28:00

This is something you talk about a lot. Like you

28:02

gotta jump when the time's right. You gotta jump when

28:04

the time's right, if that's your ambition.

28:07

Back to your point, which I thought was really great in

28:09

the last series of questions. One of

28:11

the things I talk a lot about back to

28:13

people hearing what they want to hear is you

28:15

need to be self aware over everything and understand

28:17

the journey you're on. So if you're a business

28:19

and you want to grow your business, you

28:22

have to go where the consumer attention is. That's

28:25

just a requirement. So the way I think about it

28:27

is I am on my journey to

28:29

try to build as much awareness as possible for

28:31

the things that I'm passionate about. That

28:34

requires me to, I'm not

28:36

thrilled if tomorrow black jacket becomes

28:38

a hot platform, but I

28:40

have no choice but to take it seriously. Because

28:42

this is, you know, for me, I enjoy my

28:44

craft. I enjoy my job and I want to

28:46

do that. On the flip side, I'm very empathetic

28:48

and talk a lot to the audience of like,

28:50

hey, this happened huge three,

28:52

four years ago. I'm like, tick, tock, tick, tock,

28:54

tick, tock, tick, tock. And everyone's

28:56

like, dude, I'm just getting

28:59

Instagram down. And I'm like, cool, you're more

29:01

than welcome to not do it. You

29:03

have to understand the attention's gonna move there

29:05

and you need to understand where

29:08

you are on your journey. You can't

29:10

be ideological about where you want the

29:12

consumer attention is. You need to

29:14

be where the consumer attention is. Yeah, I

29:17

guess the reason I asked you that, is that

29:19

constant change, that platform turn? I'm

29:21

looking at the state of social media today. I'm

29:24

looking at a bunch of YouTubers who are worried

29:26

about growing up culture and they talked

29:28

about it openly. I'm worried about a bunch of TikTokers who seem like

29:31

they rose with the platform, got burned out and they've

29:33

kind of receded. That first wave of

29:35

really big TikTokers, they've kind of pulled back. But that's

29:37

good, isn't it? I wonder, it

29:40

feels like being the most famous person on YouTube

29:42

is no longer a great business. Well,

29:44

it was never a great business being the most

29:47

famous person. I mean, think about what we're dealing

29:49

with. You and I grew up in

29:51

an era where we knew that child stars.

29:54

It was tough. And so

29:56

a lot of these kids get so much fame

29:59

and money at such a young age. it's really

30:01

hard to calibrate that. So you're

30:03

coming at this from like a marketing perspective. When you

30:05

talk about attention movement, right? What I hear is, okay,

30:07

this is a great marketer who's saying, okay, I gotta

30:09

go send a message and we gotta move to the

30:11

platform, be native to the platform. There

30:14

is a generation of entrepreneurs who are like,

30:16

this is my business. My business is making

30:18

content. You know eventually. You mean to give

30:20

it for the horse, of course. And

30:23

you go between those worlds.

30:25

Like GaryVee is a brand that makes content. That's

30:27

a business. I'm sure it's monetized. If

30:30

you're the world's best TikToker and

30:32

you reach the peak, you're not making as much

30:35

money as if you turn around and watch a

30:37

merch line and stop making TikToks. And that pattern

30:39

to me, since really it

30:41

seems like we're at the end of the

30:43

road. Like everyone's realized the centralized social platforms

30:45

are not stable foundations to build businesses. Meaning

30:48

if you're just monetizing as an influencer? Yeah,

30:50

if you're monetizing influencer or even if you're

30:52

a core marketing platform. Well, that

30:54

would be like saying running commercials on

30:56

Seinfeld is not sustainable. No shit. Once

30:59

it's not got the attention, you have to move on. So

31:02

as core marketing, I think it's

31:04

crazy to not extract awareness

31:07

from where it's actually being consumed.

31:10

So that's that. To your point on the human

31:12

element, that's a whole different game. That comes down to

31:14

parenting and DNA. Like

31:16

when I met the D'Amelios, I was

31:19

like, oh, these girls are extremely fortunate.

31:21

This is like a real dad and

31:23

mom. It's like my VaynerSports

31:25

business. Do

31:27

you know how many athletes grow up with

31:29

nothing and then sign big contracts? And the

31:31

ones that have self-awareness and stability do

31:34

incredibly well with their money and their life and

31:36

the ones that don't become quite vulnerable. To

31:38

your point, when you're a business,

31:40

it's easier to move ebb and flow. When

31:42

you're a human, there's going to be

31:45

a natural time where you can't deal with the

31:47

negative comments, the workload. But I knew that more

31:49

like the way we looked at the Madonnas and

31:51

Michael Jackson's and all those people in the 80s.

31:53

Which is, I think you'll see them ebb and

31:56

flow. It was funny, I was listening to a

31:58

Bruno Mars song this morning and like, it was just. and

34:00

in perpetuity, just like there

34:02

are celebrities who get paid

34:04

to be celebrities in perpetuity,

34:06

to your point, some of those

34:08

celebrities, Jessica Alba, some of those

34:10

celebrities, Reese Witherspoon, Ashton Kutcher, had DNA,

34:12

Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Hart, The Rock, so

34:15

I think it's going to be and

34:17

for some people, but I do think

34:19

the long tail of influencer is

34:22

a sustainable business model, but to your

34:24

point, I don't think

34:26

every human, nor most humans, can do

34:28

it forever, they'll ebb and flow and

34:30

ebb and flow. Yeah. Do

34:32

you think that it's harder because the platform has changed so much?

34:35

I think it's easier. You think it's easier to go. Well,

34:37

what did we do? If you're ebb and flowing in

34:40

the middle of your down period,

34:42

everyone's attention moves from YouTube to YouTube Shorts.

34:45

What about when you ebb and flow is John Travolta, and

34:47

then people decided they didn't want to give you a chance

34:50

again. He was out of the game for 15 years. His

34:53

business was selling acting services, right? If you're

34:55

an influencer and you're making branded

34:57

integrations with your YouTube videos, and suddenly

34:59

that market disappears because all the attention's

35:02

on TikTok, the core of your business.

35:04

But you're speaking to a world that I don't

35:06

think exists. Let's talk it through. Yeah, no, I

35:08

think it's great. Let's talk about it. In

35:11

the last, what are we in 2023? In the last

35:13

17 years, how

35:16

many of the biggest platforms have disappeared

35:18

off the face of the earth? Vine, which

35:20

was only nine months old. Yeah. Right? Dear

35:22

Sweet One. I know, it was so fun. A lot of these

35:24

people came from that. Actually, if you look

35:26

at Vine, I think Vine will be historically looked at very

35:28

interestingly, because it's what started short form video at

35:30

that level. But if you really look at the last 17

35:32

years, YouTube,

35:35

Facebook, Twitter, right? Instagram,

35:38

Snapchat, TikTok, it's

35:40

not like they've disappeared. One

35:43

of them seems like it might be disappearing in front

35:45

of our eyes. TikTok? Twitter. TikTok

35:47

might be a whole other thing. Well, I think TikTok, you

35:49

know, Twitter, if I'm reading

35:51

the tea leaves and I have no inside

35:53

info or any curiosity, if

35:55

you look at this whole X, and

35:57

it looks like what Elon is signaling.