How Gary Vee Thinks about NFTs | My First Million #209 with Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk 0:00 What's super awesome is, like, when you're putting the wins on the board, nobody even gives a- nobody wants to touch it. They're like, "Keep going, keep going." [laughs] Nobody wants to talk to me.

Speaker 0:08 Yeah. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. Uh, I put my all in it like no days off. On the road less traveled never looking back.

Sam Parr 0:19 That was pretty, uh, that was intense 45 minutes.

Shaan Puri 0:23 Dude, sometimes you have high hopes for a guest, and I, and on this podcast I've been disappointed. Today was not that day, my friend. I loved that. I, I had a great time, honestly.

Sam Parr 0:34 W- we didn't even get to a... We got to, like, 20% of the stuff I wanted to ask him about. So we had Gary Vaynerchuk on the pod today. It was phenomenal. Whenever I leave, so I've, I've hung out with Gary maybe three or four times, maybe three times. Whenever I leave his presence, I do feel better. And a lot of people, and I'll admit, I was one of those people. Years ago I would be like, "Oh, this guy's just some loud guy who's selling nonsense." He's totally the real deal. And I went to, we, we talked about it, but I went to a dinner with him one time, and he talked the entire time.

Shaan Puri 1:06 [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:06 And most people would be like, "Dude, what the hell? That was so rude." And when I left I was like, "I just wanna continue listening to him."

Shaan Puri 1:13 Right. [laughs]

Sam Parr 1:14 I want him to continue telling stories. I love his point of view. He's entertaining. He, that guy's intense. I love it.

Shaan Puri 1:21 He does what we try to do, and he's been doing it for a long time, which is business entertainment. It's the entertainment side of business where he, you know, he'll go to a garage. He'll, he'll make content that's like going to a garage sale, buying things for a quarter and flipping them for $28 on eBay, and how that stacks up and how you can go from, like, you know, $42 to $14,000 in a year if you just did this. And, like, obviously he doesn't need to do that anymore. He's got this agency with, you know, hundreds of employees. He's got, uh, you know, he's, he's got a bunch of stuff going on as far as his own business goes. But I like that he's been able to do what, what I think the world needs more of. It needs more business entertainment 'cause, like, why do I, why did I grow up wanting to be a basketball player? 'Cause the NBA was so goddamn entertaining, right? And, uh, and so when you have entertainment, it's, that creates inspiration and aspiration, so it ends up creating more founders in the world.

Sam Parr 2:16 Yeah, he was amazing, man. Um, and I, whenever I-

Shaan Puri 2:18 So what did, what did we talk about?

Sam Parr 2:19 W- whenever I'm off with him, whenever I'm with him off the air, by the way, he's ex- exactly the same.

Shaan Puri 2:24 [laughs]

Sam Parr 2:24 So there's not a, there's no show here. So all right. We started off... I, we got right into it. In the first 30 seconds I asked him, so I had been tracking this for a long time. When I was managing my business, I was trying to manage cash flow, and I was trying to understand how hard to push it, and I made a document from Gary Vaynerchuk about VaynerMedia. They grew to 1,200 employees. I tracked the revenue, revenue per head. Over hundreds of interviews I basically found where he said a clip like, "Oh, we have this many employees." And I asked him about it. So I asked him how he managed cash flow. Then we got into a really interesting c- discussion about NFTs. NFTs, a lot of people talk about them. I'm not, like, an NFT guy. Shaan, you are. This was the one time I've ever had a conversation where it int- interested me beyond just, like, uh, academic.

Shaan Puri 3:04 Right. Yeah, yeah. He, he does a good job with making it, I don't know, like, uh, tangible and ins- like, not making the big mistake, which is, "NFTs, let me tell you what it stands for and how it works under the hood." It's like, no, no, no. I don't care how the engine works. I wanna get in the car and go somewhere, so where does this let me go? And, uh, I think he did a pretty good job of that. So we talked about NFTs. Uh, we talked about, um, you know, just some of kinda like the lessons learned, you know, going from, like, what he saw in the dot-com boom, 'cause he was kinda like early in the game, right in 2000. And then he was there for, like, Twitter, Facebook, Uber, and he got in, he invested in Twitter, but he missed out on Uber even though Garrett was one of his best friends. And then what is, so how did he take that learning and what's he doing now with it today? How does he take those learnings and, and apply them now? So we talked about that for a bit, but good episode. He, he, you know, he was, I don't know, super nice guy. Uh, wants to come back on. I think we should have him on again for sure.

Sam Parr 3:58 I t- I take a lot... It makes me feel happy that sometimes, a lot of times people tweet at us and they say, "I wanna run through a wall after that episode," or, "I wanna go and accomplish something." I feel that way right now, uh, li- after listening to that episode. I, I felt like I was a, a part of it more so, uh, as a fan, more so as a participant. I thought it was wonderful.

Shaan Puri 4:18 Yeah. You know, the, it's, when people say, uh, you know, "I'm al- I'm always late to work 'cause when I'm driving listening to MFM I gotta pull over and write shit down," right?

Sam Parr 4:25 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 4:25 Like, "I can't let this idea go. I gotta write this down." That's, uh, that's when we do it well, and sometimes we don't always hit that. But I think we did it well on this one. So all right. There's that. That's the episode. Gary Vee. Enjoy.

Gary Vaynerchuk 4:36 Sing.

Shaan Puri 4:36 Like, "All right. Are you weird or are you normal?" And they're like, "We're a little bit of both." And then they came out and did it, and it, it, uh, it worked out well.

Gary Vaynerchuk 4:43 Awesome.

Sam Parr 4:43 I'm just using an iPhone.

Gary Vaynerchuk 4:45 Get the fuck outta here.

Shaan Puri 4:46 Well, Sam's traveling now, so-

Sam Parr 4:48 Swear to God.

Gary Vaynerchuk 4:48 Sam, you're looking s- are you really?

Sam Parr 4:50 I'm in New York. This is just an iPhone.

Gary Vaynerchuk 4:52 Oh, but with the blurred out...

Shaan Puri 4:54 So the-

Gary Vaynerchuk 4:54 Why does it look so good? The lighting?

Shaan Puri 4:55 So, so he got this app that basically t- uses your iPhone as, like, a DSLR, which is-

Gary Vaynerchuk 4:59 It's really cool

Shaan Puri 4:59 ... awesome.

Sam Parr 5:00 It's called, uh-

Gary Vaynerchuk 5:01 Well, it's nice to see you guys. I hope you're well

Sam Parr 5:02 ... it's called Camo. I'll give them a shout. It's called Camo. I think I paid $49 for it.

Gary Vaynerchuk 5:06 It's awesome, man. Hope everyone's well.

Sam Parr 5:08 Um, so we have, uh, a lot to get into. Um, I'm pumped you're here. Um, can I, s- something that I've, I've al- and we're recording now. Something I've always wondered about, how many people work at VaynerMedia right now?

Gary Vaynerchuk 5:26 Somewhere between probably 1,050 and 1,300. Va- I'm sorry, VaynerX. So VaynerMedia is the biggest company.

Sam Parr 5:34 So, yeah, that's what I mean.

Gary Vaynerchuk 5:34 Yeah. Vayner x, right, 'cause we have Gallery, we have... Yep.

Sam Parr 5:37 So I was looking, uh, I did some research based off a ton of interviews and I was, like, going through the head count of how, how fast you grew, and I believe between around years number, um, number three and four, did you grow from, like, 30 people to 125 people?

Gary Vaynerchuk 5:54 Yes. Because in 2011, September of 2011, I kinda made the decision to go full-time Vayner, no longer what I would call full-time Wine Library, secondary Vayner. I made that switch. And then the lighter fluid kinda went on

Sam Parr 6:11 Dude, how the hell do you manage that cashflow for a company like that? 'Cause I, I did-

Gary Vaynerchuk 6:15 That... Right

Sam Parr 6:16 ... I did research

Gary Vaynerchuk 6:16 'Cause right, 'cause you know your shit, yep. Mm-hmm

Sam Parr 6:18 And it was... Tell me if I'm... I, I just guesstimated off some interviews. Around, I'm gonna start at year one, around 5 people, 20 people, 30 people, 125 people, 300, 550, 600, 800.

Gary Vaynerchuk 6:32 Yeah.

Sam Parr 6:33 Is that a ballpark, right?

Gary Vaynerchuk 6:34 Yeah, like, if I, if you were asking me and I was spitballing, guess who the fuck, you know, the first year was like... The, we started in May of 2009, so that, that first half year, I think it was like six or seven. Then it might've been, like, 20 and through all of 2010, and then into '11 it probably got to, like, 30, and then that September 2011... Look, what... You'll appreciate this, and you've got this in you. There's certain people who I think are really, really good at top-line revenue-driving initiatives. What I think has been the balance of my life, and it's very similar to what happened at Wine Library, right, is because I'm able to create so much top-line rev, and because I'm playing forever, right? Wine Library, my dad's family business, and Vayner for me is really for, in a forever business. Um, I'm just able to hire a lot, right? And then you just gotta... You know, with retail it was really easy, right? I was like, I knew how to sell wine, so, like, I was... With, with B2B, it took me a little while to calibrate, like, "Oh, fuck, they didn't pay us. Wait a minute. Why?" [laughs] Like-

Sam Parr 7:35 [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 7:35 ... the bill's due, like, why didn't you pay? But, like, overall, um, it's just staying in your shit, right? I think it... When you stay in your business and you know what you've got coming in and what g- is going out, you know, I'm not a CFO, like, oriented CEO, but I'm also not a schlemiel. I always have a good sense of, like, is this... Are we gonna be de- I'm always playing to, like, will this hurt me? Like, will I be in trouble? You know, I try to stay within those confines.

Sam Parr 8:04 That's... It's just crazy. I mean, did you have a line of credit from the bank?

Gary Vaynerchuk 8:07 No, we didn't have a line of cr- so fucking Wine Lib- this is where my dad's a fucking psycho. I was so undereducated 'cause I was such a poor student, and I was such a... Sorry for this background noise. It'll go away in a second. Um, it was... I, my dad ran his fucking business with no line of credit, which I love, right? It's old school immigrant, you know, pay with what you have. But it trained me, because that business is even crazier. That business went from 4 million to fucking 25 in, like, 30 mon- like, so fast. And inventory and payroll, like... But I got so trained in playing within myself. We didn't have a line of credit for a long time. We de- we definitely got a line of credit probably 2011, maybe in 2013. So, but the first four or five years, and in the, in the pocket you're talking about, which is very much more, um, will resonate a lot more with people on the call who've got it, who are gonna go through the seven to 17 to 77 to 277, it was more about, um, just not spending what you don't have, right? Like, like, it was just as simple as basic being a businessman. Like, "Hey, we just landed this account. They're paying us 480 a year." It's fucking, you know, Mondelez or Pepsi. You feel like they're gonna pay you. You feel good.

Sam Parr 9:22 Yeah.

Gary Vaynerchuk 9:22 It's not gonna, you know? And it's like, "Okay, now I got 480. I'm gonna hire these six people [laughs] at 40K a piece. I feel good with..." You know, it was, like, very, like, back of the napkin. What's funny about it is, and you know this, and I think this is where, you know, as... When you were on the podcast, we hung out at outdoor dinner. Like, every time I come, there's something about just, like, street business versus... Like, I find myself laughing that, like, mine can be, like, intuitive and back of napkin, and yet people that are, like, all about learning and Excel sheets and doing it proper and [laughs] fucking SAP and cloud, you know, they have all the software, like, get fucked up. It's because they don't have a good pulse of their actual business and they get ahead of themselves and lack patience.

Sam Parr 10:05 Yeah, it's just, like, when you're growing that fast, it, it, it seems like, like you're kinda playing it maybe at month by month, maybe quarter by quarter, where I would be... I mean, it just... I, I, I would go to bed at night wondering, like, "I hope this client doesn't bail, otherwise I gotta lay off-

Gary Vaynerchuk 10:21 Yeah

Sam Parr 10:21 ... 20 people."

Gary Vaynerchuk 10:22 I, I think, I think what was happening was we were selling so f- this... And I think I... You know, it's so funny. I was very long-winded, and I think I had the answer. When you are selling at a level that people are not accustomed to, like, when you're outpacing normality, it just... Fucking selling hides everything. You know, when I'm landing a fucking client week after week, like, you, you know, you start getting into a place where you're just outpacing vulnerability.

Sam Parr 10:49 That's always a question I had. Shaan, do you wanna give them, um, an update on... I mean, I jumped right into that 'cause I've always had that question-

Gary Vaynerchuk 10:54 [laughs]

Sam Parr 10:54 ... about managing cashflow.

Shaan Puri 10:55 Sam's been, like, sitting on that question for two years or something-

Sam Parr 10:58 I have been

Shaan Puri 10:58 ... because he didn't say hello. He didn't say what the podcast is fucking about.

Gary Vaynerchuk 11:02 He, he-

Shaan Puri 11:02 He's like-

Gary Vaynerchuk 11:02 You know what, it ma-

Shaan Puri 11:03 ... "Hey, how, when you scaled, how'd you manage cashflow?" [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 11:05 Yeah. You know what's funny? I've gotten to know Sam through my podcast and a little couple hangouts. Uh, it makes sense to me because I think Sam's really good at what he does, and he's-

Sam Parr 11:13 Right

Gary Vaynerchuk 11:13 ... and he lived that life, and he knows he did it super well, and he knows what the anxiety and, like, the challenges are. Like, it, you can... You know, I always say, you can only... My favorite people to talk to are the people that know. Like, I love talking to people that know 'cause they've lived it, not because they read it. It just makes it so much more fun. It's the same way I feel, like, when I talk... Like, I love sports, but I fully know when I'm talking to an athlete I don't know.

Shaan Puri 11:39 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 11:39 I don't know what the f-

Shaan Puri 11:40 You know, I-

Gary Vaynerchuk 11:40 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 11:41 I did this, uh, uh, this thread that went viral on Twitter. It was about Clubhouse, and I was like, you know... This was when Clubhouse was sort of peaking, and I-

Gary Vaynerchuk 11:48 Yeah

Shaan Puri 11:48 ... I said this thing. I was like... It was kinda unpopular 'cause, you know, why shit on a startup, you know? It wasn't, it wasn't my intention. But I said, "Everybody thinks Clubhouse is the, the next big thing, and I think it's gonna fail, but here's how I think it's gonna go, play out." And I kinda wrote it like an episode of Silicon Valley. Like, I wrote it like a, like you're the CEO. First, you know, Chris Sacca's texting you. This is happening. And I wrote this thing, and it went viral. It ended up getting on CNBC. It has, like, I don't know- Tens of millions of impressions. And people were like, "Oh man, you're a good writer."

Gary Vaynerchuk 12:17 Interesting.

Shaan Puri 12:17 And I was like, "I'm not a good writer. I fucking, I built this thing called Blab that was very similar to Clubhouse-

Gary Vaynerchuk 12:22 Mm

Shaan Puri 12:22 ... and I went through this run and I was getting all this shit. It wasn't anywhere near Clubhouse, but I f-

Gary Vaynerchuk 12:26 Yep. I remember. I remember

Shaan Puri 12:27 ... you know, their, their hype was prior.

Gary Vaynerchuk 12:28 I remember.

Shaan Puri 12:29 Yeah. And, and so I was like, you know, I f- I, I went through this exact pain, and so I'm just literally telling a story I know of myself, and I'm exaggerating a little bit to make it funny.

Gary Vaynerchuk 12:38 Uh, you-

Shaan Puri 12:38 It has nothing to do with writing

Gary Vaynerchuk 12:39 ... you know what's so crazy about that? I don't know if you can see this. Do you see the goosebumps?

Shaan Puri 12:42 [laughs] Yeah.

Gary Vaynerchuk 12:43 It's, it's-

Sam Parr 12:43 [laughs] Yeah

Gary Vaynerchuk 12:44 ... it's, it's kinda how I think why I'm a good content producer. I literally stay in my fucking lane. I may say the same shit 8,700 different ways-

Sam Parr 12:53 [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 12:53 ... and that's a little bit of my talent. I'm good in incorporating contemporary pop culture, slang, nuances of the day. But the reason I think it works for me is similar to you. Like, I, like, I have so much conviction in my shit, 'cause I'm not guessing out here.

Shaan Puri 13:09 Right. Yeah. You, you know, uh, I was watching your, uh, Trash Talk video on the way here. So if you, people haven't seen it, go to, go to his YouTube. It's fun series, actually. I was watching. I was like, "I bet this hits." I couldn't see 'cause I was driving, so I'm listening to it and I'm like, "God, this is good content." I was like, "I bet this video hits," and of course, the views were pretty high on it.

Gary Vaynerchuk 13:27 The view for me-

Shaan Puri 13:27 It's basically-

Gary Vaynerchuk 13:28 For me and you, too, I'm sorry to interrupt, it's by far my best show.

Shaan Puri 13:31 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 13:31 It's my best content. Um, and do you know, do you know-

Shaan Puri 13:33 I- immediately I was like, "I'm hooked."

Gary Vaynerchuk 13:34 And do you know why I made it? Be-

Shaan Puri 13:36 No

Gary Vaynerchuk 13:36 ... because I listen to my audience. I read my comments. I read my shit.

Shaan Puri 13:40 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 13:40 So what was super awesome was I started getting a lot of emails from people saying, "Yo, you're awesome. I love you," but like, this whole like, yeah, you put a $25,000 check into Twitter. They're like, "That doesn't work for me."

Shaan Puri 13:51 Right. Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 13:51 "I don't have 25,000." I'm like, "You know, cool. Let me go even further back in my origin story. What did I do when I had dick shit? I fucking f- we- went garage sale-ing on Saturday and sold that shit at baseball card shows or other flea markets on, um, on Sunday."

Shaan Puri 14:08 Right. Like-

Sam Parr 14:08 Wait, wait. Like, by the way, it, it's more fun. So I, I, I just sold $3,500 worth of old computers, and I got more joy having that $3,500 in my Venmo than I did $20 million in my bank. [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 14:20 This, this, this, brother, is everything that I believe. I believe the reason I like stuff, it's easier, is I'm in it for the game. I'm just like you. I could... There's no comparison to how I feel when I, uh, in my last episode, I don't know if that's what you're watching, I found a bunch of Magna-

Shaan Puri 14:38 That's the one I was watching

Gary Vaynerchuk 14:39 ... chapter. Right. So for $270, I bought what ends up being about 6,400 in eBay post-fees sales, right? It's crazy 'cause it's like the thrill of the hunt.

Shaan Puri 14:51 Well, well-

Gary Vaynerchuk 14:51 Like, it was more fun

Shaan Puri 14:52 ... well, e- even before that, right? So I watched my drive home from the bank to get to, to get home. I didn't get to that part yet, but I saw that was the title. So the, the, the, you know, some people are like, "Oh, that's cool. You buy something for 270."

Gary Vaynerchuk 15:02 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 15:02 "You sell it for six grand." The part that I was blown away by was, the part I was watching, you went to 20 fucking garage sales-

Gary Vaynerchuk 15:09 Cold

Shaan Puri 15:09 ... in a day, and I was just thinking to myself two things. I was like-

Gary Vaynerchuk 15:12 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 15:13 ... he made the most kinda like, this, this chan- this show is basically the most approachable version of entrepreneurship.

Gary Vaynerchuk 15:18 Yes.

Shaan Puri 15:18 Like, we, we do these segments on the show that people love that's called, uh, we'll do the Billy of the Week, which is like a billionaire that we h- profile. But sometimes we'll do the Hillbilly of the Week, which is someone who's, owns 22 vending machines-

Gary Vaynerchuk 15:28 Oh my God

Shaan Puri 15:28 ... and we break down how much money they make.

Gary Vaynerchuk 15:30 Shit. That's fucking so smart.

Shaan Puri 15:32 Another one we do is called the Blue Collar Side Hustle. It's like, here's something you don't need to be a genius for. 'Cause sometimes I go off on my crypto shit, and I'll be like, "Oh yeah, this is the future." But then sometimes it's like, "Hey, you know what you should do?"

Gary Vaynerchuk 15:42 No, you're, uh-

Shaan Puri 15:42 Like go door to door-

Gary Vaynerchuk 15:43 You're a saint

Shaan Puri 15:44 ... selling pest control leads.

Gary Vaynerchuk 15:45 I love Billy Hillbilly

Shaan Puri 15:45 You know? And p- people love those.

Gary Vaynerchuk 15:46 I love Billy... That, that's so fucking smart. L- by the way, that's what I'm living right now. I'm like, can't function because I literally, like, looked at my calendar today and I saw we, I had this podcast, and obviously you guys have done a great job and I'm like fired up about it. But like literally in the back of my brain, I'm like, "Man, I hope they got caught up or something," 'cause if I get back that 45 minutes-

Shaan Puri 16:06 Right

Gary Vaynerchuk 16:06 ... I can go more on OpenSea and do a little more research.

Shaan Puri 16:08 [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 16:08 Like, I'm so enthralled right now in NFT life that I'm like, every meeting I'm like cutting five minutes short to like, like I'm just... But meanwhile, equally, the only other thing that's got me juiced is garage sale education-

Shaan Puri 16:22 Right

Gary Vaynerchuk 16:22 ... 'cause I know it can help people, and I love it. It's the same game.

Sam Parr 16:25 Do you know, um-

Shaan Puri 16:26 And so you-

Sam Parr 16:26 Do you know American Pickers?

Gary Vaynerchuk 16:29 I know that show, yes.

Sam Parr 16:30 So I used to work on that show. I used to work for Mike Wolfe, the main guy in that show. Um-

Gary Vaynerchuk 16:34 Is that the guy who, uh, is it the taller guy or the chubbier guy?

Sam Parr 16:36 The tall guy.

Gary Vaynerchuk 16:37 Yeah.

Sam Parr 16:37 The tall guy.

Gary Vaynerchuk 16:38 Yeah. Yep.

Sam Parr 16:38 And the way it worked is he would go from garage sale to garage sale, or not garage sale, barns-

Gary Vaynerchuk 16:42 Uh, barns. Yes

Sam Parr 16:42 ... and he would buy stuff. And we would buy like some cheap stuff, like something we could sell in the store for 50 bucks. Then we would buy some, like a old motorcycle that doesn't work but it's art that we could sell for 20 grand. And all these people would come in from all over the country to the store that I helped run. And we would probably sell $5,000 worth of items, but we would sell probably 30 grand a day of T-shirts. And-

Gary Vaynerchuk 17:04 Brand. Love it

Sam Parr 17:04 ... this freaking business crushed it.

Gary Vaynerchuk 17:06 Love it.

Sam Parr 17:06 But, um, Shaan, you wanna talk about some N- NFT stuff? 'Cause, so sh- I know that excites both of you. It excites me, too. Um, and-

Gary Vaynerchuk 17:12 Are you starting to get into it, Sam? Are you like digging in a little?

Sam Parr 17:14 No, I, I, I am. I'm into it. Shaan told me what it was like a year ago, and he bought-

Gary Vaynerchuk 17:19 Mm-hmm

Sam Parr 17:19 ... like some really cool Kobe stuff, and I went and got a f- I, I thought it was badass, and so, but Shaan's like really into it. I think he's got a ticker behind him that you could see.

Shaan Puri 17:27 [laughs] Yeah, no, this, this is, this is just m- you know, my own little, I motivate myself with my own motivational quote every day or whatever.

Gary Vaynerchuk 17:33 Nice.

Shaan Puri 17:33 But I do have this programmed up where it can tell me the price of whatever, you know, Ethereum or, you know, uh, whether it's, uh, some altcoin. Or in this case, I start, I met the founder of Nifty Gateway.

Gary Vaynerchuk 17:44 Mm.

Shaan Puri 17:44 And I was like, dude, uh, first, his story's hilarious. I don't know if you've met them, but it's two twins.

Gary Vaynerchuk 17:48 Oh, the-

Shaan Puri 17:49 Um-

Gary Vaynerchuk 17:49 ... Tyler? The Winklevoss?

Shaan Puri 17:50 No, so they got the-

Gary Vaynerchuk 17:51 No, they're-

Shaan Puri 17:51 It's two twins that built Nifty Gateway.

Gary Vaynerchuk 17:53 Got acquired by-

Shaan Puri 17:53 They got acquired by the two twins-

Gary Vaynerchuk 17:54 Oh my God. That's fucking amazing

Shaan Puri 17:55 ... of Gemini.

Gary Vaynerchuk 17:56 That's fucking amazing.

Shaan Puri 17:57 [laughs] And so he, this was like pretty early in the wave of like-

Gary Vaynerchuk 18:00 Yeah

Shaan Puri 18:00 ... NFT started getting hotter and hotter. And what they did which was smart was they said, "Look, NFTs have value because they're scarce. But the problem is anyone can make a, print a NFT tomorrow," which is like the fun, but also the, there's like an abundance of scarce objects now, right?

Gary Vaynerchuk 18:14 Yeah, supply and demand.

Shaan Puri 18:15 That's-

Gary Vaynerchuk 18:15 Uh, uh, like there's such an incredibly fascinating supply and demand game going on.

Shaan Puri 18:18 And so what Nifty started doing was they were kind of like, "Look, what we'll do is we'll be like Christie's. We'll curate. So we'll find the best artists on Instagram, and we'll bring them on." And they've been building up this- You know, Beeple did their thing-

Gary Vaynerchuk 18:29 Yeah. Yep

Shaan Puri 18:29 ... I think through, through Nifty early on.

Gary Vaynerchuk 18:31 Yep.

Shaan Puri 18:31 They've been building up a following for 10 years just doing free art c- for the love of the game on Instagram, and now that there's a way to monetize that audience, monetize that art, they can bring it over here.

Gary Vaynerchuk 18:41 Yep.

Shaan Puri 18:41 And so I bought this, like, Kobe, you know, the, the Forever Mamba. I don't know if you've ever seen it. But basically, I was telling Sam on the pod, I was like, "Yeah, I just bought this thing for $800." And you know, he goes through the cycle everybody goes through, which is, "You bought a file? Like, what, why are you buying JPEGs? Like, what's that gonna do? You spent $800 on this?" And I was like, "Yeah, actually I bought five." He's like, "You bought five copies of the same fucking thing?" And you know, those sell for 10 to, 10 to 25K now. And so, um, that was my first flip, basically. My version of the, and the digital-

Gary Vaynerchuk 19:08 Yeah

Shaan Puri 19:08 ... garage sale, right?

Gary Vaynerchuk 19:09 Yeah. That's why I'm so addicted I think. Like, I'm addic- I'm addicted to the digital garage sale.

Shaan Puri 19:14 And so give us like your simplified version of the thesis, 'cause some people kinda like, some people love this shit, they're in the weeds. Some people just sit there and eye roll. And then the truth is that there's something really exciting going on, and then there's also a bunch of shit that's gonna go away in a few years. Like, it'll all get swept under the rug.

Gary Vaynerchuk 19:29 Oh, I mean, I-

Shaan Puri 19:30 So give us your take.

Gary Vaynerchuk 19:31 Yeah, I've been... You know, I'll just... Well, I'll, I'll give you the micro thing on that. I think 98% of the current projects go to zero.

Shaan Puri 19:37 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 19:38 Like, I think it's very... It's, it, to me, it's the s- most similar thing to, uh, web internet stocks, '99, 2000 that I remember. I remember being there. I really... Like, I, I was me, young, so I wasn't as experienced and didn't have as many pattern recognitions and reps, but I had a lot of the good ingredients, right?

Shaan Puri 19:56 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 19:56 And I remember sitting there and saying, "Man, a lot of these businesses make no sense." [laughs] Like, just no sense. I'm like, "How can they be worth this much money?"

Shaan Puri 20:05 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 20:05 "They're losing so much money." And I, and I didn't understand Wall Street, so I wasn't sure, but when the affirmation of March and April 2000 came along and most things got smoked out, it kind of was a monumental moment for me because the only stock that I bought was Amazon.

Shaan Puri 20:21 Hmm.

Gary Vaynerchuk 20:22 And, and, and because I really thought it was like a real business. Even though it was losing money, it was losing money in a different way than other things. It had an actual business, like backside.

Shaan Puri 20:29 Right. [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 20:29 I was saying, I started, like revenue mattered. Like the other ones didn't have fucking revenue. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 20:33 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 20:34 You know? Like, no customer gave a fuck. And I'm always like, "Does the customer care?" So what do I think overall? I think people are grossly underestimating NFTs. I think right now people think of them as collectable and art and flip game. And for a lot of us that have that American Picker garage sale, sports cards for me, like... And there's a ton of people that love that. Like, that's, that's why half of Wall Street-

Shaan Puri 20:57 Yep

Gary Vaynerchuk 20:57 ... that's where they go. Like, there's a lot of those people, and that's amazing, and that's big. That's a big industry. Like, over the next 15 years, big. Collecting, flipping. You know, you've got an entire generation of kids that go on Fortnite and Madden and 2K and buy digital assets to flex. So that's gonna fucking play out. But I think that's just a nuance of NFTs. I think people misunderstand the utility nature of smart contracts. I believe in the next 15 years that, that nobody writes a book with a publisher, they do it through an NFT infrastructure. I believe that in 15 years nobody launches a record label by having a, a, a record, a, a record by having a record label give them the bag. They're gonna get it from crowdfunding by selling NFTs and giving a percentage of royalties.

Shaan Puri 21:40 And, and-

Gary Vaynerchuk 21:40 I believe that there's not a single sporting event or concert in 10 years that the ticket is not an NFT, because there's no incentive for that organization and that artist or people to launch it as anything but an NFT, because a QR code or a piece of paper means nothing. But the NFT, if Luka Dončić drops 100 points in that game, that becomes a forever collectable. There's a trillion fucking dollars worth of s- of ticket stubs that have sold over the last 25 years on eBay. Do you know, that all goes to royalties to the person that... So what's really fascinating to me, uh, I'll give you a weird one. If you own a home that is wildly unique, and is a $25 million home on a beach or some- something wild, right? You NFT that fucking home right now, put into the smart contract that you get 1% of every transaction of this home in perpetuity, and the first person that's gonna buy it from you is gonna be fine with that. They don't give a fuck.

Shaan Puri 22:34 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 22:34 Because these things are long leads, right? You buy it, you sit on it for 13, 15 years. So like, there's so much that NFT blockchain realities are gonna bring, that I think people are underestimating it.

Shaan Puri 22:45 So Gary-

Sam Parr 22:45 You wanna, you wanna... Yeah.

Gary Vaynerchuk 22:47 Yeah.

Sam Parr 22:47 Go ahead, Shaan. Good, good job.

Shaan Puri 22:48 I'll tell him this idea we had.

Sam Parr 22:49 Great minds think alike.

Gary Vaynerchuk 22:50 I love it.

Shaan Puri 22:50 A few months ago, a few months ago we're, we're shooting the shit before an episode and we, we don't tell each other what we're gonna talk about. It's like, "Yo, I'm bringing three-

Gary Vaynerchuk 22:57 Oh, that's awesome. Love that

Shaan Puri 22:57 ... I, I'm bringing three pieces of heat. You're gonna react to it."

Gary Vaynerchuk 22:59 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 23:00 "I gotta know my shit. You have to be able to react."

Gary Vaynerchuk 23:01 Love that.

Shaan Puri 23:01 And that, people like that. People like the reaction.

Gary Vaynerchuk 23:03 That's so good. It's, 'cause authentic-

Shaan Puri 23:04 We won't already know, it's like-

Gary Vaynerchuk 23:05 Yes, fuck that.

Shaan Puri 23:06 The worst part of a podcast is, "Hey, do you know this?" "Yes."

Gary Vaynerchuk 23:08 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 23:09 "Okay, well let me explain it 'cause I'm not actually asking you, motherfucker."

Gary Vaynerchuk 23:12 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shaan Puri 23:12 "I'm asking the audience, right? I'm trying to present this here." So one of the ideas that I brought on was that h- I noticed that Michael Jordan's house had been sitting on the market, has sat on the market, his house in Chicago, that's got the 23 emblem on the gate. It's got like a basketball court inside, it's got everything. And, uh, it's been sitting on the m- market for years and the price has been dropping. I think, I, I don't know what it started at. I think something like 20 million, and then it went down to s- 15, 14, th- and it's like, so I came on the pod-

Gary Vaynerchuk 23:39 Hey

Shaan Puri 23:39 ... I was like, "Dude, I think we could buy Michael Jordan's house for $10 million."

Gary Vaynerchuk 23:43 Wow.

Shaan Puri 23:44 And I was like, you know, so we could kind of like do the, the, you know, the way that no- normally somebody would do this is, all right, do I have that kind of F you money to go buy Michael Jordan's house and my wife doesn't kill me?

Gary Vaynerchuk 23:53 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 23:53 Or do I go, you know, like raise a fund amongst, you know-

Gary Vaynerchuk 23:56 Yep

Shaan Puri 23:56 ... a few back alley conversations at dinners with some-

Gary Vaynerchuk 23:58 Yep

Shaan Puri 23:58 ... folks who are rich. I said, "Or we could just get this podcast. We could crowdfund $10 million."

Gary Vaynerchuk 24:04 Yep.

Shaan Puri 24:04 As soo- and we could basically fractional, we could do fractional ownership-

Gary Vaynerchuk 24:07 Fractional, yep

Shaan Puri 24:07 ... either through an NFT or-

Gary Vaynerchuk 24:08 Yep

Shaan Puri 24:08 ... on Rally Road or whatever.

Gary Vaynerchuk 24:10 Yep.

Shaan Puri 24:10 I was like, "Let's buy Michael Jordan's house." And we start, and this went viral a little bit in our world. Like, in my head, you listen to every episode religiously. It hits your phone.

Gary Vaynerchuk 24:18 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 24:18 You, you say, "Cancel," you know, "Clear my calendar. I need to go listen to this." I know you probably didn't, but that was an idea we had m- a few months ago. So how would that play out in the NFT world?

Gary Vaynerchuk 24:27 So-

Shaan Puri 24:27 So walk us through that

Gary Vaynerchuk 24:29 You guys, and now it sounds like it went viral and you... Like, that's exactly what should hap- Like, I think that's... You can't imagine, and I'm a m- m- man who tends to... Like, I don't love that many ideas.

Shaan Puri 24:41 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 24:41 Really, I mean that. I love execution. I think a lot of people can execute a B and C idea and do great. But to say I love an idea is rare, and that's why I think I've done really well. Like, I really bet when I love something, and it's worked for me. And I've lost sometimes 'cause the executor couldn't do it. Yo Bongo-

Shaan Puri 24:58 Right

Gary Vaynerchuk 24:58 ... was my favorite investment. It was a precursor to Tinder in a lot of ways. Caleb and the team there just couldn't get it there. They didn't execute, which is okay. But, but when I tell you I love the idea of buying Michael Jordan's house so much because I know that you can literally arbitrage it in perpetuity. Like, I, r- you guys are people that can garner attention and promote. So it's worth so much more to you than somebody else.

Shaan Puri 25:28 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 25:28 I could see the entire entrepreneurial ecosystem renting out the basketball court game. Like, like, you can run a real business. Now, now back to my big point about unique property. I think this is gonna change the real estate industry.

Shaan Puri 25:41 Mm.

Gary Vaynerchuk 25:42 The fact that you could put... You guys are young dudes. You put a 2% royalty in perpetuity on that home.

Shaan Puri 25:48 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 25:48 You sell it to the next person for 9 million, let alone 12 million, right? Let's just play. You guys are locked. Your great-grandchildren, great, great, great-grandchildren, are like, "Our fucking great, great, great, great grandfathers-

Shaan Puri 26:00 [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 26:00 ... were fucking geniuses. We just got a fucking $800,000 check in the mail," or $80,000, whatever it ends up being. I do think in the next five years there will be a aha to what NFT blockchain smart contracts mean, and I think it will trickle into real estate. People will buy unique properties, and I think they're gonna make incredible in perpetuity monies that maybe they themselves won't get the crazy... 'Cause you know how often the houses turn, per se.

Shaan Puri 26:28 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 26:29 But man, it... Listen, if you're listening to this right now, listen. If I, I've got a real good sense to who listens to this 'cause you guys got a lot of fans. You are either there or you are aspiring to be there from a professional standpoint.

Shaan Puri 26:42 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 26:42 For the people that are listening right now who've been fortunate, and we're sitting in this weird moment right now because of crypto and NFT, where there's some people that have really come into some real money [laughs] in like, um, making a very smart play. If you're sitting with some money, you know, these are the things you're thinking about. Like, what can I do that, like, is fun for me but also leaves for my generational wealth? D- I wanna do shit that still is good... Like, the house is perfect, right? 'Cause it'll be-

Shaan Puri 27:08 Right

Gary Vaynerchuk 27:08 ... fun for you 16 or two or nine weeks a year. But you're also creating something that's an asset, let me say it one more time, in perpetuity.

Shaan Puri 27:18 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 27:18 Like, once it goes on there and gets NFT'd, it's NFT'd.

Shaan Puri 27:22 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 27:22 It is a contract. Like, there's the ABA team. Do you know the story about the ABA team from St. Louis?

Shaan Puri 27:29 No.

Gary Vaynerchuk 27:29 The NBA and ABA-

Shaan Puri 27:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Gary Vaynerchuk 27:30 ... and so this... Sam, this is epic. They merged the leagues. The St. Louis team is out, and the fuckers are like, "Fuck you, we're not signing the deal." And so what they did was they, they... It was like, I don't know what the finite details were, but they needed them to sign off to make the merger happen. And they tell them that your franchise doesn't advance 'cause we're folding some. They s- they, they fight, they fight, they fight 'cause they really loved basketball. They were like New York, like, schmatta guys who bought like t- me... Right? At the end they go, "Okay. Well, if that's the case you have to, we have to be treated financially as the tw- at the time, the 26th or the 22nd or the 24th NBA franchise. And in perpetuity we get the economic split for that. So we're out of the league, but economy, then we get it." And so as the league exploded, yeah-

Shaan Puri 28:18 They made... I mean, I think they made like a billion dollars-

Gary Vaynerchuk 28:21 Correct

Shaan Puri 28:21 ... or something.

Gary Vaynerchuk 28:22 I think, I think their kid-

Shaan Puri 28:23 It was two, two brothers, right?

Gary Vaynerchuk 28:23 That's right. That's exactly what it was. And I think-

Shaan Puri 28:25 It was, it was two brothers. I think they like made like hundreds of millions

Gary Vaynerchuk 28:28 ... hundreds of millions when that was, like, a different number over those-

Shaan Puri 28:31 Right

Gary Vaynerchuk 28:31 ... '70s, '80s, and '90s. I do think they got bought out, like the grandkids got bought out by the NBA, like, in, before the last big deal. But like, wow.

Shaan Puri 28:41 Unbelievable. I love that.

Sam Parr 28:42 Do you, um... Go ahead, Shaan.

Shaan Puri 28:44 I was just gonna say, w- you were talking about NFT. Another, uh, I think another NFT use case that why I like when talking about it with you versus, like, we've had a bunch of crypto heads on here.

Gary Vaynerchuk 28:52 Mm-hmm.

Shaan Puri 28:53 You know, uh, super geniuses like Balaji and others.

Gary Vaynerchuk 28:56 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 28:56 And you know, one challenge is if our audience is a guy who owns his own marketing agency in St. Louis, he's sorta like, "Okay, you know-"

Gary Vaynerchuk 29:04 Yeah, what does this mean?

Shaan Puri 29:05 Yeah, like I don't want the how.

Sam Parr 29:06 Pay.

Shaan Puri 29:06 I want the what.

Gary Vaynerchuk 29:06 Correct.

Shaan Puri 29:07 What does this mean, and what does it mean for me?

Gary Vaynerchuk 29:08 To, to... Exactly. And to me, when I talk about NFTs, I think about the fashion industry. I think about why somebody owns a Rolex.

Shaan Puri 29:16 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 29:16 I think about social media. Like, like, how about this? You know how everyone's like, "Social media's full of shit." Like, everyone takes photos and fakes it. You know what's gonna be a much better social identity? What tokens do you have in your wallet publicly?

Shaan Puri 29:29 Yes. Dude, I was thinking about this yesterday.

Gary Vaynerchuk 29:31 I, I would have a much better read on both of you if I looked at your tokens in eight years.

Shaan Puri 29:33 Just look at my ETH wallet.

Gary Vaynerchuk 29:34 Yeah, like-

Shaan Puri 29:35 Yeah. [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 29:35 ... like my public wallet is gonna represent me. 'Cause it's not only gonna be, like, what I believe in, CryptoPunks, you know, my VeeFriends collection. Like, but it's also gonna be, like, all my Jets tickets.

Shaan Puri 29:45 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 29:45 And like, I'll give you a good one. I haven't mentioned Dave Matthews publicly in my entire life.

Shaan Puri 29:49 [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 29:50 But if somebody went in my... If this was going on for 30 years, it'd be like e- like I, every day on Twitter I'd probably get a, "Gary, you went to Dave Matthews New Year's '99 Madison Square Garden?"

Shaan Puri 29:59 [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 29:59 I'm like, "Oh yeah, my friend Tokyo Joe loved it." Like, like, you know, it's a truth indicator.

Shaan Puri 30:04 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 30:04 And by the way, one last point. This is what really confuses people. Every... I'm gonna give you such a clear picture that I think will help people. Every one of you kn- has an aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, friend, grandma. When you go into their house, they collect marbles. They collect little miniature elephants. They collect magnets. Every state they go to they pick up a matchbox. Humans, humans are inhen- inherently hoarding assets. And we use them for ourselves 'cause we like it and we get caught up in the nostalgia and the story, and we use it to flex

Shaan Puri 30:37 Yep

Gary Vaynerchuk 30:37 Flexing a painting or your Winnie the Pooh collection that's epic in your house is kinda hard except for the people that come through. The blockchain is gonna accelerate, accelerate at a scale-

Shaan Puri 30:48 Right

Gary Vaynerchuk 30:48 ... the way I thought that it would accelerate communication with social, and that's why I think people are underestimating. The first internet collected the information. The second internet created the framework for communication, right? This third thing, this Web3 NFT thing, it's going to capture the consumerization of assets, and the stakes are fucking high.

Sam Parr 31:13 And with your deal, the, the new, um, the, the Gary... What, what was it called? VeeFriends.

Gary Vaynerchuk 31:17 VeeFriends.

Sam Parr 31:18 Do you, do you, um, you offer a, a conference a year. Are you gonna do that forever or is there a timeline on that?

Gary Vaynerchuk 31:25 What I wanted to... So my... This is pretty interesting 'cause I've, I've done it in a couple shows, but with you guys it's, it mu- people like this. So I always-

Shaan Puri 31:32 Do you wanna host it at Michael Jordan's house? 'Cause we'll let you do it, my friend.

Gary Vaynerchuk 31:36 [laughs] Listen.

Shaan Puri 31:36 We can help you host it at Michael Jordan's house.

Gary Vaynerchuk 31:39 I'm with it, my guy. Listen, so for the hardest core consumers of my content, VeeFriends made so much sense. Why? The amount of times I referenced Walt Disney and Vince McMahon, character creation, I'm building VaynerX to buy nostalgic IP.

Shaan Puri 31:54 Yep.

Gary Vaynerchuk 31:54 I'm gonna refurbish storytelling, Saturday morning cartoons, all the shit behind me in my office, right? Like wrestling, and Thundercats, and Transformers. So I'm just so affected by pop culture and all that my whole life. And like I wanted to buy like animal crackers from Mondelez and I was gonna turn it into Madagascar. Like, I've been like in this place forever, right? As a matter of fact, you know what VeeFriends is? Two years ago, I was gonna launch a toy line called Workplace Warriors, were literal desk toys-

Shaan Puri 32:23 Right

Gary Vaynerchuk 32:23 ... with what basically became these characters. So for me, I see NFTs, I have my, I've been like kind of like flirting in the winter. I have my crazy eureka like, "No, no, no, this is the fucking it, it," right? Moment. I bought Eth a long time ago. Aaron Battalian, shout-out, former CTO of Living Social, got me on in 2015, '16. I've been watching, but I wait till the consumer, the normal shit, the m-marketing agency St. Louis moment.

Shaan Puri 32:46 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 32:46 Not the fucking hardcore infrastructure nerd shit. That's just not my jam, right? So I go, "Fuck, man, I'm gonna build the next Pokémon, Harry Potter, Transformers," but 99.9% of the world's not gonna believe me. So let, let me launch this program and show people that you can do a lot more than just have pictures on it.

Shaan Puri 33:09 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 33:09 So to your point, Sam, uh, like I'm like, uh, so the answer is it's a three-year contract.

Shaan Puri 33:13 Got it.

Gary Vaynerchuk 33:13 VeeFriends series one says you get a conference ticket to VeeCon 2022, 2023, 2024, right? I'll figure shit out after the fact, but I knew that that would have such inherent value that people would lock in for that. But basically what I was trying to do was trick, this is the word I would use, trick my hardest core advocates by giving them an asset. I view VeeFriends, the original thing I just launched, as kind of like the original Disney cells. You know those things that sell for like a drillion that were like, they hand-drew Snow White in the '40s? Like, if I pull off what I think I can pull off, stuffed animals, toys, trading cards, movies, video games, over the next 40 years, this original NFT has real potential, and I wanted to create a thing that wouldn't make my biggest, earliest supporters trade it. You look at Bored Ape, you look at Meebits, you look at these epic projects that are killing right now, people are trading. I wanted, I wanted people to be locked in so that by the time the three years are over, they're like, "Wait a minute, I'm never selling this," 'cause I wanted them to benefit the most.

Shaan Puri 34:17 And the data backs this up. So right now if I go on CryptoSlam, uh, if you, if you guys don't know this, cryptoslam.io. Easy little aggregator of NFT projects. I think you guys are like number eight. Okay, so you're number eight.

Gary Vaynerchuk 34:29 In the last 24 hours doing-

Shaan Puri 34:30 And last 24... Yeah, sorry.

Gary Vaynerchuk 34:31 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 34:31 It's a 24-hour rolling scoreboard, but you can do-

Gary Vaynerchuk 34:33 Uh, you see the top, you, you can do up top. It's got all the stuff.

Shaan Puri 34:35 Yeah, so we can do like, let's say 30 days. All right. So 30 days, you're number 12. Last 30 days, about 12 million of sales volume, of transaction volume. And the funny thing is if you go through all the other ones, CryptoPunks, Meebits, all these, they have somewhere between thousands or tens of thousands or, you know, the top one, Axie Infinity, has quarter million buyers that are doing these number, doing these transactions. VeeFriends is like an outlier. It's like 300 people with 580 transactions. What that tells me is that there is a small group of hardcore people who are not looking to flip this rapidly for a quick buck because they believe in you, they believe in the utility value of the conference. So I like that because it's different and you're, you're pushing it more, more.

Gary Vaynerchuk 35:14 At th- at, at, at this point, I think I've been very aggressive at this. I'm like, "Do not bet against me. I'm gonna fucking build Transformers."

Shaan Puri 35:21 [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 35:21 Like, you know, like, and I, so I think a lot of people are holding now b- more... You know, the conference is gonna be epic and I'm gonna come through, but I think, I think, I think they're betting on my propaganda right now-

Shaan Puri 35:31 Well, it's, it's like-

Gary Vaynerchuk 35:31 ... and I'm gonna come through

Shaan Puri 35:32 ... it's like Bitcoin. Uh, the thing that gets it, like early days Bitcoin-

Gary Vaynerchuk 35:37 Mm-hmm

Shaan Puri 35:37 ... the people who bought in were because they were anarchist crypto nerds.

Gary Vaynerchuk 35:40 Yes.

Shaan Puri 35:40 It's like th- they needed the, you need the, the first people to buy in for one reason.

Gary Vaynerchuk 35:43 That's right.

Shaan Puri 35:43 Then the second people are, you know, the speculators.

Gary Vaynerchuk 35:45 That's right. You got it. You got it.

Shaan Puri 35:46 And then it's like once everybody's got the g- damn thing-

Gary Vaynerchuk 35:48 You got it

Shaan Puri 35:48 ... we all speculated on it.

Gary Vaynerchuk 35:49 You got it.

Shaan Puri 35:49 Now we can just use it as a medium of exchange. So similarly-

Gary Vaynerchuk 35:52 What's, what's interesting about NFTs more so than Bitcoin today, and obviously things will evolve, it's just functional.

Shaan Puri 36:00 Yeah.

Gary Vaynerchuk 36:00 Like V- Vee- VeeCon makes it funct- like they're about to get very functional.

Shaan Puri 36:05 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 36:06 Like the, like the functionality is gonna be extraordinary.

Shaan Puri 36:09 Right. And so, uh, so I like VeeFriends. I think VeeFriends is cool. I told my guy before this pod, I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna talk to Gary today. Um, you know, let's pick up a VeeFriend. Like g- go, go get me one off the floor there."

Gary Vaynerchuk 36:20 I appreciate it.

Shaan Puri 36:20 And he's like, "Cool, the floor price is like at, at 17 grand now." [laughs] I was like, "Oh, okay. Whoa. All right. All right. Let's, uh-"

Gary Vaynerchuk 36:25 [laughs] We don't like Gary that much. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 36:26 I was, and then I was like, I was like, "I'm gonna do it, but that is not what I expected." I was like, "That's interesting." That really kinda like opened my eyes. In fact, the, the last few days you've been seeing... So I wanna bring back one thing you talked about, which is-

Gary Vaynerchuk 36:36 Please

Shaan Puri 36:36 ... your wallet is gonna be a new type of profile.

Gary Vaynerchuk 36:39 The end.

Shaan Puri 36:39 It's gonna be a new place to flex. It's gonna be a new place to learn about somebody.

Gary Vaynerchuk 36:42 In a, in a, in a, in a real way. Like, like the only reason I'm in is that

Shaan Puri 36:46 Right. And then the o-

Gary Vaynerchuk 36:47 I think, I think utility is gonna be-

Shaan Puri 36:48 Social's going the other way.

Gary Vaynerchuk 36:49 Well-

Shaan Puri 36:49 You can filter your face. You can do-

Gary Vaynerchuk 36:51 Yeah

Shaan Puri 36:51 ... many things to get-

Gary Vaynerchuk 36:52 Yeah. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 36:52 ... non-verifiable there, you know?

Gary Vaynerchuk 36:53 You know, you know what's really interesting, the argument of, like, us controlling our narrative, 'cause everyone's become the PR agent of themselves, versus the black and white public data of what we buy. Now, don't forget, for everyone who's scared and loves privacy, you don't have to share your wallet.

Shaan Puri 37:10 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 37:10 It's just that my, my argument is I was there for Myspace 2004 when everyone's like, "People are gonna get raped at the mall and kidnapped." And, you know, I was like, "Nah."

Shaan Puri 37:21 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 37:21 I think it's gonna go this way, and now it is, right? Everyone's in. I think that's what's gonna happen with NFTs. Like, you've got the hardcore people that I get on Zoom with, like, just chopping, and they've got literally, like, voice deactivators and, like-

Shaan Puri 37:32 [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 37:33 ... screens. I don't know who they are.

Shaan Puri 37:34 I love those guys. [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 37:34 But, like, every, every day the masses are coming, and they're in the public wallet, the Rainbow wallet, the-

Shaan Puri 37:41 Right

Gary Vaynerchuk 37:41 ... .eth world, and I think that's where it's going.

Sam Parr 37:44 You, um, so you, you, you've been talking about buying brands and putting them through Vayner for, I mean, y- in, like, year three, four of, of the m- company. You, I mean, you've been saying that whole spiel for a long time. I... First of all, you ha- you haven't done it yet. When are you gonna do it? And second of all, I think that this putting them through the, the NFT thing is significantly better than the old model that I bet you were planning on doing of, like, little, w- you know, we could put them through the, the VaynerMedia-

Gary Vaynerchuk 38:11 Machine, yep

Sam Parr 38:12 ... machine.

Gary Vaynerchuk 38:13 You, you've got to pick and-

Sam Parr 38:14 Like, I mean-

Gary Vaynerchuk 38:14 Yeah

Sam Parr 38:14 ... I would much rather buy-

Gary Vaynerchuk 38:15 Yeah

Sam Parr 38:15 ... an old, like, a '90s brand and do this, because I'm, I'm looking at who the biggest, uh, brands are on, on CryptoSlam. I mean, it's sports, it's sports companies.

Gary Vaynerchuk 38:23 Yeah.

Sam Parr 38:23 I mean, I think you can do brands are gonna be better. When, when are you finally gonna execute on that and, and pull the trigger?

Gary Vaynerchuk 38:29 [laughs]

Sam Parr 38:29 Because y- you've been talking about it for a long time. I'm excited to see it happen.

Gary Vaynerchuk 38:32 I will.

Shaan Puri 38:32 Come to Gary. [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 38:34 So-

Sam Parr 38:34 Well, it's like-

Gary Vaynerchuk 38:35 No, it's gonna drop

Sam Parr 38:35 ... like, dude, why do you need-

Gary Vaynerchuk 38:36 Yeah

Sam Parr 38:36 ... fucking f- 1,500 employees still? Like, uh, you built that machine.

Gary Vaynerchuk 38:41 It's al-

Sam Parr 38:41 It's badass

Gary Vaynerchuk 38:41 ... you'll, you'll-

Sam Parr 38:42 Do the other thing now.

Gary Vaynerchuk 38:43 You, you... Yeah, you'll appreciate it. I think that's an, an incredibly strong observation from the outside. I just know how... You know, you know what, like, it's a version of golden handcuffs. Like, instead of, like, selling your company, you have to be stuck or, or, like, you have a big salary. I just know I'm so fucking close for it actually being a Death Star versus, like, yeah, it's a better badass machine than anybody else has got. Like, I feel that. Like, truly I do. I'm like, "I got a better machine than the other fucking 500 people I admire that I think have this down." But it's like, but it's so m- it's, like, so close to being two times better and four times better. And the way I scratched my itch was Resy, the restaurant app, which I had a major exit with, Empathy Wines, which... Like, I was creating. And now VeeFriends. And, like, the VeeFriends thing is really fucking with me because I'm like, "Eh." You know, uh... Oh, by the way, Sam, uh, you'll appreciate this. I had one executed four years ago, signed, and they pulled out late and kind of had, like, a clause in there that allowed them to, and I feel good about this publicly. I had Animal Crackers bought. I mentioned it slightly quickly when I was talking.

Sam Parr 39:46 Yeah.

Gary Vaynerchuk 39:47 I had it, and I fucking had the master fucking plan. It was a c- cookie brand. I was gonna make it healthier to be on trend. But what I was really gonna do was turn it into an animated film and build up-

Sam Parr 39:56 Right

Gary Vaynerchuk 39:57 ... like, make the lion, like, fucking Larry the Li- Like, I was f- it was kind of VeeFriendy. Now, listen, ultimately I think I'm gonna place my... I'm young enough at 45, have the leverage, have the infrastructure that I think I'm gonna do a whole bunch of everything, right? I think I can build a studio like Pixar with VeeFriends at the forefront and do other shit, and I think I can buy Champion when it gets cold again and refurbish it in 13 years, 'cause I like both of those things and I'm gonna try to get them both.

Sam Parr 40:23 How much, how much could you have bought Animal Crackers for?

Gary Vaynerchuk 40:25 F- 48 I think the deal was at at the time.

Sam Parr 40:28 No shit.

Gary Vaynerchuk 40:29 Yeah.

Sam Parr 40:29 What was the revenue?

Gary Vaynerchuk 40:32 I hate making up shit. I genuinely don't remember. I remember the number pretty, pretty vividly 'cause-

Sam Parr 40:37 Oh, do you remember around the multiple?

Gary Vaynerchuk 40:39 It was, like, nothing. It was, like, fucking-

Sam Parr 40:40 I feel-

Gary Vaynerchuk 40:40 ... nothing

Shaan Puri 40:41 But you're valuing the IP, not the core business at that stage.

Gary Vaynerchuk 40:44 No, they were, like, just fucking... It was dead. They were like, "We n-"

Shaan Puri 40:47 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 40:47 Like, they didn't give a f- They... And, like, and we were gonna use it as a proxy to teach them how to do it with their br- Like, it was fucking set up nicely.

Sam Parr 40:53 Well, you did it with, uh, well, Nilla Wafers. Just, I mean-

Gary Vaynerchuk 40:56 We, from a marketing standpoint, we crushed it there. And you know, I, I really scratched my itch with K-Swiss.

Sam Parr 41:02 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 41:02 K-Swiss was fucking finished, dead, done.

Sam Parr 41:04 What happened to them? Something happened recently.

Gary Vaynerchuk 41:07 They sold.

Sam Parr 41:07 Right? The, the, the rebirth or-

Gary Vaynerchuk 41:08 Yeah, they, they, they sold it to a Chinese apparel company.

Sam Parr 41:10 That's right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 41:11 K-Swiss was at the forefront of that leverage. We fucking exploded. Not only did we sell a fuckload of Gary Vee sneakers, the residual effect on the brand was very real. That was, that's the closest I've come to, like, testing my machine. Only difference was it was a fake test 'cause I was so involved with it in the face. My plan is not to be that. As a matter of fact, VeeF- the best part of VeeFriends for me is Gary Vee has been the catalyst for all the shit I'm passionate about, like work ethic, patience. I'm so pumped that I'm gonna be, over the next three years, be able to go a little bit more in the backdrop and let these, and let these characters take over for me as I build that IP. So I'm looking forward to that.

Sam Parr 41:48 Are you-

Shaan Puri 41:48 Well, that's what I was gonna ask you when I was, when I was watching this garage sale video. I was like, "This is great content, but man, he actually had to go to 20 garage sales [laughs] and he..." I'm sure there's some fun to it, but also-

Gary Vaynerchuk 41:57 There's a lot of fun to it

Shaan Puri 41:57 ... you've graduated past that stage in your life and-

Gary Vaynerchuk 42:00 Well, that, that's the biggest thing that pisses me off in my bougie fucking friends. They're like, "Gary, what the fuck are you doing?" I'm like, "Fuck you. You, you, you go play golf and go on a yacht, I'm in a fucking garage sale. I'm not telling you what to do."

Shaan Puri 42:10 [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 42:10 Like, you know, like-

Shaan Puri 42:11 Well, e- even besides that, like, I, I know, you know, J- I've done this podcast now for only, I don't know, 18 months, right?

Gary Vaynerchuk 42:16 Yes.

Shaan Puri 42:16 So, so we're, we're, we're new to the game, something like that, and there's a lot of benefits of building up this personal brands. Like boom, I wanna raise a fund, I raise a fund. I launch a course, I w- sell out.

Gary Vaynerchuk 42:26 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 42:26 You know, like, you can make a lot of money when you build a personal brand. You build trust with an audience-

Gary Vaynerchuk 42:30 Yep

Shaan Puri 42:30 ... uh, by giving them, giving them, giving them, like-

Gary Vaynerchuk 42:32 Yep

Shaan Puri 42:32 ... like you said, and then you s- you sort of have your, your ass later. So the, the part I thought was interesting is, man, he's been on this, what, you know, quote unquote, "treadmill" of creating content. You know, you're in your car, you're in your Uber going somewhere.

Gary Vaynerchuk 42:45 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 42:45 You know, you got a phot- you got a cameraman with you-

Gary Vaynerchuk 42:47 Yep

Shaan Puri 42:47 ... and you gotta put out a soundbite for Instagram Reels 'cause that's the new hot shit or whatever. And so, like- Does, are you, uh, I guess, like, this is more of a personal question. Like, Sam wanted to know the how the hell did you manage the cash flow question. This is mine as, like, I see myself doing this content thing for a long time, but I don't wanna work as hard as you as far as creating that much content. Do you do it because, like, it's fun? Do you do it, you know, are you, do you feel like you're on a treadmill when you're creating-

Gary Vaynerchuk 43:12 Yeah

Shaan Puri 43:12 ... this much content, this much Gary Vee?

Gary Vaynerchuk 43:15 The answer is, I only do what I like. As a matter of fact, like, I'm not hitting all my, my team and my quotas right now with my content these last two weeks 'cause I can't stop being on CryptoSlam, OpenSea, Discord. Like, you'd, you'd be stunned how, how much I could shut it down or triple down. I understand the benefits of it and the leverage, and I always did. I always thought the community and brand was very underestimated in the last 10 years. I just feel like people are just getting around to, like, "Oh, shit, this is, like, the actual game." But I don't, I don't really... I, I enjoy it. I really do. And, and I also did it a little bit different. I slowly... I did it by myself for seven years, but then I really built out an infrastructure of a team, right? Like, to your point, like, I'm, I'm just living and everyone's recording, and then we're post producing at scale.

Sam Parr 44:06 How many, uh, folks are on the team?

Gary Vaynerchuk 44:09 Right now I think there's 22.

Sam Parr 44:10 And is, um, d- are you the majority owner of VaynerMedia or VaynerX?

Gary Vaynerchuk 44:15 Yes.

Sam Parr 44:16 So then you're able to kind of, um... It's not like a VC thing where... You're, you're able to, like, use the same resources across all your shit.

Gary Vaynerchuk 44:22 Mm-hmm.

Sam Parr 44:22 You don't have to worry about pl- you don't have to worry about pleasing everyone.

Gary Vaynerchuk 44:25 That's right.

Sam Parr 44:26 Or, like, your fiduciary. I mean, your fiduciary is to your, to yourself and to your brother.

Gary Vaynerchuk 44:29 I have fiduciary, but like... Yeah, exactly. So, like, and so I'm, I'm in heavy control. It's a long-term play. I have no board. There's no-

Sam Parr 44:39 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Gary Vaynerchuk 44:40 ... I'm not publicly traded. To your exact point, I can like... I'm, it's very much just a very large family business.

Sam Parr 44:45 Yeah, you don't have to justify to anyone but you and your bro.

Gary Vaynerchuk 44:48 And what's cool about that is I don't have to my bro 'cause I've done super well by him. And more importantly, you know, I'm delivering. Like, you know, you know this, right? Like-

Sam Parr 44:57 Yeah

Gary Vaynerchuk 44:57 ... what's super awesome is, like, when you're putting the wins on the board, nobody even gives a... Nobody wants to touch it. They're like, "Keep going. Keep going." [laughs] Nobody wants to talk to me, you know?

Sam Parr 45:06 Did you, do you pay yourself from the, the company or do you just take all your side wins and, and reinvest most your, your... what would be your salary or income from the, the brand back into the agency?

Gary Vaynerchuk 45:19 Originally I paid myself very, very, very little. It just is so much of the percentage of my time, so I've started paying myself probably over the last four years. Um, but I'm still, like, wildly undercompensated in comparison to what I would feel like the god of merit would come down and she or he-

Sam Parr 45:36 [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 45:36 ... would say, "Yeah, you are, like, way under..." Because it's kind of all cycling in the same game, to your point.

Sam Parr 45:42 Sure.

Shaan Puri 45:44 And do you, um, d- like, do you look back? 'Cause I, I think you're excited about Web3.

Gary Vaynerchuk 45:49 Yes.

Shaan Puri 45:49 And you look back at Web2. I know, uh, you can quickly tell the story of missing Uber.

Gary Vaynerchuk 45:53 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 45:53 You know, you're buddies with the guy-

Gary Vaynerchuk 45:54 I can

Shaan Puri 45:54 ... who missed Uber. That's a big one.

Gary Vaynerchuk 45:56 That's a big one.

Shaan Puri 45:56 What, what was, uh, you, you tell that story but also just in general, what'd you learn from the Web2 wave that you're like, "Okay, Web3 I'm better prepared 'cause I've been in the long game"?

Gary Vaynerchuk 46:04 I, I, I love you for that question because the only thing I've been thinking about for the last nine months is, like, "Damn, this is the first time I've felt like this since '06."

Shaan Puri 46:12 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 46:13 The thing I learned there was I was gonna meet a lot of people that were technically stronger than me, teach me new things, have incredibly fun, young, fucking on fire thinkers, different shit the world is rescheduling, recalibrating, and that I knew that I understood the consumer and the human so well that I would figure out my path within it. I think, like, you know, the thing I learned with... I've, I've told the Uber story ad nauseam. Travis is the only person I thank in Crush It!, my first book, besides my family.

Shaan Puri 46:44 [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 46:44 We were incredibly close. Um, what I learned there was defense always loses. I bought my first, like, apartment in Manhattan. I'd played so conservative up until, like, 35. Like, I had no money first of all 'cause I was building the family business. I just didn't have a lot of liquid. I had enough to make the Uber investment. I passed twice, and there was two things I learned from it. One, look, the full story is that when I was asked to invest in Uber, Garrett and Travis were just the inventors of it and Ryan Graves was the CEO-

Shaan Puri 47:17 Right

Gary Vaynerchuk 47:17 ... and was gonna run it. And I had just failed in putting up a wine social network called Corkd, and it was 'cause it was a distraction to my core. And so I was affected by thinking that if this is their side hustle, it's not really them. What I mean-

Shaan Puri 47:32 Totally reasonable, by the way. Totally reasonable line of thought-

Gary Vaynerchuk 47:34 The second one s-

Shaan Puri 47:34 ... and you'll be right nine out of 10 times.

Gary Vaynerchuk 47:37 The second one hurts because Travis came back to me on this... There's this grassy knoll, I have no idea where it is in San Francisco, like a little park. I drove by it, like, seven years ago and got, like, the worst feelings of like, "I have to go back here every year-"

Shaan Puri 47:47 [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 47:47 "... once a year for humbleness."

Shaan Puri 47:48 [laughs]

Gary Vaynerchuk 47:49 What I'll tell you, I, I, I wanna, uh, yeah, I know we're gonna be wrapping up, so let me give you the real... This is something I really hope helps a lot of people. I have completely gone the other way. Let me tell you what I mean by that. I am now completely infatuated with investing only based on the person. I have to hate, that would be the word I use, and I don't like that word. I would have to hate the person's idea to not go if I think that the jockey is a gangster, and it's worked out for me. There's a company called MicMac where I just saw Rachel, had one meeting with her, and I said, "She's one of us." Right?

Shaan Puri 48:21 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 48:21 That's it. She's one of us. And she's pivoted four times, but the company is a monster now and is well on its way. And between the Uber thing and the Rachel thing, like, it's kind of how I'm navigating Web3 right now. I'm really trying to pay attention to is this person one of us.

Shaan Puri 48:39 Right.

Gary Vaynerchuk 48:39 Because I think there's something about a human's ability to will their way to the success even if they have to completely change the business model halfway through.

Shaan Puri 48:48 I love it.

Sam Parr 48:49 Well, we, uh, you were supposed to bounce, uh, three minutes ago. We don't wanna go over your time. I, it sounds like, it looks like you're in the Hamptons and it sounds like someone's preparing dinner right now.

Gary Vaynerchuk 48:59 [laughs]

Sam Parr 48:59 Is that right?

Shaan Puri 48:59 [laughs]

Sam Parr 49:00 Is that right?

Gary Vaynerchuk 49:01 Listen, you've got-

Sam Parr 49:01 Yeah, yeah. Are you in the kit-

Gary Vaynerchuk 49:02 ... you've got good intuition. I, uh-

Sam Parr 49:03 Oh, you're in the kitchen

Gary Vaynerchuk 49:04 ... I, uh-

Sam Parr 49:04 You're in the kitchen. Do you have someone who is vacuuming and cooking dinner right now?

Gary Vaynerchuk 49:07 We're, we're, we're, we're setting up infrastructure for the weekend. But listen, I, I, uh, let me say this. It's super fun for me to see this show pop from afar. Like, there are not... You know, it's a very funny time in society where, like, work ethic and the grind, like... I, I'm incredibly excited that we have a balanced conversation, but the energy of entrepreneurship is just such an important variable. And so, uh, I, I appreciate what you guys are doing in this space.

Sam Parr 49:34 And I'm not gonna... I'll have to ask him if, if it's, if he's cool if I blow up his spot a little bit, but me and Gary had dinner with, like, 8 or 10 other people, like, two months ago. And I went back to this guy's house, uh, about a month ago again for another dinner. We're gonna have to tell the story about this guy's house. It w- uh, it was, like, the craziest house I've ever been to.

Gary Vaynerchuk 49:52 [laughs]

Sam Parr 49:53 And, uh-

Gary Vaynerchuk 49:53 Pretty wild stuff

Sam Parr 49:53 ... we're gonna have to tell-

Gary Vaynerchuk 49:54 We'll do that another time

Sam Parr 49:55 ... we're gonna have to tell that story one day.

Gary Vaynerchuk 49:55 I'd lo- listen, I'd love to come back if, whenever you guys feel is a appropriate time for recycling a guest, hit me up. I wish you nothing but good and, and thank you for having me on.

Speaker 50:06 Uh-huh. Yeah. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. Uh, I put my all in it like no days off. On a road less traveled, never looking back. Like