Think most people when they make content. Say what's in it for me i i'm gonna get likes i'm gonna get a customer. I'm gonna get blue check mark. I think the reason i have the career.

I have is from the first video. I made about wine on youtube in february 2006 to the stuff. I put out today my brain has always thought why would anybody watch this. I think something i've been spending a lot of time on recently is the first five six years of someone's life is so and formative have this hypothesis lately that if you are lucky enough to be born into a family that doesn't have a lot financially.

But is incredibly happy and loving you've started life in a foundation that gives you a massive advantage because you realize that money is not the answer to happiness and i am that person. I was born in the soviet union. I got very fortunate to come to this great country when i was three years old and life was super hard. I lived with nine family members in the studio apartment.

The size of this stage in queens. We grew up lower middle class the majority of my early childhood. But it was a happy household. My mom as you mentioned quickly is the hero of my life.

And she uh instilled. Incredibly massive foundations for me around kindness and empathy and compassion and all the things. I mean literally be friends the ip that i'm building right now on the back of nfts. Which will have the biggest booth at this convention in 10 years is really is really really really the seed of how my mother saw the world.

My mom lost her mom at five grew up in the soviet union like real tough life and really showed me all the true answers to the world. And so i grew up very very much not entitled my mom was the sweetest as pie. But my mom is super cheap and we were poor so everything i ever wanted she looked me in the face and said go get it so lemonade stands washing cars shoveling snow you know i'm built on hard work uh. I think entitlement is a disease.

I think a lot of people have it today and i'm very grateful i don't and um. I think we're all byproducts of our childhood. I think there's things that i've had to work on just like anybody else i think as grown ups. We can do that you can't just say.

Oh my parents me up you know you've got to work at it. But i am as grateful as one can be on earth. I've been writing a book in my head. I've written a lot of books.

But the one that i've been holding nearest and dearest is a book that i'm going to call perfectly parented. I'm going to talk about how they did it what they did and i hope it uh creates different conversations. Because i think parenting is one of the most important conversations in the world. Yeah.

No i love that so i had also incredible parents growing up. I my mom same thing gary was really focused on inclusivity she whenever we had people over whenever we did anything whenever i was invited anywhere. She would say did you invite so and so did you talk to someone so um. We meet and um.

You know i'll just be honest with you when you're a little kid. And you're always having to include people in conversations and invite people places and make sure people are taken care of is slightly annoying and then as an adult you become this person like you know what let's bring this person. Let's bring this person into the conversation and makes you a great leader. It makes it makes you a great person.

Yeah right you don't take advantage you don't look at me. We're going to get into leadership. But you know when you grow up with that bedrock and people who actually care about people care about other people's feelings um. I mean again.

I you know again we share a lot in common. But having great parents um is something that you know i don't take for granted for a second on the flip side. There's a lot of people sitting here my father's one of them. I love my grandma may she rest in peace but boy oh boy.

She saw it different the thing that inspires me daily and why i put myself so out there and built the following that i built and definitely why i'm building. V. Friends is we have the capacity to change humans. Inspire me so much you know we're sitting here as the byproduct of some good situations.

But listen you and i had a bunch of stuff. I didn't know my dad at all he worked every day of his life until. I was 14 like you know like everyone's got stuff. But taking on the challenge of leaning into optimism and figuring out whether it's meditation exercise counseling uh education the consumption of positive content versus negative content or whatever your path is i think.

It's really inspiring that we have the capacity to evolve as well and i and that's what i spend my life on which is i have a level of guilt and gratitude of thinking. I had a great situation and i want to and continue to push the conversation that if one doesn't you have so much capacity to change your outcome and i'm inspired by that i love that all right so let's so so great foundation yes. I mean how do you not applaud that great foundation uh and you always i mean listen we're at the licensing shop. We have to talk about licensing and branding and laughing.

And you have always been a collector um big business collectibles. Um. You've always been very focused on branding. I want to ask you about your personal brand versus your professional brand uh and then also the fact that you are um.

You're you've been obsessed with intellectual property in fact uh. Many years ago. Gary and i were uh talking and we might even talk about spongebob. I don't know what he literally i love intellectual properties one day.

I'm either gonna buy one or i'm gonna make one i mean that was a long time ago and here we are at the licensing show. It's kind of weird um. And you have really thought a lot about this space. For a long time.

So. Talk. A little bit about branding. Um.

And talk a little bit about how you got into then the licensing space. I'm 46 years old um and that means. I'm of the age where 1980s after school television of the 80s cartoons were driving well nickelodeon a little late you know i loved pin well yes pinwheel. I remember early nickelodeon.

But but nickelodeon really hit its scaled way that we know it today that's right that's more aj yeah. I was more after school he man thundercats transformers my little pony strawberry shortcake the rebirth of. Gi talked a lot about strawberries i love strawberry shortcake and so these were brands that were being built on the distribution of after school television. There was a lot that happened in the 70s and early 80s on saturday morning.

But if you really look at the moat of mid 80s early 80s after school that was a monster of ip building. I was very affected by that toys r us was like the holy grail. I was we were you know again we didn't have a lot of money so on my birthday. I got to go there at you know wrestling wwf.

Vince mcmahon built ip through humans. There was just a lot going on during that era as a lot of us know so i'm affected by that baseball cards. I like selling things. There's a lot of that going on and so i was really affected by that era and then very honestly communication has always come natural to me so not only was i fascinated by he man.

But i was getting d's and f's in school. But getting a's and b's in history. Because i thought coup d.'etats were fascinating like why would they take. The newspaper and the radio station at the same time as the palace.

Like why does the radio and television and the newspaper matter so much so for me to be where i'm at at 46 years old somebody could have easily figured that out at 12 based on what i was paying attention to social media became very natural to me because i knew that that was going to be the new moat of brand building and storytelling. I mean why brand why intellectual property. Because religion is that the world is only based on stories stories that people have decided to believe in there's not a very big you know this may be emotional for some people and i'm saying this respectfully. But the delta between religion and the marvel universe is much smaller than people realize especially when you start looking at some of the most successful ips of all time you break down star wars.

It gets real religious real fast right and so i think that people are are really in a place. Where they need to attach to the emotions of stories. We've done around campfires. We do it today on roblox and minecraft and everything in between and so i've always been fascinated by it i've always been a collector.

I was a very heavy toy collector in the mid 90s i properly felt that sports cards were about to collapse i sold my entire collection and went heavy into toy collecting uh. I was in the right age when ebay came out i'd been garage saleing and buying ip stuff for years. It's just always come very natural to me to the point. Where i the level of happiness.

I have in developing the friends for the rest of my life is profound. I've never seen it it's it's when i and i'll tell you why because the garyvee thing kind of sucks having a personal brand's amazing. But it comes with enormous baggage you know you get hate thrown at you you get assumptions about you uh. And you know you're a human being you're just taking on for me.

I've been willing to do that because i believe in kindness and gratitude and i know that i'm a unique communicator and that i can get things into the world and i want to leave it better than i came into it if i can but a countable aunt my character accountable aunt like for me right now the lack of accountability is why so many people are anxious accountability is an incredible human trait that leads to happiness yet we've demonized accountability. We've demonized merit. We created entitlement because we decided to have an era of ninth place trophies and we've created a lot of structures that have demonized losing. When actually losing is foundationally phenomenal and so for me.

Knowing how i'm gonna make an iphone game or build in the metaverse or do children's books or do an animation show on a streaming service around the trials and tribulations of a countable ant. If i can affect a generation to think accountability is cool versus. The current generation that wants to point fingers at everything and never point the thumb at themselves. I can make the world.

A better place. So so. What i know is i've built one of the largest social media platforms in the world off of no distribution in real world all social that's been fun i like it. But i don't need you know me i don't need it it's not what i want it's the message that i want and i've used myself as a vehicle the ip allows me to make that 500x and what i saw faces i saw people understand like i've got six or seven things i want to put into the earth in a different way i want to show young men that you can build an empire and be kind not a dick.

So so um before we get there i want to i want to go back a little bit just a little bit uh yeah. Because one of the things what i think is so amazing about what you're doing is you you hit the nail on that and that is i think one of the things we all love about the business of brand is emotional connection and for a lot of years this business was very transactional yeah. It was listed in vip and put it on product and um. It is really about building grounds and uh you know i didn't grow up with the licensing industry.

I came to it uh at the company. I was working in marketing marketing is about creating consumer connections and the privilege of working across some of the most iconic brands in the world. Like spongebob turtles. Etc.

Is that this means a lot to people a lot and and to your point. Some of these shows and characters and brands have been with us in times. That are really really challenging and i think that that's what this business is that's why this business is so exciting. And that's where you're seeing so much growth.

And so you know you are literally the perfect person to step into this space. Because of your foundation about understanding the importance of the brain. The importance of brand before we go to be friends. Um.

You are a brit gary let's just say in a minute and talk about gary b. Gary vaynerchuk and gary vee and you know this is a personal question how do you unpack it i mean you are how do you separate that you are a very private person living a very public life and now you're going to be more public. Because of what you created and obviously then how do you distinguish between the two i tell people all the time you're in control like you're in control of what you put out into the world. I i deal with it and unpack it very easily i put into the world what i'm willing to share and i don't what i'm not willing to share and too many people get caught up in the game.

They want likes they want followers they want the blue check mark and what what usually does well kids family stuff. But as a private person that's not something i'm willing to share on the flip side. I'm willing to be the most intellectually generous around everything that's ever worked for me. I think the thing that works for me is when i make a piece of content.

I think most people when they make content. Say what's in it for me i'm going to get likes i'm going to get a customer. I'm going to get that blue check mark. I think the reason i have the career.

I have is from the first video. I made about wine on youtube in february 2006 to the stuff. I put out today my brain has always thought why would anybody watch this like like why are you watching this like why is this good for you and for me. I have always lived abundance company going to talk about under that's so fantastic.

Thank you anyway. You know i i respect people's time. I don't have entitlement. I think i have to fight for it and so i spent a lot of time reading my direct messages and my emails to try to figure out where the temperature is in the world.

And what are the issues and what are the opportunities. What do people struggle with what have i i never talk about anything i've never done so i think one thing. That's really worked for me is i don't talk about stuff. I don't know i never tell people to do something i haven't because done really really unusual you will not endorse or talk about anything i'm very narrow.

I love your recent article. I think i just read where you talked about how people were endorsing entities that they didn't even experience crazy what is that so people talk a little bit about that it's this it's this it's this industry. I'll make a really interesting copy you brought it up and i've watched this industry from afar for a long time. I think the reason.

The industry is doing better macro is we become less transactional people are protecting their brand. They don't need the brand in every category to maximize the p l. They realize if they make some sort of silly thing for short term money it might hurt their overall thing. That's how i've always thought i've been very patient.

I never do anything that can tarnish me i really work on that i i think it's important. I don't i just don't know how any level of money is worth you not putting your head on a pillow at night. It doesn't make sense to me. It's not how i see the world um and so i focus on that i also think the world is abundant.

I also am incredibly patient you know i spent the first 12 years of my career building. My dad's business for him i started. My company at 34 years old in another company's conference room because we had no money. I was 34 before i ever made 100 000.

A year like you can accomplish a lot. Everyone's so anxious everyone wants it so fast. Everybody wants to keep up with the joneses. They want to make it now so they can show or enjoy like to me enjoy the process of your career.

Not the money you make from your career. So you can then enjoy it and that's the game. I play so a lot of us here. The book.

He recently written which i will talk about because he will um emotional ingredients. I cut it i got leveraging it emotional ingredients necessary for business success and this book. The minute. I got it i sent him a note that this resonates.

Because it's what he's one of the few people in the industry and most importantly the soft skills. Which i completely agree with you are so undervalued and so i just want you to talk to this room before we get into uh obviously. I wanted to talk about your perspective on that so important. I think business has a bad name.

I think we've misbranded business. The brand of business is broken. I think a lot of people have very honorable. Very kind business skills and the world thinks businesses rough and sharp elbows and nice like even like it just made me like jump up a little bit this concept that the world has been pushing on us that nice guys finish last is a travesty.

No it's a travesty that people believe that it makes people behave in ways that they don't have in their soul. And it's broken. And i think we have to have a new conversation. I think hard skills are commoditized machine learning ai.

Many other things that's where the commodity is it's the people that know how to lead too many people lead out of fear. It's not healthy. It doesn't work in the end and i just think we need to have a more thoughtful conversation. I think if you look under the hood and pay attention the most meaningful long term things have been built far more on good behavior than bad behavior.

You can get short term results through fear and negativity. But it is not a sustainable action and i think it's time we talk about it and how many times have you shut down a conversation when you walk past someone's office cube conference. Wherever you are and someone's being yelled at. But i i just wrote that down pam.

I just need to understand how anybody believes that verbally undressing. Another human being in a business meeting ever has any reasoning and i just want everybody to hear this i'm not talking about let's do foofy foofy entitlement. Everyone's now thinking about like what about these gen zeros. They don't want to do i'm not talking about that i'm not talking about like we have to do stuff of course.

I'm talking about people using negativity and and fear as drivers. Yeah nobody wants to be scared of their boss. So many people so many people are struggling. When i'm pushing this out because they're worried about entitlement and i understand that it is a fine balance.

But we just need to have a different combo. Because you get way more out of honey than vinegar. It is documented proof. But most of all the thing that bothers me the most is i watch nice people navigate their careers and try to develop less nice skills.

Because they believe subconsciously and consciously that it gets them further and that has to be eradicated. I totally agree let's give a to that and i i again i i love the way you're weaving that message in back and forth. It's so important okay more i got the i got the time frame. So i'm going to move to v.

Con. So um. You just made your dream come true for uh for a long time you dreamt about what vcon could be you've talked um about what three you've talked about nmt's you talked about uh. Obviously you have been a leading voice in this space uh and i want to talk a little bit about how was the weekend.

How'd it go for the majority of you that don't know the. Context this weekend in minnesota at us. Bank stadium. Where the vikings play we had something called v con.

It's a really interesting convoluted mixed answer several things one i'm very close to the will family that owns the stadium or or has the bike owns the vikings. They grew up in springfield new jersey. Where my dad's wine store is so there's good relationship feels family. I like doing business with people this one's going to be a loop.

But it's tying in nicely to what i've said i think america has gotten very red and very blue like very red and very blue. I think a lot of people now feel they have to be 100 red and 100 blue in a world where every person sitting here has some level of purple. So i'm falling in love with this concept of purple. It's where i want to go with my content.

It's where i want to go with the friends as much as i'm excited about kind could do and empathy elephant and patient panda. I'm equally as excited about developing ambitious angel and tenacity you know termite and you know competitive clown that like makes kids cry when they lose like you know so it's a i would call and so because i want to make it purple competitive clown is a character and be friends and the main story arc is i think it's good when kids cry when they lose. And i think we spent the last 25 years trying to not make them cry stop them from crying not let crying happen it means they care. I think being competitive is a massively attractive skill like anything in life anything out of balance is bad.

But we tried to wipe it out and and so i have a very purple view on the world. I think the deep red deep blue reality of what we're sitting in right. Now. Has created incredible levels of non civility.

Lots of angst tons of anxiety. And i want to march to purple and that stadium is purple. So it was a very secret little thing for me i love prince little red corvette is still top 10 songs of all time i need to work on the jet super bowl. The vikings.

So you're excited with the outfit. Yeah i mean i think listen let's let's make it valuable for this crowd everybody in here is going to figure out how significant the consumer blockchain is over the next 15 years. This audience here is probably nft curious. Because there's economics that there's money.

It's definitely in the air right now we're in a gold rush phase. Where everything's about the economics. The numbers are crazy. It's internet 97 just like in 97 and 98.

And 99. The stocks were too valued they crashed. But the internet and the macro was going to change the world 98 of the nft projects in the space right now are going to zero. They're going to be misoperated.

People don't know what to do with the ip. It's using the short greed. Economics but they're not going to navigate ip development and value and they'll go to zero. But nfts consumer nfts will impact every single person in this room for the rest of your lives.

Wow. Because the technology's too big every ticket to every sporting event and concert. In seven years is going to be an nft people are going to buy homes in the form of the night of tv talk about real estate. Well.

When you do real estate. You're buying a home that sits on a ledger at the county level or at the state level. Like people don't understand that the consumer blockchain is a ledger that proves ownership and has smart contract capability. This is very very significant we spend lots of money on companies in the middle that provide no value that are just toll booths that we're not going to do that with because there's now technology no different than people now buy things on it and have it delivered to them even though in 1997.

When everybody asked me gary who's going to buy wine on the internet. My answer every time was everybody and every and you know there's some ogs in here in 1997. That didn't click in 2006. When i told everybody that everybody was going to have a social media account a twitter they're like this is the stupidest thing.

I've ever heard of who cares if you're walking the dog or having a pizza and my answer was everybody and it didn't register to people. But that's what humans are we're a bunch of yentas. We want to know people's business. You know and so so but more importantly.

It's the flip side. Besides our curiosity and wanting to know people need to communicate the reason social media. Worked is you want to show everybody your new car. You want to show everybody your family is having a great time at disney.

It's what people do they used to do it by taking 100 photos coming back and having their four friends come over and look at the photos. This just created technology scale. The reason people buy bmws the reason people buy nikes rolex's louis vuitton burka is the same reason everyone's going to buy nfts to show and communicate. But it's also going to have utilitarian value the 8 000.

People. 7 000. People that came to bcon this weekend in minnesota were only able to come if they owned a v. Friend.

So this is going to change the world. It's going to eat up this conference. In 10 years. The concept of nfts whether they're called nfts or we came up with some new world is going to be the dominant infrastructure of this conference.

Let me make a more profound statement. There's actually no logical sense. No logical sense for anybody to establish a ip ever again in book form cartoon form toy form youtube form all of it well all of it makes more sense to start as an nft to establish the ip rights on the blockchain and then you can develop it there is no path to ip building. That doesn't start with step one minted on the blockchain because you get a royalty component for every transaction in perpetuity.

So brands will definitely matter going forward brands matter forever right like look do you know why the world is a religious place because churches and religious institutions. Were the fastest mover on the printing press and the printed press changed. The world like this has always been about communication. This has always been about communication.

Everybody here over the age of 45 grossly underestimated. The internet 25 years ago. Every single person sitting here right now is grossly under estimating nfts and a lot of people here have opinions about it because of one headline. They saw on twitter or their friends said something the amount of people pam.

I apologize the amount of people who've spent 50 hours here actually educating themselves on what the blockchain is what entities are what aetherium is is very far and few between i've seen this rodeo three times in my short career. This movie always plays out this conference is grossly grossly underestimating. What the is happening yes. I i love that the early pioneers who are establishing ip no different than the 1980s were where the storytellers were like wait a minute this cartoon mode is amazing.

I'm going to do a cartoon to sell these toys at toys r us. This is a moat for ip building. So the same dna that made the production companies and the ip builders understand that this moat of 83 82 to 88 of ip building right on television. When you think about turtles comic book.

But those cartoons took it to the stratosphere yeah right and so the people that are getting it right are putting themselves in that position. Me yam from world of women. The board ape crew. We're all getting our bats.

We've got a lot of work to do there.'s been a hundred million dollars of v. Friends sold in the first year on. Primary there's been 250 million sold in secondary that i make between 55. And 10 royalties on every transaction.

This has happened one year v. Friends has bigger and better p l. Economics. Than 98 of this room it didn't exist a year ago amazing it but it's not that amazing it's a timing execution thing.

There's a but you said yourself you didn't expect it i didn't i'm just saying. It's why i'm saying not amazing because a lot of it's coming from greed on the other side. People think. It's how they're going to become a millionaire and i'm like keep saying like don't spend money you can't afford to lose slow down like i love the correction that's happened in pricing.

The last three weeks because it gets some of the riffraff out of the system. But you have to understand when you're sitting with ip and you issue nfts. But then you can trigger experiences every ip in here can do a pop up museum in new york city that only can get into if you have the nft like there's so much more you look at the music industry. You think about the wealth that prince or bruce springsteen.

Or michael jackson or the beatles created people in music have made so much money because they've had royalties in perpetuity for the first time ever at scale on the consumer end. We can do that with ip that's a big deal.