- Super excited to be here. This is my tenth year
at South-By, which is insane and I'm glad to go
back to the form, at two years ago or three years ago
I decided to do a full Q&A, and it was a lot of fun
and really set the tone for what I did
with my last book and things of that nature.
There's a mic right up here, I'm gonna probably talk
for only two or three or four minutes, so if you've ever
wanted to ask a question, I think it's a really good time
to actually get up from your seat right now
and start getting into line, so do that.
As you're debating your questions, let me talk
to you about what's on my mind.
I know there's a good mix of people here
who know quite a bit about me, and I'm sure there's
a good mix of people who don't.
For my whole life I called myself a businessman.
We now call that an entrepreneur.
I've always been selling stuff, and what it synthesized to
for the people that are paying attention to me closest
is I'm really, really focused on attention.
All the happiness that I've had professionally
has been my ability to understand where the consumer
attention is while the world underestimates it.
This conference, the people in this room, are
easily aware of where things are going.
You wouldn't be at this conference.
You wouldn't be coming to these kind of talks
if you didn't understand where
the attention is either or about to be.
I think this space, our space, tends to think
attention is gonna be in places a little bit too quickly.
For example, the last two or three years
I've been debating very aggressively with a lot
of my Silicon Valley friends that VR
on the consumer level is much further away than we think.
The technology's there, but it
kinda reminds me of internet '92.
It's gonna take time for normal people to,
how many people, by show of hands,
outside of people that are in the business,
know of a human being who actually spends
two hours a day, or an hour a day, in VR?
A human being not in the business?
Three, so we got a long way to go.
And I think that's the things we need to think about, right?
But to me, I'm unemotional, like Twitter,
email marketing, YouTube, these are the platforms
that through the years really helped me grow
my wine business, my brand, my agency,
but the truth is I'm unemotional
about whether they're here tomorrow.
I'm sad that Twitter's ad product
isn't as good as I'd like it to be,
but I would never waste my money,
tell you to waste your money, or guide my startups
or companies to waste their money in that platform.
To me, I'm obsessed with the underpriced nature
of Facebook's ads Marketplace right now.
But the day it becomes overpriced, I won't cry.
I'll just move on to wherever our attention,
there's an unemotional attention grab that I'm focused on.
Then I think a lot of the other things that may happen
here is I'm pretty undereducated,
in hindsight, right?
I was an extraordinarily poor student.
And as I continue to hear things, like,
there's some amazing thing I saw on social,
my feed the other day, a graffiti artist saying,
the creative people that are winning, are the kids
that got through adulthood without being tainted, right?
And I actually think that so much
of what I think about just comes from a pure audit.
I don't have a preconceived notion
when I look at most things, and I think that blindness.
When I went into the agency world,
right now I'm running an 800 person agency.
We've gone from zero to $130 million in revenue.
When I started it, people made fun of me, and said,
just 'cause I had a lot of Twitter followers,
how was I gonna compete with real Madison Avenue.
For me, the reason we've been so grossly successful
is I didn't have any of the baggage of the agency world.
I knew nothing about the agency world in the same way
I didn't know anything about the wine business
when I went into my dad's business.
And whatever I operate for the next two or three things
until I buy the Jets and win Super Bowls,
I'm gonna be very blind to it.
I implore people to make things more simple.
I think things are extremely simple
if you allow them to be that way.
I think we make them very complicated,
and I think a lot of people here,
how many people are running or work
at a startup, early stage startup?
Raise your hands high, I just wanna get a sense.
A lot, so to me one of the things that's very devastating
and the difference of being here today versus 10 years ago
is the people that were here 10 years ago
were building products and were trying to build products
and, or businesses, one or the other.
The far majority of startups in our ecosystem today
are building financial arbitrage machines.
All they're doing is trying to hit certain metrics
to raise the next round of capital to keep going
until some sort of imaginary exit.
And that's scary to me because for anybody else here
who's following the business world,
we've now lived through eight or
nine very good years in our economy.
That plays itself out eventually.
And when there is no more money
and you actually have to run a business,
all those things you cared about, like CAC and LTV
and all these other lovely, important things
become far less important than
do you make more money than you lose each month?
Let me just remind everybody, you're not a
superstar entrepreneur when you're losing money each month.
(audience laughter)
There's a lot of interesting themes
that are in play right now, and so
those are the things that I like to pay attention to.
I reverse engineer human behavior, and I deploy
my actions into places where I think there's opportunity.
That's my thesis, that's what I roll on,
and most of it's very tried and true.
I love HR, I love people.
I love people's behavior,
and I love consumer trends.
This is the place to be for that stuff.
Thanks for having me and I'm ready
to answer questions, whether very tactical of, like,
how to run a Snapchat filter ad or philosophical
of, like, how do you tell your
mom that she's ruining your life?
(audience laughter)
Cool, name and question.
- Steven Rosenberg. My question is, so I watch you
go all over the country and all over the world
and people ask you the same questions--
- Yes.
- [Steven] over and over and over,
I wanna add value and ask you,
what kind of questions do you want people to ask?
You don't have to answer the same question over and over.
- So Steve, this is literally the question I hate the most.
(audience laughter)
- [Steven] Okay, really?
- I'm not even kidding. - [Steven] Really?
- I'll explain in a minute. - [Steven] Okay, yeah.
- Literally, I would've preferred
you ask me the same cliche question.
- [Steven]Really? - Yes, I'll tell you why.
- When you're answering people's questions,
you need to provide them value, not yourself value.
- [Steven] Correct.
- Do you know why 98% of the South-By keynotes
this year are gonna suck shit?
- [Steven] Because they're not--
- No, because they're doing press releases for their
- [Steve] Right. - best behavior,
not for the audiences.
The reason I'm doing a keynote,
a Q&A session is I wanna give you something.
I'm plenty comfortable self-promoting
plenty of other times,
and so I don't have any question.
Listen, there's nothing I want to be asked.
All I want to do is give people what their question is.
I don't mind answering the same question
over and over, you know why?
We have seven to 11 basic themes that are fucking us up.
- [Steven] Right, so, alright let me ask you this.
- Fine. - [Steven] What do you think
of eco-capitalism moving forward in 2017?
- I'm sorry one more time?
- [Steven] Eco-capitalism.
- Like, break it down for me.
Another great thing about Q&A is I try not to answer shit
I don't understand - [Steven] Yeah so basically,
(audience laughter) corporations being able
to profit from their waste stream,
though its really wasteful, and you have to pay for waste.
And they're using social to change that.
- So, in that vein, I don't know all the details,
but I'll go thematically with you.
- [Steven] Please. - Companies are very basic.
- [Steven] Okay.
- They never do good things
unless it's good for the company.
- [Steven] Right.
- So, if there's a way to incentivize,
it's like when people are CEO's and they're mad
at their sales team for selling the wrong shit,
but meanwhile the CEO's bonusing them on that shit behavior,
I'm like, you're a shithead.
Change the bonuses and they'll adapt.
You wanna fix the environment?
Make and incentivize every company to do that,
they will do it every single time.
- [Steven] Correct, but it's hard for them
to get on board initially,
even though it capitalistically makes sense,
for them to listen to that, because they hear
environment and they go oh.
- Yeah, I would tell you that I don't believe that,
and let me explain why.
I'm not sure who's feeding them that information,
but I promise you every CFO of every Fortune 5,000 company
in the world, unless they decide
to make it a political issue, which I'm very empathetic to,
is going to always make the dollar and cent decision.
- [Steven] Right, I mean doesn't
VaynerMedia spend money on waste?
- Of course. - [Steven] A lot.
- I don't know, to be frank.
- [Steven] I'm sure, yeah, okay, thank you.
- You're welcome.
Me?
Seriously?
(audience laughter)
That is literally the first time
I've ever fucking heard that in my life.
Can you guys pump me up?
Got it, I'll go harder.
(audience laughter)
What's up my man?
- [Trevor] How are you Gary?
- What's your name?
- [Trevor] Trevor Williams, Austin, Texas.
- Love it.
- [Trevor] First off, real quick, huge fan.
- Thank you.
- [Trevor] I'm limiting myself on my goals,
and you kinda helped me blast through those.
- Thank you.
- [Trevor] We have a local company, IoVitamine,
we do IV hydration therapy, great for hangovers by the way.
South-By a good time here. - So the kind of shit where
you get drunk and you go into a place
and they put an IV in you?
- [Trevor] Exactly. - Okay.
- [Trevor] It's not just that though, it's overall health,
fatigue, it's overall wellness.
- Okay.
- [Trevor] Great response, new category,
the only one here in Austin.
There's only about a handful
of them across the United States.
We're trying to raise awareness of how it makes you feel,
how it helps you, and we're overwhelmed.
We have four partners that are working full-time,
we're trying to scale it pretty quickly,
so we're doing all of the standing operating procedures.
So how do we-- - You're trying to scale
quickly because you feel like you
could be commoditized if people open up other shops?
- [Trevor] Yeah, we just want to be first.
It's a first to market play, it's not really controllable.
- Not always, right?
It's first to market play a lot of times on brand,
but not on locations, and this is where a lot of people
get fucked up, they overexpand and they lose,
Krispy Kreme, things of that nature, it's iconic.
It's 80 years in the making.
People wanna move fast,
and they think their advantage is locations.
It's actually brand, and what a lot of people
end up doing is they go tactical and try to open up
those locations instead of worrying about the things
that will give them a marathon.
Because you're not running a sprint, unless you're looking
to exit in the next 24 months and sell off the company.
So your behavior needs to map that.
It's just one thing to keep in mind, but keep going.
- [Trevor] So what's the best way,
we're overwhelmed as it is, like...
- Hire people.
- [Trevor] Hiring people, okay.
So getting out there, getting on social media--
- No, no, no.
Before you worry about the tactics of marketing,
if you're truly overwhelmed, then you started with that,
four of us were running a mile a minute,
have you guys thought about hiring people?
Like more people.
- [Trevor] We've started, we hired a marketing person,
20-30 hours a week, gonna help us reach out a little.
- Are you guys profitable?
- [Trevor] Yes.
- What are you doing with the profit?
- [Trevor] Uh, paying bills.
- Right so--
- [Trevor] Catching up on debt.
- Got it, okay, understood.
Yeah I mean, look, so are you looking
for a tactic or a thesis?
- [Trevor] I want a tactic as far as how to deploy
the most to get out message out there and create the brand.
- Well, there's three ways to communicate to the world.
You can write content, you can do audio content,
or you can do video content, right?
Video content historically is over indexed it,
and so you can make video content and run it on Facebook,
and run ads for people within the Austin zip code,
and build awareness that way.
The underpriced tactic in the market for everybody here,
B2B, B2C, startup, Fortune 50,
the underpriced attention to the target
that you're looking for, as we stand here today,
is Facebook video.
So you need to figure out how to make that.
At first it could be on your phone,
if you don't have the dollars.
Later it can get fancy like DRock, but the reality is
that's not even really that fancy, and so I think that,
sorry DRock and so, (audience laughter
I think Facebook video
targeting people of certain wealth
and interests that would make sense for them to come
to you, is probably the tactic you're most looking for,
and I would say influencer marketing.
Instagram peeps with 300, 3,000, 30,000, 300,000,
if they're, you know, exchanging your service for them,
you know you give it to them for free,
they're giving you shout-outs, that's a really
grossly underpriced awareness right now,
is influencer marketing on an Instagram world.
And those would be the two places I would focus on.
- [Trevor] Perfect, perfect. A real quick jab,
it's gonna be a right hook 'cause of all the people here,
but we are mobile, if any of you or your staff
want us to come to you while you're in town,
we'll come hook you up.
Complete jab. And ah--
- That's a right hook, it's not a jab.
- [Trevor] Of course, of course.
But I've been DMing you as a jab only,
but since I'm here it's a right hook.
- Dude, everybody's fucking DMing me.
(audience laughter)
- [Trevor] Anyway, thanks for everything you do,
I appreciate it man. - Cool.
(audience applause)
Hey man.
- [Tony] Hey, Tony Bova from Knoxville, Tennessee.
- Love it.
- [Tony] Two things I-- - Who's from Tennessee?
- [Tony] Ya, go Vols. - Alright, there's three of you.
- [Tony] Well, maybe next year there will be more.
- Better than zero.
- [Tony] Quick comment to the first guy.
I think he's a little bit wrong.
We actually have a startup
where we're taking a waste product from the paper industry
and making biodegradable plastic out of it.
- Do you think you two should fight?
- [Tony] Yeah, I do. (audience laughter)
- Alright, flagpole 3 P.M.
- [Tony] They're super happy
because they don't have anything to do with this--
- So you guys can work yourself out on other people's time.
Let's move on.
- [Tony] So my question is for you,
we're competing in a commodity market--,
- Yes.
- [Tony] but we're really interested in--
- By the way, real quick, 99.999% of businesses,
are competing in a commodity market.
That's why I'm obsessed with brand.
It's a differentiator. Go ahead.
- [Tony] That's my question.
So how do we competing against like
the DOW and BASF of the world with plastic,
how do you build a brand--
- Who are you trying to reach?
The B2B decision maker?
- [Tony] Both, I want-- - And consumer?
- [Tony] I want the B2B decision maker
and I want the consumer to go to them
and say I want this instead of that.
- And create the pressure kind of like Intel inside.
Ya man, I mean it's called fucking marketing, right?
Like, it's gonna be very basic here.
I think that, you know one thing
I think a lot of you should be doing,
especially if you're in a B2B environment,
is starting a monthly podcast where you become the experts,
as a media company in your space and really.
I mean look this is 10 years ago, Wine Library TV.
I thought I was gonna be QVC and just sell wine.
That's what I thought I was gonna do.
The second the camera went on I was like, shit,
this is recorded forever. I need to rethink this.
And I just became America's wine guy in that world.
I think that you should start a monthly podcast,
or a weekly podcast if you wanna hustle,
have really interesting guests,
and that small little niche of people
that are interested in your world will find yourself there.
The more you can act like a media company,
and less like an advertiser, you will always win.
'Cause nobody in here wants ads.
People want content and the truth is
we actually don't give a shit where the content comes from.
Whether it's a network, or a producer, or an individual,
or a company, as long as it's great.
The problem is, 99% of companies
want them to be commercials not content.
So you could do that.
Or, you could take the advice I said before,
the two underpriced for early stage.
Like, when you're David and you're playing against Goliath,
you have to do David tactics.
And our little slingshot with a rock right now,
is Facebook ads.
You know, I know I'm boring the shit out of the ones
that follow me, it's just that when I stand up here
and say I built my dad's store from three to 60 million,
I always feel that it should have been 250 million,
because what I didn't do was spend all my money
on Google AdWords in 2000, 2001, '02 and '03
when I had it and I figured it out
and it was five and ten cents a click,
but it was so early and I was so young,
I didn't realize how
historically amazing this would be.
We are paying 6 to 13 dollar CPMs on Facebook right now
that are gonna be 50 to 80 dollars in 36 and 48 months,
and everybody that's not here is gonna be sad
that they didn't jump on it.
And they're gonna look back to this talk
and be like, fuck, I shoulda listened to Gary.
(audience laughter) - [Tony] Awesome.
- So those are the two things I would do.
- [Tony] Thank you so much. - Media company,
and become the voice of the market,
and become the platform
that people talk about the market on.
That brings interest to decision makers
or market in the place where people are
that's underpriced right now.
- [Tony] So just own it as we're the experts--
- If you are.
Like one of the sad things about the world we live in now,
is people are claiming to be experts
when they're 21-years-old out of school,
and they just want to be an influence or an Instagram.
- [Tony] Right, awesome.
Thank you very much. - Thank you, yeah.
(audience applause)
- [Russell] 'Sup Gary? - How are you man?
- [Russell] My name's Russell.
- I'm aware. We played basketball for two hours,
two hours ago.
- [Russell] Yeah, so that was awesome.
Shoutout to Tyler, thanks Ty.
So my question today is just, for the people,
like you get to hang around cool ass people,
like Tony Robbins and Adam Gerard,
and all those awesome people.
Is there anything that you notice that they have in common
and that you really think that makes them uberly successful?
And on the other flip side of that,
is there anything that you notice among,
not necessarily failures in life,
but people who just fucked up,
excuse my language, but uh--
- Don't worry.
(loud audience laughter)
- [Russell] That really make them kind of mess up in life.
- Yeah, I think, you know it's a really great question.
It's really hard, and the truth is we're all individual.
But I will say that I do believe that people that care less
about what other people think about them
tend to have a better life.
It's just liberating, and the truth is,
you think it's the people that troll you in comments,
I'm actually talking about your parents.
And like, I genuinely believe that self-esteem
is the ultimate drug in life.
That I'm obsessed with driving self-esteem into my children,
my mom did that for me, and listen,
there's a very fine line between self-esteem and delusion.
Right, there's a very fine line.
But the reality is, there are just so many people
sitting here that are broken inside
because they care what their older brother
thinks about their behavior.
Or what their husband thinks about their behavior.
Or what their mom said to them growing up.
And I don't really know how to break that.
What I'm trying to do with my life is in parallel,
achieve what I want for me.
But the reason I document so much,
is that I'm trying to become the injection of audacity
into the people that watch me,
that gives them the courage to take the jump
into the pool that they're scared to swim in.
And so, people are just being held back
by other people's opinions,
and that's deep stuff that you can't really hack at.
I'm trying to play my tiny little part.
But I would say that's the differentiation.
Like, it's unbelievable to me, I tweeted something
which was an inside tweet without context for my company.
Which was, "insecurity leads to politics".
The people at VaynerMedia that are so talented,
that are so about to win, that I'm about to fire
because they're insecure
and that leads them to terrible behavior.
It breaks my heart, and we try hard.
My crews there, they know, we try hard.
We pound at them, we try to make them feel safe.
We have a Chief Heart Officer, I do my thing.
We have a good culture, I try.
But insecurity is a killer. It leads to all the bad shit.
And so it's the difference between
self-confidence and insecurity, it's the difference of like.
Listen being self-emotional and putting yourself out there,
there's so many people that have opinions about me.
As long as the people that actually know me
have the opinions they have,
versus the people that have never met me,
but they heard me say fuck on stage.
Like, as long as I'm good with the people
that actually can look under the hood, then I'll always win.
So if you feel good about who you actually are,
you need to get loud.
And if you don't, fix your shit.
- [Russell] Thanks Gary. - You got it Russell.
(audience applause)
- [Justin] Hey Gary. - How are you?
- I'm good man, my name's Justin.
I really appreciate you and the content you put out.
- Thank you.
- Now, you talk about hacking culture. I'm really curious,--
- By the way the entire line is a bunch of fucking dudes,
can I get some ladies up here?
(women in audience cheer and applaud)
I see you darlin', you're welcome.
Go ahead bro, sorry. Just a fucking sausage fest, fuck.
(audience laughter)
- Sorry I'm adding to that. How do you think about like,--
- Ladies, let's go. Go ahead.
- How do you think about tapping into the Zeitgeist,
specifically around like content creation?
- Like, like hacking culture.
- Like hacking culture, ideas that are going to spread now,
when is the right timing, to make content around that?
- That's the magic, let me tell you one thing,
all creatives in the room? The creative is still
the variable of success. With all the math
that has come into our world and tech,
the creative is still the variable of success.
(audience cheering)
Now, before we get pumped creatives,
most creatives are dick faces because they think
their opinion's better than everybody else's because
AdAge one said they said made something nice.
So it's this very hardcore mix of actual humility
balanced with ego but the underlining reason
that I've been able to do it pretty consistently for myself
and the things I'm involved with
is it's all about listening.
It's all listening. Like I talk so much
that people don't get it,
the only thing I'm actually doing is listening.
The reason I'm so good with my community to engage with
is because first I'm listening to what you're saying,
and shit, I'm there, so I might as well say what's up?
Right?
The reason I took their selfie picture
and put it in my Instagram story was, first, I was listening
and then I gave them daps, like, I'm constantly listening
and for the people that follow my vlog,
I don't do anything by accident.
I'm not spending all my time with 30, 40 different
emerging Atlanta 19-year-old hip-hop artists for my health.
I'm doing it because I believe there's about to be a run
in that scene of the Russes and the Nebus
and the things like that, Skip and Flip,
like I think they'll be culture,
and I wanna have that association. I wanna taste it.
Same reason I came here, back in 2006, '07, and '08.
I thought that this "Twitter", "Instagram" thing,
these people, were gonna build the future.
I didn't give a shit about technology.
I was like a very weird guy here 10 years ago.
Everybody was like, "We're gonna save the world,
"and we're gonna,
"we're gonna build products to make people's lives better,"
and I'm like "yeah yeah yeah,"
but in my head I'm like, "I'm gonna sell shit."
(audience laughter)
You know? And so,
what I do is just listen.
Even in politics, no matter where I sit on issues,
I listen, nothing confuses me of what's going on
because I listen. I know the difference about what's
going on in my Chattanooga, Tennessee office
versus my L.A. office.
I go into those forums. I pay attention
to what's going on on 4chan and Reddit
and other places that people don't pay attention to.
I look, me and A.J. started a sports agency
'cause I wanna know the up-and-coming athletes
of the next generation that are 16, 17 and 18.
I'm patient, and I pay attention,
and I'm not scared to fail.
For every "Snapchat" and "Instagram" that I've won on,
I lost on Socialcam, right?
I lost on Plurk.
Remember Plurk, 2009 here?
But I'm not scared to do two things:
one, spend it on godly time,
listening versus thinking I can manifest it myself,
and number two, once I have a thought,
try things.
So for everything I get credit for that I did well,
there's 18 things I didn't do well that are forgotten
'cause it doesn't matter.
- [Justin] Yeah. Cool.
(audience laughter)
That was a good answer. Thanks man.
- You're welcome.
- [Jared] Hey Gary, I'm super pumped to be here.
- Thank you man. - [Jared] Shout out to DRock.
I love all your stuff.
- What's your name? - Jared, from Austin.
My wife is here and she gets super pissed
when I go into my YouTube shell and watch you and Casey
and all that. - Understood.
My voice is annoying, I know, sorry about that.
(audience laughter)
- I love it all, I just have,
I don't know the context of this whole video but I saw it,
you were comparing TV as dying just as radio has
already died.
- Right.
- [Jared] Working in radio I can't believe that, right?
- So dying is a very dangerous word.
Nothing dies, right? Like radio's around,
newspapers are still here.
When I say dying it's a slang term for,
I think the advertising on that platform
is grossly overpriced versus the alternative.
Meanwhile, I'm right now spending a ton of time
on iHeartRadio Drive Time radio,
live reads by the disc jockey,
just because I think that's underpriced.
So to me, I'm not a digitalist.
I'm just an attentionist.
So I just look at prices, right?
Outdoor media should not be up 12 to 15% in the last decade
in a world where everybody here when they're a passenger
in the car is looking at their phone
versus out the window, so like,
that's just bad common sense. The price is overpriced,
that's why I'm down on it,
but it's not like billboards are being torn down, so,
a lot of times especially with the way I roll,
things seem up, you know, absolute, it's the nuances
underneath the absolute statements that matter,
but keep going.
- [Jared] And so, from the consumer standpoint,
filling that funnel, are you a believer that
TV, radio still play a role in filling from the top
and then obviously Facebook ads--
- But I think Facebook's much better
as a top of the funnel platform.
Because it's massively underpriced.
Meanwhile, I think a Super Bowl commercial
is the best deal in marketing.
Like, not even close.
At $6 million a pop, a steal.
On the Gary radar of pricing?
Worth $20, $30, $40 million.
Meanwhile, I think programmatic digital banner buying
and preroll is the worst shit on Earth.
Nobody gives a fuck about your banner
and definitely not the pop-up
that's stopping you from doing what you want. And yet,
the market of advertising, Madison Avenue, loves it,
because they're justifying the $5 CPM.
There's never been a time when the value of something
was predicated on its price.
- [Jared] Alright, thank you. - You got it.
(audience applause)
- [Julia] Alright.
- Alright, let's do this. What's your name?
- [Julia] My name is Julia and ten years ago,
this man sent me my wine for my wedding for free.
Seriously, he did. - Don't tell them my secrets.
- [Julia] I know right? (laughs)
So, thank you. - You're welcome.
- [Julia] I'm really glad I get to say that in person.
So, ten years ago,
entrepreneurship was not even on my radar.
And now I own a company.
Both my husband and I run a financial planning firm
that we started to help creative people
'cause lord knows we need some help with our money.
And that being said,
we're using video a lot-- - Good.
- [Julia] Because we're actually both actors.
- Yes. - [Julia] Right?
And I'm hitting this point of overwhelm
because my question is how do you own a business
that uses video and social media and keep your sanity?
I'm really an empathic person and I feel all this pain
and need around me and it overwhelms me.
- Pain from the people that are sending
these crazy emails?
- [Julia] Well, yes, sometimes,
like directly from the client.
It's just from the social media world at large.
- Oh, you mean how all of social right now
is just negative as fuck.
- [Julia] Yes!
I feel it's like emotional dodge ball
and opinion dodge ball.
- Yes.
- [Julia] All these ideas.
How can I get in there and try and help people?
- You stay on the offense of positivity if you believe it.
You manage the amount of time you spend looking
and rubbernecking at negativity.
- [Julia] How do you do that?
Do you have like time blocks? - I don't give a fuck.
- [Julia] Okay, all right. - I see all the negativity,
I just know that life is like this.
I expect things to be difficult.
I want to remind everybody,
no matter where you stand on politics
and things of that nature, just data.
This is the greatest era to be alive.
As sad as you are about certain things,
I promise you, it'd be worse right now
if the Black Plague was doing it's thing.
(audience laughter)
And so, I think we get crippled, right?
You know, I think a lot of people here
need to go an spend more time with 80 and 90-year-olds
and ask them what they lived through.
Nothing's perfect.
We're always gonna have it bad.
It's always going to be something.
We've always picked on each other for being different.
It sucks.
So if you're lucky, and you don't have that in you,
I think you do what I'm trying to do
which is be completely, utterly on the offense
of positivity because if you're positive,
and you're happy,
and you're optimistic, you owe it to each other
right now to get louder because the only people
that are loud are the people that are upset.
Right? Negativity is on fire and happy people
are clamming up and staying away from it.
That's how we stay happy.
I went the other way.
I'm going right at it,
putting it out every single day.
That's number one, but we're all wired different.
I'm able to eat shit at scale for the rest of my life.
That's why I'm a leader,
that's why my company,
it's why I put myself out there.
If you get fatigued you need to take yourself out there.
It's okay to not be there every day, read every comment.
- [Julia] I feel like if I'm not out there all the time,
that I'm losing people and undercutting myself.
- Yes, you are, but what's more interesting?
Making $11 million a year and being miserable or
makin $6 million a year and being decently happy?
- [Julia] Thanks. - You're welcome.
- That's it.
- [Julia] Alright, thank you.
- Well good, good to see you.
- [Julia] Get some ladies up in here.
- They're coming. They're mixed in.
- [Mark] 'Sup? - Sup.
(audience laughter)
(Mark pops lips) (Gary laughs)
(pops lips)
That was my question.
- Yeah what's your name?
- [Mark] Mark.
- Mark.
- [Mark] I saw you last year, I was really inspired.
Told you about a company that I started
one year ago called Wanderbrief.
We're a platform where we connect freelancers
with companies all over the world.
People trade their skills for experiences abroad.
- Understood.
- [Mark] And we've got a lot of interest from people
and then not a lot of companies.
- Not a lot or a lot?
- [Mark] Not a lot of companies.
And then you said you have to focus on the companies
like it's a strip club and you need
to have the girls and the guys will come, right?
- That's right. - [Mark] This is the opposite.
We need girls here on the line.
But that strategy actually worked really well
so we're now working for a Adobe, Vodafone, Heineken
and Porsche, but I actually have a question for you.
So if you could work anywhere in the world,
where would you go?
- Nowhere.
- [Mark] Thank you.
- And the dude laughing back there is clearly like,
it's never even crossed my mind.
It's never been there.
It's never gonna be there.
I don't want to work anywhere.
I just don't have that ability in me to think
that somebody else is going to steer my ship.
I'm just not interested.
And by the way, I don't think that's cool.
I don't think I'm cool for that.
To be very frank, I wish I didn't even have it.
You know how awesome it is to be the number two or three?
You get almost all the benefits
and you get to blame somebody.
(audience laughter)
So the answer is I don't,
but I don't think that's a badge of honor.
I don't think everybody,
right now everybody thinks they need to be
an entrepreneur and a founder.
Meanwhile, I promise you the following.
The number 11 at Facebook, she made a lot more money
than everybody in this room combined.
Right, we're not thinking smart.
This is back to self-awareness.
You need to know who you are.
I know who I am.
I am a leading CEO entrepreneur, that's who I am.
It's always who I've been.
At 14, I was telling my dad
what we're supposed to do in the liquor store.
So, my answer to that is nowhere,
but I want to make sure that everybody hears me loud
and clear, that doesn't make it cool.
That just makes it my truth.
You just need to figure out your truth.
- [Mark] Cool, so then maybe you can give your spot
to number 11 of VayenrMedia and I will take him
or her on a trip.
- Thanks for the right hook.
I'll look into it.
(audience laughter and applause)
- [Henry] Hey, what's up Gary? How you doing?
- Super well man.
- [Henry] Good. I'm Henry from Los Angeles.
I work for a company called The Herbal Chef.
- Okay.
We do cannabis infused fine dining.
- Awesome. (audience laughter)
- [Henry] I do all the social media stuff
with them and all that.
And I was wondering if you see any similarities
in the cannabis space and the wine space?
- Of course.
Wine was illegal in this country.
Some of you saw my South-By speech last year.
I hate this fucking state because I can't ship wine here.
Right?
It's state by state regulated.
There's taboo.
80 years ago it was super taboo to drink in this country.
20 years ago it was super taboo to smoke weed.
It's getting chipped away at.
You know, obviously the new administration's
got its agenda so it may slow down the curve
of what we've got going on.
It will be interesting to watch that
from an entrepreneurial standpoint,
but I think we are now fully on the other side of the hill
as a social issue on that product
and I think it's really cool.
I'm excited to learn about all the benefits
that have been suppressed because people
have not wanted it to succeeded.
And so, sure, I will say this.
Like VR, I think cannabis on the consumer level
at big scale is going to be slower than people think.
- [Henry] Right.
- And I think it's also going to be very competitive.
I love looking at history.
The reason I know I'm right,
that we've gone to a primary mobile world
and now the television is the secondary device
just like we went through with radio and television.
I think if you look back at all the startups
that happen in alcohol post prohibition,
99% of them failed. - [Henry] Yeah.
- And so everybody's gold rushing on this.
They don't realize how slow it's going to take
and they're building shitty businesses.
They just put the word cannabis in it
and they think they're going to succeed because it's coming.
- [Henry] Yeah.
Cool, do you see any mistakes that you made with Wine Library?
- There's no parallels to what I did with Wine Library
because it was a long, you know,
alcohol was legal and for a long time.
I think the mistakes I made with Wine Library are tried
and true to what I'm talking about which is in 1996,
when I launched WineLibrary.com, I thought in four years
everybody would be buying wine on the internet.
Right, and it took the internet much slower
to be an e-com platform.
Even now it's still a smaller percentage
than most people realize, so I would tell you
that innovators in this room,
it tends to happen slower than they think and
tends to happen faster than
all the people that aren't here think.
It's finding that timing.
- [Henry] Great, thank you. - Cool.
Hey, darlin'.
- [Connie] How you be?
- What up? - [Connie] How are ya?
- Super.
- [Connie] Good, good, good. - What's your name?
- [Connie] So I am Connie S. Falls.
I live in Atlanta, so I probably see
all the great trap rappers you're probably
dealing with these days. - Yep.
- [Connie] So for me, for my business, I have a government
contracting company that deals primarily with the
Federal Government doing construction.
- Okay.
- [Connie] I have a podcast that I do for entrepreneurs
where I do the interviews and have those kind of
conversations that are very transparent.
- Okay. - [Connie] I have a T-shirt line
that deals primarily
with entrepreneurs. - Okay.
- [Connie] Entrepreneurial Life Is So Awesome.
And I have a nonprofit that's in Nigeria
called We Are Global Champion. - You're doing a lot of shit.
- [Connie] I'm doing a lot of shit.
So my question is, you do a lot of shit, too.
- Be careful.
- [Connie] How do you balance your work and your life?
- Oh, we're talking about work-life balance?
- [Connie] Yeah. - Communication, the end.
Like, you just gotta figure out who's in.
You know, again, back to not giving a crap.
I'm not worried about what everybody here thinks
about my work-life balance or the way I parent my kids.
I worry about what my wife thinks and,
you know, and the inner circle.
The kids are getting a little older,
I'm gonna start hearing their feedback pretty soon.
And so I think that we are crippling ourselves on
parenting and work-life balance and we're judging ourselves
and we're all just trying to do the best we can, right?
Like, this gold standard is ridiculous
'cause it doesn't exist.
There's just whatever the current politically correct
point of view is which has historically been wrong
on almost every social issue of all time.
So for me, by looking at that,
I'm just worried about what's happening in my house,
so I don't give people whole lot of advice on this issue
because your relationship is different.
You know what your relationships are.
And so I just try and over-communicate, the end.
And some days it's rolling for six months
and then it gets tough.
And like, we just try,
but it's hard to suppress who you are.
Like, if you're hungry and you're climbing,
it's tough to not climb and be hungry.
And so you need to be more selfish than you realize
'cause your happiness is the starting point of
how it's going to impact everybody around you.
So you just talk these things through.
- [Connie] Awesome. Thank you. - You're welcome.
(audience applause)
- [Shawn] Gary, my name's Shawn.
- Shawn. - [Shawn] It's a pleasure.
- Real pleasure.
- [Shawn] So let's say you're the Jets owner right now.
- Okay. - [Shawn] What would you do to
outbid the Broncos and Texans to get Tony Romo?
- Nothing.
- [Shawn] Ugh! (audience laughing)
- He's finished.
- [Shawn] The best thing y'all got going is
Fireman Ed, the fan.
- He's not doing his thing anymore.
We lost him, too.
- [Shawn] RIP. (audience laughing)
What role can we expect virtual reality to play
in our ability to enjoy football when you're an owner?
- Back to what I was saying earlier,
I think, ironically, it probably will match up more when
around the timing where I have a shot to pull this off,
so I think in 20 years it could get really interesting.
But I'll be honest with you.
I'm spending very little time, mental time,
in a world where time is the asset on
consumer VR because I just don't think
it's as close as people think.
I'm spending time meeting a lot of people in it.
I am looking at B2B VR because I think a lot of money
will be made in that as Google and Apple and Amazon
and those companies buy up the talent
and the platforms and the apps that
maybe can help them build their play,
but you know, yes, one day
you can put on your contact lenses
and feel like you're there, right?
Like, it's really cool to play Madden Football with
contact lenses where you're the quarterback
and you see everything,
but I just think it's much further away than people think.
If you said you're a genie from the future
and you said it's six years from now,
there's some traction.
Yeah, okay, that kind of makes sense.
But like, just not next year,
it's not the next year.
And there's a lot of shit to do between
now and six years from now that needs a lot of focus.
A lot of people here are worried about VR
while they haven't figured out how to do a
proper Facebook ad spend.
(audience laughter)
You like that one?
That was good, right?
So...
Yeah, I just don't get ahead of myself, man.
One foot in front of the other.
- [Shawn] Is that the Cap'n Crunch dude on your shirt?
- That's the Cap'n Crunch dude.
- [Shawn] I dig it, man, thank you.
- It tears the roof of your mouth.
- [Shawn] It does, you gotta be careful that...
(audience laughing)
It's the ultimate life lessons in modern or...
I went blank.
- That's okay.
We got your back, go ahead.
We're sittin' here.
- Thank you. - It's the ultimate
life lesson in?
- [Shawn] Not overindulging!
One goal at a time, man. - Good one.
Told you, it's support.
All right, thanks, man. - Thank you, Gary.
- Let's move it.
- [David] First off I have to thank you.
When I first started following you
I was a biochemistry major
about to be in academic probation,
and that was 18 months ago. (chuckling)
I have since been going to the MSU
Entrepreneurship Program and have rebounded
(mumbles) have made a complete 180.
- That makes me happy.
- [David] My question to you is--
- What's your name? - [David] David Well.
- David, go ahead.
- [David] Feel like I'm about to pass out here.
- No worries.
DRock will catch ya.
- [David] My question to you is how do you feel about the
rise of entrepreneurship programs in universities?
- Concern.
- [David] I came down here with Michigan State University
(audio cutting out)
- Yep.
- [David] Actually, there's a whole lot.
- Yep.
- [David] Anyway, how do you feel about
the rise of seed funding for
college entrepreneurs at their university?
- I'm concerned because I think entrepreneurship
has become a rockstar status thing, right?
If you told me 15 years ago that a great young dude
would stand in front of you and say he's about to pass out
just because he's talking to you,
I'd be like what the fuck are you talking about?
Right? Entrepreneurship has been put on the current pedestal
of rockstar status, which is great for me
and I'm pumped about it.
But what it's doing is it's making a lot
of 15 to 22-year-old impressionable kids
think that that's the only way out.
I'm gonna remind everybody and this is a good segue
David, and I appreciate you bringing this up
'cause it opened up the mind.
My friends, we have lost.
We have lost people that have come to this conference
a decade ago, nine years ago, eight years ago,
to suicide, because of the pressures
of being successful in our space.
The hardcore startup Silicon Valley pressure thing
that doesn't hit everybody here.
But we've created this world where everybody wins
and the truth is barely anybody's winning.
Everybody thinks they're building
the next Snapchat, or Instagram.
Those are one, two, three companies
that have made it happen.
So I'm scared.
I love it, because I'm an entrepreneur
and I live the reverse of your life.
I got D's and F's, was emotionally sound as shit,
making $4,000 a weekend, was a good kid,
and everybody told me I was a loser
'cause I wasn't gonna be good at academics.
So I'm thrilled that we're not just black and white
from the 80's and 90's, where school's the only way out,
and shit, I wish I was growing up in this era
because I'd be really doing my thing.
At the same token I think the pendulum has swung too far.
Entrepreneurship is very lonely.
It's all on your back.
It's a ton of pressure.
It's all on you, there's nobody to point to.
If you fail everybody you know knows that you failed.
That's a tough scarlet letter
for the majority of people in it.
Especially if they're not pure and bred.
Do you know how much I love failing?
- [David] No.
- I fucking love it.
I love scarlet letters.
I want not only the A, I want fucking to Z.
Because I'm a purebred entrepreneur
and losing is attractive to purebred entrepreneurs.
- [David] It's the only way you learn.
- Hundred percent.
And it's the cost of entry to the game.
But now you have a ton of people who aren't,
and they were good A and B students,
or they'd be a great number four or a great number 13,
or a great project manager.
Great!
But they wanna be a number one.
That's just a totally different game.
It's gray.
Shit's gray.
So I'm concerned because we're funneling
too many kids into it and there will be a lot of pain
that comes along with that because right now
I know a ton of 26 year olds with their startup.
They've never failed, their grandfather
was the naming rights of the fucking library
that they went to college with.
They're like cruising
but the market, the funny thing about the market.
In school, even in college, even in a lot of jobs?
Your last name? The family you came from?
Money, can protect you.
The market?
You launch a product, the market doesn't give a fuck, David.
The market doesn't give a fuck what your grandfather did.
That's where people are getting hurt
and there's gonna be a lot of pain
in the next two, three, four years whenever this melts.
So I'm passionate to make sure that we talk
about self-awareness and getting to know yourself
and what you're good at.
Not that entrepreneur is the key to success.
Thanks.
(audience applauding)
- [Belky] Hey GaryVee. - Hey.
- [Belky] I'm Belky, Austin, Texas.
Between Snapchat and Instagram stories,
where are you seeing more engagement?
- I'm growing on Instagram stories,
but I think the opportunity is in Snapchat
because everybody got lazy and is only doing Instagram.
- [Belky] That's all I really wanna know.
- Yeah, I think when you trade attention,
my man, when you trade attention,
you love moments like this.
People are lazy.
They're like, "Oh! Instagram's now got all the features.
"I have more followers on Instagram.
"It's hard to build followers on Snapchat.
"I'll just chill here and grow, this is better."
Not realizing that tomorrow Snapchat
can drop a feature that changes the game.
They could. They may not.
But I've been growing quite a bit on Snapchat.
I'm growing faster on Instagram
just because I became somewhat viral in December
on Instagram and my worlds' changed there
but I would tell you the majority of the people here
need to take a step back and the answer is,
if you're ambitious, and you want things to happen,
the answer is do both.
Cool. - [Belky] Thank you.
- You got it.
- [Daniel] What's up Gary? Daniel from Houston.
- Hey, Daniel.
- [Daniel] Saw you at the Super Bowl.
- Appreciate it.
- [Daniel] Crazy that they kicked you out.
- (laughing) Yeah, that was crazy.
- [Daniel] So I had a question.
Going back to the David and Goliath that you talked about.
- Yeah.
- [Daniel] (inaudible)
- Yep.
- [Daniel] How do we compete for creatives
to bigger companies when everyone wants
to be freelance and have their own business?
And I'm asking this question because I know
that you truly care about your employees
and bringing value to them.
- Yep.
- [Daniel] But how do we do that at a small scale
when we're very conscious of our staff.
- Well, first, my creatives are kids directly out of school
that weren't getting paid that much but I realized
that creative talent isn't based on how old you are.
I don't underestimate experience,
but that would be like thinking every NBA player
at 35 is great because of experience.
There's pure talent.
I think you should focus on young, young people
who do great creative work because you can afford them
and for them the experience is worthwhile.
I think you get unemotional.
I didn't give a shit about who the cool creative.
I can't name one cool, creative director
in the agency world right now let alone seven years ago.
You're not competing for fucking creative directors
that are going to Droga5 and fucking Crispin Porter.
- [Daniel] Right.
- You're competing for the kids that have the talent
to one day do that, that are growing up in H town.
Go fucking find them.
- [Daniel] Alright, I'm gonna go fuckin' find them.
- Good.(audience laughter)
- [Joshua] Gary, good to fucking be here finally.
- Thank you brother.
- [Joshua] Joshua, long time fan,
not here to read you a fuckin' resume.
- No worries.
- [Joshua] Got a true jab, jab, jab, maybe even
fourth jab but maybe with a right hook at the end.
- It always is.
- [Joshua] First off, hats off to the ladies,
got a little girl at home who I ditched out
on to be here so.
(audience laughter)
- So you're clapping up for the ladies while dissing a lady?
- [Joshua] She's only two.
(audience laughter)
- Go ahead, go ahead.
- [Joshua] Hopefully, I can keep grinding.
So, first off was gonna bring a painting for you,
I hit you up on social earlier, no response.
- Sorry.
- [Joshua] No big deal but didn't want to get
a canvas in here. - Yep.
- [Joshua] Second off, if you, DRock, Tyler,
anybody else wants to get the best fucking workout
you can get in while you're here,
full on MMA-style thing going on
first thing tomorrow morning,
not sure if you're leaving tonight or not.
- Leaving.
- [Joshua] Last thing, another venture we got going on,
the best fucking cold brew you'll have in your entire life,
So you can give that a little taste later.
- That'd be interesting, okay.
- [Joshua] But I guess to get to the real hook would be
with all these different things going on,
and you kind of already answered another
question earlier with over-communicate,
really taking a lot from what you're doing
and employing a Chief Heart Officer.
As you can tell, with all these different little
entrepreneurial endeavors going on,
really trying to find that balance.
- Sure.
- [Joshua] And so what I'm seeing is that there's less
sales with all the different endeavors,
less money coming in but more profits.
- Okay.
- [Joshua] So the margins are increasing.
- Yep.
- [Joshua] Right, so I think it really becomes a question
of you know when you talk about bringing on more people,
that's an ideal but I don't have the cash for that.
- Okay.
- [Joshua] So it becomes this sort of imbalance of is it
cutting labor or is it putting everybody onto sales?
- Listen, no business succeeds long-term without driving
top line revenue.
You can maximize your margin for only so long.
So, sales is the oxygen of businesses.
I'd also tell you that when you're doing three businesses
equally you're doing no businesses.
When people say I do a lot of things,
I said be careful.
I run VaynerMedia, like I'm the CEO of VaynerMedia,
that's what I do for a living.
I have figured out through DRock and a creative team to
create an enormous amount of content.
By the way, I want to remind everybody I've been running
VaynerMedia for six years, it's been around for eight.
I only started doing the content two years ago and change
when DRock on spec did creative for me,
I wasn't even going out spend on it.
I've figured out how to you know,
They GaryVee stuff is my side hustle that I have very
little to do with other than just living my life and
then it's produced for me. So I've run two businesses in my
life every day of my life continuously
since I was 22-years-old the first day out of college.
So when I say be careful,
it may seem like I'm doing a lot of stuff,
mainly 'cause I'm working 18 hours a day and because
I'm efficient as fuck and I'm doing a lot of
eight-minute meetings, 13-minute meetings,
19-minute meetings while you make them an hour and a half
lunch but I'm not running three businesses.
- [Joshua] Right, so that really is that working 20 hours
instead of being--
- No, that's not, that's not for everybody.
- [Joshua] But I'm saying, so if you have somebody
such as myself saying that is for me.
- You can't run three businesses at the same time.
- [Joshua] Right. That's what I'm telling you.
- [Joshua] Right. - Cool.
Period. (audience laughter)
- [Joshua] Thank you. - You're welcome.
- [Joshua] Do I give my card to you or to
DRock standing here?
- DRock's right behind you.
- [Joshua] Alright, get you some cold brew.
- Thank you man, next.
- [Shahim] Hey Gary, what's up?
- 'Sup?
- [Shahim] Shahim from Austin.
- Pleasure. - [Shahim] Good to see you.
For those of us who are getting ready to start our monthly
podcast but are feeling resistant about it,--
- Because?
They're worried about what other people think about it?
- [Shahim] I think that's part of it.
- What's the other part?
- [Shahim] I don't know, I'm curious on how else we can
bust through other than wanting the pain and wanting the
scarlet letters you know?
- Dude it's only scarlet letters.
Like, you don't bust through on day one.
If you do not love the process of what you're up to,
you've already lost.
It's true.
This shit's hard.
Like, what you do want?
You want your first fucking podcast to be number
one on fucking iTunes?
Who the fuck are you? (audience laughter)
I mean that's the part, you have to love it.
I love when people shit on me.
I love when I showed up to the tech world they're like,
the wine guy thinks he's gonna win this thing?
Yep, you know I love going to Madison Avenue
and being like, this Twitter,
Business Week said Twitter boy tries to start an agency.
I said fuck yes.
I'm about to do this TV show right, on Apple.
Planet of the Apps.
Re/code rights,
Planet of the Apps has four celebrity mentors.
Gwyneth Paltrow, will.i.am., Jessica Alba, and others.
(audience laughter)
When I tell you that article made me so fucking happy,
you've gotta love the process man.
Like, you're gonna break through if you're good enough,
and you won't break through if your show is shit.
But you've gotta try to figure out
if you're shit or awesome.
- [Shahim] Do you feel like you have to be
an entertainer or personality?
- I think people have to listen to it.
You either have to be massively entertaining or really
know what the fuck you're talking about.
And when you have both.
(audience laughter)
You know what I mean?
But there's plenty not massively charismatic over-the-top
assassins in what they do because they fucking know their
craft and they say it their way and by the way,
maybe they are better off in,
I'm obsessed with getting everybody to understand,
you have to find your medium.
Maybe you're a great writer,
maybe you're great at podcasting,
maybe you're in video.
Maybe you cartoon it up like Hugh McCloud who dominated this
scene of the early days of South-By.
You've gotta find a way you communicate if you want to
communicate to the world.
Don't do podcasting just 'cause its trendy.
Got it? - [Shahim] Got it.
- Good luck man.
- My man?
- [Thomas] Hey Gary. - Hey.
- [Thomas] So, I flew in from Norway to say hi,
I'm Thomas from United Influencers
- Awesome
- [Thomas] First international guy, I think.
- Yep
- Two part question.
Why do you think influencer marketing has
grown so fast the last years?
And what was the tipping point?
- I mean influencer marketing has always been around.
Right? - [Thomas] Yes, I agree.
- It's been product placement.
I mean John Wayne smoked Lucky Strikes, right?
This has been around forever.
I think the reason it's exploded is
because we've become a primary mobile world
and instead of watching Seinfeld,
we're fucking watching Logan Paul on Instagram.
It's not super complicated.
It's just where the attention is.
What's cool though is
that the platforms are the full distribution
and the individuals don't need middle men and women
to get them direct to consumers.
So the dollars that used to go for interrupting a TV show
and go to the platform is now going to the individual
because they are the absolute content and the distribution.
- [Thomas] Cool.
And then the second part is
have Vayner started experimenting with
amplifying influencer content with paid Facebook Ads
and what's your experience with that?
- Yes, we will always amplify anything.
Even if I get the greatest celebrity of all time
to promote this cupcake,
if I think Facebook Ads are grossly underpriced
I will try to convince my client to amplify it
because we're trading underpriced attention.
- [Thomas] Cool. - You know what blows my mind?
We do a piece of video content, it explodes on Facebook,
and then my client wants us to cut it down
to a 30 second spot and make it a TV spot
and then overpay for distribution.
Everybody's in a TV mentality,
they think you graduate to TV.
I shit on TV commercials.
(audience laughter) - [Thomas] Cool, thanks Gary.
- You got it.
(audience laughter and applause)
- [Raja] What's up Gary?
- Life is good my man.
- [Raja] My name is Raja.
I'm a firm believer in opportunities.
I just drove from Dallas, three hours away,
so I really wanna shake your hand.
- Sure.
Okay.
- [Raja] So Gary, when do you know the transition
from going from defense to offense?
- I don't know. I try not to be on defense.
Look, I think you should always be on offense.
Offense is always the best defense, right?
Like, I always say to people I mentor or my companies
I'd rather win a basketball game 157 to 152.
Right like offense always,
back to the top line revenue
for the guy who had three businesses.
Offense always solves problems
as long as your defense is not a complete disaster.
So I just think offense is a very good mentality
and obviously it's a very clouds question, very up here.
We've all got very different issues and that
but there is a trigger mindset,
I'm always trying to stay on offense.
- [Raja] Beautiful man. Thank you so much
- You got it.
- [Jeremy] Hey, what's up?
I'm Jeremy from Salt Lake City, Utah.
- How are you?
- [Jeremy] Doing good.
So I started a small social agency in college
so I know the power of Facebook ads in
social listening and influencer marketing.
- Okay.
- [Jeremy] And I'm now at a global agency
and I have a startup on the side in retail.
- Okay.
- [Jeremy] I just wanted to get
your opinion on the space of what,
number one, what's the most disruptive piece of work
you've seen in the last year?
- What does disruptive mean?
- [Jeremy] Stands out, caught your attention,
was extremely successful, really broke the norm.
- Yeah, I don't really, you know I don't really know.
I'm jumping in 'cause I really can't answer you
because I don't think in advertising lingo.
Like, there was no video on...
You know there was that PSA about gun control right,
where you couldn't see the guy in the background
and it was him the whole time.
That was neat and interesting and well thought through.
There's work but I spend zero time looking at creative work
I spend all my time on what people are doing
so I never know how to answer that question
because I'm not consuming shit.
- [Jeremy] So the next question
and flipping that on it's head I guess.
What's the most disruptive thing you see coming
for the advertising industry?
You already mentioned Facebook
and influencers and what not
but besides that? - You know bro
What's your name again? I apologize.
- [Jeremy] Jeremy.
- Jeremy, truth is man. I'm not Nostradamus right?
I don't know.
What I'm really good at is reacting when I see something
so I don't know what the next disruptive thing is
but I know that I'm spending a lot of time on Marco Polo,
and After School and Anchor and House Party
and trying to figure out are these the next
Snapchats and Instagrams.
So it's not about me knowing it's me doing the behavior
and downloading and playing with things
when they have even the hint of the potential to be it.
- [Jeremy] So how do you see that potential
or the hint of the potential? Just user base?
- Yeah, is there a lot of attention gonna be somewhere,
where then I have to figure out the context of that platform
so I can be a creative on it,
to drive whatever the hell I want,
whether that's getting donations for a cause
or selling sneakers.
- [Jeremy] Thank you. - You're welcome.
- [Korom] This so weird.
This is so weird.
What's going on Gary?
My name is Korom Julio,
I'ma get a little bit personal right now with myself.
At the age of 12 years old,
I began selling iPads and electronics left and right.
I slowly moved up from there.
I used to come home at 3:00, 4:00 AM telling my dad,
"Take me to QuikTrip."
Would come home with 20 sealed iPads,
and flip them the next day.
I gradually went up to cars,
and then now I'm doing real estate.
And my birthday was two days ago,
so I just turned 20.
And why I'm telling you all of this
is because I am extremely, extremely confused in life.
- [Gary] Okay.
- [Korom] I do public speaking here and there,
people invite me to speak.
I'm in school full time taking 19 hours.
I do real estate, and I am making money.
But I don't see any business coming to me,
I don't see something that I love,
and I'm trying everything,
but just nothing is clicking with me.
- [Gary] So let's take a step back.
First and foremost bro.
You're a salesman, right?
Like, it was in you. Just like it was in me.
Good thing about being a salesperson,
is it's a skill that always plays out, right?
The other thing is, you're 20, and you're lacking patience.
You don't need it to come right this second.
If I give you a good piece of advice,
and you know this if you're follow my stuff.
I'm obsessed with patience.
- [Korom] Yeah.
- You don't have to have your eureka moment right now.
You need to realize, you're a salesperson.
That's clearly what you are based
on the narrative you just painted.
And, what you should be doing,
is tasting a lot of different things.
Putting yourself in different rooms,
different networks, consuming different content.
You need to figure out what floats your boat,
but by the way, it may just be the game of sales.
And it may not matter what the product is.
And that would be okay as well.
But you don't have to "figure out" what your monster
business is right this second.
And you have to be thankful,
for having, clearly, really strong sales skills.
Because it is a survival tactic
that will always work for you.
- [Korom] Gotcha. So you're saying
just keep doing what I'm doing
and hopefully something comes up?
- Keep doing what you're doing and be on the offensive.
Try and learn new things in the world:
cooking, fucking tires, like I'm serious.
Yoga, meditation, like just keep putting yourself
out there, because something might grab your heart.
- [Korom] Gotcha. I kind of got jealous of him,
can I get a hug as well?
- Sure. (audience laughter)
All right.
Dude is that a flip cam?
Oh no, it was your phone, okay. I got scared.
I got excited, it's like retro.
All right.
- [Man 3] Good afternoon Gary. - How are you?
- [Man 3] I'm doing great, and yourself?
- Good.
- I'm here on behalf of Marine Corps Recruiting.
- Amazing.
DRock's interested. (audience laughter)
I'm kidding I'm kidding, go ahead.
- [Man 3] I have a friend, Staff Sergeant Jeremy Reese.
He's out recruiting out in Seattle, Washington right now.
He is a protege of mine, he is a disciple of yours.
He follows everything you do.
- Okay.
- He asked me to ask you this question.
He started his own vlog, video blog, on fitness,
and empowering people.
What's one piece of advice, if any, that you could give him?
- I mean there's so many,
but I would tell him that too many people think
they're influencers before they actually are.
And I would tell him to put his head down
and put out good content.
And just be patient.
That's it.
- [Man 3] Okay. - Cool.
- [Man 3] Thank you, I appreciate it Gary.
- You're welcome.
We may be able to sneak one or two more,
I think they're pretty hardcore here.
So, I apologize for anyone in line.
Let's go quickly.
Hi.
- [Nat] Hi, sorry. - No worries.
- Hi, my name is Nat.
I'm from Sydney, Australia.
I have so many questions for you,
but I guess I wanna ask how do you quantify
your values or your strengths as a person,
in order to stand out?
For example, when there's so much competition,
and so many people that are brilliant at everything,
and it seems to be whoever shouts the loudest,
or whoever has the best relationships, how do you--
- That's just not true.
- [Nat] Okay.
- The loudest, and best relationships never win.
It's just what people that aren't winning think.
It's the people that are the best that win.
- [Nat] How do you prove--
- The market proves it for you, so lets go in detail.
Like TechCrunch doesn't pick the winners, right?
Like, The Wall Street Journal doesn't pick the winners.
The three cool kids in the crowd don't pick the winners.
The problem is everybody wants to be anointed
a winner, or best at what they do,
before they've actually done it.
Let me just remind you, and everybody else here.
I built a business for 18 hours a day, every day,
running a wine liquor store for 13 years every day.
Before I ever had the audacity to come
to something like this and talk.
So, let me tell you something amazing.
If you're good enough, you will win.
But if you are upset that somebody else's grandpappy
got them ahead of you, then you're gonna lose.
Everybody started ahead of me.
I'm just catching up.
- [Nat] And then, so just, how would you then balance
being ambitious to being patient?
How do you--
- By recognizing you have no choice.
(audience laughter) - [Nat] Okay, good.
- Do you understand? - [Nat] Yes--
- I'm the most fucking ambitious,
and most patient person you've ever met.
Which is why I'm gonna win real, real, real big.
Find your version of that, You know?
Like, you have no choice.
Who's gonna cry for you?
Like, what's the choice?
Are you ambitious? - [Nat] Yeah.
Awesome.
I don't think you're as patient.
- [Nat] Yeah, that's the problem.
- No shit.
(audience laughter)
And the problem right now,
is that we're all living public lives,
and all this horse shit.
This is what entrepreneurship and success looks like.
Fucking, going to fucking Bali, and fucking watches,
and private jets, it's all horse shit.
Horse shit.
But it's fucking with people's minds,
and they're getting impatient.
I don't give a fuck what anybody else has.
I'm focused on my shit.
Start focusing on your shit.
You're a young woman.
How old are you?
- [Nat] 27.
- I'm going to punch you in the face.
(audience laughter)
You have your whole life in front of you!
You know what I mean?
Put your head down, and do whatever this thing
that you wanna prove that you're the best at, hardcore.
If you actually spent all your time doing,
instead of dwelling, you'd be much further along.
(audience applause)
Awesome.
I think with that I gotta go.
I love you guys!
(audience cheers and applause)
Have a great South-By, enjoy it!
Say hello to somebody, that you don't know.
I'm gonna shake some hands for a few seconds right now.