Why I’m Doubling Down on Analog in a Digital Era

The person that's very comfortable with analog hosting a conference, having 25 people in this room right now while we do this, brands are going to find incredible value in the analog world. Real life, restaurant, real life, studio podcast. Real life is going to explode. We're going to live in this barbell world, extreme technology, but extremely scaled. What we take for advantage, us four, is like, that's normal, like being outside, like a pop-up shop, you know, going to a sporting event, they're going to continue to increase in value. This is the GaryVee audio experience. You know, I've been watching you for eight years now, so I've been preparing for this interview for eight years. And what I noticed about you is that you're right at so many things. I remember you predicted TikTok, and you were the reason I started TikTok. I had three million followers there, because you were like, you need to start TikTok. Then I remember you were talking about voice that we're going to talk to our computers with voice. When it wasn't that obvious, because voice wasn't good back then, and now it's a reality. So when you're looking at this AI era, do you think it's our last chance to build well right now? - That's a great question. I think my. So unlike, you know, one of the things I try to do is when I talk about things publicly, I've spent a lot of time thinking it through, and I've seen indicators of actual human action that shows me an insight to the earliest of preview of something I think will be at scale. So that's why a lot of my predictions have worked out. Your question's interesting, because my intuition is it has the chance to create hyper-micro-wealth, the fragmentation of, you know, vibe coding, and all this stuff, and the stuff we're ready seeing, right? Kids building out products very quickly and having success. On the flip side, you're also looting to clearly the super scalars, right, when you look at what meta and Microsoft and Google, like the biggest companies in China, like you could see a winner takes all scenario, were 12 or 13 companies. My God is that the economy and the consumer behavior is so large that, yes, there'll be 25 companies that take so much, right? You look at Adobe and Salesforce and ServiceNow SaaS companies. I mean, SaaS companies are clearly coming out of an incredible 30-year run, and now walking into a potential buzz saw. You know, I saw a headline yesterday. I don't know if it's true. I mean, just, you know, I was busy yesterday, but maybe it was Claude Claude just made, gave everybody a Bloomberg terminal for free. You know, those kind of headlines seem very real to me. They seem really natural. But it's almost like meta or anthropic, or someone else is going to eat up more Bloomberg and ServiceNow and Salesforce. Like, it's like the battle of the Titans. And then over here, on the scraps, well, the scraps actually might be quite big. And it might be a social media like Ira, where all of us become, literally, all of us become vibe coders. Like, just like I thought, one of my great predictions in 2008 was everybody would have a social media account when it did not seem like that. Are all of us going to be vibe coders? And are we all going to have, you know, the ability to have 150 people paying us 10 bucks a month for the most narrow little app we built and between social real life analog and then having this thing, like, is everyone going to have a mini app that is monetizable because they themselves were able to build it, not need a developer for 500,000? I don't know. I think-- so I believe that the middle will be in trouble. And the middle might be a VaynerMedia. But I have a feeling the separation of the middle class of entrepreneurship could be real. The difference is the long tail could be quite at scale, maybe even then creating this middle class. I don't know. If you put a gun to my head, I would say, no, it's not our last chance. OK, so we have people. I think so. And again, let me take another counter just to build on this conversation. If it is our last chance, and 79 companies make all the money, governments will get massively involved. And it may lead to a Nirvana back to where we come from and where we're sitting could extreme capitalism mean a different version of socialism, right? Coming back to the roots. You know what I mean? Could a world where there's only 100 companies that make 80% of the monies, would they then be forced to subsidize all the displaced workers? Do we live in a three day work week environment with the other four days subsidized from the companies that we work from? Do we have more leisure? Do we get more into the arts and family? And do we have side projects that make these micro pennies? I don't know. So what if tomorrow everything crashes for you? Like VaynerMedia, lose your followers. What would you do if you have a laptop and AI? I mean, if I was to lose my reputation too, like my face fell off and I have a different face. And my name's-- I start from scratch. Me personally, I mean, in real life, before I get into AI, in real life, what I would do first is buy and sell. That is my ultimate strength. You know, I'd walk up and down where we are and this part of Manhattan and go into the smaht to stores and buy something for three bucks and listed on eBay for nine bucks and sell it. Like, I have the ability to buy and sell and that would get me going. To your point and to what I just answered in the prior question, I do think I would get very serious about developing in this AI ecosystem and try to figure out how to make something that's $5, $20, $30 a month cost as an app. And how do I create content on Twitter and LinkedIn? If I lost my reputation and my personal brand, but I kept my knowledge of how to make content on social, I would build an app that's $5 to $50 a month and I would make unlimited organic content on LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and try to get customers. That's a very interesting approach. I just talked to Bill Gurley, who's like a legendary investor. And he told me, you can't even imagine how many websites are there that are just like password photos, the Treasury's $6. And yes, AI can do that, but because we're still so used to go to a website and thing and they're making tens of thousands of dollars a month and we just don't realize it. Because for me, as a person, Silicon Valley, right? I'm looking at all the businesses and I'm like, OK, I can totally see how anthropic releases new lines of course tomorrow and this business is done. And that's-- It's not how consumers work. He's right. Exactly. It's not how it works. And in fact, I would argue what I do for a living and what I'm obsessed with actually explodes in this next era. It's all going to be about brand because you have to discover it. In 30 years, by default, somebody would be like, oh, let me go to the main AI thing and I don't need to. But there is going to be a long period of time here. AOL, dial up. Three years ago was still a huge business for them. Think about that. Yes, so there's this long tail that still need to adjust. Whereas humans, we take some time to adjust in your reality. So-- When you're Silicon Valley girl and you even know who Bill girly is, you live in a different world than the 99.9% of people on Earth who've never heard of Bill. And that's opportunity for everyone who's listening. Correct. Because transitioning to that era together with small companies, small businesses, other people educating them. I feel like there is a lot of potential there. When you layer what I've been obsessed with about the last 20 years, which is there is a advertising and brand building ecosystem called social media that does not cost you money. And that's the point about AI apps. It really doesn't cost you money anymore to build something in the way that I grew up. But the fact that you can actually get awareness, that you're one tick-tock away from having people know who you are and building a platform, that's intoxicating. But do you have another worry? Talking about social media, right? I see a lot of AI content. And we're getting flooded with so much content so we're competing more. But also another thing that I'm always thinking about. What if there's social media platform? Why would they pay human creators? Why would they not just generate AI creators? This is much more personalized content. It's free. And they don't have to pay human. Well, platforms don't pay people. Well, some of them do. No, they really don't. Like meta doesn't pay people, tick-tock doesn't pay people. Like they don't pay people. They are an open vessel that people go on and create for. And then businesses come and sit in between people that make content and people that consume content. And then businesses advertise on there or go to a creator and do a brand deal. Now, if you're saying why would L'Oreal go to you? Like they might today versus someone that looks kind of like you that they could even own like a Mickey Mouse. Because-- I make 100 videos versus-- They're going to do that. That is going to-- Now, right now, there's stigma around that. And big companies are scared to go too deep into AI because there's pushback. But over the next five to 10 years, they will. Now, what they might use you for, though, is you might be one of the hundred faces they use, 99 of which they own the IP. But you're going to be able to do this. I think the rise of analog value. value is going to be extraordinary. So we're sitting in this world right now where people, a lot of people behind the scenes doing stuff. I think, you know, for me, and I think you know this about me, I'm comfortable and good in both environments, both in with my thumbs and right here. That person's going to do incredibly well. The person that's very comfortable with analog hosting a conference, having 25 people in this room right now while we do this, right? These are going to find incredible value in the analog world, real life, restaurants, real life, studio podcasts. Like real life is going to explode. What we take for advantage us for is like, that's normal, like being outside, like a pop-up shop, you know, going to a sporting event, they're going to continue to increase in value. And so, yeah, you're going to be like the game's going to change, but I remind influencers, influencers are crying to be quite a bit right now. Like Gary, AI, I'm like, you took money from real celebrities. Twenty years ago, none of us existed. And all of that money went to Jennifer Aniston. And you know, and if you were on Shark Tank, you were the only business people. I Gary Vee, do not have a television show. I get comped speaking fees and appearance fees greater than most of the sharks. Right? That would have never been possible. So the world turns, shit changes. Which is get too comfortable in our space. Well, what's funny is when we're young and we're disrupting something, we like it. But when we're the one that gets disrupted, we don't like it. Yeah. Right? Are you adjusting your social media strategy? Right now, I'm, I mean, nothing because of what we just talked about. To me, I stay in my latest, my last book I wrote was called Day Trading Attention. I live in that environment. So if AI wasn't even happening right now, I'd still be focused on what I'm focused on. Long form written content. So much more substack, beehive, LinkedIn, X, longer form content. So I hired two full-time writers on my staff, journalists, who basically, so Matt will listen to this entire interview. And he may hear something that I've said for the first time ever, or reinforce something I'm talking about lately. He will start to transcribe, not in an AI world, word for word, but like pretty much so that can be done. But what he's going to do is he's going to come up with 15 to 20 follow-up questions. I'm going to sit down and interview with him, which is why I needed someone who had a journalistic background. Because it was just transcribing. It can be AI that. And then we will create a first person article about the barbell theory, why analog is on the rise. Right? So a lot more written content. Interesting. And I feel like it's becoming so much easier. Because I remember a couple of years ago, I met four years ago, I met someone from LinkedIn. They're like, "He should be a LinkedIn, like, he's right." So I'm so bad at that. And then Chad G. P.D. came around and my LinkedIn's growing like crazy. Yeah. And I've always had ghost writing infrastructure for my books because I've never been able to write. But I've always wanted it. It's funny. Every book I've written, with my written content, people come up to me and they're like, "Man, it sounds so much like you." I'm like, "It is fully me." Because it is truly transcribed for my words. I don't write differently than I talk because it's just the transcription. But so writing content, I'm incredibly focused on being, and I'm pushing my team right now on this, I'm just being remarkable on every platform. I'm like obsession to how to win Snapchat spotlight obsession to understand how to be great at YouTube shorts to make sure I'm feeding the LLMs of Gemini with my content. Because I believe that YouTube and YouTube shorts are an incredibly important source for Gemini, future AEO, GEO results. So I'm hyper focused on Google ecosystem and Gemini. What's that? Why is shorts not long form? Both. But shorts allows me to pump out a lot of how to, why, right? There's a little bit of a different thing there. So just hyper fixation on the craft of the written word, the images, testing new formats, I call it pack platforms. So I need to know everything that's happening on Substack, X, Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, shorts, all that. So, algorithms within those, what kind of content, what format, what kind of, is it a real? Is it a full, like with, uh, on LinkedIn, is it right now imagery is doing incredibly well. Video crushed last year. It's declining a little bit this month. Like just, so what's the algorithm within the platforms doing and then see culture? Like what is happening in popular culture across everything? Like, you know, America has long in popular culture fed from black culture. Now we're seeing Hispanic culture. We're seeing Korean culture impacts so much of US pop culture slang term, slang terms, quarter zip, uh, LaBubu's in and out, uh, the Starbucks bear tumbler for three weeks, then not Stanley cups, then not. I love your fashion when you talk about this. Like, I see. Well, because pop cold, you know, baggy pants for guy, like pop culture is relevance, right? I can make one reference in here of something that's happening in popular culture. And then for somebody who's listening, if they're also into the same thing I'm into, immediately we are connected, right? We are connected by being born in the same place. Like people look for, we're tribal. We love sports. Religion is because the way it is. Cultures, we have, you and I met immediate, we're just from the same place it is, but by the way, when I walk outside right now, if somebody's wearing a jet hat, they're immediately my brother. Yeah. So, you know, I think pop culture, especially in B2B environments, is very misunderstood, but even B2C environments, the biggest consumer brands I work with in my day to day, I think they underestimate pop culture. Yeah, even creators. Like I'm talking to so many big brands and they've never advertised with creators and I'm just surprised. So you're saying you're not running faster because of A.A. You're just doing whatever you're doing. I'm saying that I don't have a different social media strategy right now because of A.I. per se, meaning I am, I mean the A.I. is what's powering these algos on these platforms, but it's not like it's changing my overall macro thesis and it won't change when A.I. is eating up the world, which is if I wake up from a coma right now in seven years and everything's different, it will not take me long to get back on the bike and be successful because I'll just spend 100 days paying attention to where is everyone paying attention to. Oh my god, A.I. changed everything. We're back to reading newspapers. Okay, I'm going to make newspaper ads. Like it's not complicated. The thesis is simple. Understanding and having to be good at the thesis is hard. Yeah. It has your hiring change because of A.A. how many people do you have there? You know, it's funny you say that we had, so I have many different companies, but the biggest one I run is VaynerX, VaynerMedia, and there's Chuck Media and the Tomorrow Group, three very large advertising agencies, all of which do something pretty similar. We're exploding and I'm having this very, very challenging game where we are, we are, we are our domain. I mean, I was in Seattle yesterday as you heard before we went on here. I met with the three biggest companies that are HQ'd there, all of which are like we want to do more with you. We want to do a lot with you. That one that's a tube that are already working with us, a third that wants to jam with us. So the demand of customers is exploding. I still need an extraordinary amount of human beings because it's human-based business. A lot of the work of project management, creative strategy is getting changed by A.I. So like on my flight yesterday, which was very long train, nine hours on the ground, four hours in flight, and we started snowing right before we took off. My team was with me. They had to go to LA. They left 15 minutes before us. They got out. We got, yeah, that's right, Trin. So anyway, I caught up with my work and I had a lot of time and I was really work-smithing on the plane. How do I cadence this? I don't want to hire all these people only to fire all these people and not maybe not even them, maybe different people with any organization. My preference is to not fire at all because I think there's a really shocking naivete from some of the biggest companies in the world or even midsize companies. Yes, I understand that A.I. can do the job of it is not lost on me that 100 people can now do the work of 400 people. I'm just worried about the output wars of the future. What if you're competing with somebody that has 400 and you have 400? You cut 200 and they still have 400 and in our world, you and I, we're like, ah, we're outflinging them. We're going to be better. We're going to make more EBITDA. But what if they weaponize those 400 people with the same tools that we weaponize our 200 people? In my world, advertising, if my 400 people now make 27,000 ads and your 200 people make 16,000 ads for whatever human element is there and I understand it doesn't work that way. But this concept of is A.I. a shield and a sword and a gun versus rocks and a war, right? You would think 200 will be 400. But what if the 400 also have shields, and so there's something here that I haven't fully figured out? I'm definitely being. cautious, we are definitely first and foremost attacking things that do not have value. For example, if you're a project manager at VaynerMedia and every project manager comes in different shapes and sizes, but if you're the kind of project manager who only takes notes, that person has already been kind of smoked out and asked to do more. If you're one that rangles people, well, Gemini's, Sweet with Google, you know, calendars and all that. Like, so we're just kind of chipping away at the thing, but you know, ultimately, if you're in production and the video can be made for $8,000 that you used to cost $8 million, like that's, we're here. We're within striking distance. There's thoughtfulness to the type of people we're bringing on. We are also building out incredible capabilities in analog. So podcast production, live social shopping production, which is a session of mine, experiential, like I was just talking about, analog. We're building out all those capabilities. The robots doing the physical setup of this mic are still a few minutes away. Enough minutes away that I'll probably be on the other side of my career or at least in a different chapter. So we're just kind of taking it day by day. Was there something that you transformed with AI with a new team that flew your mind? You're like, oh my god. My mind has not been blown since kind of the, you know, I had a lot of friends in Silicon Valley talking that machine learning was getting better and better and then you started to hear ML become AI. And then when that, I remember for my life, I was at a Raider's Rams game in Los Angeles with B friends, President Andy Crenac and my brother called like four times, which got me a little worried. And then I finally got him and he's like, bro, something has happened. He's like, do you know what Chatchy PT is? You know, it was that day that everyone freaked out four or five years ago, whatever it was now, three years ago, four years ago. It did not take me long. It took me a good 24 hours to be like, oh crap, you know, this is like, okay, I understand what I'm playing with with this first version of Chatchy PT, but like, this is, now the cat is out of the bag. I started doing enough research and no, it just, you know, to me, it can do everything. So why would I, like, like, when Nano Banana had an update and it was unbelievable. But I wasn't like, I was like, maybe I'm impressed on how fast everything is happening, but I'm in a point where like, yes, to me, basically, years were my heads at. I'm going to take my phone and be like, build this app. I wanted to do this and they're done. So if I'm already there, everything in between is just a step to that. That's where I think we're going. Anything you transformed in your process or you just started executing by yourself, I mean, like, building. I'd probably the biggest thing that happened to me is I am an anthropologist, pop culture strategist. So having that level of thinking power with me, that I used to rely on search and like, just digging around the internet, that was profound. No, it's done for you. It's, well, it's done with me, right? Yeah. I'm the one who's saying, hey, facial hair. This is a real thing I did. Okay, you know, give me the historic comps of how long the trend of beard, mustache, or clean, shaven face. Like what are the historic trends and what were the pinpoints? And this is actually the prompt I gave. I remember that when friends got popular, all my friends started to clean shave because Chandler and all the boys were all clean shaven. Like what were the tipping points? Why? Well, what? Hipster, mustache, mullet, because I'm looking for business opportunities or marketing opportunities that might be one or two years before everyone else can see it. And I think a lot about the razor business, you know, manner becoming increasingly focused on their looks. Is that where you're seeing them? Yeah, I mean, that's been a trend. I mean, you can see videos of me seven years ago, six years ago talking about male makeup. Like, yeah, I mean, I just think that men are so loaded with so many insecurities that we are like now adding another one and joining the ladies with our visual, you know, like obsession. Yeah, you're seeing it. You're seeing some of the streamers do looks maxing and all that stuff. Like, yeah, I mean, this has been going on. It makes sense. We're all living public lives. Boys always wanted girls to like them. It's always been up for all that. You know, it just makes sense. I mean, where the world is actually good in all the trauma, the world is actually in a lot of ways better than ever. So we focus on dumb shit like our looks, you know, when it's the Great Depression or the Black plague or World War II, no one has time to like worry about their fucking looks. So I think we get very confused by the negative headlines. The net net of the world is good rendering a lot of 17 year olds and 40 year olds to have time to focus on their looks. So yeah, I look at that kind of stuff. Anyway, I'm bouncing around as I tend to do, but my ability to have thought and then open app and talk with GPT through the potential of a trend and then also go to web and also do my social listening on social media, Reddit, other things that nature. I've become a much sharper, more effective strategist in the last year. Yeah, I feel the same when I was flying here yesterday. I was playing with the Cloudskills. Yes. It was like a skill that you can go ahead and secure. Yes, of course. It was preparing me for this interview and I was like, this is fascinating. I feel like I'm a super human with all these tools because the complexity computer every day sends me stocks to buy, Cloudskills does my research. It's just fascinating. Yeah, but I also think it feels like a superhero today, the same way I thought with the iPhone. That first year with the iPhone. So I bought the iPhone the day it came out. Especially in New York because it's Wall Street and any big city. There was Blackberry obsession. And I felt like a superhero that first year because I could go on the internet for real, not like the way the Blackberry people could. And that gave me a hyper advantage. I would go and do, at that point I was already out a little bit. I would go and do something and I could look something up before I went on stage or went into a meeting and that was like powerful in a way that I didn't have to do with my laptop. I didn't know that used to have that. It was just so fast. You feel like a superhero with clawed, perplexity, GBT, Metas infrastructure starting to get very impressive. A 16 year old in seven years is like that's going to be like a 22 year old next year or a year after, maybe 24 months. That becomes the most basic of basic. To remind everybody who's listening, your grandmother in the office did not have internet, did not have AI, did not have social media, didn't have an office to their point, did not have mobile computing, did not have computer in office, did not have internet. Like, yeah, I mean this is just technology. But do you feel that we're in this period of time and we are like 1% that are grasping technology, do we need to run faster to make the most out of it? Well it depends on the human ambition. I mean I think a lot of people are going to check out of this era. I think there's a lot of people who've made a lot of, let's talk about Silicon Valley. I have a lot of Silicon Valley friends who were psycho all in going so hard during early web 2, 2005, 6, 7, 8, blogging, podcasting and then social who made enough money and are in different part of their life now, who have given a shit about AI and blockchain. I feel like this is just such an opportunity and it's unique for the next 10 years. I feel like we have this year and then it's basic. I don't think, I think that makes sense that you think that and I understand that. I think you and I will see each other in 10 years and be like, man, you are right. It's just as much as it looks like AI creates a winner takes all world, I have a funny feeling it's not going to. Because don't forget, hey everybody, I 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. They'll make my mom super happy. There is the human, like there's, it's going to take too much time. You know what people don't do well? Hang with me for a second. Let's play this game. Let's take that point. Let's say 10 companies won everything. Do you literally think that 8 billion people are going to be like, yeah, that's awesome? No. Okay. I'm going to have a room with them. Yeah. So that's it. It's just funny to hear this from you. Because you're the only like hustle. Do this. Yeah, but hustle do this if it makes you like people like to, people don't like to take my sentence in its totality. Hustle go hard if you complain and are a crybaby and you don't realize that accountability can help you. So if you like it so much that you would do it if it was free, I would build businesses if it was free. Meaning like it gave me, like it's my joy. I build companies the way people like to go golfing and cooking and watching movies. It's more fun to me. You know, it's so funny. We put on a pedestal someone who's a philosopher or a philosopher. or a great reader. So who reads books all day in the rooms, a real thinker in writing, oh wow, so noble, that's what I do. I just do something with it on the other side. So I think hustle, if it makes you happy, one could argue that the extreme opposite of hustle is what I also do, which is complete sampleness, complete lack of materialistic stuff, completely checking out, the more you know me, the more you would realize I'm incredibly detached from my career or my public persona. I'll make it very blunt. I don't give a fuck about Gary Vee or my Vayner Empire. I do not think it makes me better than who cares if I'm good at business. Some people are good at skiing, some people are good at singing, some people are good at writing, it just happens to be something I'm good at. I have my self-worth wrapped up into who I show up as as a human to people in my life. That I'm a nice guy, that I-- - That is switch, ever in your life, when-- - Absolutely not. - Never. It was ingrained in me by my mother and my circumstances and my DNA. - What would you say to someone who thinks their worth is tied to their results? And that makes them very anxious in this era. - Correct. I would tell them that first of all, it depends on what results, right? You know, if you're saying financial results? - I don't know, I'm a Silicon Valley. - Correct. - Your company's valuation. - I would say I understand. It's a very common human trait. I would also say that almost everybody I know on earth that is wrapped up in that metrics mindset has incredible anxiety and anxiety sucks. - How do you separate yourself with it? But I feel like it's easier to say for you 'cause you have all of the millions followers already and millions of dogs. You're saying that because you don't know me. If my friends that have known me my whole life will tell you that I have the millions of followers and dollars because I've always been this way. - Ooh. - Even when I have-- - That's the reason, it's not that. - Right, my detachment, because I have an incredible relationship with losing. I like it. - What do you tell yourself when you was? - That I sucked and that was funny and let's not try to do that again and like what can we do? Like I love the challenge. You know, I was the kid when I was losing in sports or ping pong or pool. Like I loved playing again. I loved playing again. I didn't think me losing in front of my sister or mom meant that I was lesser than. I also grew up with bad grades. So I very quickly had a relationship with the machine that was quite healthy, which was, oh wow, I'm really not good at this, but I don't have myself a steam wrapped up in being a DNF student. Look how well I'm liked. Look at this stuff I'm doing off the school yard in business selling my trading cards lemonade. So I played outside of this short term validation framework and I also was incredibly structured to not struggle with peer pressure in high school and in college when so many of my contemporaries did everything for validation amongst their peers. I did not. And that was just tremendous parenting, luck of the draw with DNA and the circumstances I grew up with, you know. When you're growing up Soviet, but you're growing up in America in that era of the 80s, I just had a different framework. What are you telling your kids? Well, they're not me. I'm trying to leave deposits on that, but they're growing up in a very different environment. Now, luckily, my children share a lot of mine and my ex-wife's DNA and are also a little bit cocooned. Like my 17 year old daughter does not live her life for her friends or boys' attention. So she's cooking with gas. My 13 year old son also, I would have said three years ago, like he's already starting to really develop this. And so, you know, look DNA is a real fucking thing. And then when your parents are conscious and are pushing you on the right things, the only core thing, they're for sure they have different environment. You know, I grew up in an environment with very little. They've grown up. My son defaults to thinking, yeah, you go to a Nix game, you say, "Cortside." I sat in the last row, you know, literally actually, actually, in my first Nix game. So, you know, I think it's, I don't have this ideology for my children to be exactly like me or just like me or, or they need to be hungry like I was. I want them to be happy and like anxiety like I was. And that comes into this, not anything else. This. - Any tip, how to teach that? - What's that? - I have a four year old and a six year old. And I feel like they really rely on what other kids think of them. What do you tell your kids? - I pounded that narrative into my kid verbally. Like, I think it's, like as young as that, I would tell my children like, people making fun of you, people saying you're awesome, means nothing. How do you feel? What do you like? - Yeah, and learning not to react to positive things and negative. - The reason I can deal is, I today have 95% validation, 5% skepticism and pushback. It's the goat emojis in my Instagram posts that I have to not pay attention to. Not the use suck area, you got lucky, or you know, you're a snake oil. So like, to me, it's not hearing the accolade. I'm telling you that that's where the lack of anxiety comes from. I don't need to have a house or a plane or a third home or a Nobel Peace Prize or 40 million followers or an exit to impress Bill, girlie, you, Kevin, really, I don't need that. It is not what my life is about. I like it, but I feel like I'm an athlete who wants to be great on the field, but off the field, that is not the man that I think I am. - I absolutely love this mindset and how people, I feel like everybody should learn the step of mindset, especially now, 'cause I also have this question from my team. Please. - Who read your piece, AI splits people into architects and masons. - Yes. - And half of my team thinks they're masons. - But they have the ability to become an architect. - So how do you deploy that mindset when you know you're losing right now? - Yep. - AI is replacing you, but how do you go to the next step of your career, utilizing this mindset that I don't need external approval? - And this mistake of failure is a means. - How do you lose 25 pounds when you know you're not feeling great? I'm asking you. - Well, it's either or. You die sooner than you do it. - Yeah, there's that outcome, but how do you do it? I'm not saying what the outcome is, and you're right about that. - I don't have this problem, I don't really, my husband has this problem. - Okay. - He loves sugar. - Yeah, me too. - So, yeah, he just feels worse. And for him, it's stopping sugar completely. - Yeah. - It works. - Like completely. - But it's hard. - It is. - Like I go through patches where I also cut it out. So I'm your husband, I have the same issue. Sugar is the real pain in my existence. To me, let me tell you how I stopped drinking soda for every beverage 13 years ago. I also, I hired a full-time person to literally 12 years ago. There would have been a man in here right now to make sure I didn't take a sip of it. - Really? - For one year, I took an extreme measure, a babysitting, to get me into the discipline, he suffocated me, to then get into patterns, to get into the discipline, and then it became my norm. If you are a Mason and you wanna become an architect, you can cry about it, you can stop and start. We all stop and start in health, in wellness, in work, and you need to, for it to become your actual pattern, it becomes your norm. To your point, sometimes it's cold, but it starts here first. Like if I had that whole team right now, I'd be like, listen, you can do it. You have to believe that, if you don't, what are we gonna do? It first starts mentally, and then it starts physically. You need to start using these tools to help you think better. To put in the work, you need to start reading, you need to start doing this, you need to start hanging out with these people. You need to start taking from your leisure, which you're using to get an escape from your concern, and you need to allocate some of your leisure time into more work. You have to go to the gym and eat better. That starts with your mind, but then it has to happen with your actions. And then you just have to stay into that conversation. Like this is staying in a conversation. The reason the world is so tight right now, is we've stayed in the negative conversation for 10 years. But my newsfeed is not politics. My newsfeed is not telling me that the world is going to shit. My newsfeed doesn't tell me that my parents had it better than me. Like you're in control of your algorithm, you're in control of the people that you spend time with. Look at all the people that are listening to this right now. These people chose to follow you and listen to you somewhere here because this is the first time you're listening to you because they follow me. Knowing enough of your platform and definitely knowing my platform, these are people that are choosing offense. These are people that are choosing optimism. These are people that are choosing to try to figure it out. That same person could have a twin sibling who right now, why on earth, this is a Saturday morning that you want to hire filming this. Who might be watching Netflix to this morning, which is lovely and you should have leisure. But why are they watching it? Are they watching it because they have a little side dish of leisure and enjoyment? That's beautiful. But if it's their main course and they're doing it because they had an enemy. anxious week and they're devastated, they have to go back Monday. Now I'm concerned. Does that make sense? - Totally. - Like to me, leisure and escapism needs to be side dishes and a mousse pooshes, not the main meal. When it's the main meal, you were escaping your actual life that isn't going well. - No. - And that's what I think. - And the idea of hiring someone, you can totally hire an AI coach who's gonna plan out like you hire someone who took sort of a permute. - You could. - That could be an AI coach. - What's even crazier with AI is your AI coach can be the AI itself, which is a whole new phenomenon. - Yeah, and it's fascinating how it works. You just, you know what your strategy talked to it maybe once a week, updating on a strategy creates a plan for you. So you have something that you talk to. - You know, it's funny. So I have this company called VFRIENDS. It's my Pokemon meets Marvel, meets Disney meets Sesame Street Universe, collectibles, toys, cartoons. I'm really loving it. 250 plus characters. There's a character that I'm about to write a kid's book about called Curious Cream. So I have a character in VFRIENDS called Curious Cream. Crane is a bird for everyone who doesn't notice. I'm excited about it because I actually think curiosity is going to explode in cultural value because I think it's a trait that makes you very conducive to doing well in the AI world. Would tell a lot of your masons to get their curiosity up. - Yeah, and it's something that's really empowered by AI 'cause you can go down the Rebid Hall and the whole information in the world. Okay, let's talk about people who are watching who are immigrants because they have a lot of immigrants watching. You came to America at age three. I came when I was 25 for someone who arrives today. What is the first thing they should be doing? - I think it's a framework. It's funny we used curiosity. I think it's a framework of self-awareness, humility and curiosity. So self-awareness is if you come from Guatemala, Poland, you know, South Korea and you're here in the US or you're, or by the way, you're an American who's deciding like, ah, I don't know, one of those people which you're allowed and you're moving to Sweden or you're going from India to England or England to Argentina. No matter what shift you're making, a lot of people listening here will move to other countries because of jobs. Their wife's the big executive, their de-entrepreneur and she just got a big job and now you're moving to Portugal. When you are new in an entirely new country immigrant, I think there's three things to rely on. Number one is self-awareness, who are you, right? When I came over, you know, I was a kid, but the older generation, these people were engineers in the Soviet Union and they were literally cleaning toilets. That was the second part, humility. You know, humility is a superpower. You know, I'm aware that my humility does not show up on the internet because that is not the way I communicate. But I will tell you that in my real life behind the scenes, it is one of the beacons of my success. I've never gotten away from the kid that immigrated. Like with all the stuff on paper, I still don't think I'm better than. I don't think I am, I have earned the ability to not put in the work or to be gracious or to be kind or whatever it might be. So I would say self-awareness, who are you, what are you good at? You have to then see if that's available to you in the country. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. Nuclear engineers from the Soviet, and literally have to clean toilets because America wasn't just giving them jobs. And then they had to build themselves up and they owned a pharmacy later on. You know how it all worked out, right? Humility. I know that you were the big dog in India, but maybe here in Poland that doesn't work. Or you were amazing, you were a good creator in America, but now for some reason you live in Indonesia, and you don't have that many followers in Indonesia. Humility, right? And then back to curiosity. For me, I would just, again, face got ripped off like that John Travolta, John Travolta, Nicholas Cage movie, reputation lost. I find myself in Peru. This is where I'm going, who am I? I have good people skills. I have work ethic. I know how to buy and sell. I know consumer behavior. Next, humility. I'll go work in a store as a cashier. If I have nothing, if I have nothing, and then curiosity. At night, after I get back from the store, what's going on here in Peru? Like where's my angle? What can I do? What can I sell? So that is my advice. That emotional framework. And then you have to act on it. Humility, and it means like teaching yourself or you are. You have this trait. Remembering where you come from, right? That's right. But even I believe based on my mother and based on how she would have parented me, that even if I wasn't an immigrant, even if I was my brother, the third in the family, born in 1987 in America, when we were on our way to middle class, I still think if I had the same exact DNA, and I have the same mother, I think humility is there not because I came from Russian, remember, it's just, 'cause I don't, 'cause I think it's icky to be the other way. I don't think it's like I remember where I came from. Those are part of that I'm sure. It's more like, I just don't understand, well, actually, let me phrase, I do understand. I'm just not insecure enough to not be humble. Love it. Ego is just pure insecurity. Posturing, trying to be the big dog, that just means you're fucking scared. That means you're a bitch. - And the whole place is limits on what you're doing, 'cause you're trying to feed your ego versus bills. - Yeah, you're just, you are not good internally. Thus, you must render your peacocking to trick everyone around you. And by the way, I'm not mad at you. Do you know that I'm not mad at people that are like that? I'm sad about it. I wish they could like themselves for all, do you know the shortcomings I have? Plenty, we all do. - No. Okay, if someone's watching right now, and they're like, okay, I'm gonna work on all of this, but I really wanna build in this AI era. What do you think is the biggest opportunity right now? - It goes back to the last question. There's a million of them. I just don't know the person that's listening right now. Are they some, I mean, for example, if you're overly charismatic, the biggest opportunity is to go live streaming on the internet and then drive all of that audience to an AI app that you built that's 10 bucks. - But for it's automated by AI, 'cause have you seen in China how they're doing this? - Of course. - They just basically put an item in front of the camera and it's automated and there's this AI person already wearing it or showing it. - That's right, including the influencer's AI. It's me and I put your face on me and I'm a woman selling makeup. I mean. - But like, when I think about this, why would I start if it's already being automated? - Because everything you learn along the way will set up your next thing. What are you gonna do, lay down and cry? - I don't know, find something else. Like this is, 'cause I feel like, I'm talking a little bit about it for your own. They're in this stage. They're like, oh, I really wanted to do this. But then, yeah, it's just gonna be taken away by a big company and you know. - You're too young for this, but in 2005, 6, 7, 8, 9 and Silicon Valley, the same thing was being said. Why would I start this? Google's gonna copy it. You're just talking to fake entrepreneurs. Real entrepreneurs are willing to lose. Real entrepreneurs know that the two years they work on something that clawed fucked up was two years of them working on something that sets up their next thing. Real entrepreneurs don't know how to do anything else. Real entrepreneurs don't lay down and cry. Real entrepreneurs don't say, fuck it, I'll just go get a job. Real entrepreneurs are real entrepreneurs. - They just do what they have to do. - This is why there were so few of them before the internet. Entrepreneurship got cool. So now people do it 'cause it's cool. Do you know how many entrepreneurs you talk to that are actually executives disguising as entrepreneurs? Let me give you the answer, most. Real entrepreneurs have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. Like, you should have seen what my chemicals were doing when you brought that up. Like when you were like, oh, I know. Like, bouncing. Like, what are you talking about? A real entrepreneur is swimming in the ocean and when you say, well, we're not gonna make it anyway, let's just drown to the bottom. Like, it's life and death for a real entrepreneur. You can't do anything else. - Yeah, that goes back to nowhere where you are. - Correct. And by the way, let me say something right now. This is actually a beautiful segue. I need everybody to hear this. If you're listening right now and you think you're an entrepreneur, but these last three minutes of this talk are triggering some weird feelings. Do you know how awesome it was to be the number seven at Facebook? Do you know how incredible it was to be the number nine at Tesla? Do you know how epic it is to be number 34 at LinkedIn, Microsoft? I mean, like-- - How cool it is to be a podcaster? - Correct. Like, this concept that like, again, I grew up entrepreneurship wasn't even a word. Being a businessman was not cool. And then I, ironically, was part of the movement that kind of made this thing cool. But I have been talking for 10 years of like, please, it's only cool if you are that. It's cool. It's not cool to be a teacher if you're not a teacher. It's not cool to be, you know, "Fuck, it's not cool to be anything if you're not actually, you know?" - Yeah. That is a good ending. And I have, a few questions that are fire. - Rapid. - Like, get 15 seconds. What are your top three favorite AI tools that you use daily? - GBT, Claude, and honestly, the mangas is really, like, is really, yeah, Meta's, like I'm like just a couple of weeks going in, but it's-- - Do you use it for Instagram? - Yeah. - So yeah, 'cause I feel like they have actual data, so they can do better analytics than anyone. - Correct. - Okay, that's a good one to work on. What's your favorite prompt? - My favorite prompt is me intuitively feeling something that's happening in culture, right? I'll give you one right now. Does the baggy pants movement for men have another domino to fall? Like I will-- - That's very advanced prompt, so you know exactly what's happening and you're trying to predict what's next. - Correct. - Almost everything I'm doing is that. For me, for what I like to do, professionally and personally. - Okay, college degrees in 2026, yes or no. - For 50% of the people that are listening right now, yes, they need that degree to do the profession legally in medicine for the most creative and entrepreneurial people. Yes, if mommy and daddy paid for it, because 18 to 22 as a full-pledge vacation to hang out with other 18 to 22-year-olds is a lot of fun. - It is. - And you will work your whole life. No, for 18 to 22-year-olds that are taking on substantial debt who are creative and entrepreneurial. - Makes sense. One industry just stay away from. - None. Everything's in play. I mean, look, betting your whole life to be an admin who doesn't think. An admin that's a Mason, not an admin that's architect, bad. Admin that's architect, huge. I'm gonna hire people that have the power of 13 admins for me and she or he is gonna sit at the top of that and I'm gonna pay that person a fucking fortune to make my life effective. - Yeah, and the last one. What's the most misunderstood thing about AI right now? The counter to whatever anybody's thinking. So for the people that are delusional thinking this is the greatest thing ever, the counter of the negatives that are gonna happen. And for the people that think everyone's fucked. And China, perplexity and anthropic and America and Russia, there's gonna be nine countries and nine companies and everybody else's fucked or had their fucking minds. The counter to the extremism of what people think. - Thank you for your positivity and energy. It's really charging, right? What you're saying gives energy to create versus life. - And I think that sits, thank you and I wanna end with this. That doesn't sit in some blind optimism or even the great parenting that I was given. It sits in historics. It is historically true that we were scared of electricity and it wasn't. We were historically true to get off the farms. We did so much more. It's humans are great. I know we're told that we're not, but 99.99% of us are either neutral or great. And if I am wrong, here's why I'm this way. And if I'm wrong, I promise you you're not gonna worry about your job. If I'm wrong, we're all dead anyway. So either I'm right that you should choose practical optimism and there's gonna be a million opportunities for you if you go insular and work on you. Or if unfortunately I'm wrong, I'll see you in fucking heaven. Like you know, you know like this, I mean I don't get it. It's not practical to be pessimistic and cynical. It is not practical. - Yeah. - Love it, thank you. - Everybody 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 show.