Okay, why?
Because I think we just care about liking shit as humans. Go deeper on that. I think 50 to 60% in your one of that world. If that was true, we completely swipe by it because they have an ideology.
Yeah, agreed. And I think the other 30 to 40% would be like, I don't give a fuck that person's hot or that was interesting or I'm curious about that belt or I laugh at the same jokes. They're not going to give a fuck. I don't give a fuck.
Yeah. How about that? Yeah, like guys, most of the content we consume is not just about the human being. The fuck are you watching Star Wars for?
That's acting. Why are you reading information? Those are words. I don't give a fuck.
People are over-idealodging the delivery mechanism. I don't care if it's you or you that decided to make an AI squirrel to tell me about how to share. So our whole thing is like the five or five pod where rocks like our listeners are all rocks. You think we should make a little rock that like talks and he's like, tell an information about the videos and shit.
I do and I'll tell you why that intellectual property is worth more. I own the one hand crack, by the way. I do own that. I own five or five rocks.
I love a bunch of random woods with rock in it. I want to take it back to another old YouTube video that you made and it was about when you turned 32. On your 30 second birthday, you said, I fucking hate the number 32. I got so funny.
You're like, 32 sucks. It's the first number that gets cut off the calendar. Like fuck that. But in that video, you had a real sense of discernment where you're like, I'm just not where I want to be yet.
And it almost felt like the conversations you've had with so many people saying you're so young patients practice that in that moment. It almost felt like you had the opposite mindset of like, I'm 32. Fuck, I'm getting older. I still have so much that I need to accomplish.
It was actually different, but it's a good observation. And I'm sure there's some percentage, but I was there and I know not really what was going on with that kid. That you saw was that was the predawn of me being the 34 year old version Gary V coming all out. I was stuck with the situation.
I had with my dad. I was 32 and I was like, fuck man, I just spent a decade building this massive business and gave up my personal time. Like I when I tell you I did nothing fun in my twenties. I did nothing fun.
I like maintain girlfriends just literally almost like have someone there when I came home. Like I was in a place where I was so obsessed with putting my parents on, which was awesome to about 30. And then I was like to 28, 29, 30, 1, 32 that era. I was like, fuck man, like I got to get going.
But it wasn't out of like me being impatient. It was about me being overly patient. And what you saw in that video or felt was I was already like, I'm coming. Like I already like in fact, notice in this interview, I said I didn't make business content or do it until 34.
But to your point, there were a couple of staglers of those one off videos, Gary V 180 or like you stream. There's just there's like this period between 30 and 34 where I made these one off. There's like 13 of them. These one off videos that were not about wine and that guy was starting the process of me going to what you know today.
And that's what you felt. I just thought it was so interesting because by the way, do not mix up patience with hunger and ambition. I am hungry as fuck. I'm ambitious as fuck.
That's what you saw on that kid's eyes. You can be both. I think people when they hear me say be patient, they hear me say be lazy and complacent. There's a reason that they're not the same words.
Go to the fucking dictionary. Patience complacency and laziness are not defying the same way. I believe the friction between ultimate hunger and fire and actual patience leads to the greatest fucking bridge. And I think a lot of motherfuckers that hear me are like he's saying for me to be complacent or yeah, I don't have to work.
Yeah, I'm not saying that. Work your fucking dick off. But don't judge yourself when you only get nine views and don't have envy and jealousy of some 27 year old who's got 10 million. That is nothing.
Guys, every 26 to 29 year old has a ton more money, fame and success than you has nothing to do with you. Literally nothing. Nothing. None of those people are taking away your opportunity.
It's you versus you. Yeah, you can. We can all get a slice of the pie. The pie is unlimited.
Endless. It's infinite. I hate when people are like, oh that guy's take like people that guy got my spotter. That guy copied my content.
You copied someone else's content. What the fuck are you talking about? People are always like, I'm like, you don't mean Gary Veezer out there. There's so many like the whole game.
Not because I'm brilliant. I just happen to be there first. Yeah. That's all.
There's plenty of Gary Vee's before me. They just did on radio or television like like, you know, just the way it worked out. Absolutely. I watch people use, you know, what's worked for me as I make up shit.
I'm so weird. My reading comprehension is so bad. My, my, I, I am like so weird in that like I know stuff, but I don't know the actual way to say it. And so I came up with so much of my own vernacular and then I just watch people like use that vernacular.
But I don't sit around like all these fuckers. Everyone's like, oh, I watch people. The tic-tockification of like, you know, like stuff like that. I don't get upset.
I'm flatter. You're like, let's go. I'm flatter. You're like the homie that you hang around and start picking up on their jargon.
By the way, in real life, I'm that person. I started for, by the way, I started saying heard instead of got it. Now, like just all my whole world, everyone's like heard her and everybody like comes into it. They're like, what is this shit?
I'm like, but by the way, I do not believe I was the person that invented heard. I'm sure I subconsciously heard someone say it. Like the audacity to think you're the one. By the way, when I said earlier, I was like, but Gary Veeze is a Frank or a rocket boom or even a dane cook and tequila tequila.
Right? Right? So like, I don't think I invented anything. I think I've added my variation.
Like we've all have because I'm uniquely me. But man, people are audacious out here insecure. They really are like, I watch everybody move because I spend a lot of time watching people move. I'm at events where I'm like staying in line because I don't even give a fuck and like people going in front of like, I have 80,000 tic-tock followers.
I'm like, man, people are fucking emotionally broken. Lack of humility is destroying a generation. Yeah. 100 p.
Well, you're doing good getting them back on it with your content. So I have to worry. We're going to get you out of here on time. I want to know about the platforms you want to spend the most attention on right now.
Like, what are they listening for me? That's a really good question. Me or what I want all of you to do because me, me, I already alluded to, I've got to get much more serious of my YouTube and my podcast because I come. Those require production and more meaningful thought.
I took my social media excellence and I bled it into my YouTube proper and podcast and that hurt me there. So I Gary have to do better at that in a world where many of you got that right. So I've got to do better with that in 26 and live streaming. Okay.
Give me the other platforms real quick for other people. Other people, it is a Facebook, Facebook, Facebook, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, YouTube shorts, shorts, snap spotlight is a monster for people. Really? Yeah, because no one's fucking with it and there's a lot of attention there.
Okay. Here's how it works. An 18 year old that you're all trying to get on TikTok and Instagram, they're messaging on snap. They're not looking at spotlight often, but just enough that there's so much attention there and no one's fucking there.
Okay. I love it. Twitter X is a monster, monster and a lot more people should be IRLing and then finally, here's a good one. Actually, I'm so glad I would have not.
I'm so pumped right now. Okay. Everyone who's listening, this kind of audience, all of you have to give a real try. Oh, this is going to be so good.
Ready? Many of you who are listening right now will never become me and you're trying to be and I don't say that because I think I'm cool. I'm going to say something important. Many people listening right now are destined to be hundreds of thousands of followers, not tens of millions, which is still remarkable.
But a lot of people here who are trying to have millions or tens of millions or hundreds of millions and are destined to fall short and will not win and then have to get regular jobs. If they start live social shopping, we'll be able to make millions of dollars selling stuff on whatnot and TikTok shop and all the future platforms. So I think there's a whole group. I think 80% of people listening right now are 43 K, 113 K, 400 K will never get to like the millions of dollars a year.
They're trying to get to being just an influencer, but actually have salesmanship. And if you've ever sold blow pops or candy or T shirts or DVDs, if you sell and you're an influencer, immediately get your ass to whatnot and TikTok shop and start selling shit selling things that like you buy on TikTok shop. And then right? That's affiliate.
Okay. So you're saying like build your brand off of that and then yeah, like I'm saying like for you, like you guys should literally sell a pet rock on whatnot and TikTok shop and just see how it goes. I don't know if you guys are salesmen or not, but a lot of people are listening right now. Like you know, it's like a good demo for this pretty girl culture, pretty cool culture.
A lot, you know, you look at pharmaceutical sales and real estate. There's a lot of young women right now who are attractive and like they feel like that's going to get them there and it needs more, but they happen to be good at sales. And there was a whole generation pre-internet that those pretty girls went into real estate and pharmaceutical sales. I think a lot of these girls are not going to get to that place and instead of going only fans because that's the easy way.
I think the other thing to consider is live social shopping. I love it.