The Chris Cuomo Project - BONUS: Why Gary Vee Says Parents Are RUINING Their Kids

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Gary Vaynerchuk (CEO, VaynerMedia) joins Chris Cuomo for a raw conversation about why young Americans are struggling despite having more opportunities than ever. Gary V argues that overprotective parenting, participation trophies, and a lack of accountability have created a generation that expects success without work—while parents use their children's achievements for their own self-esteem. The discussion tackles the hard truths about why 22-year-olds are moving back home, why kids are protesting causes they don't understand, and how America has become addicted to blame instead of personal responsibility. Vaynerchuk shares his immigrant perspective on merit, consequences, and why he believes the real pandemic isn't COVID—it's the death of accountability. From parents wanting to attend job interviews to the weaponization of fear in politics, this conversation exposes uncomfortable realities about modern American culture. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You want to know the truth about what makes you better as a person, as a parent, or politics? Oh boy, do I have the guy for you. Gary Vee. Chris Cuomo here. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. Gary Vee's got 45 million followers, and he's one of the only people I can say this about. He deserves them. He is putting things out into the world that a lot of people don't want to hear, but they are the truth about how you tap into your own potential, how you help your kids, how you're hurting your parents, and how we can get to a better place, not just as entrepreneurs but as citizens, in a country that he has real concerns about. A special interview with a special talent, Gary Vaynerchuk. It's funny I'm sitting here laughing with Gary Vaynerchuk.

It's great to have Gary Vee with us. You know, entrepreneur extraordinaire, yes, but so much more. First of all, thank you for being on the show. Really appreciate it. Really, genuinely. You are one of the people I can say, you deserve your following. Thank you.

Because, yeah, you're great on business, but you're about personal potential. Yes. And that's why I wasn't afraid tonight. I'm not gonna drag you through political mire, but this is an extension of how we see ourselves and what we become about. We were talking in the break that I have a 22 year old,

I love her to death, she's more talented than I ever imagined my genes could produce. She and her friends are up against it. The idea that I was gonna wind up home after college, zero percent chance, I wouldn't have been allowed. But they don't have the opportunities that were expected after the big education and the big bills. How do you see it?

That they have more opportunity than we had. Really? Really, and I'll explain what I mean by that. Your point is well taken. A lot of people that are watching, by the way, this is why I was yelling about college 15 years ago in my content, because the guarantee of that piece of paper

to get you a job I saw even back in 2010 was declining. The world was changing. The world has changed. And so to your point and to the point that people that counter what I say, which is they have more opportunity, which I'll get into in a second, is a lot of us and definitely our parents' generation, you got the paper, you got a job. On the flip side, Chris, do you know how many millions of 23 year olds are making millions of dollars

on social media? Right. What has happened is well to do kids that are going to good, there's a new economy. Like, I'm sorry that upper, you know, upper middle class and wealthy kids can't just moonwalk into six figure jobs, but you know what's great about America and capitalism and merit is it constantly changes. And so there is unlimited millions,

not hundreds of thousands, millions of kids that are using TikTok, that are using social, that are using Shopify, that are using all these new variables. Live social shopping has exploded. You've got a level of merit for every kid that comes from a well-to-do family that can- That's someone on the hustle.

But you know, I see them more as, and please correct it, Gary, but I see them more as victims than as predators in that new environment. Like these kids can't watch a movie unless they're like this. And I'm like, if you don't like the movie, we'll watch another one.

Oh no, no, no, nothing's happening right now. But you'll appreciate this. We had options too. Like I think us parents in this generation forget that our parents held us accountable if we acted on things that they didn't want us to do. If we stole a Playboy at 7-Eleven or if we drank alcohol, we got grounded.

The issue these kids are dealing with is a generation of parents that are not willing to have consequences and ramifications for their actions. If you're a parent watching right now and you're completely pissed off about TikTok and you think it's bad for your child, tell them to take it off their phone. I'm gonna get a phone call in a minute and be like,

yeah Gary, but they're gonna, the parent's gonna cry. They're gonna be like, but Gary, there's social pressure. Like everybody's on TikTok. I don't want my kid to be weird. Our parents didn't do that crap, Chris. They didn't care about the other parents. We got grounded. Heck, you know this.

We got spanked, slapped. Some kids that are watching got really, there was a belt in my house when I was a kid. Like I just think that we've gotten to a place where- Was that better? Look, my point of view is that purple's best and red and blue both suck, right? I'm sorry, look.

So- I love this character. Love this character. Was it better? Mom and dad are watching right now. The way Tamara and Sasha Vaynerchuk parented me was, I knew there was consequences. There was ramifications.

I didn't even contemplate to disrespect my mom. Chris. You think we love it too much? Is that what it is? No, I think we overreacted to whatever we didn't like that we got. It's the same thing with politics. Good parenting is when you,

if you disagree with your parent or your partner in business and they're over here, the natural reaction is to go over here, but the reality is if you go here, you get the mission accomplished. I think that a lot of us went too far left and right. I'm telling you right now, these kids have more options. Chris, they have more options. It is so easy to make money if you're willing to stick with me here everyone, work.

The problem is, is that, watch this, you're gonna love this, your daughter, you said is 22? She's part of that generation that they didn't work in high school. They teen toured, they sleep away camped. They like did, like, people, like, I didn't know a single kid at 15 in my neighborhood in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, I didn't know a single kid at 15 in my neighborhood in Hunterdon County, New Jersey

That didn't have a job now. I don't know a 15 year old that has a job like we've really over corrected And we're over coddled eighth place trophies and all this stuff. And meanwhile, listen I'm talking about merit like you're back to my content. I'm mr Compassion and empathy like I love a good feeling. I love over-loving. I like a lot of things that are soft, but we can't screw with merit. We can't screw with merit.

Like, this is why business is so fun to me. It's the closest thing to sports. Sports is the best because as all these parents on this beautiful island we're sitting on right now, they get involved in school, they get involved in school, they get involved in all this stuff, jobs. I get, do you know I had a kid who wanted his mom to come to his interview the other day?

This is where this is going. Like literally can I bring my mommy to the interview? I'm like, I've got good news for you. You don't need to come to this interview. It's a wrap. I'm like, I'm sorry, brother. But sports is amazing, because if little Johnny from a townhouse

on the Upper West Side sucks at basketball, he sucks at basketball. I'll tell you what, though. We've seen something else with that also. I don't want to go too far afield, but I can't tell you how many friends I have who've sacrificed weekends, money, and vacations for years from when the kid is like 10

until when they're 17 with all these travel teams. The kids never play in college, never go pro, and some of them are good in high school and some of them still kind of suck unless they go to a small school, but they've spent all this time on them. Now you're getting to the good stuff. You wanna know what's really happening

that people don't wanna admit? Too many parents use their children for their own self-esteem. Too many parents. See, I'm a self-loather, so I don't have to worry about that, Gary. You're a good father. I just want my kids to not be like,

every time I see a sign they're different than me, I'm like. You and I have been very lucky, and like in different ways to be around circle. I grew up very fortunate. I was born in the Soviet Union. And so, when I came to America, my dad is the hero, took his family, took me as his only child at the time,

but he also forced the whole rest of the family. We're like, we're getting out of the USSR. We came to the US first in Regal Park in Queens. And then I predominantly grew up in Edison, New Jersey. Like the reality is, is that I grew up in very humble environments, and then later in the last 20 years, the way my career evolved,

I've been in the dirt, and I've been super in the clouds in the penthouse. You know this, like there's a lot of ramifications with growing up in a wealthy environment. Like these parents you're talking about, like the concept of even being on a travel team was nuts to me growing up in a wealthy environment. Like these parents you're talking about, like the concept of even being on a travel team was nuts to me growing up. Nobody had that kind of money.

Like, and these parents, you know, these bumper stickers on the back, honor student, the Harvard, you know, like parents are overwhelmingly overvaluing the opinions of others about their children instead of watching who their children are and moving that way. The great gift of my life was that I was an immigrant

that got D's and F's, and when other people had opinion about that in the Russian community, because they were all trying to get A's, that's how you got out, right? Education's the way out. My mom could give a crap about what anyone thought about me. She knew who I was and parented me in that environment.

And like, she reverse engineered me. She was like, this kid is not good at school. So she looked at me when I was 14 and says, you need to work now. You're not good at school, you work. And I had to work in my dad's liquor store. All of a sudden the fun on the weekends and the summer vacations were gone.

And those finding that middle, my mom made me think, I thought I was the summer vacations were gone. And those finding that middle, my mom made me think, I thought I was the greatest human that ever existed, but at any turn, when I did the wrong thing, I had consequences. And so you can love your child and make them think they're great, but don't be delusional.

My mom didn't tell me things like, all these parents are like, you can do anything. That's crazy. Most people can't do shit. They can't do anything these parents, you can do anything, that's crazy. Most people can't do shit, they can't do anything. Like you can do anything? No, most kids are not gonna be in the NBA. Most kids are not Beyonce. Follow your passion.

Most people are not Zucks. You should follow what gets you paid. You should follow the mix. In your 20s, you should take high risk. That's when you can. But again, to your point, a lot of kids are coming home to mommy and daddy because mommy and dad are letting them come home.

Our generation wouldn't let you come home. You go live with four of your friends in a crap hole in the Bronx. Like we have over coddled an entire generation. We got questions for you. I have a question for Gary and yourself, Chris. My observation, it seems like the younger generation, there's a lot of kids that are out there, what I call kids, 20-year-olds, 25-year-olds, protesting for something I don't

think they really, truly understand about what they're protesting. It seems like. A lot of these young kids, they're looking for something to hang on to. Yes, I agree with you. So when you look out there, you see that. I know where you're going with this. And I think about this all the time.

There's an expression, a phrase that somebody gave me, Ellika Laban, she was on the show the other night. She talks about Iran all the time. She's a UK-trained lawyer. She's really bright. She's worried about us with fundamentalism because that's what took down Persia and created the bureaucracy that's Iran now. And she says, appropriating oppression.

When you don't have a sense of purpose because you haven't had that drive of figuring out your hustle and your grind, you seek out what seems to make somebody else a victim and make it your own. So that you have kids running around in Los Angeles right now, and some of them aren't kids, who believe that fighting for Palestine

is a righteous cause for them, even though they can't find it on the map. Is that an extension of what you're talking about? Of course. But that's an extension of many other things. I mean, that's an extension of, we have politicians on both sides of the aisle who talk like children.

Like the reason he's chill, I mean, I read, just to give context to the audience, because I have so many social media followers, I'm getting somewhere in the ballpark of 10,000 direct messages a day. Many in the- So why you didn't get back to me? That's probably right.

15 to 35 year olds heavy, but excuse the gamut. They're disenfranchised because look, like are we ever gonna like just take a beat from this moment we're in and all take a step back and like, do we feel good about looking up to anything that's going on? Like, is this like proper civility? How are we telling our children to be nice?

I mean, it's really weird. Like, with all due respect, it's super weird out there. Meaning like, they don't have anything to look up to because everybody has weaponized fear. Chris, everyone has weaponized fear. And I mean, let's be very frank, kids have always protested nicely and rioted, not nicely, about things they don't understand

since the beginning of time. Yes. Like, you know what's funny? I was a bad student. I was one of them. Yeah, literally, I just said I was a bad student. Ironically, the one thing I was good at was history. I use history for AI.

Right now, everyone will talk about AI. Do you know that when electricity was invented, most people didn't put it in their home because the word on the street was there demons in it? Demonization, that's where it comes from. This is real. Humans would not put electricity in their home because they were scared there were demons in it

when it was invented. And so that's what's gonna happen with AI right now. Everyone's so scared of AI. What politicians, parents, bosses and corporations have done very effectively in the last 30 years is weaponized fear in a way that's profound. In fact, so much of what's going on with children right now is that parents are more scared than ever.

You know, you start going back to when news became a business, not a public service. All of a sudden, you throw one case of a kidnapping in New York in the late 70s on the news and the ratings go through the roof. And everyone's like, you know, this is like real talk. Like, we have to dig back backwards. But do I think that people are looking for a place to belong? Yes, I do.

Why do you think sports does so well? That's a positive version of belonging. Like, yes, I think we've lost our way in a lot of ways. Doesn't that create an opportunity for people though, to create, yes, fear, demagogue. There's a reason that the Greeks didn't give us a positive opposite to the word demagogue, right? Playing on fears, playing on prejudice works well.

Hard to do it the other way. You see a riot, you never see a hug in. That's why Jesus's message is so powerful to so many because of its demonstration. But is there an opportunity, Gary, for someone to do the opposite of playing to fear and to be about something big and positive? By the way, I don't know how democratic strategists

are confused about this. The only time Democrats win is when they sell hope. What do you think Obama and JFK and Clinton were like? Like, yes, I mean, and by the way, there's a reason we build statues for Martin Luther King and Don. Like love is undefeated in the end, but it usually comes back late, like the Pacers.

You know, like I think people like, history is very clear on all these issues Very clear on all these issues my big thing for everybody is watching this program is Stop pontificating and debating on Facebook and start doing something like we are in the greatest era of finger pointing And we hate a good thumb Chris. We hate thumbs It's everybody's fault It's literally I mean I read social media at scale. I have a 3000 person marketing company. We do, like, this is what I do for a living.

I get a pulse of where things are going. We are, you wanna know the real pandemic? The real pandemic is, forget about the kids. This 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 year olds that are watching right now have been remarkably good at pointing fingers, not thumbs. Do you know that I tracked over 30,000 Twitter accounts, real humans, not bots, who have literally in the last 12 years, eight years,

said they're voting for Trump, then they said they're voting for Biden, then they said they're voting for Trump, and it's all under the same theme. He didn't do anything for me the last four years, I'm going the other way. He didn't do, like we are very far away from when JFK said, don't ask what I'm gonna do for you,

what are you doing for the country? We are in a place where we blame our boss, our parents. What about all the people that blame their parents in perpetuity? At what age do we become grownups? At what age does the trauma of your childhood become appropriate that you are now capable to go to therapy, to surround yourself with more positive,

like when are we grown? Is it 22? Is it 30? Is it 40? Is it 40? Is it, look at yourself and say what can I do? We have 50 year olds sitting right now having coffee, blaming their mom who's 80 about stuff.

Like when do we take on accountability? Accountability is dead in this country. I get, I also understand now why you want to buy the Jets. Because they've sucked so long that you figure- I gotta take control. Do something. By the way, and I thought of this when I- Although it also could prove that you hate yourself.

Well, it could be. I mean, look, sports, you know what's so funny? As you know, I feel like humans are so incapable of having a civil conversation, that politics is so disinteresting to me, but the reason I understand it is because of sports. When I tell you how much I hate Patriot fans, Chris, I hate everybody in Indiana right now as a Knicks fan.

I hate them all, and I actually mean it. So I can feel it. So I's like, so I can feel it. So I understand why people get into these debates, but that's silly, that's not real life, that's sports. The fact that we have gotten so good at disliking each other, and here's just my last thing on politics, the audacity to think the world

should run the way you see it. People ask me, like, why don't you go heavy? And I'm like, I don't have the audacity to think that everyone should live based on my reality. Back to the cursing that you guys showed a bunch. When people leave me comments. That was dusty. Dusty, thank you. Thanks, Dusty.

I'm gonna get some DMs from that of like, I mean, I get it every day. I get messages like, Gary, I love your message but I can't share it with anybody. The cursing is devastating, it's disgusting. I don't get mad at them. I know that I grew up in the streets of Jersey and this is just real life to me.

And they grew up in a household. That, I mean, I grew up in a household where Tamara Vaynerchuk so demonized drugs, she was so Nancy Reagan out, I'd never contemplated doing a drug. But I don't look down on somebody who does cannabis. Like people live different lives, people have different contexts.

Look, there's an overarching wrong and right in a lot of ways, and history will always be the judge and the jury. But the idea that everyone should see the world the way, plus what about this one? This one I think you'll like based on, I've followed you for years. What about the capacity to change your mind?

Forget it. What is this double locked in line in the sentence? Death sentence. I'm only interested in changing my mind. Yeah. I'm only interested. It's one of the oldest philosophical and stoic values where great philosophers said,

I'm right until I'm not. I'm very much open to new information so I can change my mind. You do that today in the media or politics, you're a dead man. Gary, you deserve your following. I literally could talk to you for a week and a half. You are always welcome.

I know you're very busy. Anything I can ever do for you, I'm a call away. Thank you, my brother. Thank you for what you're putting into the world. Thank you for trying to make us better. Thank you. I appreciate you. Thank you for what you're putting into the world. Thank you for trying to make us better. I appreciate you. Thank you, brother. Thank you. Thank you, brother.

Gary Vee, so good, he only goes by a last initial. 45 million people pay attention for a reason. He is saying things that a lot of people don't wanna hear, but that doesn't mean they're not true. Thank you very much for subscribing and following here for a reason. He is saying things that a lot of people don't want to hear, but that doesn't mean they're not true. Thank you very much for subscribing and following here at the Chris Cuomo Project. Thank you for checking me out on News Nation, AP and 11P, every weekday night. Our substack, our free agent gear, it's all going toward allowing us to help people get

to a better place. So let's get after it.