Joining me today is Frédéric Chesnais - founder & CEO, Crypto Blockchain Industries, and the former CEO of Atari. Crypto Blockchain Industries is a company listed on Euronext and focusing on investments in blockchain and technology. Fred has decades of experience in executive production, budgeting, financing and management of intellectual property rights. From 2001 to 2007, and then again from 2013 to 2021, he was part of the management team of the Atari Group, the iconic technology and entertainment company. In 2007, he left Atari to create his own executive production company, I2G, which he sold in 2012. “Most of the last 20 years of my professional life has been spent with video games. So first and foremost, for me and for this company that I've created, the Metaverse is a video game. It's an open world. Some may say, you know what, you can have a metaverse in 2D, but as far as we are concerned and given my background, I do focus on the consumer experience, and for me, it's definitely a 3D open world, and then you add on top of that, we add the blockchain layer for transactions.” https://www.intometamedia.com/

Joining me today is Gilad Talmon, CEO of YOOM - a leading volumetric video technology company making the next wave of content creation accessible to creators and brands, providing them a direct path into the virtual worlds and beyond through a proprietary technology. With over 16 years of senior management experience across various technology sectors in both the startup and corporate space, Gilad previously served as the Programs & Business Development Director at Elbit Systems Aerospace Ltd. in Israel, where he was intimately involved with AR. We cover in detail the role of advanced technologies like the one YOOM is building on enabling an ever-expanded and accessible content creation to populate virtual worlds by both professional developers and individual creators. We also discuss why digital avatars are already playing an instrumental role in the way young people socialize and express themselves and why this trend will only accelerate as virtual and gaming continue to emerge as a next-generation mass media. "when I refer to the metaverse, it's a range between augmented reality, superimposed on the real world through mixed reality and flat screen immersive environments, gaming environments on the flat screen, and then all the way to virtual reality… The human beings and human interactions will play a very big role, but it's only attainable if you can create these at scale, and creating them at scale means that they need to be compatible with all of these engines that can update them automatically. So artificial intelligence of text demotion and conversational AI. Their motion looks good and you can create them relatively easy. That's where we wanna be. We want to be an enabler to create these digital humans for you to use however you want, whether it's leaving messages or virtual helpers in the street, or virtual tourism, or in game or in training for enterprise.” https://www.intometamedia.com/

Joining me today is Matias Rodriguez, SVP of Technology - Games & Metaverse Studios at Globant - a global IT software development company operating. As SVP of Technology at Globant’s Metaverse and Gaming Studios, Matías leads a worldwide multidisciplinary team of more than 1,500 people to build products for clients. For the Metaverse Studio, he is leading the journey of helping companies create and operate new virtual spaces where they can extend their brand presence. We cover in detail the practice that Matias leads at Globant and the work they do with clients on metaverse-related initiatives, the opportunities and challenges for engaging with consumers and customers through next generation digital experiences, both in the consumer and industrial sectors, and especially why there’s so much potential for industrial and healthcare companies as a new category of platforms emerge. https://www.intometamedia.com/

Sandy Carter is Senior Vice President and Channel Chief at Unstoppable Domains. The company, which recently raised $65M Series A led by Pantera Capital at a $1B valuation, creates NFT domains that give people control of their data. Each Unstoppable domain is a cryptocurrency address which serves as the user’s login to the decentralized web, and in a sense can act as a user’s universal username. Sandy and her team are responsible for driving new partnerships and integrations. Previously Sandy was Vice President for Strategic Partnerships and Channel Chief at Amazon Web Services, and prior to that was the General Manager of Ecosystems and Startups at IBM. We cover in detail digital identity and its importance according to Sandy, how Unstoppable Domains educates and informs people on how they can establish a next generation online identity, Sandy’s journey from IBM to Amazon Web Services to Unstoppable Domains and why it is so important that we have en ever growing diversity in the teams that are building the future of the Internet. https://www.intometamedia.com/

Maxim Perumal is the founder of Unai, a stealth startup company that makes a VR headset and Virtual World dedicated to making human interactions look, feel, and sound like they do in real life. Unai is funded by NFX, Stride, Y Combinator and David Helgason (founder of Unity Engine), among others. Previously Maxim built Relativty, a popular open-source VR headset when he was 15 years old. He open-sourced it after Meta (then Facebook) invited him to meet with Oculus' Chief Architect. We cover in detail the story of building an open-source VR headset which led Maxim to drop out of high school and begin his journey to build next generation VR platform with Unai, which while is still in stealth mode, spark interest from leading investors who are backing Maxim in his quest to build a truly user-focused VR headset and experience. We also discuss the key pillars that are crucial to providing an enjoyable user experience and what the wider competitive landscape looks like, including Maxim’s point of view on Meta and Apple’s efforts in the space. “An Instantaneous sense of presence” is how Maxim described the essence of how the metaverse will make people feel. https://www.intometamedia.com/

Moritz is a Partner and the Head of Gaming at Lightspeed Venture Partners, a venture capital firm with over $18 billion in capital under management and more than 500 investments across the U.S., Europe, and Asia—including Epic Games, Stability AI, and Snap. Previously, Moritz was a partner and management team member at BITKRAFT Ventures where he led investments into Inworld AI, Theorycraft Games, Raid Base, Lightforge Games, and Horizon Blockchain Games among others. We cover in detail Moritz and Lightspeed’s approach to investing in gaming, how Moritz think about the metaverse and adjacent technologies and trends, what’s his wider hypothesis on the category, and what are some of the key areas he’s focusing on. Really enjoyed hearing Moritz’s thoughtful perspectives, bringing his experience in gaming and an understanding on how emerging technology is unlocking new ways of building next-generation games and experiences. https://www.intometamedia.com/

In episode 41 I host Charles Hambro, co-founder and CEO of GEEIQ (pronounced "Geek") - a data company that helps brands figure out their approach to entering metaverse platforms. The first time I came across GEEIQ is when I read an article that covered NARS Color Quest, the experience that my company Supersocial created on Roblox with NARS Cosmetics, and I was curious about Charles’ work and hence the connection made. We cover in detail what brands are looking for as we kickoff 2023 and why data and measurement are going to play a key role in shaping the way in which brands engage in the metaverse. https://www.intometamedia.com/

Steve May is the Chief Technology Officer of Pixar, the iconic animation studio behind movies such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and Monsters, among so many others. We cover in detail Steve’s perspectives on the metaverse and why the metaverse is important as well as what next generation storytelling might look like. https://www.intometamedia.com/

Richard Ward is the former Head of Metaverse at McKinsey, the leading management consulting firm, where he focuses on advising clients on metaverse and web3 strategy, as well as providing expertise on the role of augmented reality and virtual reality. In a fascinating conversation, Richard and I we discuss in detail the stage we’re at with the evolution of the metaverse; what is full-body computing and why it matters to truly grasp how the metaverse should “feel”; what should decision makers consider when making investment decisions on metaverse-related experiments; and how web3 fits in (if at all). Notes and links can be found here: https://www.intometamedia.com/

This is our finale episode for 2022. We recap where we were at the beginning of 2022 and where we are at the conclusion of the year. https://www.intometamedia.com/