Hello, I'm Peter Kafka, and you're listening to Recode Media, a podcast where I sit down with the most interesting people in media and technology to understand what happens when those two things collide.

Gary Vaynerchuk, professional salesperson. We have a limited time. Tell people who you are.

I'm an entrepreneur. I grew up in the wine retail business, took it online in 1996, very early

e-commerce site, did really well in that world, did it by marketing differently, email marketing,

believe it or not guys, was a new thing in 1997, 98, when I had 90% open rates.

Went on to become an early YouTube user that changed my career, made me excited about becoming an investor, which I came

out to gate investing in Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr after watching YouTube sell to Google

for almost $2 billion when nobody knew what YouTube was when I started on it. That made me realize

that I was ahead of the curve. I built this big wine business, you know, from $3 to $60 million in business, then YouTube and all that, and then I started investing, made me realize

I had something around consumer behavior and marketing in my early mid-30s. That made me decide

to build one of the agencies that is now dominating in the space, which I like using the word dominating, VaynerMedia, last seven years.

Did we say crushing it anymore?

I like saying crushing it.

No, I like saying crushing it.

I like to use it for effect for all the old timers.

I did write a book called Crush It that put me on the kind of map a little bit in a lot of ways.

It was a hefty New York Times bestseller.

And speaking books, running a 600 person agency a lot of ways. It was a hefty New York Times bestseller and speaking books,

running a 600 person agency, investing, entrepreneur through and through, you know. We don't have a lot of time. We can spend 20 minutes on you growing up in New Jersey as an immigrant immigrant and figuring out the wine business. We can figure out how you got into the wine business. Let's not do that. Let's not do any of those things. Let's go to present test. Yes.

Here's the fundamental Gary Vee question I have.

We're talking about this on Facebook Live. I want to come back here. It is confusing to me how you can have a day job, which you have running VaynerMedia, right? Yep. You said you charged $50,000 retainer? Yeah, I mean, those were a job. Running a company is a full-time job. Five offices, 650

employees. Jack Dorsey says you can run $50,000 retainer? Yeah, I mean, those are the app. Full-time job. Running a company is a full-time job.

...