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- [00:00]
Gary Vaynerchuk
The thing that inspires me is that there's a 16 year old kid right now literally listening to this in the suburbs of, in the outskirts of Pittsburgh or in rural Peru at literally. If they have the Internet, which third world countries have unprecedented access to the Internet, she or he can do something. They can build, they can vibe code something, they can build an agentix. They could service clients that are unaware that they could be so effective and efficient with AI. They can be become renowned or famous using social. They can, they can make content from TikTok affiliate and have one video get 500,000 views and make $40,000. I spoke to a woman yesterday who's a TikTok affiliate who made $400,000 in December making 30 pieces of content. This is unprecedented opportunity for the have nots. This is the GaryVee audio experience.
- [01:01]
Mark
Gary, welcome to Gen C. Literally since the first episode when Avery and I started the podcast, we were like the ideal guest will be Gary. And of course now that she's no longer one of our co host, I waited. Yeah, exactly. But we do wish you the best. Gary, I want to just start with this is like such an unprecedented time in business. You are someone that a lot of people go to to say what's going to be next. So in a world of AI in 2026, with all the kind of chaos that seems to be happening, how are you managing both your brand and all the related companies as well as all of your clients?
- [01:39]
Gary Vaynerchuk
You know, I think with thoughtful optimism while trying to be very strategic about the humility that needs to be deployed by anyone that has it going well. You know, I think a lot about the mid-90s, right before the Internet really became a consumer trend, there was just a lot of companies that felt remarkable. I think about Toys R Us quite a bit given, you know, things I'm into and as a retailer and toys and collectibles and you know, they misunderstood the moment. And I think that for me, I know that AI and all these other things will be in the short term demonized. There'll be stigma around it, but that's only based on what humans do with very big technologies, electricity, the Internet. And so for me, for my clients, for my brands, for my personal brand, I think curiosity is important. So everything that I hear from AI or blockchain or even like governments passing laws, everything is a maybe, not a no. And I think right now too many people listening to actually people listening to this I think are in maybe culture. I would say the masses outside this window are in no culture. And in that NO culture, they will be vulnerable. And what I mean by no is people that are overly romantic about yesterday, people that are overly concerned about can any of these technologies or trends hurt my business? Without realizing that if you don't jump on board and, you know, use these tools and opportunities, that's the problem. Right? If you're an animation studio and you're like, this sucks that us normal people can do animation in a way that they learned how to do for 20 years, and you don't jump on board and start using Higgs Field or Nano or these things. That's the problem, you know, because the invention's out, the genie's out the bottle. And so I think I'm in a very thoughtful place because, you know, I've always been underdog. You know, I was scrappy underdog the whole way. So every new big change was big advantage. I find myself with real businesses now and so they can be disrupted very heavily. And I don't want to be a hypocrite. I don't want to make the mistake that I've been talking about for 30 years. And I, I'm not going to and I don't plan on it.
- [04:21]
Mark
You've been quite successful at being able to see where things are going.
- [04:25]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
- [04:26]
Mark
You know, whether it's social, whether it's email, you know, then into AI. When you look at this moment, what's inspiring you for the future?
- [04:36]
Gary Vaynerchuk
I think what's inspiring me is that there's a. I love merit. You know, right before we started this, we were talking about the Knicks. I love sports. You know, the Knicks beat the Cavs last night. There's no, like, was there, you know, I mean, I guess there's cheating in sport, but you know what I mean?
- [04:54]
Advertisement Voice
Right?
- [04:54]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Like the score was a score. Everyone knows it. It's not like politics or the constitution where people debate it, but, you know, or judges six to three, like, it's just clean. And I like that about business, though. It's not as clean as sports. There's a lot of fooling around, potential taxes and you could play. What I love about big technology shifts is there is a little bit of like opportunity and merit. The thing that inspires me is that there's a 16 year old kid right now literally listening to this in the suburbs of, you know, in the outskirts of Pittsburgh or in rural Peru, that literally if they have the Internet, which, you know, third world countries have unprecedented access to the Internet, she or he can do something, they can build, they can vibe code something they can build an agentic. They could, they could service clients that are unaware that they could be so effective and efficient. With AI, they can become renowned or famous using social. They can, they can make content from TikTok affiliate and have one video get 500,000 views and make $40,000. I spoke to a woman yesterday who's a TikTok affiliate who made $400,000 in December making 30 pieces of content. You know, this is unprecedented opportunity for the have nots. And so, you know, keeps getting built on, right, the personal computer. Then comes the Internet. Then the Internet evolves into this social place. Then the algorithms within social become very merit based not on how many followers you have. Then AI comes along and low cost technology to make you profoundly effective that if you put in the work, it's kind of like getting into shape. Pre ozempic and steroids, you know, like back in the day, like if you ate well and you went to the gym and you did the right things, anyone could, even if they maybe didn't have the predisposed DNA or the environment too. And technology wise, I think we're there. It's a level of opportunity that is profound and it's, it's making me very optimistic because I think that's lovely. Hey everybody. Hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy.
- [07:28]
Mark
And I was listening to an interview you did with, I think it was on Tom Papa's show where you said this is the biggest financial opportunity for someone under the age of 25 ever, ever. And you said AI is gonna be bigger than the Internet. I was thinking, think of all the millionaires and billionaires that have been made on the Internet. AI is even bigger than that, you
- [07:46]
Gary Vaynerchuk
know, whether it's bigger or not, because the Internet's fucking big, you know, like it's, you know, but like, I don't know, like I really, you know, I keep looking at this light above your head. It does feel electricity. Like it feels even more, you know, because it affects the real world. You know, like when we get into robotics and you know, it feels like everything will be AI'd out, you know, everything. And so whether it's bigger or not, you know, I don't even know how one judges that. It's definitely the biggest thing since, you know, the mobile device in between, that was very big for me. That was probably my best subconscious understanding. Meaning day one iPhone. I go to the Short Hills Mall in New Jersey. I get it, I turn it on in wine library and within one second I'm like, oh, this is it, this is it. Like, everything's different now, you know? And if you remember, like a lot of people were very. First of all, the BlackBerry was red hot and it was expensive. And I don't think people understood app culture and the Internet being at your fingertip and changed everything. Right? There's no Uber or Social the way. It's just. It's a whole big thing anyway. Nonetheless, this feels like the biggest thing since the Internet for me.
- [09:06]
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- [09:32]
Mark
And I think you said that AI deserves its place on the sort of innovation. Mount Rushmore. Yeah, you know, is that where the Gutenberg Press is? What are your other faces on that?
- [09:46]
Gary Vaynerchuk
That's a fun one, you know. Yeah. I think the printing press is like really there. I think the television is there. I think the Internet is there. The personal computer, the mobile device, the steam engine, electricity for damn sure.
- [10:01]
Mark
Things that fundamentally change society.
- [10:05]
Gary Vaynerchuk
It's almost like we're getting lulled into misunderstanding how big this is. Right. It feels like it's been around now for the last two, three years and like it's like, has it? You know, and it kind of feels like Internet 95, 96. Like people are like, oh, it's big. And you kind of like, is it? Because, like I haven't felt it yet. And then like it feels like overnight you feel it. I think social is the same way. I'm like, man, this MySpace thing is big. And then it kind of took like another five to seven, even 10 years where people like, whoa. Social really transformed television too, by the way. You know, took a while for everyone to get one, so. Yeah, yeah, I think we're in a. In fact, it's fun to be on this show because I actually think the blockchain relationship with AI is actually going to make a lot of normies understand the value of the blockchain. A ledger of truth and ownership in a world of deep fakes and fake and fake and fake and fake, fake and Fake. I think the blockchain is going to shine with this AI overlay in society.
- [11:16]
Mark
I want to dive into that in a second, but I want to think about how you. You speak a lot about entrepreneurship.
- [11:23]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
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Mark
And so it feels that AI is allowing people to be entrepreneurs in ways they never were. I rewatched your conversation, I think this from 10 years ago with Larry King. And in it you say, I know where I start and I know where I stop. And I was thinking about it through the lens of now, if I'm working with Claude, the places I stop, Claude can now take over.
- [11:48]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
- [11:49]
Mark
And does that fundamentally change how an entrepreneur thinks in terms of, oh, I don't need to now build out this entire team. I can find assassins who can do the things I need to do really well, but I can still keep going without needing to find a developer, without needing to find a UX person. Yes.
- [12:07]
Gary Vaynerchuk
You know, this is. This technology really benefits the architect more than the masons. You know, the most creative, the most strategic are going to have a very nice chapter, you know, and that's just kind of, you know, the reality of it. And so, yeah, I think. And, you know, it's a really tough thing for me to think about. For example, as someone who really does adore merit, maybe one could argue that the last 50 years, the most creative, the most strategic did not actually get. Get what she or he deserved. That because there was so much cost and overhead and tax on executional parts that, you know, if there was a queen, God of merit and she came down, she's like actually the, you know, the songwriter didn't get enough of the economics or the, the painter or the, the person that came up with the idea, I don't know. But no question it is shocking to me how much the creative, the strategist, the architect, is going to benefit from this technology.
- [13:37]
Mark
All right, so you, you mentioned blockchain. What was interesting to you when you first started to learn about it?
- [13:45]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Well, first, including AI, nothing was more challenging for me to understand than Bitcoin. You know, in 13, 14, 15, remember which south by Southwest it was where Aaron Battalion, the former CTO of Living Social, broke down the blockchain for me. He was really teaching me about Ethereum, actually, because I've heard of Bitcoin because I was a nerd culture at that time, but it really didn't register once I understood ownership. I remember the example for me was, you know, a deed or, you know, a marriage license. I thought a lot about, like, wow, you know, what really hit Me was I wine library. When I launched it, the server that the website was on was in the closet of my liquor store. And when the power went out, this is real. When the power would go out, which would happen once or twice every year or two because of a storm in New Jersey, literally, the website was down. So there was no cloud, there's no Amazon services. And so I remember understanding, like, oh, wow. Every document like, no, more like fire in a building. And like really important documents are gone. So it was first ownership, you know, like, oh, wow, I digitally own this. Like, you know the joke that they made about NFTs for five years, like, why are you buying that Ape? I can screenshot it. Now I have it too. I always thought that was so funny. I was like, oh, wow. They really don't understand. That's like me taking a photo of this building and being like, I own this building. You know, like you don't. So ownership, you know, that, that truth, that providence. And then obviously that bled later into one of my great passions, which is collectibles and identity and community. But that was the first thing.
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Mark
And there's a. I'm friends with a number of people who were in a famous. Call you around Crypto punks.
- [15:53]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
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Mark
You know, it's Mr. Beast and it's Nick Tran and Bobby and look at Paul and all these people. And I remember Bobby telling us about you, basically saying, here's why I'm in on this thing. Which inspired, I think, a lot of those people to get interested in the technology. What at that time were you seeing that others weren't?
- [16:18]
Gary Vaynerchuk
I'm very big on timing, of when the masses are ready for something. You know, on that call, which, you know, has been wildly over embellished. I mean, yes, there was that call. I mean, I do that call all the. I mean, I did that call about comic books last week and I was tweeting constantly about NFTs at that point. I thought people would collect them forever. I believe that right now. You know, I'm very aware. Literally yesterday I had lunch with someone and I showed them that $400,000 worth of board apes were bought in the last 24 hours. They were on the ground, stunned. They, they and 99% of the world think NFTs were scams and a fad. They. That person who's incredibly successful and a proper business person said. I said to them, you're shocked, right? They said, yeah. I said, you didn't think there was $400,000 sold of NFTs in the last 30 days period, let alone one project the last 24 hours, he said. Absolutely reminds me a lot of the Internet in 2000 when all the stock prices collapsed. Greed will always set something back. There was an enormous amount of greed in NFT culture in that 12 month, 24 month window that ultimately hurt it. But what I saw is what's happening today. It's a collectible. It is a collectible. Just like comic books and coins and stamps and sneakers and canvas art handbags, vintage clothes, watches. NFTs are a collectible. They will forever be a collectible. And in fact, we are filming this right before Memorial Day 2026. One of the most exciting things for me that I'm going to do this weekend, I already blocked it on my counter for three hours while I drink some really good tea. I am literally doing homework on artists and projects because I believe this is very similar to the late 60s and early 70s when contemporary art here in New York City was considered a fad. And people who bought up Andy Warhol's and Jackson Pollock's did quite well. And I do believe, like I said in all August of 2021, that 99% of NFTs will be worth zero. But I believe that means 1% will not. And I believe based on where NFTs are right now, whatever the 1% are, and I do not claim to know, though I do think cryptopunks is one for sure that will make it. They are grossly underpriced, whatever that 1% is.
- [18:54]
Mark
Yeah, I mean, they were showing in our baseline in Hong Kong, in our baseline in Switzerland. I mean, I think any movement, I think about, you know, who can name a cubist other than Picasso or maybe George Brock. But the fact is there were thousands of artists trying to do this work. And so you just gotta find those people.
- [19:13]
Gary Vaynerchuk
That's right. There was, you know, when hip hop was said that it's not music and it's not real, you know, you know, Sugar Hill Gang or LL Cool J or Russell Simmons or what have you. These people we know and the 9 trillion other rappers that were trying to make it in the Bronx and Brooklyn
- [19:30]
Mark
and
- [19:32]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Queens, we don't know. And that's just how everything is.
- [19:37]
Mark
That's funny you said that because I think like I had this theory and you're raised in Queens, like you were from this world too. I was raised in Manhattan, but that hip hop was the primitive of almost all current culture.
- [19:50]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Oh, I could not agree with that, Mark.
- [19:52]
Mark
You know, the idea that like, I don't know how to make music. So I'll get some turntables and I'll make my own. I can plug it into a, you know, an outlet in the park and I can play for people. Like, you know, sampling to me is early memetics 100%. And so I always tell people to look at early hip hop as inspiration for where you can go if you just really have the will to do it.
- [20:10]
Gary Vaynerchuk
I could not agree more.
- [20:14]
Mark
You mentioned. Okay, so. So this moment happens with, you, understand, blockchain, maybe you pick up some Ethereum or Bitcoin, you get excited about crypto, Kong Apes, whatever. You launch Veefriends.
- [20:27]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
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Mark
Which at the time was really one of the most successful collections out there. While it's super hot is when you're saying 98%, 99% of these things are going to zero.
- [20:36]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
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Mark
Was the community of NFT holders who are very opinionated.
- [20:42]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
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Mark
Like, were they dragging you for why you came down on the industry?
- [20:48]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Not really. It's almost like no one gave a fuck, you know, to be frank, I think everyone was just so caught up in the gold rush, you know, Like, I got a couple of messages from thoughtful people. Be like, yo, why are you saying that? I'm like, because it's really hard. Like, what I'm accomplishing right now with Be Friends really requires a good operator. And it was very clear to me that the kids that I was meeting, because I was looking at every collection were, you know, I just gone through investing in so many Web 2.0 companies and 99% went to zero. You know, it. It fell on deaf ears, predominantly because I did pick the White hot moment. I mean, I think, ironically, those videos came out in that August that I think might have been the top volume. Not really. Not really. I mean, I did it because it's what I believed, and that's what I do for a living. Like, everything that's about to happen in this interview is what I believe. So, no, it wasn't like, oh, fuck you, Gary. What the fuck are you doing? You're the Pied Piper and now you're shitting on it. I just think people didn't care. Again, that was the punchline. I mean, I didn't feel like 99% of the people that were collecting were collecting. They were flipping. People were saying things like, community, community. What they meant was cash, cash. You know, like, let's all keep buying this up so it goes up. It was just very clear to me that this was Things gone awry. Reminded me a lot of the Junk wax era in trading cards in the 90s. When I first got in in 86, 87, 88, it was collectors and a little bit of speculators. By 92 it was speculators, you were gambling. You were like this quarter. Browning Nagel, a famous jets second round pick. People were buying thousands of his rookie cards and hoping he would be Joe Namath. It's happening a lot in sports cards right now. But at least trading cards at that point had been an 80 year collectible. NFTs were new. There's a lot of speculation Covid the US printed all this money. People were taking their stimulus checks and buying watches and dom Perignon and NFTs. And it was just very clear there's a reason why trading cards rebounded so quickly. They had the history of being a collectible, but I, I think the NFT market's in a very good space right now. You have a very much smaller group, but they're real and they're really collectors and they care. Or there's a, there's a percentage holding on, hoping to get back to the old prices. But you have some builders and you know, I'm excited about where the space is right now.
- [23:34]
Mark
When you think about your, your businesses and where you want to go, you know, I love the audacity of thinking as big as you do. Right. You talk about wanting to own the New York jets or you talk about the Friends becoming the next Pokemon or Disney.
- [23:47]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
- [23:48]
Mark
Are those. How much of that is like North Star? So we are always keeping a future vision or is there literally a roadmap?
- [23:57]
Gary Vaynerchuk
I mean the jets thing started in fourth grade. So I think that is more like a childhood dream that really got real in my teenage years, early 20s. And then the calculus changed. When I was wanted to buy the jets when I was 18, 20 to 24, these franchises didn't seem so out of reach. They were in the hundreds of millions and I thought I could get there. Now they're in the tens of billions. And that, you know, that's a little bit more of a long putt. I still believe, you know, I still want to try. Right. If that makes sense. V Friends. You know, Pokemon is the most successful intellectual property in the world right now. That's a big one. Ironically, I feel more confident that I can make Vee friends a top 10 intellectual property than I can buy the New York Jets. With the Jets I have to get very fortunate that my maximum moment of economic power also aligns with if the Johnson family ever wants to sell it. I'M not in control with vee friends, I'm in control. I'd love to be a Disney, Pokemon, Marvel, Star Wars. I'd be very proud of my efforts if I pulled off a Transformers he man, Care Bears, My Little Pony. I'd like to be minimally in between those kind of tiers. And we're off to a nice start. I feel very confident, but I would say no, I don't think. I mean, I'm definitely not doing it for show. You know, a lot of times it's really funny to watch how social media plays. There's something funny a couple years ago where that was the clip and somebody in the comments was like, this guy's so full of shit. He's just doing everything for show. And like, four people that I went to junior high with that I don't think I spoke to, like 14 to 25 years all jumped in the comments being like, I was there in 86. This has been what he's been talking about. So, you know, I do it for myself now. I talk about a lot of my stuff publicly for the last 15 years, but I have a pretty clear roadmap on the veefriends part. The roadmap with the jets is I need to amass as much wealth as humanly possible and get outrageously fortunate that it becomes available at a time where I can do something about it.
- [26:09]
Mark
I think about when I look at the opportunities that you created, a lot of it feels like you are seeing asymmetries that a lot of people don't see. And if you remember what watching early videos of you where you were going to, like, you know, yard sales and being like, I can buy this mug for $2 and I go on eBay and sell it for $10. Where you'd already. You were already successful.
- [26:32]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
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Mark
So it seems like part of the fun for you is also seeing that there's these mismatches and how do you take advantage of it?
- [26:38]
Gary Vaynerchuk
I do love that. And those videos started trash talk because I started getting emails and direct messages that were like, hey, you're talking about investing $50,000 in. Into a startup. Like, I have $18 in my wells Fargo. And I was like, okay, let me do something about that. And so I was like, what did I do when I had $18? I was like, I did garage sales and I flipped on ebay. This is how I taught AJ Business. And I knew it was real. The flip life and the arbitrage, that. That was one of the great chapters of my life. That 1718, 19. Because I still get messages still of like, you changed my life. In that era, I learned how to buy and sell and flip. You know, whether it's someone who says they make an extra 15,000 a year going to flea markets and garage sales and goodwill and, and that's meant something to the family all the way. To kids who are like 30 now, that said, that was a starting point, you know, buying a mug for a quarter and selling for five bucks. And now they do they trade on Wall Street? No, that, you know, that was very fulfilling because you're right and you could probably see it through the video. Like deep down I'm still a garage sale kid. And I like, like my inner family and friends know this. Me going to a garage sale tomorrow, buying, you know, a trinket for a dollar and Selling it for $39 on eBay is definitely something I get more joy of than landing a 3.9 million dollar car client at VaynerX. No question about it. But teaching the audience on that one, that chapter was one of my great chapters of doing what I want to do with my content, which is bring value to the people that consume it.
- [28:21]
Mark
And I think one of things I really respect about the work you do is anyone at any point in their career can look at it and find something.
- [28:28]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes, something inspires them. Yeah, I appreciate that. And also I have real energy to be there in the moment. People ask me a lot of times of like, you know, don't you get tired saying the same kind of stuff? Or sometimes people want to razz me and be like, you've been saying this for 15 years. It's like the biggest compliment. You know, I don't want to make up net new things. I want to talk about what I believe. But I just know that the post this morning, I mean, I've made unlimited content about you're young, you have time. The post I posted just now before I walked in here, you know, I think it's titled for 17 to 25 year olds, like for a 19 year old. When I said it 15 years ago, they were 4. It wasn't their time, you know, and like there's many people who've come up to me or messaged me that said, you know, I heard you, wham, wah wah, like Charlie Brown, wah, wah wah, like it was all noise. And then like one day I just needed it and the message met the person. It's very intoxicating when you have a lot of energy to want to leave a positive deposit. It keeps me incredibly Resilient, tenacious and consistent. I'm proud of that. And it feels nice to want to leave a positive deposit. And you know this, I've been doing this a long time. I feel like what I do is needed more than ever because negativity and cynicism is incredibly loud today compared to when I first started making the kind of positive, practical content I made. And so there's almost a sense of responsibility at this point.
- [30:03]
Mark
And do you think we are entering an era? We see meta laying off thousands of people. We see people really freaked out. I have a 24 year old daughter, Right. She still has to figure out what she's going to do because it's a jumping time. But there does seem to be this interesting like liminal uptick in. Everyone wants to understand and figure out their specific place in the system. And I think about not only all the collectible, but the rise of all collectibles. We can't stop us seeing pack rip videos of Pokemon or One Piece. We can't stop seeing people who are flipping watches.
- [30:40]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
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Mark
But now I think about Polymarket. Now I think of 247 stock trading which is coming lately and it just feels like, is everything a trade?
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Gary Vaynerchuk
You know, I think everything has, I think that is very inherent in humans. You know, shiny rock for sheep wool is like a trade that we don't think about today. Right. These vegetables for that cloth, I think it's inherent. I do think unfortunately we're in a very materialistic, I think, you know, Madonna nailed it. Like, I think we're a little like, we're like, it's, it's wild. I love all this stuff but I'm, I'm very not materialist. I don't want the stuff I'm interested in like the community. I think collectibles is winning on community more than people realize. I think live shopping is winning on that more than people realize. People are lonely, they're looking for community. But yeah, I think greed is, you know, unfortunately the gambling culture is rising. I don't think that's good. I think there's a very big difference between investing and gambling. So I think some of the stuff you're seeing is gambling culture rising. I do think it's materialistic, I do think it's a little money hungry
- [31:52]
Mark
and
- [31:53]
Gary Vaynerchuk
then there's good things. I think it's creativity. I think it's trade, which I think is good. I think it's community, which I think is great. I think it's escapism, you know, being in love with one piece and reading manga, like, that's good, like, in a way. So I think there's a lot of good and a lot of bad mixing. And I think it'll flush out, like, I think unfortunately there'll be a lot of pain and I think fortunately there'll be a lot of growth. We'll find our equilibrium. But yes, I think that's what's going on.
- [32:25]
Mark
And so going back to AI, AI also feels like it is taking what used to be months down to minutes. And so someone who has a mentality, who is smart enough to figure out where they want to put their energies also has this copilot with them that can help figure out the data piece of it, the operations piece of it, whatever it may be, so that the individual can focus ideally on their passion.
- [32:52]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, I mean, that would be. That's. I hope so. I hope so. And I think so for many and for many others. No, I mean, you know, social media, you know, you probably know this. The 2006, 7, 8 era of Twitter, kids, the 2007 and 8 era of Twitter, you have no idea, was pure nirvana. Like, every conversation in there was like hopes and dreams and we can do it and we're going to change the world and everything's going to get positive and at scale. When you took away these 2% of optimistic builders and you got to society, it got more negative. Social media algorithms today that are incredibly demonized didn't change anyone. They exposed everyone. And I think you're going to see the same thing happen with AI. I think it's going to expose people so highly creative, highly happy, highly productive, highly strategic people are going to get incredible benefit. And I think people that are just hiding in an office right now and just getting by. I hid through a system for 16 years. It was called the education system. I know I did nothing. I know that machine pushed me through because of their wants and needs. They wanted to be a blue ribbon high school and they needed everyone to graduate. And I sniffed that out early and I'm like, oh, I don't have to do anything. They're going to push me through. I think, I think those people are going to get exposed. And my hope is them hitting rock bottom. Losing their job may lead to them going on the offense and realize they weren't passionate being a paralegal, but they're passionate about snowboarding. And maybe they can create something in this ecosystem. That is my hope.
- [34:39]
Mark
We just had our, our event consensus.
- [34:43]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
- [34:43]
Mark
One of the largest in the crypto space. And I spoke to a Lot of marketers, crypto marketers specifically, but some general marketers as well. And I asked them the question of right now, as a marketer, you are trying to attract other humans to your product.
- [34:57]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
- [34:58]
Mark
What happens in a few years when AI agents are making financial decisions for folks on purchases? And so the idea of marketing to synthetic beings is very different than the idea of marketing to humans.
- [35:10]
Gary Vaynerchuk
I don't know if you're going to be marketing to synthetic because synthetic is going to be executing what human has set up. Right. Like, I'm going to set up my agent to do XYZ find me the best price on Siri. Like, you know, there's still a human that had to at least make decision 1 for a while on, like what I want my agent to do.
- [35:33]
Mark
Right.
- [35:33]
Gary Vaynerchuk
In fact, I think people are about to learn a lot about the value of marketing and brand. Let me give you an example. If my agent is doing a lot of shopping for me in the background and it's been buying the same deodorant, but I see an ad or I get affected by marketing and want to stew deodorant, I'm going to go in and reset the rule. Right. What I think agentic attacks is convenience.
- [36:06]
Mark
Right?
- [36:06]
Gary Vaynerchuk
It's the ultimate convenience.
- [36:09]
Mark
But is it the idea that you're saying, hey, I want, you know, anytime Jordan 10s in black come out in my size and you find it under this amount of dollars, you can make a purchase for me. So that is the convenience side. That's, that's someone who's saying, I know that I want this specific thing or
- [36:26]
Gary Vaynerchuk
I mean, that's fashion, but I think. Which sits in a slightly interesting space. I'll go back to in a minute. What about uploading your entire history of Amazon purchases, putting it into a large language model so it understands the average time. You tend to want to reorder certain things. And the data's incredible, right? Like Amazon has a pretty good sense that you order toothpaste every nine and a half days or weeks or months or whatever it may be. And your agent is just like living like. And you might have a couple extra beers in the fridge because of it. And this, that, the other thing, to me, it's going to. We're about to find out, all of us, everyone who's watching and listening, and the five of us, this room right now, we're all about to find out which things we really care about and which things we don't. You know? You know, I don't know if everyone here is obsessed with the toothpaste they use. But I can tell you, for me, as long as it's clean, like ingredient wise, I don't care which brand it is. And that agent's gonna do good work for me.
- [37:35]
Mark
Right.
- [37:36]
Gary Vaynerchuk
But there are gonna be things that I do care about. Sneakers is definitely one where I'm not like, you know, just go get, you know, maybe I'll set it to your point of Jordan 10. I would never do Jordan because I'm a Knicks fan. I hate Michael Jordan on the record. So it's going to be really interesting. I'm really excited about it. And as a retailer by heart, I'm definitely curious about how disruptive. Which I think it will be massively disruptive. But agentic agents, synthetic, that's going to be really exciting and very challenging territories for retailers and brands. But I have this funny hunch that brand is about to be put on a pedestal because it feels like the thing that can change a human's opinion and make them go into the agentic framework and change something.
- [38:26]
Mark
So the idea of, yes, I'm gonna let it do the things I want, but I.
- [38:30]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Until I care that it doesn't. Right. Do the things. But occasionally. Oh, my God, I love that ad. Let me go. I want that bubble gum go in. You know, it's going to get hard to get people off their norms. It's going to be more challenging than ever to change people's buying behavior because it's going to be so convenient and so teched out in the background, which raises the stakes for communication that can change someone's mind.
- [39:00]
Mark
And I assume in a world of anything can be deep faked, anything can be counterfeited. Going back to your earlier point, something that says, this is Reebok and I am buying it because it's valid compared to the knockoff one that's made somewhere else. Part of. I think the agentic commerce layer requires what you were talking about earlier, which is that I know what I'm getting is from. From where I expect it to be.
- [39:27]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes. And I also think, you know, it's funny where my head just went as you were going there. I think it's also going to. I think this explosion of AI is the precursor to the explosion of analog. I think we're going into a barbell. I think, you know, just sitting here and vibing with you, I'm like, man, this is going to make people want to go to the store.
- [39:48]
Mark
Well, it's. I mean, I was talking to Avery before you came in yesterday. Yesterday. I Was talking to her, she said, make sure to ask Gary about the return of irl.
- [39:59]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, it's my biggest thesis right now internally. I mean on the marketing side at Vayner we are making a massive push to experiential. I'm obsessed with analog stores, malls. I'm thinking about starting a business that brings back drive in movie theater. I'm being dead serious and I think every time I say it people are like, huh, that sounds like a good Saturday after. Like I can feel it. I can feel what's happening. Which is as we keep getting pushed to this unprecedented level of technology. There's a reason music festivals and sporting events and bar crawls and run clubs and like we're yearning for it. It's like it's enough, we've tapped out and by the way, it's gonna be and like in 10 years we're gonna do more digital than ever. But I do think, you know, the flip phone and vinyl and it's clear that we're nostalgic for a reason. Why do you think all these kids want the 90s? It's not just the fashion, it's the pre Internet era.
- [41:01]
Advertisement Voice
Right.
- [41:01]
Gary Vaynerchuk
The simplicity, the nostalgic. It's so clear. So yeah, Avery's right. Like IRL is a big passion of mine. Thinking about a lot of businesses in that space. And as a marketing firm, we want to put on experiential events, trial sample, like go to the park and try these Doritos because we're making this fun little experiment but film it and put it on social, you know what I mean? That kind of stuff.
- [41:26]
Mark
Yeah. And you've also mentioned that younger generations like Gen Alpha is sort of turning away from the phone, they're turning away from social. They want to be in the presence of.
- [41:35]
Gary Vaynerchuk
I think Gen Alpha looked at Gen Z, saw all that anxiety and angst and said fuck that shit. And you know that happens a lot with like, you know, that's very common with generations that stack on each other. But don't get it twisted, they'll be the bigger, biggest and best users of AI. They're just going to have a relationship with it kind of similar to post, post prohibition alcohol. I think they're going to have a better relationship with technology. Yeah.
- [42:11]
Mark
And when you square that with your conversation with brands and your own team of we gotta be out there, you know, making more content, the right content. Is it about in an AI world where anyone can make anything, we have to just be the best and talk to those people more forever?
- [42:29]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes. Yeah. I mean, you know, everybody has access to a social media account. Everybody could make a website like, this is execution.
- [42:44]
Mark
I guess my final question for you is at our event, I was talking with a few people. Reid Hoffman was one, Raoul Paul was another.
- [42:55]
Advertisement Voice
And
- [42:58]
Mark
they seemed both optimistic and slightly skeptical of the future. You know, Reid, I said to him, you know, you're involved in PayPal. PayPal was money on the Internet. You're involved in LinkedIn identity on the Internet.
- [43:11]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes.
- [43:11]
Mark
Now we're in AI where it's like where whoever you are and want to be can. Can grow at massive digital scale and with a team that you can use, in essence, design and create. Raoul Paul said that we are entering a world where humans are no longer apex intelligence. And so what does that mean for us as a society? And so I guess, how do you look at people trying to navigate the future with the uncertainty around it? But because I think you are someone who always looks to take advantage of these moments of concern, these moments of asymmetry. How do you, like, what do you tell other people to say? Actually, no, this is the best time ever to do with it?
- [43:58]
Gary Vaynerchuk
So good, so good, so good.
- [44:01]
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- [44:27]
Gary Vaynerchuk
I'm always fascinated by people's inability to understand that the human being is the singular most underrated thing in the world. Our parents, my parents, maybe. I'm trying to think if the Soviet Union did this. Your parents, I'm assuming, but I shouldn't lived in America. Your parents did drills in school to go under the desk when the atomic bomb was dropped on us. The atomic bomb was invented. I don't know if you're aware of this. It was dropped by us, by the way, if I told you in 1949, in 1946, if I told you over the next 80 years, 10 other countries would get one, but not one would be dropped. I do not believe anyone would have believed it. We just tend to demonize the future based on big technologies. Back to demonizing when electricity was invented, when JP Morgan had it pretty much close to where we're sitting right now, people were scared that he bought it. People did not go to J.P. morgan's house because they thought electricity had demons in it. And they did not want to go into the house. Listen, you were more than welcome to be scared of AI and think robots are going to slice our throats and everyone's finished and it's all over and this all fucking blows. I just think that all these people are doing the same thing that everyone's always done. And I'm just incredibly optimistic about the human being and I believe we will figure it out and we always do. And there will be unlimited. Before anybody on the other side gets to it, let me jump in. There will be unlimited micro pains that come along with it. But you know what's funny? I didn't see everyone crying for the hundred thousand yellow pages salespeople when Yahoo and Google came out. And where was everyone for the poor? Do you know how many immigrants spent 30 years driving a fucking cab tirelessly for 12 hours a day to get a medallion? 20 years later, nobody was crying when Uber walked in. Right? And like, and where was, where were you all when Amazon started making books very easily available and all those third generation bookstores went out of business? I find it interesting that now when people are like wait a minute, this might happen to me, that now we need to be cynical and pessimistic and create unrest. I don't know, I just believe in the human being. I think there's unlimited opportunity. It's happening right now. Why don't we do more shows on the thousands of people that have already created opportunities and have helped? I mean I know a kid because I'm working with him who's 14 years old, 14. And has helped his family in Pakistan profoundly in the last six months because of AI. I'm happy for him. You know what's nice? Having clean water when you didn't have it before. You know. And so yes. Do I think some high paying executive in a corporation making 330 a year who's not contributing all that much because they're upper management executive. Do I feel horrible that they're going to lose their job? I sure do. I'm a human being. I have a lot of compassion. But I don't know, I just think that, you know, the Silicon Valley crew is very, very good. I have purplizing on both edges. They struggle with the middle. I like the middle.
- [48:14]
Mark
Thanks for joining Jet Suite.
- [48:16]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Thank you.
- [48:16]
Mark
Hey everybody.
- [48:17]
Gary Vaynerchuk
If you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.