Social media, books, and accountability: Gary Vee's advice for CEOs

Executive overview

Most CEOs underinvest in organic content and overestimate what books alone can do. The combination of consistent social media presence and a book is what shifts perception — neither works as well in isolation.

Gary Vee argues that the single biggest growth lever for any business is mastering organic social across all platforms. Accountability, people-first hiring, and saying "maybe" instead of "no" are the operating principles underneath everything else.

The CEO's job is to be remarkable at getting new customers — and right now, all the attention is on social media.

Books as a repositioning tool

• Books work because people read them at scale — in any format.
• A book alone didn't transition Gary from wine to business personality; 24 months of Twitter and Facebook content ran alongside it.
• Social writing (especially LinkedIn) functions like a daily op-ed — free distribution to a large audience if the quality is there.
• Treating social media as lesser than long-form writing is a mistake that holds authors back.
• Books and social are an "and", not an "or".

Saying maybe instead of no

• Refusing to say no to new platforms or formats is a deliberate framework, not recklessness.
• Failed experiments (Social Cam, Peach, Jelly, a podcast format that didn't land) are the cost of finding the ones that work.
• Most people don't pursue hard things because they don't want to put in the work — not because the path is unclear.
• Not being scared to waste time is a competitive advantage few people cultivate.

Running multiple businesses

• VaynerX holds VaynerMedia and eight other companies; scaling happens through people, not Gary's personal bandwidth.
• Each business runs with a strong day-to-day operator; Gary's role is either extreme offense (doubling down on a crack) or extreme defense (fixing a hole).
• He doesn't aim to be chairman — running operations is what he enjoys, not a constraint he's working around.
• Business happiness and financial maximisation are different goals; which one you're optimising for changes the right structure.

Hiring and developing people

• Started VaynerMedia with six people in a borrowed conference room; four of the original six are still with the company 15 years later.
• The intent to build "forever" relationships — not transactional ones — is what produces long-tenured executives.
• Treat every hire as a permanent relationship, whether or not they stay inside the company.
• Deep personal care (texting someone about their sick father, going to dinner) is not a strategy — it's the requirement for 25–40 year teammates.
• People's ambitions change; someone who wanted to run the company at 25 may want to coach their kid's softball team at 35, and that's fine.

Accountability and leadership

• Every problem in the business is 100% the leader's fault — either directly or through a hiring chain.
• This framing reduces anxiety; it also happens to be accurate.
• CEOs who have fired six "right hands" in two years are the problem, not the people they fired.
• Radical accountability is liberating, not self-punishing — it means you also have the power to fix things.

Advice for pre-seven-figure businesses

• A right-hand person is non-negotiable before scaling to eight figures.
• That person doesn't have to be expensive — a hungry family member, friend, or young talent beats an overpriced hire.
• Getting from six to seven figures requires willingness to bleed a little; if that's unappealing, eight figures may not be the real goal.
• Some $800K businesses are better than the $2M version — more revenue sometimes means less life.

Advice for scaling from $15M to $100M

• Sometimes the path is just more of the same for another seven years — patience before pivoting.
• New product line innovation may be required: a genuinely new category, not a variation.
• Don't mistake stagnation for a strategy problem — sometimes it's a time problem.

What CEOs should actually focus on

• The CEO must be remarkable at acquiring customers — everything else is downstream.
• Becoming personally fluent in organic social is essential, even if someone else is the face.
• Produce multiple pieces of content per day across all major platforms: LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok.
• The avatar or mascot format (animated characters, brand personas) may be the next major content shift — not just personal brand.
• Understanding how each platform works is a prerequisite to hiring and judging the people who run them.

Parting advice

• Don't try to convince the unconvincible — move on to people who already get it.
• Find the ghostwriter, publisher, distributor, or bookstore that is aligned — don't waste energy on those who aren't.
• Conviction matters more than persuasion.