THE GRIND IS ON | DAILYVEE 085

("Siri" by LRYBRDBTZ) - [Gary] Hey man, how are you? Understand. Alright, awesome. All good stuff, mom. Busy. Yeah, better than the alternative. Yeah, Xan Man. Jimmy Cricket, Jiminy Cricket. ("Siri" by LRYBRDBTZ) - [Tyler] Coffee? - Please. Ready? We just really need to think about what we're doing from our pitch deck and our website. I'd like to make those decisions now so that we're in a good place for, you know, December 1. Jeff, how are you my friend? Ohio life, right? (laughs) Listen, it's really nice to connect. I've been keeping tabs through Peter. It sounds like things are going well and I'm happy. I know you're super busy so I wanted to grab two minutes to A, say hello and B, we've been doing a social digital audit product here at Vayner that's been going extremely well, and I wanted to make some curve balls to it, so I did a few things on spec to teach my ninja team that I put on it how I want it done. One of brands I asked them to do it on was (censored) just 'cause I knew you were there, and by the way, I'm super aware are of (censored) and all this, but I'm playing long game with our relationship, so I wanted to send that over to you with the context of I wanted you to see it because I think it's valuable insight and I want you to use it with whoever you're working with. I'm not worried about getting (censored) business this time, I'm worried about staying in your circle, 'cause I believe in you, and so I was gonna do the spec work anyway, so I figured I might as well do it on three or four brands that were relationships outside my current roster. We have something pretty cool, I think you'll enjoy it. I'm gonna send it to you. Feel free, if you want any clarification, you can call me directly. I mean, we've been having some crazy results with (censored) like real stuff. If you find yourself in New York, stop by. I'm thrilled to show you under the hood. You know, we are, I mean it's just black and white. If you wanna sell (censored) at Albertsons you can prove it, it's just everybody's more reliant on Nielsen and modelling mixes internally than actual depletion reports. On (censored) our MMM says we're losing, and our sales are through the roof because we're running Facebook as TV commercials and the MMM doesn't recognize it. The end. I'm willing to give a lot, because I have a much bigger plan than your current role, so we'll talk soon. I'll send that over. Take care man, bye bye. ("Siri" by LRYBRDBTZ) We got to talk to Vimeo's comps and see if they care about anything. Thank you. Morning. Hello. - [Woman] Nice to meet you. - [Gary] Pleased to see you, Pleasure, Gary. - [Gary] How are you? (mumbles)

Should I speak Spanish? - If you want to. - I can't, I can't. (laughter) - Alrighty (in Spanish). - So I think the biggest thing that every immigrant watching this, and every person, but obviously being an immigrant I have those feelings for that audience, is you've already won. See, that's what people don't understand. - [Carlos] There you go. - You've already won. Let me explain. Picking the right business, having the right talent to see where the world's going. There's intuition, there's nothing I can say to make you do that, there's talent, there's timing, there's luck. That's real. I'm not worried about that, you know why? I'm not in control of that, nor are they. I'll tell you what they are in control of. The reason they've already won. They're just willing to work much harder than the people that live in the place that they were born. When you are born in America, the UK, when you are born in Canada, when you're born in these places that have stability of democracy for a long period of time, you're softer. - [Carlos] Correct. - I don't know, I'm willing to go work picking up garbage right now. - [Carlos] Yeah. - Right now. - It just doesn't seem so crazy to me. - [Carlos] Not at all. - I just did it, I've done it. I don't know what else to say. - [Carlos] Mhmmm. - When you realize you go to a land of opportunity, when you leave Venezuela, I don't give a shit if you were an engineer, a doctor, you know, the wealthiest car dealership, when you've lived through one, two, three, five, seven, nine years of dictatorship, communism, socialism at scale, and you get to leave somehow, and go to a place of capitalism, you're willing to wash dishes. You're willing to drive a taxi. You just are, 'cause you're so grateful for the opportunity. - [Carlos] That is correct. - That's it. - [Carlos] Totally. - And so, the things I normally preach, patience, immigrants have that. Immigrants come and they're patient as fuck, you know? They live in shitty apartments, they don't buy nice things, they eat minimally and they save, and so, you know, I think, especially the current political climate in America where there is a big group of people pushing against immigrants, I understand how an immigrant can get down, can get worried, can get concerned, can get bummed out. I give them the recommendation that I live with, which is put your head down, work, and everything has a funny way of working itself out. And remember that you've got it better. If you're complaining about immigrants, you've already lost to immigrants.

Alright, my friend. - [Carlos] Thank you so much. - So nice to meet-- ("Wholie" by LRYBRDBTZ) Yeah, because there might not be one.

- Hey. - [Gary] How are you? - So good, [Gary] You travel with tripods? - I'm doing a favor for Paulina who's on the Spotify account - I love it. (laughs) - [Woman 2] She needed a stabilizer, (laughs) I was like, I'll bring it over. (laughs) - [Gary] That's awesome, how are you? - Awesome! - [Gary] Good. It's a real pleasure. - Yeah, so good to finally meet you. - [Gary] How long have you been at Vayner? - Nine months. - Sorry it took so long. Do you feel like you have the outlet to come and speak to Claude, me, or Erin, or Dylan, or Jason, or does that feel like, ooh, that's like a big, to go up there, to ask for that may be inappropriate or too big of an ask. - [Woman 2] It's a big ask, just because I don't really talk to Jason or Dylan. - I think you should, and I think you should say that I told you to do it. - [Woman 2] Okay. - Use me as your air cover. - And talk to Claude too. When I have those company meetings or send those emails, I mean it. - [Woman 2] Yeah. - I know nobody believes me. - [Woman 2] Well we don't want to bother you. - But I mean it. Thank you. - What's supposed to happen otherwise? - [Woman 2] Nothing. - Right. - [Woman 2] Not if you don't act on it. - And you have to act on it with grace and respect. You can't walk into Jason and be like, "You put me on this now or fuck you. " That's not gonna work. - [Woman 2] No. - But even knowing that that's what you're thinking creates opportunity. You didn't have to say it to me now, and if you didn't, nothing would happen. Now, you're gonna say it to Claude, Jason, you're gonna say that I told you to do that, which then creates you all the air cover (woman 2 laughs) and then maybe something will happen. - [Woman 2] I hope so! - [Gary] I hope so too. But if nothing else, now you know. Just keeping it inside, then you don't even know. - [Woman 2] Right. Because you never even vocalize it to hear yourself say it and be like, yeah, you know, I actually do want that. - [Gary] Yeah. Again, as long as you do it with grace and respect, there's nothing wrong with asking. Demanding is very different than asking. - [Woman 2] Absolutely. - [Man] Thanks Ty. - [Gary] Thanks man.

- [Gary] Yes. - [Man 2] Something important to me that I want to share with you, As you know it's been a tough summer for me, July was pretty much a career low point, it stopped me in my tracks, I did a big reflect on myself, my management approach. - [Gary] Yep. - [Man 2] My leadership approach, management skills, and I spent weeks identifying areas of weakness, places I can improve, what I can do to make sure I'm-- - [Gary] Yep. - [Man 2] bringing your vision and

and Clyde give me some coaching, I've modeled how he was interacting with folks. I looked back at my 18 months, and identified the fact that like I was really a manager first and not a leader and coach, I was just trying to keep it together. - I get it, and listen you know, I'm a big boxing fan. Styles make fights. Two of the best boxers in the world get in the ring, you're sleeping by the fifth round 'cause they both have a similar defensive style and it's not an interesting fight. - [Man 2] Right. - You know there are leaders in this company who've walked into fluff situations where all the air cover's been created by me, everything's fuckin' rosy. You walked in you know, your timing in those 18 months, you guys had a lot of things to deal with, so look I think you know I didn't stop you the other day and give you the like I watch a lot,-- - [Man 2] Mhmmm. - but I think you know I'm so excited by the tone of your conversation that I want to equally throw back at you as like sure, we can all do things better, you had an interesting circumstance, you know there's a lot to do there. You also have a partner who's creative so you took on the stress of everything. I saw that. - [Man 2] Our dynamic, it like worked in 2015, didn't work at the start. - Yeah and also like, it could work forever but the things that it does to the personality of the person that has to do that part runs the gamut. Not to mention, I forget nothing. I remember soccer practice talk. So like you know I'm empathetic. There's a reason you didn't get fired. - [Man 2] Yeah. - Keep going.

- [Man 2] So and I want you to know I listen to feedback, I take it seriously. (Gary blows raspberry) - [Gary] I know better than that because you've acted on it. You can't act on something you didn't hear so, - [Man 2] Yeah, it's top of mind for me every day. - [Gary] It's going really well, right? - [Man 2] And I told Claude,-- - [Gary] Are you like pumped? - I'm pumped. - [Gary] Doesn't it feel good too? - I'm turning the corner. - [Gary] Well I'm super aware. - I mean when I look back at my own management training, I don't really have any. - [Gary] Yeah. - [Man 2] I was a freelance production guy, I was a show running, I had teams for a finite amount of time and went away. - [Gary] Listen, I know so much of this. Talk to me about the part I'm interested in. - [Man 2] So before,-- - Before that. How does it feel to like look at the peeps and the way they look at you? - [Man 2] Now? - Yeah. - [Man 2] It feels good, also because I'm more focused. - Yeah. - [Man 2] Right, I'm caring about,-- - Everything, you're caring about everything now. - [Man 2] Like I want to know who these people are, what they care about,-- - You care about everything now. - [Man 2] And I have enough people scaling me now that I don't have to do it for everybody. - Yep. - [Man 2] Like I got two line producers. - You know what else happens, happened to you? It happens to everybody at scale. You start learning that people are capable of doing things too and if not, you're even better off letting them fail. - [Man 2] Mhmmm. - That's a big thing. I mean you know this I don't micromanage shit. - [Man 2] Yeah. - Biggest complaint of all you senior is like am I even here, like you know what I mean? That's a huge value prop, and that happens at a scale growth too, you can't do everything sometimes. That's good, man. - [Man 2] So yeah I wanted you to know that I intend on earning back the trust. - By the way, that little winky wink I gave you was massive acknowledgement of that. By the way I generally believe my trust was waning, but I don't know we fire a lot of people when trust, like to me trust is interesting. Like it's very binary either I have it or I don't. So truth is I kind of always had it. I wasn't pumped as much as I am right now about it, right now I'm very confident. Especially because you have big advantage over a lot of other people. You've tasted both sides of it now. - [Man 2] Sure. - Like I have more confidence in you now than 90 percent of the org. - [Man 2] No, mean I was feeling on thin ice all summer. - Yeah I'm sure you were. - [Man 2] And I know I was a burden. - You weren't a burden. - [Man 2] I didn't want,-- - Listen here's the good news, here's the good news. I appreciate that but you know what we all went to bat. We were all fighting for it, we were fighting for it. Think about how cool that is. We were fighting for it to work. - [Man 2] Right. - That's what nobody gets, like, that gets me so mad. Only thing I do is to fight to make it work. - [Man 2] Okay. - The amount of money, time and energy that this company deploys to have this conversation is through the roof. And the sad part is I only get to have one of these for every four you know? - All the others is wasted time and money and energy, right? But this is so valuable.

- [Man 2] Yeah. I appreciate it I've been looking forward to this moment, I had one with Claude James, I want to get to know that I'm very focused. - [Gary] The whole thing is going very well. - [Man 2] It's top of mind, my interactions. - [Gary] Your people know it. Dude, the fucking way they feel about you is fundamentally different. - [Man 2] Good, I'm glad that's coming through. - It's real. - [Man 2] Yeah, I mean my 2015 was very like results-driven. - I get it. - [Man 2] Build this practice, this year it's about like,-- - And you were drinking out of a fire hose, there's a million variables. - [Man 2] How do I care about the people that are here? - I fucking I really genuinely thought the Aaron thing was gonna work out. I thought he would bringing you value. - [Man 2] Yeah, and we were close before. - I know which is why I was confident. - [Man 2] He was even my boss, but now it's a different,-- - It's a different thing because I also know, you also have to understand he was also molded in a different way here. You know, it wasn't that he's better or, he just had the benefit of kind of, think about what you're gonna do for everybody now. He just had the benefit of going through it you know? Maybe he didn't have the same narrative. That's almost really irrelevant. So now we have some new hires,-- - Yep. - [Man 2] And more creative producers-- I'm spending most of my time with them because structurally we're a little stronger across. - Yep, yep. - [Man 2] And I want them to have a good experience every day a positive. And when I give critical feedback I want you to know, that I'm also like scrunching it on both sides. - Honey empire. - [Man 2] Right reinforcement. You're doing a great job, show me your work. - Honey empire. - [Man 2] And I'm seeing the results. - Of course. - [Man 2] Last year it was like surgical strikes, in that it wasn't working for them. - [Gary] It doesn't work, it's not how humans work. You'd be a great engineer, you understand? - Yeah, maybe. Thank you. - I'm super pumped. This was super fun. - [Man 2] Last thing. So you guys see and keep hearing good things about me. - I believe that. - [Man 2] I'm heads down I'm making this coming back from it, I'd love it if you could spend some time with us. - [Gary] It's a very big conversation here. - Okay cool. - [Gary] Very big. - Maybe we could do like a town hall thing. - [Gary] It's a very big deal. - People can do Q& amp; A. - [Gary] 'Cause it's a problem and now I'm going away for this TV show, it's a top two stress in my life. But I also had to like work on the meeting we're about to have like, I've gotta I've got some ideas of also what I want that to be and how I want it to be, which you'll be working with me on via Skype probably November, December all good stuff. The answer's yes. - [Man 2] Okay, cool. - Like I said maybe at the end of this month if you have an opening. - [Gary] I'm gonna try to sneak one in before the end of the year and then I'm going to be there every month. - 'Cause I think people want to get connected. - [Gary] They have to, no, no it's a real thing, it's a real thing. Alright, brother. Talk to you soon. Thank you so much. - [Man 2] Have a good one. - [Gary] That was a lot of fun.

- [Woman 3] Oh wow. Okay, been here six months. I came in from the world of music entertainment, my previous job was with Mr. Combs at Cave Diddy. - I'm aware. Alex loved meeting with you and all that, he kept like back sharing he's like you've got Jodi, you're gonna love this. - [Woman 3] When I first came here I was like a little nervous only because I came from chaos. - Yes. - Working in that type of industry, so just seeing how everything is like tight knit here kind of scared me but I started falling to place. I was able to be myself 'cause I'm not the one to be like, not prim or proper or coming from like Ivy League schools like these kids but, I came in from a strong background of just dealing with hands on, - [Gary] Like doing. Learning from doing. - That's how I learn from doing it. - Me too and I think the thing that think you've probably already learned is if you're good enough, I don't care if you've been here for 40 years, I don't care if you're my cousin, I don't care if you are a Patriots fan which I would hate, (woman 3 laughs) like if you can do it both in your skill and in how you roll as a person, just like I made the video I don't know if you watched it, honey empire. - I care about both. - [Woman 3] Yeah. - [Woman 3] Yeah 'cause I was scared coming in as like oh is she a little bit too like I didn't even want to use the term but like too urban or is she gonna fall straight with clients I mean you saw,-- - I'm the most rogue of the whole bunch. - [Woman 3] Right but when I see a lot of, I forget to keep comparing but I see a lot off how Puff groomed me to like working here. - This is you know like look I don't know how you know Puff's world looks but to me like, definitely not too urban. To me it doesn't matter what the culture, what makes this place great is no matter what it is, the skills both in people skills and hard work will trump anything. - [Woman 3] Yeah, yeah definitely

I love here and I love working here. - [Gary] Good, good. - I'm have a great time here, I'm happy I'm here. - [Gary] Keep it going, ping me you ever need me. - Yes, thank you. - [Gary] Take care. You're welcome. - [Gary] Hi, how are you? - [Sophia] Hi. - I'm Gary. - Sophia. - Sophia, how are you? - So good to finally meet. - Such a pleasure. How long have you been here? - So I've been here for like a month and a half. I started interning, they offered me the Junior Art Director position two weeks in. - [Gary] Yep. - And it's been amazing. I'm working with Aytana. - [Gary] Yep. - It's been incredible. - [Gary] Good. - And crazy Vayner pride. - [Gary] Good. That makes me happy. - Yeah, I've just been taking on projects and getting involved with different people and trying to carry out what Vayner stands for, and, yeah. - [Gary] That's awesome. - So I actually brought this because, so I asked everyone in the office to doodle a picture of something that like resonates with them and that they love. I scanned all of them and I'm going to collaborate all of the doodles and make like a big piece of art for the office. - [Gary] I love it! - New awesome office. So I brought this for you to maybe when you get a second-- - Doodle? - To doodle for me. - [Gary] Yes. I'll doodle while we talk. - [Sophia] Okay. - I've got my, I've got doodling capabilities. So tell me about yourself. Where are you from? - [Sophia] I'm from the city. - New York? - Yeah, New York City. - Awesome. - On the Upper West Side, and then I also grew up in Israel. - Is that right? - [Sophia] Yeah. - Where, Tel Aviv, or - [Sophia] Jerusalem. - Jerusalem, how long did you live there? - [Sophia] For about five years total. - And what, what times? - [Sophia] From fourth grade to eighth grade. - Yep. - [Sophia] And then every summer I worked on a Kibbutz for two months. - That's cool. - [Sophia] And then... - So I was born in Belarus. - [Sophia] Yeah, nice. - And I left in '78, when all the Jews left, and so a lot of my family went to Israel too. - [Sophia] Nice. - And, but everybody eventually made it to the U. S. by the mid-80s. - [Sophia] Cool. - But I get it. - [Sophia] Nice. - It's cool. - [Sophia] And are you Jewish? - Mhmmm. - [Sophia] Oh, okay. - So in '78

there was something where I left Russia through political asylum because Israel and the U. S. teamed up to get Jews out of Soviet Russia. - [Sophia] Yeah. - Because it wasn't a very good scene for Jews in Soviet Russia. - I know. - So, that's kind of my background. - [Sophia] I love it! (Gary laughs) Awesome! - [Gary] And so what else are you into, like are you super art, oh my God, I almost wear, I cannot believe you're wearing those sneakers. - [Sophia] Aren't they fucking amazing? - [Gary] Not only are they fucking amazing, I actually started putting them on and decided I wanted to go low top instead of high top cause I was lazy. - [Sophia] Oh! I want to get a low one. - We literally, literally almost wore the same sneakers today. - [Sophia] So, you had the low top of the Flyknit? - No, I have that exact pair. - Oh! - But I was lazy this morning. I pulled them out, and it takes me an extra second to put those on versus low tops. - [Sophia] Agreed. - And I was like, fuck that, I don't have a second. - [Sophia] I feel you. - [Priscilla] Hello! - [Priscilla] It's nice to finally meet you. - It's nice to meet you, Priscilla. - [Priscilla] Fourth time, maybe. How are you doing? - How are you?

Good to see you. - Great! I'm a little cold, I'm shaking because of that, not because of you. - [Gary] No worries. - Always have that blanket on, so I have to thank you for that. - Like, I can't bring it into his office. - [Gary] So tell me about yourself, Priscilla. - So I am from Florida. I moved to New York City back in April with no job or place to live. I just knew I had to be here. I was an advertising major, there's a lot of opportunity in Sarasota, honestly, it's an old people town. - [Gary] I know it well. - And so, really? - [Gary] Yeah! - Small world. - [Gary] Yep. - So I said, alright, you know what, if advertising's what I want to do, I need to go get my feet wet where the art of industry is, that was New York City. So I packed up my suitcases, I couch hopped from friend to friend for about three and a half weeks. - [Gary] Good for you. - Yeah, I found a place, a sub-lease in Astoria, Queens, 'cause it was pretty cheap. And then I eventually got this job, but I have to tell you, the weirdest thing about it all was that, I didn't even know what VaynerMedia was, and I didn't know who you were. This was before I got my interview. But I saw a video of you preaching to recent college grads. (Gary laughs) I graduated in 2015, and it was just saying, no, you have this five year window to attack it, blah blah. And I was like, wow, this guy's amazing, it's so inspirational, so I posted it on Facebook. A week later, Alex reaches out, I have my interview, I meet Joe and Camillo, and I eventually get the job. And I looked at my Facebook timeline, and I noticed that it said Gary Vaynerchuk, I was like, no fucking way, that's my CEO! (Gary laughs) I'm working for his company now! - [Gary] That's so awesome. - So it's crazy. cool. - Yeah, but I am happy here. - [Gary] I'm glad. - I am happy here, I didn't move to New York to settle for any job. I, you know, moved here to chase my dreams and to work hard and to hopefully, you know, succeed. - And I love Vayner.

- What can I answer for you, anything you're curious about? - All the changes that have been happening, I guess, in terms of-- - There's a lot more coming. - Yeah, I'm sure. You know, is there any insights you can give already as to how it's been going? Like, I know you said-- - I mean, it's all going to always be good. - Yeah? - [Gary] Like, I don't know, like the video I said, like if you have true heart and good intent and good stuff, - [Frank] Mhmmm. - And you're also a fucking beast and wants to rip people's throats out of their bodies, you'll always win. - [Frank] Okay. - So, you know, how's it going? It's all pockets, you know,-- - [Frank] Right. - we're at scale. - [Frank] That's good. - Some things are going phenomenal, some things are horse shit, but net-net, unbelievable and about to get way better. - [Frank] So, cool. - Communicate, is the biggest thing I would tell you. - [Frank] Ah. - Don't get just pocketed into your world. And those mentors, use Claude, use me. I think of it as, everybody out there is governors, and this is like D. C. - [Frank] Okay. Yeah. - Keep that in mind, if you ever need it. - Yeah, absolutely. - I mean, the vibes I'm getting, it seems like it's going really well, so I'm not, but you never know, right? - [Frank] Mhmmm. - You get put on team, manager above you is, you know, the thing I'm worried about for a guy that fits your profile is there's always that concern around meritocracy. If there's like raw talent, how they handle the patience game when people above them around them aren't playing that same game. That's a tricky one. - [Frank] Mhmmm. - But if you can win it, you win big. - [Frank] Yeah. - I spent my whole life interacting with people that are not as strong as I am. I mean that. - [Frank] Yeah. - Once you cannot calibrate that, it all fucking flows. - [Frank] Okay. - Lot easier when you fucking eat the shit for 20 years like I did to get to the point. Not as fun early in the game. - [Frank] Mhmmm. - But I'm telling you that in case you ever want to have a conversation about it. - [Frank] Okay, thank you very much.

- [Gary] Have a great day, man. - [Frank] Pleasure to meet you. - [Gary] What's that? - [Tyler] If you spend 15 here, you're gonna be 15 behind. - [Gary] Yeah. Hello! - Hi! - Hi. How are you? You were so fired up, I was intrigued. (team laughing) So hey, just want to spend some time with you guys and say hello and see what's up. Kim and I were chatting, we thought it'd be a good idea to get together, like we have in some other times. I guess, in the limited time that we have, as I was thinking about this meeting, I think the first and foremost thing is-- there's a tricky thing I want to start with and I want to hedge it by saying that it's a tricky thing. Because I think you guys remember with the all hands-on. I've a lot of fear of the entertainment team, the creative team, the Bud Lite team. I have enormous fear of that. However, that's just life. I mean, there's only so far communism can take you. (team laughing) With that said, and with it being very important, and I would say, I want to be very transparent. There's a lot of people here that I hope I get to interact with for the rest of my career. And yours. That it's important to not let it trump anything that is the logo, but with that being said, the first thing I want to start with is thanking you from the bottom of my heart of having enormously strong DNA in the thing that I probably care about the most when push comes to shove, which is this team over the last forever and definitely over this last year has performed at a hustle level that is inspiring to me and, very honestly, brings me vibes that I want to break all of you up and put you in all different places so that you can bring that to the table. And so, for that, I want to thank you. And really, it's appreciated. It's very real. Two, I though about something that was super important to me. There's so many people in this room that I just don't spend any time with. It's funny, I was saying something to the others that have been here, Alex, I'm just never gonna win this game. Just not You know, I'm just not. I have to fucking-- It's kind of like the Jets. I just have to wrap my head around it (team laughing) It's not happening. But, anything I can do in this limited time together right now. I'm a very fond believer in the leaders of this ecosystem. But, what if you're having a problem with them? It's not super fun to-- Like, how do you have that talk? If you're struggling with your boss, or your boss's boss. One analogy that I'm gonna start using a lot of in here, is the United States. And I kind of view some of the things you'll see structurally that I'm about to announce and kind of what's in place with me and Claude, that I refer to, or James is, you know, I look at Chris and Kim and I look at them as governors. myself as Washington D. C. I really genuinely want you guys to know this. And I don't know if you know it. I think some of you know it, but I'm gonna just pound it. I just don't have anymore vested interest in who's saying Chris or Kim versus Jody. I just don't. To me, it's all the same. The quicker people understand that, the quicker they feel safe. The quicker we can have real conversations, the quicker I can address shit. Obviously the video I sent last week in lieu with the email, I'm not gonna be able to defeat what happens outside these four walls that creates an enormous amount of cynicism, fear, negativity. But I will chip away at it. And if I can get one of you to feel more comfortable to stop by and say hello, I mean, Katie, I don't fucking like-- I don't wanna go (team laughing) Katie, four years in between five minute chats. (team laughing) You know what I mean? Now listen, very frankly, to some of you, if shit's cruising and it's phenomenal, great. 'Cause I'll take the five minutes back. 'Cause there's 74,000 other fires, but I want to continue to pound to remind you, especially when you get it caught into such a tight knit ecosystem, that this is not VaynerMedia. VaynerMedia is different for every person based on the people they interact with. But the intent is very consistent. And I just have to continue to pound that. Finally, really, I just kind of thought what would be really smart for five to 10 minutes is maybe do a Q& amp; A. You know, I've been talking a big game of town hall Q& amp; A for the whole company. I've been miserably inefficient since I haven't delivered on it. It's already top of mind for like, I have to crack that nut. Because I think it will solve a lot. And so, I'll banter for another two minutes here while I get you to think about how much courage, or what question you want to ask. But, as I stall for that one minute, I'm very thankful for you guys' efforts. I'm excited. There's a lot good stuff coming down the pipe. A lot of exciting stuff. Our brand within the ecosystem of entertainment is very strong and growing. I'm getting a lot of inquiries from studio owners and media companies and networks. And so, I'm really, really proud of what's going on here and I want to thank you guys for that. I think it'd be really smart for you to clap for each other and then look directly in somebody's-- (team applause) Look in somebody's face! I apologize for the cheesy nature of that, but boy do I fucking love-- (team laughing) I love fucking clapping! ("You're Welcome" by Jura Kez) In SVP, there's a lot! This is big! This has been a lot of time in the making. This is a lot of my off, you know, August by myself. How do I win in '17. (laughing) You're like, motherfucker, I haven't been able to watch one play of an Indians game. In 10 minutes, I have to go speak at Columbia. But I'll see you Friday probably. - Okay. - I mean, super punch line is I made a macro decision predicated on my beliefs that you wanted to go into the CPG world with me. Let's go. Avi's outside? - [Tyler] Yep. - [Gary] Avi! - [Tyler] Does Avi know exactly the hall you're going into? Classroom's 301. - [Gary] 301? That's my dorm room!

- Let's do it. - This is what you have for her? I planned. I have a second email with other stuff. If you don't want to go with this, but I think that this will be-- - So Foxglove is going? - The signee is the next one. Peter's gonna have it any minute. - Great. - Cornerstone-- - So are we going to price it right now, or? - Sure. - We can do that. - Yeah, you ready? - Yep. - And how did you want me to market to Foxglove, If there's any other way? Did you want me to title it, do you want to title something like that? - I definitely want to title it. - Make sure I do, okay? - Okay. - I can probably do that tomorrow. I'll go on WiFi and catch up. - That's fine. - That's when? This Thursday? - Next Thursday. Yeah the Wide's coming in tomorrow. - Okay. - Signee is $10 cost, searcher's 19. 99, one store, MSRP is $24, it's 91 Parker. It's 350 cases, remember? We didn't really have anything. - Let's go 24. 99, 19. 99. And let's go 18. 99, free shipping by the case. For one day only. Got it? Where's the Cornerstone Pinot? You'll get me that bottle? We need that. - You'll rate that probably, right? - Mhmmm. I'll probably make a video too. When am I here, DRock, Thursday night? Friday? - [DRock] Thursday. - [Gary] I'm here in the office Friday, right? - [DRock] Yes. - [Gary] We have to do it Friday. We should always be-- - One buck less? - Or some price less and free shipping. Got it? We had that for a little bit. - Okay. ("Working Together" by Jura Kez) - [Gary] See ya, let's go. You know where we're going? Do you know how dead I would have been doing that two years ago? Hey, man. Oh. (students laugh)

I'm so sorry. There was something interesting just happened. Did you ask him would he invest in the person who if he took the term deal, which was the early deal, right? - [Man 4] Yeah. - Well the answer to, the interesting part there that was interesting was he would have not known the other outcome. Like, if they took that first deal, he just wouldn't know. - [Man 4] Right. - So I think, I think that's something I'm always fascinated by, which is people are so crippled by decisions. There's just no way to know what would have happened you know, at the time, when you're making that decision. So much of this is Monday morning quarterbacking, that I'm fascinated. Anyway, nonetheless. - Let's move over into the middle. - Yeah. (students laugh)

I've known this man since I was 14, 15 years old because my family had a liquor store in Springfield, New Jersey, that I started working at when I was 14, that I later turned into something called Wine Library. And launched one of the first three or four e-commerce wine businesses in America called WineLibrary. com. Back in 1996, and your professor here was a hardcore wine nerd that knew way too much about wine for such a young dude. And I was a child, but that was my whole life and what I cared about. I built my dad's business from a three to a $65 million business, but I did it on digital marketing innovation of the time. In 1997, I had an email newsletter that had 91 percent open rates because nobody was e-mail marketing. And instead of sending catalogs from Sherry Lehman's or Zackie's, I was getting to customers first with the hottest wines on this thing "e-mail" and I was trying to send as many e-mails as possible in 1997 because I thought people would eventually charge for it. Like it was just like, it seemed such a great deal. (students laugh) Launching a website, e-mail, really, it's funny, but very honestly, if we start talking about VR, we're going to start making a lot of assumptions right now that are either play out or not play out in a 20, 30 year window. 1996 internet was a whole different fucking world. And so, I kept innovating, bought the word wine on the day Google AdWords came out, for five cents a click. That was a good bet. And owned it for a long time, and just did a lot of smart digital marketing things. And then I did a show on YouTube a couple months after YouTube came out called Wine Library TV, where I sat in front of a camera and drank four bottles of wine for twenty minutes. (students laugh) And a lot of people watched that, and that's how I kind of hit the scene in the tech world. And then what happened was YouTube sold for $1. 7 billion and I was like, fuck, I was right about e-com, Google AdWords, I was right about you know, cookie re-targeting banner ads. I was right about YouTube, maybe this skill I have for selling more burgundy and priorat can be deployed against something more financially interesting. So when I read the article about YouTube's sale, there was one article that featured Ron Conway's Angel Investor investment, and I said, "What the fuck's an Angel Investor? " I googled it. (students laugh) And you know, within twenty minutes decided I would be an Angel Investor. And went to South By Southwest three months later, became friends with Ev Williams and Blane Cook, the original CTO, and I think your firm at the time, me and Kevin Rose bought up Blane's original stock at Twitter, so I bought a ton of twitter real cheap. - [Professor] Yeah. - I didn't think of myself as an angel investor, I just thought that was a smart decision, 'cause I thought Twitter would be big. Then I went home from South-By. - [Professor] Did it do good, by the way? - Well it did for me because I sold my shares. So I did good. (students laugh) Came home, made a video. I was making wine videos, came home, made a video that said Facebook should be worried about Twitter. There was a guy head of platform at the time at Facebook that I didn't know by the name of Dave Morin. Sent me an e-mail, he's like, hey, this video has gone really viral inside of Facebook. Would you come out to Palo Alto and give a talk? So I came to a room like this, when, in front of the whole company, it was only 400 employees. And talked about consumer behavior and why I thought the world was changing. That caught Mark's attention, we went out to dinner that night, and a week later I bought a lot of stock from his parents. And then somehow I got David Karp to re-open the B-round of Tumblr. And, by the way, stick with me here, the B-round had a $14 million valuation. And I made an investment into Tumblr, so the first three things I invested in were Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. (students laugh) - That was wise. - Yeah, I mean, it was when I was smart. I was making bets on things that I thought would be successful. I didn't think of myself as an investor. I got progressively stupider after that. (students laugh) But, - [Professor] Why do you think that was? - Because I started trying to be an investor. I literally went from being, I'm a businessman, these are good businesses. This is good. The market changed. And this is Tumblr B-round 2008, B-round 14 million. Now every fake bullshit entrepreneur running around this campus wants 7 million, 4 million for their bullshit idea that they have no prayer on because entrepreneurship is popular, and instead of going to Bain and McKenzie they think they can start a fucking app that people are going to use. (students laugh) (students applaud) - [Professor] So those of you who are clapping, are you clapping because he just described you? (all laugh)

- The brand equity around being an entrepreneur today is stunning, it is stunning for me to, in the world, like I can't believe how cool it is in real life to be an entrepreneur, and that makes a lot of young individuals gravitate towards that. - Is that, but you, you're suggesting overall that's worse than if those young individuals went to work for Goldman Sachs or McKenzie. - I am. 'Cause I'll tell you what we are not, - Do you see the world as a better place, even with the bad ideas are getting,-- - No, I do not. And let me explain why. The biggest conversation that I'm fascinated by is the suicide rate at Warton last year. So we have, in parallel, a narrative that anybody can do it and everybody's entitled to win at entrepreneurship. And there's an underbelly in our world that I'm concerned about, and you know we've talked about this in different panel, this is a big thing. Like, when you are, there are certain individuals who have been winning in the first twenty years of their life in a game that was fixed before they played it. And then they go into the market. And the market punches them in the mouth, and they don't know how to react. And so yes, I do think, for the clichĂŠ paint a picture that I'm painting right now, there are certain individuals that I just genuinely believe would have had a better life being the number seven at Facebook, instead of the number one of Shitbook. (students laugh) Or, or, making 230,000 a year, on Wall Street or Consulting Land at 29 years old. Yes, I think there's a lot of people that will be better. Like, I love entrepreneurship the most, but nothing works when it's forced or off-balance. Nothing. You know, I don't get to judge who should. I'm just excited to see how it all plays out. (students laugh) Do you know what I mean? I mean, who should? Who should do anything in the world? The people, you know, what I love about this is they'll be plenty of winners during this era. There'll just be a lot more losers. You know? And so, that's all, just a timing thing, 'cause it's so classic. This is every market on everything, always and forever, it's why I love brand so much. This is when brand takes over reality. (bag drops) (all laugh) Yeah. I know, that was a big statement. (students laugh) So, I think a lot of, I grew out of, my crew grew out of the Angel, Super Angel, guys and gals that were successful in their first internet business, made some money and were getting, had enough Twitter followers, let's get to the punch line, to attract unbelievable deal flow. I made a lot of money, I made a lot, I'm going to continue to make a lot of money from that pocket. But a lot of us shouldn't necessarily be investors. We may be, should be keeping some investment behavior, but we should all really map ourselves, but I think yeah it's all really, I think all of this comes down to the supply and demand of the skills, and I just think people are very attracted to this world. And I think, especially when I sit in a class like this, you know, I try to reverse engineer every situation I'm in, especially, how do I bring value? If I can get one person in this room, to actually pay attention tonight, go home, look in the mirror, and try to start deploying aggressive self-awareness, it could change the upside of their lives. I genuinely believe that. I just,-- - As long as they don't work for Goldman Sachs. - Or they should, I mean, I really, or maybe they should work for their family business, I don't know. But I know that way too many people just go with the flow. I know how strong-minded I am, and how easy that is for me to get caught up and so I just think it's a worthwhile conversation, especially 'cause too many people make a decision on the now, not on when they're actually playing it out. Doesn't really matter to you if you're going to this world today, it matters what the impact is over a 36 to 60 month window you have to really quantify that. Looking at data told you what happened. You need to deploy real intuition and other kind of signs to what's going to happen, so you can make the decision for you. - Thank you. Thank you very much. (applause) - Good to see you, buddy. - Thank you so much. - [Gary] Thanks for having me. I'm sorry I'm late. - No. This is great. I appreciate it. - [Gary] Good to see you. - Tie? - Yes. - [Man 4] I wanna do a picture. I'm gonna get in the middle. - [Gary] Let's do it. - Oh, by the way, I wanna continue. - I love when we talk. - This is the second time we've talked. - It's fun. Yeah. - I really wanna continue. - Pitch in. (Gary laughs) - It's good to see you, brother. Great to see you. Talk to you soon. Hey, wanted to meet this guy. How are you, man? - Nice to meet you, man. - Thanks for coming today. - No problem. I mean, I got out of school today first of all. - That's the best part. - Gonna use that. Gonna use any excuse possible. - [Gary] Love it. - Absolutely despise school. So anything I can do to get out of that. Awesome to finally meet you. - Thank you, man. - I think Eliot may have explained. - Yup, yup. - You actually, whether you know it or not, connected the two of us. 270 something #AskGaryVee. - Yup. - Eliot picked my question. You said connect with him. - Yup. - I honestly didn't even know that there was someone that age doing what I was doing. I did the Facebook version of what Eliot does. - Yup. - I had no idea that there was someone else because obviously. - Sure, I know how it works. - You're behind the logo. - Yup, yup. - You have no idea. - Yeah, of course. - So to see Eliot and you. Connect with Eliot. Tons of phone calls. - Nice. - I'm helping him currently build his Facebook. - He's helping me build my Instagram. - [Gary] I love it. Keep jamming. - But yeah, so I just wanted to come here. First of all let you know that your content is something that I look at when I'm looking for content for myself. - [Gary] Yup. - Three things. Information. Motivation. - [Gary] Yup. - And entertainment. - [Gary] Yes. - Very, very few people provide all three. - [Gary] I appreciate it, man. I appreciate it. That's a very big compliment. Ready to go? - [DRock] Yeah. - Cool. Bye, guys. Thank you. - Thank you, that was awesome. - Thanks for having us. Thank you. ("Free Form" by Skilly Music) Headed back home. Gonna change into a suit. Go to a charity event. Some friends and fam. And then maybe head our for a couple more meetings. Good day. Fun meetings. The grind is on.