0:00:01 – All right, we got Gary Vee in the house.
0:00:04 Everett knows Gary Vee because he’s all over Twitter
0:00:05 and Instagram and LinkedIn.
0:00:08 And he’s invested in Twitter and Slack
0:00:10 and Facebook before they IPO’d.
0:00:11 Gary’s fun.
0:00:12 We brought him on.
0:00:13 And our goal was, let’s ask him a bunch of questions
0:00:15 that we’re genuinely curious about.
0:00:17 Like, which of those investments actually paid off the most?
0:00:19 And it was a very, very surprising number.
0:00:21 We also talked about what he’s excited about now.
0:00:23 And we asked him about the mindset
0:00:26 and what he noticed hanging out with people like Zuck
0:00:29 or Logan Paul or different characters like that.
0:00:31 So, enjoy this episode with Gary Vee.
0:00:32 It’s a good one.
0:00:34 ♪ I feel like I can rule the world ♪
0:00:37 ♪ I know I could be what I want to ♪
0:00:40 ♪ I put my all in it like the days of ♪
0:00:41 – Gary, what’s going on, man?
0:00:42 How are you?
0:00:45 I think Sean saw something recently that you had posted
0:00:46 that I thought everyone knew about you.
0:00:48 Sean, what was that thing, the report card?
0:00:49 – Most podcasts start with an intro.
0:00:51 We start with little ball busting.
0:00:55 So, I have here Gary’s high school report card,
0:00:56 which you tweeted out to be fair.
0:00:59 So, I’m not putting it out there you didn’t already do.
0:01:00 But I thought this is kind of amazing.
0:01:01 So, you tweeted out a picture
0:01:03 of your high school report card.
0:01:06 I’m just gonna read off a few of your achievements.
0:01:11 Gary got a C in ceramics, a D in English,
0:01:15 and F in German, PE, you got an A.
0:01:17 That’s the only A you have on this report card, I think.
0:01:19 Algebra D, this one’s kind of amazing.
0:01:23 Speech, which like you are known for speech.
0:01:25 You got a D, driver’s ed, D.
0:01:28 Gary, you were, what a turnaround, what a turnaround.
0:01:31 What’s your reaction when you see this?
0:01:34 – That a lot of data in the world is dirty.
0:01:35 It’s fake data.
0:01:39 And I think school grades are just not
0:01:42 a tremendous indicator of what’s gonna happen.
0:01:44 The speech one is crazy.
0:01:47 The report card I tweeted out was the recap
0:01:49 of all four years of high school.
0:01:52 So, little fun facts to build on top of what you just said.
0:01:55 I got an F in all four marking periods
0:01:58 of German one freshman year.
0:01:59 I retook it sophomore year.
0:02:02 I got a D in the first marking period
0:02:04 and then proceeded to get all Fs.
0:02:07 Failed language, my freshman and sophomore year,
0:02:10 and the state of New Jersey in 1994.
0:02:13 If you did not pass two years of language,
0:02:15 you could not graduate high school.
0:02:18 So, I’m walking to junior year high school
0:02:21 and took Spanish one with all these ninth graders
0:02:23 as a junior and I had the pressure on
0:02:27 and luckily I got Mrs. Senora Kennedy saw something in me
0:02:29 and forced me through the system.
0:02:31 Otherwise it was over for me.
0:02:35 But yeah, I mean, the speech one really stands out
0:02:36 to your point, Sean, right?
0:02:39 Like to think that I got a D in speech,
0:02:41 which was give a speech in class, right?
0:02:43 Which I did well.
0:02:48 It’s just that I told my mom and I talked about this weekend.
0:02:52 I literally did not open a book in four years of high school
0:02:53 and did zero homework.
0:02:55 Like, you know, everyone who’s listening
0:02:56 went through school.
0:03:00 I think like they would assign a book report.
0:03:02 And like, it’s not that I did it poorly.
0:03:06 It’s that I didn’t do it, just like didn’t ever.
0:03:09 I literally in four years of high school did zero homework,
0:03:14 zero, like something happened where I just knew
0:03:17 that, you know, at that point, high school,
0:03:20 I was already working with my dad’s liquor store
0:03:24 and selling a lot of baseball cards at shows.
0:03:25 And just kind of, and it was, look,
0:03:27 this is pre-internet, the world was different.
0:03:29 I grew up in an immigrant family.
0:03:32 We lived in like, we just moved to like rural New Jersey.
0:03:35 When I tell you, we lived in our own little
0:03:37 four, five person cocoon.
0:03:38 My family, we really did.
0:03:43 It was very, very, very in hindsight, deeply immigrant.
0:03:44 You know what I mean?
0:03:46 We didn’t have like, my parents didn’t have
0:03:47 American parent friends.
0:03:49 Like my mom wasn’t friends with any of my
0:03:51 high school friends, parents.
0:03:54 Like my mom asked me about what I’m doing for college,
0:03:56 February of my senior year.
0:03:59 I was like, mom, it’s over.
0:04:01 I’m not going to college.
0:04:03 She lost her mind and forced me to like go.
0:04:05 And I got like a postcard in the mail
0:04:07 from now I had a college filled it out.
0:04:09 And that’s literally how I went to college.
0:04:14 Like, so, you know, I think if I was growing up today,
0:04:18 my intuition is that it would have been okay
0:04:20 for me not to go to college.
0:04:21 And it would have just all been handled differently.
0:04:25 And honestly, I think my teachers would have said to me
0:04:27 like, I have a bright future instead of saying
0:04:30 what they did back then, which was, you’re a loser.
0:04:31 You’re going to be a garbage man.
0:04:34 That was the big thing, Sean, Sam, in the 90s.
0:04:36 Your teachers would tell you’re going to be a garbage man,
0:04:37 which I think is really crazy.
0:04:39 Cause actually it’s a very good living
0:04:42 with a high P that’s a high pace now.
0:04:43 – Our friend just started a garbage business
0:04:45 and he’s doing like 300 grand a year of it.
0:04:46 – Yeah.
0:04:47 (laughing)
0:04:49 – Jokes on you, Ms. Kennedy.
0:04:50 – Yeah.
0:04:52 (laughing)
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0:05:29 One of the things we do is always just,
0:05:30 what are you excited about?
0:05:32 Like what products are you seeing?
0:05:33 What people are you seeing?
0:05:35 What cool stories are you seeing that are kind of,
0:05:37 that you’re genuinely excited about?
0:05:38 – Have you guys seen Break the Web?
0:05:39 – No, what’s that?
0:05:41 – Dude, they got a great tagline.
0:05:45 So it’s breaktheweb.co, the internet’s official scoreboard.
0:05:46 – This app’s got my attention.
0:05:49 Trending topics on Twitter was so big for me back in the day
0:05:50 when it was desktop only.
0:05:52 Break the Web is an app.
0:05:54 Like it’s just what’s trending right now.
0:05:58 And it seems like the underlining tech is pretty damn strong.
0:06:00 Like, you know how everybody loves to throw around AI
0:06:02 or this and that and you’re like, if you’re smart,
0:06:04 you’re like, there’s just a collection of APIs or anything.
0:06:06 Like this one’s a little bit better.
0:06:08 And like, I don’t know, I’ve put on my home screen,
0:06:11 which is not something I’ve done in a long time.
0:06:12 – Why?
0:06:12 – Why do I like it?
0:06:14 – Well, yeah, I mean, it’s like, I’m looking at it now.
0:06:15 You just showed it to me.
0:06:16 It was a lot of new stuff.
0:06:18 I don’t really pay attention to,
0:06:22 like you’re just, I saw the word Gaza, Trump,
0:06:24 and like five other words where they’re important,
0:06:27 but like, I’m not going to like read like news.
0:06:29 – First of all, great observation, brother.
0:06:32 For me as well, like honestly, something that’s on my mind
0:06:34 is everyone needs to consume less news
0:06:37 ’cause all it does is push fear and negativity
0:06:40 and like, it’s just so scary, like how fucked up that is.
0:06:42 So it’s funny saying, brother,
0:06:44 I don’t really click into that stuff.
0:06:45 So right now it’s brand new.
0:06:48 And when I met with the founders,
0:06:49 I only met with them for like 10 or 15 minutes.
0:06:50 I asked them real quick.
0:06:52 I’m like, can we get this categorized out?
0:06:53 And they’re like, yeah, that’s on the roadmap.
0:06:57 Like I just want, I need pop culture and consumer trends.
0:07:01 So like to me, I’m like, when I look at Madonna fan,
0:07:02 I’m like, what is that?
0:07:05 You know, Madonna mistakenly scolded a fan.
0:07:08 Again, right now what’s interesting though
0:07:11 is that it’s a great indication of where we are in society.
0:07:14 Like back to when Twitter trending topics,
0:07:18 it was less political and it was really valuable.
0:07:23 Like the reason I like it or the potential of it.
0:07:24 And obviously we’re in an election season.
0:07:26 So now this will get eaten up to your point, Sam,
0:07:30 on this stuff, but it is an indication of the pulse.
0:07:32 Like I’m always looking for what’s the indication
0:07:34 of the pulse of what people give a fuck about.
0:07:37 Dude, so these guys, so it looks like it only has 90 reviews.
0:07:39 Oddly, both of these guys used to work at a bakery.
0:07:41 The CEO worked at Pete’s Coffee.
0:07:44 The other guy used to work at Specialties Cafe in Bakery.
0:07:46 So they’re both lovers of baked goods.
0:07:50 Then they decided to launch it.
0:07:52 It’s three years old though, but it’s not popular yet.
0:07:53 So what’s your prediction?
0:07:54 This thing’s gonna be huge.
0:07:55 – There’s no prediction.
0:07:58 Back to shooting the shit to your point, Sean.
0:08:01 I’m not overly like, oh, break the web is gonna be the best.
0:08:04 The concept of date.
0:08:08 So I have a new book coming out soon this year, right?
0:08:12 I finally feel like I’ve synthesized what I actually do.
0:08:14 Like long form Twitter.
0:08:15 I think literally I have a meeting today
0:08:18 where I’m gonna post my 100 most successful YouTube videos
0:08:22 on Twitter here over the course of the next couple of months.
0:08:23 Try to stagger it a little bit
0:08:28 because it’s just very clear that Twitter is gonna push it.
0:08:29 – I don’t know if that’s gonna work.
0:08:32 I think they’re, I agree they’re pushing it,
0:08:34 but I just don’t find myself using it that way.
0:08:35 – Yeah, that’s a great call, Sam.
0:08:39 Like what I know is that I never have an interest
0:08:41 in guessing if something’s gonna work.
0:08:44 I have an interest in executing on anything that might work
0:08:46 and then dealing with the ramifications of the upside.
0:08:47 – My guess when you can test for cheaper
0:08:49 than it’s almost cost to guess, right?
0:08:52 Like it’s not expensive to take your best YouTube videos
0:08:53 and have somebody repost.
0:08:55 That’s a easy way to learn.
0:08:57 You talk about day trading attention.
0:09:00 All trading is mispriced assets.
0:09:00 – That’s right.
0:09:03 – And I would argue that attention
0:09:04 is the most mispriced asset right now
0:09:06 that most impacts everyone.
0:09:08 – So why is that?
0:09:11 – There is nobody that will ever listen to this
0:09:13 that doesn’t need attention as a currency
0:09:16 to achieve what’s in their stomach.
0:09:19 Whether they wanna raise money for their PTA,
0:09:20 be president of the United States,
0:09:24 get more listeners to their podcasts, sell their sneakers.
0:09:28 They’re the only asset class that I think is universal
0:09:29 is attention.
0:09:33 Even a parent trying to home parent to children
0:09:35 need their kids to listen to them
0:09:38 to be able to get the message across.
0:09:43 The currency of listening is or consuming is profound
0:09:47 and we’re living through the mass fragmentation of that,
0:09:47 right?
0:09:50 If you think about let’s use parenting
0:09:52 was a lot easier to get your kids to listen
0:09:55 when in 1954, 80% of families sat down
0:09:58 and had dinner together for like an hour and a half
0:09:59 and you did it, right?
0:10:02 And like so those parents were able to message
0:10:05 in a very interesting way.
0:10:07 Whereas now they still kind of we have technology
0:10:10 you can send a text or a Sam and Sean clip
0:10:12 to your kids to get them to think of something
0:10:14 but there’s also so much supply, right?
0:10:17 With the demand side being the same
0:10:18 there’s only so many hours in a day.
0:10:20 Now the human brain I think has capacity
0:10:22 to keep a lot more information than we think.
0:10:26 Nonetheless, for me more narrowly
0:10:29 as someone who loves business and loves
0:10:33 to think about it, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling
0:10:36 and it doesn’t even matter what you’re saying
0:10:37 until you first get their attention.
0:10:40 And then everything is about what you’re saying.
0:10:41 – Right.
0:10:43 – What’s interesting to me is I think of it
0:10:46 the acronym I use internally of VaynerX, VaynerMedia
0:10:49 is a pack, platforms and culture, right?
0:10:51 And so break the web plays in culture, right?
0:10:53 Like there’s two different currencies
0:10:54 that I think about constantly
0:10:55 or two different frameworks.
0:10:56 One is platforms.
0:11:00 What is, what are the top 25 platforms
0:11:01 that have people’s attention doing?
0:11:04 What do they care about from SNAP to Pinterest
0:11:07 to LinkedIn to YouTube, even within themselves?
0:11:09 YouTube shorts differently than YouTube.
0:11:12 This collective of like 15, 20 places, right?
0:11:14 That really have quote unquote the attention.
0:11:15 What are they up to?
0:11:16 How did their algorithms work?
0:11:18 What are their features doing?
0:11:21 And I think about them on a day to day basis, right?
0:11:23 And then I think about culture.
0:11:25 Like what is this slang?
0:11:30 What is the things of interest, the people of interest, right?
0:11:32 And then it becomes a framework
0:11:35 of like what’s overpriced and underpriced execution.
0:11:37 So for example, I think Super Bowl
0:11:40 is the most underpriced media in the world.
0:11:42 It’s very hard to get 130 million people
0:11:44 to watch 30 seconds of a video
0:11:47 and actually want to and pay attention to it, right?
0:11:50 So that’s seven, eight million dollar vague, I think is great.
0:11:53 The problem is the creative is the variable of success, right?
0:11:55 So the media might be a great deal,
0:11:59 but if your 30 second video is forgettable or stinks
0:12:00 or you overpaid for making it, right?
0:12:03 Verizon paid Beyonce to be in that commercial.
0:12:06 If they paid her $500,000, I think they stole her.
0:12:09 If they paid 40 million, I think they overpaid for her.
0:12:10 I don’t know what the number is.
0:12:13 My guess is it’s somewhere in between.
0:12:15 But that is basically how my brain works
0:12:16 and how I think about communication
0:12:18 and marketing and brand building
0:12:21 and perception changing and just the whole world.
0:12:22 It’s how I think about the world.
0:12:24 – Have you guys seen, let me ask you if you guys
0:12:26 have seen this in terms of cool shit.
0:12:30 So Perplexity is awesome, but they have this new thing.
0:12:31 I didn’t see them talk about it a lot.
0:12:34 It’s called Perplexity AI/Podcast.
0:12:36 They’ve come out with a daily podcast
0:12:38 that’s five to 10 minutes long
0:12:40 that’s written by Perplexity
0:12:43 and it has beautiful background music
0:12:44 and they’ve got this British guy.
0:12:46 Have you ever seen those like Planet Earth videos
0:12:49 where it’s like, now we see the mother cheetah
0:12:50 go after them? – Do you have it at home, bro?
0:12:53 – Yeah, they’ve got this voice that sounds exactly like him
0:12:57 reading the script and it sounds awesome.
0:13:01 The voice is powered by this thing called 11 Labs.
0:13:03 Dude, I went to 11 Labs, Sean.
0:13:05 I uploaded a ton of our voice and I was like,
0:13:07 fuck it, let’s just see if I can make a podcast.
0:13:10 It’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.
0:13:12 Have you guys seen them come out with this podcast
0:13:13 and see these voices? – Gary, if you ever want to see
0:13:16 Sam speak Hindi, 11 Labs made a clip.
0:13:18 They just translated the podcast auto-dubbed
0:13:21 using AI in Hindi and it’s phenomenal.
0:13:23 – By the way, it’s something we’ve been working on
0:13:24 for about a year.
0:13:27 I think next year is the full year
0:13:29 where every single thing I do, every video,
0:13:31 every language, we’re there.
0:13:34 I haven’t seen Sam, I haven’t seen the podcast
0:13:34 but I just took note.
0:13:36 I can’t wait to listen to it.
0:13:38 – It’s so good and they’ve not made a big,
0:13:40 this has not been like a big hoopla.
0:13:42 They haven’t done, I randomly came across it.
0:13:42 I was listening to it.
0:13:44 I’m like, I’m gonna listen to this every day.
0:13:45 This is great.
0:13:47 David at Burrow telling me about the news.
0:13:48 It sounds awesome.
0:13:50 Which language are you gonna do?
0:13:51 Should we do Hindi?
0:13:52 Is that the one?
0:13:54 – I’m doing everything.
0:13:56 – Yeah, if you’re gonna do one, you might as well do all.
0:13:58 – Yeah, just like, I just think that,
0:14:00 I also think everyone’s gonna go after the big one.
0:14:02 For example, I get excited about Portuguese.
0:14:03 I’m like, fuck it.
0:14:04 Everyone’s gonna go to Mandarin and Hindi
0:14:06 and like the big number.
0:14:09 I’m like, I’m just gonna own Portugal and Brazil.
0:14:13 But that’s tongue-in-cheek.
0:14:15 I think the reality is over the next three years,
0:14:17 all of it’s gonna go down and cost so much
0:14:21 that it won’t even like the us in seven years
0:14:24 are gonna laugh that we ever had it just in one language.
0:14:26 If they won’t even understand, they’re like,
0:14:28 – Dude, have you ever seen that talk that this guy,
0:14:30 Alex Schultz gave about Facebook’s growth?
0:14:33 He was the top Facebook growth guy like early on.
0:14:35 When they created the growth team, it was him, Chimoth,
0:14:38 and the guy, I think Javier, who now runs it.
0:14:40 And he’s like, he put a chart up
0:14:42 and it was a YC talk.
0:14:43 And he puts a chart up on the screen.
0:14:44 There’s a bunch of dots.
0:14:46 He’s like, you know, all these dots are feature releases.
0:14:48 And you can see one dot
0:14:49 where everything starts growing right after that.
0:14:53 He goes, anyone wanna take a guess what that dot is?
0:14:56 People in the audience like photos, photo tagging.
0:14:59 It’s when you release mobile, what is it?
0:15:00 We don’t know.
0:15:02 And he’s like, language translation,
0:15:03 local language translation.
0:15:06 He goes, the biggest growth driver in Facebook’s growth,
0:15:09 bar none, was when we localized the service,
0:15:10 which he’s like, was not easy.
0:15:11 They actually, I don’t know if you know this.
0:15:13 Facebook had to do like a Wikipedia thing
0:15:15 ’cause there was, you know, there’s 186 countries
0:15:17 that they had to deal with.
0:15:18 And so they were like, we need users
0:15:21 to basically re-translate the site for their local region.
0:15:23 And they incentivized people to do that.
0:15:24 And that’s how they mass translated overnight.
0:15:26 No other social network did this.
0:15:27 And it took off.
0:15:28 So that was the first time I heard about this.
0:15:32 The second was when we did our basketball camp
0:15:35 with Mr. Beast, which Gary, I invited you to,
0:15:37 you gotta come next time.
0:15:39 Mr. Beast basically, we host a basketball camp
0:15:40 at his house and he did this presentation.
0:15:42 He’s like, here’s one thing I’m doing
0:15:44 that nobody else is really doing,
0:15:46 which is every video I do,
0:15:49 I now created channels in Portuguese and everywhere else.
0:15:50 – He told me.
0:15:52 Jimmy told me that whole thing several years ago.
0:15:54 – Such a good bet.
0:15:55 – By the way, tell me about this basketball camp
0:15:58 because I’m playing basketball tomorrow at 6 a.m.
0:15:59 Like this is how much I loved it.
0:16:00 I’m 48.
0:16:02 – You’ll fit right in.
0:16:06 There’s plenty of wheelchairs in my bags of ice.
0:16:07 – Dude, it’s hilarious.
0:16:09 – But I’m 90s Nix fans, so no easy layups.
0:16:12 Is that politically correct in this basketball camp?
0:16:14 – Yeah, you can hack your heart away.
0:16:15 It’s all good.
0:16:19 Actually, I wonder if you do anything like this.
0:16:22 So we do this thing where it’s called Camp MFM.
0:16:23 It was my first million MFM.
0:16:28 So we were like, we liked the idea of getting together.
0:16:29 Like, you know, when you go to a conference,
0:16:30 you end up having a good time.
0:16:32 If you go speak somewhere, you end up having a good time.
0:16:34 But there’s kind of this dread in my stomach
0:16:35 of like, fuck, you had another conference.
0:16:38 Like, I just don’t want to do the boring.
0:16:40 I just, I guess have a resistance of doing the same thing
0:16:41 everyone else is doing in general.
0:16:44 And so we were like, how do we get the benefits
0:16:47 of going and networking without ever calling it networking
0:16:48 or a conference or anything else?
0:16:50 And so we created basically an adult summer camp.
0:16:53 It was like, what if for a weekend we just rented a house?
0:16:54 And in this case, we actually just stay
0:16:57 at Mr. Beast’s house now because he ended up wanting to come.
0:16:59 And so we go to his house
0:17:01 and then we bring in a trainer from the NBA.
0:17:03 He treats us like we’re washed up NBA players.
0:17:05 Basically he puts us through their program
0:17:07 and we just play ball all day.
0:17:08 – When is it?
0:17:10 – One just happened, but it was big.
0:17:12 It was like the founder of Airbnb, Mr. Beast,
0:17:13 all these guys.
0:17:14 – Joe is the best.
0:17:17 I have an email from Joe that says,
0:17:20 Gary, we’re fans, we want you to look at our company.
0:17:24 And it was jo@airbedandbreakfast.com.
0:17:29 And I never saw it, you know, or maybe I did and just like,
0:17:31 but I look at that email.
0:17:33 I haven’t owned a separate laptop,
0:17:37 but I look at it once in a while just to like,
0:17:38 I love it.
0:17:41 I’d like, this is actually a fun segue back to chopping it up.
0:17:42 If it was just us three and everyone’s this,
0:17:46 where we’re going, where do you guys sit on losing?
0:17:48 So we just talked about basketball.
0:17:51 So I just think about me going to this basketball thing.
0:17:54 And like my favorite thing in basketball in pickup
0:17:55 is to lose the first gate.
0:17:57 It is my favorite.
0:17:59 And I talked about this on Steve Bartlett’s podcast.
0:18:02 I got a billion fucking emails about this.
0:18:04 There’s something that just like the blood in my head,
0:18:06 like everything transforms in my chemicals.
0:18:10 And then everything in life, like everything stops.
0:18:12 And the only thing that matters to me in the world
0:18:14 is that we have to win game two.
0:18:15 – That’s so funny.
0:18:18 He said that when we did the camp, the same thing happened.
0:18:20 The very first game, I’m trying to be the host of the event.
0:18:22 So I’m like, okay, yeah, yeah, you guys play.
0:18:24 I’ll sit out first, no problem.
0:18:26 We get in, I’m like, I’m passing the ball.
0:18:27 I’m like, oh, that’s Joe Gebia.
0:18:28 Let me not let him drive.
0:18:31 I’m not gonna try to hurt the founder of Airbnb or Mr. Beast.
0:18:33 Oh, that was cool, man.
0:18:34 You know, I see someone taking a video.
0:18:36 I’m like, that’s gonna be a cool clip that’s gonna go viral.
0:18:38 And I’m like, wait, fuck that, I’m in the clip.
0:18:39 He’s scoring on me.
0:18:42 And I was like, he’s no longer Mr. Beast, that’s Jimmy.
0:18:43 And that’s Joe.
0:18:44 And now we’re competing to win.
0:18:46 And then the whole event got a lot more fun
0:18:49 when it equalized correct everybody.
0:18:50 All the job titles dropped.
0:18:53 And it’s basically who’s here to win, who’s here to play.
0:18:56 And that’s when it got real.
0:18:57 – It’s why I love entrepreneurship.
0:19:02 Where I’m going with this is that email like excites me.
0:19:04 You know, like, I’m like, yeah, eat it, Gary.
0:19:06 – Dude, that one would have been a bigger one for you
0:19:07 than Uber, too.
0:19:09 – No, it wouldn’t have.
0:19:12 Maybe, but no, because I was, they both probably,
0:19:14 believe it or not, this is how much startups were back then.
0:19:17 They both would have been priced between four and eight million.
0:19:18 – That’s crazy, right?
0:19:21 – I know, bro, I got into Tumblr’s B round.
0:19:26 B, series B, not Angel, not seed, not series A.
0:19:29 I got into Tumblr series B.
0:19:31 This is actually it right here.
0:19:33 This is my Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook stock.
0:19:38 I got into Tumblr’s series B at a $14 million valuation.
0:19:39 – That’s insane.
0:19:41 That’s like, you know, pre-seed now.
0:19:46 – That was literally 2007 or eight, right?
0:19:48 We’re only talking 16 years ago.
0:19:50 So like, you guys are young dudes.
0:19:52 So think 16 years ahead.
0:19:54 How old will you be in 16 years, Sean?
0:19:56 – Dude, I didn’t want to know, 52, 50, I don’t know what.
0:19:58 – Yeah, Sam, 50. – How old am I?
0:20:00 – Right, honestly, no bullshit.
0:20:01 I don’t know if you guys hang out
0:20:03 with like 60, 70, 80-year-old business people.
0:20:07 Like, I do a lot of that because it’s the best.
0:20:09 I mean, to me, the two extremes are the best, right?
0:20:10 Hang out with the 17-year-olds
0:20:11 that are like, listening right now,
0:20:13 shitting on all of us, saying, these fuckers.
0:20:15 Wait ’til they see what I’m gonna do.
0:20:17 And then, 73-year-olds who are like,
0:20:20 just like the amount of 60, of 60, forget it.
0:20:22 I think it’s like literally children.
0:20:25 70 and 80, 70 and 80 to me.
0:20:29 Just, it’s stunning to me how many 73s, 75s,
0:20:31 77-year-old businessmen and women I know
0:20:33 that go at it ’cause they love it.
0:20:35 It’s still what they do.
0:20:37 And it gets me excited ’cause at 48 it’s like,
0:20:39 man, I’m still like, I’m in halftime, right?
0:20:42 Like, I’m in, you know, I get excited about that.
0:20:43 – I wanted to ask you about that.
0:20:45 So, I think you and I kind of have
0:20:47 similar-ish backgrounds where it was like,
0:20:50 raised around like, kind of a rough crowd
0:20:51 every once in a while. – Yes.
0:20:53 – And still kind of have a little bit of that
0:20:55 where like, I enjoy doing like hoodrat shit
0:20:57 every once in a while. – Yes, same.
0:20:59 – And– (laughs)
0:21:01 – Gary, Sam’s nickname on the pod
0:21:03 is hose water ’cause he’s just,
0:21:04 no water fountains, baby.
0:21:05 Just drink it straight out the hose
0:21:06 and he’s Sam’s hose water part.
0:21:09 – Dude, I love to, man, hose water was the best.
0:21:10 (laughs)
0:21:12 – It’s the best, dude, summer hose water.
0:21:13 – I drank out of the hose,
0:21:15 literally from 1982 to 1982.
0:21:18 – Dude, I peed in the backyard
0:21:20 more than I peed in the toilet.
0:21:22 – Oh, 300%. (laughs)
0:21:24 – They used to call me look-mon-no-hands,
0:21:25 like every day.
0:21:28 So, listen, I had a question.
0:21:30 So, you, so look, we’re all three
0:21:31 probably a little bit similar
0:21:33 where it’s like kind of like did a bunch of crappy stuff.
0:21:34 And now, Gary, you’re older and a little,
0:21:36 and further along in your career
0:21:37 in terms of success than we are,
0:21:38 but we’ve both done some interesting,
0:21:39 or we’ve all done interesting things
0:21:41 where we’re able to hang out with some of these guys
0:21:43 who are like legitimate billionaires.
0:21:45 I’m sure you’re, I don’t know if you are or not,
0:21:46 but you’re in that– – You’re not.
0:21:47 – You’re in that ballpark.
0:21:49 And I see with Michael Rubin and whatever,
0:21:52 you know, you hang out with some of the shot colors
0:21:54 of the world, what do you think is the difference
0:21:57 between the store owner who’s doing like,
0:21:59 you know, a retail guy doing half a million
0:22:02 or a million dollars a year, the $10 million year business,
0:22:04 the $100 million net worth person
0:22:06 and the $1 billion net worth person.
0:22:08 Do they all have similar-ish mindsets?
0:22:09 It’s just maybe luck or industry.
0:22:12 They picked a right, a different industry.
0:22:13 – Yeah, two things.
0:22:15 It’s, it’s 1234.
0:22:17 I still don’t know why 1111 has everyone’s attention
0:22:18 and 1234 doesn’t.
0:22:21 The one, two, three, four is just so cool.
0:22:22 – Should we make a wish real quick?
0:22:25 – We should make a wish, but we should start a trend
0:22:27 and try to make 1234 matter for entrepreneurs.
0:22:30 (laughing)
0:22:32 – That’s a really fucking fun question, Sam.
0:22:34 My brain, as you were asking it,
0:22:37 goes in me- – One’s focused on 1234.
0:22:39 – But yeah, I just have to look over and see it.
0:22:41 I always thought about 1234.
0:22:42 I’ve always thought it was interesting
0:22:44 that it has no pop culture relevance.
0:22:48 I believe the first thing that goes through my mind
0:22:53 on this question is risk tolerance and fear, right?
0:22:54 So, I think it’s here- – By the way, Gary,
0:22:56 I just had an idea, 1234.
0:22:58 I get it, I gotta use it.
0:23:02 1234 should be where you shoot your shot.
0:23:03 – I love that. – When you see 1234,
0:23:05 that’s when you gotta send that text,
0:23:07 you gotta send the tweet, you gotta send the email,
0:23:09 right there, that’s the idea for 1234.
0:23:11 We can make this a thing.
0:23:14 – Can you get somebody to register like 1234.org?
0:23:17 I feel like, you know, I don’t want these hustler kids,
0:23:19 like the 13-year-old me would listen to this
0:23:22 and immediately register 1234.com.
0:23:25 I think it’s fear.
0:23:27 I think about my dad a lot.
0:23:31 My dad, I think it’s how people view
0:23:35 their ability to go backwards.
0:23:40 So, I think there’s something very scary
0:23:42 about my chemicals and Sam,
0:23:43 I’ve always felt this in you as well.
0:23:46 It’s funny that you brought it up.
0:23:47 I don’t know if you,
0:23:49 I don’t know you well enough to know this
0:23:52 and I’m not even sure you’re gonna believe me when I say it,
0:23:55 but I do think you have a good shot
0:23:57 of understanding what I’m about to say.
0:23:59 My favorite Rocky is Rocky Six,
0:24:02 when he goes back to Philly with nothing.
0:24:03 – Yeah.
0:24:05 – Sean, there’s something so weird in me
0:24:08 and it’s almost like, am I sandbagging myself?
0:24:10 Like, I’m gonna be very vulnerable here.
0:24:13 Like, I don’t view it as like, I’m cool.
0:24:16 I actually view it as I’m potentially flawed, right?
0:24:20 Like, there’s something in me that romanticizes
0:24:24 being okay with it all falling down.
0:24:28 I’m back in like Queens in a $400 a month apartment.
0:24:32 The entire internet is like, see, he was fucking overrated.
0:24:34 I told you all the people that love me,
0:24:36 all the friends they have that don’t love me
0:24:38 are like, see, your fucking guy was a loser.
0:24:41 He fucked it up, he sucks.
0:24:44 I don’t know why I like that,
0:24:46 but I believe Sam to answer your question,
0:24:49 it’s something to do with that chemical.
0:24:50 I believe the people that,
0:24:51 I think you brought up some good stuff.
0:24:55 I think a lot about if my dad had a supermarket
0:24:57 instead of a liquor store,
0:24:59 I would have taken that to way bigger heights
0:25:01 ’cause the liquor was, you couldn’t ship it.
0:25:03 – Sure, that’s the luck component.
0:25:05 – Yeah, there’s a ton of serendipity.
0:25:07 Like, honestly, I think a lot about
0:25:09 if my dad didn’t want me to work in his store,
0:25:11 I would have went to, ’cause I fell in love with tech,
0:25:12 I might have went to California
0:25:16 and who the fuck knows what I’d created in 95, 670?
0:25:19 Like, could have had one of those Mark Cuban moments.
0:25:21 Maybe I think about that, or, you know, like,
0:25:23 I think when you can sell,
0:25:27 when you can, for all of everyone who’s listening,
0:25:28 and if you have kids like this,
0:25:31 if you can sell, you’re in the game, right?
0:25:35 Like, if you can sell, you’ll never be like zero, right?
0:25:36 And so, what do you got here?
0:25:40 Is 123.4.com available?
0:25:42 – No, dude, 123.4 is owned by like a telecom.
0:25:44 – Yeah, that’s what I figured, that’s important.
0:25:46 I like the one, like the 137.
0:25:47 Yeah, do that.
0:25:48 – Are you kidding me?
0:25:49 – Dude, I love that.
0:25:52 (laughing)
0:25:53 That was so dope.
0:25:55 – I’m so pumped about this, bro.
0:25:57 – The funny thing, by the way, Ben, my guy,
0:26:00 he texted us a screenshot of GoDaddy,
0:26:02 it’s 123.4.org, 15,000,
0:26:04 he just said pull the trigger, question mark.
0:26:07 – No, no, no, no, don’t pull that one, we’re good.
0:26:08 Yeah, actually, this is a good one.
0:26:10 I never think you should overpay for names,
0:26:11 ’cause I think names are made.
0:26:13 – Dude, I agree, I agree.
0:26:14 – Right, Sam?
0:26:15 – But do you know who disagrees?
0:26:17 Fucking Darmesh, Darmesh at–
0:26:18 – I know.
0:26:20 – I’ve been with him multiple times,
0:26:23 so Darmesh founded HubSpot, which bought my company,
0:26:23 and I’ve gotten close with him.
0:26:26 He’s like, dude, I bought Chat.com,
0:26:28 or yeah, Chat.com today.
0:26:29 I’m like, why?
0:26:30 He goes, ’cause it was available.
0:26:31 I was like, what are you gonna do with it?
0:26:33 He’s like, I’m not sure, I’m gonna figure something out,
0:26:35 but I paid eight figures for it.
0:26:38 – Yeah, look, he’s smart, he knows like that,
0:26:40 you know, look, as long as.com,
0:26:43 I mean, to me, the scary thing for,
0:26:45 let me take a step back, not go too fast.
0:26:48 He’s smart enough to know he can probably flip that,
0:26:50 ’cause it’s a very, very, very big deal.
0:26:55 On the flip side, there is a little concern for me
0:26:59 of what happens when this no longer becomes
0:27:02 the remote control of our society, right?
0:27:06 Like I’m very fascinated by 20 years from now,
0:27:08 talking about 16 years ago on Tumblr,
0:27:13 16 years from now, if you told me that 16 years from now,
0:27:15 we live in a predominant VR world,
0:27:19 I would be like, maybe, like I can see that possibility,
0:27:22 right, and you could see that it’s pushing in a direction.
0:27:26 I don’t think it’s gonna end up being these Apple Pro,
0:27:30 you know, Google Glass, Snap, the Facebook thing, Quest.
0:27:32 My intuition is that it’s gonna have to be
0:27:34 much more lightweight,
0:27:36 but I never underestimate the human being.
0:27:39 I’m positive somebody’s gonna make the contact lenses
0:27:41 that work like this, and then we’re off to the races,
0:27:43 ’cause now, back to the way I think about
0:27:44 day trading attention,
0:27:47 this no longer houses the attention,
0:27:51 now it’s housed here, whoever controls that paradigm
0:27:53 wins big, and then all of a sudden,
0:27:54 does dot-com even matter in that?
0:27:56 Is that how the UI UX works?
0:27:59 ‘Cause dot-com didn’t matter at all in 1990.
0:28:01 – Dude, that’s how I feel about SEO businesses right now.
0:28:02 – Well, that’s exactly what happens.
0:28:04 – If it’s chat, GPT, and Google’s
0:28:05 just trying to give you the answer.
0:28:07 – That’s why VaynerMedia never did search.
0:28:08 When I started the company 14 years ago,
0:28:10 everyone’s like, what the fuck?
0:28:11 Why don’t you do search?
0:28:14 And I was like, first of all,
0:28:16 I thought if I built a very big company,
0:28:18 I’d be able to M&A search if I wanted to add it, right?
0:28:19 It was already established.
0:28:22 I grew up on search the decade, the 15 years before,
0:28:24 and so here’s a good one for the kids.
0:28:26 If you’re building towards the future,
0:28:27 if you’re capable,
0:28:30 remember that you could always buy the current.
0:28:33 And that’s how I thought about search.
0:28:37 I was gonna master social in ’09,
0:28:41 and I felt like social was gonna eat up search anyway,
0:28:43 and I think it’s starting to happen now.
0:28:44 Like, search is in a weird spot.
0:28:46 Like, Google’s in a weird spot.
0:28:49 Like, it’s in a great spot in some ways,
0:28:52 but yeah, I think search is definitely a different world.
0:28:53 Like, if you’re a business,
0:28:56 I actually spoke to somebody Thursday
0:28:59 who is really getting hurt
0:29:01 because he was one-dimensional on search,
0:29:04 and I, you know, that’s such a fear of mine
0:29:07 that if you sell your stuff via email,
0:29:11 via your podcast, via social media content, via search,
0:29:13 you must develop into a Swiss Army knife
0:29:16 because if you’re just a fork,
0:29:18 if you’re just one-dimensional, you’re gonna get caught.
0:29:21 – Hey, Gary, let me ask you about that.
0:29:22 You were saying a second ago,
0:29:24 you’re like, I’m not afraid to go back.
0:29:25 – Yes.
0:29:28 – Do you, so like the way that I run my personal finances
0:29:30 is I’ve got like my safety net.
0:29:33 So I’ve got this like account that has enough money
0:29:34 that I’m good forever.
0:29:38 And so that’s in Vanguard and Bonds.
0:29:39 And so it’s like, I’ve never touched that.
0:29:43 And then anything above that amount, I’ll bet it.
0:29:44 And I’ll like to start new shit.
0:29:45 – Same.
0:29:46 – And so you’re talking about like,
0:29:47 you don’t mind going back,
0:29:48 but it sounds like that’s not exactly
0:29:50 how you’d run your finances.
0:29:51 So do you have like a safety net?
0:29:53 And then anything above that, you’re like,
0:29:55 dude, bet it, bet it, or do you just use profits
0:29:57 from Vayner to make these bets?
0:29:59 How do you, how does that work?
0:30:03 – Yes, I have, I’m gonna be, I’m comfortably transparent.
0:30:05 My, I’m very fortunate.
0:30:08 So my zero is a million dollars, but that’s it.
0:30:09 That’s it, Sam.
0:30:10 – Wait, so you only keep a million
0:30:12 in your like liquid portfolio.
0:30:12 That’s your safety net?
0:30:14 – No, no, no, I have other things,
0:30:16 like I have money in all sorts of places,
0:30:20 but I have this one place that has one million dollars.
0:30:23 And literally everything else is in play.
0:30:25 – Wow.
0:30:28 – Now, Sean, I wanna paint a very clear picture here
0:30:29 ’cause I don’t wanna create hyperbole.
0:30:31 I haven’t bet everything on everything,
0:30:35 but if I ever feel the way I felt about Facebook in 2007,
0:30:37 when I put, I had $236,000 in savings,
0:30:40 I put $200,000 into Facebook, right?
0:30:41 (laughing)
0:30:44 And if that ever happens again,
0:30:47 like I’m willing to bet very large
0:30:50 because that feeling, similar to the feeling
0:30:53 I felt about the internet when I saw it in ’95,
0:30:56 similar to the feeling that I felt about
0:30:57 friends through my space, that little like,
0:30:59 oh, the internet’s changing.
0:31:04 I look for those moments and, you know,
0:31:06 well, again, I’m willing to go big.
0:31:07 But to your point, Sam,
0:31:10 like it’s not like I’ll go to zero, zero, you know,
0:31:12 a million dollars is a lot, a lot of money.
0:31:13 And especially if you’re capable.
0:31:16 If you’re capable, like, I don’t know,
0:31:17 like I feel very–
0:31:18 – And a reputation.
0:31:20 – Yeah, correct.
0:31:22 I also think about face-off, like where you change,
0:31:25 like I have like these very like deep Sean,
0:31:28 it goes back to like wanting to win a basketball game.
0:31:32 Like I think it’s more, I think the worst thing
0:31:33 for my love of entrepreneurship that’s happened
0:31:35 is what Sam just said.
0:31:39 I no longer can do it without anyone knowing.
0:31:42 It’s a whole different game.
0:31:45 It was so fun when people didn’t know.
0:31:47 – What you’re saying reminds me of, well, two things.
0:31:48 I think it’s super interesting that your answer
0:31:51 to what’s the difference you’ve seen in the mindset
0:31:54 and the psychology was who’s willing to go backwards.
0:31:57 And almost what you said was you almost kind of crave,
0:31:59 there’s like a romantic idea about going back,
0:32:00 which I like a lot.
0:32:01 I resonate with that a lot.
0:32:03 It’s almost like there’s TV shows,
0:32:06 I wish I could go watch again for the first time
0:32:06 in the same way.
0:32:08 Like there’s no greater feeling
0:32:10 than going from not making it to making it.
0:32:12 Once you’ve made it and you try to make more,
0:32:15 it doesn’t have the same thrill, adventure,
0:32:17 satisfaction, self-respect, you know?
0:32:19 – You have to almost go into different games.
0:32:23 Like I worry about that.
0:32:25 Like I don’t, let me phrase, I don’t worry about it,
0:32:30 but I sense that there’s a day where I actually,
0:32:33 I talk a lot about never retiring and dying at my desk.
0:32:36 And then there’s an equal part of me that realizes
0:32:41 that I’m very wired in a way where I just might wake up
0:32:43 at 79 and be like, you know what?
0:32:45 Like I’m done.
0:32:48 I’m just gonna focus on my grandchild’s like,
0:32:49 like I just, I don’t know.
0:32:51 I have like, I think we’re all very,
0:32:55 like I think we underestimate how long life is.
0:32:59 You know, I think we underestimate our capacity
0:33:02 to make hard decisions to different directions
0:33:05 that we can’t see along the way.
0:33:06 Then there’s back to luck.
0:33:08 And you know, I mean, look,
0:33:10 we’ve lived through a lot of prosperity.
0:33:12 Everyone, the three of us have gotten very fortunate
0:33:14 of where we lived during what era, right?
0:33:16 Like there’s a lot going on in the world.
0:33:19 Like, you know, there was people in the roaring 20s
0:33:22 talking shit like this over dinner.
0:33:25 And then, you know, a very challenging 30 years
0:33:27 punched them in the face, right?
0:33:30 It all seemed so great in 1927.
0:33:31 America was on its way.
0:33:32 It’s gonna be awesome.
0:33:34 And then, you know, massive world war
0:33:38 and atomic bomb and Korea and Vietnam and social unrest.
0:33:41 And so, you know, all these things are like fun
0:33:42 to think about.
0:33:45 It’s like fun to like romanticize about the future.
0:33:49 But I will say this, I’m actually gonna ask you guys this.
0:33:52 What do you think your personal relationship is
0:33:57 with gratitude versus taking for granted?
0:33:58 – I changed on that.
0:34:02 Once I actually sold my company and was financially free
0:34:04 and then like two weeks after the sale of the company,
0:34:08 the CEO got into a life-threatening accident.
0:34:10 And I was like, oh, that could have ruined my deal.
0:34:13 And like everything, like this all could have been ruined.
0:34:15 And then I like hit like some threshold.
0:34:18 I’m like, dude, I did not work any harder
0:34:19 than anyone else who else,
0:34:21 like who have done similar things but failed.
0:34:25 This is 100% luck and I’m so grateful that I like,
0:34:27 it just has worked in my way in many ways.
0:34:30 I feel like I am the luckiest guy around.
0:34:33 And it just seems like I’m so gracious
0:34:35 for the luck that I have.
0:34:37 It’s kind of, it’s changed to more sort.
0:34:41 I’ve just been gifted this and I’m so lucky and I’m thankful.
0:34:42 – Good for you, Sam.
0:34:43 Sean, where are you at with it?
0:34:46 – I’m a different, so to me, I’m like, all right.
0:34:48 I think people make a mistake.
0:34:49 They’re grateful in the macro.
0:34:51 So if you say to somebody, you’re like,
0:34:52 what are you grateful for?
0:34:53 Almost everybody.
0:34:57 My family, my health, and to me, this is the,
0:34:59 I’m not saying they’re wrong, obviously those are great things,
0:35:01 but it’s sort of like when a company says our values,
0:35:06 our integrity and excellence, it’s true but not useful.
0:35:08 It basically leaves no register.
0:35:12 And so I try, my focus is how do you be grateful in the micro?
0:35:15 Meaning, can I be, if I’m in an elevator,
0:35:17 can I find something in that moment?
0:35:21 Can I get a rep, a practice rep of gratitude in that?
0:35:23 ‘Cause that actually shifts me.
0:35:26 When I can take a breath, be grateful for the fresh air.
0:35:28 I can look at something my kid is doing
0:35:31 and how silly they are and just in that moment,
0:35:32 find something.
0:35:34 And if I could do that 10, 15 times a day,
0:35:38 that is like the antidote.
0:35:41 – Yeah, I think that’s how micro and macro
0:35:42 and micro work together.
0:35:46 I really do think of it as being alive.
0:35:48 Like just thank you for that.
0:35:51 I didn’t die last night, right?
0:35:55 And to your point, I think when you’re macro is that,
0:35:57 I think you’re actually, I think I love what you said.
0:35:59 You’re just talking about applying it.
0:36:01 – Yeah, that’s how I apply it, exactly.
0:36:02 That’s my relationship with it.
0:36:03 – That’s right.
0:36:05 But like if you’re getting to that place,
0:36:06 that’s how I live.
0:36:07 I’m like literally like,
0:36:09 it’s like a nice sunny day in New York today.
0:36:11 And I’m just like, yeah, that’s awesome.
0:36:14 You know, like just choosing positivity.
0:36:17 Like I think people have been so sucked into
0:36:19 like focusing on what they don’t have
0:36:21 or what’s not going well.
0:36:23 – Naval has an amazing definition of happiness.
0:36:24 By the way, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this.
0:36:27 He goes, happiness is what you feel
0:36:30 when you don’t feel like anything’s missing in your life.
0:36:31 Right?
0:36:32 People think happiness is something you got to achieve,
0:36:33 something you got to go create,
0:36:34 something you got to get.
0:36:35 It’s like, you know,
0:36:37 you think you don’t accumulate things to have happiness.
0:36:38 And he’s like, actually,
0:36:40 it’s just when you’re not focused on what’s missing.
0:36:41 – Well, that’s right.
0:36:44 I think simplicity is just so fucking.
0:36:46 Fuck, man, it’s so right.
0:36:49 – Your life is not simplistic.
0:36:51 I mean, I don’t know what your personal life is like.
0:36:53 I don’t know if you have multiple homes and what you own,
0:36:55 but your professional life is not simplistic.
0:36:57 – I’ll tell you why it’s simplistic.
0:37:02 I’m not attached to my professional success or who I am.
0:37:06 I’m like in a very weird place with my winning and losing
0:37:08 and my Gary Vee of it all.
0:37:11 I care so much, but it’s a game.
0:37:13 My professional life is a game.
0:37:14 – Right.
0:37:15 – I don’t want to be unhappy.
0:37:17 Like I fight for happiness too much.
0:37:19 And I think it is in the simplicity.
0:37:20 You’re right.
0:37:21 The day-to-day is chaotic.
0:37:23 There’s meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting
0:37:25 after meeting, right?
0:37:28 But I like it.
0:37:30 I like juggling 17 balls.
0:37:33 And I’m not upset about the 13 that fell on the ground
0:37:34 and broke.
0:37:35 I don’t like it.
0:37:38 I’m upset about the 13 that fell on the ground and broke.
0:37:42 And more importantly, I’m not worried about the people
0:37:45 who are watching me juggle boo when the ball breaks.
0:37:47 That I think is massive.
0:37:49 – Yeah, but when Theo Vaughn makes fun of you,
0:37:50 it’s pretty hilarious.
0:37:54 – That is like the ultimate, like because I love Theo.
0:37:56 Like to me, back to like where we came from,
0:38:00 Sam, I’m like, my God, like I’ve gotten to a place
0:38:02 where someone as epic as Theo Vaughn
0:38:03 or any other– – It was so funny.
0:38:05 – Tim Dillon, like I love these guys.
0:38:07 I’m always fascinated when people struggle
0:38:09 with a comedian razzing.
0:38:12 Like I think it’s like, that’s like such flattery.
0:38:13 – Yeah, that was awesome.
0:38:14 It was awesome.
0:38:16 I saw that and I was like, oh, the guy I look up to,
0:38:18 he’s crossed over to mainstream.
0:38:19 It’s awesome.
0:38:20 Sean, what were we going to say?
0:38:21 – Well, I want to ask two questions.
0:38:24 One, you showed those stock certificates on the wall,
0:38:26 speaking of winning.
0:38:30 I saw, okay, you invested in Twitter in ’09, Slack pre-IPO.
0:38:32 I think the liquid death guy, we used to work with you,
0:38:33 work for you.
0:38:35 – Yeah, literally worked at VaynerMedia the day
0:38:36 before he started liquid death.
0:38:37 – Facebook pre-IPO.
0:38:39 I’m curious, what was, what investment
0:38:40 was the best investment for you?
0:38:43 What paid off in terms of, you’ve made a bunch of bets, right?
0:38:44 And that, those are the winners.
0:38:46 – Facebook, I haven’t sold one share yet.
0:38:47 – Oh, shit.
0:38:48 – That’s insane.
0:38:50 – But that goes back to–
0:38:52 – Like insanely good.
0:38:56 – Yeah, that goes back to jockey over horse.
0:39:01 I tell all my friends, like, who get into investing.
0:39:03 I’m like, man, they’re like, what have you learned?
0:39:07 I’m like, what I’ve learned is when I only invested in the person,
0:39:10 when I’m, when I, I’ve hit this new state where like,
0:39:13 I’m really trying to be obsessed with the person and the idea.
0:39:17 And if either one isn’t like an A plus, then I’m like, eh, right?
0:39:19 – You said and or or.
0:39:20 – And, right?
0:39:21 – Okay.
0:39:22 – Jockey and the horse.
0:39:23 – That’s right.
0:39:27 But if I or it, fully person, not idea.
0:39:28 – What year did you do that?
0:39:30 Did you do that deal?
0:39:33 Facebook?
0:39:35 Like 2007?
0:39:36 – Oh my God.
0:39:40 So I mean, I don’t even know what that you’d be up 400 times.
0:39:41 I don’t know.
0:39:42 I mean, a lot.
0:39:43 – A lot.
0:39:44 – 100x at least.
0:39:46 I want to get your rapid, rapid take.
0:39:51 Cause I know you’ve, one of the things we do on this pod is we kind of,
0:39:56 we love anecdotes and also little, little insights on people that we think are wired
0:39:57 in an interesting way.
0:39:59 Maybe not even the way we want to be wired, right?
0:40:00 – Yeah.
0:40:01 – Elon’s really interesting.
0:40:02 We don’t think he’s perfect.
0:40:03 We think there’s a bunch of things he does that are cringe.
0:40:04 We think there’s a bunch that he does that are epic.
0:40:08 So I’m curious, you’ve bumped into or I’ve studied or have an opinion on any of these
0:40:09 people.
0:40:10 So I want to go rapid fire.
0:40:13 See, if you have something, give us, give us like either an opinion or a story.
0:40:14 – So, yeah.
0:40:16 So is this from outside observation or.
0:40:17 – Either one.
0:40:19 – If I map them inside observation.
0:40:21 – Either one or if you have nothing, you could say pass.
0:40:22 I don’t have anything on them.
0:40:23 All right.
0:40:25 So first one I want to do is Zuck.
0:40:27 You’ve talked about Facebook and the jockey.
0:40:28 Give me Zuck.
0:40:30 I think he’s uncomfortably underrated.
0:40:35 Like he’s the only person that I met back in ’07.
0:40:39 Like in this era now, I think it’s getting more obvious, but he understood attention.
0:40:41 He literally tried to buy Twitter.
0:40:43 He bought Instagram.
0:40:44 He bought WhatsApp.
0:40:46 He tried to buy Snap.
0:40:52 He just understood attention was the only asset and, and he’s so nice.
0:40:53 He’s a nice kid.
0:40:57 Like, like he’s just a very simple, nice kid.
0:41:00 I’m happy with the way things are going for him a little bit right now.
0:41:02 Like people can see how like doofy he is.
0:41:04 Like you see him like in the corner of the UFC thing.
0:41:07 You’re like, this is just a nerdy kid who’s like, you know what I mean?
0:41:09 Like, and he doesn’t give a fuck.
0:41:14 Now people will think it’s because he’s got a trillion, but like it, it’s just, he’s
0:41:16 just like a dentist’s son from cadet.
0:41:19 Like he’s just a fucking nerd with no bad intent.
0:41:24 Who fucking spent his childhood coding, which put him in a position, right?
0:41:25 He put in the hours.
0:41:26 I’m a fan, man.
0:41:28 I think he’s a, I think he’s a very good operator.
0:41:31 And the reason I’ve never sold a share of Facebook is I’ve been committed for a
0:41:36 long time in this in my own mind, which was I’ll never sell until he’s gone.
0:41:38 Logan Paul.
0:41:44 So do you know that Logan Paul was starting to emerge very little on Vine
0:41:50 when VaynerMedia for Virgin Mobile did a campaign called finding the next Vine star.
0:41:51 You guys kind of discovered him, right?
0:41:54 Like when he was, I think he had like 15 or 18,000 followers at the time.
0:41:55 It was crazy.
0:41:59 And by the way, full disclosure, Jerome Jar, who was one of the 10 most followed
0:42:01 people on Vine, who was my partner.
0:42:06 Jerome and I launched the first influencer agency called Freepstory back in 13.
0:42:09 He was the one who said, you know, he, he let me pick from three people.
0:42:11 I think all three of them got big.
0:42:18 But I think Logan is, you know, he grew up in the limelight, right?
0:42:21 You think about like what happened in Japan or all this stuff.
0:42:22 Like it’s tough.
0:42:26 These kids are, you think about child stars when we grew up.
0:42:29 We all knew that like child stars would be fucked up, right?
0:42:31 And now I think like everyone’s going through that.
0:42:33 The limelight is hard.
0:42:36 So I think Logan is well intended.
0:42:41 Uh, I think he, um, he’s very entrepreneurial, like very entrepreneurial.
0:42:47 And I, you know, I, I, I’ve always thought of him as like a marky mark or a,
0:42:52 or a fresh prince or a, the rock, meaning I always watched him from afar.
0:42:56 And as I got to know him a little bit, I was like, okay, this kid is Logan Paul today.
0:43:00 Just like Marky Mark was Marky Mark before he was Mark Wahlberg.
0:43:05 Just like the fresh Prince of L.A. or, you know, what Will Smith was before he was Will Smith.
0:43:11 I’ve always thought that Logan would cross over and he has obviously with WWE in a lot of ways.
0:43:12 And I think that will continue.
0:43:18 Like if he told me Logan is like an action star and is like at the,
0:43:21 like the way John Cena was at the Academy Awards last night, like,
0:43:23 is Logan doing that in 15 years?
0:43:24 And like that makes sense to me.
0:43:25 That’s how he’s wired.
0:43:30 He’s only 28. He’s, he’s only 28 years old.
0:43:34 The dude basically like, you know, when he was 14 or whatever, like one,
0:43:36 he won in the social media game.
0:43:39 Now he, and then think about the pivots, right?
0:43:42 Both him and Jake, but the thing about the pivots, now he’s got impulsive.
0:43:44 So he’s got the podcast where he’s super chill.
0:43:47 It’s the opposite of crazy vine prankster guy.
0:43:50 He pivoted to like, he’s the guy asking questions.
0:43:51 He’s inquisitive. He’s curious.
0:43:56 He’s got like, you know, the popular podcast goes WWE becomes a champion in
0:43:59 WWE creates prime, which is going to make him a billionaire.
0:44:01 By the time he’s 28, 29 years old now,
0:44:05 because prime is probably going to be worth tens of billions of, you know,
0:44:07 they did, I think two billion in sales last year.
0:44:10 I mean, I’m in this world like prime is definitely like a two,
0:44:13 depending on the time they decide to trade it.
0:44:15 It’s two, three, four, five, six, seven billion.
0:44:17 That high seven.
0:44:20 I talked to Mr. Beast and he was like 20 billion is where prime is.
0:44:24 Like that would be very, very, I mean, that’s like, look,
0:44:26 I never underestimate Jimmy’s foresight because he’s great.
0:44:30 I’ve known him a long time, but just being in M&A at CPG levels,
0:44:34 my intuition is that they won’t be patient enough to get to that big of a number.
0:44:37 Right. Like, well, the beauty is they’re not operating.
0:44:40 The other guys are, they got the other guys operating are.
0:44:42 Yeah, they’re pretty young too, though.
0:44:46 Yeah. And more importantly, like I said, shit changes.
0:44:50 Like everything’s ha ha ha until it’s actually in front of you.
0:44:52 It’s all kicks and giggles.
0:44:58 And we’re going to 20 until you fly to Atlanta and Coca Cola actually offers you 5.9.
0:45:01 And you’ve got to sit there as KSI and Logan and those guys and say,
0:45:04 okay, if we say yes, because you know what they’re going to say.
0:45:06 You guys are like this.
0:45:08 So you’re going to really understand what I’m about to say.
0:45:09 You know what they’re going to say?
0:45:13 They’re going to say, huh, we could do this right now.
0:45:20 And then in 24 months, start a shampoo or a deodorant and sell it to Doug.
0:45:25 Like, so I think it’s they’ll be interesting to see how long they hold their breath.
0:45:30 And don’t forget one bad year, you guys know this, how businesses work.
0:45:34 One bad year takes a lot of leverage off the table in a negotiation.
0:45:38 And so, you know, they’ll be thoughtful about that because no matter what you are,
0:45:42 once you saturate distribution and don’t forget, they’re selling on something
0:45:44 that’s more like supreme, right?
0:45:45 They’re selling on cool.
0:45:46 Cool. Yeah.
0:45:47 Right.
0:45:52 Kids are buying it literally to drink it for the status symbol like a fashion brand.
0:45:53 And that can only last so long.
0:45:56 Ze Kaviricis were only cool for so long.
0:45:59 Those are great points.
0:46:00 That’s the point.
0:46:02 The we mean you have no family.
0:46:07 Damn, that’s what she represents was for all the Jersey boys that grew up in late 80s, early 90s.
0:46:08 People.
0:46:10 They were the hottest jeans pants.
0:46:13 If you were your Ze Kaviricis, you were nothing.
0:46:14 I didn’t have them, by the way.
0:46:19 I was having a great life, but they were fucking compared prime to Jinko jeans.
0:46:20 What are you going to say, Sean?
0:46:24 Well, I asked you a bunch of names that are, you know, basically names that people know.
0:46:26 I’m curious, who do you think is dope?
0:46:27 Who are you learning from?
0:46:29 And who are you kind of admire?
0:46:30 Who do you admire?
0:46:31 Who do you learn from?
0:46:32 Who are you inspired by?
0:46:34 Because, OK, a lot of people are inspired by Gary Vee.
0:46:36 Who’s Gary Vee inspired by?
0:46:37 That’s a great question.
0:46:41 I’m a little weird on this one, but I’m glad I brought up break the web.
0:46:45 I’m like inspired by the collective more than an individual.
0:46:46 The field.
0:46:47 Yeah.
0:46:49 I love the field, brother.
0:46:54 I just like I spend almost all of my time on the collective.
0:46:58 So I don’t even have the allocation of time.
0:47:02 I also am very inspired by the following person.
0:47:06 Show me the person that’s currently living through massive adversity.
0:47:07 Like somebody’s list.
0:47:12 I’ll tell you somebody who’s 10 times more inspiring to me than I think I am or deserve to be to others.
0:47:18 Show me the kid that’s listening right now, whose father passed away from a stroke.
0:47:19 He’s 16.
0:47:22 He’s got three younger siblings.
0:47:28 And his mom has to now work two jobs and he’s holding it down for the fam.
0:47:29 Right.
0:47:31 He’s literally a sophomore in high school.
0:47:34 And he’s basically the father figure down for three siblings.
0:47:44 He had to quit the fucking football team because he’s also like, like, I am the son of two parents who lost a parent before they were 15.
0:47:46 And then back to gratitude.
0:47:51 I think I got really fucked up by being scared that my parents were going to die.
0:47:55 My whole childhood, but it kind of converted into this gratitude framework.
0:47:56 That’s insane.
0:47:57 It makes me unstoppable.
0:48:04 And so, yeah, for me, it’s less Bezos or Elon or Oprah or anything.
0:48:10 It’s much more like someone none of us know that is really in it.
0:48:12 That bodega owner energy.
0:48:15 That stuff I grew up with and I fuck with it.
0:48:22 But that person, I think, has it lucky back to earlier our simplicity, like owning your own little business, living within your means.
0:48:24 That’s fucking kind of chill.
0:48:25 It could be really epic.
0:48:31 It doesn’t put you on like this podcast, but it’s like a great life in a lot of ways that I see it a lot.
0:48:32 I lived it.
0:48:35 What building my dad’s business from 20 to 34.
0:48:38 I not that person.
0:48:45 The one that’s like back to your point, Sam, the spin of the wheel really created real adversity.
0:48:48 I’ll say it again and not a peep of complaining.
0:48:54 There’s a very small group of kids that get that and they just convert into leader.
0:48:57 Instead of woe is me or rebelling.
0:49:05 I admire that level of tenacity and grit and accountability and fucking like, fuck it.
0:49:07 Like this is I got this.
0:49:08 It’s on me.
0:49:09 I got to put this shit on my shoulders.
0:49:11 I’m going to do this for my three siblings.
0:49:13 Like I admire the fuck out of that kid.
0:49:18 I wrote down a quote when I was doing the research for this that I think is exactly what you’re talking about.
0:49:21 You go, forget rags to riches.
0:49:25 Some people are just rags to rags just so that their kids have a shot at rags to riches.
0:49:27 And I respect the shit out of that.
0:49:28 I love that quote.
0:49:29 Thank you for finding that.
0:49:33 I really, man, I’m really affected by that.
0:49:35 Like Sam really hit it on the head.
0:49:41 Like I hate the word luck because I think that people weaponize it against people that have worked really hard.
0:49:47 But I, but I believe in serendipity and luck quite a bit because it’s just the way like I was born in the Soviet Union.
0:49:50 Like I got lucky to get out of there when I did.
0:49:54 If I didn’t, I would have come to this country in 1991 when it fell.
0:49:56 I would have been 1617.
0:49:59 I’d sound like Ivan Drago on these podcasts.
0:50:01 I like it would have been all different.
0:50:12 And, you know, I just, I, I, I just really do admire people who I really do think entitlement and lack of accountability has become a disease in first world countries in 2024.
0:50:15 And I just really admire people who play the other way.
0:50:16 We appreciate you doing this, man.
0:50:19 You got day trading attention coming out, I think on May 21, right?
0:50:20 That sounds right.
0:50:21 You’re the man.
0:50:23 We appreciate you hanging out.
0:50:24 Thanks for coming on, man.
0:50:25 I got to jump to sport meeting.
0:50:26 I appreciate it.
0:50:27 All right, take care.
0:50:28 I love you guys.
0:50:29 Good luck.
0:50:31 I feel like I can rule the world.
0:50:34 I know I could be what I want to.
0:50:37 I put my all in it like no days off on a road.
0:50:39 Let’s travel never looking back.
0:50:40 Bye.
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