Gary Vaynerchuk is ambitious | Hacker News Reader

Gary Vaynerchuk is ambitious

businessweek.com

17 pointsAndrewWarner19 comments

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Gary: "I absolutely believe I am going to own the Jets."

Gary's father: "There are much bigger things to come…I think he has a very good chance to replace Oprah."

Don't you just love this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/business/yourmoney/23trump...

At least one other guy talked his way to the top.

Donald Trumps father had a 400 million dollar fortune.

More accurately he talked his way from the near-top to the very top.

This article also mentioned Gary's father had a 4 million dollar wine business.

I've read that Trump's fortune, before he became a TV celebrity with The Apprentice, was actually less than he would have had if he had simply taken all of the money he inherited and put it in a savings account at a bank. Essentially he wasn't a very good investor.

He was a celebrity a long time ago, and I doubt he made >2.5 billion from a TV show.

He wasn't a TV celebrity though. He was more tabloid fodder.

And no, he didn't make it from the show directly, but the show made his brand name a lot more valuable, and made it a lot easier for him to make money from his businesses. And his true worth is probably far less than that. A lot of people claim in the $150m-$250m range. It's hard to estimate a guy whose worth is primarily not in equities.

It has been a running joke in Forbes -- since the 80's -- that he thinks they've underestimated his net worth. I think the issue is not that he doesn't own equities -- they estimate the fortunes of Bloomberg, the Koches, the [Fidelity] Johnsons, etc. just fine. The problem is that he's so leveraged: being off by 10% on his assets might mean being off by 50% on his equity.

He made and lost fortunes over time in real estate deals. It depends of what period you're talking about.

I love the smell of megalomania in the morning.

Correct me if I'm wrong but this is a PR piece about the podcast that Revision3 cut loose?

Presumably because it wasn't very successful? Even by the low standards of rev3.

Is it possible that he was just a bad fit for rev3 and not a bad guy?

Gary has always been a little over the top for me, but it works for him and comes off naturally. He deserves all of the fame he gets because he works his ass off. He claims to answer every e-mail. Based on how quickly he's built a following I wouldn't doubt it.

If you haven't already, watch his first appearance on Conan: http://www.viddler.com/explore/djsteen/videos/69/

Why do people do interviews where they come off like this? This must be the image he's trying to project. How could being quoted as saying "I absolutely believe I am going to own the Jets" EVER help anybody?

Well, he's a personal branding guru, and "Gary Vaynerchuk is ambitious" is practically a summary of HIS personal brand, so at least in this case it helps him.

I interview entrepreneurs often. I think many feel that way. And I admire the ones who come out and say it.

that article makes Gary sound like a kid...if someone read it w/o that first bit where it says he is 32, they would have thought the article was about a 16 year old

I've met Gary and seen him speak live over a webcast and he is just a big kid. That's not to say he isn't very smart. We were with a couple of the Youtube folks and we spent lunch discussing monitization of that platform. Gary had some great ideas and insight and I wouldn't be surprised if they talk to him again about it.

Aren't the best Food Channel chefs both childlike and committed?

http://garyvaynerchuk.com/

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