How Gary Vee Predicts The Next Facebook (Every Time)

Good news for the “C” students out there (00:00:00)

• Gary Vaynerchuk, also known as Gary Vee, is a successful entrepreneur and investor who made notable investments in companies like Twitter, Slack, and Facebook before their IPOs.
• Despite receiving poor grades in high school, including an F in German and a D in English, Gary Vee emphasizes that school grades are not always reliable indicators of future success.
• He shares his personal experience of failing German twice but eventually passing Spanish with the help of a supportive teacher.
• Growing up in an immigrant family, Gary Vee lacked guidance about college due to his parents' limited American connections.
• He believes that in today's society, not attending college would be more acceptable, and his potential might have been recognized instead of discouraged.
• Gary Vaynerchuk has a method for predicting successful companies, focusing on those that solve real problems, exhibit rapid growth, and have strong user communities.
• Some examples of companies he predicted to be big include Uber, Airbnb, and Snapchat.

Break the Web (00:04:48)

• Break the Web is an app that shows trending topics on the internet.
• It has a strong underlying technology and a simple interface.
• The founders are former employees of a bakery.
• The app is three years old but not yet popular.
• Gary Vee doesn't make predictions about the success of specific companies.
• He focuses on executing on ideas that might work and dealing with the consequences later.
• He believes that Twitter is pushing long-form content and plans to post his 100 most successful YouTube videos on Twitter.

Attention is the only universal asset class (00:08:05)

• Attention is the most mispriced asset that impacts everyone.
• Attention is a universal currency needed to achieve various goals, from raising money to selling products.
• The fragmentation of attention due to technology makes it harder to capture and maintain.
• Effective communication and marketing require capturing attention first.
• Gary Vee uses the framework of "platforms and culture" to analyze attention.
• Platforms refer to the top 25 platforms that have people's attention, such as YouTube, Snapchat, and LinkedIn.
• Culture refers to slang, trends, and people of interest.
• The framework helps identify overpriced and underpriced execution opportunities.
• Super Bowl is considered an underpriced media due to its massive reach, but the success depends on the quality of the creative content.

Perplexity.ai/podcast (00:12:08)

• Perplexity AI has a new daily podcast that is 5-10 minutes long.
• The podcast is written by Perplexity and has beautiful background music.
• The voice of the podcast is powered by 11 Labs, which can create realistic voices from uploaded audio.
• 11 Labs can also translate audio into different languages using AI.
• Gary is excited about the podcast and plans to listen to it daily.
• Gary suggests that they should translate the podcast into Hindi.
• Gary believes that all languages will become accessible through AI in the next three years.

Alex Schultz on growth and language translation (00:14:10)

• Alex Schultz, former top Facebook growth executive, revealed that the biggest growth driver for Facebook was local language translation.
• Facebook incentivized users to retranslate the site for their local regions, leading to a massive overnight translation.
• No other social network had done this before, giving Facebook a significant advantage.
• Gary Vee and MrBeast host a basketball camp where they invite entrepreneurs and influencers to network and play basketball.
• MrBeast shared that he creates channels in different languages for every video he produces, targeting a global audience.
• Gary Vee mentioned an email from Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb, expressing interest in having Gary look at their company.

Adult camps better than conferences (00:17:33)

• Gary Vee compares adult camps to basketball games, where the focus shifts from socializing to winning after the first loss.
• The competition levels the playing field, removing job titles and creating a more enjoyable environment.
• Gary Vee's excitement about entrepreneurship is fueled by the challenge and potential rewards.
• He highlights his early investment in Tumblr's Series B round at a $14 million valuation, emphasizing the potential for significant growth in the tech industry over time.
• Gary Vee emphasizes the value of interacting with both young and old individuals, finding inspiration and wisdom in both extremes.
• At 48, he feels like he's still in the first half of his journey and is excited about the future.

Millionaires v billionaires (00:20:29)

• Gary Vaynerchuk, also known as "Hose Water," believes that successful entrepreneurs are more willing to take risks and less afraid of failure.
• Vaynerchuk uses Rocky 6 as an example of someone who goes back to nothing and romanticizes the idea of being okay with it all falling down.
• He believes that his father's choice of owning a liquor store, which couldn't be shipped, limited his potential for greater success compared to owning a supermarket.
• Vaynerchuk emphasizes the importance of selling skills and suggests that those who can sell will always have opportunities.
• He advises against overpaying for domain names, as they can be built over time.

Planning for a post-iPhone world (00:26:05)

• Gary Vaynerchuk discusses the potential impact of virtual reality (VR) on society and businesses.
• He believes that VR will become more lightweight and accessible in the future, leading to a shift in how people interact with technology.
• Vaynerchuk emphasizes the importance of adapting to changing trends and technologies to stay competitive in business.
• Vaynerchuk shares his thoughts on the current state of search engines like Google.
• He believes that search is becoming less relevant as people increasingly use social media and other platforms to find information.
• Businesses should diversify their marketing strategies and not rely solely on search engine optimization (SEO) to reach customers.

Gary's safety net (00:29:04)

• Gary has a safety net of $1 million in Vanguard and bonds that he never touches.
• Anything above that amount, he is willing to bet on investments.
• Gary looks for moments when he feels the same way he did when he invested in Facebook in 2007.
• He is willing to bet big on these moments, but he doesn't bet everything.
• Gary believes that the worst thing for his love of entrepreneurship is that he can no longer do it without everyone knowing.
• He worries that there may come a day when he wakes up and decides to focus on something other than work.
• Gary acknowledges that we often underestimate how long life is and our capacity to make hard decisions.
• He also recognizes that we have lived through a lot of prosperity and that things may not always be so great.

Micro v macro gratitude (00:33:35)

• Gratitude should be practiced in everyday life by finding moments of appreciation, rather than just focusing on major aspects like family and health.
• Happiness is not about achieving or accumulating things, but rather about not dwelling on what's missing in life.
• Simplicity is not about having a simple personal life, but rather about not being attached to professional success or one's identity.
• It's important to embrace the challenges of daily life and not be discouraged by setbacks or criticism.
• Being able to laugh at oneself and appreciate humor, even when it's at one's own expense, is a sign of confidence and self-awareness.
• Gary Vaynerchuk has a talent for predicting the next big social media platform based on his understanding of human behavior and technological evolution.
• He believes the next Facebook will combine the best features of existing platforms with new and innovative features.

Gary's best investment (00:38:06)

• Gary Vaynerchuk's best investment was Facebook.
• He invested in Facebook in 2007.
• He hasn't sold any of his Facebook shares yet.
• He believes that investing in the person and the idea is key to successful investing.
• Gary Vaynerchuk's strategy for predicting successful investments is to focus on the person and the idea.
• He looks for people who are passionate about their work and have a strong vision for their company.
• He also looks for ideas that are innovative and have the potential to disrupt an industry.
• By focusing on these factors, Gary Vaynerchuk has been able to successfully predict the next Facebook multiple times.

Gary's take of Zuck, Logan Paul (00:39:30)

• Gary Vaynerchuk praises Mark Zuckerberg's understanding of attention as an asset and his dedication to Facebook.
• Vaynerchuk discovered Logan Paul on Vine and admires his transition from social media stardom to ventures like WWE and podcasting. He sees potential in Paul becoming a successful action star like John Cena.
• Vaynerchuk predicts the next Facebook by analyzing trends and market conditions.
• Prime, a popular sports drink, has the potential to be worth tens of billions of dollars, according to MrBeast.
• Vaynerchuk cautions that Prime's owners may sell too early, missing out on its full potential, and warns that a single bad year can significantly impact a company's leverage in negotiations.
• Prime's popularity is based on its status symbol appeal, which may not last indefinitely, similar to the short-lived trend of Z. Cavaricci jeans in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Who Gary admires (00:46:06)

• Gary Vee is inspired by the collective field rather than individuals.
• He finds inspiration in people who overcome significant adversity, such as a 16-year-old who takes care of his siblings after his father's death.
• Gary appreciates the tenacity, grit, and accountability of those who take responsibility for their circumstances and strive to improve their lives.
• He believes that entitlement and lack of accountability have become prevalent in first-world countries and admires those who go against this trend.
• Gary Vee dislikes the term "luck" because he believes it can be used to undermine the hard work of successful individuals.
• However, he acknowledges the role of serendipity and luck in his own life, such as being born in the Soviet Union and immigrating to the United States at a young age.