– [Man] Yo!
– [Gary] What up? – [Man] Gary, this is
Josh Easton, how are you? – Good Josh. How are you?
– [Josh] Pretty good. Hey man, I just noticed you’re
wrapping up your show so do you still have time for a question? – I’m not wrapping up,
I’m finished. – [Josh] You’re finished. – But I got good news I’m gonna
sneak in this question for you. So?
– [Josh] Alright. – What is it? Fast! This has to be the fastest
question and answer all time. Go! – I own two businesses,
I’ll keep it brief. When do you decide if you
start a business, I have two right now. One of them have dropped
passion in my partners don’t really have there
drive to keep going on. – Yep. – [Josh] At what point do you
decide to throw in the towel and how exactly have you ever had
any situation where you found yourself–
– Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been in a lot of
businesses where I was the minority partner non-driver of
the business that have failed. And the way I do it is I just
take it for a loss and I chalk it up. You try to sell it for whatever
scraps it’s worth or sell it back to your partners
that are running it or you just walk away. It is a zero. It’s over.
It’s done. Or if you feel like crap but
I work seven years it’s worth real money, you sell it. And you sell it from a
non-leveraged position which means you get less money for
it but it’s still okay because clearly by the tone of your
voice and the fact that you know passion for number
one you got to let go. – [Josh] You work 90 hours a
week and it gets tough to spread it between two places making sure
your time is in the right place. – Yeah. The real question is how
much money are you going to lose and are you willing to lose it? A lot of times what people don’t
realize they don’t lose the $40,000 or $5000 or $500 million
and they can make 700 million or 5000 times if you get back your
40 hours from that thing or 30 or 20 or even 10 you might make
more money deploying against a thing you care about the
money you left on the table. So XYZ you’re leaving hundred
thousand that you’re giving up and you’re like shit I
can’t give that up but we don’t realize of the 18 hour backs and
happiness and not the drain and emotional drain of the hundred
hours a week on the other thing allows you to make
120,000 on your new gig. – [Josh] Yeah, that’s
exactly where I’m at. How much more money can
I make of another business if I designate more time to it? – You know the answer.
You know the answer. – [Josh] Yeah, yeah, no
it’s totally clear now. Never start businesses
with friends with either. – No. Not true. Always start businesses with
friends if you can pull it off. – [Josh] Get everything in writing. Listen it didn’t work out.
It’s a life lesson, right? But, you know, that’s
the fucking game baby. This is entrepreneurship. – [Josh] Yeah, I know.
– What? It is India. – [India] No! It’s the beeps!
– Oh, the beeps funny to you. Alright I got to
go bro, I love you. – [Josh] Alright, thanks man.
– See ya. – [DRock] Here, your phone. – [Phone] Call from unknown caller.
To accept press one.

Oh my god.
(laughter) – Who is this?
– [Phone] This is Dante. – Dante what’s up?
– [Dante] What’s up? – Where you from Dante? – [Dante] I’m from
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. – Milwaukee in the house.
Are you a huge Brewers fan? – [Dante] I’m not as
big of a Brewers fan. I’m actually a
Baltimore Ravens fan. – Nice. Okay. Respect.
What is your question, brother? – [Dante] Okay, all right. All right, I have
so many questions. Let me think of my first one.
This is my perfect question. I started a business not
too long ago called Forensics Forever.
– Okay. – I work with elementary schools
and I do workshops that are pertinent to forensics or
speech and debate if you’re familiar with that.
– Yes, I am. – One of the hardest things to
do is to get into the schools and provide those workshops.
– Yes. – Because it’s like
really hard to do. – ‘Cause it’s politics and
bureaucratic and god damn principals and superintendents
that all suck and are average. Not all of you but
the most of you. – [Dante] I really want to
change the educational system up so first of all let me throw a
quick plug in and say if you’re an elementary school principal,
you want to work with me, hit me up.
– Great right hook. – A little right hook. And also how though how do
I get past those gatekeepers? – Easy. Content. Dante, the best way to
sell is to not sell. The best way in the world to
sell is to have people come to you instead of
you going to them. Put out content. Write an article on medium six
mistakes a superintendent makes. Then post it and then spent 100
bucks on amplifying the ad in Milwaukee in that general
area and I guarantee four superintendents and
teachers will pass it on. It’s put out content. Film the stuff
that you can film. Some of it will be
private and you can’t. The answer, Dante, the full
answer is making content that’s a gateway drug to penetrate
the decision-makers in school systems. Got it?
– [Dante] Yes. Okay last part with this
question then, how do I do that with no money? – Can you write?
Can you write? – [Dante] I’m okay. – So I would audio because
I like the way you talk. I would do SoundCloud posts I would post them on
your Facebook page. You might have one fan right now
and then I would reach out to everybody you know and ask them
to share it in Milwaukee and literally ghetto.
Like I used to do it. Go to Twitter and search people
talking about your subject matters and reply to them. Money is a tricky thing.
Money tricks people. People think they
think they need money. You don’t need money you
need hustle and/or money. If you want it I don’t want to
hear you fucking watching Ravens at Monday night, well
actually you do because you do gotta watch your football team,
but after that you gotta stay up to 2 o’clock in the morning. You can go to Twitter search
search the 5 mile radius of Milwaukee and hit up anybody
talking about school issues. You can put out content
rally up all of your friends, all 47 people. Your fucking auntie. I don’t give
a shit and ask her to share it and it starts. It starts.
You gotta start from the bottom. – [Dante] Okay, okay.
Definite. Definite. – Alright, Dante get it.
See ya. Bye. – [India] 130 people watching in
360 and people are asking to get

For an early stage startup that
just received 500,000, 600,000 or $1 million in capital, what
are the critical things they should be looking to address? – These guys have
a great company. Let’s make sure we link up
both Ace’s and their company and Plum’s company in
my description. Staphon make sure you
team up with Sam on that. Well look I mean first and
foremost, you don’t blow it. The amount of people that
have blown through their five or 600, million in cash because
they didn’t have a strategy of what they were going to do
with money is unbelievable. It’s unbelievable how much cash
and wallet is just burning for so many startup
founders it’s quite said. So I think you have to have a
real plan for it and again no different than the first
question on this episode, you have to have a strategy on
where you’re going to deploy it. What are your biggest needs? To me I like to invest in
things that bring back dollars in the midterm. I don’t need the short term but
I don’t need the longest term. I think sometimes
people are too… It’s funny, ideas are shit until
execution I like to say a lot because I think most
founders get caught on one side or the other. Some founders take $500,000
and they want that 500,000 to make them 800,000. It’s all transactional.
Sales, conversion. Other founders start thinking
about what their company needs in three years. In three years, we’re going to
need video editing software so let’s buy that now and you
didn’t get to three years. By the time that you spent all
the money that was what created this scenario you never getting
to those three years from now. I think much like marketing in
the year that you live in, day trading attention, some
of my marketing principles, I deploy in my
operating principles. What is the most important
thing with that money right this second that isn’t short-term
sales turn 500 into 600,000 but what is not the were going to
need this in three years so let’s spend it? By the way furniture and rent
and all these things that’s where people waste money. AJ and I started
this company in a conference room
of another company. This is not a
super fancy office. Right? Yeah.
It’s good. I’m happy about that. This is actually pretty fancy
compared to where we were a year ago so like people just waste
money on a lot of things that don’t matter. Now, it can’t be so screwed
up here that people don’t want to come here. But we don’t need $8000
recliner chairs for everybody and that’s what a lot
of startups do. It’s crazy. They spend more time and energy
on like how fancy this coffee machine is gonna be than
actually building a god damn business. So what you do with it? You better know what to
do with it or your startup is in deep shit. Don’t ask GaryVee, I hate
third person, don’t ask me. Figure out what to do with it. Make it practical as hell
because that money will disappear fast and the only
thing that will disappear faster is your hopes and dreams about
your business if you don’t know what to do with it.

First, I want to thank you for
your overnight sensation video. All your stuff is great but the
overnight sensation video when I get discouraged I watch
it and it kicks my ass. Thank you. The nonprofit sector is broken.
Money controls everything. And for the nonprofit sector to
change and there hasn’t been a unique idea, a brilliant idea,
a disruptive idea in so, so long. It needs to change. And one of the examples that I
like to use his coffee kiosks. Here’s a coffee
kiosk at YouTube. At Google they’re
at every 150 feet. They’re common at most startups. Free yogurt, free milk
and free Red Bull and all kinds of free stuff. Here’s our coffee kiosk. I’m CMO of a large
nonprofit upstate New York. It’s not that we don’t care any
less about our employees, it’s there’s no funding. There’s no funding
for even free coffee. So the problem is the top
and how do we change that? How do we get funders to
have a startup mentality? If you look at the startup world
Twitter, Uber, Airbnb these are ideas that might be considered
radical different disruptive but somebody funded them and
they funded free coffee along with it. We are not gonna see change in
the non-profit sector until the funding streams change that
empower us to do the work. How can those of us in the
nonprofit sector that care how can we explain that? How can we affect change? How can this top-down change
come into the nonprofit sector? – Want me to take a
shot at this one? The answer to that is
you got to be blunt. You’ve got to go out
and finds some angels. Some people that you have reason
to believe are interested in your non-for-profit and have
some funds and have some ability may be to have a store, maybe to
have to money or something and you have to get them and you
have to be frank with them and do just what you’re saying. We’re trying to do all the
things we got all these people volunteering but we need
some startup money here. We need some angel to help us
get through this until we can have a larger thing. If you beat around the bush with
people they’ll say well I’ll give you small gift. No, no I really need
your help. Big help. – I got something
to add on this. You mentioned Uber,
Airbnb and Twitter. These are the top
.01% of startups. I know many startups this
startup, my company, started in the conference room of another
company and I guess we stole their free coffee and things of
that nature but the interesting thing is Robin Hood and
many other organizations have a lot of money. They have a lot of money. My biggest problem is there’s
a lot of NGOs that I know that have a lot of money and are
wasting it or not deploying enough of percentage against the
right thing so I think that we need to be a little
bit careful here. There’s thousands of startups
that don’t have free coffee. You’re also talking
about people being incentivized by capitalism. The reason people write checks
to Google and Uber and Airbnb is ’cause they want
to make money back. And I think you need to play
the reverse game in NGO which is much like the narrative of
your life and I’ve always known, since I was a young man
because I always believed I’d be successful. That the things I would capture
my attention though I became very involved in Charity: Water
and very involved in Pencils of Promise and through
Matt Higgins have been involved with you guys and done stuff
here for Vayner for you guys as well with Autism Speaks. – Matt Higgins is on our board. – I’m very aware. I know with all that being said
that the things that get the most of my attention will be
the things that affect me. Now I can finally say it
because very recently my brother announced, my partner in this
company, VaynerMedia, that he’s going to be leaving in a month
’cause he has Crohn’s disease. The pressure of it all is the
one thing he just want to be proactive luckily
everything’s okay. He’s just projecting
and being smart. That is something that’s pulling
my heart the same with my money investing in a company pulls at
my wallet, Crohn’s is going to pull in my heart
because it affects me. You need to go out and find the
things that you’re solving for, who are the 500, 5,000
wealthiest, that’s the truth, people that are affected
by the issue because your conversion rate is
gonna be better. I don’t accept and I love you
and thank you for watching the show but I do not accept this
notion that you have to compare yourself to the five or six
biggest Internet companies in the world where I can take this
camera with Staphon right now and walk down the street and
show you real shitty offices from startups that didn’t get
that funding and are grinding and guess what Google, and I
was at Twitter, I was at Twitter when there was 11
people at that office. It looked like crap. After they won it look nicer. Google tried to sell their
company for a couple hundred thousand dollars to Yahoo. Their office wasn’t
amazing at the time. We need to be careful of how we
contextualize ourselves as well. India.

said we are now charging for your
username would you pay to keep it matters to west at Jimmy Kimmel think it
matters like what are they gonna charge like if if if I dot com came out it was
the next big thing I want to be on it worth banker or if if the snapshot even
came around and said look we were out and we all know the names and if you
want gary b ecause you’re one of the people that we’ve deemed 50,000 people
that has a reasonable to them that we’re gonna charge you a hundred bucks a year
for it you know I actually don’t think it matters meaning what I paid sure what
a lot of you pay it no would hold back the after winning maybe I don’t think
any would ever take the chance to not become a big platform because a lot of
people wouldn’t sign up for it because those people were upset that somebody
was charging for them the and so I think the PR standpoint and a branding and
positioning standpoint most absurd if they do if they have the best product in
the world you pay for it nobody knows what would I pay Rachel
actively probably yeah probably and I wouldn’t give a crap about it like you
know what are they going to charge you can’t charge enough you know what i mean
they’re not the internet they’re not gonna meaning like every one of them is
too smart and is too big of a business to sit there and say ok like why would
they charge Facebook makes a billion dollars a quarter you think they want to
take the vulnerability to make an extra fifty million dollars top-line revenue
and listen to me and I’m not dressing and you theres just sometimes not a good
understanding of Big Mac pro-business behaviors like let’s just bring it down
you think Facebook how much revenue think this will be able to make and
charging for the exact what’s the most you think somebody can charge a human
forget about pepsi for the need for a year and let’s get to it what a month for over 500 bucks big
fucking deal in the scheme of things I’m in the top 10% of 1% I don’t know of
humans with fan bases right like there’s no money in it so like the problem that
a lot of people do is they think about it too much of a micro level there’s no
money in its own level up thinking Jimmy and crew like cool yes but never happen
because it would break the border ability is so much greater than the top
line revenue when they’re making revenue in other areas theoretically yes no it doesn’t matter I
mean the question matters you may appreciate I think it’s a good
opportunity to lessen up for the masses of like you gotta understand the reason
we’re good salesman as i understand what person wants another reverse engineer it
right this money it’s a business that money is not more valuable than the
vulnerability that they put on their other monies to I’m spending more money
on a Facebook ad today on Facebook and charged me for the year for the name so
why would a credible and believe me getting emotional that they pulled the
rug from underneath me and left a platform right kind of thinking yeah
garry so has this credit copeland here

“price objections when
attempting to close a sale?” – I assume price objections
mean that you’re asking for too much money and they
don’t want to pay that? What’s your take on that, Danielle? It’s not an easy show, to
just come and get to read and check out. – Are you sure? – Yes, I’m very sure. – I guess I would say if you
give them a dollar value, kind of like we do here when we give statements of work to clients
where they approve it, they come back with requests to take down or gets higher. – Do they ever request
to charge them more? – Sometimes they ask for more things, and then you do change orders, and you do get more money that way. – Love it! Look, I think it’s moments in time. Early on, when I was
building Vayner and I needed a leverage of clients and
logos to tell people, yes, it’s not just I did it for
myself and my family business, but for, at the time,
Campbell’s, the NHL, Pepsi, that mattered, and so I
was willing to take less. We’ve talked about spec work ad nausea if you watch the show. The DRock story. So I think it’s a leverage game, right? Like who has the leverage, and so I think that every transaction
has its own cadence. There is no blanket statement here. You have to understand
what your product is worth, but you also have to
think, and this is where romance kills people. You say that you’re worth $150 an hour, and you don’t quantify that
you need this client right now because there isn’t good deal flow, or you want to buy a ring for your girl, or you need to do different things besides just shoot weddings
because you want to show a better portfolio to get other business. People are not using other
variables and they go well I’m worth $1.50! Fuck you! You’re worth $1.50 in your head, the market decides what you’re worth. You’re worth $1.50 if
people will pay you $1.50, consistently, always, always and forever. You’re not worth that, look,
there was two years ago where I prematurely tried to
raise my speaking fee higher, and the market was like that’s great Gary, and you’re the best speaker ever, and this and that, but that is just not where your price is at,
and so you’re not entitled to anything other than
what the people that are buying your stuff agree to. What you need to be smart
about is understanding when’s the right time to negotiate down because it’s in your best
interests, or when are you negotiating down for no reason at all and you’re declining your value. That’s on you. That’s
being a good salesperson. That’s being a good operator. So, I think that everybody
here needs to have a balance of both. You have to pull from opposite directions. When is it in your vested interests? And then you deploy humilty
Kool Aid at scale, right? The amount of times I will deploy humility in a world where my ego
is on fire is off the, you know what, Staphon, I want fire here. Ego fire. Give me ego fire. I’ve got nothing but ego and bravado, but there’s plenty of
times I deploy humility ’cause that’s what that
moment’s game needs to be successful, and so I would tell you to not deploy romance. This is this and that. Deploy practicality of the moment.

“What are your thoughts on the future “of mobile credit services?” – Yeah, I think that um, (laughs) this is, I mean, there’s a
vine out there by the way of me like on the toilet, I
don’t know if people know this. But this is starting to
feel like a really bad idea. I think that, I think the
wallet will be eliminated and that we will all pay
with our mobile devices, maybe with our fingerprints,
but the wallet is antiquated, it’s like a magazine, it’s
like carving in the caves. And I think over the next 10 years technology will be really in a place where we can go full throttle
on electronic payments. Obviously there’s the Blockchain and all that world with bitcoin. There’s also the fact
of my historic behavior. Four years ago, maybe five, I invested in Venmo, maybe six. So I’ve been on this kick for a while, I’m big believer, and
I think with Apple Pay you’re seeing more behavior around this and I’m extremely bullish,
so if you’re playing in a space that is like, you
make portraits for wallets or you make wallets, that’s something to be concerned about
over the next decade, and even on the flip
side, if you can support an ecosystem where people
don’t carry wallets, so like, what’s the chatchka
that needs to be made, in a world where your phone
is really your payment thing, so like, what’s the official Beats by Dre license carrier with the
phone 36 months from now that like is the hot shit that
everybody’s got on the ‘Gram or whatever anybody’s paying
attention to in 36 months, that’s where I’d be using this wave as an entrepreneurial venture opportunity. – Oh yeah, we gotta respect
Mike in this scenario.

– Hi, I’m Jane Lopes. I’m a sommelier at Eleven Madison Park. My question for Gary is with all the recent press on sommeliers in the last few years, what do you think that’s
gonna do to the industry for consumers, for wine, for restaurants. Is it ultimately a good or a bad thing? – Kind of similar to the last question. Kind of similar to the
last question, Jane. I’ll just, it is what it
is, the serendipity of it. I think it’s a good and a bad thing. I think it comes down to you, Jane, and all the other people. With greater power and leverage… Money and exposure. I do not believe that money
and fame change anybody. I think it just exposes who
that person actually is. So, do I think more
exposure around you, Jane, and all the other, your
cast mates on this show, is good, bad, or indifferent
for the end consumer? I think it comes down to you guys. So Jane, you might be
awesome about it, right? You may have a bunch of young people, 16-year-olds in New York,
going to the kind of place that you work at, you know,
may ask you a question and look up to you and say, “I wanna be like you one day.” And you could be encouraging, or you could be a jerk about it, right? Like, it’s like, it’s just how you play this newfound exposure fame leverage, people looking at you differently, and so if you say that, “Oh my God, “now I’m important,” and
you become more douchey, like that has happened
in so many industries, art, music, wine, food, well then that’s bad for the consumer because now we’re suppressing people. If you take your found leverage and you encourage people
and you use it to teach them about different wines and you get people to start drinking chinion
from the Loire Valley like my agenda was, or Portugese wines or all this amazing thing? Well then you’re doing a
great thing for the consumer because the more different
kinds of wines they taste, the more they’re gonna
appreciate this incredible thing that we’re all passionate about. So, I think it comes down
to the individual somm. And so there’s six, right? So right, so two of you
may be incredible about it, three of you might be average about it, one of you might be a jerk about it, and then that’s what the net
score is for the end consumer. – [Steve] Great, last one

I’m the wine director of Marta Restaurant, and my question is what
do you think the impact of the recent news of
Union Square Hospitality moving away from tipping will
have on New York in general or the industry as a whole? – This is a really
interesting conversation. Ben, the CEO of Resy,
an app I’m involved in, had a great discussion
with some thought leaders in the restaurant space around this. It’s very fascinating. My, so I think Danny is amazing and always innovating and
doing incredible things and I think it’s amazing
that he’s doing something that I think really
takes care of his staff and his internal culture. I think it’s interesting. You know, I… This is actually not my general thought. This is my, one thing
I do well in marketing is I don’t think about what I’m gonna do, and then think everybody’s gonna do that. It’s been very successful for me. I try to think of the general masses. I have a vibe for that. It’s not what I thought about Twitter. Man, I don’t even like social media. What do you think about that? I don’t know, like if I wasn’t in the marketing and business world, I don’t think I’d be really using it. Like, I never took pictures as a kid. Like, there’s no, why do you think I have no Throwback Thursday pictures? There’s no freakin’ pictures of me in my life, Mom, and so… (mimics camera clicking) That’s a little inside joke with my mom. She made all mental pictures. So I think that, I think that, I think that I personally
am in a weird place because I’m still gonna
tip cash on top of it because it’s just in me. Like, I was a stock boy
that took out boxes, and people gave me tips. It’s so engrained in me. So even though I know I’m paying 21% more, or whatever it is, I’m
gonna probably put more cash just ’cause, and then I’m scared that that’s gonna break the whole system because if people still
arbitrarily do that, then what did you do? You just raised it 21%, but I think the flexibility
that allows organizations, the way you can take care
of people that work for you which will then, in turn,
create better service. I also think that an interesting model could have been just raising
the food prices in general. I think that’s a fascinating thing about the restaurant world. You know, the truth is
I really don’t know. I think that, I wonder
for people that are, I think the economy’s very good right now. I think if tomorrow the Wall Street cats are up to their no good
and shit hits the fan, are people gonna be like, “Well crap, “I don’t wanna go there “’cause I’m paying it 21% vig, “and maybe I’m in 10% tip mode right now?” How do you tip, Steve? – I pretty much 20, just by default. – [Gary] D. Rock? – [DRock] 25? – Really? – [DRock] Yeah, I
double the first number, then add like a few more. – On any kind of bill? – [DRock] Pretty much. – I’ll do like 20% and then
just go up to the next dollar. – [Gary] Got it. Staphon? (mumbles) – There’s my man. Way to go honest. Yeah, I mean, but those
are big numbers, right? Like, those aren’t 15, which
is a lot of what people, older demo pays at 15. – [Steve] Yeah.
– It kinda snuck up. I don’t know. I think it’s a very intriguing model. It’s forcing something on the consumer, which I think is fascinating. I think he has the brand
to get away with it for the people that know. I think a lot of people won’t
even know, won’t even realize. They’ll realize when
there’s no line for a tip, and I’m curious how their reaction will be that they got forced into a tip. Some people get antsy when they’re forced into a tip for six or more. So, I don’t know. I think it’s very individual, and I think there’ll be a lot of positive, definitely in the industry, and there’ll be some negative
from the end consumer. For me personally, it’s just
gonna make it more expensive for me to go to USV places, US, you know, those places so because I’m going to still tip. What are your thoughts, Steve? – I don’t know. – Do you know about it? – Oh yeah, no I’m very familiar with it. I don’t know, like, I came up as an actor, so I know tons of people
in the service industry. So like, whatever ends up
screwing them the least is I think it’s a huge positive. It’s kind of a scary situation to be forced to rely on what’s obviously a
subjective judgment call, but when it’s established
in order to pay rent– – I think the thing that
everybody’s gonna worry about is does the service change, right? Like, do the people
that hustle the most… That’s a real challenge. I think Danny will pull
it off operationally, but I think fast followers won’t, and then you’re not allowing
the best servers to win which eliminates meritocracy, which then creates lowest common courtesy and service. – [Steve] I mean, we don’t
have a tipping structure at VaynerMedia.
– I get it. – [Steve] We don’t have to
worry about, ya know, the– – I totally understand. I think that’s easily handled ’cause you could just fire, right? Like or you could just give raises. I mean there’s, a lot
of people always deploy that while we don’t have
tipping in our thing, sure, you have others
ways to like, ya know. There’s levers in all games, right? I think when, look I mean, this gets into a Unionized conversation. I was born in the Soviet Union. We’ve seen that play out at scale. It’s really hard to
suppress humans, and so… But the truth is on a microlevel, on a Danny Meyer’s establishments level, I have enormous confidence
that he can do it. I very much feel that I could
do very rogue shit at Vayner because it’s only 600 people, It’s only 1000 people,
whatever it’s gonna be that I could pull those levers. At super scale is when
it gets interesting. – [Steve] Next question from Dana Gaiser.

– So. – Actually I’m scared. – Ready? – Yeah. – So VaynerMedia has always been in like, turbo growth mode.
– [Gary] Aw, crap. – [Gary] Yes. – Right, like always. It’s always bring on more clients, hire more people, run out of space, rinse and repeat, right? – Yes. – Do you think there will ever be a time where VaynerMedia prioritizes depth over width in terms of charging more, you know, bigger, fatter — – Scopes? – scopes, and — – Subjective call on the
quality of the output? – Right, or, but then that
laddering up to sort of… – A plateauing of people? – Turning into like big,
huge, lavish benefit packages and things like some agencies get really, really, really
crazy with that, right? Where we’re scrappier, right? – Yup. – And I’m not saying that’s the point — – No, no, no, you’re not. – But do you think Vayner will ever slow down —
– [Gary] You mean like, paying people 200 thousand dollar bonues to be the best creative director
in the world kinda thing? – Well, yeah sure, I guess. – I mean, I’m just, I wanna
quantify that part of it. – Right, exactly. So it’s like depth over
width in terms of like, sheer dollar amounts as
they relate to clients, employees, benefits, all that stuff. And I’m not saying it’s bad right now, by any stretch, right? – Yeah, no. I’m not worried about that. So I think, for me, the way I run my business, which is why I think I’m running a much better business than all these other
agencies that do that, is because I think you can
achieve both in parallel. So I think what I uniquely
as an entrepreneur am good at, is running both trains. So I think you could easily, as, in the context of your question, speak to a very different level of quality in the building from 18 months ago. – Right. – So, if you just project out, if you think about the fact that we didn’t have a single SVP
or real creative director like of any, real’s not fair. A creative director of 10
years or more experience just 18 months ago. – Mmhmm. – That you can see that
happening in parallel. I think that, I think
where it gets disguised is we have people that come
from Gray and Ogilvy and things of that nature. We also have, what’s
been very happy to me, to see Aton and Harry and Pensoot and all these people
leveling up in parallel. What it gets disguised by is the thing that’s much more obvious. What’s much more obvious is
hyper growth of people, right? – Yeah. – It’s just, getting
crammed when we grow, right? What’s less obvious is,
you know, anyone’s ability to really truly dissect 550
people’s depth of skill. – Yeah. – And there’s pockets of clients. You’re always gonna have
variable depending on the people. Plus, hiring the right people. So, to me, the answer is,
it’s happening in parallel. I think the only thing that makes people think that it’s happening,
is stop the hiring process and then they’re like, “Oh! “We’re not going hyper,
we’re going deeper.” – Yeah. – I think we’ve gone stunningly deep in 18 months by two variables. One, bringing the outside
talent in their 30s and 40s, right, depth, which is gray hairs. in a lot of people’s
subjective point of view. And number two, the actual growth of the people that have been at Vayner that are totally different animals. And I think that, for every
individual it’s different. And I also think that for the people that have been here longer, it’s a different context point
than it is for other people. You know, and so, no I mean, I think as long as I’m running the business, I’m never comfortable in thinking one has to be done without the other. I truly feel that you’re
capable to do both. And I think if you project
out what’s happened in the last 18 months on the depth chart, that it’s actually tremendously scalable and gets way deeper
because as you get bigger, you deploy those dollars to those things. – Mmhmm. – And as far as like, benefits
and packages, you know. I’m very weird when it comes to bonuses. I think bonuses, so we’ve
hired two people recently that left their agencies
because of bonuses. Because they felt they deserved more. I think when you have a graying zone of, I get to be the judge
and jury on the bonus, I think what is safer
is to just try to get to a number together. And I think that those
things ebb and flow. I also think that when you’re
in a fast-growing company, what a lot of employees don’t calibrate, ’cause they shouldn’t,
’cause it’s very hard for anybody to care about anything besides what they care
about for themselves, is the notion of what happens in a 36-month window
versus a 12-month window. So I’ve been happy to be honest with you, of getting three to four
emails in the last six months from former employees
who left because of money who now make less money than some of their counterparts here
because VaynerMedia is growing, and we’ve been able to rise all ships, and in their other places they haven’t. And so, those are my answers. – Bonus question. – Please. – How fast do you think
we max out the space at Hudson Yards? – I think we might of already. – Nice. I think, you know, I do think that every company has to bear the negatives that come along with the positives for their individual
self around the person that runs the company. I love insanity. (laughter) I like it. I like when we’re like this. I like when we’re sitting
this close to each other. I like it. And if you are not that, if you’re somebody that really like that, and your space, and this
is where I put this, and this is where I put this, then, you know, Vayner
can be tricky at times. Though, no question, I
think it’s a leader’s job to adjust to his reality,
and I’ve definitely deployed more empathy towards the way we plan on scaling Hudson Yards, and if we need secondary offices to try to come back a little bit
on my own selfish love of that kinetic energy. Mainly predicated on, because
the floors are so big. So I think I’m gonna be
able to scratch my itch, ’cause they’re just big floor plates and there’ll be three, four
hundred people comfortably on one floor. And so I’m hoping that
solves that problem. So, thanks Steve.