Vaynerchuk was born in Babruysk in the Soviet Union (today part of Belarus), and immigrated to the United States in 1978 at the age of three. He is of Jewish descent. Growing up, Vaynerchuk lived in New York City's Queens borough and later moved to Edison, New Jersey.
At age 14, he joined his family's retail-wine business. After his family moved, he graduated from North Hunterdon High School. In 1998, Vaynerchuk graduated with a bachelor's degree from Mount Ida College in Newton, Massachusetts.
He graduated from North Hunterdon High School.
In 1998, Vaynerchuk graduated with a bachelor's degree from Mount Ida College in Newton, Massachusetts.
After graduating from college in 1998, Vaynerchuk took charge of his father's liquor store, Shopper's Discount Liquors. He renamed the store to Wine Library, launched sales online and in 2006 started Wine Library TV, a daily webcast on YouTube covering wine. He grew the business from $3 million a year to $60 million a year by 2003. In August 2011, Vaynerchuk stepped away from the wine business to build VaynerMedia, a digital ad agency.
Vaynerchuk is the chairman of VaynerX, a communications company that holds media properties and technology companies.
In 2009, Vaynerchuk, along with his brother AJ Vaynerchuk, founded VaynerMedia, a social media–focused digital agency. The company provides social media and strategy services to Fortune 500 companies. In 2015, VaynerMedia was named one of Ad Age's A-List agencies. With 600 employees in 2016, VaynerMedia grossed $100 million in revenue. The company also partnered with Vimeo to connect brands and filmmakers for digital content.
In 2017, Vaynerchuk formed The Gallery, later renamed Gallery Media Group, a VaynerX subsidiary company that houses PureWow, male-oriented news outlet ONE37pm.com, and other media properties.
Vaynerchuk co-founded restaurant-reservation app, Resy, which was acquired by American Express in 2019.He is also a co-founder of winery Empathy Wines, which was acquired by Constellation Brands in 2020.