“what is the best solution for
documenting policy, procedure “and process so all are on the same page?” – Jeremy, I hate this question
for a couple of reasons. You know, it’s interesting. I’m gonna piggy-back off
the last statement here, which is, to me, this is
a defense question, right? This is a bottom 10 percent question. – Yeah. – There is no business on earth that won because they had a tight
handbook situation, right? So, for me, I mean, unless
you’re talking about liabilities on a legal level, you know. GE should worry about that to some degree because of the level of lawsuits. and by the way, they
have 400,000 employees, and there’s probably 8,000
lawyers, there’s people to do it, but a company of 500 people. India, they’re not gonna hear
this, but you prepped them, like how we have a handbook here and nobody really knows about it. I mean, this is a 500 person,
and it’s still a baby, like that is something
that I think you need to be worrying about at your– – Yeah, forget documentation,
have a culture. Over here has a culture. And as soon as you’re documenting things, you’re wasting everyone’s
time, it becomes a bureaucracy, all that matters are your
values and your culture. Make sure they’re being lived, and you don’t have to document anything. – But everybody has to
know where you’re going, why you’re going there, and
how you’re gonna get there. – Well, that’s leadership, right? – And that is the job that– – That’s my job. – That’s yours, and the
people that work for you, and cascading down. But everybody’s gotta know the mission, they gotta know how they’re
gonna do it with behaviors, and then they’ve gotta be, and what are the consequences of getting there? – There’s another thing that I think people need to understand. And by the way, this is
gonna get very Vaynerized, and India, you’ll enjoy this. And everybody here. As I started bringing
in more senior people, they wanted to bring in
more of these things. And I made them understand, I’m like, “Look, you don’t understand. “We’re still this entrepreneurial engine.” And if somebody comes into this company and they’re so worried about the handbook, and so worried about
reviews, and so worried about all these things, I
don’t want them here now. Not that they’re bad, but they’re not the right players at this time. I was the best player on my
fourth-grade baseball team. There’s not a single
baseball team in America in Major League baseball
that needs me on their team. So, I was the right player for that time, but then as everybody
got much bigger than me, I became not so much. And so we now need different people that maybe care about some of those things as we continue to grow,
but not at that time. So the other thing here
is, the right employee at the right time, at the
right age of the company.

Meerkat is nothing more
than a cute animal, and Twitter isn’t even as
dominant as it is in the US. Would you recommend that I still go there and wait?” – Max, I think that the question is very solid, but actually you should have been able to level up and figure it out for yourself. Here’s what I mean by that. It’s the same thesis that
I talk about in the US. Meerkat is just an animal in the US too and so is Periscope, and so is Snapchat 38 months ago. Yes, every country, like here’s an answer. Will every country like the
same social networking apps and they will hit scale? Absolutely not. It’s funny. Unfortunately, as India
was reading the question I know that Twitter never
popped to real scale at Germany, I was gonna say that. You said it in the question. Look, I think that it’s super important for you to understand what I
mean by sit there and hope. The upside of being an earlier
mover in a new platform that has the potential
to pop is so much greater than the downside of
going to a new platform and wasting your four, five or 10 weeks or 10 months, and it didn’t pop, and that’s why I’ll always do it. That’s about as basic as it gets. That was probably the
best way that I’ve ever articulated it. Thank you Max from Germany for putting me in a position to succeed right now, because that’s it. That’s just it. It’s just that simple. Especially when you’re
an entrepreneur and time is what you have, not money. You entrepreneurs in the
VaynerNation are pissing me off to such an extreme,
because you’re debating these things, and you cry that
you don’t have enough money to compete with the big guys, but then you cry about wasting your time. Oh, you mean the only God damn asset you have besides your raw talent to have any potential to win? Yeah, I think it’s a
good use of your time. – Hey Gary, it’s Brandon
from Human Cry from

become too expensive for a new start-up to compete with larger
companies for ad spots?” – Marc, the answer’s absolutely. I mean, that’s the whole point. That’s the whole point of
everything I talk about which is jump into new places when the grass is greener, ahead of the market to create the arbitrage
when it’s under priced compared to the market, a la, email marketing for
Wine Library in 96 and 97, nobody else was doing it. I was asking for it. My conversions were better. More people came. The conversion rates went down, it became more expensive, and harder to get people
into the email funnel, that became the expense. Google Adwords, on the word
wine for five, ten cents. A hell of a lot better than
owning it for two bucks, right? Of course it will get more expensive. We’re seeing it on Facebook now. Facebook ads to get into the feed are more expensive than they were 12, 18, 24 months ago. Even when I started this show and told you to do dark posts, it’s
gotten more expensive since then. So the answer and the
question and the debate and the opportunity all
lie in the same place which is what are you
doing about Instagram and Snapchat and Meerkat and Periscope and all these new things. Are you moving there when
the audience is not as big, the returns are not as
big in the short term? My overall plan is to go to those places hold my breath for three
or four or five or six or seven months, when
it’s not as valuable, but be there when it does become more valuable, and then ride that wave for 12 to 24 months before those platforms become an add their ad product. Instagram’s ad product
is still not mature yet, so the organic reach for the people that jumped on three,
four, five years ago. Is it five years already for Instagram? Feels like it is. 2009 for Instagram feels right, right? Or 2010, trying to remember. Anyway, if you’ve been, you know, fuck charity right, and like
other people of that nature, they won, they moved quickly. They’ve got the biggest audience. They can command enormous dollars. So, I think the answer is yes depending on your budgets. It becomes more price prohibitive. What a small start-up or small business has is time versus a big brand’s money. Right, so are you willing
to work seven pm to three in the morning to
get the disproportion arbitrage of new platforms to over index before money becomes the variable. I hate when small businesses are like, oh, that’s it, we don’t
have enough money to compete with the big guys. What you have is speed and time. What I mean by that is they have time too, but people that work in corporate America don’t want to stay up til
four o’clock in the morning that often. And even if they do, they want to move within the system of corporate America, and they cannot do the
same things you can do. It’s not that same
entrepreneurial nimble system. By the time they even understand what Snapchat, Instagram,
Periscope, Meerkat are, it takes two years for it to get approved. In that time, you’re executing, and so, the answer’s yes, but that’s not a bad thing. It only speaks more to
my overall philosophy of jumping into these new platforms, extracting the value before the ad product becomes mature, and then using the ad
product, Facebook dark posts while everybody else is waiting. Now, in 2016, 17, 18, when Facebook darkposts unpublished
posts, the ad product become the mainstream, that’s when it becomes prohibitive for you, but you’re on to the next one.

“Gary, how do you maintain
a good, pleasant mood with family after a long day of hustle?” – Sandy, great question. India, was it you replied
in email who’s like, yeah, I wanna know that answer too? Look, here’s the thing. You know, this is only one person, I’ve always had, and my
dad did not do this well, and maybe that’s why it affected me, I am so grateful and so thankful to the family members that allow me, my wife specifically, allow me the freedom to hustle the way I do. I feel like it’s totally inappropriate to disrespect that
love, to then carry over my headaches home, in general. And this is something that
the people that know me best, the nicest thing they can say to me, and it happens, you know,
it’s been said to me 12 times in my life,
nothing, but my best friend, Brandon, who runs
Wine Library, my mom, my sister, my wife,
AJ, my dad hasn’t, anyway, there’s been a couple
people that have said to me how much they admire that
I never take my headaches out on them. I think it was really,
at the end of the day, two people, people that need somebody else to dump their headaches
on, and people that collect those headaches. I admire my mom tremendously, she collects everybody’s headaches. I’m very thankful that I took that DNA. I’m thrilled to hear your headaches, but I have no interest in giving you mine. And so, that foundation, that DNA trait allows me to walk right in home with all the insanity, lost this client, cash flow’s not as good, problem, can’t ship to this state anymore, didn’t get that deal,
this deal fell through, didn’t get that opportunity, number two in the New York Times, you know, something way worse than that, like, somebody’s leaving that I don’t want, somebody’s sick that I don’t to be sick. All these things that
are life and are intense, the second I walk in that door, I need to repay that amazing family that has given me the
opportunity to do my thing, I need to shut that all off
and turn on a different gear, and the truth is it’s just easy for me. No different than when Kobe, Staphon, let’s Kobe, show Staphon, you know, when Kobe goes on the court, he becomes a different character. That’s how, I’m very much like that. On stage, different dude. Right now, different dude. Running this company, different dude. Walk in the house, different dude. And so, I just have a lot of gears. I gear it up.

to give to clouds versus dirt? Is it based off your
personality and strengths? Example, if you’re gifted
to lead and set the vision, should you spend less time doing the work even though you also like it just as much?” – The clouds and dirt
debate is a super tough one. Obviously for people that follow me, DRock, that was really
just you, take the credit. DRock made an incredible film,
let’s actually link that up right here, or take over, I don’t know what you do these days. It’s just really my thesis
of how I build businesses, how I live life, right? Focus on the big big big
things, but don’t get scared to get your hands dirty,
’cause execution matters. Ideas are shit without the
execution, and vice versa. Don’t play in the middle,
that’s the real concern. And so I think you need a healthy balance. To me, I can give you a good answer here. This is one man’s humble opinion, I’m uncomfortable if you
go 70-30 in any direction. If you’re over-indexing
70 or 30 in any direction, that’s a problem to me. So stick to minimum 70-30 clouds and dirt. Yes, I do think you can map your DNA if you’re a big thinker, big time thinker, finding where I place 70 there, still have the humility
and the practicioner skills to bang out a 30% here. If you don’t think
you’re as big of an idea, you think you’re grinding and
your hustle is a big factor, or there’s an ebb and flow, like sometimes I’m in 70-30 mode, and then I’m in 30-70 mode because the 70 was right and now I have to execute. As a matter of fact, right
now, I feel with VaynerMedia, the last nine months I was 70 execution, but I’m feeling myself moving up to like 90 thinking, 10 execution,
because I need to re-chart the course of the company
because I’m seeing not vulnerabilities,
I’m seeing opportunity, and that puts me on the offense. So I don’t think there’s a
perfect breakdown of clouds and dirt, they just
always need to be in play, and really I don’t think of
them as a day to day basis, I think of them more
holistically as a true commitment both to strategy and
the dirt that you need under your fingernails in execution. Way too many primadonnas right now, I’m the thinker. Think this. – Hey Gary Vee.

– [Voiceover] CJ asks,
“How has having a family “changed your long term view of work? “And what does retirement mean to you?” – CJ asked a good question. I’ll let you go, cause I know you’re a new father of a second. – Yeah, so what does family
have to do with work? I think family is the ultimate cheat, and what I mean by that is I had a kid when I was 16, I’ve always had a family since I was an adult, my entire adult life I’ve had a family, and it gives you a reason
to do all this work, and that downtrodden feeling you can have, which is like, “Why am I doing this? “Why am working another night
til three in the morning?” When you have family, for
me, it gives me my purpose, my reason for doing
everything I do is my family. Part two retirement,
retirement’s my biggest fear. Retirement is what people
do when they wait to die. My grandmother was a tap dancer, and she had a tap dance school, and she taught tap everyday of her life, and she taught tap on a Friday, and she died on a Monday when she was 92. That’s my fantasy. I want to work until the last minute, I want to be working in my
hospital bed as I’m dying. So, that’s how I feel about retirement. – I’ll start with
retirement, I’m you know, in the complete same camp. You know, that is my nightmare. I want to die on Monday, on
the Monday that I’m working. I didn’t need those two days in between. You know, I’m with you
I think, you know look, I will say this, there’s one weird retirement fantasy I have, which is to be an old man sitting at the racetrack, having some nickname like one eyed Gary, and
like betting on the ponies. I do like the notion of
the ponies as an old man, so there’s a little bit of that. You know, the family, work
life balance whole thing I think is completely counter punching. Meaning, I hate giving an answer to this because I think it really is
predicated on your partner, and then the evolution of your kids. My partner part I really
kind of took care of. I mean, I was looking for Lizzie, when I found her, I locked her up, married her immediately, we were married within the year of meeting. I told her on our first date
that we were getting married. I knew that she was independent enough and could, I intuitively
felt that she could handle the insanity that is me. It’s crazy, I feel like
we’re still dating. Because you know I travel so much, and like I’m busy, but like
it’s just over communication. When I see a little
strain, I’ll cancel a trip, I won’t say yes, you know, I try to hack, the kids are a whole new variable. You know, now that
Misha’s five and a half, I’ve got to get ready for: They may not be like Lizzie. You know, my little Xander might want me at every single thing at every moment. So, I’m starting to get mentally prepared to counter punch their reality. Kids are always going to
want their parents around, but what’s the hack, right. Like, do I, like it’s
funny, I’ve been traveling, and where I speak now, I spoke in Anaheim and I noticed that Disneyland
was right next door, so I’m like, “Maybe I’ll do
these speaking engagements “cause I’ll take the kids,
let them see what dad does, “and then a full day of…” So, it’s interesting how my brain is starting to adjust to: What’s their reality gonna be like? So, my answer to your question is counter punching, what I mean by that is gross over communicating. Having those conversations
with your spouse or with your partner,
having those conversations maybe even at an early
age with your children. – [Voiceover] Shay asks,
“Think back to a time

– [Voiceover] Rafael asks, “They say you should
hire slow and fire quick. How many chances do you give your staff?” – I feel it’s funny. On this show, multiple times, I talk about not being crippled by hiring somebody because if they’re not good I’ll fire. The truth is, I have struggled for 15 plus year of my career, at least, 22, 37, I would say for the
first 15 years of my career I was not doing a good enough job in the firing department, and it still is something I struggle with. It’s just not fun. There’s nothing worse
than firing somebody. There’s nothing good about it. I usually spend an extra 20 to 30 days just figuring out the justification, of like, “Oh but they were…” I’m literally making
up stuff to make myself feel better about it. So the truth is, the
real answer for me is, we’re slow to it, even… It’s one of the things I’m trying to get this company better at is, don’t worry, any
VeynerMedia people watching. Yeah, I mean, look. I’ve definitely come to
learn that you’re doing the right thing for them as well ’cause you’re just
dragging out the process, and they’re not growing, and nothing good is gonna come of that, but…. The answer, practically,
is I use my intuition. I really do. You just have to make a gut call sometimes on can you give this
person one more chance? We are not in the one, two,
or even three strike policy here at Vayner. We have enormous continuity, and some of it has to do with
the way we fire, in my opinion. I think people see us
trying to handle things with empathy and grace, and
one thing I’m very proud of is when people are let go here, people aren’t that surprised, right? And so, people paying attention… But you don’t wanna hold on too long because then you lose the
trust of all the great people, and so I don’t think there’s a set answer. You gotta go on your intuition. I think the more interesting answer is do you think you have the
EQ and the people skills and the intuition to do
it, and if you don’t, who do you think has it? And empower them to do it. That’s the more interesting part. And by the way, that could go left field. I would tell you that if
I didn’t have that skill in my early days of Wine Library, I would have courted my mother to come in and be that person because I knew she could do it, so even think outside
of your employee base. It might be a friend who
is not happy in their job, but you know they have
the best people skills you’ve ever seen, and
maybe you bring them in for a pseudo-HR doing other things, and you want them to handle that. The firing process is immensely important in every organization,
one that I don’t think people put enough emphasis on, and there’s a lot of angles. It’s not just firing fast. It’s not just not firing. It’s how you fire. We’ve been letting some people go, at least recently, throughout
the last three or four months, and I usually am not
that close to it anymore because I’m very much
trying to scale this, but I make sure that I reach
out a week or two later, when I find out, to that
person and thank them, if they were here for a day. All those things matter.

“In episode 62, you asked
if we were going to submit a question via Instagram. I said, No, because I
don’t have a smartphone so I can’t get an account. So I borrowed my daughter’s
phone to open an account and upload this stupid question. My question is, are you
(beep) happy now, Gary?” – Doc, you and I have been
jamming and interacting on Twitter for a very long time, and the fact that you care enough about me and this show, to jump into
new waters is in essence, the entire thesis of what
I do for a living, which is try to get people to stop
drawing lines in the sand, and not be religious and
jump in and do new things, and taste them, and then
decide if they’re stupid. I am (beep) happy, but I’m going to be a
hell of a lot happier in nine and a half months,
when I go back to your account that you just put up, and see enormously beautiful
selfie shots from the Doc. Question of the day.

– Hey Gary, my name is
Michael, I like almonds, and reading books. My question for you is, what
can cause the extinction of the real estate agent, as we know it? You keep making t-shirts,
and I’ll keep buying them. Oh, and one more thing, ting! – (laughs) The bar has been raised
for video questions, VaynerNation take note,
the bar has been raised. Amazing question, thank you so much, guys. Great production. DRock,
you love it, right? That was good. Staphon,
yea that was good stuff. I actually don’t think
that there is a lot, you know, I think there
is a false sentiment in the market that
technology eliminates humans. I think technology sets up
the humans that understand how to use that technology
to leverage ahead against the other humans that don’t. So, what eliminates the real
estate agents of the moment, in the future? Well, it’s
their lack of innovation and adjusting to the tools
that are at their hands, and then just becoming a dying breed. My friends, I’m not making up
or talking about anything new. Innovation has forever,
the phone, the yellowpages, radio, television, the
internet, direct mail, video game marketing. Every time there’s been
another innovation, and that will happen forever, it kills off the prior animal
unless the animal is unable to adjust, and it’s not an age thing, there is tons of 60 year olds right now that are crushing modern day marketing. The percentage is very small, and it comes out of getting fat, right? It comes out of, you just made
enough money at this point, you’re on to new and better
things, and I mean that. You guys hear a lot of hustle
from me, but I’m enormously happy for the gal that’s
63, making 240 a year, and, you know, put in her dues,
and she wants to go to the fancy food show on
that Tuesday instead of calling 100 people and
selling another apartment, or she wants to spend an extra weekend in an Aspen timeshare. Do your thing. When I talk about hustle,
please know that I’m not judging you. It’s all
predicated on what you want. The only people I make
my hustle stuff for, are the people that are talking shit, that they want fucking things to happen, and they want to win,
and they want to buy–, “I’m gonna buy the Clippers
when you buy the Jets,” dude, you work four f**king
hours, you ain’t buying shit. And so, that’s where I get pissed off. But if you’ve decided consciously that you want to have a great work life balance and things of that
nature, then that’s great, and those are the people
that get disrupted. They’ve lost the hunger
for a better thing, I’m not looking down at them. Congrats. Let me tell you a real
freaking secret here on the #AskGaryVee Show episode 60. If tomorrow I read that there
was a new drug in the market, FDA approved, and I could
take it, and it would take–, this is gonna f**k with
a lot of your heads, and it could take ambition out of my body, I would do it. My gift is my curse. I love what I do, but I promise you, and so many of you are about
to be disappointed with me, but I’m talking truth
here, I would take the pill that would get me down to ten percent less ambition and hunger because I’d have a
little bit more balance, and there is a lot of attractive
things that come along with that balance. But that’s not the way it is, and, honestly, I’m super
pumped the way I have it, so, and, weirdly, as I’d said that out loud, I kinda don’t wanna take the pill, but, you get the jist, right? And so, who gets disrupted? Fat cats. – [Voiceover] John asks, “you
give with zero expectation

– [Voiceover] Todd asks,
“I notice that you post the same things multiple times. Please explain why this
is a calculated move and not obnoxious.” – Todd, everything I do is calculated. And so, the answer’s yes, it’s calculated and the reason I’m posting
multiple times a day and I think you’re referring
to clearly, Twitter, is the before mentioned answer
in the Instagram question couple questions ago which
is Twitter has gotten noisy. I’ve looked at data and intuition, looked inside myself, and decided that it’s okay
for me to do it multiple times ’cause the speed is happening. The hardcore fans who will accept that it’s okay, I’ve seen that and just so many, call it 90% of people that want to consume my
content, I mean still somethings that I’m on the 19th time on like the Twitter mistake on the deck, you know, I put out today
and people are like “oh” and like, you know,
there’s just so much noise that I feel the market has changed and I think it’s appropriate
almost like a scrolling bar at the bottom of ESPN, right? If you think about that, that’s looping the same stuff and it doesn’t bother me. I can choose to look at the bottom or not and weirdly and I’m
sure all of you do this, sometimes you just look
again and again and again. It’s kind of wild that way. I think that Twitter’s
fire hose now replicates the bottom ticker of CNBC and ESPN and I think it’s the right execution to put out your stuff at different times, different time zones. I wanna hit my European and Asian, and Non US family, what’s up, Non US? I wanna hit my West Coast peeps, you know? You gotta play it differently and that’s just the way it is
and I think it’s appropriate in a December 16, 2014 world to put out the same content
multiple times on the Twitter. I like calling it on the Twitter. In a world where in
December 16th, you know, 2008, I felt differently. I changed my mind consistently which is why I think I win. And honestly, which is why I think I’m worth the attention that
you’re applying to this show and why I think this format works because the game is
changing quickly and often and if you’re not adjusting,
you’re gonna lose. The ’85 Bears won on a system that doesn’t work in today’s NFL. Heck, heck, the 2000, who
won last year, the Seahawks. The Seahawks aren’t even able
to execute the same game plan as last year in the NFL because of the way the officials call pass interference and
things of that nature and so you just gotta keep evolving and if you don’t, you lose. And that’s the evolution of my game. So advice that I gave in
jab, jab, jab, right hook would have looked differently
today about Twitter because between the time I wrote it and this minute, the game has changed.