Why NFT's Won't Fail and How To Spot Winners with Gary Vaynerchuk
January 6, 2022
AI Summary
5 min readWhy NFTs Won't Fail and How to Spot Winners with Gary Vaynerchuk
Gary Vaynerchuk has a reputation for being early on major shifts—social media, podcasting, TikTok, and now NFTs. In this conversation, he explains how he gets there, why he thinks NFTs are here to stay, and what separates the projects that will survive from the ones that won't. But the deeper thread is about how he trains his mind: a disciplined process of learning, a willingness to change his mind, and a philosophy of personal accountability that he says is the real source of his consistency.
The Learning Process: 30 to 40 Hours of Homework
Vaynerchuk's process for getting ahead of a trend is methodical. When he first sensed NFTs were real, he committed 30 to 40 hours of focused research. "First it's the mental commitment," he says. "It's like I'm doing this." He starts with YouTube because he listens and watches better than he reads. Then he moves to Twitter search, which leads him to Discord, then podcasts, then more Twitter. He tests hypotheses and, crucially, googles the counterpoint to those hypotheses. "I'm very careful to not get caught in an echo chamber," he says. "I'm almost like a boxer. I'm a counter puncher. I wanna know the alternative, the right click and save, the bad for the environment, the fad. I wanna know every counterpoint."
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What you'll learn
- 1 (03:20) **How Gary Got Into NFTs and Web3** - Explains the personal history (collecting, sports cards, wine, early Ethereum investment) and the 30-40 hour homework process that led him to launch V Friends.
- 2 (07:50) **Why NFTs Won't Fail (Macro vs. Micro)** - Distinguishes between the inevitable survival of the NFT asset class and the likely failure of most individual projects.
- 3 (10:59) **How to Bet on the NFT Macro Without Picking Winners** - Discusses index-like strategies (ETH, diversification) and why the NFT asset class may be an easier bet than individual currencies.
- 4 (12:18) **Why Most People Hate on Big Shifts** - Explains the psychological resistance to new technology, comparing NFT skepticism to early resistance to the iPhone, cell phones, and websites.
- 5 (13:44) **How Gary Gets the First Spark of Curiosity** - Describes how a random tweet, a cold email, or a conversation with a trusted peer (like Kevin Rose) triggers his deep dive.
- 6 (16:56) **The Competitive Advantage of Changing Your Mind** - Discusses the importance of humility and evolving one's public stance, using Aaron Levy's 72-hour transition from anti- to pro-Web3 as an example.
- 7 (18:50) **Why Gary Rarely Predicts (And How He Gets to 100%)** - Reveals his strategy of observing until he crosses a "100% belief chasm" before going public, and how this protects his reputation.
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Show Notes
Many people view Gary Vaynerchuk as a byproduct of his own energetic self-promotion. What they don't realize? Every big bet is highly calculated, and his excitement is a reflection of his absolute certainty. In this episode of Where It Happens, the serial entrepreneur, Chairman of VaynerX, and CEO of Vayner Media shares his research process for spotting trends, provides rules for getting more out of life, and breaks down why he's willing to bet that NFTs will be a success.
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