Timmu Toke is the co-founder and CEO of Ready Player Me. We cover in detail the role that 3D avatars play in enabling new forms of expression, exploration and socialization in the next era of the Internet, and what are some of the use cases that are already showing promise today. https://www.intometamedia.com/

Samuel Huber is the CEO of LandVault, a company that helps brands establish presence in Blockchain-based, metaverse-type platforms such as Sandbox and Decentraland. We cover in detail why virtual land matters in the metaverse and what are the challenges ahead for mass adoption. https://www.intometamedia.com/

Royal O'Brien is the General Manager of Digital Media and Games at the Linux Foundation. We cover in detail the role of open source technologies in enabling the emergence of a metaverse we can all believe in and get excited about.

Piers Ridyard is the CEO of RDX Works - a core developer of the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocol, Radix. We cover in detail the challenges in building a scaled blockchain for a user-owned metaverse and what are key use cases to emerge in the near future.

Jake Brukhman is the founder and CEO of CoinFund, a web3 and crypto-focused investment firm. We cover in detail web3 investing, how does it intertwines with the metaverse, and what are some of his lessons learned from investing in the space, especially web3, for the past 8 years.

Rev Lebaredian is Vice President of Omniverse & Simulation Technology at NVIDIA. We cover in detail the next-generation technology platform that NVIDIA is building, its Omniverse that promises to power an industrial metaverse and what it all means for creators, brands and businesses. We also cover special announcements coming out of NVIDIA’S GTC conference - Omniverse Cloud, an infrastructure service powered by a planetary-scaled system, and a partnership with Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s national railroads operator and the largest rail network in Western Europe. The partnership focused on building an AI-enabled digital twin to develop Deutsche Bahn’s future railway system. For those who are less familiar, since its founding in 1993, NVIDIA has been a pioneer in accelerated computing. The company’s invention of the GPU in 1999 sparked the growth of the PC gaming market, redefined computer graphics and ignited the era of modern AI. NVIDIA is now a full-stack computing company with data-center-scale offerings that are reshaping multiple industries. As we speak, NVIDIA’s market value is over $300 billion. In his role the Vice President of Omniverse and Simulation Technology at NVIDIA, Rev leads the Omniverse product, engineering, and research teams. From the dawn of the computer graphics revolution to the present day, Rev has always been at its cutting edge. For the last five years at NVIDIA, Rev and his teams have been combining the rendering, physics simulation, and AI technologies pioneered by NVIDIA into a single platform for creating and simulating physically accurate virtual worlds: NVIDIA Omniverse. Prior to NVIDIA, Rev spent his career in Warner Brothers Digital, Disney Dream Quest Images and his own venture, Steamboat Software.

Tami Bhaumik is the Vice President of Civility and Partnerships at Roblox. We cover in detail why safety and civility is critical not only to ensure that young people can safely play, explore and socialize on Roblox, but how can we nurture a resilient community as the metaverse emerges. Tami spearheads the platform's digital civility initiative. To establish healthy and safe communities, Tami is focused on providing kids, teens, parents, and caregivers with skills needed to create positive online experiences, in partnership with leading global safety and industry organizations. With over 25 years of experience, she has successfully fostered supportive communities in a variety of industries through leading the growth of multiple Silicon Valley startups and is an active board member at leading safety institutions. Tami graduated with a BA from the University of California, Berkeley.

Michael Auerbach is founder & General Partner at Subversive Capital, an investment firm, and SVP at Albright Stonebridge Group. We cover in detail what the metaverse means to him and his firm, the opportunities ahead, and the notorious PUNK ETF which shorts Meta Platforms.

Welcome to episode 16 of This Week in the Metaverse, our weekly show in which Yon and a guest co-host provide commentary on three metaverse-related news items. Joining Yon today as guest co-host is Mario Stefanidis, Vice President of Research at Roundhill Investments, a thematic ETF sponsor who’s behind the Metaverse ETF alongside Ball Metaverse Research Partners. Mario is responsible for Roundhill’s research activities within the digital media and entertainment sector and serving on the firm's investment committee, helping oversee Roundhill's investment activities across all sponsored ETFs and other vehicles. Our three topics for the past week: First, Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, was interviewed by Dean Takahashi from VentureBeat (who was a guest on our podcast a few months ago). What really captured our attention is Huang’s bullishness on the industrial metaverse and the prospect of Nvidia’s Omniverse to play a key role in realizing that vision. Then, we talk about the changes at Snap who’s shutting down Snap Originals, an in-house production studio of scripted and documentary-style programming and double down on its core priorities, including augmented reality. And we finish with more news from Meta Platforms, as Meta’s VP of Horizon is leaving the company, adding more uncertainty on where its metaverse project is heading.

The concepts of digital identity and empowering individuals are core tenets of the social movement driving the development of the metaverse. Taylor Monahan from MetaMask joins us to break down philosophically how they view building in web3, the wallet as the potential gateway to your digital identity, bridging the needs and desires of a broad range of potential consumers in web3 and the outlook for regulation of the crypto sector.