Gary Vaynerchuk (born Gennady Alexandrovich Vaynerchuk, November 14, 1975; commonly known by his alias Gary Vee) is an American businessman, author, speaker, and internet personality. He is a co-founder of the restaurant reservation software company

Resy Resy is an American online restaurant-reservation service company founded in 2014 by Gary Vaynerchuk, Ben Leventhal, and Michael Montero. As of 2023, approximately 16,000 restaurants globally can be booked through Resy. Resy was acquired by Am ...

and Empathy Wines. First known as a

wine critic A wine critic is a person who evaluates wine and describes it either with a numerical rating, a tasting note, or a combination of both. Their critiques, found in books, newspapers, magazines, newsletters, online, or in sales materials for wine, ar ...

who expanded his family's wine business, Vaynerchuk is now more known for his work in

digital marketing Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online-based Information technology, digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and service ...

and

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

as the chairman of New York–based communications company VaynerX, and as CEO of VaynerX subsidiary VaynerMedia.

Early life

Vaynerchuk was born in

Babruysk Babruysk (, ) or Bobruysk (, ; , ) is a city in Mogilev Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Babruysk District, though it is administratively separated from the district. It is situated on the Berezina, Berezina River. Bab ...

in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

(today part of

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

), and arrived via the U.S. Refugee Resettlement to New York City in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

in 1978 at the age of three. He is of

Ashkenazi Jewish Ashkenazi Jews ( ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim) form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, that Ethnogenesis, emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium Common era, CE. They traditionally spe ...

descent. Growing up, Vaynerchuk lived in New York City's

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

borough and later moved to

Edison, New Jersey Edison is a Township (New Jersey), township located in Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Situated in Central Jersey, Central New Jersey within the core of the state's Raritan River, Raritan Valley r ...

. At age 14, he joined his family's retail-wine business. After his family moved, he graduated from

North Hunterdon High School North Hunterdon High School is a four-year regional public high school serving students from six municipalities in northern Hunterdon County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is one of two high schools in the North Hunterdon-Voorhees Regiona ...

. In 1998, Vaynerchuk graduated with a bachelor's degree in management science from

Mount Ida College Mount Ida College was a private college in Newton, Massachusetts. Its campus is now part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst In 2018, the University of Massachusetts Amherst acquired the campus and renamed it the Mount Ida Campus of UMas ...

Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located roughly west of Downtown Boston, and comprises a patchwork of thirteen villages. The city borders Boston to the northeast and southeast (via the neighborhoods of ...

Career

Vaynerchuk co-founded restaurant reservation app

, which was acquired by

American Express American Express Company or Amex is an American bank holding company and multinational financial services corporation that specializes in payment card industry, payment cards. It is headquartered at 200 Vesey Street, also known as American Expr ...

in 2019. He is also a co-founder of

winery A winery is a building or property that produces wine, or a business involved in the cultivation and production of wine, such as a wine company. Some wine companies own many wineries. Besides wine making equipment, larger wineries may also feat ...

Empathy Wines, which was acquired by

Constellation Brands Constellation Brands, Inc. is an American producer and marketer of beer, wine, and spirits. A ''Fortune'' 500 company, Constellation is the largest beer import company in the US, measured by sales, and has the third-largest market share (7.4 pe ...

in 2020. Vaynerchuk is the creator and founder behind the VeeFriends1 and VeeFriends2

non-fungible token A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchai ...

series.

Wine Library

After graduating from college in 1998, Vaynerchuk took charge of his father's liquor store, Shopper's Discount Liquors. He renamed the store Wine Library, launched sales online, and in 2006 started Wine Library TV, a daily

webcast A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand. Essentially, webca ...

on YouTube covering wine. He grew the business from $3 million a year to $60 million a year. In August 2011, Vaynerchuk stepped away from the wine business to build VaynerMedia, a digital ad agency.

VaynerX

Vaynerchuk is the

chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

of VaynerX, a communications company that holds media properties and technology companies.

VaynerMedia

In 2009, Vaynerchuk and his brother AJ Vaynerchuk founded VaynerMedia, a

-focused digital agency. The company provides social media and strategy services to

Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune (magazine), Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States Joint-stock company#Closely held corporations and publicly traded corporations, corporations by ...

companies. In 2015, VaynerMedia was named one of

Ad Age ''Ad Age'' (known as ''Advertising Age'' until 2017) is a global media brand that publishes news, analysis, and data on marketing and media. Its namesake magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930. ''Ad Age'' appears in ...

's A-List agencies. With 600 employees in 2016, VaynerMedia grossed $100 million in revenue. The company also partnered with

Vimeo Vimeo ( ) is an American Online video platform, video hosting, sharing, and services provider founded in 2004 and headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices and operates on a ...

to connect brands and filmmakers for digital content.

Gallery Media Group

In 2017, Vaynerchuk formed The Gallery, later renamed Gallery Media Group, a VaynerX subsidiary company that houses

PureWow PureWow is an American digital media company that publishes women's lifestyle content. Acquired by Gary Vaynerchuk in 2017 as part of Gallery Media Group, PureWow tailors lifestyle topics for Millennials and Generation X, including fashion, bea ...

, male-oriented

news outlet The news media or news industry are forms of mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public. These include news agencies, newspapers, news magazines, news channels etc. History Some of the first news circulations occurred in ...

ONE37pm.com, and other media properties.

Media

Planet of the Apps

In February 2017, Vaynerchuk was a participant of ''

Planet of the Apps ''Planet of the Apps'' is an American reality television show broadcast on Apple Music (predating the 2019 launch of Apple TV+). It was the first original television show produced by Apple. On July 23, 2018, it was announced that Apple had cance ...

'', a

reality television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring ordinary people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1990s ...

series, with

will.i.am William James Adams Jr. (born March 15, 1975), known professionally as will.i.am (pronounced "will I am"), is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor. He is the frontman of the musical group Black Eyed Peas, which he ...

Jessica Alba Jessica Marie Alba ( ; born April 28, 1981) is an American actress and businesswoman. She began her acting career at age 13 in ''Camp Nowhere'', followed up by ''The Secret World of Alex Mack'' (both 1994), and rose to prominence at age 19 as ...

and

Gwyneth Paltrow Gwyneth Kate Paltrow ( ; born September 27, 1972) is an American actress and businesswoman. The daughter of filmmaker Bruce Paltrow and actress Blythe Danner, she established herself as a leading lady appearing in mainly mid-budget and perio ...

. In the show, Vaynerchuk and the team evaluated pitches from app developers vying for investment.

YouTube shows and videos

Vaynerchuk hosted a video blog on YouTube called ''Wine Library TV'' (''WLTV'' or ''The Thunder Show'') from 2006 to 2011, featuring wine reviews, tastings, and wine advice. The show debuted in February 2006. At 1,000 episodes in 2011, Vaynerchuk retired the show and replaced it with a video podcast called ''The Daily Grape''. In 2010, Vaynerchuk launched ''Wine & Web'' on

Sirius XM Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting corporation headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. The company was formed by the 2008 merge ...

satellite radio. The show's programming paired new wine tastings in a "Wine of the Week" segment with coverage of gadgets, trends and startups in its "Web of the Week" segment. In 2014, Vaynerchuk launched ''The #AskGaryVee Show'' on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

in which he responds to questions from Twitter and

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

. The questions are mostly on

entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entrepreneu ...

, family and business topics. The show inspired Vaynerchuk's fourth book, ''AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur's Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness'' which reached ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list. ''DailyVee'' is a daily, video-documentary series on YouTube hosted by Vaynerchuk. Started in 2015, he records interviews with other businessmen and broadcasts investor meetings and strategy sessions at VaynerMedia.

Reception

Vaynerchuk has earned a social-media following around

mentorship Mentorship is the patronage, influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the perso ...

. However, critics have called him a snake oil salesman. In 2015, Vaynerchuk was named to Crain's New York Business 40 Under 40. In 2017, Vaynerchuk was listed as one of Forbes' Top Social Influencers.

Works

* ''Gary Vaynerchuk's 101 Wines: Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World'' (2008) * ''Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion'' (2009) * ''The Thank You Economy'' (2011) * ''Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook'' (2013) * ''#AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur's Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness Hardcover'' (2016) * ''Crushing It! How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence—and How You Can, Too'' (2018) * ''Twelve and a Half: Leveraging the Emotional Ingredients Necessary for Business Success'' (2021) * ''Day Trading Attention: How to Actually Build Brand and Sales in the New Social Media World'' (2024) * ''Meet Me in the Middle'' (2024) ISBN 978-0063320291

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vaynerchuk, Gary 1975 births 20th-century Belarusian Jews 21st-century Belarusian Jews Living people People from Edison, New Jersey American wine critics American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent Revision3 American business executives American technology company founders American media personalities American bloggers American Internet celebrities Technology evangelists American motivational writers American television personalities American investors North Hunterdon High School alumni 21st-century American non-fiction writers Mount Ida College alumni