18:00

That same question to you.

18:02

What do you think is the biggest thing you taught me? And

18:05

what do you think the biggest thing is that

18:07

I taught you? Thank you. You're welcome. Good

18:11

question. When Gary

18:13

came to the business and he was

18:16

doing baseball cards, baseball cards and all

18:18

this kind of stuff. So

18:21

when he came to my business I sat him

18:23

down and I said son

18:25

listen to me and listen to me good. When

18:29

you make a promise and

18:31

you shake

18:33

somebody else hand you better

18:36

fucking deliver what you promise. Because

18:39

that's to me and I

18:42

believe you use this in your speeches on

18:44

occasion right? What I

18:46

learned from Gary an

18:49

extremely important thing and as

18:51

a father it's a little bit

18:53

you know but I got

18:56

as I got older I have

18:58

to admit if

19:01

you compare me today

19:05

go back what is

19:07

that 40 years 45 years back I'm

19:10

a very different

19:13

person because Gary show

19:15

me his love

19:18

his respect and

19:21

how much he cares about employees

19:23

how much he cares about people

19:26

how much he loved people and

19:29

to me that's the biggest lesson

19:32

in my one is biggest lessons in my

19:34

life what I learned from my son. What's

19:43

a what's a favorite story you like to

19:45

share that's funny about us being

19:49

in business together just like a

19:52

funny client thing or a loss or a

19:54

win or you got something

19:58

we're this is probably 2010

20:01

we're a year into VaynerMedia. We're maybe

20:03

somewhere between a dozen and twenty employees

20:05

and we get

20:07

an opportunity to meet at

20:10

a holding company of a consumer packaged goods

20:12

company to pitch them some social media

20:14

ideas and we

20:16

get kind of like a like a car wash

20:18

treatment where we met with three different brands and We

20:22

had like a 90 minute meeting with one brand a 90

20:25

minute meeting with another and 90 meeting with another

20:27

and so we go through the meetings This

20:29

is a year in you have to

20:31

understand like at this point not a

20:33

single employee has ad agency experience yet

20:35

I think we don't hire our first

20:37

ad agency veteran and of any merit

20:40

until like year two And

20:42

even that person would had been like four years

20:44

of agency experience It was very raw and

20:47

so we go in and we meet with each

20:49

of the three brands and we're pitching them ideas

20:51

for social media And Gary's doing 95% of the

20:53

talking and he's he's on fire. He's spitting out

20:55

ideas. He's swaying left and right He's asking them

20:57

questions. He's giving them ideas back and

21:00

we wrap up these four and a half hours and we

21:02

get in the elevator And it goes great

21:04

each meeting ends with them being like hey, we're definitely gonna

21:06

do at least one of these things Let us regroup you

21:08

kind of spit like eight things at us But

21:11

we'll get back to you We're definitely gonna do something and

21:13

we did each of those brands gave us a project. It

21:15

was very successful four and a half hours We

21:18

get in the elevator and Gary

21:20

takes a big sigh. He just goes

21:23

Whoo He goes that was

21:25

hard. How do how do like

21:28

ad agencies do it? I go gee They

21:31

fucking prepare We

21:34

walked into these three meetings with

21:36

zero materials Gary told

21:38

me about the meeting the night before we

21:40

had no materials. We had no

21:42

presentation. We had no market research I didn't know

21:45

who which brands we were meeting with. I'm like

21:47

which brands he's like, I don't know We

21:50

he literally wings the entire thing

21:52

we land six-figure projects Brands

21:55

I go gee they like

21:58

have meetings and brainstorm to create

22:00

presentations and you're like, ah Was

22:06

ridiculous Dad

22:09

same for you. What's a funny story? You

22:11

like to when people say tell me a story about how

22:13

you and Gary work together What's like a

22:16

funny story or an interesting story or a story

22:18

that you think about when we were in business together? Fun

22:25

is I Can't

22:30

think about any any

22:32

funny stories or an impressive story

22:34

or a surprising story or a

22:37

Story fuck it any story you can think

22:40

of It

22:44

could be about anything just a fucking story Kind

22:48

of put me out of guard I didn't plan

22:50

to tell any stories Let

22:53

me The

22:56

best story about Gary so

22:59

Gary born in November 14 1975

23:03

right so at that time

23:05

we were back in in Soviet

23:09

former Soviet Union so

23:14

My wife gave birth to Gary you're

23:16

not allowed to go and visit Believe

23:19

it or not. Yeah, Russia. So the Soviet

23:21

Union was so fucked up on the third

23:23

floor She is on the

23:25

third floor of the hospital Right,

23:28

and I was my best friend mark

23:30

was here mark. Where are you? We're

23:37

standing in downstairs You

23:39

know on the street. We're

23:42

waving and we turned around and

23:44

we went to Sona

23:47

but in Russia, California, and

23:49

we got so drunk. I don't even remember how I

23:52

got back home That's

23:54

how I said Celebrate

23:57

birth of my son Gary Well,

24:00

you want a story? I gave you a story.

24:03

I like that story. My

24:05

personal favorite story of my dad's career

24:08

was my dad's first liquor

24:10

store was in Clark, New Jersey. And

24:12

right next to the liquor store was a bank. And

24:15

one day, my dad's walking over

24:17

to deposit the day before

24:20

and as some of the OGs know here,

24:22

people used to buy things with cash. And

24:25

so you actually had cash as a business and so you

24:27

had to go to the bank and deposit it. And

24:30

as he's depositing it into the story, there's all

24:32

this commotion and there was an

24:34

armed robbery in the bank.

24:37

With Oozys. Yeah, with Oozys, that's

24:39

armed robbery with Oozys. And

24:43

my dad sees the robbers run

24:45

out into the car and

24:48

he convinces my uncle to jump

24:50

in the car and chase them.

24:53

Yeah, I walked in the bank,

24:55

the girls behind the counter crying,

24:57

yes. And I

24:59

said, what happens? They said this car, they

25:01

pointed out to the window, car, we just

25:03

got robbed. And I ran

25:05

out of the bank like an idiot, got

25:08

in the car and start chasing. And all

25:10

of a sudden, like 15 police cars

25:12

with viruses. And this guy

25:14

was armed, you know, I could be

25:16

killed. Dad, what year

25:18

was that? What

25:20

year was that? That was

25:23

1980, I wanna say 1984, 1985, something like that. So

25:32

if you're successful in your chase, I don't exist. I

25:36

was born in 87. Good thing you

25:38

didn't catch him. Right. V

25:43

friends, I think

25:45

about the world like this. Strangers

25:49

become acquaintances. Acquaintances

25:52

become friends. Friends

25:55

become family. I

25:57

have a very strong feeling that many. of

25:59

the faces that I can see right now

26:01

in the crowd that I flat out already

26:03

know and know a lot about you are

26:07

destined to become family

26:10

with each other and with this community

26:12

and with myself. And so

26:14

I thought it was incredibly important to

26:16

start VCon 2023 with family. I

26:20

thank you for sitting through our stories. I

26:23

encourage you to please

26:26

interact with each other. Last

26:28

year you did a great job with that. My

26:30

concern this year is it's year two of summer

26:32

camp and you've got your friends

26:34

and you want to milk it with them which means you're

26:37

not going to say hello to someone else. Many

26:39

of you yesterday in your one-on-ones told me

26:41

you continue to be scared to say hello

26:44

to someone. Many of you

26:46

have to figure out this game. The way

26:48

you get better at things is practice. The

26:51

way you get better at putting yourself out there

26:54

and not being as introverted is by saying

26:56

hello to a stranger. These

26:59

are not strangers that sit amongst you

27:01

today. They are friends. There

27:03

is no safer place on earth than

27:06

for you to practice pushing yourself

27:08

to say hello than this

27:11

next two days in this stadium. Please,

27:13

as you're in activations, as you're in

27:15

the selfie line, as you're walking to

27:17

the bathroom, please push yourself

27:19

to say hello to as many people

27:22

as possible. The stories and

27:24

the connections that happened

27:26

from last year's VCon are extraordinary.

27:29

The activations behind me, the activations

27:31

in the hall are incredible. Gary's

27:33

garage sale is insane. Please

27:35

find it. NFT land and obviously

27:37

the content. I wanted to

27:39

start family vibes off and I wanted

27:41

for Jesse to follow with high energy.

27:44

I just want you to please, please

27:46

be friends with each other. That is

27:49

the biggest ROI of this project. I

27:52

thank Sasha, my dad, AJ, my brother

27:54

and I thank all of you most

27:56

for being here at VCon. Thank

27:58

you. Thank

28:02

you.