In today’s episode of the a16z Podcast, we’re talking about the Creator Economy, and how NFTs (but not just NFTS!) are making it possible for artists, musicians, videogamers, game developers, and writers to create entirely new markets to make money from their work and engage with their fans.Part of this emerging picture is social tokens, which share a crypto foundation with NFTs, but unlike NFTs (which are non-fungible tokens, in which each token is unique), social tokens are typically fungible, meaning each token has the same value. (Listen to our explainer episode "All About NFTs" with Sonal Choksi, Jesse Walden, and Linda Xie, or see our curated NFT Canon for much more info on NFTs!)This hallway-style chat features a16z General Partner and crypto investor Chris Dixon, talking with Kevin Chou, who founded Kabam, and is the founder of Rally, an open network on Ethereum where creators can launch social tokens; and Jesse Walden, the founder of MediaChain, a music rights protocol that was acquired by Spotify; he’s now the founder of crypto venture fund Variant.They’ll talk about how musicians, artists, and writers can think about NFTs and social tokens as well, and how those different types of assets can interact to create models that haven’t existed before.But Chris starts off the discussion by talking about the emergence of crypto tokens, and a look at how videogames and gamers were early to the idea of community engagement and digital assets, and how that model is beginning to spread outward. 

Kevin is the co-founder + CEO of Rally,  a platform that allows creators to launch their own digital currency + build independent economies with their communities. He's also Chairman of Gen.G, an esports enterprise bridging Asia and North America. Previously, Kevin co-founded Kabam, a top mobile gaming company that grew to $400M/yr in revenue, 500+ million players and sold for nearly $1 billion. Watch + subscribe on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mlSl5q_n9xU Get every episode + giveaways sent to your inbox: https://www.creatorlab.fm/subscribe/ Let us know what you think on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bzaidi​ https://twitter.com/kevinchou In this conversation you'll learn about: emerging waves like AI, crypto, climate change + biotech evolution of the gaming industry + its business models rise of social gaming, esports, live streaming + where we're today gartner's hype cycle + how this applies to crypto how Rally is empowering creators to develop their own economies why there's a need for decentralized alternatives Timestamps: 0:00:00 – Preview Of Convo 0:02:19 – Sponsor Break 0:03:08 – Intro + Kevin’s Interest In Gaming 0:07:00 – 50 Games + 500mil Users 0:08:23 – Moment You Understand Ownership 0:14:59 – Hype Cycles + “Finding Something New” 0:20:57 – Other Waves: AI, Climate Change, Biotech 0:23:11 – What Is Rally? 0:24:02 – How Creator’s Use Rally 0:31:02 – What Are The Alternatives? 0:33:22 – NFT vs creator coin + creating an economy 0:37:49 – Why is it beneficial for a game to have its own currency? 0:46:04 – Kabam – Building A Billion Dollar Gaming Company 0:48:39 – Evolution Of Gaming Industry – 2.5bil People Playing Games 0:52:06 – Impact Of Social + Mobile On Gaming 0:53:38 – Gaming Business Models – Virtual Goods, Micro Transactions, Ads 0:56:04 – Fortnight 0:57:24 – Psychology Of Buying Virtual Goods 1:00:31 – Streaming – Watching People Play Games 1:04:54 – Rise of esports 1:09:33 – esports vs traditional sports 1:12:25 – NFTs + Vectors Of Opportunity 1:13:16 – Crypto Transcends Nations 1:16:56 – Digital Gold + Oil 1:18:44 – Problems with government money printing, dollars are worthless 1:23:31 – Price Volatility + Stable Coins 1:25:59 – Putting Bitcoin On Your Balance Sheet 1:29:43 – What does a decentralized alternative look like 1:33:37 – Decentralized social networks? 1:34:43 – “there is no corporation who runs email” 1:37:07 – Investing 1:39:34 – How to participate in crypto Thank you to our sponsors: Space - the easiest way to engage your team over audio: http://www.JoinSpace.co Micro Acquire - the largest startup acquisition marketplace, join 50k+ others and buy or sell your startup: http://www.microacquire.com