Building world-class teams, with VaynerX’s Chief Heart Officer, Claude Silver

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It seemed like too simple a question.

Claude Silver had been toiling hard for years at the tireless grind of modern advertising.

One day, she realized she’d simply had enough. 

She approached her boss – superstar business influencer Gary Vaynerchuk - unsure of what his reaction would be.

The driving force of a growing media empire, Vaynerchuk was known for his hard-driving “hustle culture” and direct communication style.

She was surprised then, that his response came in the form of a basic, straightforward question. 

“So,” Gary asked, “what do you want to do?”

It immediately turned her to introspection.

“I only care about the heartbeat of this place,” she answered. “I only care about the people.”

Years later, when telling the origin story of her position as the world’s first Chief Heart Officer, the look of surprise and gratitude is still visible.

“And when it came time, and he was ready to create a role like this,” she says, “he called me. He listened.”

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In the West today, we tend to frame our goals in individual terms: we want to be happy, healthy, wealthy. Even relationship goals are framed in terms of their benefit to the individual.

But over the long run, an individual can only achieve so much.

Even in the world of chimps, primatologists have long known that a coalition of three or four can defeat the strongest of lone alphas.

Harvard’s famous Grant Study – an 85-year longitudinal study by its Medical School on what contributes to happiness - finds that, in the end, positive relationships matter most.

The same pattern is found in business, government, lifestyle, and community: the bigger the goal, the more it ultimately rests on the dynamics of collectives. Try as we might, it’s hard to escape the fact that we are, in Aristotle’s words, “the social animal.”

Far from being a relief, this magnifies our challenges. Others can be heaven, but they can also be hell. Power struggles and miscommunications. Shifting alliances and conflicting values. The endless tug of war between power and morality. In the 21^st century, these challenges come at us faster, as the cultural gap between generations keeps widening.

Left to build their own teams from scratch, entrepreneurs, in particular, tend to find “human resources” to be their hardest challenge. This also makes it a precious commodity.  John D. Rockefeller once said he’d pay more for the ability to “deal with people” than “any other under the sun.”

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My interview with Claude uncovers many of the dynamics of this elusive discipline.

She now serves over 2,000 employees stationed worldwide, making sure everyone maintains a coherent emotional connection to Vayner and its mission.

Her insights stand out most in the subtleties: the tone of direct communications, the frequency of human touchpoints, blending positive psychology with the requirements of a competitive, sometimes ruthless industry. Culture often adds up in the margins.

In this conversation, we discuss why empathy isn’t just about “the feelings,” why GaryV removed the word “hustle” from his playbook, hiring for character and training for skill, why culture “additions” are better than “fits”, the dangerous hidden assumptions behind DEI, and much more.

Claude is a trove of wisdom for anyone building advanced human beehives, and I’m extremely thankful for having had the pleasure of learning from her.

You can start with this short clip on why focusing on psychology fundamentals is critical when looking for the right teammates.