Gary Vaynerchuk: “The golden era of the individual is here”

Marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk told audiences at the BRIDGE Summit that the Middle East is entering a transformative moment where a single person can build a billion-dollar business from their own influence. Speaking in Abu Dhabi, he said the shift is being driven by the rapid democratisation of attention, the evolution of online commerce and the rise of blockchain technologies.

“The attention of the world continues to migrate more and more towards social networks,” he said. “In the last three years, social networks have become more democratised. We are now in the interest media era.” Algorithms, he added, now reward content rather than follower count: “Someone could literally start with no followers, and their fourth TikTok could get 13 million views.”

Quickly starting brands

Vaynerchuk pointed to TikTok Shop, Shopify and live shopping as catalysts enabling entrepreneurs to bypass traditional retailers altogether. “Humans can now start brands and sell them to people in a way that was not possible 20 years ago,” he said.

He also highlighted blockchain as a structural shift that allows creators to capture more economic value directly. “I can sell digital products or access to me and not pay a credit card processing company a platform in between.”

Calling this moment “a golden era… a golden half century of the individual capturing the lion’s share of the economics,” he urged Middle East CEOs to build personal brands alongside corporate ones. Leaders who avoid visibility, he warned, face a “missed opportunity for their business to get more awareness.”

On the rise of AI-generated personalities, Vaynerchuk predicted the influencer landscape will shift dramatically. “Today, we’re 95 per cent real life, 5 per cent AI influencers. But within 36 months, it’ll be 60–40.”

“We’re in an era where an individual person can build a horizontal and a vertical business,” he said. “And we’re here.”