What I think a lot about is the science around the art. First 3 seconds thumbnail. What time do we post? Literally my team. We will post this today at 6:36 p.m.

Ideal Times today 4:04 and 636 one real one image. it is that specific for the real recommendation is a real of you on stage I Promise you this is a level of commitment that's very different than post that picture. So the science around the art attention is the number one asset. would love to do a little Q&A and maybe go a little more detailed.

I'm ready. Go he's got something. Gary You talked about how you made Investments early in some of the content companies like: Facebook Do you think your investments into those companies formed your idea of what was important for the future? Or do you think it was the opposite? The opposite, the opposite. What? What was very clear to me I referenced it, you know.

I Launched an e-commerce wine business in 1997. like for real, not like hah haa like I was operating it every day I I Remember people walking into my store and asking them for their email to create an account and like people didn't even have email yet or they would say funny things that I laugh about now. I Remember one guy, he's like oh yeah I have one of those. he's like I'm AOL Yahoo.com like that's not it brother.

You know, like and you know. Going from that, to people telling me they wouldn't put their credit card into the computer, to running cataloges that used to cost me $7,000 to print and and mail, to now sending an email for free and selling more wine than I did two years ago in a catalog with no cost. So I was rolling and then and then Google came out and Google AdWords came out several months later I bought Google AdWords the day that Google AdWords were being sold and was buying wine terms for 5 and 10 cents a click and acquiring customers for nothing. So this was all happening and then 2003 happened and it was starting to be blogging and it was the first thing I never got involved in because even though I've written five near New York Times bestselling books, uh ROV Are you here? Where is he? He's not here I'm literally on my I'm going to leave right now right after this and get on a flight back to New York for 5 hours and my ghost writer and a guy on my team ROV who's was with me just now is literally going to sit there with me and he's going to read me back.

What? I audio to him so I can tweak a couple of the words to finish up my book so blogging was the first big Trend I saw that I wasn't able to jump into cuz I can't write and so when Friendster in Myspace came out I was so pumped because I was like this is the next wave this I understand I was watching it and then my BR it's all timing too. My brother was a freshman at Be the first Facebook year and he and be was like the third school to get it and went like Harvard and a couple other Boston Schools and he called me and he came down for Thanksgiving and I looked at it and I was like this is it and what and the reason I said this was it was I I'd gone from that was 97 in an 8-year period. We went from people not even understanding the internet fully to them people realizing they could look up re you know, look up remember it was like more research if you think about the beginning to now buying stuff and I just knew that we were going to communicate with each other on it and so no. I believe that the the next wave of the internet was going to be human connection and that's why those social networks caught my attention Matt from Ryder I we're the gener platform that's sponsoring this today.

Thanks for coming! Uh Gary when you talk about LinkedIn and how much of an opportunity it is can you help us refine like what you see in that opportunity? and then we'll talk about content creation that everyone here regardless of what you want to happen What customer do you want B2B B Toc Or by the way, there are people in here who might want a career change whatever your objective is the fact that you could not have this room have never posted in her life. If Gar has never posted on LinkedIn his life, the fact that he can make a video or written post about whatever he wants to say, post it on LinkedIn tonight and that gets 800 people to see. It is crazy. Let me explain what I mean Social Networking Social Networks for the last 15 years has been more like email.

You get people to follow you, you then post and a percentage of them see it. just like email open rates. right when I was doing email in the late ' 90s, 80 to 90% of the people that got the email opened it. now 30% if you have a great email right? For some of I see some of the heads nodding so you know it's supply and demand of attention.

The ticktock ification of all social networks is the biggest Trend going on in the world right now. So the example I just gave about Garrett five years ago would have posted on LinkedIn and one person would have saw it. one of the three people he has to follow him cuz he decided he's going to start the fact that his first post can get 800 because the algorithm is going to look at the content and service it to a small group of 20 or 30 random people that it thinks will like what he had to say. and if of that, 20, 30, 40 and I don't know the exact numbers.

Everyone's algorithm is obviously very secret, but a tiny group of people will see it. If it's compelling to that group, it will be brought into more people's feed. Not only can he get 800, he could get a million very unlikely needle and Hy stack. but the fact that that is true.

just think about what I just said. Free Distribution. Think about how in expensive distribution is. Think about how much you spend for a newspaper ad, a Google ad, a television ad, a booth at a big conference like distribution and Awareness is expensive.

Social networks are free. That is insane and people do not understand the severity of the insanity of how big that is. For the first time ever, the quality of your message creates Free distribution. That is insane.

So what happens when creating content is now dramatically less expensive because of things like generative AI How does that impact? LinkedIn Uh, you know it's going to come. It's it's going to impact everything. What's going to happen is a term called Prompt Engineering is going to start to be something everyone here knows what it is. So in a world where companies like yourselves and many others take the advantage way that I have I my personal brand Gary ve the content you see I have 37 full-time employees 37 full-time employees who work on my content making and distribution across the eight platforms.

Think about the level of commitment that I've made for that. The fact that everyone here now can buy a SAS product and make more content than I make for a fraction of that will mean that we will have more supply of content than we've ever seen before. I'm not going to put my head in the sand. We're going to use generative AI as well and Dustin and ragab.

They're going to get fired and have to find new jobs. but what will happen I I'll finish the thought is their jobs will have to change what Dustin does incredibly well as he films me but he's also paying attention. He's making notes. there was uh, the gentleman he's not here who said you inspired me in the talk just now I Called my son to say I'm sorry for being a dick.

Hey, thanks for the inspiration I Took some action today. Talked to my son this morning. told him I sorry for being a dick. That's humongous.

Yeah, so you the biggest thing made straight away. That's that means the world to me. Cheers to you. That means the world to me brother.

Good for you. You can't imagine how big of a deal that will be. Thank you. You know how much he appreciated that.

Absolutely absolutely good for you. God Bless Proud of you. You know it was a really emotional thing for me. That's a big deal, that's why I speak for a living like that little moment.

but I looked at Dustin when that happened and gave him my contact and he made a note and that will show up on my content in the next week or so. With all the Technologies coming, I'm not going to have to look at Dustin We're going to upload that video. It's going to understand rhythms and patterns from AI of things that have worked for me and me and Dustin in our gut are no longer going to do post- production. The AI is going to figure it out and put it out.

What is that going to mean? Supply and demand issues And so what's going to happen is it's going to be harder to break through because everyone's going to be doing it and so you're going to have to be better. So my question to you Gary is what is attention Pcking Can you give some examples and some best practice Yeah So I'm writing a new. The book I'm working on which will come out next year is actually called day Trading attention, right? That's how that's how I think about what I do for a living if you, you know obviously I think the term day trading is something most of the people here will know somewhere along the line with technology. Wall Street became second to Second Not hour to hour with paper, it became day trading on your computer.

So hacking attention or the way I Think about it. Day trading is a very simple and complicated game. Where are you all spending your time Where like where are your eyeballs and ears going it? You know 50 years ago was television and newspapers and so you you would try to then make the best print ad to make you buy I did that in my career I Used to spend a week making my New York Times full page ad a week. I would be eight hours a day a week Should I put this wine in this corner Should I have a coupon down here.

Like real thinking. Now that same thinking goes into the first 3 seconds of every video I put on LinkedIn it goes into the thumbnail Some of my friends here are doing a really good job on. LinkedIn We were hanging out backstage and I said to him hey, you got to pay attention to the copy because Linked In only the first 50 letters show up and then you have to hit. You know, learn more.

Most people won't do that if you have a call to action. Link In the first 50 thing, you're going to get a higher retention right? Or you know or how do you actually think about what's happening? You're all doing it all of you. minimum I'm I'm aware that some of you don't have anything not LinkedIn Not Facebook But the far majority of this room is doing this on something. Tik Tok Facebook Instagram LinkedIn YouTube Shorts How do you get someone to stop? especially with more content coming? So what I think a lot about is the science around the art.

First three seconds thumbnail words: What time do we post literally right now I'll show him and you can confirm it to you my team. This is the thread with the whole team on it. Look at the look at this. We will post this today at 6:36 p.m.

it is that specific like you know and like like read the ideal Times today 4:04 and 636 One real one image for Re for the real recommendation is a real of you on stage I Promise you this is a level of commitment that's very different than post that picture. So the science around the art but then also following trends like when Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift are eating up popular culture is there any way for you to interject into that conversation that doesn't feel forced? How clever are you? How creative are you? You know you know like uh I saw really good post by a B2B company where the two heads of the company uh, one was called one one's person's name was Travis and one was Taylor. They were both dudes but it was perfect right? cuz you know like they were able to like make reference and I looked back it was their highest performing post ever right? So I'm I'm looking at the pulse of society. You know how many people lost customers by posting during inappropriate times.

So you have to have a feel for the room which is the world. You have to know your demos. I'm making content on LinkedIn for just VCS and the next post just to get clients and the next post just to get talent to apply to Vayner Media All three of those videos are very different. I was telling those guys everything they make is just about selling the SAS but they should make videos to get better.

Talent On their sales team they should make better. They should make videos about how they run company culture they should make. By the way, a thing that all of you should do on LinkedIn is make a post about your interests. Maybe it's French wine.

Maybe it's golf. Maybe you're playing pickle ball. You might post on LinkedIn that you have fallen in love with pickle ball. Go into the fact that that hour now every day that you play pickle ball in the morning makes you fresher to be better at work and because someone who you're trying to reach as a customer or an employee also likes pickle ball.

That just created consideration based on relevance for them to do business with you. So everyone's showing up in LinkedIn in their suit and tie, right? But but in reality in reality you need to show that version and this version definitely that you're in. you know notice I always say watch what I'm doing not what I'm saying like or you know like like pay attention to how I give a keynote like I will make references to the New York Jets I will make references to Wine I'm creating connection points and all of you should be doing that in your content if you're just saying the same thing of like our Tech works better like cool but like like you can only say it so many times AI company should be talking about Time Savings you put a photo of a person watching their child play basketball in a gym and then you say use our Tech and save an hour every day so you can go watch your kid play basketball watch how many people stop. That's a very different emotional connection point cuz inevitably somebody on the other side of that LinkedIn post is sitting in the office right now missing a recital or a game and feels we all are modern parents.

We feel like our parents didn't give a we you know we're we feel like we feel like and all of a sudden that hits you and say wait a minute Maybe that's why I should pay up for the tech cuz I do want that hour back cuz I do want to eat dinner with my family once a week and like that's real. Just the real way humans work and so my efficiency on that post will go up. This is like real like I think I It's why I Laugh how people think about social media. People look at social media like it's bad, it's ruining the world or my kids all up or it like it is disproportionately the most significant engine of business growth on Earth And there isn't a close second and yet everyone is Lally gagging the out of it.

There are less than two handfuls of people in that audience that have the commitment towards LinkedIn that is required for an IND IND Like this that will actually drive their business. They will spend so much more energy designing their booth for this incredible conference than they will for all their content on LinkedIn This whole year and this is a big time. This is the Apex Super Bowl event, but it's still only three days. There's another 362 days and not everyone's here and you're not going to serendipitously run into everyone you're trying to get to here no matter how late you stay up tonight, you know.

And so I don't understand how people don't understand the scale comes from LinkedIn On that note, you talked about dust I Want that for something? See no, No you. What fascinates me is you said you have a staff of 37 for your personal brand and then an agency right in Vander Medan and 2,000 other employees. and then V friends has 50 employ. How important? How important is it for for everyone to have a personal brand? Focus Beyond Just the business that they I don't I don't think it's a requirement I Don't think it's a I don't think everyone needs to have a personal brand I think everyone should consider it.

It's not for everyone. There's a lot of baggage that comes with being a public figure. Now most people won't have the level of public figuress that I have. so I think for a lot of people, especially in a B2B environment I think it's epic cuz there's nobody here who's the next Taylor Swift or Charlie Demilio like it's not that kind of industry for that.

So I think but what it will be is it leads to you being on. It leads to this conference inviting you to be on stage next year like there's a lot of value in it in B2B B Toc is a little scarier because it can change your life. If you became internet famous, your life's different and there's a lot of baggage that comes along with that and a lot of people don't even I'll be honest with you I'm I'm not very interested in how many people here really follow me like just for context so all of you know I don't share my personal life I'm I'm deeply private, deeply private I Just am so aware of the business ramifications of it. But why why did I say that you're in control, You don't want you don't want people in your business.

Don't post it I Think to remind people first, it's not for everyone and it's okay. you don't have to. But I do think a lot of people think of it as only like high energy Dynamic person, it's not. There's a lot of very introverted, very thoughtful, very articulate, very deep thinking writers that Crush especially for this industry, you go write a white paper that really is right about what's happening and like talks about your solution and why it will work.

You will be stunned how much that will work. so you got to find your way of communicating. I I Think it's worth considering, but it's not a requirement. There are plenty of people have monster businesses that has no personal brand attached to it.

It also could lead to happiness. Let me explain. So now you're getting going a little bit with what we're talking about here. But you start, you remember like wait a minute.

He did mention that I could post other stuff and you post your first ever video cooking Ever. You love to cook. It's your place. It's where you feel like you're most you.

You're even a little funnier a little more Dynamic right? And you just film cooking a meal and you're talking and you just post it and it explodes and you find yourself 2 years from now being literally a food influencer making more money with Brands supporting your food videos than you were doing being a senior executive I Believe it is a path to happiness I Just I genuinely believe a lot of people here have deeper passions than what you're doing right now for your living. and I think it's worth potentially scratching those itches. So Gary on stage you have a very, uh, specific way that you exhibit yourself and use hands, gestures and you have your hat. you know is all that by choice? the reverse? the reverse.

Yeah, it's really funny I love that both your questions kind of have the same answer when I first hit the scene I wrote a book in 2009 called crush It which really talked about what I thought was going to happen and ended up happening with social media and all this it went very viral I was pretty unknown I was in the wine world but definitely not in the business world and I started getting asked to speak and I don't know if you picked up on this but I curse um and I'm very casual and today what? I the way I'm dressed on stage. even in an event like this, you can kind of somewhat get away with it. The casualization of business over the last 15 years has happened. in 2009, it wasn't there yet and CIA was my speaking bureau at the time and they called me cuz I was cuz I was naturally good at it I didn't know that I was a good public speaker and you can see how I speak.

It's very improv. It's very like. it's not a presentation, even for the people that follow me the most. they they'll see things that I say often, but there's always new, it's contextual.

My speaking bureau reached out to me like pretty aggressively, in like a good way. They came from a good place like Bro. you could be like a legitimate speaker like you could be big like this, could work for you and it's very lucrative. but you have to start wearing a suit and you can't curse and they didn't even finish the sentence and I said to them you just I'm like thank you cuz they were coming from a good place I'm like you just don't know me I'm not capable of that I'm just really great at one thing which is being comfortable in my own skin and dealing with the ramifications of that pro and con.

That is my greatest skill set. So all of that is just really how I live my life and I'm okay that people won't book me to speak CU They don't want someone to curse or they think it's disrespectful to be too casual I respect that. that's their house, that's their event they're allowed. But I'm not interested in feeling uncomfortable because I can't be my best self when I'm speaking I Want to impact people like I all of you just saw that talk I was like reinforcing over and over the same thing because I know the three little.

there's like three or four things for that Collective group knowing there was a lot of different people in there, those were the three things that if they did better, would happen and like if I'm not comfortable, I'm not going to be able to authentically like hit do you know what I mean and I'm aware that there's people in there that thought it was inappropriate that I cursed I believe that every time like I believe that and I respect that. But but I Also know on the flip side that talk has much more impact on the collective than most talks that would be given and that's all you could ask for, right? have as big of an impact. So no, I don't I don't I'm not like Vince McMahon and like creating a character that I think will work I just got very fortunate that the world went in my direction I'm I always think about myself of like who the hell would have I been if I was was doing business in the 60s, 7s and 80s it would have been tough cuz I wouldn't have gone there and it just I would have been some sort of different thing I mean it might have been better I might have been very unique and a Trailblazer but um no I'm I'm just not comfortable of doing anything that do come naturally to me I just always feel like it's icky and off and me like not in my pure form is like bad. My last kind of insure Tech was an employment in space did the VC train build it Soul got acquired, integrated in left starting a venture Studio Curious with the Py landscape.

the pros cons of the Venture Studio model do asset class I mean the Venture Studio concept which I've flirted with a lot. These are like where you're incubating multiple businesses. you're you know I assume you're bringing in some Founders you on a piece like it's you know honestly I really really love that concept cuz I'm very creative and I have a 100 ideas. so I think this will be your most enjoyable Venture because you're going to be able to scratch a lot of inches.

Um, what inevitably happens in these models is if you're good, one's going to take off and then that's going to eat up a lot of energy. So you got to keep that in mind if you want that or not want that. But what do I think I think money's expensive right now. There's nobody in this industry that's confused by interest rates.

so money's expensive. So it changes all the rules. The VCS have all the leverage after they have had none in the last decade like you literally had to beg people to take your money. Think about that.

it's crazy right now. VCS have the leverage which I think is more appropriate I think it was a little frothy a little I don't think people were building companies they were building Financial Arbitrage machines trying to get to it. You know what I mean so me personally. I think VC being a VC right now is great.

Your money is more valuable. it's harder to get LPS so it depends on how much powder you're sitting on and then as far as a venture. Studio Model I Think the more creative you are, the more it's the right model because otherwise you're just a financier and that's boring for operators. We're dealing like hybrid too.

It's not just about unicorns if it's cash flow like creating cash. Fig I know, right? a lot. Yeah, I know I know, but that's because Venture Capital just wants to show a multiplier to raise more LP like it's a full ecosystem I Think I Think you're going down in the right way, but be on next venture. You know what's funny I Similar to the other questions like I don't I'm a I'm a counter puncher I'm a counter puncher What does that mean? It means that I don't sit and say I want my next venture to be bubble gum or sass that like what I because I day trade attention I'm just kind of constantly watching I'll give you I'll give you themes that you might find interesting I'm completely infatuated with the continent of Africa the sheer talent and brain power and the youth.

I Think the stat goes something like in the next 15 years, like 35% of the people under 25 in the world will live on the continent of Africa So like it I Like using history as a predictor. So if you really pay attention to what's happened in the Middle East in the last 30 years, you can see a very obviously there's so many different geopolitics. There's a lot that's different, but there's a lot that's the same. So so for example: I don't know what my next venture is but I know that I'm incredibly bullish on Africa and so what that will do is it will make me read for two hours about things going on in Africa which may lead to something as interesting as oh, there's a super fruit that only grows in Kenya right that I know the African Market in the next 30 Years is going to be mature as a consumer Market but I could also import it to the US and get all the coastal people that are trying to live that life curious I I did that with monk fruit.

My my fiance is very healthed out and like she's like in Pillow Talk she's like she's like you have to do something with monk fruit and I pulled up an email that I sent to Phil Toronto in 20 who works for me in 2013 and it just said monk Fruit we need to research it She was blown away and it was like a perfect story I could tell all of you of like how I actually work I stay uncomfortably curious around different thesises and then because of that right? So I'm building a Pokemon meet Sesame Street intellectual property called Vriends I've been wanting to build something like it for a long time. Originally was called workplace Warriors I was going to do little toys and figurines at for your desk cuz I think a lot of us know like what cubicles look like but I bought Bitcoin and ethereum in 2013 15 like and was watching it and then when I saw the Nft thing was starting to mature I decided to launch the IP as an Nft while equally making videos that 99% of Nfts were going to go to zero. So it's a very like complex like I'm all in on the macro be careful of the micro but now I'm like very far along. Yesterday I was in New York City on a float for the Halloween Parade trading.

If you go to eBay right now and type in Vriends, you'll be blown away What the pins and stickers and trading cards? I'm announcing a major YouTube Kids initiative with some of the biggest animators in the world like I'm actively building a Marvel a Hello Kitty a Pokemon right now I would have I didn't really think three years ago that that's what I was going to do. so I'm staying I stay very curious about a lot of things and then I act on it. but you have to be careful to not just follow a trend because you think it's a trend. crypto this cannabis that right? AI This you see those kind of people who are just always on to the next thing for me.

I am on to the next thing a lot, but it's always fitting a strength or something I've been thinking about. It's why I started a marketing company first after I left my dad's business I knew that marketing was my superpower. so I wanted to build a huge infrastructure. Do you guys know Resi, the restaurant app yeah that was incubated at Vayner Media I the co-founder of Resi.

So Resi was built inside of Vayner with people outside and inside of Vayner joining it. I started a direct a consumer wine brand called Empathy Wines that I sold to Consolation. so I'm I built a marketing infrastructure almost like an operating system so that I can then groom that talent and then put them into other Ventures who know my way which is very much what I spoke about. Like what I spoke about is unique like I really do care about.

kindness in the workplace and like safety like like you know I'm pretty sure most of the Keynotes at this conference over the years have not spent 15 minutes on kindness in company culture. I Think it's foundational and so you can imagine I'm better off grooming talent that believes in it because it's hard to teach people it because they don't believe you. Everybody says they care about culture, but nobody does. So these are things I think about.

So thank you thank you.