When you're like 15 16 like, you don't realize that you're not even born yet. They literally are sitting there thinking they they're getting close to having to have their figured out kids. I got a big one for you. You know how your parents and teachers are telling you like you got to get focused You got to figure out your you're not going to believe this? It's really funny.

None of them have their figured out, none none. Attention is the number one asset. uh Gary Going to go through a couple questions here with you? uh uh. First of all, what about last week in the Jets oh I saw a jet shirt I see you I saw you and I also saw Tiara Wack there we go.

Let's go. um the Jets It's all about this weekend. we're at a Crossroads we're two and three. You all know our got up.

four plays into the season but we got the Eagles who are ridiculously tough I actually like the Eagles a lot cuz we both hate the Giants but I'm hoping I'm hoping for a miracle cuz if we can win this week it starts getting excited. If not, it gets a little tricky. You start looking towards the draft. Tell me this man, we're we're obviously at a the Spire event but uh, you just announced, uh, another one of your events Vcon yes coming up in La Yes, what's the passion of throwing these big events for Von and stuff? You know the Nft thing for a lot of you, that either were paying very close attention or weren't paying attention at all when the Nft thing hit obviously I believe in it so much and I believe in the blockchain heavy in the height of the height August 2000 I Started making a ton of content saying 99 % of these things are going to zero because I was starting to see everyone just went to the greed side, not the building and the patience and the IP side.

but for me V friends the characters you saw up there. it's my Pokemon meet Sesame Street You know I have a lot of passion for what I just talked about I think you're get. You know a lot of you have been along this journey. You're starting to get more insight to what makes me tick.

I I Know that me as a person has been able to amass an audience. but I know I'm not everyone's cup of tea. Watch this. How many people here the first time they saw me were like that? Dude? he's a douche Make Some Noise yes dude, what the so you know? Luckily, luckily for the people that raised their hand, you get lucky sometimes and people will give you.

You know you get a couple more bats, they hear the right thing and and you could make that jump. But there's a lot of people that will never even give me a second chance or someone that looks like me. I Get it. and I'm not for everyone.

We all consume differently and there's different voices, different backgrounds. I Get it with be friends. my Sesame Street meets Pokemon If I can't teach you patience well, then I'm going to make patient Panda so popular that they're going to get to your kids and then and so it's a very big mission of mine. I You know at first I thought I was building Disney but then as I learned more about what Jim Henson did with Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock there was a lot of meaning behind those characters and I'm very inspired by that.

and so anyway when I did the Nft thing I kind of anticip ipated the chance that it would take some time I didn't anticipate the prices would get so crazy. greed really took over I didn't anticipate the government sending everybody free money. you know there's a lot of that went into it. but I knew that the blockchain allowed me to do unique things.

So the fact that you would get this collectible right this feed friends collectible I wanted to make sure there was real life value. so I said for a long time I've been wanting to do a South by Southwest meets Rolling Loud like what's what would the coolest business conference look like and so when I did be friends I'm like this is my chance I'm going to sell these I'm going to make The initial selling of them the collectible. Have three years to this conference we did in Minnesota the first year we to Vikings play, we did it last year we're to Colts play in Indianapolis This year I wanted to try a different format so we're doing it in LA live in August and I'm really proud of it and I've learned a lot about events. It's 10,000 people it's it's a big event you know Snoop and Farel and Drew Barrymore and just like a lot of pop culture you know Andrew Schultz did Stand Up Buster Rhymes performed like I really? I'm really going for it.

I' be it's I want it's almost like I didn't I didn't have the kind of money as a kid to go to summer camp you know? But for me having this event to look forward to every summer where I can really talk about pop culture and business and marketing and Innovation and so this is the last year that only the Nft holders can go and then I've got a decision to make where I go with it afterwards. but I'm really excited about it. Very cool man. Let me obviously in a room full of entrepreneurs and business owners and uh uh, we're all growing and scaling If you can, uh, paint a little bit of vision? uh that we can see down on scaling.

Uh I I think you just surpassed 2500 staff employees now 2,000 2,000 at your company. Uh, for us that are in the room growing and scaling scale that up. Give us a vision. What is that like? When I went into my dad's store at a school, we had eight employees doing three million bucks and five years later we had almost 200 people doing $50 million a year when I started Vayner Media because my dad really never paid me much money.

I I Don't think people. It's funny for me when people try to Ras me they're like he inherited I'm like I inherited nothing Dick I built a huge business for my father and left and didn't have anything which is why I had to start Vayner Media in a conference room of another company I Promise you if I inherited it we would had chairs. Uh, you know. So so I started Vayer Media very humbly and in 14 years not knowing anything about that world, we built a $350 million business with 2,000 employees.

I I Feel confident that I can speak about scaling. The number one reason brother that most people here will not scale to the level that they want to is because they don't love their employees enough. The real answer to the quiz is realizing you work for people. Not, they're beholden to you because you write their check.

The way that employers treat employees when they have big aspirations and it's their company. I'm not talking middle management and a corporation. You're both in jail. I'm talking it's your and you want it to be as big as possible.

The two biggest mistakes people make is they don't invest in people like really like really. For example: I have 2,000 employees I that's just Vayner X I Have vriends I have vayer Sports I'm always still helping my dad because that's our relationship with Wine Library Win text I'm doing got the Gary Ve brand I've got a I got a pickle ball team I got a ton of going on and yet if you looked at my calendar I'll show you right now. Real talk. Watch this tomorrow.

I Promise you like, no forget that. don't look at how many It's what it's what in these 15minute meetings, it's with employee. Paige Carlin One-on-one Destiny John Oneon-one right? Charles Oneon-one Yeah, one-onone One-on one. 15 minutes, 15 minutes, 15 minutes.

You just don't care about them enough. Wow. And if you don't care about them first, how the do you expect them to care about your? That's number one. Number two.

The biggest reason most of you will not get to where you want to get to. Promise you. The biggest reason is because you have a business to buy. Dumb! Yeah yeah yeah, What ends up happening is you got to go in a little bit.

you're doing 2 million A million. You got 200,000 in profit and you take all that and buy some shoes instead of leaving it hiring more people and doing 4 million the next year. you're you. You're using your business for your lifestyle instead of you building your business.

So so for me: I Don't think I had a salary over $100,000 until almost 40 because my dad definitely didn't pay me. and then when we started Vayner Media I was already kind of in that mindset and so I was just reinvesting Vayner Media went from zero to 1.8 1.8 to 3. then I went full-time 3 to 14, 14 to 27, 27 to 48, 48 to 72. But the way I was able to do that was along the way: I wasn't trying to buy another house or a boat.

I was trying to build a business and the biggest reason people will not scale here is they don't care about their people at all sometimes or enough. and they use their business to fund their lifestyle. And they don't build a business. They build a machine of cash to like live which is by the way, do you? You can do whatever the you want this is America but if you're asking me why I See people stay at 2 three 4 five.

It has to do with all the in their closet that they don't wear. Yeah yeah! I want to do this one thing I Found out today, uh when he came here. Gary uh uh a school teacher um that teaches entrepreneurship and finance to a group of kids. uh uh uh.

paid uh for probably around 50 high schoolers. uh that he teaches uh to come to this event. It's amazing. He got the bus for them, paid for the bus, paid for the food.

uh did the whole thing. We found out it uh here. and we we put a special room in together for them and did some stuff with them. Uh, but where's that group of of high schoolers at? Where you there? They are right over there.

There they are, if, uh, obviously work with a lot of young people. No kids don't take the eighth place trophy. it's going to you up. So when they hand it to you, throw it back in their face.

You got it. What? Uh, you obviously work with a lot of uh of people, but young people in high school in my favorite. What would you? what advice would you give? Let me tell you one other thing when we on J Z you need to hear me loud and clear as you're going to go home tomorrow and complain again that no nobody wants to take this job that you're offering $18 an hour for J Z is not Lazy J Z has options. We have to.

They know that they can just make Tik toks and get brand Deals They know that they can flip on eBay They know they can do a Shopify store. I Promise you. if we all had the internet we wouldn't have worked at Kmart either. That's good.

If I had the internet I wouldn't have graduated Middle School let alone high school I would have been by 11. Be like peace Mr Dennis You all right I would have the Jets 20 years ago I had the internet when I was a kid I wish I had that. What? What? What piece of advice if you gave him one piece of advice now in high school, what What would you tell the the the high schoolers over there? There's so much which is why I make so much so much content on Tik Tok And we all remember when you're like 15 16 like you don't realize that you're not even born yet. like they literally are sitting there thinking they they're getting close to having to have their figured out kids.

I got a big one for you. You know how your parents and teachers are telling you like you got to get focused you got to figure out your you're not going to believe this. It's really funny. None of them have their figured out none.

none. So what? I what I would tell them is and I would tell this to a lot of people in this room especially looking at the 20, 30 and 40y old 50 60 year old faces. We have such a bad relationship with time. it's it's a big passion of mine.

I Know that people that follow me here know how much I pound this with modern medicine? Do you know that they're going to live to 130? Yeah like real. Like I don't know if anyone's paying attention to what's going on. it's crazy. Modern Medicine is moving fast.

We are figuring out a ton of like people like literally if you're 124, 14, 15, 16 buck 10 Buck 15 Buck 20 Buck 30 for real and before you're like nah, just do your homework, look at what's been happening. 85 Are you kidding me? If somebody lived to 60 in the 1970s they were like you made it. So what I would tell them is and I would tell a lot of you and this is goes back to like this is going to be a fun one because I'll tell them and then I'm going to you for them, they need to be high risk. Yeah they need to follow their actual dream.

Actually they need to mitigate regret. You know what is really hurting for a lot of people in here? the they didn't do at 20 and 30 that they wanted to right? cuz they thought they were supposed to or their mommy made them do it Or Society told us I get it when I when I was a kid like entrepreneurship wasn't even a thing. at 14 15 16 everyone told me besides my mom that I was going to be a loser cuz I got D's and Fs kids I got D's and Fs like you know, like we didn't have the you know who Gary B is online. Besides trying to make my mom proud, he's the person I wish existed for me when I was 16.

Yeah, yeah, you understand, Yeah, yeah. which is why I talk about the Of n like if I like I needed someone to look up to, there's too many people that say win at all cost, kill everybody you I don't believe in that I believe there's two ways to build the biggest building in town. one just have the talent to do it or two like most people, tear down everybody else's building Y and so I think about that and I want to be that role model I want to be that person for 15y old me if they happen to sit there. but if you're a musician, if you want to be a stay-at-home Dad if you want to coach little league I don't know what you're about but whatever it is at this age for the next 20 years, nothing but that and then if you didn't have the talent, if it didn't didn't bounce your way if you weren't good enough, if it just didn't click, then at the ripe age of 33, you can go get a regular job.

Yeah! and for This Crew I Wish they knew what 50 is in today's world. Yeah, when people are like it's over, what's over, you're going to be up 30 40 more like what you're just going to dwell for 30 years. I Wish people knew that the number one thing they should do right now if they're not enjoying it though. I don't know if you heard everyone's happy in here.

Yeah, they happy. But if you one of those two people that didn't clap, if you're not pumped with what you do, do you understand how much time we spend on working when add sleeping and then figure out how much work is your life it's the majority of your life. If you don't like it, you're making a mistake and I understand you Gary that's dream I Got a mortgage I got I get it. But I don't understand why people don't fight for their happiness.

Yeah, do like and let me and let me go in. Let me go into detail. Let me go into detail in my way of seeing the world. If you can't quit your thing to go, try to do another thing.

You start looking at everything that costs you money if you're actually miserable. real talk. Like if you don't wake up on Monday and you're like yeah right. Like people that live for Friday evening.

that's not life. If you're one of those people, the first thing you look at is do you own a home? If you own a home and you're not happy? Like really not happy, but you can't afford to jump I Think it's a debate to say let me sell this home. Let me take out the equity. Give me a year.

I'll have the humility right I'll go back to an apartment I'll go to a smaller home I'll rent a smaller home. but we don't do it because we're worried about judgment. Most of you will not do the thing you should do to get to happiness because you don't want to be embarrassed and that me up. It's like sports.

Most of you are living your life. Can you imagine if every athlete reacted to every time they were booed? When you're an athlete, you don't even hear the crowd when people try to tell me or judge me on what I'm doing. I'm like you're in the crowd eating popcorn I'm fling. So if you need to sell your home because you bought a home that was too big for your skis and you the Realtors are aren't they and you have a home that has I don't know four rooms that you never use and it's you up cuz that mortgage is you up and your lease as a Tesla and you go on three vacations for the photos on the gram to show people you're winning on the outside but and you're actually losing on the inside.

Swallow some humility and fight for your happiness last. uh Gary uh last question here for the day. Uh Alex if you got to come out uh so Gary me and you're talking about stage and what a lot of these guys don't know is a Spire would actually never exist? uh without. uh, the very first interview I ever did with Money is kind of launched this whole freaking thing.

uh about four years ago in your office and we were talking about Backstage. So I'm gonna. you're the first person we ever did the interview with I don't know if you remember your answer but I remember it uh I didn't tell you what it was uh but if I asked it to you again, uh, money is blank what would the answer be? and then why would it be that Money is an exposer, an exposer my friends. Money exposes if you're a piece of when you're poor, you're really a piece of when you're rich I Love when people like Gary Money changed him I'm like no it didn't I Promise you Money is an exposer.

Money exposes people y real talk. Yeah it exposes people. It just accelerates Your Truth Yeah, it it just does. You're you're good people.

You get paper. You're real good people. Promise. Watch it.

Pay attention. It's never ever been any other way. Money Money is an exposure perspective is what we think money does. When you decide to not look here and you look here and you see completely different, you can possibly act different.

Yeah, that is what people think money does for them putting in the work, having the humility it took me time to get to understanding. cander was a flaw I used to blame them I was doing this right I'm really good at this for almost everything. but when I wasn't strong enough to fire you CU I liked you because I mean once up back to what I said earlier, you come into my company. we're family like I think in sports terms you're like on my team now right? Like we're going to kill everybody and I start getting feelings I do like I love my teams and so when I would when someone sucked instead of having the ability to say hey, you're not good at this and build like have the ability to build them up I would just because I didn't want it and it would get worse and worse and worse.

and then after three years of them sucking and I would sloppily fire them out of I mean it was bad. In my 20s it was out of control at 28. I could like walk by somebody at the liquor store and be like Johnny you're the best. See you on Monday like on a Saturday night and then Monday be like yo can you come to my office real quick? yo by the way, you're fired and he Johnny's like you said I was the best on Saturday and I was like I'm sorry I'm like here's more money.

just get the out of the company. you know like like it was sloppy. it was sloppy. Yeah and you know what I did I blamed them I'm like Johnny you Johnny how didn't you? you sucked, you knew you sucked what the you know and I wasn't there and I think we do that on a lot of things and so I think we need to be.

We need to be way more accountable. Like the second you realize the world is how you see it even in times like this. If you want to look outside right now you can find unlimited positivity and a second you realize that anything that is bothering you is on you. It's on you.

Every single person here is more than capable of fixing it. Maybe not this minute. but if you believe otherwise, you've already lost. If you believe you can't fix it I'll never get my mom.

That's if you believe that then it won't happen. And more importantly, back to before this this is at Von I set a funny line with passion I said your grandparents I'm really excited about this. Yeah, let's talk that out for a second. Yeah so many people on their parents because that's what we do as humans.

We blame our parents. Yeah yeah like my M like you don't get it Gary I can't you? especially the way I talk about my parents and my mom you can imagine right going through the airports on DM Gary you don't get it I can never cuz unlike you my mom was poison and I'm like but then when you really go deep as I have over the last 20 years on this people are all mad at their parents but they love Grandma cuz when they went over there she gave them pie Meanwhile your grandma is the one that made your mom the way she is. yeah and so we give Granny a pass. yeah yeah but we on Dad like a yeah yeah and then there's a funny game.

Once you get to that place then you realize wait a minute. Great Grandma was a real and so my question is you can sit here and continue to blame the President right? your mom or you can decide I'm a grown ass man I'm a grown ass girl and instead of doing all these proxies to make makeup on my problem, let me go do work. Yeah let me do work cuz it's super easy to blame. It's easy.

you just do it. But people are not putting in the work and what again. so to me money it's a people swear that that's just shit's that's going to fix it if you got up that is not fixing it. it's going to make you spend that on more up and you're going down down town.

I Love it I Love it Charlie Brown Know all right, that's it Gary You guys give Gary a round of applause man Gary V Thank you San Diego.