- [Man] If you were to start all over again
- Yep.
- [Man] From scratch.
- Yes.
- [Man] No budget.
- Yes.
- [Man] And you wanted to start a tech company,
what would you do?
- I'd go work for somebody that I admire
for free for four years.
- [Man] Can you name someone you admire?
(audience laughs)
- I would try to get to Jeff Bezos
and work for him for free.
- [Man] For free?
- For free.
For four years.
I would literally sleep on the couch of an acquaintance
and eat fast-food for 99 cents a day
for four years to work for Jeff Bezos.
Fuck, I might be willing to do that right now.
(audience laughs)
(audience claps)
(hip-hop music)
I believe in 20 years it will be common place
for individuals to pay the best business leaders
to work for them, not the other way around.
It's a very weird thing that's starting
to manifest in my head because it's
just black and white to me that that's where the value is.
Get as close to the sun of the thing that you wanna be,
and you will win if you're capable.
And you hear, now that I've gotten curious about it,
you start watching these documentaries
or you dig into the successful people.
The amount of people that started off as grabbing coffee
for the guy or the gal that they wanted to be
and then became it.
I would do that my man.
I would or, or, the thing is it's back to guessing.
It's funny, the Bezos thing or somebody else.
The other thing I would do try
to get very close to the voice space
but it's funny how I don't wanna go there
because I wouldn't know which founder was the good one
to build on top of the voice space.
So I went to the platform or something that I established.
But I genuinely believe that when you're young,
time is your biggest leverage.
And that what you should do is build leverage
with the leaders of the world.
If you wanna be a hip-hop mogul, go work for Puff Daddy
for free for three years, right?
We're so pressured by our parents to start making money
at 22, 23.
I think everybody should legitimately have totally different
strategy from 22 to 30.
For everybody here over 45, you know how young 30 is.
(audience laughs)
And I think everybody here who's 45, 50, if I said:
Hey what about spending 22 to 30
and only working for the person
you admired the most for free?
I think a lot more people would have taken that
up on than what they actually did.
Which is do bullshit to pay for their rent
and like just dumb shit.
Very intriguing to me that that's
where the leverage is gonna go.
If you wanna be a great creative,
whoever the 10 best creative directors in the world
now have the leverage.
So that's what I would do.
Thank you guys.
(audience claps)
Thank you.
- Patience
- It is the imperative foundation of anything
that is long-term successful.
- Why?
- Because when you are impatient person or organization,
you tend to make short-term decisions which have been
proven historically as something that creates
a vulnerable usually to long-term growth.
What's up vlog?
Just going to the airport now in Oslo
on our way to Copenhagen, then to Moscow.
Back in the USSR as they say.
Anyway, good talk this morning at breakfast.
Just had a huge meeting with Eric in the back of the cab.
So many people wasting time, I just basically
had a London office meeting on the way here.
That's how ya hack it.
Sometimes having somebody travel, the expense is worth it
because the ROI of the meeting and the serendipity
things like a cab ride make a ROI positive.
Continue to hack your time for your dollars.
- We're good, just checking the lighting.
(Gary laughs)
- I tweeted the other day 0% of zero is zero.
A lot of people laughed and made jokes
but it's funny somebody was negotiating against me
in some business world where
they were gonna take zero commission.
And on this thing, I don't wanna be too specific.
Anyway, which I replied to the
person they were pitching it to.
I'm like cool, when they bring you nothing
it's not gonna matter. (laughs)
0% of zero is zero is zero for that company,
that person so, you can pass on my 20%
but when I bring 400,000, you'd get 320.
When that person brings you zero, you're gonna get zero.
Always wonder why somebody
is willing to work on zero commission.
It's either because they're unbelievable
and they're making money in some other spot
in that overall relationship,
or it's cause they can't deliver in that craft.
This situation was the second one. (man laughs)
That entity is not going to bring you anything.
- [Man] People love you man.
- 'Cause I love them first.
- (gasps) I waited three hours.
I have to go in 100 seconds, I want to just.
- You got it.
- Because I love you.
Thanks everything man.
- You're welcome man.
I think people should sleep six, seven, eight hours
depending on your body.
I'm a huge advocate in what the fuck are you doing
the other 18 hours, right?
And so when I hear your question
the answer is of course you should.
You know you should.
You you know you should test, everybody here should
spend meaningful amounts of time testing everything.
Everything!
That's what your suppose to be doing
'cause you don't know the answer for your specific nuance
if Linkedin or a podcast or influencer marketing
or you know, you don't know if that's gonna be the
turning point and what you're
doing is your doing too many things.
People are keeping their time precious
when it's their biggest asset.
People are not reinvesting money back into their business
'cause they wanna buy dumb shit.
People are not trying things because if they fail,
they worry about what other people think about that failure.
And so we're all, you know the answer is yes, to everything.
Literally fuck it, I'm like yes.
And I could leave and go fucking fly to LA right now
because the next three hours is yes.
(audience laughs)
It is, yes so of course you should.
Like, what are you doing for 18 hours a day?
Find a hour and do it for a hour everyday
to get to the answer and then also understand
that the first 10 times you do it, it might not be right.
Because it's like, I always talk about the ROI.
People are like, what's the ROI of influencers?
Or VR?
Or the ROI of those 10 hours reaching out to influencers?
The ROI of a basketball is very different to people.
To me it's nothing, to Lebron James it's a billion dollars.
So, all this stuff works.
It's are you good at it?
Is a whole nother question.
So it's not just the ROI of trying it,
then you gotta get good at it.
Nothing you're good at right now,
you were so great at the first time you tired it.
So, of course man, like everything that's happening,
you need to figure out how it works for your business.
B to B, B to C, personal brand.
The question is, what are you doing with your time?
You know, and so that's why I get mad at people
who want to be an entrepreneur
and watch four hours of Netflix a weekend or.
And by the way people need escapism.
You need to check out, you need to rest.
You have to be in a mental place but the scrutiny
that we have to put on our time as young entrepreneurs,
you know it's just time or money.
Talent is the variable that sits in here.
But the assets that you're sitting with,
in the beginning your time and then you amass money.
And then you can use the money to save time
and you're just going back and forth.
And everybody wants these big dreams
and they're not willing to work at the level they need to
when that's the advantage they have.
So, fuck yes you should.
Yeah, I'm really looking forward
to the flight to Moscow and more importantly Moscow to LA.
- What are we doing in Moscow - That's crazy.
- We're in the airport for eight hours.
I assume we have lounge and we're just gonna
fall asleep in the corner on a chair that looks like this.
That's what we're gonna do. (laughs)
I mean honestly I'm very excited.
I've never been to the USSR.
- Aw that's crazy - Since I've left in 1970.
So it's actually a fun day but
I can't leave - You can't leave.
Well, you can't leave right because
you need a Visa. - You need a Visa.
And I didn't know I was, I didn't even know
until two days ago that we were connecting through Moscow.
- [Man] That would have been nice though.
- Just to run to Red Square and do a meetup
would have been awesome.
It's inspired me to wanna go back.
I don't know what we're gonna do but yeah I'm tired.
- Alright can we get the last ones seated.
We only have 10 minutes till Gary leaves.
- I felt pretty good about that.
I'm really excited to see everybody here in Copenhagen.
Incredible, incredible city, really good day.
- [Man] Yeah, great day.
- Got some good content. - We have a lot to go yet.
- It was a lot, yes we still. (laughs)
We have to go to the airport.
We gotta go, three, four hour flight to Moscow,
eight hour layover in Moscow. - You have a drinks meeting.
- I have a drinks meeting?
- [Man] That's where you gotta go next.
- Fuck.
I'm a much bigger brand than VaynerMedia.
- Yeah.
- Yet I service no clients.
- Okay.
- And it was because I knew that that was the trap hole.
And you know again, remember I said I fucked up with Google?
- Yeah, yeah.
- When you do it, you know, you did the right thing.
But now the right thing in this mature state
when you recognize it, is the power of know.
Because if we're here three years later and you're like
Gary, remember?
I'm like yeah, the guy with the two earrings.
Now there's no excuse.
Now that you know, now it's just down to execution.
(man asks question)
Yeah, I mean there's a couple ways to go about it.
You're like, I'm sorry.
You can't have me.
I've built it up.
I've built my team.
Or you can go a different route.
Oh, okay Rick, Sarah, Hans-Shmanz, like you want me?
Well, what we told you 5000 a month
is actually 30,000 a month if you want me.
There's a lot of moves that you can have.
There's always gonna be an excuse.
You're 100% in charge.
You know what the issue is, either address it or don't.
There's one of two ways.
You do what I, I've scaled that and I've done it
by hiring around two things.
One, everything I don't wanna do.
Two, everything I know I'm not as good at
than the other things that I spend my time on.
Which means I spend 30% of my time on HR.
Like you look at my calendar, I'm just meeting
with my employees talking about somebody else
that they're mad at.
But that's what I do so special
that allows me to build what I build, right?
So, it's about leaving money on the table
in the short term, my friend.
You're trying to maximize the profit
instead of reinvesting it into people
and having people do B versus your A.
It's about building a business in five years
instead of one year.
Similar to him, nobody wants to give up the short term.
He says yes for another 50,000 or 25,000 or 2000 a month
or whatever it is, instead of saying no.
And then, you know, 'cause it's exciting to take.
People get caught up in top-line revenue or profit.
And it's always about tweaking those two things.
Also ego hurts these stories a lot.
You like the feeling of being the best of the best.
I listen to every word, you know?