00:00we absolutely do not need AR and VR in
00:04order to build the metaverse
00:10we've heard the term meta
00:11medical that term is actually 30 years
00:13old originally coined by Neil Stevenson
00:15in his book snow crash fast forward to
00:172022 and numerous companies are now
00:20building towards their version of the
00:21metaverse including Neil himself working
00:24on lamina 1 a blockchain company
00:25oriented around creators and while the
00:27present metaverse doesn't perfectly
00:29mimic what Steven said had envisioned we
00:31had to bring him in to discuss the
00:32design decisions he's making but also
00:34the evolving intersection between the
00:36metaverse and gaming the involvement of
00:37AR and VR the evolving role of Ip
00:40artificial intelligence and of course we
00:43had to ask him where he gets all of his
00:45I hope you enjoy this episode the
00:48content here is for informational
00:49purposes only should not be taken as
00:52legal business tax or investment advice
00:53or be used to evaluate any investment or
00:56security and is not directed at any
00:58investors or potential investors in any
01:00a16z fund for more details bca16d.com
01:15hey Neil welcome to the podcast it's
01:18great to be here thanks for inviting me
01:20well it's really great to have you and
01:22I'm excited to talk about the metaverse
01:24probably the topic you're sick of
01:25talking about at this point
01:28you certainly have heard of it you
01:30coined it around three decades ago so we
01:33will definitely be diving into that but
01:35before we do I wanted to get your take
01:37on a tweet that I saw recently I
01:39actually saw it last week and the Tweet
01:42says science fiction novelist is the
01:44highest impact position in the tech
01:46industry and will be of course crediting
01:48Francois Chalet who said that but what's
01:52your take on that any immediate
01:53reactions to that it's an interesting
01:56take and I think there might be
01:57something to it I've been talking about
01:59this for a while particularly with the
02:02Center for Science and the imagination
02:03at Arizona State University I was on a
02:06Channel years ago with Michael Crowe
02:08who's the president of Arizona State and
02:10he's he was kind of getting onto this
02:12theme we were talking about
02:15the fact that in some cases not all but
02:18some cases a science fiction novel can
02:20serve as a kind of template or a road
02:22map to organize the activities of a
02:25company or an open source group that's
02:28more effective than typical corporate
02:32communication strategies so if you look
02:34at a big company where there's a lot of
02:36different engineering teams and creative
02:38teams trying to coordinate their
02:40strategy there's a huge amount of energy
02:43and mind share that gets burned on just
02:47trying to keep everybody straight on you
02:50know with the same unifying Vision
02:52working toward the same plan and
02:55typically that takes the form of you
02:57know PowerPoint decks and endless
02:59meetings and discussions it seems that
03:01in some cases it's possible for a
03:03science fiction novel to kind of replace
03:05all of that if everyone reads the book
03:08everyone kind of gets it the actual kind
03:10of like a magnetic field that organizes
03:14all of the iron filings you know so
03:16they're kind of named in the same
03:17direction of course there's some songs
03:19fiction novels where that's not going to
03:21happen because they're set in a very
03:22distant future or they you know they
03:25just don't uh they're just not
03:27applicable there's other ones that that
03:29seem to have that effect in some cases
03:32and uh and so that so as a result of
03:37uh we actually set up a project to
03:40create a science fiction Anthology
03:42called hieroglyph that was came out in I
03:45think 2013 2014 that was meant to
03:48consist of stories that would that might
03:52have that kind of value or that utility
03:54to them yeah because I think a lot of
03:57people look to non-fiction for insight
04:01into reality but I think often we forget
04:04that we're storytelling creatures and
04:06that people within an organization I
04:08like that you use this idea of a magnet
04:10in order to get a line there there
04:12almost needs to be a degree of emotion
04:13there to really foresee some sort of
04:16future and I think what's been
04:18fascinating about many of your books is
04:20that they've stood the test of time if
04:22you use snow crash as an example three
04:24decades ago many of the things that you
04:26predicted within that novel have come to
04:29come to be whereas many companies
04:32because you brought up the idea that
04:33it's really hard to align people within
04:35companies they struggle to set a Mission
04:37or vision for a couple years that people
04:40can get behind so I think that
04:43alignment is really really interesting
04:47one analogous thing that we're seeing in
04:50the industry is this idea of the
04:52metaverse and many people are using this
04:54term I think there's a degree of
04:56disalignment in terms of what the hell
04:58that actually means I mean to give a
05:00couple examples are we in the metaverse
05:02as we're recording this conversation if
05:04there's an online auction is that in the
05:06metaverse if I'm staring at my phone for
05:09an hour intently watching Tick Tock am I
05:12in the metaverse and so as someone who
05:14coined the term and I know not everyone
05:15will agree with your definition or your
05:17perspective but I am curious to hear
05:19from you what do you think of as the
05:22metaverse per se in general to address
05:25the specific things that you mentioned
05:28um I think anything that's being used a
05:32um uh probably is not very metaverse
05:36like because in general when people talk
05:38about the metaverse they're talking
05:39about the next thing that's coming along
05:41and so if it exists today that suggests
05:44that maybe it's a pre largely a
05:46pre-metaverse thing but there are some
05:48exceptions that we can talk about in
05:50certain kinds of games and other
05:52experiences uh that I think are kind of
05:55on-ramps you know one of my one of the
05:58most basic ones is do we talk about the
06:01metaverse for it metaverse says plural
06:05and um so my my colleague Tony Parisi
06:10has got seven rules of the metaverse and
06:12rule number one is that there's only the
06:15metaverse there's not a bunch of
06:18metaverses so that for me is a strong
06:21indicator if I see someone talking about
06:24our metaverse or a metaverse yeah I
06:28immediately begin to question whether
06:30they really got it whereas if somebody
06:32he talks about Arts the thing what we're
06:35building in the metaverse
06:37that gives me more of a warm feeling
06:39about what they're doing and I think
06:42that's because a central idea of the
06:45metaverse at least in the book is that
06:47there is just one of them and that
06:49doesn't mean that it's all kind of the
06:51same thing everywhere far from it it's a
06:54incredibly diverse range of experiences
06:57but you can always get from one to the
07:01um by moving around in a single unitary
07:03space right there's a degree of
07:05interoperability right between one and
07:08I'm curious to hear your perspective on
07:10that though because I guess your point
07:13is that we haven't made it to the
07:14metaverse yet but many of the on-ramps
07:18you could say now whether it's gaming or
07:20social or degrees of immersion that we
07:22have online don't really have these
07:25connections right so so many of them are
07:28disparate from one another and so do you
07:30think that will change I know we're
07:32going to get into your company lamina
07:33one and I know there's other efforts by
07:36by parties in quote unquote the
07:38metaverse space I think there was a
07:39Consortium of 37 companies recently that
07:41came together to discuss this
07:43but to get back to the question do you
07:46see this changing because this has not
07:48been the precedent in the last you know
07:50couple decades I do see it changing
07:53there's not going to be one top-down big
07:55boss that says here's how it's all going
07:58to work it's going to be so the ad hoc
08:00Arrangements of people trying to work
08:02together I think that the closest things
08:05that we currently can see to metaverse
08:07like experiences are games like fortnite
08:10Roblox Minecraft where you've got a
08:13bunch of people running around in a
08:15space they're all experiencing the same
08:17space at the same time I mean there
08:22um but but the idea is there that you're
08:25you're going to a place and you're
08:27sharing it with other people they've got
08:29huge user bases and and because of the
08:33the revenue that that does generate and
08:36just the sheer amount of experience that
08:38those companies can rack up by running
08:41those operations from day to day you
08:43know they're kind of the leading
08:45candidates for coming together to build
08:46metaverse type experiences and I know
08:49that they're all actively thinking about
08:51this and how to do it and I suspect that
08:54they're talking to one another about how
08:56do we build a bridge from our game or
08:59our experience to your game so that
09:02person could go from one to the other it
09:05may take some years to to really come
09:08together but but I think it will come
09:11together and um you know I'm excited to
09:15uh to see it happen and maybe be part of
09:17it I'm curious to know though if you
09:19think the incentives are aligned for
09:20that future to be the future that we
09:22move towards because if you think about
09:24it from the let's say the game developer
09:26side some of those game developers may
09:29have incentives to not want to
09:31interoperate right to keep their users
09:32within their game and not move to
09:34another game and then you can also look
09:36at it from the consumer perspective that
09:38perhaps consumers or The Gamers
09:40themselves some of them may really want
09:42this interoperability but some of them
09:44may actually want those developers to
09:45focus on advancing that centralized game
09:48that they love so much and so I'm
09:50curious to know how you think about that
09:52and also I'm sure you've seen some of
09:54the pushback even within the Gaming
09:55Community around this idea of
09:57interoperability and the integration of
09:59web3 or some of these Open Standards and
10:01so what's your take on that uh there's a
10:06people talking past each other uh
10:09phenomenon where you've got game
10:11developers interacting with crypto Bros
10:15on social media and they don't always
10:18get along let's put it that's that's
10:20putting it modeling right so the game
10:23developer mentality for their position
10:26may be like this I'm a game developer I
10:31spent my whole career
10:33developing an advanced skill set that
10:36I'm very proud of is very important to
10:38me and building unified experiences
10:41for people to to play in
10:45um and every aspect of the art Direction
10:48the sound design game play the back
10:52story the programming the engineering
10:55it's all just exquisitely tuned in to
10:58deliver a particular kind of experience
11:02um and um so when somebody shows up you
11:06know wanting to bring extraneous uh
11:10things into my game it's bad on two
11:13levels and one is just on an engineering
11:17level she even suggests that kind of
11:20total ignorance of how games actually
11:22work so it's kind of in the not even
11:25wrong category of bad ideas and the
11:29other objection is aesthetic
11:32um so it's it's just kind of an
11:34Abomination to think of you know
11:36bringing a lightsaber into Assassin's
11:40Creed or you know something like that
11:42and it's an insult to
11:45um to game developers
11:48um and it's reasonable for them to feel
11:50insulted by those suggestions games like
11:54that maybe a little bit like a Ren Faire
11:57you know you go to a Renaissance Fair
12:00agreeing to step into a medieval world
12:03for a few hours because you dig that you
12:06like being in that environment and it's
12:08just it's not acceptable to
12:11um uh to uh have kind of modern
12:14distractions in that environment on the
12:17other hand there's other games that are
12:19that are popular extremely popular which
12:21I've already mentioned you know fortnite
12:25um Minecraft and so on those games are
12:29creative mashups by Design
12:32so you can go into fortnite and you can
12:35see a four-person team that consists of
12:39Iron Man and John Wick and Obi-Wan
12:43Kenobi and the Silver Surfer and they're
12:47all running around playing together and
12:50um it's fine it's it's uh no one has a
12:55problem with that because it's just part
12:57of the vibe of those kinds of games
13:01um and that vibe that kind of mashup
13:03Vibe is explicitly what's described in
13:06the book snow crash as you know how the
13:09the metaverse kind of looks there is a
13:11future for interoperability in the
13:15context of those mashup style games
13:19um and that it's out of those kinds of
13:21games that we'll begin to see
13:22interoperability that doesn't mean that
13:25it's going to be mandatory or the you
13:27know every game somehow is going to be
13:29compelled to allow extraneous garbage
13:33into their finely tuned beautiful worlds
13:36and indeed as you pointed out the people
13:39who love those games and play those
13:40games would hate that you know I I play
13:44a lot of valheim myself and it's a
13:46beautifully designed game that's a
13:48coherent world and it would be extremely
13:50irritating for somebody to show up you
13:53know in that world with a blaster and
13:56start you know vaporizing uh me and my
13:59my Viking buddy so I think we can have
14:03um and that um uh you know a lot of the
14:07the controversy that has uh that we've
14:11been seeing the last you know year or so
14:13on social media you know arises from
14:16kind of this friction between the the
14:20almost ideological commitment to crypto
14:24and interoperability that you see on the
14:25part of crypto Bros clashing with with
14:28designers who uh who who think it's
14:31stupid on an engineering level and kind
14:35of an Abomination on a aesthetic level
14:38yeah I think I think it's really
14:40important that you're bringing up the
14:41engineering side of this because it's
14:43not just how we want these worlds to
14:45look but also how they align with our
14:47engineering capabilities and of course
14:49one way that these games are advancing
14:52is through augmented and virtual reality
14:55or at least some of them are venturing
14:56into these new worlds
14:59I'd love to hear your take on the
15:00importance of that whether these
15:03metaverses do need to be in quote
15:05unquote 3D or whether actually many of
15:07them can survive and continue to thrive
15:09in the two-dimensional world that many
15:11people are participating in because that
15:13really is the world that many of us are
15:15used to right staring at our phone
15:16staring at screens and many people even
15:19though they're not truly immersed right
15:21they're not in the three Third Dimension
15:23they feel quite immersed still they feel
15:25like you know that they stop playing
15:27their game after five hours and they
15:28feel like they've truly been in another
15:30world so what are your thoughts on the
15:34level of immersion required for this
15:37quote-unquote metaverse we absolutely do
15:40not need AR and VR in order to build the
15:4630 years ago when I wrote the book
15:48I had a different view of it and so I
15:51assumed that it would be all about
15:53goggles a lot has changed since then and
15:56we've all learned a lot Doom came out
15:58the year after snow crash was published
16:02and it's kind of almost hard to remember
16:04a time when there weren't games like
16:07Doom meaning games where your screen is
16:11a flat window into a three-dimensional
16:15so if you had described Doom to me you
16:20know in 1992 said well you're okay
16:23you're looking at a flat panel screen in
16:25front of you on a monitor but you're
16:28seeing a 3D world through it you're
16:30running around in that world I'm not
16:32sure if I would have understood it or
16:34believed that that could ever really
16:38um but now you know fast forward 30
16:40years the day-to-day world that we're
16:42living in is one in which billions of
16:45people routinely access
16:47three-dimensional spaces through
16:50rectangles on two-dimensional screens be
16:54they you know the screen of a laptop you
16:56know or a phone that you're holding up
16:58in front of your face
17:00and it works really well and one of the
17:02the really weird aspects of it is the
17:06Primitive control scheme so most people
17:08are using like the wasde keys on their
17:11Keyboard Plus a mouse in order to
17:14navigate these worlds keyboards are a
17:16Victorian technology and yet the human
17:21brain is so adaptable that even you know
17:25as clumsy as that is and as as
17:27Antiquated as that is
17:30um wasde is a perfectly uh useful way of
17:35navigating around in 3D spaces I'm going
17:37to talk about VR AR is a whole different
17:40thing but let me just talk about VR for
17:42a sec you know early VR just because of
17:45the limitations on processing power and
17:47so on had high latency and and other
17:51um kind of quality issues and uh it was
17:55I think pretty widely believed even as
17:5810 years ago that as latency got reduced
18:03as the quality of the experience
18:05improved that we'd see a decrease in the
18:08tendency of users to get motion sickness
18:12um and I think that there was a decrease
18:13but it didn't go to zero it went to
18:16maybe the last I've heard is like maybe
18:19five ten percent state-of-the-art
18:21quality VR are going to experience some
18:24uh some symptoms and in fact I was
18:28playing a 2d video game just the other
18:30day where my friends and I turned on a
18:32new feature and we all had to stop
18:35because we were getting we were getting
18:37motion sickness so imagine if you were
18:39trying to popularize television
18:43in the 1950s and he said we've got these
18:46great programs we've got I Love Lucy
18:48we've got the Ed Sullivan Show you know
18:51entertainment for the whole family uh
18:54five to ten percent of you are going to
18:56end up throwing up into a waste basket
18:59you know after half an hour of watching
19:03um well that that's a really high bar to
19:09acceptance of entertainment technology
19:12for AR it's just a different thing I
19:15mean by its nature when you're in an AR
19:17experience it is or it should be somehow
19:21tied to the environment you're sitting
19:24in because if it's not it's just VR it's
19:26just kind of bad VR you know one of the
19:29most fascinating things I ever did was
19:32working trying to make content at Magic
19:35leap where everything that we built had
19:40be aware of in some sense the what was
19:43in the physical environment and be
19:47um so of an incredible thing to work on
19:49but because of that is I think it's kind
19:52of different from what most people talk
19:54about when they talk about the metaverse
19:56I think so too but I also wonder with
19:59both of these there's there's
20:00significant engineering challenges
20:01obviously they're different right VR
20:03introduces this idea of motion sickness
20:05which I would definitely be part of that
20:07five to ten percent that that gets sick
20:09I get sick in cars all the time and so
20:12what I want to understand from you
20:14though is if we are able to solve these
20:16engineering challenges so for example if
20:18it becomes instead of five to ten
20:20percent 0.001 of people get sick while
20:23using a headset are people really
20:25wanting to be that immersed uh if we can
20:28solve those engineering challenges for
20:30me uh if it's a good VR experience I
20:34like going into that level of immersion
20:38half hour 45 minutes and having a really
20:42intense experience beyond that just the
20:45experience of having this thing on my
20:47face not being able to see my real
20:51um not being aware of what's going on
20:54being kind of socially isolated from the
20:57people around me adds up to uh something
21:02for me is a a relatively brief
21:05experience like I said half hour 45
21:08minutes kind of like you might sit down
21:10and watch an episode of a TV show you
21:13know then it's over and then you stop
21:14for all day you know or for gaming
21:18binges that go on for hours and hours I
21:21don't think it's for me it's kind of
21:23hard to predict because as we're talking
21:26about these engineering challenges it is
21:28hard to imagine how we can layer on
21:32um prompts or how you actually engage
21:34with those people because to your point
21:35right now if you go into VR it is mostly
21:38an individual experience and I think
21:41humans are naturally very social
21:43creatures I want to ask you a question
21:45about uh you can apply this to AR to VR
21:49or even something like a zoom call but
21:51something that I've noticed is that as
21:55create these new Virtual Worlds many
21:57different sorts of those Virtual Worlds
21:59what they tend to do is apply the
22:02physical world and digitize it so let me
22:04give you a couple examples so
22:06if people want to create
22:09some sort of social engagement structure
22:11for work they like create a digital
22:14happy hour which is just a bunch of
22:16people in rectangles on on a zoom screen
22:19uh similarly if they want to create real
22:22estate within quote unquote the
22:24metaverse or some sort of gaming engine
22:25it looks a lot like a house in real life
22:29even though maybe you don't need a roof
22:31there's no rain there's no snow right
22:32well it depends what's coded into that
22:34world but something that is important to
22:37note is that these digital worlds don't
22:39have or don't need to have the same
22:42structures as the physical world and so
22:44do you think there's something that
22:45people are missing maybe in terms of the
22:48Wonder the opportunity the ability to
22:51actually go without the constraint of
22:53the physical worlds to to get rid of
22:55gravity to get rid of how large that
22:58world is right like a lack of scarcity
23:00so do you have any thoughts there
23:02because something that I found very
23:03interesting about snow crash was that it
23:06was this vast digital world but there
23:08were certain things there were like I
23:10think there was a limit on height that
23:11people could be but mostly there was not
23:14the same level of restriction as we have
23:15in the physical world yeah I mean it's
23:18going to vary from experience to
23:19experience I do think that almost any
23:23plausible metaverse that I can think of
23:27there's going to have to be some
23:29understanding around the size of avatars
23:32just doesn't make sense and it doesn't
23:34work if you've got some avatars that are
23:36a hundred thousand times bigger than
23:38than others people will break that rule
23:42and and you know come up with
23:43experiences where where that rule
23:45doesn't apply but if it's too far
23:47outside the bounds of a kind of unified
23:49experience and nobody knows what to
23:52expect nobody understands what's going
23:56um then I think uh you're gonna see
24:01a rapid fall off of of Interest you're
24:04going to see spaces that are uh
24:09um pretty small number of enthusiasts
24:13um but are less interesting or might
24:16even be actively off-putting to
24:19um to the mass audience
24:22I mean Tim O'Reilly has said that a good
24:24way to think of the metaverse is that
24:26it's a Communications medium any
24:29Communications medium is trying to reach
24:31the broadest possible audience you know
24:33that's why that's why TV is the way it
24:36is you know that's why movies are the
24:38way they are the things that you're
24:41um buildings that are realistic and have
24:43roofs and ceilings you're you're totally
24:46right that we don't need those things
24:48you know in in the metaverse but it is
24:51what people are used to and makes people
24:52feel comfortable to be in a space uh
24:55where there's a roof over their heads
24:57you know there's some like you know
24:59evolutionary psychologists who proposed
25:01that um early humans evolved in a
25:04savannah environment so it's it's got
25:08open space open grassland where you can
25:10see for a long way but it's got trees
25:13uh they're not densely packed together
25:15but there's sporadic trees that you can
25:18go and you'd be in the shade or climb up
25:20to get away from predators that's an
25:23environment that we tend to reproduce in
25:25our built environment I think people are
25:28comforted by Shelter by the feeling of
25:31privacy that you get when there's some
25:33walls around you there's a roof over
25:35your head so we're going to see those
25:38forms recapitulated in um metaverse
25:41experiences that are geared towards
25:44drawing in a mass audience but clearly
25:48there's no there's no limit on what you
25:51could build what you could imagine
25:54um if you're uh if you're just trying to
25:58follow your own personal aesthetic or
26:01appeal to a uh kind of a smaller like
26:05cult following you have spoken to this
26:08idea of trying to attract the masses
26:10which I think is true to some degree
26:11with consumer applications of gaming AR
26:15VR but as you mentioned you've worked at
26:18Magic leap for quite some time or you
26:20you did work there I think you were the
26:23chief futurist or something like that a
26:27what did you learn there because they
26:29seem to have pivoted now more towards
26:31commercial Enterprise what did you learn
26:34there about the potential applications
26:37outside of maybe the consumer lens and
26:40where some of these Technologies can be
26:41applied to solve other problems you know
26:43what I say that magically very early was
26:45that I didn't just want to be a guru you
26:50futurist but I wanted to build something
26:52and looked around for a little bit
26:55you know what was going on inside the
26:57company and decided that probably the
27:00most beautiful place for me to apply
27:02what I know would be in content
27:05creation and and so there were uh a
27:10number of projects there and presumably
27:12still are they're aimed at you know
27:15specific industrial commercial type
27:17applications just like you said 99 of my
27:21time was was spent building
27:25applications that were aimed at just so
27:27the general audience and meant to be you
27:30know entertaining fun in some way as
27:34opposed to the commercial industrial
27:37you do have to solve a lot of the same
27:40problems regardless of whether you're
27:42making a commercial product or a final
27:45entertainment product you've got a
27:50and experience in a game engine
27:52we use both unity and unreal at
27:57the for it to work the game engine the
28:02environment the level has to be
28:04populated not by not just by imaginary
28:08uh entities that you drag into the scene
28:13um stuff that's actually in the user's
28:15environment that the system recognizes
28:18through Machine Vision and kind of
28:21creates in the world
28:26a loop that's running all the time where
28:28the cameras on the device are scanning
28:30these cameras and other sensors on the
28:33device are scanning the environment and
28:35trying to figure out what's what like
28:38okay there's a flat thing down there
28:40it's probably the floor
28:43um there's a flat thing over there it's
28:44probably a wall uh there's a window
28:47there's a door and you know building up
28:51from that you can make these systems
28:56um more and more sophisticated and
28:58capable of recognizing more objects but
29:00each one has to lead or should lead to a
29:06an asset being put into the level
29:11that your AIS or whatever are navigating
29:14around in so that kind of base layer of
29:17functionality is to a large extent built
29:20into the operating system of that device
29:22building on top of that we had to kind
29:25of create our own stack that started
29:27with engineering and sort of worked its
29:31um to creative uh to creative elements a
29:35lot of the work that you did towards the
29:37those creative Endeavors for your
29:39project how could you see those being
29:41applied to maybe some more commercial
29:43projects I'm just trying to get the
29:44wheel spinning in terms of many people
29:46believing that these Technologies are
29:48going to be applied to gaming which is
29:51certainly true and you know maybe even
29:52they they might have a qualm with that
29:55idea with a lot of this technology only
29:57being applied to this idea of gaming but
29:59I think there's a lot of potential as we
30:01see with many Technologies for them to
30:02be applied in several ways and ways that
30:05even the original creators didn't expect
30:07I think one example that I've heard you
30:09give is that electricity was obvious to
30:12be applied to light but electricity then
30:14generating electric guitar is less
30:17obvious so are there perhaps less
30:19obvious things that you've been exposed
30:21to or that you've started to think
30:22through maybe even for a future book in
30:24terms of some of these Technologies
30:25being applied in ways that we might not
30:29that's a that's a great question uh some
30:31may have to think about it for a second
30:40the one of the two main projects that my
30:44and magically if it's called baby goats
30:46and it's simply populated your
30:49environment with baby goats that would
30:50run around they would jump up on the
30:53and um and kind of interact socially but
30:57it wasn't a game game
30:58it wasn't like you're not trying to
31:00score 10 000 goat points and kill the
31:04goat boss it just it was just an ambient
31:07kind of experience of these these
31:09creatures running around
31:11um and so it had to do all those things
31:13I mentioned I mean the the goats had to
31:16know where the furniture was and they
31:19had to know well okay I can jump one
31:22meter in the air so I can I can't jump
31:26directly to the top of the bookcase but
31:29I could jump to the table and then from
31:30there I could jump to the bookcase so
31:32the furniture would be
31:34placed you know by the level designer
31:38and um the the possible paths that where
31:43the animal could move would be so
31:45pre-programmed and so the the animals
31:48just making a decision to follow a
31:50certain pre-programmed path uh and and
31:53there you can use some AI there too uh
31:56you know if you want in the AR version
31:58of this you have no way of knowing what
32:01every person's living room is going to
32:06um and so you can't have any
32:07pre-programmed map of the room or or
32:10plan it's all got to be ai's kind of
32:13by hatching their own plans uh on their
32:17own you just push the code out into the
32:23hope it works typically you see emergent
32:26behaviors that you might not have
32:28expected and we're seeing this a lot
32:33mid-journey and other AI based image
32:39um uh you know those those things
32:41produce some images that are probably
32:43what the designers were revisioning or
32:47imagining but there's also just crazy
32:49results that come out of these things
32:52that no one ever could have predicted in
32:55the metaverse I think
32:56um we're going to see
32:58virtual environments that are populated
33:03and brought to life by
33:05um by AI in some cases it's going to be
33:09so what you might think which is
33:11non-player characters that
33:13walk around and you know deliver the
33:15mail or whatever but I think we're also
33:18going to see whole other uh categories
33:24um being put to work
33:29experiences that have a kind of
33:31realistic texture about them and that
33:34that make the environment seem
33:37uh to the to the user I'm glad you
33:40brought up AI because it is such an
33:42important theme at least within the
33:44Zeitgeist currently and another
33:46important theme as it relates to the
33:48metaverse is the idea of Ip who owns a
33:52particular object we talked about
33:53interoperability before right can you
33:55move that between different engines
33:58how do you think AI will
34:02interoperate with IP if that makes sense
34:07these AIS generate a bunch of objects
34:09maybe even generate games themselves
34:10eventually and then who owns those
34:14obviously the AI is trained on many
34:15different data sets so do the people who
34:17supplied that data own the eventual
34:20creation from the AI or have you started
34:23to think about how that might work my
34:25other co-founder at lamina one Peter
34:28vesnest has actually been thinking a lot
34:30about this he went deep down the rabbit
34:33hole of mid-journey and all that last
34:35month and and very quickly
34:40thinking about applying those kinds of
34:47experiences that might make money
34:50you're up against an ethical question
34:54for exactly the reason you said which is
34:58um these AIS are harvesting work from
35:02millions of people and you know you
35:06might ask Dolly to make up
35:09painting of a dog in the style of and
35:12that's fine but when you do the same
35:13thing and you specify a living artist
35:15then you you can be sure that the system
35:18is going around and ingesting
35:23um uh from everything that artist has
35:26ever created and then doing a mashup
35:30um to produce a result and so why
35:32shouldn't I mean if you're just screwing
35:34around it's one thing in the terms of
35:37service of Dolly I don't know about the
35:40other programs but you know they're
35:43they're pretty conscious of this and
35:44they're they're trying to prevent people
35:46from just monetizing the crap out of it
35:50in cases where it does get monetized why
35:53shouldn't the the artists who contribute
35:58uh get a cut we've been talking to
36:03shrapnel which is a it's a game that's
36:07being put out by a company in Seattle
36:09called neon machine and
36:12um it's a blockchain web free kind of
36:14game uh from the ground up and um so
36:19they've been doing some interesting work
36:21in the field of smart contracts
36:25that are structured in such a way as to
36:28track the provenance of a given game
36:32um and uh and create what what Jaren
36:36Lanier would call a value chain uh which
36:38is you know uh a bunch of people one way
36:43or another contribute their
36:46time and effort to making a thing and if
36:49that thing ends up making money
36:50generating Revenue then um how do you um
36:55how do you reward them in the motion
36:59picture business they have this lovely
37:01term called a waterfall which is in a in
37:07a movie uh when Revenue starts to happen
37:10um it Cascades down and and gets
37:13diverted off to different people and
37:15there's a whole structure in place for
37:17this so how do you is there a way to and
37:19that's all that all works but it's
37:22notoriously slow and cumbersome so is
37:25there a way to replace all of that
37:28to create a waterfall that basically
37:31just works through smart contracts
37:34um and just automatically distributes a
37:39revenue stream among people who
37:41contributed to a uh to a particular
37:44project in in varying proportions
37:49and that is actually not a bad fit for
37:54crypto going to a ton of detail about it
37:56but crypto's got smart contracts that
37:59just can route money to wallets the kind
38:03of the whole point of a blockchain is
38:09that you know at a particular moment
38:14this transaction happened
38:16and everyone on that chain agrees that
38:19this is true in the classical
38:21application of blockchain you're just
38:23sending money to people but uh in an IP
38:26Centric implementation you could say
38:30um you know I Neil wrote a book on such
38:34and such date with a a magic sword in it
38:38and um here's what the magic sword kind
38:41of looks like you know maybe copy paste
38:43some text you know it's about yay long
38:46and it's sharp on one Edge and so that's
38:50an assertion that a Creator could make
38:54um created this idea at a certain time
38:57but it's a hell of a long way from being
39:00a game asset that can actually be used
39:03to create an experience and so as such
39:06it's not capable of generating any
39:08Revenue somebody could come along and uh
39:12and then link off of that stub asset if
39:16you will and say okay I'm going to make
39:18an implementation of this idea I'm going
39:22to credit Neil for having the idea in
39:25the first place but I'm going to add
39:27something on top of what he's already
39:29posted on the chain and it's it's uh
39:31some assets that turn this into a uh
39:35something you could drag into an unreal
39:40and then somebody else could come along
39:43and say okay I'm gonna I'm gonna buy
39:46from the asset store but it's still a
39:50long way from working in my gain because
39:52I need to set up blueprints or whatever
39:54I need to change the art direction of it
39:57so it it fits with my game I need to do
40:01some programming I need to change the
40:03sound effects you know whatever but it's
40:06still all part of the value chain that
40:08starts with the original asset and so
40:12um what the people at shrapnel are
40:15working on is some templates for smart
40:17contracts that would sort of ease the
40:21of creating these chains and organizing
40:25them in such a way that the the
40:28of Revenue would happen if any of it
40:32ever actually managed to make any money
40:34and I think maybe if people are
40:36listening they might think that the
40:38description that you just gave
40:41sounds very far away but actually it
40:43reminds me of something I saw this
40:44morning on Twitter one of the other AI
40:48engines you know there's Dali there's
40:50mid-journey as you said another one is
40:51called stable diffusion and I saw this
40:54thread this morning of a bunch of
40:55redditors who basically were doing were
40:57using like clip art or very very simple
41:00drawings you just imagine like a circle
41:02and we'll actually throw this up on the
41:04screen for people who end up watching
41:05this on video and then they were using
41:07stable diffusion to basically take those
41:10and turn them into assets that looked
41:12like they were from a game like really
41:14crisp really really high definition
41:18images of these these creatures or
41:21whatever you might call them these
41:22participants in a game potentially and
41:24so this is the future right is is using
41:28these different engines to upgrade
41:30prior people's contributions and I think
41:33you're right that you need to somehow
41:35articulate that value chain because
41:37we're used to items in our homes like
41:39imagine the imagine the physical
41:41equivalent if you had like a basketball
41:43and you you said I have this this
41:46machine that turns this basketball into
41:48a car that would be wild right but you
41:50actually can do some of this stuff in
41:52the digital world with some of the tools
41:54that are advancing but you do need to
41:56the value chain as you said who created
41:58what and how did that lead to the next
42:00creation which led to the next creation
42:01and so on so you also want a feedback
42:04loop that runs in the opposite direction
42:08uh somebody might come along in my
42:11example and create an implementation of
42:15of my sword idea that I just hated you
42:19know either they did maybe they just did
42:21a really shitty job of it or maybe
42:24they're just a troll
42:27who is deliberately trying to be
42:33uh in that event I should have some kind
42:36of right of approval I have to have that
42:39you can imagine situations like if I
42:42created let's say an avatar
42:45that was that looked childlike it would
42:49be fine for somebody to take that and
42:51use it in a children's experience
42:55but in certain other kinds of
42:58experiences that we can all imagine
43:01it could be a very bad abuse of the uh
43:06of my of my creative work let's say and
43:09so uh if I've created such an avatar I
43:12need to have the ability to say you
43:15can't use my work in this thing that
43:17you're building and because it's too
43:20much work to examine every possible site
43:24where something like that might be used
43:26you then you need to to go go up one
43:30level and uh you know have kind of
43:33rating systems let's say uh or you know
43:37so third-party evaluators that look at
43:40sites look at experiences and to say I
43:43don't think you want your your IP to
43:47appear on this particular site or to be
43:50used in this in the way it's being used
43:52that's actually fascinating to imagine
43:55because you do see the parallel of this
43:57with 2D work right uh a lot of these AIS
44:01are are being trained on the whole of
44:03the internet right but then even prior
44:05to the ai's existing you had many
44:07photographers as an example who in some
44:11cases were very protective over their
44:13work and had ownership of it and could
44:15determine where they wanted it or where
44:16they didn't want it and then you also
44:19had these the emergence of things like
44:21unsplash where you had creators who said
44:22actually I'm okay with this being
44:24utilized by anyone anywhere and you'll
44:26probably see the same phenomena happen
44:28with what we're talking about but in the
44:30case where people didn't want their work
44:32utilized in in places that they hadn't
44:35approved of there were these third
44:36parties I mean they're sites that
44:38actually go out there and scrape the
44:39internet to find images that are owned
44:43by people that have copyrighted them and
44:46then they go back to those individuals
44:47and say hey did you know that your work
44:49is being used on X Y and Z places
44:50they're a little bit like extortionists
44:53in some ways because they they basically
44:55like hold the people who use them
44:57incorrectly accountable but it's
44:59fascinating to imagine that some similar
45:01other approach will be needed in this
45:05world of AI as well and there's there's
45:07many other examples I mean I picked one
45:11disturbing but but there's just routine
45:15get you know let's say that
45:17um that I create a piece of visual out
45:19and sell it to somebody in the
45:22expectation they're going to hang it on
45:25of their virtual home or their real home
45:28um or just display it if you know for
45:31their friends and and family then what
45:34if they turn around and use it as the
45:36logo for you know a new brand of
45:40basketball shoe they're using it in a
45:43way that I didn't anticipate when we set
45:45up the original deal and it's all over
45:47the world and uh maybe I should get paid
45:50for that or or maybe I should have the
45:52ability to say I don't want my my art
45:55used in that particular way
45:59um there's a whole world of Ip rights
46:04and um licenses and so on right now is
46:07not being handled At All by the way nft
46:10marketplaces are are currently set up
46:13and I think the next wave of nfts is
46:16going to begin to feature some of these
46:19improvements or I think they're
46:21improvements some some people some
46:23people are going to hate this well
46:25actually I like that you brought up that
46:27you think their improvements other
46:29people may not think so and I think
46:31technology is often viewed that way
46:32right that some people believe it's very
46:34utopian some people believe it's
46:35dystopian there's probably a huge
46:38Spectrum where any given individual
46:41technology can actually be applied
46:42across the Spectrum in positive and
46:45negative ways and I think actually even
46:47using your books as an example snow
46:49crash is more more of a crudely rendered
46:54metaverse if we're going to use that
46:55term another one of your books bit world
46:58has a more utopian Vibe you could say
47:01it's more organic more communal more
47:04people building towards something more
47:07I'm curious to hear from you and feel
47:09free to Loop in your new project lamina
47:11one how do you think about building
47:13technology so that it is leaning more
47:17utopian or maybe utopian's not the right
47:19word here but how do you how do you
47:21design technology so that it can be used
47:23for good or is it just a reality that
47:26humans will use all Technologies for
47:28good and evil and that's just something
47:32I think that is pretty much a reality
47:34and um you know people are endlessly
47:37creative in both good and bad ways
47:40um and how they use things you know snow
47:43crash is absolutely a dystopian novel
47:47um it's also kind of making fun of
47:49dystopian novel tropes in a lot of ways
47:53both the dystopian novel and a parody of
47:56dystopian novels the technologies that
48:00are shown in it with some exceptions
48:04don't really have any bias for bad or
48:07good like the the metaverse is um a lot
48:10of what we see in the metaverse in the
48:11book is kind of uh garish and and crude
48:18but um that's just what we happen to see
48:22it's also shown in the book that uh Hiro
48:25has got a beautiful home in the
48:28metaverse kind of Japanese style home
48:30that is um exquisitely rendered and and
48:34you know it's a it's a fine work of art
48:36and in the character of ink has also got
48:39a a beautiful home of his own so another
48:43example would be Earth so there's a
48:45application called Earth in snow crash
48:48that you know has a lot in common with
48:51Google Earth it'd be silly to say that
48:54because Earth was described in a
48:56dystopian novel that it's an inherently
48:58dark or dystopian kind of application
49:03um when we look at Google Earth today
49:05you know uh I think the vast majority of
49:10uh its applications and overlays and
49:13stuff are uh are for interesting
49:16creative purposes and
49:19you know there's a few ways in which it
49:24um but um but we see we see Google kind
49:27of I think managing it fairly well in
49:29the sense that you know they they go out
49:32of the way to blur out faces and so on
49:35and and try to um uh prevent
49:40darker or less less constructive uses of
49:44the technology you know there there's
49:49um biases towards bad or good but um
49:57that that one really important bias
50:02technological bias that that is kind of
50:05baked in to current social media is
50:08um is has to do with the revenue model I
50:11I don't think that this was like evil
50:14people coming up with an evil scheme I
50:16think to just Engineers saying okay
50:18let's let's give people more of what
50:21they react to so so as we all know as I
50:25think we all understand now
50:27social media platforms um tend to have
50:31built-in feedback loops that feed people
50:32more and more emotionally powerful
50:35content regardless of you know whether
50:38that is constructive and the reason that
50:41they have to do that is because that was
50:43their revenue model I think now that
50:45we've learned that that
50:47um you know maybe we can avoid
50:49recreating that in the next
50:53of metaverse development
50:56by by thinking about how these
50:59experiences uh are are going to make
51:01money well I'm hoping is that we'll end
51:04up with a revenue model that's more
51:06obvious and transparent do you think
51:09that people will opt into that Revenue
51:11model and I asked this because I think
51:13you're right that social can be
51:16can be hindered by its Revenue model by
51:19its nature I mean just the fact I'm sure
51:21you've heard the saying if you're not
51:24paying for a product you are the product
51:26right and so I think maybe the awareness
51:30of that phenomena will increase over
51:32time and maybe some people will opt into
51:34other Revenue models but there's a
51:36reason it works and you know if we use
51:38social as an example many people
51:39gravitate towards these large social
51:41platforms because that's where you can
51:43have a platform that's where you can
51:44reach so many people and the math is for
51:47the most part have okayed this idea
51:51where they are giving up certain privacy
51:53rights they are giving up certain
51:54aspects of their information in order to
51:57not have to pay for things so do you
51:59actually see that reversing as people is
52:01it an awareness thing or how do you
52:03actually imagine a revenue model that
52:05you can get the masses to opt into that
52:08is not an ad base model it's a really
52:10tough thing to turn around
52:15um it's the the attraction of free stuff
52:21um there's kind of an analogous
52:22phenomenon in games casual mobile games
52:26where at a certain point it just became
52:28the expectation that games would be free
52:30sometimes that means you have to watch
52:31ads which is a fairly it's annoying but
52:34it's a transparent kind of annoyance you
52:37you understand how the the Commerce is
52:42the wheels of Commerce are turning
52:44underneath that experience but in other
52:50these games kind of become like slot
52:52machines where they're using kind of
52:54Applied you know behavioral psychology
52:57to make people want to keep
53:01punching in their credit card number and
53:03spending money the attraction of free
53:05stuff is incredibly powerful and can
53:07lead to uh all kinds of negative
53:13and it's like I wish I had an answer
53:20who I think has done the most useful
53:24um has been Jaren Lanier and you know we
53:32um he's got ideas for structures that
53:35would be analogous to labor unions uh
53:41you know right now the way social media
53:46there's a bunch of people all
53:47volunteered their time to build a car
53:49and then the car company sold the car
53:51and made money off of it
53:53um you know which is pretty
53:55pretty amazing that people are willing
53:57to to do this the idea that jiren's
54:00working on is one in which you would
54:02join up with a bunch of other people
54:04with like-minded you know some similar
54:06interests through collective bargaining
54:08essentially sell your data to a social
54:10media company there's ideas out there
54:13but but fighting free is fighting the
54:16the draw and the power of free stuff is
54:19incredibly difficult yes I think we can
54:21all empathize with that I can't tell you
54:23the number of times I've gotten an email
54:25that something was free and I've wasted
54:26my time on it and the thing that I got
54:29for you is something I never even wanted
54:30so yes for things that you do want
54:32connection Community Etc that you get
54:35through these applications it's no
54:37wonder that that is a very very tough
54:39phenomena to adjust so many people
54:43that brings us to your new company
54:45lamina Juan so you are actually
54:47participating in trying to build the
54:49infrastructure that may change some of
54:51these Dynamics so from your website it
54:54says lamina one is a new attempt at the
54:57base layer for the open metaverse that
54:59privileges creators Technical and
55:01artistic one that provides support
55:02spatial Computing and a community to
55:05support those who are building the open
55:07metaverse can you share a little bit
55:09more about why you're choosing to build
55:12laminawan and why you've made some of
55:14those really really concrete design
55:16decisions like building on the
55:18blockchain so I mean I think I've
55:20already hinted a lot of this in the
55:22earlier parts of this interview so a lot
55:25of what I've been talking about is all
55:27kind of rolled up into laminate one but
55:30I mean for those who don't track crypto
55:34um the you know a layer one blockchain
55:38just means a new blockchain
55:41it can be built using new code new
55:44technology in other cases it could just
55:47be a clone of an existing a fork of an
55:51or a combination of both but the idea is
55:54that when you if you use an existing
55:56chain and build your stuff on top of it
56:00going along for the ride with whoever
56:03sort of runs that that chain you you
56:06don't have a say in how it's organized
56:09and what engineering characteristics it
56:12has but if you start your own layer one
56:14chain you you get to control that you
56:16get to build in the features that you
56:19want for your particular application
56:21Bitcoin was the first layer one chain
56:24ethereum came along later it's a
56:27separate it's a separate layer one chain
56:29but it adds features that weren't
56:31present in Bitcoin we think that
56:34um that kind of the next wave uh is is
56:39going to be a metaverse applications we
56:42think that cryptocurrency and fiat
56:45currency you know in other words
56:48old-fashioned non-cryptocurrency they're
56:50both going to be used in the metaverse
56:52just as they are in the real world and
56:55because they both work and they're so
56:57good for different things
56:59um to the extent that crypto is useful
57:05um there's there's different layers to
57:10money is just the most basic layer so
57:13having tokens that act as money and that
57:18send back and forth between people used
57:22is kind of the the most basic uh
57:26functionality that you can have in a
57:28chain smart contracts then are sort of
57:32built on top of that and there's various
57:34knobs that you can turn to optimize a
57:36chain to to carry out specific functions
57:41we think that for some of the reasons
57:43that I was mentioning having to do with
57:46how content creators can get paid to
57:50build experiences that there's an
57:53opportunity to make a new layer one
57:56chain that that works for them and
57:59that's integrated with the the tool sets
58:01that they are in the habit of using so
58:04that they don't have to go out and
58:06become crypto experts and learn all
58:10capabilities just in order to do their
58:12jobs making things good for those people
58:15for those experienced creators is the
58:19key to having a successful metaverse
58:23because nobody's going to go and use the
58:26metaverse unless there are experiences
58:29there that they enjoy having people who
58:31know how to make those experiences right
58:33now by and large work in the game
58:35industry and they're good at using game
58:39engines and the tool chains that feed
58:42assets into those game engines if we can
58:47integrate the the financial
58:51infrastructure that they need to get
58:53paid into the tool change that they're
58:55already using uh then we'd like to think
58:59that that'll bring in
59:01um content creators make them happy
59:03create experiences in the metaverse uh
59:07that lots of people enjoy having and are
59:09willing to to pay for
59:11so that's kind of the that's kind of the
59:13plan in a nutshell that makes sense to
59:15me and I think you know whether you're
59:17in the metaverse or otherwise
59:20every company out there is trying to
59:23attract top talent and yes so if you can
59:25if you can acquiesce them towards your
59:27ecosystem then you likely will win but
59:31when it comes to the incentives to drive
59:34creators to participate using laminawan
59:38how do you think about that because many
59:40of these ecosystems will for example say
59:42oh we'll give creators this percent cut
59:44in order to develop Within
59:46our metaverse or another metaverse how
59:49does lamina one layer into that how
59:51aware is the creator the end Creator how
59:54do they know whether they're using
59:56laminawan or the gaming engines that you
59:58mentioned how do those all kind of
01:00:00interplay together
01:00:01is laminaw one almost like a transparent
01:00:04layer under these existing engines or or
01:00:06can you share a little bit more about
01:00:07how that might work I'm not sure if I
01:00:09would say transparent because that
01:00:11suggests invisible and so kind of to
01:00:13your point people should know what
01:00:16they're using and why they're using it
01:00:18uh how they're getting paid so
01:00:21um you know anyone who is trying to make
01:00:25a buck you know and support themselves
01:00:27financially has got to be mindful of
01:00:29where the money is coming from and how
01:00:31the business you know operates a lot of
01:00:34times the the interfaces that you have
01:00:36to use in order to do anything at all
01:00:38with crypto even pretty simple things uh
01:00:42are hard to work with and confusing and
01:00:46almost almost a little frightening
01:00:48you're sort of aware at some level that
01:00:50if you do it wrong you know you could
01:00:52lose money yes your wallet gets wiped
01:00:55Etc we're certainly fans of making it
01:00:57easy and and uh accessible
01:01:02without having to learn a bunch of new
01:01:05stuff I think it would be a mistake to
01:01:07have it be so transparent and so
01:01:10invisible that people don't even know
01:01:12what's what's happening that's you know
01:01:14uh there needs to be um you know that
01:01:18needs to be very Frank and and obvious
01:01:21and upfront to creators
01:01:23um and I I don't think that creators
01:01:26would accept anything other than that
01:01:30this is how they're going to get paid
01:01:33this is how they're going to make money
01:01:34and so it needs to be uh it used to be
01:01:38out there where they can see it how are
01:01:39you forging these Partnerships with the
01:01:42gaming engines as well because I assume
01:01:45that if these creators are building on
01:01:47top of existing ecosystems and you're
01:01:49building a protocol that in theory
01:01:51interoperates with them how are you
01:01:53actually building those relationships or
01:01:55are these gaming engines super open to
01:01:58integrating with laminar one I'm less
01:02:00familiar whether these apis are already
01:02:02open but yeah tell me a little bit more
01:02:05about that yeah so I mean the two big
01:02:07ones are unity and unreal and you know
01:02:10people make plugins uh for those all the
01:02:15um I think unreal is available Source
01:02:18it's not open source that's got a
01:02:20particularly legal meaning but but you
01:02:23can download the source and compile from
01:02:25Source anytime you want which means you
01:02:27can add whatever you want and um uh in
01:02:31in the kind of less familiar with with
01:02:33unity but they've all got scripting
01:02:36capabilities and in ways that you can
01:02:38add on to the the engine so
01:02:41um the you know at the moment
01:02:45most of the big players in the uh the
01:02:50game industry are uh are being avoidant
01:02:54of crypto and and blockchain
01:02:58and um there's there's different reasons
01:03:03um you know um having to do with um
01:03:08um you know they may perceive a risk to
01:03:12um or they may they may see that um
01:03:18just the the there could be a lot of
01:03:20headaches administratively
01:03:23um trying to change their business model
01:03:25to one in which you know lots of real
01:03:28money was being handled by their their
01:03:32um so at the moment
01:03:35they're taking a hands-off approach and
01:03:38in some cases it's pretty
01:03:40it's you know it's pretty in your face
01:03:42like Minecraft uh you know made a pretty
01:03:47statement just a couple weeks ago about
01:03:50um not wanting to have crypto stuff
01:03:53going on in their their platform
01:03:59but at some level
01:04:02I think you know when you talk to uh
01:04:04people in the game industry whether it's
01:04:07individual developers or people working
01:04:10in in larger companies
01:04:13uh I think there's uh an awareness
01:04:17um that this is coming uh and that it
01:04:21could be an important thing uh for their
01:04:23businesses and their their companies in
01:04:25the future if it could just be
01:04:27sort of if we can get past the early
01:04:30kind of wild west era you know and the
01:04:33kind of initial uh sort of keying issues
01:04:37and uh out of the Prototype stage if you
01:04:40will you know and and uh in into a a
01:04:44place that just feels more uh more
01:04:46stable and also once you start to
01:04:49partner with some of them if you are
01:04:50able to attract that Talent the best
01:04:53creators then it'll become
01:04:55potentially inevitable for the others to
01:04:58want to partner and open up to that
01:04:59ecosystem because they will be following
01:05:01the talent yeah it could be I mean you
01:05:04know it's like I said I think that
01:05:05people will happily continue using fiat
01:05:08currency and traditional payment schemes
01:05:10for a long time because you know they
01:05:12work from where I sit I just think that
01:05:15there are some specific things that we
01:05:18could do with a new chain
01:05:21um that uh that could be valuable for
01:05:24people in this space and I know you've
01:05:26talked about them to some level already
01:05:28but what are those specifics are there a
01:05:30few things that you think just don't
01:05:32exist within the existing infrastructure
01:05:34that lamina one is looking to fix well
01:05:37the the big one is I think the the
01:05:40notion of value chains a win into some
01:05:43detail about that before so it won't
01:05:46um existing Payment Systems
01:05:49um can be really cumbersome you know if
01:05:51I hire someone in another country to
01:05:55make skin for me and Roblox you know and
01:05:58and pay them some money for that well
01:06:01you know does that mean I need to 10.99
01:06:04them do I need to fill out you know
01:06:06paperwork and you know in some other
01:06:08country to you know make sure that uh
01:06:12everything's properly squared away again
01:06:15kind of 20th century or 19th century
01:06:17economy it was okay to for if you're a
01:06:20large company you just put up with that
01:06:22burden of paperwork but you know on an
01:06:23internet economy where there's constant
01:06:25transactions happening all over the
01:06:27place you want something that's a little
01:06:30um yeah I think uh cryptocurrency can
01:06:33can definitely provide that likewise
01:06:37um you know I I describe the way
01:06:40uh contracts work and waterfalls work in
01:06:43the entertainment industry the Hollywood
01:06:45legal industry is something that you
01:06:48cannot believe until you've seen it uh
01:06:51just the size of it and the number of
01:06:54people who who work there and um the
01:06:59of the structures that are created and
01:07:03um and um just the number of
01:07:06Minds that spend their days working on
01:07:09this this stuff so if all you're doing
01:07:13punching out a few blockbuster movies
01:07:17and handling the the revenues from those
01:07:21then that's a manageable situation and
01:07:25it works you know I mean lots of people
01:07:28are not happy with how it works but it
01:07:30totally works people are making money
01:07:32movies are getting made but creating
01:07:35complicated experiences in a virtual
01:07:40um is not going to be like that
01:07:43um it's it's not all stove piped into
01:07:48you know big budget projects it's assets
01:07:51going every which way and appearing in
01:07:56um and so trying to track all of that
01:07:58and make make it work as a business
01:08:01using conventional Hollywood
01:08:04legal and accounting procedures just
01:08:07doesn't sound realistic to me it won't
01:08:10work doing it with a new chain that's
01:08:12optimized to handle those kinds of
01:08:14transactions I think seems like a
01:08:17reasonable idea yeah I think so too I
01:08:19think another design decision that
01:08:21you've made with lamina one which seems
01:08:24to be not adjacent to the things that
01:08:26you you just discussed is also to make
01:08:28the chain carbon neutral can you speak
01:08:30to why that design decision was made I
01:08:32mean we started talking about this
01:08:33laminate one just a few months after I
01:08:36published a novel termination shock
01:08:38which is all about global climate change
01:08:41so it would seem weird for me to publish
01:08:45that novel and then a few months later
01:08:49a chain project that's going to be
01:08:51putting carbon into the atmosphere
01:08:54now there's a again for people who are
01:08:58not crypto dorks I should explain that
01:09:01old school Bitcoin uses
01:09:05um a a system underlying system called
01:09:10which relies on solving complicated math
01:09:13problems that inevitably consume a lot
01:09:17of energy and so it is terrible
01:09:19from an energy standpoint from a carbon
01:09:23footprint standpoint newer chains by and
01:09:26large are going to a completely
01:09:28different system called proof of stake
01:09:30which is orders of magnitude more
01:09:32efficient so on a modern chain it uses
01:09:36proof of stake if you're using this for
01:09:39uh kind of routine transactions the
01:09:42carbon footprint really is no worse than
01:09:45so what you're already doing anyway if
01:09:48you drive your car around or turn on
01:09:50your air conditioner or you know take a
01:09:54in proof of stake systems which lamina
01:09:57one will be it's it's not that bad but
01:10:00it it doesn't matter you're still
01:10:03at some level responsible for putting
01:10:05some carbon into the atmosphere
01:10:09um the um what we're going to do is
01:10:14is design the system and this is one of
01:10:16these things that you you have the power
01:10:18to do if you do a layer one chain as
01:10:21opposed to piggybacking on somebody
01:10:24the the system is going to be designed
01:10:27in such a way that in order to
01:10:28participate to operate a node you need
01:10:31to demonstrate that you've
01:10:34acquired you've bought a certain number
01:10:36of carbon credits
01:10:39um from a legitimate company and that's
01:10:44topic unto itself because there's a lot
01:10:49companies out there pushing a lot of
01:10:52credit schemes and
01:10:54um some are more legit than others so
01:10:57there's actually multiple ratings
01:10:59agencies now that all they do is look at
01:11:01these systems and try to figure out
01:11:03which ones are good so that you know it
01:11:06it gets a little complicated on that
01:11:08level but we're going to do that because
01:11:11it's the right thing to do and um
01:11:15we're pursuing more far out
01:11:21ideas related to carbon
01:11:25sequestration that are too early to to
01:11:28talk about but it's on a separate
01:11:31organizational track from
01:11:33lamina one because it's still kind of in
01:11:38probably won't work phase we're actually
01:11:41doing an episode on carbon removal so
01:11:43very interested in this space and glad
01:11:45that you're pursuing it as well I want
01:11:48to dovetail this into the final section
01:11:50which I would be remiss not to ask you
01:11:53about which is just how you think about
01:11:55the future and we talked earlier about
01:11:57this idea of the metaverse being coined
01:11:5930 years ago just to put that into
01:12:01perspective that's actually before I was
01:12:02born and so I I I'm very impressed as I
01:12:06read snow crash just to
01:12:08even get my mind around this idea that
01:12:12you were able to come up with these
01:12:14terms but more than that to imagine a
01:12:16future where we are immersed I mean this
01:12:18is like when we had dial up internet or
01:12:20even before that right and so that's
01:12:23impressive but you've also done this
01:12:25across a myriad of your books right so
01:12:27so you've been involved in kind of the
01:12:30early stages of fintech and we've talked
01:12:32about crypto you've now written a book
01:12:34termination shock about carbon removal
01:12:37and what's going on with climate change
01:12:39and so I know this is a broad question
01:12:42but where do you get these ideas from
01:12:45where do you actually synthesize the
01:12:48seeds of of these books when they're so
01:12:50far before what many other people come
01:12:54to see in reality a lot of times it's
01:12:56because I've got some contact with
01:13:00with the actual technology that's being
01:13:02described so in the case of snow crash
01:13:05that emerged from a project I had been
01:13:07working on for a couple years previously
01:13:09in computer Graphics where I was writing
01:13:12code a lot of code
01:13:15um I was trying to push Hardware to do
01:13:18things it wasn't quite ready to do yet
01:13:21um and it got me thinking about
01:13:24about the future of that you know 3D
01:13:27Graphics as a medium and having that
01:13:29kind of direct involvement sort of helps
01:13:31in two ways one is just give you some
01:13:33ideas but also it helps because you're
01:13:38you're exposed to some of the specifics
01:13:41of how the the system works and so that
01:13:43produces ideas for for plot devices
01:13:46let's say in the case of um
01:13:50termination shock we've got someone
01:13:52who's launching a sulfur into the the
01:13:58um to do geoengineering if you sit down
01:14:00and actually kind of run the numbers on
01:14:02what it would take to do that you know
01:14:04it's a it's kind of an interesting
01:14:07engineering problem unto itself and by
01:14:11by by thinking through some of the the
01:14:13engineering details
01:14:15um you you can come up with with ideas
01:14:21uh that if you were just kind of
01:14:23freestyling might not occur to you I
01:14:25want to ask you about one particular
01:14:27example because I found it fascinating
01:14:29I've been lucky enough to work remotely
01:14:31for I think around seven years now
01:14:33um so I felt like I was before my time
01:14:35now many people are doing this one of my
01:14:37favorite quotes that I found in snow
01:14:39crash uh is hero basically saying that
01:14:44um a particular video game job was
01:14:47managed by the nepanese which means that
01:14:49all the programmers have to wear white
01:14:51t-shirts and show up at eight in the
01:14:52morning and sit in cubicles and go to
01:14:54meetings and I just reflected on that
01:14:56and I thought again this was written in
01:14:58the early 90s as something that was not
01:15:02the focus of the book at all but another
01:15:04one of these hints towards where the
01:15:06world was going so using that as an
01:15:09example like where did that inspiration
01:15:11come from what did you notice at that
01:15:13time when you were writing snow crash
01:15:14that maybe many other people did not see
01:15:21was a period of time during which
01:15:24um so the Japanese economic miracle
01:15:29the oil shock of 1974 suddenly people
01:15:33started buying smaller cars they started
01:15:36in the Japanese car industry just went
01:15:39through the roof and became really
01:15:42people became kind of uh fascinated by
01:15:45their management approach
01:15:48um and so you know you see these these
01:15:50documentaries about the factory workers
01:15:53showing up at a certain time and doing
01:15:55calisthenics you know before they
01:15:58um before they went to work so that was
01:16:00on people's minds
01:16:03you know in the the 70s and the 80s um
01:16:06in my particular case because of the
01:16:08project that I described to you
01:16:11um I ended up working alone from home
01:16:13for a couple of years I mean I was a
01:16:16writer to begin with but but also just
01:16:18the the coding project that I was
01:16:21working on was um just me alone doing
01:16:27um and it was also the
01:16:30I I wasn't the only person kind of
01:16:32operating in that mode because this was
01:16:34still the era of kind of the loan hacker
01:16:37who could um uh single-handedly produce
01:16:42you know a gigantic uh system that
01:16:45actually worked but you could see that
01:16:47that era was coming to an end we're
01:16:50heading in a Direction Where in the
01:16:51individual loan hacker
01:16:54uh won't be able to to keep up with with
01:16:58large organizations pretty soon and so
01:17:01for me from a storytelling
01:17:04point of view that gives me a few
01:17:10it's just immediately obvious to me at
01:17:12that point that this is a really
01:17:13powerful combination of of elements that
01:17:16I can use to define my character so he
01:17:18can be one of the lone genius hacker
01:17:22who's really good at that
01:17:26specifically sees himself in contrast to
01:17:30the kind of regimented style of a
01:17:34certain kind of workplace uh which
01:17:36wouldn't ever work for him
01:17:39um and yet he knows at some level that
01:17:43uh this is all going to change and that
01:17:45he's he's headed for the scrap heap of
01:17:48of History so he is on his business card
01:17:51hero identifies himself as the last of
01:17:53the freelance hackers you know he's the
01:17:56last of this breed and these are all
01:17:57very romantic ideas they're tropes from
01:18:00literature and storytelling that are
01:18:03known to be effective and um not
01:18:07original to me but but so combining them
01:18:10in that particular way
01:18:12made it possible I think to um
01:18:15uh to to do kind of a new Twist on an
01:18:18old story your answer was was more
01:18:20complex than I was expecting but also
01:18:22that even though the book was written in
01:18:23the 90s you were looking decades before
01:18:26that at themes that had emerged leading
01:18:28up to that and so I'm curious It's been
01:18:31in the 80s It Was Written in like 89 but
01:18:34published in the 90s is that right yeah
01:18:36I mean I started working on it in 88 89
01:18:39wrote it in 1990-ish
01:18:43um and it takes a while for the book to
01:18:46go through the whole pipeline so 92 I
01:18:48think is when it finally came out but
01:18:50it's very much a work of the late 80s
01:18:53and you you just wrote termination
01:18:56shocked you've written tons of books I'm
01:18:58curious to know from the perspective of
01:19:002022. what are some of the clues that
01:19:03you're looking at what are some of the
01:19:04themes that you're noticing about today
01:19:06that you think might be really important
01:19:08clues about let's say the next 30 Years
01:19:11yeah well to me the two most important
01:19:16things that are carbon and um
01:19:21and the polarization of of society
01:19:25um and and the way that polarization is
01:19:28fostered and kind of weaponized by by
01:19:31Bad actors who who benefit you know from
01:19:34that that polarization and you know so
01:19:37those are both things that we've talked
01:19:38about during this interview
01:19:41um the um as I said before like
01:19:45I kind of don't know what the answer is
01:19:47on polarization I mean there's a lot of
01:19:52people thinking about this and writing
01:19:54about it now and writing some really
01:19:57um I was just talking the other day to
01:19:59Ann Applebaum who's written the book
01:20:01called The Twilight of democracy uh
01:20:04that's on these themes
01:20:06um uh really great book describing her
01:20:10personal experience with growing
01:20:14um and uh and we met
01:20:18and I met when we were helping Jonathan
01:20:21rauk launch his book The the
01:20:23constitution of knowledge which is also
01:20:26about this so there's all kinds of
01:20:30uh very well informed people thinking
01:20:33about this and writing great stuff about
01:20:35it but you know I think what's missing
01:20:41um like like at the end of the day when
01:20:44you ask these people okay what are we
01:20:45going to do how are we going to fix it
01:20:48um no one's got a silver bullet or
01:20:51anything close to it I am thinking a lot
01:20:54about the other problem I mentioned the
01:20:56equally big problem of carbon and
01:21:00um I know I know a lot about that at the
01:21:04um if I do say so myself that and
01:21:09um so um I mean I kind of rolled
01:21:11directly from a book about
01:21:13geoengineering into thinking a lot about
01:21:16uh carbon capture and sequestration
01:21:21um so that's an area where
01:21:25I think the science fiction writer mind
01:21:29can get a little more attraction because
01:21:32you can think about it on engineering
01:21:35and science level yeah I think the the
01:21:39topic of carbon removal is is really
01:21:42fascinating and I want to ask you one or
01:21:44two questions about that but something
01:21:45that I've reflected on as I
01:21:48thought through all the books that
01:21:51you've written about and also just this
01:21:52genre of Science Fiction is I wonder
01:21:56whether science fiction becomes reality
01:21:59much more quickly due to the exponential
01:22:01nature of Technology as in overtime
01:22:04where if you were to take a book from
01:22:05the 90s the evolution of that or aspects
01:22:09of that entering our reality maybe took
01:22:12a couple decades and whether because
01:22:14again are the technologies that we
01:22:16engage with tend to be exponential in
01:22:18nature and also the number of people
01:22:20engaging with those Technologies tend to
01:22:22come online in an exponential way as
01:22:24well whether that timeline is decreased
01:22:27do you have any thoughts around that
01:22:29whether whether that might be true I
01:22:31think it's not just as decreased but
01:22:32then it's swapped around and so now
01:22:35science fiction is trailing behind like
01:22:38things are happening faster than science
01:22:41fiction can really anticipate them at
01:22:43least in kind of digital when you're
01:22:46talking about big engineering rockets
01:22:48and spaceships and that kind of thing
01:22:50science fiction is still way ahead of of
01:22:53reality just because it takes longer to
01:22:56implement those ideas but
01:22:59trying to stay ahead of developments in
01:23:02Internet uh online any of that is kind
01:23:06of a hopeless task and a lot of Science
01:23:08Fiction writers besides me have uh have
01:23:11talked about the the fact that no matter
01:23:15much they try to stay on top of current
01:23:17trends and be creative and try to think
01:23:19ahead that by the time they can actually
01:23:21write a book and get it published
01:23:23everything they've written has already
01:23:25happened I I wonder when the first AI
01:23:28written book will Top the New York Times
01:23:30bestseller list I I wouldn't be
01:23:33surprised if if that happens within my
01:23:35lifetime certainly but returning back to
01:23:38the idea of carbon removal let's just
01:23:40close out on this topic because it's
01:23:42something that interests you it's
01:23:43certainly an area of opportunity as I
01:23:46mentioned we'll be doing a separate
01:23:47episode on it but given that you've dive
01:23:50so deeply into this Arena what would you
01:23:53say are some of the most exciting maybe
01:23:55more optimistic things that you've
01:23:57learned or maybe certain companies that
01:23:59you're seeing attack this problem that
01:24:00you think are really exciting I'm uh
01:24:03excited by terraform Industries which is
01:24:06a company in Southern California uh
01:24:09surrounded by a friend of mine named
01:24:11Casey Hanmer who's a
01:24:13physics PhD who was in space working in
01:24:17space you know JPL and that kind of
01:24:19thing but decided to address this this
01:24:22issue and they are developing a system
01:24:26for using photovoltaics to extract
01:24:29carbon from the atmosphere and and turn
01:24:33them into synthetic fuels Net Zero
01:24:37exchange because you know you're you're
01:24:41pulling carbon out of the atmosphere
01:24:42you're selling fuel which gets burned in
01:24:44an airplane engine or whatever and puts
01:24:47the carbon back in but uh still uh a big
01:24:50Improvement on sucking it out of the
01:24:54adding adding new carbon you know we've
01:24:56all gotten kind of conditioned to
01:24:58think that anytime you're using energy
01:25:00it's bad and you should you should
01:25:03feel bad you should curtail your use of
01:25:07that's only true really if it's energy
01:25:11produced by burning fossil fuels energy
01:25:14from renewable sources and particularly
01:25:19um you know isn't hurting anyone and the
01:25:25making photovoltaics is is coming down
01:25:28just come down a lot already and it's
01:25:31still going down so
01:25:33so I think where we end up is in a
01:25:36situation where um
01:25:39we're using energy from those kinds of
01:25:43um to get carbon out of the atmosphere
01:25:46and keep it out of the atmosphere for me
01:25:48that's an optimistic Trend that I hope
01:25:52I hope it doesn't come to a billionaire
01:25:54having to operate unilaterally and
01:25:57release a bunch of sulfur into the
01:25:59atmosphere which is the premise of
01:26:00termination shock I mean I suspect that
01:26:07I suspect it'll be done by a
01:26:10some country not not by a uh a lone
01:26:14billionaire blown billionaire makes for
01:26:17country is a more realistic possibility
01:26:20but when you look at the threat
01:26:23posed by you know so-called wet bulb
01:26:26disasters where the temperature and
01:26:29becomes so high that humans cannot
01:26:31survive we could see very large fatality
01:26:37in certain parts of the world so why
01:26:41why wouldn't such a country want to put
01:26:43some sulfur into the stratosphere to
01:26:46cool things down you know it's a
01:26:48tourniquette it's it's like it's the
01:26:50emergency thing that you do on your way
01:26:52to the emergency room to to get to to
01:26:55get a real cure and the real cure is is
01:26:57going to be carbon removal yeah it
01:27:00doesn't it doesn't solve the problem
01:27:03until you remove the carbon from the
01:27:05atmosphere well Neil I want to say thank
01:27:07you for taking so much time throughout
01:27:09this interview I think you've inspired a
01:27:12bunch of people with your work but also
01:27:15extremely important to note that you are
01:27:17a builder in this space you have been
01:27:18for many years whether it was at Blue
01:27:20origin magic leap now with lamina one
01:27:22and I think many people are excited to
01:27:24see what lamina one brings to the space
01:27:26whether it really can build a better
01:27:28ecosystem for creators whether we can
01:27:30use some of these design decisions to
01:27:32make a more interoperable more fair more
01:27:37ecosystem for the people participating
01:27:39within it so yeah I just want to say
01:27:41thank you again for taking the time here
01:27:43well it's been my pleasure I really
01:27:45enjoyed the interview and you know
01:27:46thanks for thanks for being so well
01:27:49prepared and uh asking good questions
01:27:51yeah I can only hope that maybe one day
01:27:53we get to play with your goat AR
01:27:56application is that ever
01:27:58appearing in in the world
01:28:00yeah uh it ended up getting kind of
01:28:03turned into demo code for for magic leap
01:28:06so it's real value for the company was
01:28:09to provide a sample app basically and
01:28:13some documentation that other developers
01:28:15could could use to make their own
01:28:19um I don't see why you couldn't have
01:28:20them running around in a virtual space
01:28:23well hopefully we'll get to experience
01:28:24that one day thanks again Neil
01:28:28thanks for listening to the a16z podcast
01:28:30if you like this episode don't forget to
01:28:32subscribe here on YouTube to get our
01:28:34exclusive video content
01:28:35we'll see you next time
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