Hi, everyone. I'm Maggie McGrath, senior editor at Forbes. From navigating the early digital

landscape to building a modern media powerhouse, our next guest has consistently been ahead

of the curve when it comes to internet trends and capturing audience attention. He is a New York Times best-selling author, a sought-after speaker,

and a serial entrepreneur. Please welcome Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary V., thank you so much for being here.

I'm humbled to be here. You've been generous with your time with Forbes over the years. You've appeared at the

CMO summit. You participated in our scale-up series several years ago. But for anyone watching who perhaps missed these interviews,

can you just, can we start at the beginning? What sparked your entrepreneurial drive?

Probably DNA. You know, the truth is it was so early. It's almost hard for me to recall a time in my life where it wasn't

a foundational currency, a backdrop. I think about wonder years, the TV show, and like,

talks about like music and the 60s being a backdrop of Kevin Arnold's life. Entrepreneurship was the

backdrop. You know, basically,

as soon as I moved to Edison, New Jersey in August of 1982, I was born in the Soviet Union.

I came to the U.S. when I was three, four. We lived in Queens for a couple years, and then

Dover, New Jersey for a year. But then we moved to Edison, which is where I grew up.

And that was August of 82 right before school started first grade.

Pretty much at that point, meeting friends in the neighborhood, you know, shoveling snow, you know, when it snowed, and we had a snow day, washing cars,

lemonade stands, 7, 8, 9, 10 years old.

Literally, just as I was rolling into this interview, I was doing a podcast with Dr. Beckett

who invented the Beckett baseball card guide.

This was the price guide, the monthly price guide that dominated the 80s and 90s around trading cards.

That was my Bible at 11 years old.

So I went from lemonade stands and shoveling snow and, you know, those kind of things to

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