Gary Vaynerchuk | What His Mom Did to Get Their Family Out of the Soviet Union

Before Gary Vaynerchuk became a digital media mogul, CEO of a 2,000-person marketing empire, and one of the loudest voices on the internet, he was a three-year-old Soviet refugee living in a studio apartment in Queens with eight family members in rotation. In this deeply personal and unguarded conversation, the entrepreneur behind VaynerMedia sits down with David Begnaud to share the story of the woman who believed in him when no one else could, and how that belief came wrapped in unconditional warmth and a refusal to let bad grades touch his self-esteem.

Gary opens up about escaping the Soviet Union at three years old, a place he describes as being like North Korea today, where his parents had to give up everything just to leave and his mother hid a piece of jewelry in his stockings like a cocaine mule. He talks about arriving in America with a couple hundred bucks, living in Edison, New Jersey, and watching his father Sasha work as a stock boy in a liquor store before building Shopper's Discount Liquors from $3 million to $60 million. He shares what it was like to be the lemonade stand kid at seven, the baseball card dealer at 14 who could outsell grown men, and the high school student who got grounded every single report card yet somehow never let it hurt his self-esteem because his mother Tamara celebrated kindness over achievement.

Gary also shares why the knitted Jets jersey his mom made him when he couldn't afford a real one will hang in the stadium when he buys the New York Jets. Alongside it, a plaque will say from a boy that couldn't afford a jersey to buying the whole damn team.

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ABOUT THIS PODCAST:
The Person Who Believed In Me is hosted by David Begnaud, founder and CEO of Do Good Crew and often called "America's storyteller." In each episode, David sits down with world-class guests to ask one simple question: Who believed in you before the world did? Big names. Honest stories. Relatable takeaways. Different paths — same question.

David is also a CBS News contributor and host of the weekly segment Beg Knows America, which airs every Monday morning.

Host: David Begnaud

Guest: Gary Vaynerchuk

Executive Producer: David Begnaud, Olivier Delfosse, Justin McGoldrick

Booker: Sully Bloch

Director of Photography: Foster Parks

Live Production Technician: Joseph Gabay & Will Whitley (Statik Creative)

Social: Kylee Anderson, Maxim Trofimenko, Gracie Pekrul

Theme Music: Slipstream

Post-Production: Longwave Digital & David & Luana Co.

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