The Brand You Build is the Only Arbitrage You Can Rely On

People continue to look at AI as a job killer. I continue to see it as an accelerator for people that are on that grind. But I've been yelling about for 20 years about social media and building a brand again has often not hit every industry and every sector because they didn't believe it mattered to them. You sit in that star of your AI ecosystem and you can do the work of 25 people by yourself.

That's what's coming. And so the quicker you learn what the fuck I'm saying, the quicker you can make more money. This is a full battleground now for attention. Attention has always been the asset.

But what has changed is attention used to be available to a small group of companies that had a lot of money prior to 1990. To get attention, you had to be a very big company and spend big advertising budgets on billboards or radio or television or direct mail or print. The individual personnel is about to build a billion dollar corporation. If you look at the Rogans or Alex Earls or Coopers or Mr.

Beast or me or Bartlett, like, it's incredible once you amass attention, what it can be deployed against in your career in building your empire, how did you make sure to stick to your own intuition and gut and not to make sure your judgment was clouded by anyone else? It is so much more fun to die on your own sword than someone else's. This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. Welcome to the Stage founder and CEO Vayner X and VaynerMedia Gary Vaynerchuk.

Good afternoon, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. Full disclosure, I'm incredibly excited right now. My son's basketball team just won a championship.

I'm in very good spirits. It's a real honor to be here, especially because I associate so much with this audience. Right when I, when I first. I have so many friends in this business and obviously the other thing that I really admire from a lot of this audience is just kind of the grit and the hustle and just the mindset that goes into the competitive nature of the industry that you're in.

And so most of my talk here today is going to be predominantly Q and A. So we're going to have a runner and I'm going to open up the questions because the reality is that so many of you have multiple verticals. Because I was talking to a bunch on DM on the way out here and know that some people might bring up other genres of flipping that might not just be tickets, it might be around collectibles or things of that Nature. And I definitely want to open that up for everyone here because we are living in an extremely interesting time where the competitive landscape is changing quite a bit because of the convergence of social blockchain and AI all at the same time.

And obviously there's some OGs in here actually for context by showchants, how many people have been in this business for over a decade? Raise your hands. So a lot of OG's respect. Obviously all of you know that so much has changed in this industry over the last decade and how much has happened with technology.

And so I think for me Personally, the last 10 years of technology shifts are going to seem slow compared to the next 10. The amount of people that are going to be using AI agents and AI bots and agentic agents. How much does anyone here want to build a personal brand or not as a moat and as a lead gen machine? I think is very important.

And just in general, like what other things, very honestly from my standpoint, can your skillset bring other opportunities in business world? I would say a couple things that I think about. Number one, everybody in this room, me included, and pretty much everyone in this hotel, this city, this country, we're all battling right now for the same thing. Even though you might not think you're in the same business as someone else, this is a full battleground now for attention.

You know, attention has always been the asset. But what has changed is attention used to be available to a small group of companies that had a lot of money prior to 1990. To get attention you gotta be a very big company and spend big advertising budgets on billboards or radio or television or direct mail or print. The fact that as I look around this room and just look at the individual people in this room, I'm actually writing a book right now that will probably come out next year.

It's called you'd Individual Empire. And basically the argument that I'm making is that the individual personnel is about to build a billion dollar corporation. If you look at the Rogans or the Alex Earls or Coopers or Mr. Beasts or me or Bartlett, like it's incredible once you amass attention, what it can be deployed against.

When I come to a talk like this and think about this sector and think about, especially because, you know, I'm 50 now, not a kid, you know, I was buying my tickets from resellers like at the stadium physically before the game started 30 years ago to where we are now, a lot of shit has changed and there's ebbs and flows of who has the leverage all of you know it's a game often like cops and robbers of technology, everybody's looking for their arbitrage. One argument I'd like to make to everyone in this room is the only arbitrage you can rely on long term is the brand you build. Either the brand you build either for yourself if you are comfortable and interested in being out in front or putting those energies to building some sort of brand equity in a brand that you create, which is incredibly foreign to a lot of people who really come from the angle often of just sales and arbitrage and flipping. And it's just an extremely worthwhile conversation for everyone in this room because I will say it again, please do not underestimate what is happening in the modern technology stack how many people here by show of hands, this will actually be good and please participate even if you're a little lazy.

By show of hands, how many people in this room now will go to ChatGPT or some UP or Gemini to look up something that only 18 months ago they would go to Google search for. Raise your hands. Raise it. Hi.

Hi. I just need people to look around, especially front row, see what I'm looking at. Let me save you some time because I see some of you are not that athletic. It's fucking everyone.

This has happened, as you all know in the last 12 to 18 months. Right. There's an incredible amount of things going on in the macro that is going to fundamentally impact how you make your money. My interest in being here and really where I'm trying to guide the conversation though, again especially since I see a shitload of people walking in right now when we go Q and A, you can come at me with anything you've historically seen or any way to bring value.

But me here guiding is I want you to control your outcomes. Technology takes us often out of that control. There's technology like this conference infrastructure that's great. I'm talking about where technology shifts the end consumer's attention.

I believe that every one of us needs to start thinking more and more about brand, not less. What I've been yelling about for 20 years about social media, building a brand again has often not hit every industry in every sector because they didn't believe it mattered to them. I, I believe more day by day it will. And again my intuition back to my thesis of where the world's going in an AI world, back to your individual empire.

I believe a lot of you are going to have more opportunities to do more things. People continue to look at AI as a job Killer. I continue to see it as an accelerator for people that are on that grind. And you're going to be able to do more and get into more.

And all of that is going to lead itself to a question of are you building a brand or are you building a personal brand? And if you're not doing either, the person sitting next to you is going to end up taking more market share. So that is my marketing plea to a sales DNA because I believe in both separately. I think the biggest thing that I'm fascinated by is how bullish I am on experiential, which I think fits incredibly well to everyone here.

I believe it is very clear what's going on in society, which is we're going into a barbell. On this extreme side is extreme technology. AI, AR and VR are not, are now within a decade striking distance and then all the way on the other side with nothing in the middle. The winners are gonna be the people that are living in real life.

You know, I think events are going to explode over the next decade. I think you'll see more events stand up. I think one thing that I'm paying a lot of attention to as an investor and again really answering questions people want to go with this is alternative sports. I think people are going to alternative sports.

I mean the sailing league, the golf, the new golf leagues, pickleball, all this stuff. There's just so many sports getting up. Because the attention of social media and streaming services has allowed more opportunity. I think that experiential and events marathons, punchline being more tickets will be sold because of how long the tail is going to be of events over the next decade.

So I think that's going to sit extremely well for this audience. So I think these are the themes that I'm thinking about. Then I get into the other thing I would love to answer Question. How many people here have multiple employees?

Raise your hands. How many people here have more than five? So the other thing that I'm happy to go into the Q and A is how to build out teams and incentivize. You know, right now I know a lot of you, if you even know who I am, are aware of my content in social.

But this part of my life, what a lot of people don't know is that I'm the active CEO of a 3,000 person advertising agency called VaynerX has three agencies underneath including VaynerMedia. And so like I was sitting in my hotel room since Saturday, I'm doing calls until about 15 minutes ago to come here and having meetings with hundreds and hundreds of employees in different group settings. And I do think a lot about team building and how to manage and how to get the most out of blah, blah, blah. So again, what I'm trying to hear in the upfront of this and team, by the way, do I know where the runner is?

Is that the back? Oh, the very handsome man there with the mustache and red shirt. Beautiful. You want to stand up?

Let's clap it up louder. Keith, listen. Love it. All right, so about five more minutes, but I really just want to go into the details.

I don't think people need to hear my macro spiel when I get into the dirt. But I will say for people at the hands, like team building, brand building, entrepreneurial opportunities, you know, again, because I think I'm going off of the DMs I got for this talk. I'm incredibly bullish of what's going on in the collectibles universe. I think we haven't even begun to see what's actually happening.

I think it leads to my thesis about the real world when you see hundreds of thousands of people show up to Comic Con and the National Trading Card Convention, things of that nature. So if you look at the labuboo phenomenon, if you look at kind of what's going on, I think collectibles is a huge green shoot for the next decade. And a lot of people think it's already happened because trading cards and sneakers and watches, comics and vintage clothes reselling and all that is so hot. I think the day is very clear that it hasn't to begun.

My personal intuition is that a lot of you have that same skill set and it could be an expander. So happy to go with that. I know a lot of you already doing it based on the DMS I got. And then if anybody wants to go into this, this is a little bit potentially more left field.

But my play for you, I think the other thing I'm incredibly obsessed with and happy to touch on if you have any questions, is live shopping. I think what's going on with live social shopping, the QVC ification of social media in China. 700 billion. I'm gonna say it again.

$700 billion worth of stuff sells in China on live social shopping platforms in the US in the west, in Europe, it's just getting going. TikTok Shop is cooking now with gas. There's a startup called Whatnot that I'm sure some of you are familiar with this whatnot. You know, the numbers are blurry because they're private but 7 to 11 billion dollars in GMB gross merchandise value sold through whatnot last year.

How many people here which is appropriate. How many people here have no idea whatnot is? Raise your hand, raise an eye. I want people to look.

More than half this room has no fucking clue what the app is. And they did 11 billion in stuff sold through it speaks to the speed and the power of what's going on in the nat. So I have to talk about that. And finally, anything random in entrepreneurial land or operating land, I'm here for you.

So I'm going to go massively into Q and A. So thank you for having me everyone. Let's go. Who's got questions?

Oh, he's making me run on the first one. And you have socks on but you're stylish as fuck. Please, Sam, give your name, my man. Hey, Gary.

I'm Gabriel. Daniel or Gabriel. Gabriel. Such a pleasure, bro.

So we're in a little bit of an industry where people like to hate on. We've got a TikTok generation where people hear 20 second sound bites and love to hate on brokers or resellers. They don't understand the value for 98% of events. You know you're a branding genius.

You know there's a lot of different things value that we provide. How can we as an industry, as individuals bring that to the world without. It's a great question and I'm aware that that is true and I think this is why I talked about what I started with, which is my hope is that there are dozens and dozens of people at this convention but overall and potentially are hosts here or other people in the industry that need to fight fire with fire. Like every time somebody puts out sound like TikTok that says you're a piece of shit because of Taylor Swift.

You need to put out content of like that's cute. But what about the 99% of the events that that's where we need our infrastructure or they wouldn't exist. Like you either say it or you don't. Communication and marketing, branding has always been the same.

You're either saying it or you don't. I think a lot of times when an industry gets attacked there's a natural sense to go on back foot. And here's where I think things are complicated. This is why politics is so fucked up, Gabe.

Nothing's 100% so I think a lot of people here are may agree with the 1 to 3 or 4% that is fucked up and then that makes them rendering to not feel like they want to go on the offense. So whether it's a trade association that makes content, whether there's individuals that want to have that play, you know, the truth is the truth is the truth, right? That is the best part of the social media era. Everyone's pissed because we didn't want to face the fucking truth.

Right? Everybody's super mad at social and thinking it's all fucked up. Social didn't change you. Social exposed you.

And so this is a true mirror. It's, you know, the information's out. There's a lot of truth to what you said. We need to make content as an industry about the positives.

And as you know, most people don't want that heat. They're like, I thought, I'm not dealing with that shit. I'm just going to sell my tickets, which I respect. But if no one does it, this is what's going to be the outcome.

Appreciate it. Thank you, my man. Who's got a question? My name is Jordan.

Jordan. So do you ever have any capital issues growing any of your businesses? And if you did, what were your solutions? Did you just push through it until you got through it?

Do you ever see any investors? What was really your solution? I always did. My fucking dad didn't have a credit line for a liquor store because he was so immigrant when I started VaynerMedia 14 years ago because my dad didn't pay me anything while I was building his business.

I had to start VaynerMedia in another company's conference room because I didn't have capital to pay for rent and I didn't want to dilute my company. My super. Actually, how many people here are familiar somewhat with my content? Raise your hands.

I appreciate it. So people that raise their hands, you guys know this. I pound content around patients. Pound it.

I believe in it. How old are you? 20. Fuck.

So, you know, it's crazy. Actually, four days ago was the 20th anniversary of my first wine video on YouTube. Right. Like, you, like, I was literally starting to be a social media content creator, and you were literally in your mother's stomach.

You know, like, for me, there's two. I believe in general, most people get fucked up when they want something too fast. And I get really worried because I think a lot of people in this room, the world, want to get a lot of things fast to close the insecurities of the judgment they have from the outside. You want to get the paper to show everybody.

And so for me, me, Jordan, I just waited. It was all patience because I didn't want to dilute, I didn't want to overextend. I didn't want to get into debt. I just ate the shit that came along with not having the paper and built and built and built and really didn't start until 34 and kind of did over the last 16 years.

Listen, raising capital is not a bad thing. It's very strategic for a lot of people. A lot of people raise capital for no reason other than they're impatient and they want it faster. Obviously, when you need capital to get the inventory, to resell it.

I get the game that you're, you know, I get that there's a lot of different ways for you to think about it. I'm not against raising capital, but I'm very against not knowing why you want to make more money. I know that sounds super weird, but like, if you're living your full life, I need to understand what these 6 and 12 and 24 month windows really are. And I think a lot of people run into it and especially at that young age.

But you're missing out on opportunity because you have access to something. You just don't have the capital to make the arbitrage, borrowing, selling other shit. We're being patient. All are in play equally with raising money and giving up a piece of the action to someone that put up the capital.

It's a. To sum it up for you, brother, every person here has their own journey on this answer. It depends what's going on inside, you know. Thank you.

You're welcome. Questions? I know there's a young lady here. Yeah, you were just there two seconds ago.

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. Thank you. Nikki, what's your name?

My name's Cody. Kobe. Kody Kobe? Yeah.

No, with a D. C O, D, Y C O, D. Yeah. A couple of us went to the Intercom convention in A couple of us went to the convention in October with Intercom and where we talked a lot about AI and agent agents and that being the future of.

In New York. Yes. CEOs of the future being people who know how to operate AI agents and really leveling up those tech support. My question is real quick to that, just real quick on this AI thing, at least for the next half decade, like AI is not taking your money or your jobs.

People that know how to use AI are so this is the fucking computer. This is the Internet. This is the mobile device. This is like the same old game over and over and over.

Whoever doesn't demonize a new technology and weaponizes it outflanks the majority of demonize it and fear it. But go ahead. Yeah. My question is, for industries like ours that are implementing AI agents in several different aspects of our industry.

What advice do you have for combating the resistance to interacting with AI agents and being able to deploy those agents in a manner that create a good experience for the business owners as well as the customers that they're interacting with? I mean, I understand what you're saying. Everybody here who's scared that AI is going to fuck up their paper are going to get killed. Thanks, everyone.

See you next time. You know, there isn't like. This is not very complicated. It's very emotional.

I understand. Why do you think I want AI? I'm pissed. I'm at the top of the fucking game.

I don't need this fucking robotic fucking crazy shit to fuck me up. But I have no choice. Sorry that your parents had sex and created you, but you live here now. This is it.

This is when you were born. Good news, you weren't born when the Black Plague happened. You weren't born when you had fucking stormed Normandy. This is when you were born.

And you're gonna have to deal with this shit. And the answer is like coming up with a bunch of bullshit excuses over drinks tonight at the, you know, at the tables of why AI won't work because secret you're scared that's gonna fuck you is not a good business strategy. So the answer to your question is learn it and figure out how to use it for you because it's coming for you. And again, it's not it.

It's the 17 fuckers in here who are. Are happy that no one's doing anything because they're gonna use Internet dominate. It's the people using the tool, not the tool. Yeah.

You know, do I think most of you will have grandchildren who marry robots? I do, but that's a different topic for a different day. I really believe that. By the way, on the record sources of their young crowd looking around like, a lot of people have grandkids that marry AI robots, so get ready for that insane shit.

I'm laughing because humans are so fucked up. We get fucked up with marriages between race and religion and gender. That's gonna be child's play to when your fucking granddaughter brings a little fucking AI robot dude. Anyway.

Questions. It's Just gonna be crazy. Hey, Gary, My name is Matthew. Yeah, so I know you were an early investor in Facebook and you're talking about AI.

What AI companies would you suggest you know, investing in right now? I haven't invested in any of them because unlike what I invest, my first reinvestments for Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, right? I came out the gate like, rookie of the year. Then I fucking got high my own supply and fucked away a lot of money.

I've been smart with AI. A lot of my friends have lost a lot of money already, and there'll be some big wins. But the problem with AI, how many people here would say tangentially they're following the AI stuff like raising hands and profit more time to high. Oh, a lot of you.

So you all know what I'm about to say. Unlike the last 30 years that I've been in the game and then the history that I've learned, this shit moves too fast, right? The reason I've invested anything is you get three smart kids and like, we built this. And like an hour later, Google's like, we built this.

That's 10 times better. And then like a day later, and Rocket's like, fuck, Google's saying, we built this. And it's like the speed in which the tools and the apps are being built are so fast. So I don't want to bullshit you.

I've literally not deployed any capital. I'm waiting. And I also think the incumbents are going to be the big winners. How the fuck do you compete as a startup when Zucks is paying $150 million signing bonus to an AI engineer?

This is going to be a Microsoft, Google, Facebook. Like, there'll be startups, but I haven't gotten deep into it because a lot of stuff that I like is just going to get destroyed by the bigger platforms. Thank you. Of course.

I. We got one here, way in the back. My name. And cut.

What's up, man? Good to see you again. You talk a lot about AI being a tool. Obviously, our business, the biggest tool is probably us, the person, what we bring in value.

And you also mentioned earlier about other things that tie into our skill sets and where we tie in selling different products and flipping. Where do you see in learning about what we do, where do you see us translating to in some of those different areas you mentioned earlier? All of them. How many people here think they're good at buying and then reselling something?

Raise your hands. You just stumbled into tickets. Like, literally this skill set that you sit on all of you is one of the single most important skill sets in the world. It works.

It's really shit. I very. The reason I said yes to this talk is I identify as a salesperson. I also identify as a marketing and brand person.

Sales is what you do when you're not great at marketing and brand. When you're great at marketing brand, it comes to you. And that's what I want for all of you, comma, that's a different game, and we can get into that. I just think that anything that you put your mind to, to learn what the arbitrage is, is in play for you.

And I believe there's an enormous amount of buying and selling arbitrage that is now going to be in play because of ao, Geo, Live shopping, Literally. E commerce and social are resetting. Think about what fucking E commerce and social has meant to the world over the last 20 years. So now it's getting reset with all this change.

And when shit resets, that's when opportunity comes. And so that's how I see it. Yeah, bro. When I first heard cuckoo, you know, wasn't born yet, like, I was like, shit, this stuff is gonna really matter.

You know, my number one plan when I was 17 was open up 100 liquor stores. That's what I was gonna do in life. And then I heard that thing. I was like, that I'm doing this.

I didn't know the it was. I just knew the information super high. It was gonna be a thing. And then that's been the course of my career.

I always have a good sense of the thing. And I'm. And here's something I would say to all of you that I think is very important right at this moment. I'm always most interested in putting myself out of business before someone else does it.

And that's what I'm thinking about while I'm right here with you. Yeah. Or if you know, as you start playing the sound and things are happening, you know, whatever that might be. I just like you all realizing you're buyers and sellers, not a ticket broker.

And like, how many people here flip sneakers? And you're like, great. How many people here flip sneakers? When I started making content in 2018, saying, the sneaker kids are about to go to training cards.

Raise your hands. Raise it high, just like a number. So these set, 20 people. You.

You saw it. I saw that this thing was coming. And the same skill set that worked on flipping Yeezys or rare Air force ones was going to work, but there was more scale coming in cards. Easier, more arm trash.

That financial boom has been significant. And just. I think that's gonna keep repeating itself. And if you and everybody else gets good at managing your AI, you'll be able to flip everything.

Not just sneakers, not just tickets, not just cards, comics, coins. That's what I'm hoping for some of you, right, you sit in the death star of your AI ecosystem and you can do the work of 25 people by yourself. That's what's coming. And so the quicker you learn what the fuck I'm saying, the quicker you can make more money and go downstairs and fucking blow it all.

Because you're all psychos like me. It's just our DNA. That's why I'm here. All right?

Yep. So my name is Tony. Tony. So I'm working on this product called ccentry.

And we build solutions and tools for brokers to actually scale their business and do better. Buy more tickets and, you know, faster monitor, stuff like that. So outside of going to these conferences to kind of market our product, we. What would you suggest we do to, you know, get more brokers on our platform?

So you've heard of social media, but let me tell you what that joke is meant to do to set up how many of you are aware of what I'm about to say, which is social media died four years ago, and for the last four years, we've been in interest media, which means you no longer get the content on your feeds from the people you follow, like your fucking cousin or your best friend from middle school. You get content based on what you've recently been into. Does everybody agree with that? Raise your hands.

So this is your biggest opportunity, brother. It's super crazy where we are in social. Do you know that if you went outside right now and made a video of eating a banana and drinking a rum and Coke and posted it, that people that have a high propensity of interest in bananas and rum and coke might be the first people that see that content. All you have to do is make organic social media content.

That starts with why every ticket broker should use this over and over and over again in as many different ways as possible across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Shorts, LinkedIn, different thumbnails, different hooks. Complete, insane psycho discipline. And hopefully the product's good enough that when you acquire getting Ltd and getting word of mouth, but your whole business, you can actually reach these people in their feeds by making the content organically without them even following you. You need to become a psycho at that question.

Hey, my Name is Chris. Chris. This work? Yeah, but thank you.

All right, my question for you is about, like, a lot of people in this room are young entrepreneurs, maybe with one company, maybe with a handful of employees, maybe none. How did you go from. Are you having advice for people very early in their entrepreneurial endeavors, like going from one company to maybe two and being able to wear this different hats and now for even. Look at the screen, all the different companies that you're a part of.

For me, that screen, like most of my richest friends, shit on me for how I do it. Right. That screen represents not maximizing dollars and maximizing what I'm interested in. I like juggling.

I like the chaos. I'm, like, really involved in a lot of, if not all those business. Here's what I'd say about it. If you actually.

If that is scratching your itch. So what I'm trying to say is, my first answer is you don't need to do more than one company. It's in fact, a lot of people should only do one company because they struggle with the juggling. I don't know who the fuck the best juggler in the world is right now because I'm not into circus shit.

But whoever that person is, I am a business version of that. I'm very good at this. This is all built on turning employees into family. The reason this works is because my brother runs our sports agency and somebody I know for 20 years runs my TV production company.

And Rezi. How many people familiar with Rezi, the restaurant, how many people here have no idea that I co created, invented, and ran a company? So there's so much shit I do like that was done because I did it with one of my best buds, the businessman Leventhal. For seven years, we had a really strong relationship, and I just started a fund, and he had just left NBC.

And over dinner on December 15th, we invented resynch, which is the restaurant app. Like the Uber of restaurant apps is how to. I've gotten involved and involved every single thing there. Be Friends is run by two kids that have been with me for 15 years.

Right. Everything there is based on my first core business that was my own VaynerMedia building it, building employees that stayed there for a long time because I cared more about them than I cared about myself. And then I had the emotional and financial leverage to create more opportunities with them. And so if you want to go into a lot of stuff you can't run, you can be the.

I am the CEO or chairman of all. And how many People here have more than three children or three or more children, raise your hands so the people that just raise your hands are going to understand this. You know, when you have three or more children, you're giving your energy to the child that's most fucked up at the moment and you bounce around. Same with me, right?

I'm driving. But my weeks, my days, my months can go into different places. That works for me, that does not work for everyone. It's not even the most efficient thing for everyone, but it will be creating family members.

The way you do that at this young age is really give a shit about the other people too, you know, to start building that longevity. I love football, American football. I can think about offensive lines that have continuity always leads to good stuff. That's how I think about business.

I want continuity. But ultimately for everyone in this room, the biggest financial upside is on the other side of the self awareness rainbow. Do you know yourself? Do you know who you are?

Do you know what you're good at? What I knew was I was in a nice guy's finish first. I knew I was gonna be good to people, which allowed me to build a huge human infrastructure. Most people, business are straight, big pieces of people, they can't build that same thing, but they build something else.

And so it's a self awareness. You got to know yourself. But if you want to do a lot of different things, you're going to need real relationships. Because if it's just based on the money that's being made, it will break.

Thank you. Thanks for all the questions everyone. My man, I'm Randy. Randy.

This summer I'll be a 50 year old G. So you are twinkle at the time. Can't wait to see you there, bro. Anyway, my thought is this, is the customer always right in your world?

And if they're not, what do you do about it? The customer has been right 100% of the time in my entire 30 year career. Because my opinion that they're wrong based on my emotions or my financial status is always wrong. This is sports, the customer's always right.

I mean think like you can. I'm going macro when I say the customer's always right, is your business results? Are your business results. Do I like in the individual instance, can a customer like do the wrong thing?

Of course they can commit fraud or lie or do the wrong thing. But in the macro, if my shit's not selling, that's on me. So that's where I spend all my time. So I don't have an answer for you of when they're wrong.

All I think about is product market fit. The results are the results. This is sports. It's my favorite thing about sports rating.

Do you know why everybody loves sports? Because everything else is fucked with politics, university, corporations, sports. It's sports. That's why I love ufc.

It's the best version of sports. Nobody can get knocked the fuck out. And then the post game be like, I won. But we do that in life all the time on some bullshit.

And that's why I love sports the most and business second most. It's the closest thing. It's fine. My man.

Hey, what's going on? Gary Scragg. Pleasure. So as you started multiple companies and you know, met more and more successful people, how did your views and mindset on money change?

On money? Yes. 0 my relationship with money has been the exact same my whole life. Which is, I'm aware of it, I understand what freedoms and leverage it creates.

But I got really fucking lucky, bro. Like genuinely lucky. Both DNA wise and circumstance and how it all played out. I just had a very healthy relationship with it my whole life, which is, I really don't think.

I definitely do not believe that my self worth is wrapped up in how much of it I get. And so thank you. Thank you. Thanks, randy.

See us 50 year olds know what the fuck is going on. You know what I mean, bro? Like, it hasn't really, you know, I've gotten more strategic. Like I've learned along the way from like being a street kid.

It was like, oh, like this is how you can raise money. I've learned things about it, but it, you know, it's always been the same thing, which is I've always lived within my means of it. Like how many people under the age of 28 in the room? Raise your hands, you're gonna like this one.

Youngsters from 20 to 28, the most money I made in a year was $54,000. I just lived in a shitty apartment and didn't do shit. So. And I was fucking pumped.

I was building huge business for my father. He was fucking me, but he's my dad and so I was fine with him. For immigrants, like he wasn't really me. Who here is an immigrant or the child of immigrant?

You know what I'm about to say? My dad wasn't really meaning to fuck me. For context everyone. I started running my Dad's business at 22.

I was working in a literature store since I was 14. It was doing 3 million a year from 98 to 2005. I grew up from 3 to 65 million, and I didn't mean shit. But my dad wasn't trying to fuck me.

He just thought I would inherit it because that's what he would do. He was like, you'll get this when I die. I was like, dad, you have remarkable genetics. And I'm 20 years younger than you.

I'm gonna inherit the shit at 70 fucking 8 years old. And that's why I left at 34 after I built it and kind of did my own thing. But, you know, like, so in my 20s, when I think a lot of people were fucked up with their money, it just not. And I know that you live in a world now where everyone's, like, flashing what they're flashing on social and all that, but, like, the outside world has never been a factor in how I've navigated my life, and my relationship's been really healthy with it.

I also am a psycho, bro. Do you know. Do you know Rocky 5? The weird one where he goes back to Philly because he, like, lost all his shit?

That's my favorite Rocky. Like, this is real. This is now some therapy shit. So just bear with me.

I, like, secretly want to lose it all, to just start all over and build up again. So I'm. I got some problems, or is it a little bit of that? Questions?

Hey, Gary, it's Ari. Ari, how are you? Good. So I see you invested in pickleball team.

You own the Fives. I'm a big fan and a in the squad. Thank you. Question.

How did you decide to get into pickleball? What got you that? And if I wanted to invest in pickleball because I love playing it, is it too late? And if not, like, where would I start?

I invested because I have a business partner in the Vayner X world. I bought a company you could see in the purple screen called Purewow. His name's Ryan Harwood. He played number one singles tennis at Penn.

He's like a tennis fucking nerd. Like, he's got. He's got real problems. Like, he named his son Roger.

He loves Roger Federer, talks about him every day, and claims that he did not name his son Roger because of Roger Federer. So he. He was interested in pickleball. He kind of brought the opportunity to me.

I did some homework on it. What caught. What caught my attention was how many views pickleball was getting on social organically when no one knew what the fuck it was seven years ago. So I was like, this is interesting.

I thought it could be a good TV sport. The team only cost me $500,000. Not only for a lot of money, but like towing whole fucking sports team in the league. Teams are now selling for 16, 20 million.

So I've done well on paper. It could all fold. Is it too late? Not if you think what we think, which is like it still has.

It's early but you know, sports is so high risk, high reward, you know, like to become a real league. But there's so many ways to invest in it. Do I think people are going to play it forever? Yes, I do.

And so you can invest in the gear companies, the racket companies at the league level. You'll have to wait for the league to go public or you'll have to have real paper to be able to get into the league. There'll probably be more leagues that pop up. There's Padel that's got a lot going on.

So there's individual units like pickable locations that you can invest in. I think the sport has real legs mainly because people watch it. Thank you. You're welcome, bro.

Hey, Gary, what's up? My name's David. David. David.

Yeah, pleasure. I have being a ticket broker, obviously I think a very big important part of the business is sharing leads or sort of like collaborating with other brokers to find out how to expand your business. Yep. I personally been burnt in the past by another broker by personally giving some deals over and not really receiving.

It's come to the point where I'm obviously successful, but I want to also expand my business. How many times has someone really fucked you like that? It happened once and since then I. Yeah, that's fucking unacceptable.

Yeah. But it happens and it's going cabin but like you're letting fear dictate your business. Right. So how do you not.

The question is you have to not. You have to. You should collaborate with other brokers. So the question is how do you do it the right way?

Where by stopping a. And try it again. Stopping a bit and try again. Okay, so what, what would be some tips that you can give me to stopping a bit and try again?

By not being scared of getting fucked again but also trying to rely a little bit more on reputation. I assume there are people in here who have a very good reputation in collabing and to do a little more homework on reputation, you know. But why I went there with you is because I was trying to help everyone. Like I just said it with my Rocky thing.

Like I'm just never scared to get fucked. I need to put that into context. I mean, I'm not scared either, so. But.

But you are, right? And I want to help you because it's. It is. I'm proud of you because you can feel that it's limiting you.

You're taking one bad experience and deploying it. And to me, it's like, if I was sitting out here and 13 people here fuck me, I'd be like, who's number 14? That's just where I'm at with Dumbledore, you know? And so I just.

I just think you're good, brother. I hope this interaction gives you the ability to leap again, because do not take one person, bro. That had nothing to do with you. That had to do with them being a piece of shit.

That should not stop you from growing. Right? Okay. Thank you.

Hey, Gary. Name's Tim. Congratulations on being fucked by a lot of people. You said you really want to, you know, lose everything if you could, with all the technology, AI and everything in 2026, if you were to lose it all, you know, what would you go into and start today?

And second question. Being in Vegas, I know you're a huge jazz fan. Why five and a half games this year are we going over under? Fucking Nepo?

Patriot fans are such fuck racist. I. I think we might go under. We have a.

We have a tougher schedule this year. A little bit. I just don't think we're rebuilding. But nice little trade today that I thought was strategic.

Tim, it's so funny you asked me a question. I already referenced it once. No bullshit. If I got wiped, I would literally do this.

The first skill I have to go from zero to something is to buy something for less than I can sell it for. Like, if I really went to zero, let's just go to the full extreme. And my face got ripped off while I went to zero, so I couldn't even leverage my personal brand. Remember that weird movie like Nicolas Cage, Control?

Like, if my face. Yeah. Face Off. Thank you.

If my face got ripped off, and nobody would believe that I'm Gary and I'm, like, dead zero. I'm literally going to fucking flea markets and garage sales and the goodwill and buying shit for fucking two bucks and selling on eBay for seven. Buying and selling, I think, is one of the great gifts some of us are given. My admiration for all of you having that is very high.

I am literally here because of that, because I'm picking and choosing places I want to speak to. I want to be in my gush books. I want to be in my crew. That's what I feel towards all of you.

And ironically, it is my safe haven when all else goes to zero. I can buy and sell shit. Awesome. Thank you.

Yep. Hey, Gary, Mike Gao, thanks for the content you put out. Thank you, fan. For a long time, one of the most important qualities you look for in hiring people, you have a lot of people that you surround yourself with to help you be successful.

Number one, I did two hiring meetings today. Like literally the entire meeting is if you are insecure. This is literally me talking to the person on Zoom today. If you're insecure, you need to know that that is the seed for you being political in our company and you will be fucked.

So please. The number one thing I look for is people that are just naturally content or self confident, not rearing with insecurity. You know, you probably know this. A lot of people are very good at things because they're insecure, but it's short term fuel and it runs out.

And so a lot of people get confused and hire people like that. Or some of you are literally running on that fuel right now. You're making money because of your insecurity. But bro, I don't know if you know this, all of this shit, this whole world, it's all Star wars, it's all Jedis versus the dark side.

They're very close. But I don't know if you know this. Like Darth Vader loses, Emperor loses. Like you lose with that.

So I focus fully on self esteem versus insecurity and then I then I look for people that are capable of communicating and being communicated too. Because once you're in our family, I'm desperate to make you successful. I'll give everything I've got. But we will give you kind candor if we're like, hey, this, that.

And so insecurity and confidence and then communication capabilities, everything else I can train. Gotcha. Hi again, it's Brett. Two part question number one.

With all these entities and everything you have going on, how do you personally stay focused and do one thing at a time yourself? I don't do one thing at a time. Okay. And then the second part of it is how have you incorporated mental health awareness and stuff that's important you in that area of your.

All your companies? So back to the question about money. I think a lot of mental health issues are around money, but I don't think it's not having it. I think it's not living within it.

And so attachment matters too. Like I think it would surprise people in here how little I give a fuck about my companies, my bank account and my personal brand. So it's very easy for me to prioritize my mental health and my family because it's what I prioritize. But that doesn't mean like literally, you saw my openings.

You know how fucking pissed I am that I'm here. My son's team lost their first three fucking games of the year. You think? I thought they were gonna round off 11 in a row and get them championship.

So when I booked this, I thought I was safe, but I was fucked. And so I'm dead in the green room right now. So it's not like I choose family or like I could have canceled this. I can't.

Because the way I was raised is I couldn't make this commitment and not be here. But it crushed me today because I missed the moment that I would remember for the rest of my life. So it's, you know, but. But then I'm okay with that because I don't think my son's gonna fucking hate me his whole life the way modern parents think they have to be every fucking thing, right?

So, you know, it's just having balance, you know, Having balance and trying to make the best decisions I can and being okay, bro. You don't make things like up. Like I don't understand how everybody here doesn't understand the world. Humans for everybody who real talk.

Let's be a little bomb over a second. Just out of curiosity, who feels like they beat themselves up pretty good when they fuck shit up? Raise your hands. Good, because I don't.

So this is unpumped right now. I need you to listen to me one more time. Every hand up friends. Everybody else in this room fucking sucks too.

I'm serious. I do not understand why we're putting other people on a pedestal. Everybody back to sports. Not every game, not every play, not every season is good.

We need to have more self love. So, you know, all of that's, you know, back. I'll wrap up your whole thing and how I run these companies. I have three full time assistants and two chiefs of staff.

They're five human beings whose full time job in life is to maximize every minute of mine. So it's a lot of infrastructure. Two, I'm doing the thing I said earlier. I'm giving the love to the thing that has the most offense or the most defense needs.

I never play in the middle. Makes sense. So I'm always looking at like, where's the big opportunity or biggest doubt or big explosability. So I'm playing there.

And then mental health has always been super easy for me because I'm utterly detached. Even the joke that I'm making about, you know, being rocky, it's because I'd be okay and I would secretly. You know what this is like. You know what?