- Nobody who's ever changed anything
has pandered to what people think.
- You're right.
- You have to basically,
close your eyes and your ears
for the next twenty years.
And just put out what
you want to put out.
And then, you have a chance
of making it happen.
But the more you worry or think
or strategize around acceptance,
the more unlikely you'll achieve your goal.
Yeah! - Yeah!
- [Gary] You got your perspective.
- [Announcer] Gary Vaynerchuk!
- [Gary] I just wanna be happy.
(reflective piano music)
I'm in Armenia.
I'm about to speak.
Yes, please.
I'm just focused.
Trying to think about
what I'm going to speak about.
It's a very international crowd.
It's very political,
a lot of world leaders.
A big stage.
And, I'm kind of debating whether
I want to go through,
which angle do I want to go through.
But, I think the filter of
what I'm most passionate about
which is consumer behavior,
how we consume information,
what that leads to
and more importantly,
the 7000 different organizations
that are in that room.
You can talk about A.I.,
you can talk about machine learning.
You can talk about big data.
But at the end of the day,
it's still, how does it make people
think and live and do and
how do you become the best contextual creator
in the world,
I think is what I think about.
Yeah, I'm heading right back to New York.
Yeah, it's in and out.
Yep, story of my life.
- Can you please have a photo?
- Sure.
- Thank you very much. - You're welcome.
Hi, how are you?
- Hi, I'm a big fan.
- Thank you.
Thank you.
Yes, sir.
- Can you give a few words
on positivity in management?
- [Gary] It's required.
- What if the environment is very negative,
not positive? - [Gary] Then you leave.
- Okay.
(laughs)
- It's just the, it's the game.
Ya know?
- We love you.
- Thank you, brother.
- Sir, can we have a selfie?
- [Gary] Sure.
The advice for the people is live your life.
You've only got one at bat.
Do something with it.
- You're the man.
- Thank you.
- [Announcer] Gary Vaynerchuk.
(audience cheers, applauds)
- Thank you.
Good morning.
(applauding)
Morning!
I'm going to leave
with the framework of why I believe that
audio should be the biggest conversation
in this conference.
I believe that way too many people
make the mistake of trying to catch
the next technology wave
long before it's the actual technology wave.
There's been remarkable money lost
in the last three or four years
around VR and AR.
Not because it's not coming,
but because the number one mistake
in this collective room is
not paying attention to the actual consumer.
We have ideologies around our technology.
We are technologists and get excited
about future technologies.
But very often, over the last 20 years,
I have watched this ecosystem get way too ahead of itself
without realizing that the consumer was not ready.
Nobody is home right now
sitting in a VR contraption
spending 10 hours a day VRing.
What we need to do is
be best at what is current.
How many people here listen to a podcast?
Raise your hand.
Raise it high.
Look around.
Now, put your hands down.
How many of those people
that just raised their hands
were not listening to a podcast
just five years ago, raise your hands.
That is what I spend my time on.
Where are we now?
Not four years from now.
Not four years ago.
Right this second.
And right this second,
we sit in an incredible place with audio.
We value time and convenience over everything.
As much as the world wants us to
continue to value privacy,
every day, humans around the world give up privacy
for time, speed and convenience.
It's just the way we are as animals.
In that insight,
you must understand how important
your audio strategy is going forward.
How many people here consume YouTube videos?
Raise your hand.
Raise it high if you do.
Just raise it high.
How many of you now, when you watch YouTube videos
are starting to not even
watch the video, you're just listening.
Raise your hands.
Look around.
Keep 'em up.
Look around.
This, my friends,
between podcast growth,
between the fact that the number one video platform
in the world is now being consumed
for a shocking percentage in audio,
not video, is very important.
You can imagine when I see that many hands
why it gets hard for me to get excited about
video production value,
when I know the actual consumption
is actually being done in audio.
Doesn't mean that video is declining.
Video is growing!
Consumption is growing.
Because we have devices with us at all times.
We don't have to go home and watch television
or the radio.
I believe the number one opportunity
for the majority of this room
is a very strong strategy around
podcasting and audio content.
Especially because what has emerged
the last 24 months,
and will continue to grow
is AI-driven voice devices in our homes.
I believe that this is the
end of an era where visual and written creative
can establish so much brand,
that it preps you for an audio-centric brand warfare.
I couldn't be more passionate and push everybody here
to dramatically rev up the content
they put out in the world.
(reflective music)
- What's your lesson for a modern communicator
in this era in audio?
- To produce, volume has to be put on a pedestal.
Everybody thinks that
if you make a lot of quantity,
you can't make quality.
I think it's the reverse.
I think quantity leads to quality
because as you're putting it out,
you can listen to what people are responding to,
and you can make better and better content.
- To made up content
- [Man] Excuse me, - Volume, yes.
Yes, move, yes.
- [Woman] Armenian podcasters and YouTubers.
We just started.
- Make.
I think the number one mistake people are making
when they are a podcaster or YouTube
is they're overthinking their content production,
and they're not spending enough time on stories.
It's the stories that people want.
Like production matters, but
it's the story at the end of the day and so,
more making, less thinking.
- And what if they have already started
but they have no results?
For example, I don't know,
they have been doing videos for a year or two
but they have no results.
- The first three years I did
Wine Library TV, nobody was watching.
(reflective music)
- So do you think people are picking the podcasting,
you think podcasting is harder to monetize?
- I think it's harder to monetize now
because the metrics aren't out.
But I think like anything else,
that's what they all said about social networks
in 2007, 2008.
Attention always eventually gets monetized.
When Joe Rogan inevitably announces
that he got paid $100 million dollars
to exclusively be on whatever platform
he's gonna go on,
I have a funny feeling everyone's gonna be like,
wait a minute!
So I think when Rogan inevitably does
Howard Stern 2.0,
I think you'll start seeing people realize,
oh, there is something here
and I think people are very basic.
They look for a report or
a very simple ad product
to make them feel good,
while underestimating when
tens of millions of people
are paying attention to something,
inevitably there's an opportunity to monetize.
- There's a huge consumer understanding gap
between Apple saying,
we're improving the voice of Siri.
- I got it.
I believe that if you look at history,
it's usually a singular moment.
A killer app, a singular moment,
so I believe there'll be an Alexa skill built
that is so phenomenal,
that catches virality,
that makes everybody go,
oh crap, I need that.
- Right. - You know?
If you think back to the iPhone,
whether it was a social network,
whether it was Spotify,
iTunes itself. - Yeah.
- I would argue iTunes itself, right?
- Rest in peace.
- Whether it was MySpace,
whether it was Tinder for dating,
I think there's a moment.
And I think there'll be a killer app
or a functionality
that catches the national, the global ecosystem
and the value prop will become obvious
and away we go.
I remember eBay, looking for wide awareness
in the late '90s.
It was Beanie Babies that put so many people on eBay.
I would say voice will have a Beanie,
AR, it was Pokemon Go
that allowed people to even
think about where this is going.
I believe there'll be a singular voice moment
that will trigger people saying,
wait a minute.
I can do that on that instead of this?
(snap)
- Where do you see podcasting headed,
and the creation of new audio format as well?
- I mean, I think podcasting will
continue to massively grow.
Which doesn't mean individual shows will grow,
because once there's many more shows,
there's only so much attention.
But I think they will continue to grow.
And as far as new formats,
I think the next format is really
skill-based audio
where we as humans are interacting with audio.
Where we're actually doing things through our voice
and a smart device on the other side.
- Yeah.
Could you give an example
where that's useful?
- Booking our plane through Alexa
instead of Expedia on your phone.
Alexa, I want to go to Miami.
When would you like to go?
Thursday, between
Can you look at my calendar,
and tell me the cheapest price
and the best time for me to go?
That is a far better experience
because it's using information from your calendar.
That is much smarter than my highest paid assistant,
and is far faster.
And that was a very simple example
that is easily done by Google Home
by tapping into your Google calendar
and tapping into open web information.
Think about that.
Think about how fast the answer
would've been done for me,
whereas that would've taken
a $100,000 dollar admin an hour to achieve.
Think about that production.
- It is true, it is way easier.
Do you think people will trust
- Yes.
- Yeah?
So it's just a matter of getting
- Just a matter of time.
Of course!
People didn't like smartphones.
- Yeah.
- People didn't like pagers.
People didn't like the internet.
People didn't like fax machines.
People didn't like technology.
People don't like the future, inherently.
And the ones that do win.
- They like it once it's there, right?
- They like it when they have no choice.
Most people are stubborn and don't like change.
- So do you think AR and VR will ever
reach a mass market really?
- 100 percent.
- Yep? - Of course, because
they're inevitably good technologies.
There's a lot of entertainment and utility value
in wearing those glasses and seeing information.
You could literally be looking at me in 20 years
and in the corner of your eye,
be given information of my latest thoughts of,
I could know who these people are.
Right now, by wearing contact lenses,
there could be a bubble above everybody's head
and I could know how many followers they have,
what their passions are,
what they wore yesterday.
We're gonna like that!
- You don't think it's scary at all.
- No, because I think cell phones and the internet
are scary to our great-great grandfather.
You know, so, no I don't think they're scary.
I don't think anything is scary
because that's been the way,
a airplane was scary.
A radio was scary.
A book was scary.
They were scary!
So no, I don't think they're scary,
I think they're just advancement.
- Mmhmm.
- A lot of people don't really see me
as a person you can really spearhead
and do what I'm doing.
- Everything you just said
is super interesting to me,
based on the last thing you said.
I have ambition to change things.
You have ambition to change things.
The point where you said,
people don't see me as someone,
is the most interesting part of your sentence.
Nobody who's ever changed anything
has pandered to what people think.
- You're right.
- You have to basically close your eyes
and your ears for the next 20 years,
and just put out what you want to put out,
and then you have a chance of making it happen.
But the more you worry or think
or strategize around acceptance,
the more unlikely you'll achieve your goal.
- All right, 'cause I'm also uplifting
a ton of other people, so
- I believe it.
And you can do so much more
the second you stop worrying about them
believing you can. - All right.
- Nobody has ever believed
I can do what I've done, except myself.
- Yeah, a Jersey boy made it.
Can I take a selfie?
(reflective piano music)
- Consuming voice right now, for example,
you mentioned recently that instead of
maybe focusing on video
people should focus on podcasts.
- Yes. - Creating audio content.
Just want to hear you thoughts on that.
- That is true.
I believe that a wild percentage of
YouTube video consumption is actually just audio.
I believe that people are walking the dog,
working out, traveling on a plane
and are consuming audio.
I think, what's amazing, listen.
A lot of people consume my content, thank God.
A lot of those people listen to the video or podcast
while they're at their desk working.
If they had to watch the video
that D Rock and I make,
they wouldn't be able to work at the same time!
People are multitasking.
And I think when people multitask,
audio rises and video declines.
That doesn't mean video is dead,
video is growing.
We're consuming more than ever.
It just means audio is rising
and its coming at the expense of
non-consumption.
I believe that, or at the consumption of music
instead of audio information.
So I think the same person who walked their dog
for 30 minutes every morning,
either, just took in nature
or used to listen to music
now is listening to a podcast.
All right, let's go.
- Gary, I have just one short question
- [Gary] Sure, lets walk.
- Media publications was the main source for
getting information
- They're not now.
They need to evolve, like anything else.
You can't be romantic of how you deliver information.
It's the information, it's not the distribution.
Too many traditional media outlets
are too emotional about monetizing on television or print
without realizing that we want to
consume information somewhere else.
And so, my belief is that journalism
is forever in play.
It just needs to be thoughtful about
where it's producing and distributing its content.
Mission accomplished.
- [Man] Oh yeah.
- Boom boom.
- [Man] A small little gift from us to you.
- [Gary] Thank you so much.
- [Man] Thank you so much - [Gary] Thank you.
- [Man] But the record, please.
- [Gary] I will take a look at it for sure.
- [Man] If you like it very much, do it.
- You got it, brother.
Take care, everyone.
Airport?
To the airport.
(inaudible)
What's that?
- [D Rock] In new Russian.
- Yeah, it worked out.
Go figure.
When you go to the former Soviet Union
(laughs)
it comes in handy.
(optimistic hip hop music)
♪ Shut 'em down, open up shop ♪
♪ All right, yeah ♪