How Gary Vee Predicts The Next Facebook (Every Time)

All right, we got Gary Vee in the house. Everyone knows Gary Veecause he's all over Twitter and Instagram and LinkedIn and he's invested in Twitter and Slack and Facebook before they IPO'd. Gary's fun. We brought him on and our goal was Let's ask him a bunch of questions that we're genuinely curious about. Like Which of those investments actually paid off the most? And it was a very, very surprising number. We also talked about what he's excited about now and

We asked him about the mindset and what he noticed. Hanging out with people like Zuck or Logan Paul or different different characters like that. So Enjoy this episode with J, it's a good one. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to

I put my all in it like a day song on a ball. Gary, what's going on, man? How are you? I think Sean saw something. recently that you'd posted that I thought everyone knew about you, Sean. What was that thing? The report card? Most podcasts start with an intro. We start with little ball busting. So I have here Gary's High school report card, which you tweeted out to be fair. So I'm not I'm not putting it out there you didn't do already do. But I thought this is kind of amazing. So you tweeted out a picture of your high school report card.

I'm just gonna read off a few uh few of your achievements. Gary got a C in ceramics, a D in English, an F in German. Uh P E, you got an A. That's the only A you have on this report card, I think. Uh algebra D This one's kind of amazing. Speech.

Which like You are known for speech. You got a D driver's ed D Jerry, you were uh What a turnaround. What a turnaround. What's your reaction when you see this? That um a lot of data in the world is dirty.

It's fake data. And um I think school grades are just not A tremendous indicator of what's gonna happen.

The speech one is crazy. The the report card I tweeted out was the recap of all four years of high school. That So little fun facts to build on top of what you just said. I got an F in all four.

Marking periods of German one freshman year. I retook it sophomore. Or you're I got a D In the first marking period. And then proceeded to get all Fs. Failed.

Language my freshman and soft more year and the state of New Jersey in nineteen ninety four. If you did not pass Two years of language, you cannot graduate high school. So I walked into junior year high school. And took Spanish one with

All these ninth graders as a junior. And I had the pressure on and luckily got Mrs. Signora Kennedy. Saw something in me and forced me through the system, otherwise it was over for me.

Um But Yeah, I mean the speech one really stands out to your point, Sean, right? Like to Think that I got a D in speech. Which was give a speech in class.

Right. Um, which I did well. It's just that I you know I told my Ma my mom and I talked about this this weekend. I literally did not open a book in four years high school and did zero

Homework like You know, they would ass everyone who's listening went through school, I think, like they would assign a book report. And like It's not that I did it poorly, it's that I didn't do it. Just like did never I literally in four years of high school did zero homework.

Zero. Like I something happened where I just knew. That You know, at that point high school I was already working in my dad's liquor store and

selling a lot of baseball cards at shows. And just kind of and it was look, this is pre internet. The world was different. I grew up in an immigrant family We lived in like We just moved to like rural New Jersey. When I tell you we lived in our own little

four five person cocoon. My family we really did. It was very, very, very in hindsight. Deeply immigrant. You know what I mean? Like We didn't have like Amer like my parents didn't have American parent friends. Like my mom wasn't friends with any of my High school friends, parents, like My mom asked me about

What I'm doing for college February of my senior year. I was like, Mm. It's over. I'm not going to college. She lost her mind and forced me to like from Mount Ida college filled it out, and that's literally how I went to college. Like so you know, I think if I was growing up today

My intuition is That It would have been okay for me not to go to college and it would have just all been handled differently. And honestly. I think my teachers would have said to me like I have a bright future instead of saying what they did back then, which was You're a laser, you're gonna be a garbage man. That was the big thing, Sean, Sam, in the nineties. Your teachers would tell you you're gonna be a garbage man, which I think is really crazy because actually it's a very good living with a high pay that has a high pace now.

Our friend just started a garbage business and he's doing like three hundred grand a year of it of the cob. Jokes on you, Miss Kennedy. Yeah. One of the things we do is always just What are you excited about? Like what products are you seeing? What people are you seeing? What cool stories are you seeing that are kind of That you're genuinely excited about? Have you guys seen Break the Web? No, what's that?

Dude, they got a great tagline. So it's uh break the web dot co, the internet's official scoreboard. This app's got my attention. Trending topics on Twitter was so big for me back in the day when it was desktop only. Break the web is an app. Like it's just what's trending right now, and uh it seems like the underlining tech is pretty damn strong. Like

You know how everybody loves to throw around AI or this and that, and you're like if you're smart, you're like this just a collection of APIs or anything, like This one's a little bit better and like I don't know, I've put on my home screen, which is not something I've done in a long time. Why? Why do I like it? Well yeah, I mean it's like tr I'm looking at it now, you just showed it to me. It was all the news stuff. I don't really pay attention to p I don't like your yours I saw the word

Uh Gaza, Trump. And like five other words where They're important, but like I don't I'm not going to like read like news. First of all, great observation, brother. For me as well. Like honestly Something that's on my mind is everyone needs to consume less news.

'Cause all it does is push fear and negativity and like it's just so scary, like how fucked up that is. So it's funny saying, brother I don't really click into that stuff. So right now it's brand new and I when I met with the founders I only met with them for like 10 or 15 minutes. I asked them real quick, I'm like, can we get this categorized out? They're like, Yeah, that's on the roadmap. Like, I just want po I need pop culture and consumer trends. So like

To me. Um I'm like When I look at Madonna fan, I'm like, what is that? You know

Madonna mistakenly scolded again. Right now what they're what what's it interesting though is that it's a great indication of where we are in society. Like The it was less political. And

And it was really valuable. Like the reason I like it Or the potential of it. And obviously we're in a election season. So now this will get eaten up to your point, Sam, on this stuff. But it is an indication of the pulse.

Like I'm always looking for what's the indication of the polls of what people give a fuck about. Dude, so these guys are it looks like it only has ninety reviews. Oddly. Both of these guys used to work at a bakery. The CEO worked at Pete's Coffee. The other guy used to work at specialties cafe and bakery, so they're both uh lovers of baked goods. They decided to launch this. It's it's three years old though, but it's not popular yet. What so what are your what's your prediction? This thing's gonna be huge? There's no prediction. Back to shooting the shit. To your point, Sean. I'm not

overly like, oh break the web's gonna be the best. The concept of Date So I have a new book coming out. Soon. Uh this year, right?

I finally feel like I've synthesized what I actually do. Like Long for me. Twitter. I think literally have a meeting today where I'm gonna post my hundred most successful YouTube videos on Twitter here.

Over the course of the next couple of m months. Try to stagger it a little bit. Because it's just very clear that Twitter is pushing. It's gonna push it, right? I I don't know if that's gonna work. I think they're I agree I agree they're pushing it, but I just don't find myself using it that way. Yeah, that's a great call, Sam. Like what I know is that On

I never have an interest in guessing if something's gonna work. I have an interest in executing on anything that might work. And then dealing with the ramifications of the upset. Why guess when you can test for cheaper than it is almost cost to guess, right? Like it's not expensive to take your best YouTube videos and repo have somebody repost. That's a easy way to learn. Uh'cause you know, w you talk about day trading attention, right? All trading is mispriced assets. So and and I would and I would argue that attention is the most mispriced asset right now that most impacts everyone. So why is why is that?

There is nobody. That will ever listen to this. that doesn't need attention as a currency to achieve what's in their stomach. Whether they want to Raise money for their PTA.

І President United States. Get more listeners to their podcast. sell their sneakers. They're the only asset. class that I think is universal. Is attention.

Even apparently Trying to s home. parent two children need their kids to listen to them to be able to get the message across. The currency of listening Is

We're consuming is is profound. And We're living through the mass fragmentation of that. Right. If you think about

Let's use parenting. was a lot easier to get your kids to listen when in nineteen fifty four eighty percent of families sat down and had dinner together. And a for like an hour and a half and you did it. Right. And like so those parents were able to Message.

in a very interesting way. Uh, whereas now they still can have we have technology you can set a text or uh a Sam and Sean clip. to your kids to get them to think of something. But there's also so much supply. Inc right. With the demand side being the same. There's only so many hours in the day. Now the human brain, I think, has capacity to

Keep a lot more information than we think. None the less. Um, for me, more narrowly. As someone who it loves business and loves You know, to think about it. You know.

It doesn't matter what you're selling. And it doesn't even matter. What you're saying. Until you first get their attention. And then Everything is about what you're saying.

Right. What what's interesting to me is I think of it in I the acronym I use internally of Vayner X, Vayner Media. Is a pack. platforms and culture. Right? And so break the web.

plays in culture, right? Like there's two different currencies that I think about constantly or two different frameworks. One is platforms. What is What are the top twenty five platforms that have people's attention doing? What do they care about? From Snap to Pinterest. to LinkedIn to YouTube.

even within themselves, YouTube shorts differently than YouTube. This collective of like fifteen, twenty places. Right, that really have quote unquote the attention. What are they up to? How did their algorithms work? What are their features doing?

And I think about them on a day to day basis. Right. And then and then I think about culture. Like what is the slang? What is what is the

Things of interest, the people of interest. Right. Um and and then it becomes a framework of like what's overpriced and underpriced execution. So for example, I think Superbowl is the most underpriced media in the world.

It's very hard to get 130 million people to watch thirty seconds of a video and actually want to and pay attention to it. Right. So that's seven, eight million dollar vag I think is great. The problem is the creative is the variable of success. Right. So the media might be a great deal.

But if your thirty second video is forgettable or stinks Or you overpaid for making it, right? Verizon paid Beyonce to be in that commercial. If they paid her five hundred thousand dollars, I think they stole her. If they paid forty million, I think they overpaid for her. I don't know what the number is. My guess is it's somewhere in between.

But that is basically how my brain works and how I think about communication and marketing and Ram building. Perception changing and just the whole world. It's how I think about the world. Have you guys seen let me tell let me ask you if you guys have seen this in in terms of cool shit. So Uh perplexity is awesome.

Um, but they have this new thing with I didn't see him talk about it a lot. It's called perplexity AI. Slash podcast. They've come out with a daily podcast. That's five to ten minutes long. That's written by perplexity.

And it has beautiful background music. And they've got this British guy. Have you ever seen those like Planet Earth videos where it's like Now we see the mother cheetah go after them. Yeah. They've got this voice that sounds exactly like him. Reading. Like the script.

And it sounds Awesome. The voice is powered by this thing called uh eleven labs. Dude, I went to eleven labs, Sean. I uploaded a ton of our voice. And I was like

Fuck it. Let's just see if I can make a podcast. It's way but it's like it's the best thing I've ever heard. Have you guys seen them come out with those podcasts? Eleven Labs made a clip. They just translated the podcast, auto auto dubbed it using AI into Hindi. And it's phenomenal. By the way, it's something we've been working on for about a year. Like I'm I think next year is the full year where like

Every single thing I do, every video, every language, like we're there. Dude, I haven't I haven't seen Sam, I haven't seen the podcast, but I just took no, like I can't wait to listen to it. Like it's so good. And they've not made a big it's this has not been like a big hoopla. They haven't done I I randomly came across it. I was listening to it. I'm like, I'm gonna listen to this every day. This is great. It's David Adborough telling me about like the news. It sounds awesome. Uh, which langu w which language you gotta do? Should we do Hindi? Is that the one? I'm doing everything. Like if you're gonna do one, you might as well do all

Yeah, just like I just think that I also think like the everyone's gonna go after the big one like for example, I get excited about Portuguese, I'm like fuck it, everyone's gonna go to Mandarin and Hindi and like the big number, you know? I'm like I'm just gonna own Portugal and Brazil. Like it's like but but That's tongue in cheek. I think the reality is over the next three years, all of it's gonna go down in cost so much. That it won't even like The the us.

In seven years. are gonna laugh that we ever had it just in one language that they won't even understand. They're like dude, have you ever seen that talk that this guy Alex Schultz gave about Facebook's growth? He was the he was the top Facebook growth guy like early on. He when they created the growth team is him, Chamoth. And uh the guy, I think Javier, who now runs it. And he's like He put a chart up.

And it was a it was a YC Y C talk. And he puts a chart up on the screen and there's a bunch of dots. He's like, you know, all these dots are feature releases. And you can see one dot where everything starts growing right after that. He goes, Anyone want to take with take a guess what that that dot is? People in the audience like photos, photo tagging, um, it's uh When you release mobile, what you know, what is it? We don't know. And he's like Language translation. Local language translation. He goes the biggest growth driver in Facebook's growth.

Barnon. was when we when we localized the service, which he's like was not easy. They actually I don't know if you know this Facebook had to do like a Wikipedia thing. 'Cause there was, you know, there's a hundred and eighty six countries that they had to deal with. And so they were like, we need users to basically re retranslate the site for their local region. And they incentivized people to do that. And that's how they mass translated overnight. No other social network did this.

And it took off. So that was the first time I heard about this. The second was When we did um our our basketball camp with Mr Beast, uh, which Gary, I advise you to, uh, you gotta come next time. Uh Mr. Beast basically we host a basketball camp at his house and he did this presentation. He's like He's like, Here's one thing I'm doing that nobody else is really doing, which is Every video I do, I now created channels and

Portuguese and everywhere else. He told me. Jimmy told me that whole thing several years ago. Like such a good bet. B by the way, tell me about this basketball camp because I'm playing basketball tomorrow at six AM. Like this is how much I love it. I'm forty eight. Like You'll fit right in. We got there's plenty of wheelchairs and ice and bags of ice. Dude, it's right, but I'm a ninety's Knicks fan, so no easy layups. Is that is that politically correct in this basketball camp. Yeah, yeah, you can ha you can hack your hack your heart away. It's it's all good. We um

Yeah, actually I wonder if you do anything like this. So um we do this thing where it's called Camp MFM. My first million M FM. So we um We were like We like the idea of getting together like you know. When you go to a conference, you end up having a good time. If you go speak somewhere, you end up having a good time.

But there's kind of this dread in my stomach of like fuck, yet another conference. Like I just don't wanna do the boring I just I guess have a resistance of doing the same thing everyone else is doing in general. And so we were like, how do we get the benefits of Going and networking. without ever calling it networking or a conference or anything else. And so we created basically an adult summer camp. It was like What if for a weekend we just rented a house and in this case we actually just stay at Mr. Beast House now because he he ended up wanting to come.

And so we we go to his house and then we Bring in a trainer from the NBA. He treats us like we're you know, washed up NBA players basically puts us through their program and we just play ball all day. When is it? One just happened, but it was big. It was like the founder of Airbnb, Mr. Beast, all these guys. Joe's the best. Joe I have an email from Joe.

That says Gary, we're fans. We want you to Look at our company. And it was Joe at airbed and breakfast.com. And I never saw it.

You know. Or maybe I did and just like But I look at that email. I have it on a separate laptop and I look at it

What? Once in a while. Just to like I love it. I like This is actually a fun segue back to chopping it up. If it was just us three and everyone's listening where we're going. Where do you guys sit on losing?

So we just talked about basketball. So I was just thinking about me going to this basketball thing. And like my favorite thing in basketball And pick up is to lose the first gate. It is my favorite. And I talked about this on Steve Bartlett's podcast.

A billion fucking emails about this. There's something that just like the blood in my head like everything transforms in my chemicals, and then everything in life. Like n everything stops, and the only thing that matters to me in the world is that we have to win game two. That's so funny you said that. When we did the camp, the same thing happened. Uh the very first game, I'm trying to be the host of the event.

So I'm like, okay, yeah, yeah, you guys play. I'll set out first, no problem. We get in, I'm like, I'm passing the ball. I'm like, oh, that's Joe Gebbia. Let me not Let them drive. I'm not gonna try to hurt the founder of Airbnb or uh Mr. Beast. Oh, that was cool, man. I uh you know I see someone taking a video, I'm like, that's cool, that's gonna be a cool clip. It's gonna go viral. Then I'm like Like, fuck that. I'm in the clip. He's scoring on me. And I was like, he's no longer Mr. Beast. That's Jimmy. And that's Joe. And now we're competing to win. And then the whole event got a lot more fun when it equalized. Correct. All the job titles dropped and it's basically

Who's here to win, who's here to play, and uh that's when It got real. It's why I love entrepreneurship. Where I was g where I'm going with this is That email like excites me. You know, like I'm like, yeah.

Eat it, Gary, like Dude, that one would have been a bigger one for you than uh Uber, too. No, it wouldn't have but maybe, but no, because I was the they both probably believe it or not, this is how much startups were back then. They both would have been priced between four and eight million. That's crazy, right? I know. Br bro, I got into Tumblers B round. B.

Series B not Angel. Not seed. Not series A. I got into Tumblr series B This is actually it right here.

This is my Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook stock. I got into Tumblr's series B. at a fourteen million dollar valuation. That's Yeah.

That's like you know, pre seed now. That was Literally two thousand seven or eight. Right? We're only talking sixteen years ago.

So like you guys are young dudes. So think sixteen years ahead. How old will you be in sixteen years shot? Dude, I didn't want to know. Fifty two, fifty, I don't know what Sam. How old am I? Right. Honestly, no bullshit. I don't know if you guys hang out with like sixty, seventy, eighty year old business people. Like I do a lot of that.

Because it's the best. I mean to me, the two extremes are the best, right? Hang out with the seventeen year olds that are like shitting, listening right now, shitting on all of us, saying these fuckers are gonna wait till they see what I'm gonna do. And then seventy three year olds who are like Just like the amount of sixty seven of sixty forget, I I think is like literally children. Seventy and eighty seventy and eighty to me. Just it's stunning to me how many seventy-three, seventy five, seventy seven year old businessmen and women I know. That go at it. 'Cause they love it.

It's still what they do. And it gets me excited because at forty eight, it's like, Man, I'm still like I'm in half time, right? Like I'm in like it makes You know, I I get excited about that. I wanted to ask you about that. So I think you and I kinda have similar backgrounds where it was like Raised around like a like

kinda a r a a r a rough crowd every once in a while. Yes. And still kinda have a little bit of that where like I enjoy like doing like hood rat shit every once in a while. Same. And uh Gary, Sam's nickname on the pod is Hosewater'cause he's just no water fountains, baby, just drink it straight out the hose. Dude, I'd love to man, hosewater was the It's the best, dude. Some rose water. I drank out of the hose literally from nineteen eighty two to nineteen eighty two. Dude, I I I gre I peeed in the back yard more than I pee in the toilet. They used to call me look my no hands like every day. Uh so listen, I had a question. So you uh

So look, we ki we' we're all three probably a little bit similar, where it's like we kinda like did a bunch of scrappy stuff and now Gary, you're older and a little and further along in your career in terms of success than we are, but we've both both done some interesting or we've all done interesting things where we're able to hang out with some of these guys who are like legitimate billionaires. I'm I'm sure you're I don't know if you are or not, but you're in that you're in that ballpark and I see with Michael Rubin and whatever, you you know, you hang out with some of the the shot callers of the world. What do you think is the difference between The store owner who's doing like

You know, a retail guy doing half a million or a million dollars a year. uh the ten million dollar year business, the hundred million dollar net worth person, and the billion dollar net worth person. Do they all have similar ish mindsets, just maybe luck or industry? They pick the right the a different industry. Yeah, two things. It's w it's twelve thirty four. I still don't know why eleven eleven has everyone's attention and twelve thirty four doesn't. The one two three four is just so cool. Make a wish real quick. Uh.

That's a really fucking fun question, Sam. My brain as you were asking it. Or focused on one, two, three, four. Well yeah, I I just have to look over and see it. I always thought about twelve thirty four. I've always thought it was interesting uh that it has no pop culture relevance. Um I believe

The first thing that goes through my mind on this question. Is risk tolerance. And fear. Right. So I think it's theater. I just had an idea. Twelve thirty four. I gotta I get it. I I I wanna I gotta use it.

Twelve thirty four? should be where you shoot your shot. I love that. When you see twelve thirty four, that's when you gotta send that text, you gotta send the tweet, you gotta send the email right there. That that's that's the idea for twelve thirty four. We can make this a thing. Can you get somebody to register like twelve thirty four dot or like I feel like

You know. Um, I don't want these k hustler kids like the thirteen year old me would listen to this and immediately register twelve thirty four. Uh dot com. Um But I think it's fear.

I think I think about my dad a lot. My dad I think it's How people view Their ability to go backwards.

So I think There's something very scary about my chemicals and Sam, I've always felt this in you as well. It's funny that you brought it up. I

Don't know if you ha I I don't know you well enough to know this, and I'm not even sure you're gonna believe me when I say it, but I do think You have a good shot. Of understanding what I'm about to say. My favorite Rocky is Rocky Six when he goes back to Phill with nothing. Yeah.

Sean, there's something so weird in me and I I it's almost like Am I sandbagging myself like I be I'm gonna be very vulnerable here, like I don't view it as like I'm cool. I actually view it as um potentially flawed. Right, like there's something in me that romanticises Being okay.

With it all Falling down. I'm back in like Queens in a h you know four hundred dollar a month Apartment. The entire internet

is like C, he was fucking overrated. I totally know all all the people that love me, all the Friends they have that don't love me are like, see, your fucking guy was a loser. He fucked it up, he sucks. I don't know why I like that. But I believe Sam to answer your question.

It's something to do with that chemical. I believe the people that I think you brought up some good stuff. I think a lot about if my dad had a Supermarket instead of a liquor store. I would have taken that to

way bigger heights because the liquor was you couldn't ship it and you know like the component. Yeah, there's a ton of serendipity Like honestly, I think a lot about if like Dad didn't want me to work in his store, I would have went to 'Cause I fell in love with tech, I might have went to California and who the fuck knows what if I'd created in ninety five, six seventy, like could have We had one of those Mark Cuban moments. Yeah, think about that. Or

You know, like I think when you can sell When you can for all the everyone who's listening. And if you have kids like this, if you can sell, you're in the game. Right? Like if you can sell.

You're all you'll never be like zero. Right. And so what do you got here? Is one two three four.com available? No, dude. One two three four is owned by like a telecom. Yeah, that's what I figure. That's impossible I like the one like the one thirty seven. Yeah, do that.

Um Are you kidding me? Dude, I love that. I'm so pumped about this, bro. The funny thing by the way, Ben, my guy, he w he texted us uh screenshot of GoDaddy one it's one two three four dot org, fifteen thousand, he just said pull the trigger, question mark. No, no, no, no, don't pull that one. Yeah, actually it's a good one. I never think you should overpay for names'cause I think names are made.

Dude, I agree. I agree. Right, Sam? But do you know who disagrees? Fucking uh Darmesh. Darmesh at um I know. I know I've been with them multiple times. So Darmesh uh founded HubSpot, which bought my company and I've gotten close with him. He's like He's like, dude, I bought dot com or Chat chat dot com today. I'm like, why? He goes,'Cause it was available.

I was like, What are you gonna do with it? He's like, I'm not sure, but I'm gonna figure something out, but I pay eight figures for it. Yeah. Look He's smart. He knows like that. You know, look, as long as Doccom I mean to me the Scary thing for Let me let me take a step back, not go too fast.

He's smart enough to know he's he could probably flip that. 'Cause it's a very, very, very big deal. On the flip side There is A little concerned for me of what happens when this

no longer becomes the remote control of our society. Right. Like I'm very fascinated by twenty years from now. Talk about sixteen years ago on Tumblr. Sixteen years from now

If you told me That sixteen years from now we live in a predominant VR world. I would be like Maybe like I can see That possibility.

Right, you could see that it's pushing in a direction I don't think it's gonna end up being these Apple Pro Go you know, Google Glass, Snap, the Facebook thing quest. My intuition is that it's gonna have to be much more lightweight.

But I never underestimate the human being. I'm positive somebody's gonna make the contact lenses that work like this. And then we're off to the races because now Back to the way I think about day trading attention. This no longer houses the attention.

Now it's housed here. Whoever controls that. Paradigm. wins big and then all of a sudden does dot com even matter that is that how the UI UX works? Because dot com didn't matter at all in nineteen ninety. Dude, that's how I feel about SEO businesses right now with if it's chat GPT and and Google's just trying to give you the answer. That's why Bahner Media never did search. When I started the company fourteen years ago, everyone's like, What the fuck?

Why don't you just say that? First of all, I thought if I built a very big company, I'd be able to MA search if I wanted to add it. Right. It was already established. I grew up on search the decade the fifteen years before. And so here's a good one for the kids. If you're building towards the future If you're capable

Remember that you can always buy the current. And that's how I thought about Search. I was gonna master social In O nine.

And I felt like Social was gonna eat up search anyway. And I think it's starting to happen now. Like search is in a weird spot. Like Google's in a weird spot. Like it in it's in a great spot in some ways, but

Yeah, I I think I think search is definitely a different world. Like if your business I actually spoke to somebody Thursday. Um who uh is really getting hurt because he was one dimensional on search and I I s you know

That's it. Such a fear of mine that If you sell your stuff via email, via your podcast, via social media content, via search. You must develop. Into a Swami knife because if you're just a fork

If you're just one dimensional, you're gonna get caught. Hey, Gary, let me ask you about that. You you were saying a second ago, you're like, I'm not afraid to go back. Yes. Do you so like the way that I run my personal finances is I've got like uh my safety net. So I've got this like account that has enough money that I'm good forever. And and so that's in

Vanguard and bonds. And it's just like I I've never touched that. And then anything ab anything above that amount. I I'll bet it. And I'm like start new shit. So you're talking about like you don't mind going back, but it's but it sounds like that's not exactly how you'd run your your Finances. So do you have like a safety nut and then anything above that you're like

Dude, bet it better. Or do you just use profits from Vayner to to make these bets? Wha how do you how does that work? Yes. Um I have I'm I'm gonna be I'm comfortably transparent. Might

I'm very fortunate. So my zero is a million dollars, but that's it. That's it. Same. Wait, so you only keep a million in your like liquid portfolio, that's your safety net? No, no, I have I have other things like I have money in all sorts of places, but I have this one

Place. That has one million dollars. And literally everything else. Is in play. Wow.

Now Sean, I wanna paint a very clear picture here because I don't want to create hyperbole. I haven't bet everything on everything, but If I ever feel the way I felt about Facebook in two thousand seven when I put I had two hundred thirty six thousand dollars in savings, I put two hundred thousand into Facebook.

Right. If that ever happens again. Like I'm willing to that very large Because

That feeling similar to the feeling I felt about the internet. When I saw it in ninety five. Similar to the feeling that I felt about Friends to MySpace, that little like, Oh, the internet's changing. I look for those moments.

Um And You know, again, I'm willing to go big But to your point, Sam, like It's not like I'll go to zero zero.

You know, a million dollars is a lot a lot of money. And especially if you're capable. If you're capable Like I don't know, like I feel very reputation.

Yeah, correct. I also think about face off. Like where you change like I I have like these very like deep Sean. It goes back to like wanting to win a basketball game. Like I think it's more I think the worst for my love of entrepreneurship that's happened is what Sam just said.

I no longer Can do it. Without anyone knowing. It's a whole different game. It was so fun. When people didn't know what what you're saying reminds me of uh well two things. I think it's super interesting that your answer to

What's the difference you've seen in the mindset and psychology was Who's willing? To go backwards and almost what you said was You almost kinda crave there's like a romantic idea about going back, which I like a lot. I resonate with that a lot. It's almost like I there's T V shows I wish I could go watch again for the first time.

in the same way, like there's no greater feeling than going from not making it to making it. Once you've made it and you try to make more, it doesn't have the same Thrill, adventure, satisfaction, self respect, you know. You you have to almost go into different games. Like I I worry about that. Like I don't let me rephrase, I don't worry about it, but I

I Sense. That there's a day where I ac I talk a lot about never retiring. And dying at my desk. And then there's an equal part of me that realizes

That I'm very wired in a way where I just might make wake up at seventy nine. And be like, you know what? Like I'm done. I'm just gonna focus on my grandchild's like like I just I don't know. I have like

I think we're all very like I think we underestimate How long life is. You know, I think we underestimate our capacity to Make hard decisions. to different directions that we can't see along the way.

Then there's back to luck and You know, I mean look. We've lived through a lot of prosperity. Everyone, the three of us have gotten very fortunate of where we live during what era. Right. Like there's a lot going on in the world, like

You know. There was people the roaring twenties talking shit like this over dinner. And then You know, a very challenging thirty years. Punch them in the face, right?

It all seems so great in nineteen twenty seven. America was on its way. It's gonna be awesome and then You know, massive world war and atomic bomb. Korea and Vietnam and social unrest and so You know, all these things are like fun to think about. It's like fun to like

Romanticize about the future. Um, but I I will say this. I I'm actually gonna ask you guys this. What do you think your personal relationship is with Gratitude. Versus

Taking for granted. I I changed on that. Once I actually sold my company and was financially free, and then like two weeks after the sale of the company The CEO got into a life threatening accident. And I was like, Oh, that could have ruined my deal. And like

Like everything like this all could have been ruined. And n then I like hit like some threshold, I'm like Dude, I did not work any harder than anyone else who else Like who have done similar things but failed. This is one hundred percent luck and I'm so grateful that I like

It it it just has worked in my way in many ways. I feel like I I am the luckiest guy around and It just seems like I'm so gracious for the luck that I have. That's it it's It's changed Jamords to where I've just been gifted this and I I'm so lucky. I'm thankful.

Good for you, Sam. Sean, where where are you at with it? I have a different uh so To me, I'm like all right. Gr I think people make a mistake. They're grateful in the macro. So if you're saying to somebody, you're like, W what are you grateful for? Almost everybody.

uh my family, my health. Yep. And and it to me, this is the I'm not saying they're wrong. Obviously those are great things, but it's sort of like when a company says our values, our integrity and excellence It's True but not useful. It it basically has me leaves no register. And so I try to my focus is how do you be grateful in the micro. Meaning

Can I be Exactly. And if I'm in an elevator, can I find something in that moment? Can I get a rep a pr practice rep of gratitude in that, cause that actually Shifts me.

When I can t take a breath. I can't look at something my kid is doing and how silly they are and just in that moment find something. And if I could do that, you know, 10, 15 times a day. That is you know. Uh like the the antidote.

Yeah, I think that's a micro and Macro and micro work together. I really do think of it as Being alive. Like just thank you for

That I'm not that I didn't die last night. Right. Like I and I to your point, I think when you're macro is that I think you're actually I think I love what you said. You're just talking about applying. Yeah, that's how I apply it. Exactly. That's my relationship with it. Yeah. That's right. But like if you're getting to that place, that's how I live. I'm like like literally like It's like a nice sunny day in New York today and I'm just like yeah.

That's awesome. You know, like like Just choosing positivity like I think people have been so sucked into Like

Focusing on what they don't have or what What's not going well? Naval has an amazing definition of happiness, by the way. I don't know if you've ever heard this. He goes happiness Is what you feel When

You don't feel like anything's missing in your life. Right. People think happiness is something you gotta achieve, something you gotta go create, something you gotta get. It's like You know, you think you need to accumulate things to have happiness. And he's like, Actually, it's just when you're not focused on what's missing. Well, that's right. I think I think simplicity is just so fucking Fuck man, it's so right. But you your your your life is not simplistic.

Uh I mean I don't I don't know what your personal life is like. I don't know if you have multiple homes and what you own, but your professional life is not simplistic. I'll tell you why it's simplistic. I I'm not attached. to my professional success or who I am. I'm like In a very weird place with

My winning and losing and my Gary Veeam at all like I It I care so much, but it's a game. My professional life is a game.

Right. I don't wanna be unhappy. Like I fight for happiness too much and I think it is in the simplicity. You're right. The day to day is chaotic. There's meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting, right? Um but

I Like it. I like juggling seventeen balls. And I'm not upset about the thirteen that fell on the ground and broke.

And more importantly. I'm not worried about the people who are watching me juggle boo. When the ball breaks. That I think is massive. Yeah, but when Dio Von makes fun of you, it's pretty hilarious. That is like the ultimate like because I love Theo.

Like Like to me, back to like where we came from, Sam. I'm like My God! Like I've gotten to a place where

Someone as epic as Theo Bawn or any other of the comedians. Tim Dillard, like I love these guys. I'm always fascinated when people struggle with a comedian razzing. Like I think it's like you've m that's like such flattery. Yeah, that was awesome. It was awesome. I saw that. I was like, Oh, the guy look up to he's uh he's crossed over to mainstream. It's awesome. Um, Sean, what what what were we gonna say? Well I want to ask two questions. One Uh you show those stock certificates on the wall. Speaking of winning.

Uh I saw okay, you invest in Twitter in oh nine, Slack pre IPO I think the Liquid Death guy used to work with you, work for you. Literally worked at Vayner Media the day before he started Liquid Death. Facebook pre IPO. I'm curious, what was what investment? was the best investment for you. What paid off? In terms of y you've made a bunch of bets, right? And that those are the winners. I haven't sold one share yet.

Oh shit. That's insane. But that goes back to insanely good. Yeah, that that goes back to Jockey over horse. I tell all my friends.

Like Who get into investing. I'm like, man. Like, what did you learn? I'm like, What I've learned is When I only invested in the person When I'm when I I've hit this new state where like

I'm really trying to be obsessed with the person and the idea. And if either one isn't like An A plus then I'm like eh. Right. You said and or or? And

Right. Okay. That's right. But if I or it Fully person, not idea. What year did you do that? Did you did you do that deal? Facebook. I uh two thousand seven?

Oh my God. So I mean I don't even know what that You'd be up. Four hundred. Times I don't know. I mean a lot.

A lot. Uh, I wanna get your rapid uh rapid take'cause I know you've Uh one of the things we do on this pod is we kind of um We love anecdotes and also little little insights on people. that we think are wired in in an interesting way. Maybe not even the way we wanna be wired, right? Like Yeah, E Elon's really interesting. We don't think he's perfect. We think there's a bunch of things he does that are cringe. We think there's a bunch of things he does that are epic. So I'm curious, you've bumped into or have studied or have an opinion on any of these people. So I want to go rapid fire. See if you have something

Give us give us like either an opinion or a story. Yeah, so is this from outside observation or Either if I map them inside observation. Either one, or if you have nothing, you could say, pass, I don't have anything on that. So first one I want to do is Zuck. You've talked about uh Facebook and the jockey. Give me Zuck. Dude, I think he's Uncomfortably underrated. Like

He's the Only person that I Met back in O Seven. Like in this era now, I think it's getting more obvious, but he understood attention. He literally Tried to buy Twitter.

He bought Instagram. He bought WhatsApp. He tried to buy Snap. He just understood attention was the only asset.

And And He's so nice he's a nice Head. Like

Like He's just a very simple, nice kid. I'm I'm I'm happy with the way things are going for him a little bit right now. Like people can see how like doofy he is. Like you see him like in the corner of the UFC thing and you're like, this is just a nerdy kid who's like, you know what I mean? Like, and he doesn't give a fuck. Now people will think it's because he's got a trillion, but Like It it's just

He's just like a dentist's son from cadet like he's just a fucking nerd with no bad intent. Who fucking spent his childhood coding, which put him in a position, right? He put in the hours. I'm I'm a fan, man. I think he's a I think he's a very good operator and the reason I've never sold a share of Facebook is

I've been committed for a long time in this in my own mind, which was I'll never sell until he's gone. Logan Paul. So do you know that Logan Paul was starting to emerge very little on Vine when uh Vayner Media for Virgin Mobile did a campaign called

Finding the next Vineyard. You guys got and discovered him, right? Like when he was I think he had like fifteen or eighteen thousand followers at the time. It was crazy. And full by the way, full disclosure, Jerome Jar, who was one of the ten most followed people on mine, who was my partner. Jerome and I launched the first influencer agency called Grape Story back in thirteen. He was the one who said, you know, he he let me pick from three people. I think all three of them got big. Uh but Um I think Logan is

Uh You know, he grew up. In the limelight, right? You think about like what happened in Japan. Where all this stuff like

It's tough. These kids are you think about child stars. When we grew up We all knew that like child stars would be fucked up. Right. And now I think like everyone's going through that. The limelight is hard.

So I I think Logan is well intended. Uh I think he um He's very entrepreneurial, like very entrepreneurial. And I you know, I I I I'd I've always thought of him

As like A marky mark or a or a fresh prince or a The rock meaning I always watched him from afar and as I got to know him a little bit, I was like, Okay This kid is Logan Paul today.

Just like Marky Mark was Marky Mark before he was Mark Wahlberg? Just like The fresh Prince of Bel Air, you know, what Will Smith was before he was Will Smith. I've always thought that Logan would cross over And he has obviously with WWE in a lot of ways, and I think that will continue. Like if you told me Logan.

Is like an action star. And it's like Mm. at the like the way John Cena was at the Academy Awards last night, like Is Logan doing that in fifteen years? I'm like, that makes sense to me. That's how he's wired. Sam, you he's only twenty eight.

Is it He's only twenty eight years old. The dude basically like But yeah, when he's fourteen or whatever, like one he won in the social media game Cr now he th and then think about the pivots, right? But both him and Jake, but the think about the pivots.

Now he's got impulsive. He's got the podcast where he's super chill. It's the opposite of crazy vine prankster guy. He pivoted to like He's the guy asking questions, he's inquisitive, he's curious, he's got like you know the popular podcast. Goes WWE. Becomes the champion in WWE, creates prime, which is gonna make him a billionaire by the time he's twenty eight, twenty-nine years old now. Prime is probably gonna be

worth tens of billions if you know they did I think two billion in sales last year. I'm in I'm in this world, like Prime is definitely like a two depending on The time they decide to trade it. It's two, three, four, five, six, seven. billion. That high. Seven. I talked to Mr. Beast and he was like twenty billion is where prime is going. Like that would be very, very I mean, that's like look, j I never underestimate Jimmy's foresight because he's great. I've known him a long time.

But just being an MA at CPG levels, my intuition is that they won't be patient enough to get to that big of a number. Right. Like Well the beauty is they're not operating. The other guys are the guy the other guys operating are are yeah, they're pretty young too, though. Yeah, and more importantly Sh like I said, shit changes.

Like everything's ha ha ha. Until it's actually in front of you. It's all kicks and giggles and we're going to twenty. Until you fly to Atlanta. And Coca-Cola actually offers you five point nine, and you've got to sit there as KSI and Logan and those guys and say, Okay, if we say yes.

Because you know what they're gonna say. You guys are like this. So you're gonna really understand what I'm about to say. You know what they're gonna say? They're gonna say Huh. We can do this right now.

And then in twenty four months Start A new thing, yeah. Yeah, like a shampoo. Or a deodorant.

And sell it to Doug. Like So I I think it's um It'll be interesting to see how long they hold their breath. And don't forget, one bad year. You guys know this.

How businesses work. One bad year takes a lot of leverage off the table in a negotiation. And so you know, they'll be thoughtful about that because No matter what you are. What you

Saturate distribution and don't forget, they're selling on something that's more like Supreme. Right. They're selling on cool. Cool, yeah. Right? Kids are buying it literally to drink it for the status symbol like a fashion brand. And that can only last so long. Z Cavaricis were only cool for so long.

That's the point. And that's the Bamarichi reference was for all the Jersey boys that grew up in the late eighties, early nineties, people who Google it. They were the hottest jeans Pants. If you knew where your caparinch's you were nothing, I didn't happen, by the way. I was saying great life, but they were fucking it. basically names that people know. I'm curious, who do you think is dope? Who are you learning from And who are you kind of admire, who do you admire, who do you learn from, who are you inspired by? Because okay, a lot of people are inspired by Gary Vee. Um who is Gary Vee inspired by?

That's a great question. I'm a little weird on this one. But I'm glad I brought up uh Break the Web. I'm like inspired by the collective more than an individual. The field. Yeah, I love the field, brother. I I I just like I spend almost all of my time on the collective.

So I don't even have The allocation I also am very inspired by the following person. Show me the person that's currently living through massive adversity. Like somebody's listen, I'll tell you somebody who's 10 times more inspiring to me than I think I am.

Or deserve to be to others. Show me the kid that's listening right now. Whose father Passed away from a stroke. He's sixteen.

He's got three younger siblings. And his mom has to now work two jobs. And he's holding it down. For the fam? Right? He's literally a sophomore in high school.

And he's basically the father figure now for three siblings. He had to quit the fucking football team. 'Cause he's also like like I I'm the son of two parents who lost a parent before they were fifteen.

And it dr and back to gratitude. I think I got Really fucked up by being scared that my parents were gonna die my whole childhood. But it kind of converted into this gratitude framework that's insane. It makes me unstoppable. You know, and so Yeah, for me it's less Bezos or Elon or you know

You know. Oprah or anything. It's it's much more like Someone none of us know. That is really in it. That bodega owner energy. That that stuff I grew up with.

And I fuck with it. But that person I think has it lucky back to earlier our simplicity, like owning your own little business, living within your means. Like like that's fucking kinda chill. Could be really epic. It doesn't put you on like this podcast. But it's like a great life in a lot of ways, and I see it a lot. I lived it. What building my dad's business from th twenty two to thirty four.

I Not that person. The one that's like Back to your point, Sam. The the spin of the wheel really created real adversity I'll say it again.

And not a peep of complaining. There's a very small group of kids that get that. And they just convert into leader. Instead of woe is me. Or rebelling.

I admire that level of tenacity and grit. and accountability. And fucking like Fuck it. Like this is I got this is this is it's on me. I gotta put this shit on my shoulders. I'm gonna do this for my three siblings. Like I admire the Fuck out of that kid.

I had a I I wrote down a quote w uh when I was doing the research for this that I think is is exactly what you're talking about. You go Forget rags to riches. Some people are just rags to rags just so that their kids have a shot at rags to riches and I respect the shit out of that. I love that quote. Yeah, bro. Thank you for finding that. I really Man, I'm really affected by that, like Sam really hit it on the head like

I hate the word luck because I think that people weaponize it against people that have worked really hard. But I But I believe in serendipity and luck quite a bit because it's just the way like I was born in the Soviet Union. Like I got lucky to get out of there when I did.

If I didn't, I would have come to this country in nineteen ninety one when it fell and I would have been sixteen, seventeen. I'd sound like I Ivan Drago on these podcasts. I like it would have been all different and You know, I just I I I I just really do admire people who I really do think entitlement

And lack of accountability has become a disease. in first world countries in twenty twenty four. And I just really admire people who Play the other way. We appreciate you doing this, man. You got day trading attention coming out. I think on May twenty one, right?

That sounds right. You're the man. We appreciate you hanging out. Thanks for coming on, man. I gotta jump to this board meeting. I appreciate it. All right. Take care. See ya. Love you guys. Good luck. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to

I put my law in it like my day song On a roadless travel never looking back

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