FADE IN:
“Skills are cheap. Passion is priceless.” — Gary Vaynerchuk
ONE
THE LIQUOR STORE
EXT. BABRUYSK, BELARUS (SOVIET UNION) — DAY — 1978
A grey Soviet apartment block. Snow on the ground. A FAMILY — parents and a toddler — walk toward a bus that will take them to the airport. They carry two suitcases containing everything they own. GARY VAYNERCHUK (3) clings to his mother's coat.
The Vaynerchuk family emigrates from the Soviet Union to the United States. 1978.
Cut to: A small apartment in Queens, New York. Eight family members in a studio apartment. Gary shares a bed with three relatives. His father, SASHA, works in a stock room.
INT. SHOPPER'S DISCOUNT LIQUORS — SPRINGFIELD, NEW JERSEY — DAY — 1994
A family liquor store. Nothing fancy — fluorescent lights, linoleum floors, wine stacked in cardboard boxes. GARY (19) works the register while SASHA restocks shelves.
A customer picks up a bottle of Chardonnay.
CUSTOMER
Is this any good?
GARY
Honestly? That one's decent but overpriced. For the same money, grab that Côtes du Rhône on the bottom shelf. It's got better structure, more complexity, and nobody knows about it yet, so it's half the price it should be.
CUSTOMER
(surprised)
You... actually know wine?
GARY
I've been tasting everything in this store since I was fourteen. I have a palate that can identify forty-seven distinct flavor notes. I'm not bragging — it's just biology. Most people taste three or four things in a glass of wine. I taste everything.
The customer buys the Côtes du Rhône. And three more bottles Gary recommends. Sasha watches from behind the shelf, impressed.
INT. SHOPPER'S DISCOUNT LIQUORS — BACK OFFICE — NIGHT — 1997
Gary sits at a desktop computer. On the screen: an early version of the internet. He's building a website for the store: WineLibrary.com. Sasha stands behind him, skeptical.
SASHA
People buy wine in a store. They touch the bottle. They read the label. Nobody buys wine on a computer.
GARY
Not yet. But they will. Dad, listen to me — the internet is going to change everything. Everything. The way people shop, the way people learn, the way people communicate. If we're not on the internet, we don't exist.
SASHA
We exist. We're right here. In Springfield, New Jersey.
GARY
That's the problem! We're limited to the people who drive past the store. Online, our customer is everyone. The whole country. The whole world.
Sasha looks at the website. Simple, functional, nothing fancy. He shakes his head.
SASHA
Fine. But if this computer thing doesn't work, you're restocking the Cabernet section on Saturday.
WineLibrary.com launched in 1997. Within three years, revenue grew from $3 million to $20 million. Gary was 22 years old.
INT. WINE LIBRARY — MAKESHIFT STUDIO — DAY — FEBRUARY 2006
A folding table in the back of the liquor store. A single camera on a tripod. A New York Jets bucket filled with wine spit. And Gary Vaynerchuk, vibrating with energy, holding a glass of Cabernet Franc.
GARY
(directly into camera)
What is up, everybody? This is Gary Vaynerchuk, and you're watching Wine Library TV, the internet's most passionate wine show! Today we're tasting a 2003 Loire Valley Cab Franc that smells like —
He shoves his nose into the glass. Inhales deeply.
GARY
(continuing)
— freshly cut grass, pencil shavings, and a little bit of Grandma's basement. I LOVE THIS. This is what wine should taste like. Forget the snobby BS. This is a twelve-dollar bottle that drinks like a forty-dollar bottle. BOOM!
He spits into the Jets bucket. The camera is slightly out of focus. The lighting is terrible. The energy is nuclear.
Episode 1 of Wine Library TV got 1,000 views. Gary would go on to film over 1,000 episodes, five days a week, for five years. The show transformed the wine industry and turned Gary into the first social media celebrity.
INT. GARY'S CAR — NEW JERSEY TURNPIKE — NIGHT — 2007
Gary drives home after a twelve-hour day at Wine Library. His phone rings. It's an email notification: a viewer has emailed to say he watched every single episode of Wine Library TV. THE FIRST YOUTUBE VIEWER.
GARY
(on speakerphone, calling the viewer)
You watched all three hundred episodes?
FIRST VIEWER
(on phone)
Every one. You're not like anyone else on the internet. You're real. You actually care. I've spent more money on wine in the last year than in the previous ten because of you.
GARY
That's what content does, man. It builds trust. And trust builds business. Everyone is trying to sell. I'm trying to give. The selling takes care of itself.
GARY (V.O.) (breaking the fourth wall)
Wine Library TV taught me the most important lesson of my life: attention is the asset. Whoever has the attention wins. And in 2006, the attention was moving from TV to the internet, from magazines to blogs, from radio to podcasts. I saw it before anyone else because I grew up on the internet. I was selling baseball cards on eBay when I was fifteen. I knew where the eyeballs were going. And I followed them.
TWO
VAYNERMEDIA
INT. GARY'S APARTMENT — NEW YORK CITY — NIGHT — 2009
A small apartment. Gary sits with his brother AJ at a kitchen table covered in notebooks. LIZZIE is in the next room, putting their daughter to bed.
GARY
AJ, I want to start an agency. Social media is going to eat traditional advertising alive. Every Fortune 500 company needs someone to manage their Facebook, their Twitter, their YouTube. Nobody's doing it well. We can do it better than anyone.
AJ
You want to leave Wine Library?
GARY
Not leave. I'll still run it. But the bigger opportunity is here. Social media is where the world is going. I've been saying this for three years. Nobody listened. Now they're starting to. This is the window. We jump through it now or we miss it forever.
AJ
What do we call it?
GARY
VaynerMedia.
AJ
(smiling)
Of course. What else?
VaynerMedia launched in 2009 with two employees: Gary and AJ. Their first office was a conference room in someone else's company.
INT. FORTUNE 500 BOARDROOM — NEW YORK — DAY — 2011
A corporate boardroom. Polished mahogany. Suits everywhere. THE FORTUNE 500 CLIENT — the CMO of a major consumer brand — sits at the head of the table. Gary stands at the whiteboard in sneakers and a flannel shirt.
FORTUNE 500 CLIENT
Mr. Vaynerchuk, we spend $200 million a year on television advertising. You're telling me to move a quarter of that to... Twitter?
GARY
Not just Twitter. Facebook. YouTube. Instagram when it gets bigger. Wherever the attention is. Right now, your customers spend four hours a day on their phones and you're putting all your money on TV commercials they skip. You're advertising on the telephone pole while everyone is staring at their phones.
FORTUNE 500 CLIENT
Social media is for kids.
GARY
Social media is for everyone. Your mother is on Facebook. Your CEO tweets. Your customers make buying decisions based on Instagram reviews. The question isn't whether social matters. The question is whether you figure it out before your competitors do.
The room is silent. The CMO looks at his team. They look uncomfortable. Gary is loud, unpolished, and saying things they don't want to hear.
FORTUNE 500 CLIENT
Fine. Give us a pilot. Three months. Prove it.
GARY
Three months? I'll prove it in three weeks.
INT. VAYNERMEDIA OFFICE — HUDSON YARDS, NEW YORK — DAY — 2015
VaynerMedia has grown. Six hundred employees across multiple floors. The office is chaotic, creative, loud — like Gary himself. Screens everywhere showing social metrics, content calendars, campaign results.
Gary walks the floor, high-fiving team members, stopping at desks, looking at creative work. His energy is infectious. He films himself on his phone as he walks — content for Instagram, Snapchat, his daily vlog.
GARY
(into phone camera)
Real quick — I just want to tell you guys. I'm sitting here at Vayner, six hundred employees, we went from two people in a conference room to this, and I want you to know: the hustle works. Document, don't create. Put out content. Be patient. And HUSTLE.
He pockets the phone. Turns to AJ.
AJ
We just landed PepsiCo.
GARY
I know. And we're going to crush it for them. You know why? Because we actually understand the platforms. The big agencies have TV people pretending to understand social. We have social natives. We grew up in this.
INT. GARY AND LIZZIE'S HOME — NEW YORK — NIGHT — 2016
Late at night. Gary sits at the kitchen table, editing a video on his laptop. Lizzie comes downstairs.
LIZZIE
It's 1 AM, Gary.
GARY
I know. I'm almost done. This video is going to be important. I'm telling people to stop caring about what other people think and start caring about what makes them happy. Self-awareness. That's the key to everything.
LIZZIE
Can you be self-aware enough to come to bed?
GARY
(closing the laptop)
Fair point. You're right. You're always right.
LIZZIE
Remember that.
INT. SASHA'S HOUSE — NEW JERSEY — DAY — 2017
Gary visits his father. Sasha is older now, retired. They sit in the backyard. The liquor store is long gone, replaced by Wine Library — now a $60 million business that AJ runs.
SASHA
Your mother says you work too much.
GARY
I work exactly the right amount, Dad. You taught me that. You came from Belarus with nothing. You worked eighteen-hour days. You built a store from scratch. I'm doing the same thing. Just with a camera instead of a cash register.
SASHA
I worked because I had to. You work because you want to. There's a difference.
GARY
Is there? You loved that store. Don't pretend you didn't. You loved being there at 6 AM, stocking shelves, talking to customers. I saw it. That's where I got it. You're the OG entrepreneur, Dad. I'm just the sequel.
Sasha smiles. The quiet pride of a man who crossed an ocean and raised a son who talks at a million miles an hour but has a heart as big as the country that took them in.
GARY (V.O.) (breaking the fourth wall)
My dad taught me the most important lesson of my life without ever saying a word. He showed up. Every day. He worked. He didn't complain. He didn't quit. He came from the Soviet Union with nothing and built a life. Everything I do — the content, the agency, the speeches — it's all just a version of my dad stocking shelves at 6 AM. Work is love made visible.
THREE
THE BIGGEST GAME
INT. KEYNOTE STAGE — SXSW — AUSTIN, TEXAS — DAY — 2018
Gary on stage in front of 3,000 people. No slides. No teleprompter. Just Gary, a microphone, and raw energy.
GARY
Stop buying things you don't need to impress people you don't like. Stop caring about what your parents think of your career. Stop comparing yourself to people on Instagram. The only scoreboard that matters is: are you happy? Are you building something that makes you excited to wake up? If the answer is no, change. Today. Not tomorrow. Today.
The crowd is on their feet. This is what makes Gary different from every other business guru — he doesn't sell a system. He sells a mindset. Self-awareness. Patience. Hustle. Gratitude. Over and over.
INT. VAYNERMEDIA OFFICE — NEW YORK — DAY — 2022
VaynerMedia now does over $300 million in revenue. Gary walks through the office — now 1,800 employees. On the walls: campaigns for PepsiCo, Johnson & Johnson, Chase, and a dozen other Fortune 500 brands.
Gary stops at a desk where a young employee is editing a TikTok for a client.
GARY
What platform is growing fastest right now?
YOUNG EMPLOYEE
TikTok. But BeReal is interesting. And Threads just launched.
GARY
This is exactly what happened with Twitter in 2007, Instagram in 2012, and Snapchat in 2014. New platform, new attention, new opportunity. The companies that move first win. We move first. Always.
INT. GARY'S CAR — NEW YORK — NIGHT — 2023
Gary sits in the back seat, on his phone, filming a quick video between meetings. His driver navigates Manhattan traffic.
GARY
(into phone)
Listen — I know you're tired. I know the hustle is hard. But here's what nobody tells you: the thing you're building right now, the thing nobody sees, the thing you work on at midnight after your day job — that's the thing. That's your life's work. Keep going. The world will catch up.
He pockets the phone. Looks out the window at the city lights. For a moment, he's quiet. Gary Vee is rarely quiet.
INT. WINE LIBRARY — SPRINGFIELD, NEW JERSEY — DAY
Gary walks through the original Wine Library store. It's been renovated, expanded, professionalized. But the bones are the same. He stops at the spot where he used to film Wine Library TV — the folding table is gone, replaced by a proper tasting room.
He picks up a bottle of Côtes du Rhône. The same wine he recommended to that first customer twenty-five years ago. He holds it up to the light.
GARY
(to himself)
It always comes back to the wine.
EXT. METLIFE STADIUM — EAST RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY — DAY
Gary stands outside MetLife Stadium. The home of the New York Jets. His lifelong dream: to buy the Jets. The stadium is empty, but he stares at it the way Alex Honnold stares at El Capitan. The way Ronaldo stares at the goal.
GARY
(to himself)
One day.
He puts his hands in his pockets and walks toward his car. The same kid from Belarus who sold lemonade at six, baseball cards at twelve, and wine at nineteen. Still hustling. Still hungry. Still going.
FADE TO BLACK.
Gary Vaynerchuk grew Wine Library from $3 million to $60 million in revenue using e-commerce and YouTube before most companies had a website. VaynerMedia generates over $300 million in annual revenue and serves many of the world's largest brands. Gary's content reaches over 30 million people per month across platforms. His stated life goal is to buy the New York Jets. He has not yet achieved it. His father, Sasha, still thinks he works too much.
THE END