On this episode, we take a bunch of
questions from Chinese students.
(Upbeat intro) ♫ Hey!
♫ Hey!
♫ Gary Vee!
-[Gary] ♫ You ask questions
♫ and I answer them.
♫ This is The #AskGaryVee Show.
- Hey, everybody!
This is Gary Vay-ner-chuk,
and this is episode 259 of
"The #AskGaryVee Show" . .
live from my hotel room in Hong Kong.
The "Asian Invasion" is underway, DRock.
Singapore in October. I might have just committed to
going to Beijing on that same trip. January.
I have been long waiting. I left you guys a little bit of a clue
in Canne, of my great ambition to enter the Asian market.
And I'm excited about it, and the trip here has been remarkable.
I'm completely infatuated and
in love with Hong Kong, and
I've got 7 to 15 more incredible cities that I will attack,
address, and visit over the next 4 to 5, 6 months.
DRock, pick up the camera now and show
two of our 3 or 4 homies that help us.
Say "hello!", guys. -[Skipper] Hello!
- [Rhys] Hello, how are you, everyone! Vayner Nation, what's up!
-[Gary] These are two amazing teammates on a team
that has helped Sid on our end translate my content,
create opportunities. This episode is extremely special because
they helped curate an opportunity of what is it,
5 or 6? 5 or 6 questions from Shanghai Tech University
students, which I'm going to answer right now.
I appreciate that guys, and I want to publicly appreciate
you guys for all the hard work and the hustle.
As you could tell by the meeting we had earlier,
there's a lot more to go,
and so this should be a pretty awesome journey.
-[Skipper] (Inaudible)
-[Gary] Yes, agree. (laughter) DRock, good trip so far?
-[DRock] Great. Phenomenal.
-[Gary] Fun trip.
All right. Let's get right into the first question.
- [Haolong] Hello, Gary! I'm Haolong. .
I'm so glad that I can have the chance to
talk to you through the video.
Before I start my question, let me just briefly
introduce myself so that that you can have a
general idea on my background.
I'm a senior to be undergraduate student from
Shanghai Tech University,
and is now studying at Harvard as a visiting
undergraduate. I'm majoring in biology, while I'm also
a big fan of entrepreneurship and management.
Because personally, I consider entrepreneurship and science
as something closely related.
Say, for scientists, actually they need to think
from an entrepreneur point of view
so that your discoveries can be made into something useful.
While for the entrepreneurs,
sometimes they do need advanced scientific tools to
make their normal ideas into reality.
The good thing is that from the past decades,
we do see a lot of good examples
where people combine entrepreneurship and science together,
typically in the IT field.
However, the interesting phenomenon is that in the field of biology,
this philosophy doesn't work well for some reason.
My question is just, "What do you think might be the main factors
that caused these phenomena in the bio world?"
And also, from your point of view,
"What do you consider as the biggest, also the most promising
opportunities in the field of biology
in the following two or three decades?"
Looking forward to your reply and many thanks.
- [Gary] Haolong, thank you so much for the question.
This is going to be a fun episode.
I have a feeling everybody's going to enjoy these video questions.
Look, I think the reason that you're seeing a lot of people in the biology sector,
...biotech, things of that nature...
struggle is at people hold onto romance. People hold on to the establishment.
The decision makers in your field often times don't want to change.
In entrepreneurship -- that energy is always disruptive,
and often times takes people that are on a pedestal, off that pedestal.
There's human behaviors of defense.
You have to understand that once somebody is at a pedestal that they feel is
the height of where they are, they start going on defense
and not letting anybody take them off.
They're not continuing to aspire.
I believe a lot of it is human inefficiency.
As far as open opportunities, the truth is, I believe that
in the biology, what you see because of technology and the
internet infrastructure --- the enormous advances we have
in science is, everything is vulnerable.
I often say in entrepreneurship, which I understand much better than biology,
that Amazon put bookstores on notice early.
Uber put car service, black limo companies, cab services on notice.
But everybody is vulnerable. I would argue because of the
advances in technology, literally everything in every sector is
today vulnerable over the next two decades. And so for me,
I would take your energy and deploy it against the thing
you're most passionate about.
Because it inevitably will be disrupted over the next two to three decades.
- [Yang] Hey, Gary! This is Yang from Shanghai.
I have a question.
For AI startup, it's very difficult for them to collect a lot
a lot of data in their first 3 or 5 years, and
they really need these data to improve their products in the algorithm.
Big companies like Google-
they already have a lot of data and they can develop similar
products using this data easily.
"What's your advice for these AI startups?" Thank you!
- [Gary] Chen Yang, my advice is to not fight Google in a game
that Google is more likely to win. The number one rule I have about
startups and entrepreneurs is when David is fighting Goliath,
you never fight Goliath's game.
Your question, if anybody was paying attention to, makes this very easy,
which is: Creating a business that is vulnerable to the
Google infrastructure or any other company for that matter,
whether it's Amazon or Apple or Facebook.
It's just not smart, and so what you need to do, is you find small niches
that either you hope you can move so quickly in, that by the
time they decide to attack it, they're better to acquire you.
Or that you've amassed so much market share that you'll be able to
sustain the blow of that competition, and that whatever you're left with,
once they enter, will still be meaningful.
Very similar to the case study. I'll give you a great one.
The case study is Compaq Computers versus IBM in the 80's.
They found their niches. They found their product fit,
and they were able to go up against "The Big Blue Giant".
Then they also used software companies like Microsoft
to really democratize and create a huge opportunity and they teamed up
with their competition. I think if you want to spend time on Google
or whatever search engine you'd like, to look at the
Compaq Computer story of how they were able to navigate and
grow to such a ... That is a perfect story and we see it everyday.
It's speed. Only speed
trumps somebody that's bigger than a giant. Play your game,
and so find niches and go extremely fast. Otherwise you have no shot.
-[DRock] (Inaudible) ...Compaq.
-[Gary] Good story. Yeah, you should really look into it.
- [Background conversation] (Inaudible)
- [Rhys] ...She said she's a biology student as well...
(Sound of Gary's laptop keyboard. Clack, clickety-clack)
- [Zicheng] ...As a biology major
student, I'm also very interested in art and
design and entrepreneurship even.
I'm sometimes very confused about what I will do and what I will become
after I enter to the society.
However, I really have a sense and motivation to combine all
I Iearned and what I like to one thing, which is something
I don't know and maybe combined by something that is very irrelevant.
So sometimes I'm really lost.
Can you give me some suggestions?
- [Gary] I sure can.
Yeah, I mean look. The good news is 90% of all students
don't know what to do, and everybody's overthinking it.
So what I would tell..my friend is, you need to really look inside your
heart and figure out what - she-
When you talk to yourself, what does -she- want to do?
I would tell you that the number one thing that you should focus on is doing.
You're not going to figure this out being in your own head.
Just start doing. Do it all. Do some of it together.
Mix art and bio[logy]. Mix entrepreneurship and music.
Just do do do do do!!
Do you understand how young you are?
Do you understand that you can just "do" for the next 10 years?
Do and do and do. Try some company for 3 years.
Try some internship for two years. Try some medical sabbatical for 4 years.
You wake up from those 9 years, and you're 31-years-old. You're a baby.
You're going to have a very difficult time in getting me upset
or be empathetic to being crippled by having all these interests.
Put them all together. Separate them apart. Spend the next decade, I mean that,
tasting and trying. The problem is, you come from an environment where
people are going to be judging you if you're not succeeding in the short-term.
And that is your vulnerability. The judgment of society:
Your parents or somebody else to-- as you're trying and failing
until you find your things. You may be lucky and your first thing
maybe the great thing. You may be lucky in your fourth thing.
And I said that on purpose slowly. You may be lucky it's the first thing.
You may be lucky it's the fourth thing.
But you have to have the internal strength to be able to hold off
society and family judgment while you navigate. If you're so confused,
well then you need to do something about it.
The answer is to do a bunch of stuff over the next decade to put yourself
in a position in your early 30s to enjoy your world. I get that...
Listen, I've been doing a lot of data collecting here. I understand the pressures,
especially in China, around becoming successful, so you can get your apartment
and start your family. I'm aware.
Everybody's got pressure.
- [Yuanhao] Hi, Gary! After I learned something
about you, I am pretty interested in how the
idea of online shopping came up with you
and made you so successful. I don't think only luck is enough
for such things to happen.
Besides, how can we predict the future, or in other words,
how can we know what the world would be like, especially what
kind of things may be popular in the future?
Can you give us a suggestion on how we should think?
Thank you very much!
- [Gary] You're welcome very much.
1996.
Ebay was around. Amazon was around.
The world hadn't accepted its upside.
I bet on consumer behavior and innovation and things changing.
So I can predict the future.
Were there five? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Were there 5 liquor stores in America
that had online stores when I launched? No.
So it feels like I'm predicting the future, but I'm taking innovation
that's happening around me, and I'm deploying it against my own
reality at that time. My bet was that we would pick
convenience over history.
Because that's what humans always do and that's why it was so obvious.
It'd be the same reason that I know that AI is going
to be very important.
It's the same reason that I know voice is very important.
All the things, my friend, about the future, are happening right now.
The question is, "Have you calibrated how big they are going to be in
7 to 10 years, and are you looking the other way while it's right
in your face?" I've been very good at understanding
the arbitrages of attention and infrastructure that drive business over
the last 20 years, and I plan on doing it for the
next 50 years of my life. So for me, I'm giving it to you right now.
Whether it's using KOLs to drive your business,
whatever it may be, right? There are so many opportunities out there
that are so black-and-white obvious.
Yet, we tend to look the other way because
there's no historical reference point directly to that attribution.
But there is. Celebrities have been selling products for 100 years.
There's just new celebrities, got it?
So my punchline is very simply: The future is always the present.
If you're guessing the future, you're guessing. If you're moving quickly in the reality,
it seems like you're predicting, but you're just reacting.
You like that one, right? That was a good one.
-[Rhys] Can we ask one?
-[Gary] Yeah, of course! Was that it for them?
Go ahead, you get to ask one.
-[Rhys] My question is: In China, Alipay
WeChat, Google payments...
are in the trillions. In the U.S., only
$60 billion maybe from mobile payments...
-[Gary] Because there's fragmentation. So go ahead, what's it going to take?
-[Rhys] I'm saying, why is the U.S. lagging behind?
- [Gary] The reason the U.S. is lagging behind is because the
giant internet companies in China are fully integrated.
If Apple and Facebook merged tomorrow, you'd have it. The end.
I mean, it's just the dynamics.
Look, there's one thing that people give credit to the Chinese
entrepreneurs that isn't taken into account,
which is the government involvement matters. That's not how the U.S. works.
Steve jobs wasn't able to call at the time, [President] George Bush, and say,
"You know that Facebook thing that's emerging? Yeah, I need that."
I love when... Listen, as you can see, my energy
so pro-Asia, plenty pro-China.
But we can't forget that the "big dogs" had competitive
government advantages that created a full stack.
In the U.S., it's called Apple, Amazon, and Facebook.
In China, it's just all integrated.
Is there one more?
-[Skipper] There was one question from the guy who just left. Darren.
[Background chat]
-[Gary] Yeah, why don't you ask one. I think we're good.
-[Skipper] Actually, the one that I prepared,
I asked in the back...
- [Gary] While we're hanging out here having a good time...
What you're seeing, what you're vibing, is just a very thoughtful,
exciting moment in my career.
To me, looking at the Asian market is almost as
wide open and as exciting as when I started Vaynermedia,
or when I started to get involved involved my Dad's business with
Wine Library or when I discovered the internet or when
social media Web 2.0 was emerging from the Web 1.0, era.
You've got a question?
- [Skipper] It's from Darren.
OK, go ahead. I was on such a good rant...
Nah.. I mean... Punchline being,
this expansion into the Asian market both in Mainland China and
surrounding marketplaces is going to be a really fun frontier.
Go ahead.
-[Skipper] So this question is from Darren.
He asked about "How does one start
a process of architecting one's business?"
and "When you are architecting your own business, how do you
gain support for an unpopular decision?"
"How do you convince your team to work on it?"
- [Gary] Yeah. So you convince your team by one of two things.
Either motivating them through enormous optimism or forcing them
through dark dictatorship. The middle one --- The first one is
how you begin to architect is backwards.
You try to figure out what you're doing backwards.
You're trying to figure out why you're doing it and
what the opportunity is, and then once you understand ---
So for me, when I started Vaynermedia. Oh, my God.
Oh, wow, there's a lot of reasons why the biggest
companies in the world don't market properly.
They're not smart enough? Not really.
They don't care? Kind of. But wait a minute.
There are four major marketing companies that dictate the entire
world, and they're pushing the profitable items for themselves.
And there's not a lot of talent that sees where
the world is going. What if I built a machine
that was so incredible at marketing that then when
I bought brands in the future, and I ran it through them,
I could take the value of a brand like K-Swiss
from $100 to $500 million in sales very quickly because I
only did influencer marketing. I only did Facebook.
I only did...OK. Why don't I do that? OK.
Now, the way I'm going to do that is I'm going to
build an agency that only sells the best work.
It won't be popular at first,
but I have to do it because my long-term vision
requires me being the best marketer of the future and more importantly
the best at that time. OK. I'm going to hire a bunch of kids at
first, because no "real" marketer is going to want to work for me,
because I'm going to tell them TV is bullshit and banner ads are
bullshit and radios are bullshit. This is 2009.
They don't believe in Facebook and Twitter, but I do.
So let me get a bunch of kids and I'll show them
I'll teach them. They're fresh-eyed.
They don't have preconceived notions. Then I'll pick up market share
and then when the biggest brands in the world realize
they have to use it, I'll pick up early market share and
learn to....That's how you do it. You start backwards.
I started with my ambition to buy the Jets.
How am I going to do that? Flip businesses.
How am I going to do that?
By building a machine around my marketing skill.
Then getting people to buy-in is pretty easy,
and then the middle one is my favorite. Making unpopular decisions.
I only make unpopular decisions. DRock was an unpopular decision.
Everybody told me that was super narcissistic. It's very weird.
The fuck do you have somebody following you around for?
And I thought that was probably a great idea...
To me, the second I feel a lot of push back,
and I actually thought of it, and I thought it was a good idea?
Then I know I've got something big.
So those are my answers.
Do you have the self-esteem and the confidence and the ability
to do all those things is a whole different story.
Anyway, Asia is going to be good.
Great trip and I really appreciate everybody watching.
My question of the day:
"When you think about the Asian tech ecosystem,
- And I'll throw the whole kit and caboodle into it.
Take it any angle that you want -
what are the first things that come to mind?"
You keep asking questions,
I'll keep answering them.
(Upbeat music)