06/01/2023
Gary Vaynerchuk, commonly known as Gary Vee, is a Belarusian-American entrepreneur, author, speaker, and Internet personality. He is co-founder of the restaurant reservation software company Resy and Empathy Wines. He became known as a wine critic before moving into digital marketing and social media as chairman and CEO of VaynerX, a communications company headquartered in New York City.
During his time at Wine Library, Gary Vee started one of the first long-form episodic video shows on YouTube in 2006 called WineLibraryTV. He produced an episode almost every day for 5 years. His charisma and uncanny ability to engage with his community landed him appearances on national television with Ellen Degeneres and Conan O’Brien.
In 2008, Gary gave a keynote at Web 2.0 in New York City that would ultimately change his career. His speech was the backbone of Gary’s $1MM, ten-book deal with HarperCollins and led to the publishing of his first book, Crush It!, in 2009.
In 2009 with his younger brother, AJ Vaynerchuk Gary co-founded VaynerMedia. True to his own DNA, he never raised startup funding and began the business in a conference room at Buddy Media. Just 9yrs later, the company included more than 800 employees, servicing clients such as PepsiCo, GE, Johnson and Johnson, Chase, AbInBev, and more.
Since its founding, VaynerMedia has flourished, having built best-in-class capabilities in paid media, strategy, full-service creative, influencer marketing, IoT & Voice, eCommerce, personal branding, SMB marketing, and in-house consulting.
True to his word, while scaling his business, he continued to behave as a media company on his own, writing 4 more New York Times bestselling business books and becoming one of the most sought-after public speakers.
Gary has built an incredible brand around entrepreneurship, marketing, and leadership. Both VaynerX and VaynerMedia have been deeply involved in the Web3 revolution, particularly NFTs.
A hallmark of his brand and advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is anchored around the concept of driving value for other people and the community.
That advice is enormously applicable for the Web3 revolution.
