Philip Rosedale on Second Life, Spatial Audio and the Metaverse

As a child, Philip Rosedale dreamed of creating a fully-fledged virtual society and that’s exactly what he did with Second Life. Despite it being conceived many years before, Second Life was launched in 2003. Almost two decades later, and with one million active users and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of transactions, Second Life experienced a boom during the Covid-19 pandemic as the world went into lockdown and more of us spent more time online.

In this wonderfully wide-ranging conversation, Philip opens up about his early influences, his ability to see into the future and how he executes when the tech, not always the world, is ready.

He also tells me about his latest company – High Fidelity which specialises in spatial audio -  and where he envisions the field going, as well as the future of virtual reality, education, crypto, live music, how tech can and should be harnessed for good, and how closely he believes the link is between virtual reality and reality.
 

Mentioned in this episode:

Oxford Uni panel talk with Elon Musk and Baroness Susan Greenfield:  https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/silicon-valley-comes-oxford

Philip’s Writing/blog: https://www.highfidelity.com/blog/author/philip-rosedale

NB At 52:13, I asked Philip, “What do you wish your legacy to be? The words which are inaudible at 52:32 are “be together” so his answer was, “It’s what I am continuing to work on. I’d like to continue to use technology to build these places which allow people to be together.”

Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram: @daniellenewnham

Philip on Twitter: @philiprosedale
High Fidelity https://www.highfidelity.com/
Second Life https://secondlife.com/

This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate – the device which can help to reduce stress and anxiety in less than ten minutes a day. To get an exclusive $25 off your first purchase, simply head to Sensate and insert my discount code POD.