- Okay, wow, I'm surprised
I'm hosting this.
All right, so, guys, this
is a really big honor.
It's a really big honor for me, Gary.
Thank you for hosting us in
here in Vander Media offices.
- Of course.
- I'm from Israel and been in China
for the last 10 years with my family.
My father's also here.
I brought him especially
for this amazing encounter with you
and also my really good friend Malik.
We are so-called hustlers in China.
- [Gary] Yes.
- We're content creators,
for the last two, three years
have been hardcore inside
the social medias in China.
We've been making content
on different levels,
different types, we've been
getting a lot of views,
getting a lot of directions.
We're showing the world
what it's like to live in China
and this has been our main passion.
Now, we came here to meet
you, Gary, because --
- So, when you say hustlers, are you,
you're KOLs in the marketplace?
- [Malik] Yes.
- But you're also trying to build
outside of it for people to view.
- Exactly, so our platform
is called, in English called,
our platform that we set up is Why China.
Personally, I'm KOL
but I'm running a media business
that creates video shows online.
- [Gary] I understand.
- I'm not really purely a KOL.
Malik is a pure massive
KOL from China, in China.
I'm more like a platform builder,
creating shows, working with
different, Tencent, IQiyi,
and Youku and also doing
shows on the Weibo.
- You're a production company
within those environments.
- Exactly
- I understand.
- That is exactly what we
are and then we're here
to talk about very few really
hot Chinese topics that
relate to the life there,
to the internet sphere,
we really want to have you back
and forth talking to you about it.
- [Gary] Let's do it.
- So I will be your host,
there's four topics,
and first of all, maybe I'll let Malik
and my father introduce
themselves as well.
- [Gary] That would be amazing.
- Yeah so my name is
Malik and I actually study
here at Rutgers in New Jersey,
but I'm also, I'm a KOL in China.
So I create contents about
the American cultures,
but I also some personal views on things,
you know, some social
issues, and I have my full--
- Both American and Chinese?
- Yeah both, I speak Chinese and English
and I actually came to
country four years ago,
so I had a lot of different experience
I wanted to share with the youth in China,
so that's how I started my channel
and build a million
followers in six months.
- [Gary] On Weibo?
- Yeah on Weibo and before
that I was watching your stuff
and it was a huge inspiration for me.
- [Gary] Thank you.
- You know just being out there
and just hustle and work hard so yep.
- [Raz] That's amazing, yeah, go ahead.
- Yeah for me --
- I met pops already in the elevator.
We had a very nice chat.
- Timing is everything.
- Everything.
- Timing is everything,
so about timing with,
we felt the timing was right
to go to China in 2003.
- [Gary] Were you in a business or?
- Venture capitalism.
So venture capitalists are
supposed to see the future
but actually don't go too far away.
- [Gary] That's exactly right.
I'm aware.
- I mean, you've got the background.
You understand it very well.
But we felt that China is
around the corner business-wise,
venture capital, technology,
innovation, this kind of stuff
and Israel is good at this shit --
- [Gary] Yes, very good.
How old was Raz when you guys moved?
How old are you Raz?
- I'm 23 this year.
- [Gary] So you were 13.
- I was 13 when we moved
but he entered 2003
when I was like seven years old.
That's when he started
doing stuff in China.
- We did the first fund in 2004.
- And you were flying back
and forth and then finally
decided --
- Yeah, when we saw it's real, you know?
It's not only just a dream.
- [Gary] It's not emerging, it's here.
- It's here and now and then
you have to shovel down,
triple down, force down on
it and the only way to do it
is move your family.
- Was that tough for you?
- Oh, it's tough.
I have three younger siblings.
I'm the, I was, they're
all smaller than me,
we couldn't speak a
word of English actually
'cause in Israel, we study
Hebrew and the English level is,
people locally very bad.
- [Gary] I'm aware.
- You've done it yourself.
- So he took us, he threw
us in school in Hong Kong
in the beginning and later in Beijing.
It was tough but I think
that's what made us,
that really brought us
so close to this culture.
I'm so close to the Chinese
culture on so many levels
and it really opens your world
and many people don't really
understand the way I think
or do things because so early
on I left my Israel friends,
I didn't go to the Army
yet which is a shame yet
but I have to go back.
He's a pilot 24 years, he was a pilot.
It's been a tough culture shock for me
back in Israel how I didn't
really serve in the Army
but here in China I'm
a foreigner so called
but I think giving this
platform of social media
and this ability to express
myself and build a company
and the media gave me a
place to kind of find myself,
- [Gary] Of course.
- In China.
Now I'm trying to push it forward.
Suddenly, we've been in China many years
but he can already speak
Chinese, I can speak Chinese,
he got all his children to speak Chinese
but he understand Chinese people, I think,
more than anyone could in many ways.
So, yeah, this is our little family story.
- [Gary] I love it.
It's so interesting.
- It's alright.
So we brought some topics, Gary.
- [Gary] Let's go.
- We really want people
to know you in China
and we want, you have
a lot of philosophies,
ways you do things that really can inspire
a lot of generation of Chinese people.
Now there's so many things
we're gonna talk about
starting from the culture
of the '90's in China
all the way to the e-gaming in China
which is huge now all
the way to talking about
the social family pressures
that Chinese common families
have which is a big thing in their lives.
- Which is really, if
you asked me intuitively
what I'm most excited
about in the next decade
as I start building my
brand and my opportunities
within mainland China and culture
and Southeast Asia in general,
it is the family dynamic
because that is the most
interesting insight that I've seen
from afar from the little
homework that I've done.
It's just a real, and
listen, being a Jewish,
eastern European immigrant in the US,
similar but different,
it's always a dynamic
but it is extremely
aggressive in mainland China
and it's funny you bring that up
because that is absolutely,
the next book I'm thinking
about writing is perfectly,
is called Perfectly Parented.
It's a parenting book for
entrepreneurs and more about,
your dad understands Chinese people
only because he deploys empathy.
- [Raz] True, that's true.
- 100% true.
By the way, the fact you
picked this family issue
is the most interesting
thing because I have talked
to so many foreigners about China.
I haven't seen one touch that.
- That's the only, it's the key point.
Anyway.
- We got Malik.
He will be, he's Chinese, he
will explain his family values
and stuff but then the
fourth topic we'll go into
is just talking about this new, san-quan,
which means like the three
philosophies of Chinese people,
how they see political correctness.
We'll get to that at the end.
- [Gary] Interesting.
- Very interesting actually
that he also has a lot
to say about this.
So let's hit on the first.
- [Gary] Let's go.
- So first of all, we represent
this really huge, large,
young audience of Chinese
people that are seeking
this kind of cultural interaction
with people around the world,
getting to learn the culture of New York,
they're learning the culture of America,
culture around the world
and willing for foreigners
to learn their culture.
It's a really interesting age, however,
there is this phenomenon
coming up in China these days
that people in China see
themselves as the four-shee,
in Chinese, which means
that Buddhist (inaudible).
My question is, first of all,
young people 90's Millenias
taking life as like
everything will come to them
in this generation because
there with so much noise,
so much internet, so much things
is that the right approach
that people should take?
That's a big part of the Chinese --
- I don't think it's
as wrong of an approach
as many may think I
think given my obsession
that hard work is a pillar
of variable success.
I'll explain why.
First of all,
you have to understand that
it's a very common theme
when nations or people start
going through prosperity.
This is not something you can stop.
When people talk about
American Millennials,
when you talk about 60 years
of success in a country,
no real negative drivers,
that's naturally what's gonna happen.
Of course older Chinese
parents and grandparents
of those kids look at them with cynicism
because they lived in a much
more difficult environment.
I think that optimism is
what makes America America.
I think optimism is extremely powerful.
I think optimism and entitlement
are a very dangerous fine line.
So the answer is, as a
whole, I actually love it.
I'm massively optimistic
and I generally believe
everything's gonna be okay
and I'm very Team Human Being.
I think humans are very underrated.
When it starts falling into entitlement
or if you look at what's
happening in Saudi Arabia,
which I think is an interesting parallel,
it's about to go through
a very interesting period
with it's new reforms,
it's basically people of a State.
The State's taking care of everything.
I was born in Communist
Soviet Russia, Soviet Union,
so I have a lot of empathy.
My parents are a little bit different
but a lot of my parents'
friends really struggled
when they came to America
because they won the lottery
in the Soviet Union and had
easy jobs, A.K.A. doing nothing,
and the State would take care of it.
So I think when you layer
technology on top of it
which means they can touch
everything, you know, honestly,
I think it's good, comma,
a lot of people will get
sucked into not doing anything
thus losing.
As long as you can get
anybody in that generation
to understand nobody,
nobody is successful in being,
successful in life without
putting in hard work,
they may inherit,
somebody could be wealthy
without putting in hard work,
it's 'cause their mommy and
daddy gave them the money
but nobody is successful,
nobody is successful
without putting in the work
including athletes or,
I like using models.
A lot of people are born pretty.
- [Raz] True.
- But putting in the work
to learn how to translate
to a camera,
understanding which
platforms have the attention
whether that's Sports
Illustrated or Instagram,
like it's just work.
Like you look at the supermodels
of the last 20 years,
a lot of those women
are hardcore hustlers.
That's why they've all had
very good entrepreneurial careers after.
We get tricked 'cause they're beautiful
but they're putting in work
and so as long as you can
deliver to that generation
that work is an essential
pillar of this optimistic
point of view,
if that's what you want,
success and things, great.
If you just want to be happy,
I think it's a great outlook.
To me the only thing that
bothers me or causes me caution
is when people think things come to them
without putting in the work.
That's all.
It's very simple.
You can't get muscles without working out
and you can't get success without working
and there's a lot of people
that push back at me,
especially in Europe and
more liberal points of view
around too much work.
It's 'cause they're not
listening to what's coming
out of my mouth.
My mouth, my words are very simple.
As long as your work ethic
matches your ambition,
you are very happy meaning
if you want to have a nice
work/life balance and
have three days off a week
and be healthy and what
have you and recognize
that you're not gonna have
mansions or reputation or books
or great, I mean, I think
that's, to be very frank,
there's a lot of times I
wish that was my ambition.
To me, the only stress in the system
is when peoples' ambition,
A.K.A their mouth,
doesn't match their actions.
There's a lot of people on
Weibo and Instagram and YouTube
saying that they're gonna be billionaires
and gonna rule the world
who go to 45 music festivals
a year
(all laugh)
and that is not gonna happen.
So to me it's just matching
your ambition to your actions
otherwise I think it's a great thing
that people are optimistic
'cause I think optimism matters.
- Okay.
Yeah, Malik what do you have --
- Yeah, to elaborate about
the Buddhist lifestyle,
so it's also the young people nowadays,
they think that they're
facing more challenges
and a more competitive
environment than their parents
because they have to
learn much more stuff,
they have to have much more skills,
get going to college doesn't
guarantee anything at all -
- [Gary] They're right.
- Like nowadays.
- [Gary] But the problem is,
they're thinking about it
through their parents' eyes.
- Yeah and also like, with
this much competition --
- [Gary] Do you understand though?
- Yeah.
- Like college, to your point,
especially in mainland China
and high net worth individuals,
like the path of college
that sets you up is over.
It's over.
- [Malik] Yeah, it doesn't
guarantee you anything.
- It's just over.
Like look,
if you wanna work at Bain and
McKinsey and Goldman Sachs,
big time education, you
could still have that path,
that's great, nothing wrong with that.
The problem is the default
that a college education,
a college education, the
petals are off the rose.
Like outside of the elite top 10 schools,
I think the schools
that are most dangerous
are schools 25 to 100
because they had some brand
but they don't translate.
They don't translate in
today's reality anymore.
It just doesn't matter
and for a parent at home
especially in mainland China,
this is back to what I jumped on,
I'm very upset that you have one child,
to your point and I
don't know every detail
but I'm aware enough
to know a lot of people
are single children.
(group chuckles)
The thing that I see
common in Southeast culture
and especially mainland China
is that for a lot of parents,
their kid is a representation of them
and that's where it breaks.
- [Malik] Exactly.
- And that's where it breaks
in Israel and it breaks
in Belarus and it breaks in America.
It breaks if a parent thinks
that a kid's accomplishment
is a reflection on them because
now you have a disconnect.
Now you're not a parent and a child,
you're a person with a
product and I think that
that is scary to me
because going to Harvard
or Stanford or Yale is a
badge that people in Beijing
walk around proudly to
their contemporaries
and they're fucking their kids up.
(group chuckles)
- That's so true.
- That's it.
That's the breakdown.
So but the kids are right.
Here's what I'd say to the kids: too bad.
(group chuckles)
I mean, too bad that it's hard now.
Like you have a lot of
things going for you too.
I promise you right now,
all of you would not switch
with your grandparents.
- [Malik] Yeah, (chuckles)
- The end.
If you're in China and
you're listening right now
and you have the option of
having not college set you up
so easily or be your grandparents
and live in that Communist China,
I have a funny feeling
you're gonna choose this.
So to me I have empathy
that it's different
and I have empathy that you've been told
education, education, education,
college, college, college,
good college, straight A's, straight A's,
alpha, alpha, dragon,
dragon, I understand.
It's changed but you're not gonna switch
with your grandparents so
what are you crying about?
- [Malik] True.
- Life's about alternatives.
Life's about alternatives.
So what do you want?
- [Malik] That's a good way to think.
- What do you want?
And I think most people
realize how good they have it
and so yes, it's changed,
yes, there's new difficulties
but it's so much, so much
better than it used to be
and so I can't get upset for
anybody who's living through,
"Oh darn it, my Yale
education is not going
"to take care of me,"
especially when a far bigger
percentage from mainland China
that are going to these
universities are having it
paid for by their parents
than the alternative
of a lot of Americans.
So --
- One thing that's happening in China
that is an optimism, it's a
very optimistic point of view,
the government is now
encouraging graduates
to take entrepreneurship
as their first job
and we see in Beijing
especially, parts of Shanghai,
graduates that used to
go to the government
or the big companies follow
what their parents think,
they open their own start
ups, they're doing start ups.
Their parents have nothing to say about it
because the government
endorses so it's kind of --
- I think that's great, look, America wins
because of entrepreneurship.
It's offense.
You're either on offense or defense.
Europe's been on defense for 50 years.
That's why Europe sucks
on the global stage
of competitive business.
I love Europe.
I love Europe for wine,
I was born in Europe.
I love Europe for culture.
I like the kindness and the empathy.
I love Europe for a lot of
its social points of view
except when it goes too far to the left.
I love Europe but Europe can't win.
Europe's soft and so I think
it's great that China pushes,
look, I'm an American who
was born in the Soviet Union
who absolutely believes
that China has won already
meaning that when I'm an
old man or when I'm gone
and my grandkids are, like
China is the superpower.
I really believe that
because I think China
runs its country more like a business
meaning a business, like me,
I give freedom to my team so
much except on a couple things
that matter to me and
then it's a dictatorship.
(all laugh)
That's more China, right?
So I think China's model in a lot of ways,
I mean, socially, forget it,
I'm talking about
entrepreneurship and business
and the alpha stuff.
I think China's got a long
way to go on this soft skills
and equal rights and a
million things that make
but I think it'll get there
out of its leadership.
So I think it's sitting very pretty.
I think it's great that it's pushing kids
to entrepreneurship.
My problem is nine out of
10 of these Chinese kids
that are 22 years old instead of jumping
into entrepreneurship have no chance
'cause they're not entrepreneurs.
- But that's good because it's education.
- Yes but you have to be careful
because the one thing I
fear is when these kids fail
and almost all of them will
it's a very big scarlet letter
in that culture and I
think psychologically
you're putting a 23 year old
in a very vulnerable spot
where now they have a loss publicly.
There's no hiding.
When you lose in school like I did,
you can blame people.
When Iris loses at Vander
Media she can blame me.
When you work at a company or
when the government's involved
or when it's school,
you can blame somebody else.
When you have a business, it's your fault,
and the only thing I would say,
it's already something
that concerns me in America
where it is not a scarlet
letter to lose in business,
but still there's an enormous amount of,
because there's so many
fake entrepreneurs now
because everybody's pushing it
and now you have students
who, I like when I lose,
I like when you guys look at me and say,
he lost, he did it wrong
'cause I'm an entrepreneur
but when you're a
student and you get an F,
it's devastating so I
would caution one thing
for anybody who's
listening in mainland China
who thinks entrepreneurship
is such a freedom,
when you lose,
you have to make sure that
you're mentally stable enough
to be able to take all of that cynicism
and the critiques from everybody
including your friends,
your friends' parents, your
parents, because if you don't,
you start going down a very dangerous path
that leads to a very scary place.
We do not reconcile why
we have suicide in America
at the teenage level.
It's because modern parenting
is overcoddling kids
to an extreme level
where kids don't know how
to deal with adversity.
If you've been a great student
in the mainland China machine
and you now pop out and you
start the Uber or Tencent
of dry cleaning and you fail,
I don't want kids to go
into depression and suicide.
I think self-awareness matters much more
than being an entrepreneur.
For you and I, the learning makes sense.
It's our DNA.
I look at every loss as learning.
That is not how people are wired
so we have to be thoughtful
of, we go too far, right?
It's all college.
It's all entrepreneurship.
We need to find the right
balance of understanding.
We need to do a much better job zero to 18
to understand somebody's make
up, their emotional make up,
their skillset.
The way we do school today
and the way we structure
our kids for success in the first 18 years
is so broken worldwide and so for me,
I'm thinking a lot about the
next 20, 30 years of my life,
how can I impact at least,
now I impact by putting out
content and getting the 500 DM's
I get everyday of thank
you, thank you, thank you,
you're helping me, you're a shield.
That's my first step but over time,
I'd like to do more
because it is the most important thing
because if you're parented well,
you can see it from a mile
away and when you're not,
you can see it from a mile away
and I think too many parents
view their kids as a product.
- I have an idea for you, you may use,
You said that it's about what you target.
If your target is to win,
to go all the way, you put everything in.
I think we're going to an era
where there is like micro-innovation,
micro-entrepreneurship.
You don't set your goal to be the next --
- [Gary] I agree, I agree.
- It's a lifestyle issue.
- I agree, I agree.
- It's got to be split into three:
machines, lifestyle and innovation style.
- [Gary] I agree, I agree so much.
I push it very heavily.
What's wrong with having a
business doing 137,000 a year
and you're very happy selling donuts?
I want it very badly.
- You've got the freedom.
- The problem is venture capital
and the modern technology media,
everything's about unicorns
and billion dollars.
- Crowd funding, crowd
funding makes it easier.
Don't need the venture capitalists.
- You're preaching.
How about a better one?
How 'bout just build a fucking business
and work off your own cashflow?
- Good education.
(all chuckle)
- You know?
- Actually, this is what
we do in some cases.
- I mean, Jesus Christ, I mean like,
why not just, I mean,
Vander Media is a $200 million company.
I raised zero capital.
I sold somebody a $60,000 consulting gig.
I was in a different place in my career
but I still could've raised it.
Learning how to make money
is the number one skill.
Sell something.
Singles Day sells trillions
of dollar of shit every year.
Figure it out.
Get your $100 out of it.
Jesus.
And I mean this, I wanna
teach kids more to learn
how to make money versus raising money
'cause that's a skill
that never goes away.
You can always raise money
later and he'll tell you,
it's a lot easier to raise money
when you're making money (laughs).
Alright, let's keep moving.
- That's interesting.
Okay, so just you're talking
about failure and winning
and then you here have two
23 year olds who I think
you understand young peoples' mentality
and what they need to do much more to win
than ourselves in some way.
- And I'm surprised like
he, like Gary knows so much
that is going on in China
without actually being there.
- Yeah, that's incredible.
So there's one thing I want
to say that Malik and I
know quite well is living in China
and engaging on the internet is that
there is this massive
thing going on in China
that's adding to the Buddhist mentality
is that people take on
their time to play games.
- [Malik] Video games.
- E-games, mobiles, it's a mobile country.
It's completely mobilized.
Everyone plays on their phone
and the last two or three years,
you've seen like huge companies
like Tencent and Wong-eid
that have bucked companies
all around the world
plus developing their own
Chinese style companies,
like taking Dota and League of Legends
and making it into Kings of Honor
which is like a very
popular social e-gaming.
- [Gary] I'm aware.
- And we're talking about
different types of games
that include many people playing together.
PUBG which is another one,
what I'm saying is that,
most Chinese people, a lot
of their time is spent,
even with their parents
during Chinese New Year,
they will be 90% of
the time playing games,
maybe to win something 'cause
it gives them a belonging,
they feel like they're
winning but the thing is,
this e-gaming culture, first of all,
what do you think of
young people being engaged
literally most of their
time, all their day,
e-gaming on their free time,
at night before they sleep, gaming.
- I'm a fan of it.
I'll tell you why:
we've always needed escapism.
- [Raz] True.
- Humans are very basic.
We like escapism.
So for me, if you're asking me,
if I have to choose back
to life being alternatives,
a 16 year old right now from
7 P.M. to 11 P.M. at night
in China playing games
versus watching television
which is what her or his
parents did 20 years earlier
or reading a book for information
that is now at their fingertip,
I'll pick gaming because
I think what it's doing
is it's forming behavior
that is far more relevant
to today's society.
As we go into a more
machine oriented world,
the mathematical structure
around gaming psychology,
the things they learn,
the most self-aware will
realize they're getting suckered
into the gamification of it.
They're chasing the carrot but
we chase a carrot everywhere.
That's what humans do.
We're just animals.
We're very easy to understand.
Back to winning, back to winning
just to bounce a little bit,
I wanted to make a point
and I'll use it right here.
To me, the people that
win the most are the ones
that are addicted to the
process and the game of the life
much more than the
things they get from it.
That's the ultimate.
Can you love the journey,
the process, the work,
whatever you wanna call it and to me
it's so important that
in today's option economy
with all this technology,
when machines take over
all these jobs, I laugh.
They're gonna take over all
the jobs that most people
don't like doing.
They just do it to get
paid what they need to pay
their mortgage or to
buy things that cover up
their actual sadness.
I can live in a fucking basement.
This is true and I bet you
my team will agree with this:
I'm the kind of person that
wishes this was our family
and we all lived in this room.
You know it's really funny
for me to even say that.
I've never said it that way
but it made me go right back
to where I started here, not
too far from here in Queens,
in a small room with a lot of family.
Like it's fun.
- We work, we live.
- That's it.
So to me, to me I think it's great.
I'm not gonna frown on that
because I think about it,
what would those people
be doing otherwise?
- True.
No sibling, it's a big issue.
If you have siblings, you interact more
so that's a price to pay.
- No question.
I think the one child
variable is fascinating.
You know, my father's a single child.
My closest cousin,
Bobby, is a single child
and I've always been
fascinated by both of them
in a lot of ways and have
always been fascinated
maybe because I'm very
close to my siblings.
When you were talking,
all that was running through
my mind was oh that's so good.
That means him and his three
siblings got very close
'cause they had each
other in the beginning
when they moved, not much else, you know?
I think it's, yes,
I think the single child culture at scale,
we've never seen scale like this,
is, I don't have real thoughts,
you can see I can talk very
passionate when I know,
I haven't thought enough about it.
It makes sense that they
gravitate towards that
but we gravitate towards it
here in the US and Europe
and South America does too.
I think, look, humans like
interacting with each other.
It's what we do.
So nobody here is gonna
tell me that they don't feel
like they're interacting with somebody
when they're playing games,
when they're texting.
We are!
We are.
That's why I love it so much.
- I agree.
My younger brother, he's in
high school and all he does
like during the weekend is playing games
but later I realized all of his friends
are on it.
- [Gary] He's more social!
- Yeah, it's a way to socialize.
- It's more social.
I say this all the time,
kids are more social now,
not less.
- [Malik] Yeah.
- I used to sit in my room by myself
(all chuckle)
because I couldn't go outside and play.
It was 6 P.M.
March, let me use real life,
January 8th, 1986,
I'm in my home 'cause it got dark,
I was an 80's baby when we played outside
but now it was dark, it was cold.
I wasn't playing and I was like in my room
which is, by the way,
alone time's great too.
I'm sure very valuable.
I'm sure plenty of people are gonna argue
we have no alone time
anymore thus we're over,
you know it's so funny to me,
everybody says our kids
don't know how to engage,
they're not social.
- [Malik] That's not true.
- I'm like, they're the reverse.
They're over social.
They have no downtime so to me
I think it's super interesting.
I think gaming is great.
I think most businesses
are gonna start layering
heavy gamification
psychology to everything
that they do.
If you look at businesses
like Uber and other things
around the world,
a lot of them grew, Spotify,
off of referral gamification.
I think everything will have
gamification layers on it.
- Yeah, Tencent is a company of gaming.
- We should start with the
gaming at the beginning.
- It's a product of the One Child Policy
because they had to,
they had to do something.
- But I want to take this
topic a little bit deeper
'cause there's something in China
that I don't know if it's here in the US.
In China, women play more than --
- You beat me to that.
I was about to say it.
I was about to say that point.
- So why is that?
What do you think of this,
like of this woman getting involved
'cause in my country usually it's --
- In the US and Israel and
Europe you'll see that dynamic
happen in the next 20 years as well.
It's because China was further
along in the mobile culture,
in the gamification culture.
They, you know what happened?
The same thing's happening in Africa.
They leapfrogged.
Like American women are
going to be gaming at scale
and they do.
They already do quietly on mobile,
because the games of
America were established
far more males focused, right?
They were much more male focused
so me as a 42 year old male growing up,
they were guy games, they were guy games.
You had some games like
Sonic the Hedgehog,
Mario, you had it but in culture,
video games were for boys, right?
And that's just the way it is
and now that's breaking down and you'll,
this is human.
Gamification and game escapism is human
and we see it with Candy
Crush and Angry Birds.
We saw far more 50/50, 60/40.
Once the stigma goes away
which I think it already has,
you'll see far, I mean especially now,
you talk to a 12, 13, 14 year old girl,
she's super on board with
e-sports and willing to go there
and so I don't even think of it.
I think it's just the timing
of how it was introduced
into the marketplace.
I think most things are like that.
Look, pink was a boy's color in Europe.
When pink was first introduced,
it was a boy's color in the
1800's in Western Europe
so like things get manipulated,
heavy hands get involved,
there's a lot of heavy
hands on a lot of issues
and I think that's what
happened with gaming in the US
and Europe but there is
no reason that should be
and I would even argue that
the most successful e-sports,
athletes and gamers in
25 years skew female
as much as it skews male.
- And where are you
going with your gaming?
Like your personal future in it?
- Look, I think it's,
this is a funny time to talk about this,
whether it's China, whether it's e-gaming,
whether it's crypto currency,
whether it's machine learning,
there's so many trends
that are obvious to me
that are foregone
conclusions in our society.
I'm just, as much as I've done a good job
in feeling omnipresent
and pumping out a lot,
I can only tackle so many things.
To me, everything I just mentioned,
there will be a time and a
place for me to be involved.
I don't need to be earliest.
I just need to be executing
well in places that matter.
I've not been able to
get around to e-sports
in a meaningful way.
I watch all this stuff very carefully.
I'm building a Twitch studio
right outside my office.
- [Raz] Oh you have a
Twitch studio coming up?
- Yeah, that'll probably be done in what?
Maybe four or five weeks?
Like April, first week of, when is it?
In a month.
I'm gonna be gaming the things I can play
so there's no League of Legends for me.
To me it's gonna be Double
Dribble from Nintendo 1986.
I'm gonna throwback games.
When people come through,
like we would've jumped on for 10 minutes.
I'm gonna use it for attention
purposes, block change,
all this stuff is stuff I'm
paying very close attention to
but I'm not deep enough yet
to execute or to speak on it.
I don't like to talk about things
I don't know unbelievably well
which is why I talk so much
about something very narrow
which is consumer behavior
around social layers
on the internet.
Inevitably in the next
three, five, seven years,
one of those pillars that I just mentioned
including maybe China,
one of the things I think a lot about
is what happens when my
kids get a little older,
when I can travel with them a little bit.
I think about China quite a bit.
China, for me,
is extremely exciting
because I love the journey.
I love that nobody knows me in China.
You know, like --
- (laughs) You can just be a
normal person walking around?
- No, I can, no, no, no, I'm never normal.
(group laughs)
No, because I can start
the process of building.
- So you enjoy the process
of building from the ground?
- Finding the right teammates to help me,
doing the right things, the process.
Like going there and starting at zero
and catching up to
everybody is the ultimate.
- That's amazing.
So let's touch a topic that
you said at the beginning
you're really excited to
talk about is parenting
and also I ended up bringing
my father to this talk,
it's exciting and then you as a parent
and in China parents are such a,
parenting, kids relations
with their parents
and the older generation is very,
it's not an issue but it's
a heavy thing on their life
and Chinese New Year just
finished where all the kids
have to go back home and deal
with the different questions
and pressures of what, how's your job?
How are you doing?
Are you gonna get married?
Like a different place in
China, different cultures --
- It's the single biggest impact --
- [Raz] Yeah.
- If you ask me to predict,
going at a prediction,
in eight or nine years,
I think I will be a very
substantial personality in China
because I have a very strong,
passionate point of view
on this issue that I
don't think is very loved
by the older generation
and I think is adored
by the younger generation
and they need somebody
just like the American kids
need somebody to point to
to protect them on these battles
and I wanna be that person.
To me, if you ask me what
my great legacy can be
is to be the voice of somebody
who was parented extremely well.
I was perfectly parented.
I had parents who had
those same pressures,
who came from those same places,
who refused to treat me that way
and that's why I'm gonna be special
and I want that for the
ga-drillions of kids
around the world because they deserve it
because you're absolutely right.
The fact that 99 out of 100
parents back in Chinese New Year
put unneeded pressure on
their kids which ultimately
is going to hurt their children
and hurt their relationship
with their children
is needs to starts being eradicated.
We need to change the
conversation on this issue
and it starts with the
insecurities of the parents.
It's an insecurity on the parent level
and it's really, you know
what's really interesting to me?
I think of China as such
winners wholistically
'cause of what the country's doing
but it is the ultimate loser move to think
that you are successful
based on what your children
are accomplishing.
I get it.
Like, I take much more pride
in when my kids are funny
or doing something special, I get it.
I'm starting to really get it, however,
it is just wrong.
It is just absolutely wrong and so --
- Yeah, to go deeper, there
are a lot of new families
that just newly became the middle class
so the middle class is booming.
So they're afraid that they're gonna lose
because they just got there.
Like the only way that they
can think of to maintain
the status is to invest
in their kids' education
or push a little bit harder to make sure
their kids can carry on the
status so that's one pressure.
- They're wrong!
I understand, they're gonna lose.
They're gonna lose their
kids and they're gonna lose.
They're gonna lose their relationship
with their kids over time.
What they don't understand is how quickly
the world is evolving and
how we're all more connected
than ever and we're all looking
at each other's cultures.
I think the greatest thing
that is ever gonna happen
to America is China's emergence.
I think kids that are gonna
be born 10 years from now
are gonna be winners in
America 40 years from now
because of the chip on
their shoulder of losing
that world stage leadership.
I really believe that.
I think America's different
than Europe that way.
- So what should parents
invest in their kids?
What aspect?
- They should invest in
their emotional intelligence.
- [Malik] Soft skills.
- 100%.
What should they invest in?
Listening and try to
figure out their kids.
He, you know, your mother,
you guys are still married?
Yeah, you know, they have four children.
They can't raise all four
children the same way,
not to be ultimately successful.
I mean, he could do whatever he wants.
I don't tell anybody to parent,
listen, I have passionate
points of view on this
but I will never tell anybody
how to parent their child.
That's very personal.
I don't tell anybody
how to have relationship
with their loved one, their spouse.
These are personal things.
It's one man's point of view
but it's one man's point
of view that has the luxury
of being an outlier and watching
how everybody else did it
and then watching it
become the formative way
that he looked at the world.
It's how I am as a manager to my team.
There's a reason they like it.
It's because I learned those skills.
I'm a product of it and I
don't wanna be a hypocrite
and treat them as employees
differently than I was treated
and they'll tell you, I don't overcoddle.
It's not coddling.
This is real love, real listening,
real watching with circumstances.
- Parenting is an art and
each child is different
and how you balance.
You want to show the way but
you don't want to interrupt
their personal growth.
- 100% and this man can tell you,
as a parent, you're only as happy
as the most unhappy child you have.
(all laugh)
You know?
You could have three,
he's got four of you guys,
right now whoever's not in the best place,
even if they're in a good
place or a solid place,
that's what's running through their mind.
When you're navigating something,
when you're responsible, the
same thing as me as a company,
I'm putting my finger in the
biggest holes in the boat.
There's a lot of holes and
so if this trickles out,
if this clip, if this
video catches some virality
within the mainland China
audience on Weibo, WeChat,
the one thing I would tell parents is,
do a lot more listening and don't listen
to your fucking friends.
(all laugh)
Listen to your kids
and when I say listen, watch them.
What do they gravitate towards?
Nobody thought playing
video games 20 years ago
was gonna lead to a
luxurious financial life.
It clearly has.
So if you're so smart,
if you want your kids to be successful,
recognize that the world you live in today
has nothing to do with the
world they're gonna live in.
Nothing.
And so I have empathy, especially
emerging middle classes
but if you look at America as a proxy,
when the middle class started to emerge,
it was also when university
and college was starting
to build as a brand and it
worked for a period of time,
that was fine but the
problem is technology
is too much of a variable,
too much of a variable.
- Gary, I wanna say something on this.
We can talk on parents and parenting
but I want to take the weight
off parents for a little bit
and talk a little bit
wider on the culture.
- China is gonna be an
incredibly successful country
with a lot of unhappy people.
100%.
- So how do you kind of tell this audience
because a lot of people are gonna see
this video right now --
- Easy, if you think money
is the root of happiness,
you're fucking broken.
You've lost.
You've lost life.
You will not win.
That's my two cents.
- [Raz] That's good.
- And listen, I'm very empathetic.
I grew up in a culture
very similar like America
has a lot of those tendencies as well.
It's evolving which is
why it will lose more
but it will be in pockets, happier,
and everything's about balance, right?
Everything's about balance.
If the least hard working
country or culture
is over here and if China plays over here,
the answer's always
somewhere in the middle.
Always, always, always.
And look, Israel is not
short of ambitious people
and hunger for success.
So you guys know this.
I mean, look, from my standpoint, that is,
China's vulnerability is very easy.
It's that.
I mean, I wasn't aware of that.
This is the first time I'm consuming that.
If the default is I
wish for you to be rich,
so I'll give you an example.
I would argue that my grandmother
had that point of view
and I don't think many
people more not happy
than my grandmother.
(all chuckle)
I'm thinking now of the people that,
like going through my mind,
that one I'm comfortable saying out loud
'cause it's within my family.
I don't want to mention
the two or three people
I know in the business world.
No question the least happy
people I know are the ones
who look at rich, money,
as the success barometer.
It leads to enormous insecurity.
- [Malik] True.
- It's the same reason
fashion does so well
in mainland China.
If you think your YSL
bag or your Louis Vuitton
or your Supreme is covering up to winners
your shortcomings,
you're fucking mistaken.
You might be tricking the masses
but the top 10% of the
world knows everything
they need to know when
you're fucking tricked out
head to toe in Louis Vuitton.
The most insecure people
I know are also the people
that enjoy fashion, cars,
planes and watches the most.
- You cannot measure
happiness and being rich
isn't by numbers.
- But this pressure, as a
young person, trying to,
we've got the pressure of we're
hearing successful stories
about kids in, 25 years
and making billions,
and social media has made it --
- It has nothing to do with you, bro.
- It's true but it's
just it's all around you.
- Listen, by the way, I get it.
You either succumb to it or you don't.
Like, I get it, but again
back to life is about options,
I'd rather kids today worry
about being successful
because that's what they're being pushed
versus worrying about how
to avoid the Black Plague
or run away from Eastern European Poland
'cause they're Jewish and
they're about to get killed
or being sent off to the
Korean War or I mean,
life's better.
I'm not gonna shed one
fuckin' tear for you
because this is a prosperous,
happy world right now,
better than any other time and
if your biggest fucking worry
is that you're gonna be judged
by your neighbors and friends
'cause you didn't build
the next Instagram,
well fuck it, you won.
Really!
Listen, and I get it,
everybody worries about
what they worry about.
I have friends who are,
who have $50 million in their trust fund
and all they worry about is
that nobody will ever think
they were good because
they were handed success
and that their life is
ruined because they'll never
be successful and by the way I get it
'cause that wouldn't work for me.
That would've been really bad for me.
I would've struggled with that.
I worry that my kids have my
DNA and are gonna struggle
with being on third base and so everybody
has their own realities but
here's the punchline, my friend,
you have no choice.
It is what it is.
It's a good problem to have.
- Okay, that kind of takes
us into the last topic.
- [Gary] Sure.
- It's almost getting to 11 A.M.
and I know you're busy, Gary.
So this entire, we talked about
very different social issues
and in China there is a
thing on the internet,
it's very, it's something
that started off very early
in the education system in China
but the way that people
value and judge somebody
a lot of times are related
to a concept called
the Three Positives and that's something
Malik knows about, the San-guan.
It's basically a combination of the three,
it's called San-guan.
One is called personal values,
second life philosophy
and third, world view.
It's the three views.
It's the three kind of
positives and a lot of time
people use this 'cause in China,
'cause the political climate is different,
it's a way to judge somebody's behavior
whether he's more pro-women
or pro-development
or it's a way to judge
peoples' philosophies on life
and a lot of times, Malik,
'cause he's a social,
he creates, his opinion,
he puts it out there
if he wants to tackle a social issue
and he's known as like the most,
these three positives,
the most correct of all.
He is extremely a great example of this.
Now the way, do you think
people on the internet
when they're trying to express themselves,
should they worry about
how people judge them
constantly on their values?
Is being a person with really positive,
great values of life,
more liberal values we can
call it here in the US,
is that something that someone should take
when they're trying to push
themselves through life
and society?
Should there be prearranged
values in your system?
Or can you design it yourself?
That's the first question.
- A lot of kids watch my
stuff and they believe
I have a good, like the values
but I was actually tripped
or imprisoned by these values.
I cannot say stuff outside of
what is viewed to be right,
like the political correctness.
Sometimes I want to extend
a little bit and talk about
different ideas, different opinions
but there are people that
jump onto the comments section
and start firing about "You're
not on the right track,"
or "You're not following
what is viewed to be right
"in the society."
I think ignoring different
ideas and different voices,
it's really dangerous.
- [Raz] Young people
have this pressure to --
- So here's my two cents on this.
The biggest thing that you guys don't know
that we know as the older
statesmen in the room
is that the state of
politically correct views
changes all the time.
What he grew up with,
what I then grew up with,
it's changed.
To me, I don't sit, I'm very,
I am the most pro-human
person, the thought,
I would die if I was to
suppress another human being
in any shape or form.
For me to judge or do something negative
to another human being,
literally breaks my soul.
The thought is so foreign.
I can't even comprehend the ability to.
When I watch the world or
my friends or neighbors
or associates or politicians
on the world stage,
America, Russia, China, anywhere,
it's the single worst thing you can do,
especially in today's
environment where everything's
being documented.
You will lose historically.
Your legacy will be tainted.
So for me, I could
never do the wrong thing
by another person, however,
I do not take the liberal point of view
on every social issue.
I do not believe that,
I believe that we've
gone too far in America
by giving kids trophies if
they come in fifth place.
I would just not, I don't have
the liberal point of view.
I do not believe in unions.
That is not, I don't think
that that's a good idea.
I think taking the fair
market out of it is bad.
I come from the Soviet Union.
I know what happens when
you go too far, right?
I think that there's a
lot of laziness in China
that people don't talk about
because of those undertones
and certain, especially
if they aren't emerging
in the middle class, they
started at the, right?
I think you will lose if you are scared
to put out your two cents.
Here's the number one thing
I will tell you for you
and anybody else who's
listening who's playing
in this game.
When you die on a sword,
it's much more fun to
die on your own sword.
So when you lose by living
a public life on an issue
that you didn't fully
believe in to begin with,
it's gonna hurt double.
As far as people leaving comments,
that doesn't even penetrate my mindset
and both ways, both ways.
Most of my comments is I'm the greatest.
I'm the greatest human
being that ever lived.
I'm the greatest.
Doesn't penetrate just as much
as somebody saying I'm wrong
or I'm a charlatan or they hate me,
both the same which is I'm appreciative
anybody's paying attention to begin with.
I'm grateful and that's where
it kind of stops and starts.
Somebody anonymous on the
internet saying I suck
or that I'm supposed, you
know better than that.
Really?
- My one cent is don't live
by other people's comments
but at the same time listen to them.
- Always.
Always.
You have to be thoughtful.
You can never get too
high on your own supply
and that's, I was saying
that same thing which is
whether they say I'm the
greatest or I'm the worst,
it's one and the same and I
think people are selective.
They love the positive
feedback and they block
the negative feedback.
I probably spend a little more
time on the negative feedback
than the positive feedback
because I wanna be thoughtful
and I never wanna become
a caricature of myself
where I'm getting too high on myself
but I also don't over stress
around the negative feedback
'cause I'm empathetic.
I understand why they're giving it to me.
Go ahead.
- So yeah, another actual
question I wanna ask,
for myself and also a lot of
kids who are doing it here,
we talked a lot about China
but what about New York?
So kids like me, we're foreign
kids fresh out of boat,
we wanna make it here
especially in New York,
everybody dreams about New York.
- [Gary] Yes.
- Like how, like what does it
take to make it in New York?
- I think it takes the same
thing that it takes to make it
in Beijing or anywhere
in the world, Tel Aviv,
like it's the same old game.
You have to assess the situation,
you have to understand
what value you can provide
and you have to understand
what your ambitions and goals are.
I mean, look, I think that
places like London or Tel Aviv
for that matter or Beijing,
Shanghai and on and on and on,
these are special places.
This is where a lot of people are.
This is where the A+ talent
is and it's congregating
and every situation is different.
I think the one great thing America has
is it's got a lot of
shortcomings like any other part
of the world but the
government intervention
on entrepreneurship and
capitalism is far less
which creates a much
more even playing field
which is an awfully exciting
and intoxicating feeling.
It just is, it just is.
I think where American
business men and women
get confused about being
successful in China
and I've watched so many of them
and it must be funny for
you actually going through
that transition and
watching everybody come in
with a lot of puffy chests
and getting annihilated
is they underestimate the market,
they underestimate the
skillset of the people
and the actual pure bred entrepreneurship
but what they also
underestimate is the government.
Period.
End of story.
I have the luxury of being born in a place
where that was very much
the case so it's always been
in the back of my mind.
China is not America.
You have to be very thoughtful
of your relationships
with the government or you
will not succeed at the level
that you decide you're gonna
succeed at or more importantly
it sucks you in to a certain level
and then it really hurts your feelings.
So I think making it in New York,
for somebody in China who's a
young kid fresh off the boat,
is very exciting because
some of the things
that they've always thought
were in play are actually
not a negative in this market
and that's obviously very exciting.
- [Malik] Great, thank you.
- But you do have the China
card even in New York.
You have to play your advantages.
- [Malik] True.
- Whatever you do.
People who were born here,
they have friends and do some
things you don't understand.
You have a shortcoming
but you have a card.
- The value added, right?
So bring what you have to
here instead of like being --
- Brother.
It's huge.
It's huge.
The amount of A and B list
business people I know
that are desperate to form
relationships within the US
with Chinese kids, luminaries,
influencers, KOL's,
business people, the biggest
reason that I'm not building
my brand in China is time.
Time of being on the ground
and so there's a lot of people
who have that issue.
It's an enormous advantage to
be able to speak the dialect,
anybody who right now can
speak both those languages
is off to the fucking
races and the reality is
there's a hell of a lot
more Chinese that are able
to do it than Americans for now, right?
That will change over the next 20 years
as we start introducing it way more
into the education
system and the education
in America changes.
Most of the kids that I know
that are eight, nine and 10
that can speak Mandarin
are not doing it within their school,
they're doing it outside of their school
and so I think we'll see more
of that as Americans realize
that's a cost of entry
to win on a global stage
unless technology catches up.
I actually think by the time
we teach everybody translation
we've got it in our ear.
Like I think I'm going
to mainland China --
- Yeah, but it goes to the soft skill,
understanding the
culture is more important
than understanding Mandarin.
- Always.
Always!
- So here I have a really
good follow up question, Gary.
- [Gary] Please.
- This is really, really
important for us 'cause,
so we're talking, we
have influence in China.
We built it with a lot of
empathy, patience and time.
We didn't just go viral like this.
We were, his story, my story,
he's from the dorms here in
New York trying to make videos
and slowly us building
different kinds of formats
and it took us time and
patience to enter China
and show them the foreigner
point of view about China,
that's what we do.
Our main selling point
China is we show for,
like Chinese people,
how we enjoy or appreciate or think
of different Chinese trends.
- [Gary] I understand.
- So it's been very great,
however, my bigger dream,
personal dream is I wanna,
I think the world is so much more open
to more people to see this
country itself besides
the Chinese people so our biggest dream
is to bring it here to
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
to show more people what
is life in China like
and though we build a brand
called Why China with capital Y,
Y China?
But again, as you said,
to enter a new market and their place,
it takes, personally I
grew up 10 years in China,
I'm completely non-westernized
in many of my thinking.
I haven't been involved in
Facebook as much as I have
but I've been spending 99% of my time
on the Chinese social networks and 1%,
so with that time and empathy
needed to enter this market
with our content to show the world,
to show Americans per
se what is China like,
what are things that attract
Americans about China
that are currently relevant,
could be in the next two or three years?
What are the main topics
that you think I should spend exploring?
Because I don't wanna do everything.
I cannot show everything.
- So, look, I think the
biggest problem with America
is it's so American biased, right?
America's biggest shortcoming is
that it's been the leader
of the world for too long
and it's gotten high off its own supply.
America's answer to
anything when somebody else
is doing something well is that
they're cheating or corrupt.
It's a very big, very big vulnerability.
I think, the reason I love the Olympics,
the reason I love social media,
open communication solves every issue.
It's just true.
So to me, I just think it's the truth.
I think what you need
to do if you want that
is you need to become the
practitioner and executor
in a YouTube, Facebook,
Instagram, SnapChat, podcast world
the same way you are in
a Weibo, WeChat world.
So to me, I don't think
it's about the content.
I think as long as you tell the truth,
people are fascinated by you, I think,
well let me give you a
couple of things I would do.
I would definitely do
interviewing people on the street
around things that are
happening in America.
A video that would do very
well in the US on social media
is a one minute video mash
up of seven people's answers
on Instagram of what people
in China think about Instagram
and you doing the clever
job of showing seven people
that have never heard of it
or seven people talking about
well they loved it when
they did a semester at UCLA.
So I think taking content
that is happening in the US,
like asking, I think 40
people for three minutes
answering their thoughts
on LeBron James in China
is an interesting insight.
So taking things that
are trending in America
and asking and making videos,
one to five minute videos
of normal Chinese citizens, young and old,
giving their two cents.
If you called it like Two
Yen or something like that
(group chuckles)
it would be super, right?
It'd be really interesting for Americans
to see the perception of their
brand and culture outside.
- You're right on, you're right on
because what's got Raz so
popular in China is the fact
that he was talking about things trending.
The opposite, exactly the flip mirror.
- [Gary] 100%.
- Yeah, okay, and then what about,
I wanna use the time I have
with you Gary is that Vox, Vice,
they make these kind of internal,
more deep, more informative
but also being realistic
documentaries, right?
And we actually did some
shows showing me working
in Chinese, being a Chinese delivery boy,
working Chinese trains
during Chinese New Year.
I was being very documentary level,
like really trying heavily
to show people the real life.
Is that also the direction
that the Americans
would like to see?
- Humans wanna see truth.
That's why documentaries work.
That's why new platforms,
when they emerged,
documentaries always over index.
That's why Netflix is
doing so well with them.
The truth always wins
and then we start melting
it and making it less truth
but the truth is always the answer.
- Okay, we are performing
better on Facebook
than our interview videos
but again I'm just saying --
- Don't get caught up in
short term social media
analytics as an indicator to what works.
My YouTube channel,
views on my daily blog,
haven't moved in nearly a year.
By all, by all metrics, not working.
I'm just completely unphased.
I'm aware 'cause I pay
attention to my shit
but I'm not going to pander to creating
something that doesn't
feel authentic to me
to get $200,0000 views for an epi.
That has no value in the long game.
- So stick to ourselves,
be real, do our content --
- It's always gonna be the best answer.
Alright, I gotta run.
Thank you, guys.
