Gary Vaynerchuk

“I'm pretty good at sticking to what I know. You don't see me social commentating on health-care or presidential debates. I talk about what I know because I'm petrified of being wrong.”

“When the tech geeks talk, I pay close attention.”

“When I hear people debate the ROI of social media? It makes me remember why so many business fail. Most businesses are not playing the marathon. They're playing the sprint. They're not worried about lifetime value and retention. They're worried about short-term goals.”

“I definitely think there's some way to understand how people emotionally feel about somebody, but I don't think data collects it. They're not going to click your bit.ly link or click your TweetMeme retweet every time.”

“Even though I'm a hype man myself, I like the practicality of it all. People who understand how to turn a profit. At the end of the day, this is still business so I'm looking for real practical knowledge of how to actually make money, not necessarily raise it.”

“Word of mouth works now, much more than ever. @-reply every single person.”

“I think the acquisition of consumers might be on the verge of being mapped. The battlefield is going to be retention and lifetime value.”

“I find it fascinating that a lot of business books that do well are from people who've never made any money in business.”

“Social media requires that business leaders start thinking like small-town shop owners. This means taking the long view and avoiding short-term benchmarks to gauge progress. It means allowing the personality, heart and soul of the people who run all levels of the business to show.”

“IQ is a commodity, data is a commodity. I'm far more interested in watching people interact at a restaurant with their smartphone. We can all read 'Tech Crunch,' 'Ad Age.' I would rather be living in the trenches. I would rather be going to Whole Foods in Columbus Circle to watch people shop with their smartphones.”

“As much as I love crisp, clean whites, there's always a time for rich but balanced Chardonnays with oak, especially at Thanksgiving.”

“Best wine if you're stranded on a deserted island? 1982 Salon Champagne.”

“99.5 percent of the people that walk around and say they are a social media expert or guru are clowns. We are going to live through a devastating social media bubble.”

“If you talk about Cabernet and Merlot-based value between $10 and $25, I will tell you that Bordeaux is the best value in the world.”

“The reason we love our parents is because they loved us first. Every single company should take this advice.”

“Social Media= Business. Period.”

“A broad trend I'm completely obsessed with is mobile commerce. Like completely. I'm completely convinced that everybody's going to be buying from their mobile devices. Whoever can claim that space or be in that space, I'm very interested in.”

“I am surprised by how not-adopted the video reply has been. What keeps other people from doing it, I think, is that they think a video comes across as 'I'm cool, look at how many e-mails I get.' That perception doesn't scare me, because I know who I am.”

“I would argue heavily that the time that has been allocated to social used to come from television, and people are benefitting from it. People who are saying, 'Aw, you're spending all your time on Facebook, or all your time on Twitter,' I'd like to understand what the person used to do with that time.”

“My natural inclination to be improv rather than an educated character serves me well.”