- Welcome to Larry King Now, our special guest
is Gary Vaynerchuk, the self-proclaimed hustler, is a digital media mogul,
author, web show host, and venture capitalist
among many other things. As the CEO and
co-founder of VaynerMedia, Gary hosts the hugely
popular YouTube show, #AskGaryVee. And has penned three New York
Times best selling books. Gary has been named to Fortune
Magazine's 40 Under 40 list, of the most influential
business leaders, and holds the
number one ranking on Forbes top 40 social
selling market masters. His newest book,
#AskGaryVee, is available now. How did this all
start, you, wine? (laughs) What, what happened with you? - What happened with me is, I had the great benefit
of being an immigrant. I was born in Belarus,
in the former Soviet Union. - [Larry] My mother
was from Belarus. - I didn't know that. - Minsk I think. - Yeah, I was born
40 minutes from Minsk. And came to the states in '78, when they let some
Jews out of there. And, we set up in Queens. And my parents lived
the American dream, they worked very hard. My dad was a
stock boy in a liquor store in Clark, New Jersey. And eventually became the
manager of that store, and eventually saved
up enough money to buy a store in
Springfield, New Jersey. I was lemonade stands, baseball
cards, real hustler kid, Blow Pops,
anything to make a buck. And at 14, I got dragged
into the store. You know, oldest son,
immigrant family. I always tell people, Larry, that I lived their
grandparent's life more than theirs, right? I'm couple generations
behind most. I did it in the 70's,
and 80's, and 90's, when most people did in
the 30's, 40's, and 50's. - You're a legal immigrant? - I am, thank God. - [Larry] Okay. - Otherwise I probably
wouldn't do the show-- - Donald? Okay.
(laughs) - And, I fell in love with
people collecting wine when I was 17, because I was into
collecting sports cards. That was my connection point. I wanted-- - Collecting?
- Collecting. I wanted to build
4,000 wine shops. That was, I was gonna build
a Toys "R" Us of wine, sell the franchise,
buy the New York Jets. That's what the plan was. Heard the internet my
freshman year of college, heard that sound, cuh, cuh, chee, cuh. Knew that it was special. And in 1996, I launched
one of the first e-commerce wine
businesses in America. Called WineLibrary.com. Took over my dad's business, kind of running it
day to day in 1998, alongside with him. And from '98 to 2003,
helped grow that business from a three to a
$60 million business. That became the foundation. Built that on e-commerce,
email marketing, banner advertising,
Google AdWords, things that the marketing
world didn't believe yet. And then, YouTube came out. And I started a wine show four
months after YouTube started. And that-- - You are not a wine expert? - I grew up a wine expert. You know, from 15 to 30, in those 15 years,
my whole life was wine. - Were you always successful? - In everything but school. - Didn't do well in school? - Poor. Terrible actually. Punted it. You know, it was funny. And this is where I give
my parents enormous credit, and I've, you know it's funny, it's a business book
that says self-awareness. My parents grew up, and
I give them so much credit, in a world where all
their contemporaries, as, and you know this, education's the way
out for immigrants. - Sure is. - My mom recognized
that I was a merchant, an entrepreneur, a promoter. - So did school fail you,
or you failed school? - School failed me. School's failing entrepreneurs
every single day. - Because? - Because it's not built
for entrepreneurship. It's built for workers. You know, if, you're being
taught to play within the lines. And there's nothing
being taught that maps to the entrepreneurial market. As a matter of fact, my biggest
cynicism when I sit across an entrepreneur today, is if they are too
successful at school. I probably look at
Ivy League grads starting startups right now with more of a negative light, than I do somebody
who wasn't as good. - Because? - Because what I've learned over the last five
to seven years, and by the way, in the
last two, three years, I've taken a step back on this, because there's too many
entrepreneurial friends who've gone to great schools
that have been successful, so this is not a
blanket statement. But I will tell you that in
a world of private schools, in a world of mommy and daddy
having a lot of connections, that when you go from 12, 15,
18 years of that ecosystem, and you go into a market,
and you create an app, the market doesn't give
a crap who your dad is. The market responds
to your product, and a lot of these kids
have not been able to take the punch in the mouth that comes along with
entrepreneurship. - You're big on
self-awareness, right? - [Gary] Huge. - How does one get
to be self-aware? - I don't know. - So how do you teach it? - I don't know. But I know it's damn important. And so, I know where I start
and where I stop, Larry. And I wish, honestly I'm curious to see over the next 40,
50 years of my career, if I figure it out. I think that, the things that I've been
pushing people to do is, one, create an ecosystem
where you make the people closest to you feel comfortable
to tell you the truth. So, one of the things I've
been asking for people to do is tell your mom
and dad and spouse, best friend, coworker, hey, tell me the truth. What am I good at,
what am I bad at? And spend a month or two
to get them comfortable to actually tell you the truth. Cause the people that love you sure don't want to tell you. - How did the website
thing come about? - Way back when? - I mean, you, your web show. - [Gary] Or the web show now? - What is the biggest thing
you do, is your web show? - The biggest thing
I do right now is I run a 650 person
social media digital agency that works with the brands
like Toyota, and Pepsi-- - [Larry] That's called? - And that's called VaynerMedia. - And what does VaynerMedia do? - We're a modern day Mad Man. We're a Madison Avenue agency, the same people that used
to sell commercial time on anything you ever did
in radio and television, we now do that on Facebook,
Snapchat, Instagram. And we produce the
creative for the brands to sell stuff,
through the phone. Because Larry,
and I'd love to get, I'd almost want to, I know we're doing a show here, but I'd love to get
your thoughts, maybe after, maybe right now,
who knows. I think we're living through
a very interesting moment. I believe that the telephone
is becoming the television. And the television is
becoming the radio. And I've been spending
a lot of time studying the transition, in the late
50's, from radio to television. Because this is the first time we've had a platform
shift in our society in a half a century. And I think it's
a very big deal. And I've been spending an
enormous amount of time, the last five years, trying to be the best
storyteller for that platform. - Next, utilizing
the digital world for your
entrepreneurial benefit. How social media can
transform your business. Stay with us. - We're back with the
incredible Gary Vaynerchuk. Is that a Jewish name? - You know it's funny, I know it always
confuses people. People don't think it,
but I am. - [Larry] Okay. (laughter) The book,
#AskGaryVee is out now. An entrepreneurs
take on leadership, social media and self-awareness. Okay, how do we use social media to help our business? - Well I think we
first understand that social media is
a slang term for the current
state of the internet. And when you position
social media that way, you take it a lot
more seriously. So step one Larry, for 97% of the people
that are watching, is to actually take it serious. That's number one. And again, we were talking
as we were getting ready, a lot of radio people
didn't take television serious when the
transition happened. That was their loss. - Correct. - [Gary] Right? That's what's happening
right now, Larry, this is historics, that history always
tells you the future. And so that's what's happening. So first take it serious. Two, understand that Facebook, and Instagram, and Snapchat, and YouTube
these are different channels. It's the difference
between CNN and Fox, and ABC and Sports ESPN. You've gotta
understand the context of the medium that you're on. So when you're story telling about your business on YouTube, you've gotta produce
different content than when you're putting
a picture on Facebook. So again,
sitting in your presence, I almost wanna ask questions
more than do this interview. I think that people underestimate context
of the medium. I would assume that when you
interviewed somebody on radio versus when you
did it on television, there's slight differences 'cause they're
different mediums. - Slight. - Slight and it's slight,
but it's real. And in that slightness
is all the magic. Number three, it's understanding that you have to provide value. Too many businesses
right now on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, every post they put
out is buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff, here's where I'm gonna be,
check me out, buy my book,
check out my experience, watch me on my show, and nobody's providing values. So the prior book
I wrote to this was called, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. Give, Give, Give, Ask. And it gave people a formula of how to put out content that actually gave
people enough value that you then had
them in a consideration to buy your stuff. - But the technology
changes so much that something
could be new tomorrow, that wipes out what was
yesterday, right? - Tough crap. Right? The market is the
market is the market. Everyday people put out
shows on radio and television that tried to knock
you off your pedestal. You had to become number one, stay number one, that's the market. I wish that Twitter wasn't
losing it's leadership role. I have 1.2 million
followers on Twitter. I built my brand on Twitter. I'm dominant on Twitter. - I have 2.8. - Well, 'cause you're a legend. - Why is Twitter going? - Because Twitter lost
it's way in my opinion, 'cause they didn't
create an algorithm and everybody
who follows everybody, see's everything
and it gets too loud. And so they had, what
I call, a fire hose problem. Too much information meant
that people tuned it out. So, what Facebook did
and what Instagram does, is they don't show
you everything. They show you the stuff based
on what you've been liking, that it thinks that
you're gonna like. - All this is most appealing
to the young, right? If you're over 40,
are you into this? If you're over 50? - I think so. I think if you look at behavior, let me ask you a question. Have you noticed
some of your over 40, over 50 friends start
to send emoji's on text? - I don't know what that is. - Do you know the
little poop pictures and the little face
and the smiles? - I don't text. - Well listen,
let's turn off the cameras, we got things to do here. I need Larry to send some
poop emoji's immediately. - A poop emoji? - Yes. Poop Emoji is the next thing. - [Larry] Sounds like
a dog in the backyard. - In the next segment, we're
gonna talk poop emoji's. Look, I think if you
look at the data, it's stunning what's
happened, 35 to 60. I'll go a different
route with you. For anybody who's
watching right now, if you're lucky enough
to know your parent at the age that you are now, if you're of an age
where you actually knew your mom and dad at
the same age you are now, you will notice that your
behavior is much younger. - Of course. - That has a lot to
do with technology. We're living through a
youthification of our society. The fastest growing segment on the Instagrams and the
Snapchats in the world, are the 40 and overs
because just like Facebook, these things age up. - Wow. - Yeah. - Now, explain all
of this with regard to the New York Jets. (laughter) - I desperately wanna
buy them Larry. - You do? - Yes I do. - Can you afford it? - Not yet. But I've never felt more in control of that
actually happening than I do right now. - Why this, you're so level
headed and on top of things. - [Gary] Yes. - But sports things
are a fan thing. - [Gary] Yes, they are. - And that's short for fanatic. - Yes it is. - [Larry] And that's emotional. - Yeah listen,
I'm a flawed human. I mean we all have
our short comings. You know look,
I'll tell you the truth. When I came to America, in Queens and in Dover, I couldn't speak English. Dover, New Jersey. - Spoke Hebrew? - No, I wasn't speaking Yiddish, but I was speaking Russian. There was something when
I moved to Edison, New Jersey. Eric Godfrey, Robbie Turnick, they were playing football and they made me a Jets fan, and it was my
first American thing. Everybody had a Jets jersey and I wanted one and we couldn't
afford stuff like that. It's not what immigrants do. You don't go out and
buy a $30 Jets jersey. So, my mom knitted me one. And so I have it. It's my prized possession. It's literally my
prized possession. And I've created
a fairy tale in my mind, somewhere around
2nd or 3rd grade, that I was gonna go from not being able
to afford a jersey, to owning the
whole damned thing. The quest to buy the Jets is my happiness. Whether I buy them or not, so many variables. - What if Woody Johnson
doesn't sell? Well, he'll be dead by the time. - Well, that's right, I mean, there's an advantage
of being 25 to 30 years younger than the current
owner, but you don't know. Anything can happen, right? So there's a lot of things I can't control
in that fairy tale, but I can control the
ambitious climb to get there. - You are so on top of things. Does a Jet loss affect you? - Yes. The Jets are my one Kryptonite. I'm actually stunningly
level headed. I'm basically unemotional
when it comes to business. - I can tell. - You know,
it's a win/loss thing, it's a net/net game,
I can deal. Yes, the Jets bother me because I'm not in control. - We got quite a few
questions on my blog regarding tips for jump
starting a business. What are the three most
important things to keep in mind when
starting up? - One, that cash is oxygen. I'm blown away by
all these people that are starting
businesses that don't realize that money (laughs)
is important. They think about
all these things. They're trying to think
about four years from now, and they haven't
made their first check. Just complete
lack of practicality when thinking about a business. Number two, strengths. Are you a salesman? Are the accountant? Do you have financial strength? Do you have sales strength? Are you operationally? Are you good at HR? Whatever you're best at, do that, surround yourself with the
other three or four pillars that need to have a business. And number three,
look for the white space. Meaning, where are
people not marketing and story telling, that you can? Is Snapchat, is YouTube, is a blog, or a podcast your
way to separate yourself from everybody else while
they're running direct mail, or radio, or television,
or print advertising? What's the white
space in your sector that nobody else is filling? - [Larry] Okay, well, a little
game of If You Only Knew. I just (mumbles) . What's the best piece
of advice you ever got? (spits) - That. When I was fourteen
I was full of crap. I was a salesman. I would say anything to you to make you buy
my baseball cards or a bottle of wine. My dad grabbed me by the neck and he said, "Listen to me, "where we come from, "you've got one thing:
your word," and that one moment easily, my mom did most of the work. My mom did most of the work. My dad was at work. I never saw my dad
until I was 14. She built a self-esteem, she made me the
right kind of guy, kind. She built the foundation, but that one tweak by my dad changed the outcome of my life from being a
good huckster/salesman who would've made it okay and made a good buck to
having real potential. - Did you get some
bad advice too? - I don't really listen
to advice at all, so I'm sure I get bad, Larry, I actually think
I get bad advice everyday. - Is there a company
we should be paying more attention to? - Music.ly. It's the emerging thing. Snapchat's the
one for most people, but I'm making that assumption that as people
continue to watch this, they'll know about that. Music.ly is the
emerging social network with junior high kids
in America and China. It has a chance. - Your biggest failure and
what you learned from it? - I think my biggest failure was when I transitioned
from day to day in the wine business to
starting VaynerMedia, I wrote a book called Crush It! that became a
big New York Times list, I started three
other businesses. I was like a guy that came
out of a long relationship and wanted to date everything. I learned that even
though my brain tells me I can do everything because I work
15 to 18 hours a day, I can't and you only have
so much energy and focus and I need to cut that in. - What industry is on
the verge of exploding? - Virtual reality. And let me say this Larry 'cause I think you're
gonna get a kick out of this because if you
think emojis is crazy, let me tell you what
I'm bout to tell you. 12 years from today, when we're doing this interview as we're gonna have a long
relationship as you said, we're gonna be doing it, it's gonna feel
like it's happening just like right now
except one thing, we're both gonna
be sitting at home. - (grunts) How about an industry that's slowing down or dying? - I think television
advertising is in deep crap. - Business leader we should
be paying more attention to? - I think Jeff Bezos,
who runs Amazon, is the single best
entrepreneur of this century including Steve Jobs. - And he went into
the newspaper business. - Because he's smart. You know what
he did there Larry? He went into the brand business. He bought that brand,
Washington Post, for nothing and
now he's gonna deploy it in a different platform
like the Kindle. - What's the best success
story you ever heard? - You know what's funny? That's a great question. I'm very under-educated
on the entrepreneurs and successful
people in the world. My favorite success
story is my dad. He came here with nothing. Zero. - Good example. - I live in a studio
apartment a quarter of the size of this studio.
- He's still living? Yeah, he's young. He's 62. He's only 22 years
older than me. - [Larry] Still working then? - (blows raspberry) On fire. - Part of the
world that is exploding in business and commerce? - I'm very intrigued by Africa. I think Africa is emerging. They've got cell phones
that at scale, I think that's
gonna be the place everyone's gonna
focus the next decade. - Young entrepreneur
who's impressing you? - I think Mark Zuckerburg is gonna take that
throne from Jeff Bezos and I think he's grossly,
grossly underestimated and in parallel, Evan Spiegel of Snapchat
has surprised me. He's 25 I think. The way he's navigated
that business with all the pressure of the
whole world looking at him. - Where do these kids get this? In garages? Where does this come from? This genius. - I don't think it's genius. I think that they're lucky that the internet came along and allowed them
to do it earlier. The internet is such scale. - Well, where is the internet? - In the ocean, in the sky. The internet is
basically our lives. I actually think the internet is more our life than this is. This is where people
spend their time. Attention is the asset
and the internet owns it. - (sighs) Gary Vaynerchuk
in 10 years? - Hustling. - Owning the Jets? - [Gary] No.
- Not yet. - My behavior doesn't map to
owning the Jets in 10 years. My behavior maps to
owning the Jets in 30. - Lot of social media questions. Serena Brahney on Facebook: "When do you know you're
ready to start a business?" - If you're asking
that question, you're probably not ready. (laughing) Larry, I believe a
purebred entrepreneur suffocates in the notion
of doing anything but running their own business. - @chefchipper on Twitter: "What was you favorite
baseball card as a kid?" - 1990 Leaf
Frank Thomas rookie card. Me and my friend
Brandon adored that card. - Just saw Frank
a couple weeks ago. - He's a real player. He was a real player. - Oh, he's in Hall of Fame. Bruce MacLelland on the
Larry King Now blog: "Do you get political at all? "What are your
thoughts on people "from the private sector? "Donald Trump?" - (Sighs) I don't tend
to get political mainly because I've voted
both party lines already at this young of
an age multiple times. I'm quite practical
about politics. I wait 'til there's a decision and I make the
decision that I think is best in the
current situation. - @BreckLandscape on Twitter: "What's more investable: "a digital company with millions "of users and no profit "or one with a few users "and millions in profit?" - Both is true, but if there's no
growth at no profit with millions of users, that's the one
that you wanna run because the upside is so great. - Now, Twitter had that, right? - Yeah, and look. I was an early
investor in Twitter. - Twitter isn't bad, is it? - No, it's not bad and by the way, I made a crap
load of money, Larry. The people who
invested in Twitter before it went
public made a fortune. Twitter's issue is that it needs to hold onto the
attention of its users. - Mr. Lou on Facebook asks, "In the age of digital media, "how do you suggest
someone maintain "a solid print audience?" - By making sure, A, they are building
a digital audience, and by B, trying to
find something clever that the print
product can deliver that the digital product cannot and also this Larry: holding your breath. The user is dying off and when I say dying
I don't mean literally dying. I mean we are watching
40, 50, 60, 70, 80-year-olds shift into
digital consumption. - But if print is dying, why does a Carlos Slim
invest in the New York Times? - Because he wants to use that to push his propaganda. - He's got a vehicle. - (laughs) Yeah. - As Jeff Bezos. - Of course. Larry, that's the real answer, you know it. - Yeah, @KJM1016 on Twitter: "How would you
suggest one avoids "running their social outlets "without making
it feel like spam?" - By not being spam. Larry, this pisses
me off all the time. People are like,
"How do I be less sell-y?" Be less sell-y. Provide people actual value. If you don't want
your social media to feel spammy,
why don't you talk about putting out content and acting like a media company instead of acting
like a salesperson? - Jon Crabtree on
the Larry King Now blog: "Do you see any
new apps emerging "as game changers
in the next few years?" - Like I mentioned, I'm very hot on music.ly. I also think Anchor, this audio app is
quite interesting. - What is that? - Think of it as voice Twitter, so you instead of tweeting, you're doing it by voice, so you literally put up
the phone to yourself and say, "Today I'm thinking," and quite interesting. It's very, very early, but I'm keeping a
very keen eye on it. - Who invents these things? - Youngsters a lot of times
who don't know any better. You know what I would
tell you and I think this will make sense to you. I look at it very
similar to music genres. I think of it as like The Clash and Kurt Cobain, and Run-DMC. I think it's people who
come up, they don't see what they want, and they create it. - @SoulmanScofield, Do you
think you'll ever retire or do you enjoy
working too much? - I think when
I'm sitting here with you, and I know all the
context I know about you, and the fact that you
pretty much have interviewed anybody who's important in
the last 50 god damn years, the thing that most excites me, is that you're
sitting right here, right now and interviewing me. I have no interest in
doing anything other. That to me is the most
interesting thing that's happening
in this room right now, is that while
I'm doing this interview, the parallel part
of my brain is saying, "Damn, this is the guy. "This is exactly what
I'm gonna be doing." - Are you married? - I am. - [Larry] You have children? - I do. - How old are the children? - Six and three. - Boy and a girl? - Mhmmm, girl, boy. - Alright, how do your thoughts
on your ability in business to raising a family? Do you use the
principles at home-- - I do.
- [Larry] Yeah? - I think first of all,
I'm an EQ-HR-driven CEO. I think I win not on my IQ, but on my
emotional intelligence. I think that I'm very in
tune to people's feelings. I try to reverse engineer
what they're about. For example, I have
no interest in my kids being anything but who they are. My mom gifted me by
parenting me to my strengths. If my kids are artists or
want to be in the non-profit sector or climb mountains,
I'm all-in. I want them to do them. The one line in the sand I have
is no eighth place trophies. Lizzie knows, and now I'm
looking at the camera, 'cause I want her
to see my eyes again, no eighth place trophies. Life is about winning and
losing. It's binary, right? So as long as my kids know that, I don't care what they do. They don't need to make money. They don't need to be
entrepreneurs, but to win, there's a real market. To be a great artist, to be
great at helping other people, you have to be great at it. - Does your wife get
involved in your business? - No, we have a very
strong line in the sand. My parents had that. Her parents had
that for the most part, so I think we're
just kind of acting on what we saw behaviorally. Look, when you're
the CEO of a company, when you're the top dog, you're only in the
negative issues business. I'm a firefighter. All I'm dealing
with is headaches. What's gonna happen right now? I'm gonna step outta here, and
I'm gonna look at my phone, and there's gonna be seven
things I have to deal with that isn't a fun
thing to deal with. So to come home and pour that
on my wife isn't interesting. I don't have
anything positive to say. On a micro level,
it's all negative. It's the macro
level that's awesome. - Gary, you're incredible. Great meeting you.
- Thank you, brother, nice meeting you. - [Larry] This is the
first of many meetings. - Thank you, my friend. (upbeat music)
