EP 4 - A Conversation with GaryVee on the Future of Crypto, the Internet & Humanity

**Mike Novogratz** (0:05)
Hi everyone, I'm Mike Novogratz, and this is Next With Novo.
Guys, I'm here with GaryVee, the famous GaryVee for this episode of Next With Novo. So Gary, what did you think? We frickin met with Michael Rubin on the All In Challenge, and I was kind of blown away, because I was like, God, who is this guy who just keeps talking and getting shit done? And I know everything, I got it, I got it, I got it. And I showed up thinking, who are these people?

**Gary Vaynerchuk** (0:35)
I love meeting people. Nothing's more fun than when you meet someone when you're trying to do good.
Our relationship will always be bounded by we met when we were taking a normal, I mean, I was spending 12 hours on that fucking thing in the beginning every day. And we raised $60 million to help people get food during COVID. And the people that donated got crazy shit. Being in movies, swag, it was cool.

**Mike Novogratz** (1:00)
So full disclosure, Michael Rubin started this thing. He brought in Gary, he brought in Alan Tisch, and he asked me if I'd help him. And it was the thing I've probably been the least successful at in my life. I had a ton of fun doing it. I was almost no help, but it was a ton of fun.

**Gary Vaynerchuk** (1:15)
But your mustache was epic.

**Mike Novogratz** (1:16)
I had a great mustache.

**Gary Vaynerchuk** (1:17)
That I remember. And listen, to your point, everybody had different roles, different things happened, to your point. There's many things I get involved in where the intent is epic, and sometimes it doesn't go exactly how I thought. But this is what I love about time. To your point, maybe you going out there super whales for big donations, first of all, that was hardcore Hail Mary.
B, you were saying things in meetings that helped the process. I think people sometimes spend too much time on thinking the output was the only KPI.
Sometimes one person says one thing in one meeting, and it matters. That's what I remember. I remember thoughtfulness.

**Mike Novogratz** (1:54)
And the mustache. The mustache is what I think about first.

**Gary Vaynerchuk** (1:58)
But the thoughtfulness is definitely, it helped. You work through things with people, you think, you have conference. Listen, we will look back at this combo in 80 years. I'll listen to it. 80, I'm not sure I'm gonna make it that far. But 40
And I'll be like, wow, a lot of that was right.
Oh shit, I really fucking didn't have that right. And that's fun. That's like, I just want people to be less scared.

**Mike Novogratz** (2:15)
We're jumping into what happened with Robin in the last few days.
I don't think that many people feel that terrible for the three guys that went out of business.
Now, listen.

**Gary Vaynerchuk** (2:23)
By the way, on the record, I do. I feel bad for somebody who went out of business.

**Mike Novogratz** (2:27)
They were.

**Gary Vaynerchuk** (2:27)
Like, I know nothing about that.

**Mike Novogratz** (2:30)
They are stunningly wealthy guys. They are stunningly good investors. They will regroup and they'll live happily ever after.

**Gary Vaynerchuk** (2:37)
They're embarrassed.

**Mike Novogratz** (2:38)
They lost their investors a ton of money.

**Gary Vaynerchuk** (2:40)
Listen, I think compassion and empathy and sympathy is a required way to get back to a non-separating society.

**Mike Novogratz** (2:47)
100%.

**Gary Vaynerchuk** (2:49)
To your point, I don't know the names of any of them. Melvin, is that one?

**Mike Novogratz** (2:53)
Melvin Capital.

**Gary Vaynerchuk** (2:54)
Good, right, and so there's humans underneath there, I'm sure, right? So, I don't know who the humans we're talking about are.

**Mike Novogratz** (2:59)
Three of the best investors of the generation.

**Gary Vaynerchuk** (3:01)
Right, so I'm sure, to your point, they'll be fine.

**Mike Novogratz** (3:03)
Yes.

**Gary Vaynerchuk** (3:03)
They have hard assets, they can look when they need.

**Mike Novogratz** (3:05)
They got caught sleeping with giant short positions and never expected a hive of bees would come all at once. It's like, the African bees are here.

**Gary Vaynerchuk** (3:12)
Yeah, and by the way, that's just business. That's like them shorting the people, that's just business to me.

**Mike Novogratz** (3:19)
What is interesting from an anthropological view, from a markets view, is that after that first push and you squeeze the shorts, then it became David versus Goliath, then it became class warfare, then it became generational warfare.

**Gary Vaynerchuk** (3:34)
You know, I had a conversation, very thoughtful combo last night, this is me just talking about the combo, where the person didn't like the leverage that some people played to stop it from a tech standpoint and an infrastructure standpoint, but loved what Facebook and Twitter did to stopping other voices.