How Gary Vee Predicts The Next Facebook (Every Time)
23 May 2024 (4 months ago)
Good news for the “C” students out there
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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.