As of January 2024, Gary Vaynerchuk’s net worth is around $220 Million.
Millions of people love Gary and he has over 8 million followers on Twitter and Instagram. The #1 reason for their love towards Gary is this: how open he is with his career.
Gary Vaynerchuk has been described as the first wine guru of the YouTube era. His natural talent for selling and his critical eye have helped him achieve rapid success in his business ventures.
He talks the talk. He creates a TON of new content almost every single day and shares incredible wisdom through his videos, podcasts, books, etc.
In this post, you’ll find life’s journey so that you can also inspire and follow his path. Are you ready? Let’s get started.
Who is Gary Vaynerchuk?
Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur, investor, New York Times best-selling author, CEO of VaynerMedia, VaynerSports, Co-Founder of Empathy Wines, and Chairman of VaynerX, a communications company that employs over 800 people, with revenues of $130 million per year.
Better known as Gary Vee, the 45-year-old businessman was born on November 14, 1975, in Belarus, Russia. At the age of 14, Gary Vee entered his family wine business. After college, he grew his family’s wine business from $3 million to $60 million in just five years.
He also transitioned his family’s wine store into one of the first eCommerce platforms for alcohol in the country which resulted in exponential growth.
Gary Vaynerchuk Biography
- Gary Vaynerchuk Age: 47 years old
- Birth Date: 14 November 1975
- Birth Place: Babruysk, Belarus
- Nationality: American (he is a Belarusian-American entrepreneur)
- Status: Married
- Net Worth: $200 Million
Gary Vee’s Early Life
Gary Vaynerchuk was born in Babrugsk, Soviet Union and immigrated to the US in 1978 with his family when he was just 3 years old. He has one sibling, a younger brother named AJ Vaynerchuk, who is also his business partner in various ventures. The family of eight lived in a studio apartment in Queens until they moved to New Jersey where his father worked at a relative’s liquor store.
By the age of 14, Gary joined his family retail business. In New Jersey, he operated a lemonade stand franchise and also earned money trading baseball cards. His eye for deals and his natural sales talent had him earning thousands of dollars a weekend.
Vaynerchuk discovered the Internet and the potential to use it for profit while he was in college. College also led to the discovery that people collected wines and saw the potential for a larger family business.
Gary completed his schooling at North Hunterdon High School in 1993 and by 1998 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Mount Ida College in Newton, Massachusetts.
Gary Vee’s Wine Career
After graduating from college, Gary assumed control over his father’s Shoppers Discount Liquors and renamed the store Wine Library. He then created winelibrary.com and took advantage of every online sales opportunity he could.
Five years later, in 2003, Gary Vee grew his family’s wine business from $3 million a year in revenue to $60 million. He launched online sales and started a daily video blog on YouTube called Wine Library TV. Vaynerchuk has been described as the original wine guru on YouTube, where he gave wine reviews, held testings, and offered advice on which wines to purchase.
The popularity of this vlog increased to the point where Gary became a guest on Conan O’Brien, which drove the views up. After 1000 episodes, the show was ended by Vaynerchuk. In 2014 he created a new YouTube show which now has over 130,000 followers.
Gary Vee also co-founded Empathy Wines and sold it to Constellation Brands in 2020.
Gary Vee’s Media Companies
Vaynerchuk stepped down from the wine business in 2011 to focus on building VaynerMedia, a digital advertising agency he founded with his brother AJ in 2009. VaynerMedia provides advertising strategy services to companies, which focused on helping large brands on social media.
Early clients included the NHL, and now include Pepsi-Co, General Electric, Anheuser-Busch, Hulu among many others. Vaynerchuk has also been involved with angel investing and has had early involvement with companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.
He is also the chairman of VaynerX, a company that holds media properties like Tracer. Gary Vee founded the Gallery Media Group in 2017, a Vayner X subsidiary that houses news oulet ONE37pm, and PureWow.
Gary Vee As Author
In 2009, he signed 10 book deal with HarperStudio. Within weeks of the release of the first book, it had climbed to number #1 on the Amazon Best Seller List for Web Marketing books.
So far, Vaynerchuk has written several books: 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), and Crushing It! How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence—and How You Can, Too (2018).
Vaynerchuk has been featured in “The New York Times”, “The Wall Street Journal”, “GQ”, and “Time”, and appeared on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” and “Ellen”. In the July 2009 Decanter publication of “The Power List” ranking of the wine industry’s individuals of influence, Vaynerchuk placed at number 40, citing that he “represents the power of blogging”. In November 2019, Gary appeared on Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show” to coach the host on wine-drinking tips.
Gary Vee’s Personal Life
Gary Vee married Lizzie Vaynerchuk in 2004 and the couple have two children together, a daughter named Misha Eva Vaynerchuk and a son, Xander Avi Vaynerchuk, born in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Questions of their divorce surfaced after Gary Vee posted a photo on Instagram with Mona Vand, seemingly his new girlfriend.
Vaynerchuk has always been private when it comes to his personal life, and he has yet to confirm if he is divorced. If Gary divorces Lizzie, she would be entitled to half of his fortune.
Some Most Powerful Lessons From Gary Vee
Lesson #1: Don’t Struggle, Hustle.
Losers often look for shortcuts. Winners hustle 24/7.
There are no shortcuts to success. You need to work extremely hard to succeed in life, business, or anything.
Gary says that “everybody starts with zero followers”.
Isn’t it true?
When you’re starting out, don’t worry about having more followers. Focus on how you can build your way up as everyone has their own starting point, including Gary Vee!
Keep focusing on yourself and your time instead of comparing yourself with others.
In this digital era, there are HUGE opportunities out there, you can build an empire with your laptop. Thanks to the way technology is evolving and constantly providing NEW opportunities.
If you want to succeed online or offline, hustle EVERY single day.
Lesson Learnt: Entrepreneur life is often filled with sharks ready to eat you alive. The weak-minded people don’t make it in any industry. So, hustle every day. After all, it’s fun starting from zero and hustling your way to success.
Lesson #2: Be Patient
Patience is the key to success. You’re not going to build an empire overnight.
As Jeff Bezos says “All overnight success takes about 10 years.”
You need to grind hard every single day. Don’t get frustrated when you don’t see results quickly as some things take time to grow.
Writing a book, growing your audience, achieving greatness, creating a masterpiece — it all takes time.
We’re now living in the digital era where we often hear success stories like a 25-year-old founder having a net worth of over $1 billion. Also, we see businesses like WhatsApp getting sold for $19 billion.
What we DO NOT see or hear about, are the years of hard work and practice they put in the background, with no audience or money before they become a successful person.
Gary also suggests to just close your eyes till you’re 29 (or 39 or 49), work hard, and BE PATIENT. That’s how you SUCCEED!
You might be knowing the story of WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton.
In 2009, he was rejected for a job by Facebook and Twitter. Just 5 years later in 2014, Facebook bought his company WhatsApp for a whopping sum of $19 billion.
Lesson Learnt: Remember that the best businesses or ideas take time to grow. So when thinking about your next business idea or career move, learn to be a little more patient.
Lesson #3: Think Really BIG
Don’t put any limits on your thinking. Always think BIG. This will cost you NOTHING.
Thinking big helps you become open-minded and creative and you’ll discover new opportunities to grow big in the long run.
How are you going to make a million dollars (or more) if you don’t even think about making huge money?
Gary Vee succeeded and built multiple million-dollar businesses because he was thinking BIG.
At a younger age, Gary sold lemonade. He was making thousands of dollars every weekend selling baseball cards and items from garage sales before he even went to college.
By the age of 20, he had a very clear picture that his business success would be HUGE. So think big. Work every day. Always look at the big picture.
Lesson Learnt: If you think small, your world will be small. It’s as simple as that. If you think big, you’ll make BIG steps that eventually lead you to massive SUCCESS.
Lesson #4: Build Your Personal Brand
Gary always talks about the importance of personal branding.
Mostly because of his personal branding, Gary Vaynerchuk’s net worth grew rapidly.
Gary often says “Your personal brand is your reputation. And your reputation in perpetuity is the foundation of your career.”
When it comes to growing a successful online business, building a personal brand is extremely important.
But most people believe that branding is only for big companies, not for small businesses.
It’s NOT true. Branding is essential for EVERYONE who wants to succeed online (or offline).
The good thing is you don’t have to spend millions of dollars (like most BIG brands do) to build and grow your personal brand.
Here are two powerful strategies for building and growing your personal brand.
#1. Focus on branding instead of selling.
Did you notice, why BIG companies invest a lot in BRANDING?
The trillion-dollar company Apple never tries to sell anything HARDER.
Apple never tries to convert you into buying their products such as Macbooks, iPhones, Airpods, etc. Instead, they focus on branding. They focus on giving their users the “experience of using Apple products”.
That’s how Apple’s products sell like hot cakes even though they’re EXPENSIVE. Their branding is what helps them grow their business.
#2. Become an expert in your field
The QUICKEST way to build your personal brand is to become an expert in your industry.
Yes, it takes years to become an authority in any field but that’s how you’ll set yourself apart from the crowd.
Gary once said – If you’re not an expert yet, you can talk about your process of becoming an expert. Document the journey.
Lesson Learnt: If you want to be heard online, you have to build and grow your personal brand. Always prioritize your personal brand over sales. Offer huge value to your audience.
Lesson #5: Take Action
Having an idea will not work until you take some serious action. You learn things by actually doing them.
One of the major reasons for Gary Vee’s success is his ability to take action every single day.
Almost every single day he creates something.
Gary Vee is not that type of guru who’s sitting at the top of the mountain and telling everyone what to do. He practices what he preaches.
He works more than his employees. He always gets his hands dirty. That’s why people love him and listen to his advice.
So if you want to succeed like Gary, take action every single day no matter what day it is.
Lesson Learnt: Action is the foundational key to all success. If you want to succeed online or offline, you need to take action. Be consistent with your work and act on your goals every day.
Lesson #6: Stop Overthinking
Overthinking means you’re confused and thus results in procrastination.
What happens when you overthink? You don’t do anything. You postpone things. You’d often think what if things go wrong? See, overthinking stops you from achieving bigger things in life. It kills your motivation and self-esteem.
Want to start getting better results? Take action and stop overthinking.
Gary Vee often tells his audience that overthinking is the biggest enemy of success. He often talks about how to stop overthinking in his videos, podcasts, and more. If you’re an overthinker, you should definitely check out his videos or podcasts to get over that bad habit.
Whether you know it or not, ACTION boosts confidence, whilst postponing things feeds FEAR.
The action builds experience. Experience builds confidence. Confidence destroys fear.
Lesson Learnt: Everything is scary until you do it. So don’t overthink too much. Find out how you can perform the smallest task first and be consistent. That’s how you destroy fear by taking action.
Lesson #7: Fall Down Seven Times, Stand Up Eight
This is a famous Japanese Proverb- “Fall down seven times, stand up eight”
Gary seems to be following that approach all the time.
Gary often says that he secretly hopes that he loses all his net worth just so he can build it all back up again.
Here’s what he means actually,
When you learn how to get up when you get knocked down, you’ll truly become a master of what you do.
Winners know how to win even when they hit the rock bottom. Winners don’t complain. They always look for things that help them succeed and grow their business.
Lesson Learnt: Always remember “failure is NOT the opposite of success, it’s a part of success”. So next time when you fail in anything for the first time or the tenth, analyze. Analyze what went wrong, try to minimize your mistakes, and try again!
Top 10 Inspiring Gary Vaynerchuk Quotes
“Legacy is greater than currency.”
“Skills are cheap. Passion is priceless.“
“No matter what you do, your job is to tell your story.“
“When it comes down to it, nothing trumps execution.“
“There is never a bad time to start a business – unless you want to start a mediocre one.“
“Recognize that you have a much bigger chance and a better opportunity than your parents did to build a business around your passion and don’t take that for granted.“
“You must choose an area where you can win. No, scratch that. Not just win, but absolutely dominate. After all, don’t we have enough mediocre podcasts around?“
“Love your family, work super hard, live your passion.“
“You need to spend all of your time and energy on creating something that actually brings value to the people you’re asking for money!, work super hard, live your passion.“
“Whether you’re 9 or 90, stop trying to fix the things you’re bad at, and focus on the things you’re good at.“
FAQs About Gary Vaynerchuk
1. Who is Gary Vaynerchuk?
2. How much is Gary Vaynerchuk worth?
3. How old is Gary Vaynerchuk?
4. How does Gary Vee make money?
– VaynerX, a media, and communications holding company
– VaynerMedia, his advertising agency
– His best-selling books
– Speaking gigs
– Investing in businesses (he’s currently invested in over 50 companies including Foodie Card, Girlboss, Vengo, etc)
– Social media channels such as YouTube, podcasts, Instagram, and more
5. How to contact Gary Vaynerchuk?
6. Who is Lizzie Vaynerchuk
Final Words On Gary Vaynerchuk’s Net Worth
Gary Vaynerchuk rose to popularity rapidly and used his following to build his brand. He is a self-made millionaire who built multiple businesses worth millions of dollars.
His net worth is reflective of the hard work that he puts into his ventures. There is no doubt that Vaynerchuk will continue to expand his ventures and grow his net worth furhter.
Hope you liked and inspired with his journey. Let me know what are your thoughts on Gary Vaynerchuk Net Worth? What lessons have you learned from Gary Vee? If you liked this post, please share it with your friends and also leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
Cheers!
Also Read: