#AskGaryVee Episode 110: Ego, My Grandchildren, & Why People Are Afraid of Snapchat

“if at all, should a brand
not use social media?” – Steve.
– [Steve] Chad. – Chad.
(all laughing) Chad, great question. You know, the funny thing is, is all that social media is is another, first of all, social media is a term, a slang term for the current state of the Internet right now. The term we used only
six or seven years ago was “web 2.0 sites.” Now we call them “social media sites.” We may call them something
else in the future, “mobile native,” “virtual this,” but there’s always a term to talk about the 20 to 30 sites that matter. Social media sites
happen to mean the sites that people actually go to, the apps that people actually go to in a mobile first world, which is what we live in now, and so people are confused if there’s something, if there is a thing called social media. There isn’t. I mean, anything that’s
a content site now, anything that, like, people refer to podcasts as social media. It’s just a term of relevancy, and so it’s a communication portal, right? And there are some high,
high, high end brands that think if they’re on Twitter or Snapchat or Instagram or Facebook that they cheapen their brand equity. I would say Apple, right? Apple is a brand that does very little. I still think they’re doing
basically nothing on social, or at least, definitely not on Twitter, I don’t think, right? So, you know, look, do I think that there is a place where
brands should not do it? Only if it’s a shtick. If it’s a very well-thought-out, “we are so exclusive, we’re
going against the grain,” and they make it part
of their overall thing, that they emphasize in other
channels of communication their lack of being there. It may position to a small group that is anti-establishment, that they think that’s cool, but more and more, what
people need to recognize is that social media is going through a legitimacy curve right now. Over the next five to ten years, this will be the establishment. Facebook and Twitter and Pin, well, I don’t know about
Twitter, I’m worried, but Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat, they’re gonna be the establishment. It’s like banner ads
or the Internet itself. It’s just gonna be the
establishment, my friends, and so I think eventually, that’s going to run out. If you wanna sell something,
you need to be able to communicate to the world, and if everybody’s eyes and ears are in a certain place
called the Internet, I think you need to be there, and I think you have a tough argument to justify the upside versus the downside of not communicating in the portals where people are living. Ben. Oh, I know Ben Phillips.

Why are so many people scared of Snapchat, especially in the marketing field? A lot of them say they
don’t understand it, but I feel like that’s a copout. What do you think? – Ben, I think it’s ironic that you wore a yellow shirt when you
asked that question. I wonder if that was strategic. If it was, a big daps to you. Also enjoying the beard
and the glasses look. You look really legit. I think that people are not practitioners. I would argue that 95%
of people in marketing, 95% of people in marketing, at digital and social
agencies on the brands and the business sides actually don’t know how Snapchat works, actually have never went through all four screens of Snapchat. To the left, to the right
twice and the camera itself. Literally have not done that. Literally. I would argue that 70% of marketers have never touched one of
the Discover tabs on Snapchat because they are just not practitioners, and Snapchat has a context
and a cadence and a system that is not native to a lot of people because it’s left to
right, not up and down like all the other apps, and so there’s some learning. Like, it actually takes
four to five minutes of thought and energy to really understand
how Snapchat works if you’ve never used it before, and that’s about four
to five minutes’ worth of actual practitionership that most people don’t apply. They like to headline read that the kids send sex pictures to each other and they like to be old white men even if they’re not old white men. Right? Plenty of 23-year-old Hispanic women acting like old white men ’cause
they’re not practitioners. Slang term “old white men,” to like “you suck shit.” Like you’re not putting in the work, you’re tired, you’re not innovating, you stink. You stink, you stink. And so why do I think people
are scared of Snapchat? Because they stink. Because most people suck at marketing. Most people just wanna do
what they’ve already known. They don’t evolve. I wake up every morning of my life trying to put myself out of business, because it’s a lot better to do that than have somebody else do it for me, and that’s how I live, and
that’s how I’m gonna live until I’m an old white man acting like a 14-year-old chick, right? ‘Cause that’s just the way I’m gonna roll. And so as you can see,
I got a little excited on this answer, because it strikes a real nerve to what’s actually happening in society, because as we are living through the second Industrial Revolution, the real culture shift
of the last half century, this Internet thing, getting to maturity with mobile devices at scale, computing on our fingertips
at all times at scale, the whole kit and kaboodle. Society, the whole thing, everyone, all of us, everyone. When that hits, and that’s here, and it’s starting to really hit, everything changes forever. Everything. Everything. Marketing just happens to be the part that I’m most interested in talking about.

– [Voiceover] Mike wants to know, “Are you building an
eco-system or an ego-system?” – Michael, this is a
great, great question, and I think the answer is both. I think the true answer is both. I think that I’ve
created an infrastructure of free content and interaction and organization that has created an ecosystem. It’s super hard to argue. I mean, wait ’til “Crushed It” comes out, the book that follows the 400 people, which is 400 of the 4,000 people that read “Crush It”
and their lives changed. Go read the comments in the Facebook posts and in the Instagram
posts around this show of people literally, in the last 30 days, ’cause I’m reading them all, just talking about how, like, weird, watching 100 episodes of
this has changed their life. They make more money, like, real life stuff. So that’s an ecosystem. On the flip side, it’s very centraled around a human being, right? Me. And that’s an ego-system, so I think the answer is both, and I think that, you know, I think like anything in life, there’s a very fine line. I often use Oprah to
bunch of spammy gurus. She just walked the fine line of inspiration and motivation just right to create all-time great billionaireship and all-time great impact, whereas, gosh, if she just turned an inch in the other direction, and if you look at her early career, she
probably was in that lane, and I think when she was able to squeak it a little bit more to the left, it took her to the stratosphere. Look, I think I’m
walking a very fine line, and I think I’m walking it properly, and I think I believe that because I just clearly know myself best and know my motivations, and I think that if you were to intimately look under the hood of
my actions and career, you would see all the dollars
I’m leaving on the table, which I think usually tend to be the motivator that forces people to get on the wrong side of the road of this eco-ego system
that you talk about. And so I think the answer is both. I very much thrive off the attention, the pressure, the admiration, the trolling and hating. It’s all part of it, and I think I’m capable and
I have broad enough shoulders and puffy enough chests to be able to deal with it, and so the answer is both, and I think done right, done properly, by all standards of the seven-person jury, I think it’s the way to
pull off a great legacy, and that’s what I’m trying to do.

– [Voiceover] Andrew wants to know, “Do you see skill sharing
and teaching people skills “as an alternative to education “coming up in the sharing economy?” – Andrew, I do. Very simply, the answer is yes. Very simply, I believe the Internet is gonna squeeze everything in the middle that doesn’t provide value out of business over a 100-year period, and so everything’s in the middle, really, between you and a thing, and the education system is in the middle between you and actually having the
next chapter of your life in play monetizing, if
you really think about it. At its grand scheme, you go to school, in theory, historically, the
way it’s been thought of, to set you up, to monetize your thing. I mean, as we know, so many people go through the schooling and then realize they don’t wanna be a lawyer or a doctor or whatever they’ve been learning to do, and they reset and they
go into the open market. I think that that needs
to be thought about. I think that really needs
to be thought about, and we’ve never lived in a time where, guys, at 30 years old, I began the first seed of thought that I should speak to
the world about something. That happened to be wine at the time. I mean, there wasn’t things
like this podcast, this show, or the billions of pieces of content that live now, that educate people at a level that we’ve never seen before. If there is anyone, if there is anyone that believes that unionized human beings and old textbooks can outperform education
of information and thinking to the vast majority of human
society and the Internet, then you are a lost human being. Lost. With a capital L. And so now what needs to happen is, some organization. Look, I actually believe
the following statement. I actually believe one
of the singular reasons that universities are in play is the romantic point of view that the parents of our current generation view on the institution, and I truly believe it’s going to take only two more generations. Not necessarily mine, but my kids have no prayer of valuing
Harvard and Stanford and a community college to the level it’s valued by my parents. No shot in hell, I’m putting it, and I don’t like to predict, but I’m putting it right here on film. Big ups to my little grandchildren that are watching this
now, 50 years from now. (all laughing)
Hey, little Sarah. I love you. And, you know. Actually, Sarah’s gonna
be so out of date by then. Hey, Zeruca, big fan. Hope we’re watching this together. So I think that, you know, the skill shares, the Khan Academies, the endless content on YouTube, the podcasts, the tremendous impact that all the content that’s living right now is
having on the younger generation and how they will think that they, right now we have 15-year-olds that think their two
cents on every thought are public domain, that they need to add their two cents. What do you think when
they become educated through school and not school, what they’re gonna share and how? It’s just gonna be so much information. Plus, our system right
now is so predicated on teaching our kids to memorize something and then regurgitate it
a couple of weeks later, in a world where all that information is at their fingertips. Nobody gives a shit who the 18th President of the United States is, or what’s the warmest planet. I can tell you in one
fucking second, you idiots.