organization in New York
that is a nonprofit called Art Connects New York and
we work with local curators and artists to do permanent
art installations in social service agencies all
around New York City. It’s an amazing organization we
have partnered with hundreds of artists and dozens of
organizations but it’s also super niche and so we are working
really hard to broaden the base of people who are interested in
Art Connects and ultimately will help donate to the cause. But with such a niche cause
and then we have one and a half full-time employees who
work for the organization. They do everything from
coordinating the installations to fund raising. We are super strapped and so
were looking for some ways that we can quickly gain momentum
to broaden interest in the organization knowing that
we have very, very limited resources.
Thanks Gary. – My sense is if you have a
venture and it’s got some complexity you have to have some
people or one person anyway that is really full-time on this. – She said one and a half right? – Whether that person is
paid or not paid is irrelevant. If everybody’s a part timer
I don’t see how anything I don’t see how you get it done because
somebody’s always going to looking at their watch in terms
of I got to go and what and it’s not going to be hard to
raise money that way. The other side of it is just as
bad where you take the money you raise and you pay two people
that are average to be there all the time and now
you’ve got your energy level for the
others goes down. – I don’t know the details but
I was always from afar when I became aware what you are doing
here was so impressed that you guys were able to do so much
when you were so busy being CEO one of the biggest. Obviously, I don’t know who
was full-time underneath or what happened. – First things we did I went
out to recruit a director an executive director and I got a
very attractive guy who had been in not-for-profit world for a
long time with cancer, leukemia. And he had a good personality
and I knew that we could get him trying to meld
these groups together. You need somebody that’s going
to be full-time on that issue, not part-time, and
he was very helpful. We were able to pull together
three different parent driven organizations with very
few full-time people. But we had to every time we got
the scale I had to have somebody full-time in there. Even though it was a drag on
the cost it was necessary. – Kim, listen, and you
know I’m never tone deaf. We’re not confused that the air
cover and brand equity and the place where Bob was in his
career is different than this organization and that’s
always quite important. I think the thing to really
think about is get the word quickly out of the equation. Unless you have a miracle
situation where some art installation or art moment
become so culturally relevant that everybody becomes aware
and I wants to donate a.k.a. the ice bucket challenge. People want to be cynical about
that, the data is very real. Incredible.
Very real. They had a moment but that’s a
virality that comes around once in a generation and so we need
to be much more practical in that those one and a half people and
they’re incredible I would like to think, look, I think anybody
that devotes their careers and all their time to nonprofit are
so passionate about that that they can be patient over
5 to 7 to 12 year window. It’s Keri here with
SurvivorRadio.org.

“on today’s Tiwtter
executive ‘exodus’ news?” – Rochell, I think
there’s, I think that… So I asked for this
question to be on the show because I wanna teach
everything about optics. Meaning, when a new CEO
comes in and then there’s this “huge exodus,” a lot of
times it means the new CEO has brought in the people that they want. And they’re respecting
people and letting them leave on their terms. I don’t see, or these
people actually don’t believe in Jack’s vision. My intutition is, based
on Twitter’s track record over the last three to four
years, and I love Dick Cusam, one of my best buds in business
and I saw him recently, but results are results,
meaning it didn’t go good enough for him not to be excited
about the guy who invented it to be back in place,
though you might not like his personality, things of
that nature, but I hate when the media’s like,
everything is so negative. Like when I buy a company,
and become a CEO of it, because that will happen
in my career, and there’s an exodus, becaue big shot Gary is coming, let me promise you, anybody
that I wanted to keep would have stayed, because
I would convince them that I’m coming to do nothing but good. And maybe three or four
just wouldn’t see it, or they were best buds
with the former CEO, or they’re just tired. But please don’t get
caught up in the hyperbole of there’s a new CEO, we’re
still witihin the year of that new CEO, this is
common business stuff, period. Like, this is what always
happens, so you don’t know if they were forced out or
they were left on their own, I don’t know, even though
I’m close to a lot of the people involved. Because when I read those
headlines, I poo poo them because I am an actual operator. I’m not confused by them, I
know what real business is. Jack’s come in, he’s got a
different plan, some pieces fit for that, some don’t,
some people he might have wanted to fit for that, decided
they don’t fit for that, it’s just real life, it’s
not some huge conspiracy. I think that’s what I think. Like that’s what it is, I
just wanted to answer this question because I’m
stunned by how many people just accept very basic
narratives, when if you live it you know the real details
underneath, just like you know anything that’s in your world. My world is business, you know the real, I read headlines, I’m
like “oh,” you’re like “no, that’s what really happened.” Just like we’ve gotten
cynical to “leave of absence.” Did you see “Spotlight?”
– No. – Okay, it was about the priest
that did sexual harassment. – Oh yeah, I heard about it. – Their official, when
they were doing bad things was they got relocated on
assignment, or “sick leave.” “Sick leave.” So this “exodus” may
be on strategy, get it? Question of the day, actually educate me.

“How do you prepare
employees transitioning into “a leadership role when they’ve
never managed people before?” – Dan, I think one of the big
mistakes a lot of people make running organizations as
me, CEO of this company, is they, eventually
somebody gets into a place where they’re good enough,
they go into managerial roles, so they go from being a
mason to an architect, they no longer do the day-in-day-outs, they have to architect
people doing it at scale and the CEO, or the
business owner, or the boss, never put that person in
position along the way to do that. Like, I’m really curious
how many people at Vayner are gonna watch this or
listen to this answer, but it may make them start rewinding a lot of their day-to-day
things that they may not realize that I’m puppeting from here, because they’re getting
told by their bosses, but a lot of people,
whether you’re a, you know, an account manager or
an account supervisor about to become an account
director or group director where you’re managing more people, there’s a lot of things I’m doing, changing the accounts you work on, changing the team that’s underneath you, there’s a lot of puppeteering going on to really a lot of different, like, groups I want them to be a part of, just different little
things that are happening to create a proxy and a context point and a data point on who they would be if they were manager. And so I think the answer
to this question is, I prep by prepping them along the way, versus ripping off the band-aid, and then, I hope they can be a manager. You know? I think you’ve gotta prep people, and I think you’ve gotta
give them some context points and put them in positions to succeed and really, like, know them, too. Know if they were babysitters or the head of their sorority, or,
you know, how they roll. Like, really auditing
them as human beings, 360 outside of the context of
just them being an employee. There are all very
important parts, and if you can replicate some of the
versions that matter to you, a lot of my people, I think, are really capable of being
managers from a skill level, but they don’t have the HREQ, they’re too type A, they
need to take a step back and zen a little bit to let
their employees breathe. They need to realize they
can’t impose their skills. Biggest mistake a lot of managers make when they first become
managers, is they try to turn everybody underneath them into them, versus turning them into the
best version of themselves.

“environment for startups?” – I have not used Slack yet. The Vayner has used it at scale. How you guys liking Slack so far? Anybody using it? Good, solid, good? – [Voiceover] Fantastic. People love it. It’s an incredible, incredible product. I’m a huge fan of Stewart
Butterfield who’s behind the product built Flickr. Was very much a Web 2.0 hero of mine because Flickr was one of the
first sites that got me aware of this revolution that
got me into the world. I have a lot of emotional heart for Slack. I haven’t used it yet because I’ve been running around so much. I don’t think I can necessarily
answer this question, India. My lack of practitionership. What I do though is by
that quick little reaction, I don’t know if you caught it on camera, did you DRock? A little bit? – [DRock] Yeah. – People are obsessed with
this god damn product. I don’t know how much you guys. – We all use it on the team. – And? – We love it. – Yeah, so what do you think India? – Less emails because you kind of just ping in Slack and it’s easier to just ask
for something really off hand to the whole team instead
of just having to send an email and compose it and all that. – It’s kind of like the lovechild of email and GroupMe, right? – Totally, yeah. – I think there’s some
real value behind it. I haven’t jammed yet. I don’t want to necessarily
go deep into this. One of the things I adore about this show is I talk about shit I know. I’ve got my feelings as you can tell. I can give analogies like
the GroupMe email thing. I know what’s going on, I see the feedback loop, I have a lot of context
from a lot other of people, but I’m not a dead user of it. My two cents on it is I’m bullish on it. I think there’s something there.

“the workplace, and how do
you avoid having more drama?” – PK, drama in the workplace.
How much were you, as an executive in corporate America
into HR like stuff, or did you kind of let the pros handle that? – I loved that area. I was into it. – I believe that by the
way, I know this guy. – I was Mr. Anal Retentive. – Me too. – So, I kind of got my
fingers dirty, I knew when to step in– – In the anal retentiveness? – But at the end of the day, jargon aside, and I’m a believer of with whom you go is more important than where you go, I got heavily vested in the HR side, because it didn’t make any
difference what kind of idea you might have, start up or big company, big brands, small brands whatever, but
whatever you’re working on combined with no matter how
much capitol you may have, working capitol from start
up business or whatever, at the end of the day, if you
didn’t have the right people or the right team in place– – You’re dead. – Game over, and so– – I believe that so much. I don’t think there’s any Lakers, there’s Kobe and Shaq
era and then there’s not, and then you know, like
Stephan who’s a Lakers fan, he then becomes a Golden
State Warriors fan because he’s just
bandwagon, but most people you know I’ve talked plenty
about HR, I want to get this thing moving, I want some
speed India, let’s go to the next one. – [Voiceover] James asks,
“Banks are old, stiff, and have

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.

a potential VaynerMedia employee can make during an interview with you? – Nothing. Because mainly I’m on feel. I’m actually not even paying attention to what anybody’s saying. I’m actually more trying
to get the vibe of it. So, you know obviously
then, that would mean lying, or trying to fake the funk. I don’t mind when people
come in and pander to my ego, I like it. I don’t mind when they don’t
know who the hell I am, I like it. See that’s what’s fun. When you want to rise
like a phoenix, it’s cool. And when you think highly
of yourself, it’s cool. I get to win, no matter what. It’s a great structured game. So, I’m not really analyzing for, there’s nothing anybody can do, literally nothing. You tell me that, eh, you
know, this company stinks. I’m just here for whatever. I kinda weirdly get into
teenage girl dynamics, I’m like, ooh, I’m gonna
turn this guy around. Right, so I’ll go that route.
Or you come in and say, this is the greatest thing
of all time, I’m like, yeah, that’s somebody that’s all bought in. I think I’m so goddamn optimistic, that it really doesn’t matter what you do, I’m probably gonna want
to hire you regardless. If you don’t get hired
by me, it means that there just wasn’t a
practical puzzle piece need. It wasn’t something you did. And that’s that. – [Voiceover] Mike asks,
“Do you or have you hired

“knowing you before they worked for you, “how did you establish your
authority as the boss?” – You know, funny thing about VaynerMedia, a lot of them didn’t know who I was. Kaylen. Please. – [Kaylen] Hi, oh God. – Let’s find out. Question is, you know, when most of my employees knew who I was prior to them working here, how did I establish my authority? Did you know who I was
prior to working here? – I knew you were in
the marketing industry, but I had not much context. – See, thanks Kaylen. – Yeah. – That’s the scoop, you’d be stunned. I appreciate everybody
thinking everybody knows me, I would say more than
half of the employees, if not 80, 70, 63% of the employees, did not know who I was. So, India? Staphon? – [Voiceover] Nope. – Thank you DRock. (laughter) So, there you go, right? Yo, you know, Eddie! Come here. You know, so, I’m gonna keep rolling here. One, whether they knew or they didn’t, there was just no breathing room. I’m the CEO of the company,
I’m gonna establish, Eddie, did you know who I was before you started working here? – I did. – Oh crap. – I did, I did know. – How? – My friend was reading Thank You Economy. – Got it. – And I just talked to Gary, and that’s when I found out about Vayner. And now I’m here. – Love you, brother. – Love you, man. – Great employee, too. Thank God for that book. So, you know, most of them didn’t. The ones that did, it wasn’t hard. They either had one of two things. They had no idea who I was,
easy to establish authority, I’m the damn CEO. They knew who I was, they
knew all my accolades, respect for the game, I’m the damn CEO. Easy. – [India] Easy.

“of HR and employees getting along. “How do I implement that when
everyone talks about everyone?” – Well, I don’t know if
employees getting along or HR is predicated on everybody
talking about each other? – [India] No, it’s like
how do I implement that in a place where everybody’s
talking about each other. – Oh, talking about
each other, like gossip? – [India] Yeah. If you wanna read it, but that’s how I interpreted it. – Where everyone talks
about everyone. Oh, jeez. I mean, that means it’s
broken from the top. People are gonna gossip. I’m
sure in the 600 employee– 550 employees of Vaynermedia, I’m sure people talk about each other. But it’s a net-net score.
Don’t be crippled by– Make sure you’re judging
the gossiping appropriately. Maybe it’s not as bad as you
think in the collective– Ryan, be careful. This
is an active shoot, Ryan. Yeah, clearly you didn’t realize. I’m just kidding! Do you wanna come on and apologize to the
show? Get over here, Ry. Let’s get you seven Twitter followers. – @guildgonewild, I’m
sorry for ruining the show. – Say, “Dear Vayner Nation.” – Dear Vayner Nation,
I sincerely apologize for ruining the show. And I’m
pretty sure Gary hates me now. – I don’t, I love you. – Oh. Well, thank you. – Tell them what football team you like. – The New York Jets. – That’s my boy. Get outta here! Alright. Hey, Brunchback. – Hey, what’s up? – Alright, get outta here. We need to come to 15 more often, there’s some good action going on here. Creating a culture where
people are gossiping negatively about each
other is devastating. There’s a lot more to fix.
The leadership needs to be looked at. Maybe you’re the leader. You need to really look at yourself. I think the only way to fix
a real burning building, if it’s really rampant and
negative, is to call an all hands-on meeting and go straight kumbaya, it’s all communication, it’s
put it out on the table. It’s address it head on and move forward. So, one, make sure you’re
judging it properly. Because in the scheme of
things, humans are humans. You can’t– It’s not like– I mean, Vayner’s great
culture, but at a micro level, there’s a million little
bad things going on. It’s just that you have to
look at is as a collective. You can’t turn people into
robots and not make them have all the emotions humans have, but way more importantly,
to me, if it is rampant, the only way to fix a
complete storm of this, is to bring everybody together, the leader needs to put– Starting with them,
I’ve clearly screwed up. Let’s talk about this. Probably
make some firing decisions. Because there’s probably
some cancer cells in there. It’s a real aggressive,
you need to address it. Truth is, so many of you
do not want to address it, or don’t know how, or
don’t have the stomach to, that’s the bigger issue. I
went for the dramatic moment there, you know what? Kick
in a little soft music here, for that part. This is
the important thing. Are you willing to address it? Do you have the appetite to deal with that kind of confrontation at the global scale? That’s the friction point. The
leaders don’t wanna step up and actually be leaders.

“The ones that always sound like “they’re whining and pessimistic.” (laughs) – We fire them. (laughs) Because energy is something
I value tremendously and no question, if you
are dragging down the team, that is a heavily– Not having the smarts to do the work is actually viewed as a better option that being Eeyore and woe is me. Look, we are 550 deep now, I’m positive, as people are
watching this from VaynerMedia, saying yeah but, “Ricky is really Eeyore.” You say you’d fire him, why has Ricky been moping for six months? I’m sure there’s a couple
people sneaking through with woe is me but the truth is I heard a story this weekend from my mom, we had an employee that was friends with– My mom’s friends with his mom and she told me a story that the doorman, and the doormen say that they know who the
VaynerMedia employees are versus not just by the pep in their step when they go into the building and they’re happy and always smiling. I think we have a pretty
good atmosphere here and so I’m… I’m very, very, very affected by the atmosphere and the energy of my own company and since I’m the CEO I try to create an
environment that allows me to most do my thing. And I think companies
are disproportionally affected by the top five
to ten people in a company. It’s stunning, if you even look at the
Apples and Nintendos and Budweisers, I mean it’s incredible how a small group of people
really dictate the outcome. And of course everybody’s an impact but for me, if I’m not in a good mood because somebody’s moping, well then I (laughs), that’s a problem. There’s a negative ROI there. You know, the truth is, we try to understand
what makes them unhappy. Now, again, moping is different than being and introvert or quiet. You can be quiet and
focused on your thing. That’s very different
and I wanna make sure, make a big point here that I actually stunningly over-value quiet, focused. I always worry that people at VaynerMedia don’t realize if they’re
an introvert or quiet or focused or headphones on, never really interacting. We have such a culture
of intermingling that, I would even argue that I value them, not more, that’s not fair. I just value them for what they are. I don’t try to change
people for what they are. And you could bring enormous
value to this company by never saying a word or you can yell, like Gabe, 24/7 and bring value. All of it in between
really matters for me. And so, let’s make sure that
as you’re watching this, if your auditing your 5,
10, 15, 500 person company that you’re not digging
through and misjudging moping and just quiet. Or quiet and focused. Or introverted. Those are tremendously valuable things. That’s how they concentrate
and get their job done. Moping is Debbie Downner. I think it’s more Debbie, whaa, you know like Debbie
Downer like this sucks. Try to walk around here for
more than 20 days in a row saying this company sucks. Try. That’s not gonna fly. Being focused, maybe not
being the most social flower and going to every happy hour
and high fiving everybody when you walk through here, that’s more than fine. That should be acceptable. That is acceptable at the highest levels. But saying this sucks. The client sucks. This work sucks. This sucks, this sucks. Just doesn’t work, it’s
too much of a downer. So, how do we deal with it? We try to cut it out. It’s cancer. Straight up cancer.