finished i hope they serve beer and how
lot has changed what you do it all again of course I
mean I’m not here right I was trying to do a lot of things differently but you
like what’s the number again in a noble shit
way because I’m doing this because I think you could you know there’s no
other way for me to be beautiful but it but knowing that like again that’s all I
was happy when you’re like a like I want to go to like a place like I know you’ve
been on so many different things like like in a very fucking real way like what’s the one core thing you think
you can do stiffer um i would realize a lot earlier that it’s not about me right
now even though I’m really good at doing that with my heart like my stories even
though about me if you read all my books we
don’t know very much about me at all you know a lot about things that
happened to me and you’ve laughed a lot of really enjoyed it but i don’t i don’t
burn the reader with nonsense about me because people reading my books want to
be entertained they’re not trying to learn deep about my emotions whatever
right but in the way I meet business decisions
early in my career I was arrogant and stupid and I made most amazing so you
have the leverage it so there was a movie made about my first
book that movie should have done a hundred million or more the box office
and it did like two million and because of my arrogance and hubris and he wanted
to impose certain things that your creative control over I mean yeah it really was like writing
is a very singular art right it’s also i got and I don’t have anyone else help to
the brush your book to make a movie it’s a whole group of people and that
even the smallest movie ever is still being people went into that place of
like look a lot of the guys on business like right holding tight and and I did
because of that I picked the wrong director i picked most of the wrong
production you pick Danny people no I with my pic guys you made it might
have been just my vision which would be better than water water because it
became a Frankenstein yeah it was a print yet exactly and and
I picked a lot of people who told me what I wanted to hear early on but had
their own agendas for and I was blind to it and I was so caught up in myself my
own ego that I screwed up a really massive opportunity for myself sure it’s going to change that and that
goes for a hundo different things well I know it’s funny people always ask
me my biggest mistakes and I was trying to come up with something because i
don’t like to think about my mistakes I actually like this respect my mistakes
it’s a very interesting thing like I recognize them right but I give them no fucking energy
like I really like cool mistake you go over there right to you but no question
my biggest mistakes of the things that I passed on and and done no like it was interesting to
think about like that did not happen right like I could have been a judge on
Top Chef I could have done all these other
business shows like there’s a lot of things you know that i always think
about the things that I haven’t done the investing right I’ve done well but
passing on twenty twice was the clear one window to
everybody but everybody having that all right let’s go daniela asks I’m an immigrant with an
entrepreneurial dream all my parents

So, the question to you
is very business-related. – Please. – As you know, we built
something similar to you, we got inspired off of Crush It! – Yes, yes. – So, did the same
thing, did a lot of jobs, put in a lot of work over the years. – Built leverage. – Yeah, built leverage,
put the trust in the brand. – We have a substantial
business now in seven figures. – But, now that, it’s been
a couple years we’ve kind of stagnated.
– Yeah. – Because, so. – Happens all the time. – So my question to you is, and I think, one of the weaknesses
here, is actually scaling, because we tried to do
everything ourselves, we have a small team,
but how do you actually build that team with you, and
the most important question is that, how do you build
and maintain that culture and that, that love that, the same love that you have for the business, – In other people? – In other people. – (laughs) This is a very, this is a very eastern European question,
is very common things that. So, the answer is, you don’t. If you expect somebody
else to love your business as much as you, you two are
out of your (beep)in’ mind. And, this is something
I tried to teach my dad. As a young kid, I’m like,
Dad, you own the business. How the hell do you want them to love this as much as you do? What you need to do is
several different things. First of all, thank you
for asking me the question. I lived it. I did it at Wine Library,
from people that are more like you. You guys went to zero to
something just like my Pop’s. And how I scaled it was, I
taught him these pillars. And I taught him these pillars. Which is, number one, get over that. It’s over. They’re never going to
love it as much as you. If you’re lucky enough, like I find, like that amazing man behind you, if you can find people that can
love it 8.5 as much of a 10, 9.2 as much of a 10, 9.7 on a holy grail moment out of 10, well then, you’ve won. So, that’s never gonna happen,
and it’s actually completely, completely disrespectful
for you to even want that from somebody else,
’cause you never loved somebody else’s business as
much as you love your own. So, why are you going to try
to make somebody else do that? Number one. Number two, the biggest mistake
people make at this point is you start wanting to cash
in on some of the fruits of this amazing hard work. It’s a little bit more exciting to dress a little bit better, to
live at a better place, to take a vacation, to
do all these things. I get it. The way to scale and grow
is to have the dollars to continue to scale and grow. If you’re doing everything yourself, there’s a couple reasons. One, you’re a perfectionist
and don’t think anybody else can do it. Two, you see other people do it and they do it as an eight to your 10, and that’s not good enough. Three, you do not want to
deploy the money because you want to use those
monies for other things for yourselves and other things. All three are massive vulnerabilities. Fix those three, and you’ll grow. I run my businesses the first five, 10 years of their lives at no profit. And I did it, and people
can say, now, easy for you. Bullshit. I was 28 years old, I
build a humongous business, and I was making $40,000 a year. I had friends that were half
me and a hundredth of me making more money, had better
cars, were having more fun, I was 28 years old, making $40,000 a year, and I build a $30 million
business at that point. That’s eating your own dog food. So, get over yourselves,
and be thankful that people want to work for you, and get
them to an eight or a nine, and you get them to an eight
or nine, by loving them more. What you did for your audience, you need to do for your
employees 10 times more. Biggest mistake entrepreneurs make, they treat their employees worse than they treat their customers. Biggest mistake. Treat them better than
you treated your audience. Then they’ll get from a six to
an eight, and that’s amazing. They’ll never get to a 10. It’s not their business. Number two, decide how much
you want to live great now versus every dollar, every dollar, you take that trip to
Spain, is three dollars less that you make three years from now. – Well, what if you have
still substantial money after vacations, after
everything, and you– – Invest it. – And into? – People. – But, people, how do you
find these people who are still eight even or a seven? – But easy, because you
need to treat them better, because you’ve got them,
you just need to change the way you treated them. And, if they don’t get
there after you treat them way better, you fire
them, and you find people who do react to you giving them more value than they’re providing you. – Cool. – You understand?
– Yeah. – Really?
– Not fully. – So, that’s why I’m not letting you go. Here’s my thing: you kick it. So, how many employees do you guys have? – Uh, around the world, seven right now. – Great, you need to really vet them, the number one thing I
would do if I were you is, I would call them right
after the show, and say, What can I do to make
this much better for you? – We do that. – Good, good. Do you deliver on everyone? – Yeah.
– Great. Well then, you should
be having no problem. Then, then, I’m a little
bit more confused. Then, either you have not
built up enough trust with them for them to tell you the truth, or, you’re just not hiring fast enough. – We’re not hiring fast enough.
– Good. – ‘Cause no, because we’re,
we’re, we’re trying to have everybody be like fully 10. – So, you know, (laughs) – [Alex] We want Eric’s– – [Gary] Eric, Eric was
what number in place, 17? 17. He watched Vayner go from 17 to 200, then, for personal
reasons, he went to Boston. He’s back now, and we’re 600. What Eric can tell you
(laughs), all the VaynerMedia employees from 17 to
200, stick with me here, this is not an insult, he
knows how many four, five, six, seven and eights. You need four, five, six, seven
and eights when you’re big. You can’t make seven 10’s,
that’s not how you scale and win. That’s the secret. It’s not about you guys
getting seven people to a 10, it’s about you hiring 40 people at eights. So how about this, here is
the last question, follow-up.

“you were wrong and how did you handle it?” – Kyle this is a great
question damn it Stunwin. I’m wrong a lot. I don’t talk about being wrong a lot because here’s the secret weapon. Guys it’s taken 141 episodes to get to the secret weapon. Stunwin the secret weapon
to why I am the way I am. Staphon I need massive
graphics right now. Give me some like rockets coming up here. Secret weapon (whistles)
(rocket engines roaring) I am wrong so much it’s kind of scary. But for some unknown reason, I haven’t fully quantified
this, I’m not capable of giving it much thought and actually spend zero
time post gaming it. I don’t microanalyze for hours, days, weeks, months, years and this is for some of
you out there, lives. For your whole life, you’re microanalyzing why you made that mistake. You know here’s a good mistake. I passed on Uber’s angel round
and left 200 million dollars cold hard cash out of my pocket in a world where my game is being a business man. I would argue that my biggest mistake is disproportionately bigger
than any of my victories. I just don’t you know, I’m
just not crippled by it. I have friends who passed on things and they just can’t ever
get over it, get over it. So, what was my last mistake? I probably made one in my last meeting. I’m probably making one right now. I make tons of wrong hires,
I say things that don’t sell in a meeting, I make bad investments, I make wrong strategies. I started four massive initiatives for VaynerMedia this year,
two crush, two are failing. Like, I mean, I you know, I make mistakes all day. I just don’t respect my mistakes. – [Voiceover] Best wine club asks,

– What’s the unforgivable
sin that one of my employ, I mean, actually there’s a lot
of things that I really think are very important to me in
like, not lines in the sand, but you know, what’s
interesting is, it’s funny, hustle and people, I’m
not worried about people’s work ethic, you know it’s funny, actually I’ve been thinking about DRock, Staphon, I’ve been thinking about
making a video, actually about hustle may be my super power, right, but it doesn’t have to be yours. Right back to everybody’s
strength and weaknesses. Mine just, you know, I’m
a little bit concerned that a lot of you who are watching this, you know, you hear my mantra
of hard work, 24/7/365, and you start trying
to force yourself into going into that direction
and really I’m just speaking to the small group
of people that are watching or listening to the show
that actually have that skill of being able to, when they’re passionate, work their faces off and that is one of the competitive advantages. One of my favorites,
mine, in a lot of ways, but it doesn’t have to be yours. So, you know, it’s funny
how the question was asked because I think it’s a leading question to, you know, if they only
work like Steve, right, you know, if they work
like Steve here, right. So, you know, that’s not
the issue at hand at all. I think the only sin and the
quickest way to get fired from VaynerMedia is to
not figure out a way to play nice with the other boys and girls that you work with. To me, the number one thing that I judge VaynerMedia employees
on is how they interact with every other VaynerMedia employee. Some people in the
organization are really good at leading their teams. They have 12, 15 people and
their team loves them to death and they love their team to death. However, cross department,
if they’re on account with creative or with
the paid team or with IT or the video production
team, they’re not as good. They’re fighting just for their team and they’re burning bridges
in those departments. Not good. Other people are tremendous with clients and are great with the
other senior people, but they’re not treating the people underneath them with the respect and their team doesn’t
love working for them or micromanaging them and so. You know, managing styles don’t bother me. People have to learn their
cadence on micromanaging versus giving people air
cover, but being disrespectful or being selfish to what’s
in your best interest, not the logo’s interest as a
whole, within the organization, to me, is just completely unacceptable. Letting your emotions get the
best of you and talking down to somebody or creating
conflict, unacceptable. So, those are the things that are the sins within my environment.

– [Voiceover] Paul asks,
(hip-hop music) “How do you ‘diplomatically’ tell the BOSS “he’s F’ing it up?!?!?!” – Paul that’s a good question. I massively overvalue
the people in my company who are comfortable enough in saying like, “Hey, Gary, I don’t
disagree with you now.” A lot of them walk into a
buzzsaw because they’re wrong and then they get clowned. So you better make sure you’re right about the boss being wrong, right? And so, but I think any great
boss will be super pumped if you’re willing to respectfully
point out things that you massively disagree with. And I think it’s a win,
win situation for you if you go down that route
because if you think about it, if you give that feedback to the boss and the boss… agrees with you, maybe she or
he knew that you were right, you’ve won points. If they don’t and they
completely disrespect you and the others within the organization that try to give feedback, well then now you know you work for a dipshit boss and you should
be looking for another job. So to me there’s really almost no risk in going down the route of
giving critical feedback to your boss. Especially if you don’t
love, love, love your job. And more importantly,
it’s an amazing proxy to audit your boss which I
think is massively important if you’ve decided to put your career into the leadership of an individual. Yeah let’s just move
like, let’s just move.

“How do you balance
speed/hustle and patience?” Johannes is such a great name. I really like that one. It’s like Johanne and Pocahontas. (laughing offscreen) No, seriously. (multiple people speaking
at once offscreen) You weren’t thinking that? That’s what I was thinking. I was thinking that Johan Santana was dating Pocahontas and they were known as a couple as Johanntes. (person speaking indistinctly offscreen) Johan said there’s a real baseball player, leftie, and Pocahontas
is obviously Pocahontas. Okay, let’s go to it. (laughing offscreen) Obviously, this is. (laughing) I got it, Johannes. Right? – [Voiceover] (mumbles) (laughing) This is the best question
because the truth is I really believe that I’m a bridge, right? I’m pulling equally, very aggressively from both sides. That I’m a human contradiction. That if you really watch this show and it throws people off, as they get deeper into my content, that oftentimes I’m saying things that contradict themselves
’cause the truth is they both live in real
life at the same time and it’s about finding
that cadence and balance to guide through. I am massively, at a
global level, patient. But on a practical level,
and an execution level, I’m very fast, right? So it’s really, it really is
religion and church, right? Like at the highest,
like at the theoretical, at the, at the grey levels
of patient, long game, I’m aware that as long as I’m alive, I’m playing the businessman game and it doesn’t end tomorrow and if it ends tomorrow, I don’t know the outcome
anyway ’cause I’m dead. Right? And so, but in real life, I understand it’s a race and speed is a variable for
success to me in a big way. Hustle, and so like they’re, patience and speed are very much rubbing against each other but it’s like the diamond
comes from that, right? And so that’s the thing
that I think about. I find it very easy to do both. You have to understand, there’s people that are both in practical
and philosophical terms, and they have different outcomes. AKA there’s people that philosophically are not patient. They’re impatient. And they’re fast. And they look like the bad
version of what I am, right? They’re like hustlers and they’re like doing everything for themselves and they’re not patient. They don’t care about the long game and they’re just gonna take and they’re just gonna
take and take and take and gonna take fast and they’re gonna gather and I think that society,
the game rewards them and there’s a lot of
millionaires and billionaires that didn’t do it the right way and that’s what I think they look like. Then there’s a lot of people that are massively patient and slow, and those are the
enormous amount of people that, you know, in a business context, not in life, they’re probably some of the loveliest human beings that have ever been made because they’re slow and they’re patient and everything’s just lovely and let’s just like sit on the porch and, you know, drink peach tea for the rest of our
lives and like go slow. Just go real slow. Like let’s sit and look at stuff. Like let’s sit on the porch and look. Like look at stuff. Like a car just drove by. Great. Like I mean that, you know, is not interesting to me, either, and so that exists. So I actually think
what I do exists a lot. I think it’s the likable,
you know, aggressive person. And that’s, you know, they’re out there and there’s a lot of winners
that are good people. I really think that. If you look at my analogies, the speed part is really valuable, right? Like if you’re speedy and
selfish and impatient, you know, I think the other thing about the lack of patience and fast, you don’t have to be a bad person. I think it leads to mistakes. Right? That’s another variable layer here. You know, it’s funny that my brain went that first narrative. Here’s a second narrative. You’re going fast, you’re not patient, so you rush the outcome and you leave money on the table. You sold a company too soon. You weren’t as profitable as you could’ve been
because you missed things ’cause you didn’t see it
’cause you weren’t tactful. And so, you know, I think
it has essence of strategy. You know, somebody once said to me about Vayner, “Gary, you guys are so interesting.” He was trying to zing me a little bit, that we weren’t strategic enough. He said, “You’re so interesting,” but he’s like, “When
you get into the house, “I feel like a lot of times you guys “just run through the glass window “instead of opening the door.” It was a funny analogy. And then I looked at him and said, “Yeah, but we’re gonna own all the homes.” (laughing offscreen) I guess that’s a good way to end it. – [India] That’s good.

“the biggest mistakes you see young, “20-year-old entrepreneurs
such as myself making?” – Jack-Henry, there are
so many damn mistakes you’re making, you youngsters,
that this actual show would take the rest of
my life if I decided to list them all. On the flip side, there’s
so many incredible 21-year-old entrepreneurs, I mean, I don’t wanna stand up
here as the old dude and be like you kids,
you millennials are doing all these things wrong. I think there’s market conditions. I think market conditions
right now for youngsters are not creating strong
disciplines in business. it’s so easy to do a startup, it’s so easy to raise money, that a
lot of people are just not, you know, when you’re a 21-year-old, and literally the last,
even hardcore economic issue was in 2008, jeez, you were 14 when that hit the fan. That’s insane, by the way, to me. Number two, like you
just have never lived it. it’s always been good
for you John-dash-Henry, it’s always been good
for all the 21-year-olds. It’s always been what I
call peace-time generals, and I think to be a great
business woman or man you need to be a war-time general as well. Talk to me. You know what’s gonna be fun? Episode 697 of the #AskGaryVee Show when the stock market
collapsed and when money is not flowing, and when
there’s some geopolitical event that’s changing the
landscape, and not everybody’s writing a, oh I should invest in the next Facebook and Uber. Then entrepreneurs are
gonna really rise to the top that are real ones, not fake ones, and I think that not
understanding the principles of building teams, building good product, knowing how to sell, these things that have been thematic
through these hundred episodes, that’s when they matter. So my friends, if you’ve been confused, let me un-confuse you. I’ve been doing this show
for the future moments, not right now. These hundred episodes,
they’re not about right now. They’re about what’s coming. And what’s coming is bad times, and then good times, and then bad times and then good times and then bad times. Staats, say it with me. Bad times. – Bad times. – Then good times. – Then good times. – Then bad times. – Then bad times. – Thanks, Staats. That is what’s coming, my friends. You haven’t felt the effects
of that chant, India?

“you see people making in social media? “Is there something you’ve
seen that impresses you?” – Chef, it’s great to
have you back on the show. I like how you’re leading the question. I know you me to say something
about the VaynerNation on Meerkat, but I won’t do that for you. So I haven’t seen anything
that’s impressed me, because I’m not paying
attention to anybody, so I have no idea. As far as what are people doing wrong, equally, I’ve been so head
down over the last four to five months, I’ve not
been paying close attention. My intuition is that people
are still doing a very bad job. On Twitter, I see nothing but right hooks. On Facebook, I see very bland, non-contextual, non-targeted content. I think people are… I think Instagram is
probably been the place where there’s been the most innovation. People are trying a lot of
different things cause of scale. I think Snapchat, there’s
some people putting together some great stories, so I think
the cool stuff’s happening on Instagram and Snapchat,
which is too bad, because Facebook is still the juggernaut. I think Pinterest,
Promoted Pins, I’ve been seeing some really interesting stuff. Faithbox, an incubated company here, Willie’s been hitting some pay dirt there. I’m really impressed with him. It’s a little humble
brag of our own thing, but I apologize. It’s the only things
I’m paying attention to. Truth is, I’m just not
paying attention enough, because I don’t need to because
I know exactly what to do, and that’s what I’m focusing
on, and that’s that.

“Are there any common mistakes you repeat “over and over again? “Either way, any tips
for overcoming them?” – Dan, I think I repeat all my
mistakes over and over again. First of all, my thesis on life is scaling the unscalable, which is one big mistake in itself. We just had a meeting with the whole crew about all the mistakes I’m making, bottle of, bottom of the funnel things. So you know, like, you know, I’m a big believer of betting
on strengths, not weaknesses, you know, you try to get better as you go through the process and go along. I don’t know if I’m the
right person to answer this. I repeat a lot of mistakes. I continue to always, I have good moments for a year or two or a month of two of not trying to bite off
more than I can chew, but then I get right into it. For all the process and scalability, I continue to create things that allow me to be the bottleneck, though I think this crew and I are doing a good job of hacking away and we have an ambition
for ’15 to be better at it in my limited time world. You know, I… But, really, these are
all hard questions for me because I really struggle to think about what I’m bad at because I spend all my time
thinking about what I’m great at and those are a lot of things. And that’s where I put my energy and time and that’s why I think
I get the permission and the luxury and the awesome feeling
of having so many of you watch this show, betting on strengths is
the grossly underestimated execution of our time. And that’s what I do and I do it well, and so I answered it out of
being a cordial human being, but the truth is, I don’t give a rat’s
ass about my weaknesses. I surely don’t know how to fix them because I don’t focus on them much.