- There's that classic thing that a lot of people do in talks
where like jump, "Everybody get up and now jump high."
And then they say, "And now everybody jump higher,"
and every fucking person jumps higher.
(light music)
Hey brother, how are you?
- [Man] I'm well. - Good to see you.
- Coffee.
- Thank you.
Dunk. Sup brother?
Hurry my hand is getting tired.
- Good, how are you?
- Good to see man. - Getting buff.
- Glad you're here. I'm trying.
Ready?
- Yeah.
(light music)
Everything has a purpose.
It's really funny, I'm such a funny personality when the
camera's on that I think people think I'm just
throwing shit at the wall. Right?
I'm very high energy.
- [Man 2] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- But it's actually, I would be borderline scary to people for
them to understand I virtually don't do anything without a
calculated rationale behind it.
- [Man 2] Right.
- So, the way I think about it
is gateway drugs to the close.
And a lot of times people try to put the close unit
but is too heavy.
Cool, all right. Thanks, brother.
I'll see you later.
See you later.
Good to see you again, man.
Dude, you're really getting thin man.
- [Man 3] Yeah? - Yeah.
- [Man 3] (inaudible) is helping.
- You're just melting? - [Man 3] Yeah.
- I might have a half an, you know what?
I think we're going to do an #AskGaryVee Show.
Hey everybody, this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk
and this is episode 217 of The #AskGaryVee Show.
What's up Periscope?
Decided to, just waiting for my next meeting so trying to
leverage every second and create some content.
I have no idea this alone time is freaking out.
- [Man 4] I was gonna say--
- I don't even know what I'm doing.
There's just been a lot of canceled things today.
Cool.
Last week I was on a call with James and Claude.
There was a lot of HR and operations stuff going on and
kinda just the tone and the vibe got me to really thinking and
over the weekend I sent Claude an email and I said,
"Can you do me a favor I want you to put together a group of
"individuals and here's the criteria predicated on
"people's time spent at Vayner
"or what positions they hold."
I think we're in really interesting time in
VaynerMedia's history and there was a series of different things
that have happened over the last hundred days that make me feel
that there was, there is not a disconnect but an opportunity
for me to do what I do as a CEO and that's what this is about.
Claude was making a point about something and I said,
"Claude, there is no Kool-Aid.
"There is no fucking Kool-Aid.
"Enough of this Kool-Aid talk.
"This is our water.
"This is what we do."
Kool-Aid is what negative people in this company say to you guys
if you're positive because they're just keeping it real.
I can't single-handedly anymore, you know, I probably never could
to begin with but no question I can't single-handedly be
responsible for this culture alone.
I've got and I'm very affected I think by what's happening
in the outside world.
You know, London, UK breaking from the EU, probably what's
happening right now with the political race, what is
happened, in the same way that I realized that people were going
to use Snapchat three years ago it's the same thing that
I'm realizing consumer behavior.
It's just easier to be cynical.
The unhappy minority are dramatically louder than
the happy majority.
And we have a major case of that at Vayner.
We're living in a world where it's easier to
look at the negative.
And why you're here today is you're part of a group that
I need help from.
I said something early on like, "Fuck, man, I might as well
"actually run this business like everybody else does because at
"least I'll make the money."
Because I'm pouring money into trying to make
the culture great.
But if the collective culture, if it's just so easy for
everybody to default in to the negative
what the fuck am doing here?
Oh, wait a minute, maybe people have tried to do what I've done
before they just give up.
Because you become disappointed.
I'm hypersensitive to one person crying in the bathroom.
I'm hypersensitive to one person talking shit for two days in a
row at their table.
I just don't want anybody upset.
So this is going to become a binary company in January.
If I have to start all over, I'm okay with that.
And I'm being dead serious, I'm weird.
I'm very weird.
Either you fully believe in what I and what this company is about
or you don't.
Change is forever here.
There's never going to be a time that we grow up.
There's never going to be a time where we, it's, as long as I am
the CEO of VaynerMedia change is the only thing
that's not gonna change. Right?
It's just who we are.
I can taste that we're six months away from the moment that
will start the moment to be the downfall of this company so
I have no interest in letting that happen so I'm just getting
massively ahead it and going on the offense like I do.
No defense for me.
If I smell it, I don't we're there but I think
we can be there.
Because what are they going to tell you?
That's the punchline.
Everybody's gonna always good believe Rick over VaynerMedia.
And I want to reverse that.
Happens everywhere.
(censored) doesn't care because (censored) is running, I'm going
to answer you, (censored) is running their business for 27%
margin and they actually go the other way.
They binary do not give a fuck at all.
So for me if I'm running on 9% margin and I'm giving up
millions of dollars, I'd like to get the benefit of it.
That's what's happening.
So if I'm going into fuck it, me, well then everybody's gone
to fuck it and said fuck it.
If I'm leaving $14 million in cash for myself on the table to
make a good place per year and I can't do it
so I might as well take the 14 mill.
If I'm a fucking Kool-Aid guy,
I might as will take the fucking money.
(light piano music)
Let me bounce around a little bit.
Football stories.
How much are you willing to tell football stories as a gateway
drug to getting more people into your funnel?
- Totally. - Great.
(laughter)
So we're gonna, you're gonna create your public stuff?
- [Curtis] Yeah. - Okay.
Andy, you'll navigate maybe Alex, whoever's got the bandwidth like
maybe you'll take the leader or what have you.
Alright, you guys can continue to hang here and ask some more
questions if you want.
DRock and I have to go.
- Thanks, bud. I appreciate it. - Good to see you.
I'll talk to you soon.
- Alright, alright.
- [Woman] That's exactly it.
- My friend.
- Hello. - How are you?
- Terrific. - It's such a pleasure.
- Good to see you. Where am I going?
My office? Great.
Come on in.
How have you been?
- [Lyor] I'm very, I'm surrounded by huge
fans of yours. - That's very nice.
- [Lyor] Yeah.
That say that you're building something incredible here.
- Well, thank you.
- [Lyor] Can you tell me what you do?
- Yeah.
I'm trying to build the best marketing machine in the world
and some people are starting to understand.
By the way, my man, you and I come from the same religion.
By the way, this agency is the same thing for the biggest
brands in the world and advertising that you're
doing for music. - [Lyor] Right, okay.
- We're the closest thing that any brand could hire if they
understand what's actually happening.
This is a 20 year execution.
I'm okay with this shit eating years.
But you're absolutely right.
But I want you to know one thing.
Please know that I'm super here for anything that doesn't make
sense predicated on what you think the religion is or what
you think you're buying into or what you think I'm about or what
you think the logo is about.
Never fester on things.
I'll answer anything every day always.
I'm always worried that people think I'm way too,
this guy following me around, I'm traveling all over.
I'm here.
Anybody that's been here as long as you I'm always most
interested in what they're interested in is there put in
the position to succeed.
That has me excited because that could be the kind of thing that
were going to add to the team on in October.
- [Steve] Yeah. - You know what I mean?
- That better be in the clip. - That might have to make it.
I would say that you always want
to go as broad with the title as
you can because when you pigeonhole or you create things
then everybody raises their hand and says that.
(light piano music)
- [Man 5] Hey, how's it going?
- Hi. Are you Gary? - [Gary] I am.
- My little brother works for you actually it's really funny.
- [Gary] Trying to remember your brother's name?
- Jonathan Ginter, I don't know if you know him.
- [Gary] I know exactly who your brother is.
- Oh really? - [Gary] Yeah.
That's awesome. - Yeah.
- [Gary] That's great. Nice to meet you.
- Come on in, guys. - A real pleasure.
Yeah, she's doing great and she's great.
- She's loving it.
She's like the people there are so much more intelligent,
they're just fun people to work with.
It was the right move for her. - I'm so happy.
- You can do whatever you want to do there.
You could go--
- She could have my job.
- You can do whatever you want to do.
- That's the game.
Hey.
Really glad you guys are all here.
Hope everybody had a great fourth.
Obviously, this came together pretty quickly.
There's a whole lot of things I want to talk about.
And it's super important to me.
I want you to hear just plain and simple this will never be a
company that cares about
short-term revenue and profit margins.
Yes, these things matter.
But not at the most macro-level.
We want to be the best version that we can be.
We shouldn't be silly.
I don't want an eighth place trophy.
I want to be the best and the nicest.
Another thing I'm going to be spending a lot of time talking
about and it's going to be a big theme very shortly is change.
The amount of change this company is going to feel
forever, always,
is extreme and will never change.
Like we just can't sweep under the rug
negativity, angst, bad stuff. No more.
I am unable to in the next year get a shocking majority of this
company to believe what's in my heart and brain then I'm going
to reset in a very substantial way.
Good night guys.
I thought that was super duper productive.
- Mhmmm.
By far the best of those.
- Not even close. Right?
- Far and away.
And realer, people are actually like put their heart on their
sleeve and said what they actually thought.
- [Gary] I think it's winnable.
I understand that you're trying to scale the unscalable.
You're trying to solve greater human behaviors but I oftentimes
say it's a dictatorship
and what I mean it's a dictatorship
around culture and I really think I can pull it off.
And I think, most importantly, I think the belief in being able
to pull it off and the effort in trying to pull it off and the
allocation of time and effort moves the needle and moves the
ball further down the path than
any other organization will do it.
I think the second you believe that you can't,
you can't push it as far.
There's that classic thing that a lot of people do in talks
where like jump, "Everybody get up.
"And now, jump high."
And then they say, "And now everybody jump higher."
And every fucking person jumps higher.
I'm not looking to create a bunch of mini me's.
I'm trying to push them further down the path.
It's why I use the analogy of jumping up, now jump higher.
If I can just get everybody, the only thing I can pull off is
pushing everybody to the best
versions of themselves at this thing.
This is, this is
pushing the envelope on the culture front
and, more importantly, making them realize what
I'm really driven by.
As long as they understand that,
the why of it and I said it.
Because I believe that it builds a better business and it makes
and I get suffocated.
A lot of this is so selfish.
I'm suffocated in negativity.
(Gary sighs)
You know? - [DRock] Mhmmm.
I just want to know how you're going to pull it off.
Like 10 years. - Flawlessly.
(light music)
Super intense.
Excited to see how you're going to edit this one.
Very, very, very productive.
That's a good day's work.
16 hours, a good day's work.
Doing the right thing is always the right thing.
And I'm gonna always do that.
You know what the funniest part is?
On that note, I expect to do
things that are wrong in the future that we will have to deal
with cynicism and I do have to rebuild relationships of.
I'm surely not willing to take it now where we have it.
(light piano music)