- I'm stuck, I'm in a rut.
- Because?
- Because I just finished Army, it was two years
just in my regular normal life.
I just want to find out right now.
- You've gotta try stuff.
The biggest reason you don't know what you want to do
is you haven't tasted enough things
and the biggest reason you're not tasting enough things
is you're worried about finding it too fast.
Start with the finish line.
Too many people are just worried about tomorrow,
go backwards from what you want to achieve financially
and in your legacy, and then make all your behavior
every day map to your finish line.
The way that a 20 year old can make the world better
20 or 30 years down the line is by making themselves
better first.
I think people don't realize that the way to be
selfless is to be selfish.
Its very hard to change the world if you're not good.
To me, when I look around this many people being
in their 20s, like everybody's judging themselves
way too early, what I would do is gather as many
experiences as possible, you know.
You're not lost in life, you're just early in the process.
Good morning vlog, just jumped on Instagram
for their live feature, and brought people in that was
super fun, and waiting for Risa now, we have
a nice solid 15, 16 hour day that concludes here
back at the hotel.
Feeling really good about a lot of stuff, got
a lot going on, I'm very Vayner Mediaed out,
just to kind of give you an update, I've been really
focused on the offense, a lot of incredible things
happening at Vayner Media, a lot of new business
coming in, a lot of assessing talent, a lot of
bringing in new talent, a lot of assessing the offerings.
But feeling incredibly confident and very excited
about Vayner acts as a whole.
Spent a lot of time with PureWow, you saw Ryan Harwood
in a couple episodes it was hard to hide that beautiful face
and just incredible stuff happening.
PureWow and just in general some really hardcore momentum
in the Vayner X Holding company.
I've already made some incredible hires got three or four
more incredible hires that are signed sealed and delivered
and will be announced shortly.
I think a lot of people in the advertising world
the ad world are going to be taken aback.
For you guys this is hard to understand but a lot
of people in Madison Avenue that cliche 30, 40, 50
year veteran in the ad world
doesn't respect what I'm doing, hates the pressure
of putting on the status quo.
I have business meetings where people literally spend
the first 20 minutes talking about Russia invading
America through it's Facebook and (mimics stuttering)
and then all of a sudden we get to marketing,
and they tell me Facebook's not that big,
they should still do television, I'm like wait a minute
what about the first 20 minutes when you said
our entire governments being overthrown by social media
but now to sell your blouses or your soda,
it's not important?
So I think the only thing that's changed is
people's acceptance of it and it's scale.
The internet is the biggest thing that has happened
to human beings ever and I don't think we realize that
because it's too early.
My big thing is that I think we overestimate things
staying the same.
Like, we're basically having an IBM Microsoft conversation.
The thought that Facebook and Google will in perpetuity
dominate the digital landscape is laughable at best.
Amazon's clearly gonna be a third player in the
next 24 months.
Like what happens when it's voice or it's AR or
what happens when it's VR?
That may be 25 years away from consumer VR at scale
and block chain and all these things that
are happening.
The destruction never really happens because somebody
had the guts and took the leap, it's that they
were forced into it.
And it's coming into a form that I didn't expect.
It's coming in the fact that the tv networks
are losing to OTT, so if there's no commercials,
what do you do?
And it's coming in the form of activist investors
disrupting the biggest marketers in the world.
And there's some 13 year old girl in India right now
that Elon Musk has completely inspired,
and what's she up to?
So I think it's interesting because I look around
and some of us are younger than others, I think it's
gonna be a good chunk of our lives, what we're talking
about over the next 10, 15 years, and I think the
biggest thing I've learned is man, everything we think,
don't let Facebook own everything, don't let Amazon
own everything, don't let the two China companies own
everything the problem is everything changes.
And so, I don't think it's bad, 'cause I don't think
it's sustainable.
- Why do you think it's not sustainable?
- 'cause it's never been historically sustainable.
No company has ever run a 50 year run
on controlling anything.
Like retail is gonna start spending more money
with you guys, because they're about to go out
of business, all of them.
Like somebody woke up this morning and said wow,
Lord and Taylor's store shut down in Manhattan,
like it's just real.
It's when Toys R Us goes out of business.
Then the other retailers are like wait a minute,
this is not gonna happen because of a good thing,
this is gonna happen because of a bad thing.
Brands are gonna change their behavior because
when they start looking around and saying,
we're next, they're gonna get scared.
They're gonna do it out of defense, not offense.
Which is very unfortunate.
Like Polo's gonna go out of business.
That's it, right, huge gone.
So real systematic disruption happens on defense
not offense.
Problem is it doesn't matter what they like, it doesn't
matter what I want to happen.
We're sold to the executioner in a fucking game.
And that's what I focus on.
Period, just 'cause I figured out how to storytell
in a modern way with incredible human beings and
infrastructure team and strategies and unbelivable
understanding of the modern fucking ecosystem.
Doesn't take away from the fact that I'm fucking
executing 17 hours a day as a CEO of an 800 person,
150 million dollar plus holding company.
And you know what?
I'm super fucking proud of it.
No question, I'm more proud of me, the executive than
me the personality, it's not even close.
Now the impact on the hundreds of emails that
I get from you every day about the impact I've had
one way or the other, motivation or execution,
that's a bigger legacy than the company that I'm building.
So I'm scratching both itches and I'm not too
worried about other people's opinions on it.
Because I know what the finish line looks like.
(tongue clicking)
By the way just to clarify that wink was the fuck you
to everybody who thinks they're gonna beat me.
It's how I roll.
You've gotta know if you're gonna go up to 20 to 27
and you're gonna defeat all these competitors,
you're gonna have to start younger.
Their behavior's happening at 15, 16, 17
they're selling to each other, they're buying clothes
off each other and sneakers and slime on Instagram.
The behavior starts earlier and so we're gonna
have to think about that in some shape or form.
I understand that you have different restrictions
maybe you guys fund a start up that you have
the option to buy, this needs very smart thinking,
but you're not gonna win if you spend $100 million
on 20 to 27.
D-rock, your favorite game.
- [Man] Oh yeah, oh my God.
- You're so good at this game, D-rock.
- [Man] Oh shit.
- Hey man, (crosstalking)
- How are you?
- Yeah, doing well, busier than ever.
That's a bit of a shock, to be honest.
- I didn't tell him I was gonna do that, (inaudible)
you'll get to speak with him later.
- I don't want to bother you, but, real pleasure.
- Nice to meet ya.
- Yeah I'll see you in a little bit.
I think you should be thinking about audio very aggressively
nobody in your space has won the podcast, I
think it's hugely open.
I think, I can't believe that BuzzFeed and 9gag and
you guys and others haven't gone into the podcast.
Now it's hard, you gotta do a meme radio show.
- What do you do in a podcast industry in Singapore
is not picking up, I mean it picked up the U.S.
But in Singapore.
- You try to, the first thing I would do is look at it
and see how true that is, because don't forget again
it's always hard when a country's small.
So it might be picking up it's just proportionate.
You know 300 million or back to Indonesia,
like Indonesia, 250 million if it's five million
if 50,000 are doing it that means a lot so
you just have to look what that means, and then
the question for them becomes, I think with the 9gag
thing, you have to be smart about like,
so what's this?
Is that the holding company,
but it's not consumer facing?
- It's not.
- So I would probably use a podcast for all of
Southeast Asia and use that as the opportunity
this is where I do strategy.
I would use a podcast which will leapfrog
your competitors that's where I would probably
establish the brand that's the consumer facing holding
of Mgag, Sgag, I'd probably not use gag because
you don't want to,
I mean I was an investor but I've seen 'em once
on my trip to Hong Kong the other day,
so I don't have any disproportionate feelings toward
9gag or not.
You'd probably want to be smart about how you think
about it, that's how I would think about it.
You have to understand, so it's like Uber, or Facebook
podcasting has won here, let me tell you why.
Audio is gonna win with human beings 'cause it saves time.
So some things are binary.
And human, not cultural.
Time is human.
So it will win here.
Just updating just had an awesome meeting with some
incredibly intriguing Singaporean entrepreneurs
and, I'm ready, just vlogging over here, no big deal
just a little vlogging.
Vlog, just to catch you up, D-rock and I have been
doing this, we're traveling here, chatting for
the last little bit and I was about to say something
I was like hey, pick up the camera because it's
gonna really help people.
I think our ambition, if you listen to D-rock and I
talk for the last 15 minutes you guys would laugh
because we're basically shitting on everything we're doing
content-wise and in a good way, we're just critiquing
and I was about to say, I want to catch it on film
'cause it's so important.
Our ambition to be great is driving this whole thing
way way way more than I think people would realize.
For us to be at a standard of content output and quality
that we're at, then let's call it what it is,
it's really hard for another human being to claim
that they're at this level, we're just fucking
bringing it right now across all platforms,
audio, written, video, all different networks.
LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Snap, and yet
we're at three to five percent of what we could be doing
we just have so much to do.
Obviously every time I'm in Asia, I'm like
we gotta transcribe every fucking piece of content
to every fucking language.
There's so much more to be done.
That video that got over a million views Instagram
about the YouTuber kid, I feel like there's five
of them a week, but we're not putting those out.
God there's a lot to do.
- I think law of attraction works in a lot of ways.
- I'm a very big believer.
- Like from a year just watching you to seeing
you in Hong Kong today, I think it was.
- Be humbled, be hungry, be hard working and be selfish
first before you can be selfless.
- I do, I think it's very hard to help if you're
not from a position of helping.
I see so many young people rightfully so and it makes
me admire them be so altruistic, yet they're so weak
inside themselves, so they put up a facade,
because they act as though they want to help the world
as a way to build confidence, it's a facade, it's ego.
And that's fine and it's a lot better than other things,
so I don't judge, it's just I wasn't able to give
this much back until I scratched a couple things
for myself.
And I think about that, it's tough to give from
a place of instability and whether it's financial
or street cred or whatever one needs,
I always want somebody to get theirs first,
so that they can give later.
I genuinely think about the things like that.
You can't build a beautiful room and be a great
interior decorator unless you're a great contractor
and build a great steel foundation for that building.
- Absolutely something that kind of weathers true.
- And that then gets into my patience.
In your 20s and 30s, pour concrete and build steel,
don't worry about putting fucking curtains
or what color to paint the room, right?
Your biggest advantage is your youth.
And too many kids don't take advantage of time.
They're in such a rush to find it, or be doing it
that they don't take advantage of the thing that they have
which is, you could do nothing successful for the
next eight years, how old are you?
- 22.
- You can literally do nothing for the next eight years
and be a child, but you don't think that.
Because when you're 22, you don't think 31 is young.
But it is.
- Okay thank you so much.
- Patience, patience, whether it's your parents,
or yourself, or people, everybody's trying to prove
something so early.
- Maybe that's the problem with youth.
- It's, everybody's got strengths and weaknesses.
What a 60 year old has is experience but doesn't have time.
So they trade on experience.
What youth has is time.
You can literally do four different things over the
next two years, six months at a time to figure out
everything that you think you might like,
you should try to do.
But that's not what people tell you to do.
- Yeah (inaudible)
- 100%.
- Thank you so much.
- You're welcome.
You're not lost in life, you're just early in the process.
You know what I mean?
You're lost by other people's standards, not your
actual, if you actually took it practically
you haven't even started.
- Right.
- Too many people view post university as like
oh shit this is now real and I'm lost.
They don't put it into context of being alive
for a hundred years and realizing they're only 20%
of the way done.
Got it?
It's perspective.
Almost everything I, hey everyone,
(laughter)
- Oh my Gosh.
- Almost everything is perspective.
Like I think I'm just starting
so imagine what I think for most of you?
- Maybe.
- Maybe, we gotta go.
- Thanks so much Gary.
- You're welcome.
- See you next September.
- They're grabbing me guys, let me just say
hello real quick.
If you guys want to take quick selfies, let's do it fast.
And then I gotta go.
- I just can't believe it.
(foreign language)
- [Woman] How do keep the drive?
How can you be so energetic like this every day
like the question they ask me, do you sleep?
Are you a robot?
(laughter)
- I think the thing with me that I've come to realize,
I think I have a lot of natural DNA, there's energy
that I have, like every time people first come across me,
the amount of coments that say that I'm on drugs,
or things it makes me laugh, and it makes the people
that know me the best laugh, 'cause I don't even
smoke a cigarette, let alone, you know.
I mean the amount of people that write things like
cocaine, ritalin, like you know I get it,
I understand why, so clearly I have natural energy
and always have, but I do think that energy comes
from gratitude.
I'm awfully grateful.
I think that people take life for granted,
I think they take circumstance for granted.
It is stunning to me that the majority of people that
are watching this right now have first world problems.
I think I got very lucky that I came from very humble
beginnings so I know what it tastes like.
I'm grateful, I'm grateful, I'm really grateful.
And that's it, you know if you're truly purely
grateful, you'll have more energy than you'll ever need.
- That's the answer, thank you Gary.
- You're welcome thanks for having me.
- Thank you so much.
- Yeah of course, goodbye.
(applause)
- Patience, and a lot of people like to bullshit I guess.
And just work on your thing I guess, just keep doing it.
That's my biggest takeaway.
- I really want to flood as much content as I can
but to really bring value at the same time
to be able to come back with my audience,
that's really what I want to do.
- I learned about being self aware,
and about I think just being yourself and
similarly no bullshit.
- I just learned everything that I could learn
from Gary V basically.
Just about life, about marketing and how to place myself,
position myself for the future.
Gary V man.
- I learned that nothing is out of the realm of possibility
if you want to get somewhere, you want to get in a
conference even if you don't have a ticket,
you can get it.
- What did I learn today, I didn't learn anything new
but I got a reinforcement from Gary Vaynerchuk that
cut out all the bullshit, just do the work, stop
making excuses, put in the effort put in the time,
don't putting your energy into useless activities like
you can watch Game of Thrones when you retire,
you can take part in Reddit communities discussing
the one episode or the other after you retire,
I'm sure they'll exist in the future with AI but
right now is the time to put in the work while
you've got the energy so stop making excuses.
- I agree.
- Look at this guy.
- Douche head.
(laughter)
- Start with the finish line.
Too many people are just worried about tomorrow,
go backwards from what you want to achieve
financially and in your legacy, and then make
all your behavior every day map to your finish line.
I want to be a great entrepreneur that inspires others
that's why I'm still sitting here.
Know where your finish line is and work backwards.
(gentle piano music)