episodes
Alex Zhang: Mayor of FWB
Alex Zhang is the mayor of FWB DAO, a worldwide group of cultural creators, thinkers, and builders who convene digitally and IRL to collaboratively shape Web3’s future. Previously, he was the president of Summit, an ecosystem that connects and nourishes global creatives, entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders. He aspires to be the Jane Jacobs of DAOs.
Roneil Rumberg: Decentralized and Open Source Music Community
Roneil Rumburg is co-founder and CEO of Audius, a digital streaming service that connects fans directly with artists and exclusive new music. Audius is fully decentralized, owned and run by a vibrant, open-source community of artists, fans, and developers all around the world. Founded in early 2018, Audius serves millions of users every month, making it one of the largest crypto applications ever built.
Prior to Audius, Roneil most recently co-founded Kleiner Perkins' early-stage seed fund, KPCB Edge. At KP, he was responsible for seed investments into Blockchain and AI companies, including Lightning Labs. Roneil attended Stanford University and previously co-founded a Bitcoin peer to peer payment company called Backslash.
Yat Siu: Innovation Led by Digital Property Rights
Yat Siu is the co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, a global leader in blockchain and gaming with the mission to deliver digital property rights to the world’s gamers and internet users, thereby creating a new asset class, play-to-earn economies, and a more equitable digital framework contributing to building the open metaverse.
He is a veteran technology entrepreneur and investor based in Hong Kong. He was previously the Founder and CEO of Outblaze, and began his career in Atari Germany. He has been an early advocate for the use of blockchain and NFTs in the gaming industry, which will allow gamers to enjoy true ownership of their own game assets, data and consequently, equity.
Space Popular: Architecture’s Role in Building the Metaverse
Space Popular is a research driven art, design, and media studio that explores the future of spatial experience through virtual reality, film, exhibitions, speculative writing, as well as buildings and objects. The studio is directed by architects Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg, both alumni of the Architectural Association in London (2011). The studio has completed buildings, exhibitions, public artworks, furniture collections, and interiors across Asia and Europe, as well as virtual architecture for the immersive internet.
Peter Yang: A Creator’s Guide to DAOs
Peter is the founder of Odyssey, an education DAO focused on bringing the next 1 million people to web3. Peter is also a product lead at Reddit and previously worked at Twitch and Meta. You can find his writing at creatoreconomy.so.
Phillip Wang: Making the Metaverse Open and Accessible
Phillip Wang is the CEO and Co-Founder of Gather. Prior, he spent time building technologies to support more fulfilling relationships across distances at The Siempre Collective, ranging from wearables, audio/video apps, to VR. Before that, he spent time at Facebook, Cruise, Microsoft, and as a researcher in deep learning at CMU. Phillip graduated from Carnegie Mellon with a degree in Computer Science.
Morgan Tucker: Designing for the Metaverse
Morgan Tucker is the Head of Product, Social at Roblox, where he has spearheaded new Metaverse experiences such as the Lil Nas X concert, the Gucci Garden experience, and the In the Heights movie launch party. Previously, he was the VP of Product at imvu where he built social avatar experiences.
Devin Finzer: NFTs and the Great OpenSeaScape
Devin Finzer is the CEO and co-founder of OpenSea, the first and largest peer-to-peer marketplace for blockchain-based assets. Devin has a background in software engineering at Google and Pinterest and sold his previous company to Credit Karma.
Akash Nigam: Avatars As Your Authentic Self
Akash Nigam is the CEO of Genies, the world’s largest avatar technology company. The company has set the foundation for swift, widespread adaptation of avatars in society and culture, allowing individuals to authentically express themselves. The technology features digital wearable goods that can be sold as NFTs, a marketplace built with Dapper Labs, and API integrations for consumer platforms. Investors include Bond, NEA, Breyer Capital, CAA, and Tull Investment Group.
Gaby Goldberg: Web 3 and DAOs
Gaby Goldberg is an investor at TCG Crypto, where she focuses on the firm's investments at the intersection of consumer and crypto. She previously invested in early-stage consumer and internet businesses at Bessemer Venture Partners3ww and Chapter One.
You can find her writing on culture, identity, and ownership in web3 at https://gaby.mirror.xyz
John Linden: Making NFT Games Mainstream
John Linden is the CEO of Mythical, a next-generation game technology studio creating universal economies driven by player ownership of NFTs with utility. Prior to Mythical, John was the President of Seismic Games (acquired by Niantic Labs), developer of Marvel Strike Force and Magic the Gathering: Valor’s Reach. Prior to Seismic Games, he was a Studio Head at Activision Blizzard on the Call of Duty and Skylanders franchises.
Jacob Navok: Computing and Network Needs of the Metaverse
Jacob Navok is co-founder and CEO of Genvid Technologies, the leader in interactive streaming technology. Prior to founding Genvid, Jacob led worldwide business development and strategy at Square Enix Holdings, reporting to the CEO. He also built their cloud gaming division, Shinra Technologies, where he met many of his Genvid colleagues.
Kyla Scanlon: Gen Z Creator on Why Decentralization and the Metaverse Matters
Kyla Scanlon is a popular financial content creator and educator. She started options trading in high school, previously worked at Capital Group and was a participant in the TAP program. She is now building a financial education company to onboard people to the world of investing. You can subscribe to her financial content on substack, Youtube, TikTok or wherever you like to consume your content.
Kenshi Arasaki: Psychology of Games and NFTs
Kenshi Arasaki is the CEO and Co-founder of A Thinking Ape Entertainment, a gaming company that has produced some of the top free-to-play mobile games It was recently acquired by the Embracer Group. He is an angel investor and jpeg/nft enthusiast, and is the primary author behind US patent 8918725 for systems and methods to support real-time chat on mobile devices.
Jon Lai: Why Gaming is Becoming Mainstream
Jon Lai is a partner on the consumer investing team at Andreessen Horowitz, focusing on games, next-gen social, and the creator economy. Before a16z, Jon led the North America business development & investments team at Tencent. Prior, Jon was a product manager at Riot Games, the developers of League of Legends, before the company was acquired by Tencent.
Philip Rosedale: How Cultures and Societies Emerge Online
Second Life, created by Philip Rosedale, was an online virtual world platform that took the world by storm in the 2000s. Astoundingly enough, the platform still maintains about one million regular users who, for a lack of a better way to put it, live a second life there. Second Life never set out to be a game, but rather an organic world where any set of possibilities can happen. As a result, true life, culture and societies started to form organically. In this episodes, we explore the elements and factors that made such an unusual occurrence to happen.
Rex Woodbury: Evolution of Digital Identity
Rex Woodbury is a Principal at Index Ventures, where he invests in consumer internet and consumer software businesses. He’s particularly interested in how people and tech intersect, including online communication, creators, and digital economies and shares his thoughts on his blog, Digital Native.