In this captivating episode of The Future of NFTs, we delve into the fascinating world of the metaverse and its redefined approach to human connection. Join us as we host Christopher Lafayette, the visionary founder of Gatherverse, a global ecosystem that embraces all industries and aims to shape a truly human-centered metaverse.

Join us as we unravel the potential of the metaverse, explore the importance of human-centered approaches, and gain insights from Christopher Lafayette, a visionary at the forefront of this transformative movement. Tune in for an eye-opening conversation that will leave you inspired by the possibilities of a reimagined metaverse.

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Gatherverse - Metaverse Redefined: The future of human connection

Participants:

• Nadja Bester (Co-founder of AdLunam)

• Christopher Lafayette (Founder of Gatherverse)

00:22

Nadja

Hey, web3 world. This is Nadja Bester from AdLunam, the all in one Web3 investment ecosystem empowering early stage startups through our startup accelerator, our monthly Web3 pitch arena, and our Engage to Earn platform using Proof of Attention. And as always, welcome today's show, where you are listening to the Future of NFTs, the show that looks beyond current NFT use cases to what non fungible token technology is evolving into. All this as seen through the eyes and built by the minds of the fascinating guest speakers that we speak to each week. Now, I don't say this too often, but if you're listening to this today, definitely make sure that you have a notebook nearby because this is how I feel whenever I speak to Christopher. He drops spot on insights almost with every sentence that he utters. So no pressure, Christopher, but I'm expecting this is going to be an electrifying show for those who are listening.

01:24

Nadja

So please, guys, welcome Christopher Lafayette, the founder of Gatherverse and HoloPractice. Now, to get into the bio, it's going to require a bit of time, so let's give it a moment. Christopher is an emergent technologist and humanitarian, deeply engaged in the sectors of the metaverse, AI, medtech, education, Web3, and Applied sciences. His work touches everywhere from Silicon Valley, where he's currently based, to the international stage as a very passionate and outspoken advocate for a more equitable culture in technology, which is something we'll definitely be discussing today. Now, Gatherverse, you might have seen around the Internet, is Christopher's brainchild. It's a global ecosystem for thought leaders to come together to work on a more human centric approach to the metaverse. And we're definitely going to be diving into why this is important. Gatherverse includes regular gathers, annual summit, and this is, I think, just a natural overflow from Christopher's overall involvement with community equity programs, which he can also talk about today.

02:38

Nadja

And then companies that he's worked with as an advisor and a collaborator includes literally the who's who of Fortune 100 and Fortune 500, google, Meta, Microsoft Salesforce, the NFL and the NBA, if you're into sports, Stanford, UCLA, et cetera, the list literally goes on and on top of that, because, yes, there is more. Christopher is also the founder of HoloPractice, which is a medical immersive incubator that bridges the gap between healthcare and technology. So you can see why I said you need to get a notebook because this bio alone screams expert. So Christopher, as you can tell, I'm very happy to have you on the show. Think, you know, just really to kick us off because I want to get into why a human centered approach to the metaverse and any technology or any political or social system for that matter is important. But I think let's start off just by giving ourselves a lift off from the right launch station.

03:45

Nadja

There's so many different definitions for this word, which is why we often see bad press and a lot of unfounded hype. But I want to kick off the conversation what is the metaverse? If we're going to be discussing this over the next hour, what should people understand as the metaverse?

04:05

Christopher

Well, first off, thank you for your graceful introduction and I'm really happy to be here with everybody today. I hope everyone's out there chopping wood and really taking advantage of their time that's given it's an incredible time for innovation, definitely a time for introspection and a time for looking beyond what we've been building for all these decades, if you will. Let's chop wood on this. So we talk about the metaverse. But first we have to take in consideration what is the metaverse? Right? It's still being defined, it's still colloquial. It's not colloquial and it's phrasing and it's very loose. So one of the things that I do take exception is when someone comes out with very stupid articles coming out and just let's put the gloves on and saying the metaverse is dead. Well, the metaverse has never been officially in play to be dead in the first place.

04:58

Christopher

That's number one. Two, if we're talking about the metaverse as we know it today, that's good for the time now present it's simply a virtual ecosystem of interaction and communication. But the reality is that the metaverse that is hold intended, novel call it. And here's the deal.

05:14

Christopher

Are we talking about Ernest Klein's version of the so called metaverse with the Oasis and the ontological anthropocentric simulation immersive system? Are we talking Roddenberry's metaverse or are we talking Neil's metaverse? Metaverse.

05:28

Christopher

And so when we start talking about these technologies, the most important thing that we must take in consideration is that when press comes out and says the metaverse is dead, what they're really saying is that when it comes to product delivery and availability and consumption standards, that's dead. But when we start talking about on the technical side, the metaverse is based on science and that's not dead.

05:52

Christopher

And so we really need to do a better job of differentiating. When we start talking about technology versus product, there's a huge great gulf fix and there's a huge dichotomy difference. And so for me, the better opportunity is for us to be able to iron this out and start to really talk about what we're not talking about.

06:11

Christopher

As opposed to what we say we are talking about. And so I see a lot of people, especially within the vertical industry of XR for those that may not be familiar with terminology XR meaning extended reality, we start talking about spatial computing. We start talking about hyper realistic immersive, simulated environments and all the different things, and we'll lean in on that. But when we start talking about the metaverse as it is and the attention for what we're going to be using forward, because we've become more virtual in the past 38 months than we had.

06:40

Christopher

The past 38 years, that's still being defined. So at best, I continue to say that it's just a virtual ecosystem of interaction and communication.

06:52

Nadja

Well, I think that definitely settles it. We found our foundation. So that is an excellent start. I want to jump off from there because I think you mentioned something that is incredibly important as a definition. If you think about it as a virtual ecosystem of interaction and collaboration, I mean, the verbs, they scream connection between people. It screams the human element. So as much as we look now at this new wave of AI tools where everyone is going to be hyper productive and you're going to replace ten employees with $120 Tool, obviously the conversation has never been more pertinent than it is right now. That if we are going to continue to build our technology from the point where it is right now, I mean, spatial computing being the next frontier, but who knows? As we become more immersively digital as beings, I like to think of it as this sort of quantum identity where you have all of these different virtual selves and all of these selves have to coexist, but then you also have the physical self.

08:03

Nadja

And as we move more into the digital self, the lines really become blurred. So why is it so incredibly important and as you say, to focus on what is not being spoken about? Why do we need to make technology human centric?

08:18

Christopher

Well, one of the things is that we have to understand that we're going through a renaissance phase. And in order to be able to better appreciate the magnitude where we're at today, a lot of people, especially so called technologists, are really stuck when it comes to ethnography and where we come from. What's the original intent for why we build what we're building and why we innovate, why we hack and disrupt and code and make and break and do all the things that we do contemporary our time. And to be able to better appreciate that, we need to go a little bit further back. And so that kicks us all the way back to let's not go too far back. Let's say farming, the farming revolution. We go through the farming revolution and then that leads us into the Industrial revolution and then that ultimately brings us into a real game shift change when we come into the 90s, which is the technology revolution, which many of us called the Information Age.

09:14

Christopher

09:49

Christopher

10:08

Christopher

So where am I going with this? In order for us to be able to take advantage of regeneration, just like we see the word regenerative thrown out there, whether that's regenerative agriculture, regenerative sustainability or whether that's dealing with generative free train transformers, we start looking at AI, regenerative art. In order for us to be able to come into a full appreciable amount of what regeneration has to offer, we must go through a degeneration. That means there must be a disruption in order to be able to appreciate that which is superseding. It that former thing.

10:44

Christopher

It's the same thing when we start Talking about web1,2, 2.5 and 3 in order for us to fully be able to appreciate decentralized stations within web3 which were not completely arrived at. A lot of these companies that say that they're completely decentralized, majority of them are centralized, but anyway, that's a whole different story. NFTs, DAOs, DApps and all the different things we start talking about with crypto Assets and meme coins and altcoins and Layer1 and Layer2, and we could go the distance on that, really. We're in an intermediary phase of a 2.5 because we are going through a decentralization we're going through a degeneration to appreciate the regeneration.

11:23

Christopher

However, before there was the regenerative stage of the degeneration precursor, all of that was pro generated. So there's progeneration degeneration and regeneration. And so right now we have to go through this natural refinement process to better understand exactly what it is that we're not saying so that we could better get closer to what we are saying.

11:49

Christopher

And that is going through what we call the trough of disillusionment. If we start looking at peak of inflated interest, trough of disillusionment, plateau of Productivity into the slope of enlightenment really has a lot to do with the Hype cycle.

12:01

Christopher

But even the Hype cycle by Gartner has been disrupted severely because we did not realize that once we got through the applications renaissance that good technology is superseded by great technology and great technology is superseded even by better technology. And this is what we commonly refer to here in Silicon and elsewhere as the disrupt itself. But we did not know that the greatest disruption contemporary to our time would not be technology because the greatest disruptor contemporary to our time has been the pandemic.

12:30

Christopher

And that has led us into a Sea chain shift of the way that we work. Remote distributed workforces and product delivery teams are working from their living rooms and their boxers and they're making and hacking and coding and doing all these things that we're already doing but in a different way and using tools that we've never used before. And that is why we see the proliferation of NFTs becoming a multibillion dollar industry overnight. Same thing with crypto assets, multibillion dollar industry overnight. But the reality is that all of these technologies that abide within the eco habitat, they are scaling, but they are still in their infancy.

13:06

Christopher

And we'll get into that a little bit further if time allows but that's kind of where we're at. When we start looking at that, so what happens after this applications renaissance? What happens where all of a sudden you have all now have arrived on the scene? And why is that such a disrupt? Because artificial intelligence has arrived. And what makes that a big deal? Because we have never been this closer to unlocking and understanding physics.

13:43

Nadja

Well, I'm definitely not going to get into the physics question because they, I know nothing but everything else. I would love to kind of touch on this. I made a few notes and I would like to come back to this as time allows. But what you described, I want to make it more tangible and real in terms of the regeneration and the degeneration and the pro generation because I think it's important to kind of just take a minute and think about really how this plays out in practice. And so what came to mind for me is when I took my son out of school, there was a period, obviously, of schooling. Then there was a period of deschooling. And ultimately he became a self directed learner through unschooling. But the deschooling process really involved when he was taken out of school, that he sat months and months in front of the TV, watching TV, which is something he'd never been able to do because he was always busy.

14:37

Nadja

And that was the period where I thought to myself, oh my God, I have made the greatest mistake of my life. But I just have to trust that we're going to get to the other side of this. So I think we're seeing this a lot in technology at the moment where there's so much disillusionment with what we've had to kind of deal with up until now. If we talk about the Web2 companies, for example, where it's very predatory, their behavior, and now we have, on the other hand, Web3, where all these amazing promises are being made in terms of how things will be different. However, due to the volatility of the market and just all the nuances of this industry in general, we find ourselves where we continue to be disappointed that product delivery is not, as you were saying earlier, there's a differentiation between product and technology.

15:27

Nadja

But in web3, because it's so easy, so early am I still here? Yes, sorry, I thought my sound dropped. So in web3, we have the technology and we have the product, but those two are so closely aligned that for many people it's different to kind of difficult to take a step back and go, okay, the product is early, but the technology is sound. So I wonder, in terms of this really difficult time that we are in now, where there's so much, as you say, degeneration that needs to take place, what are the steps going to look like for us to get? To a point of, let's say, more healthy equilibrium closer to the pro generation that we want to get to, which is a positive stage where we can continue to build. Because I just want to highlight also what you said, that whenever there is a greater amount of information, that is when builders start building.

16:26

Nadja

So we see this, we see that builders are building. But at the same time, we're in this really awkward phase where there's a lot of negativity and a lot of sort of lost and even false hope. How do we get to this point where people are able to trust in the evolution and the positive evolution of the technology more than they are now?

16:48

Christopher

Yeah, sure. And so I think that's a really relevant and good question. And let's do what you just said. Let's really micro focus and hone in on when we start talking about Degeneration. Well, first off, the concern is that when there is a Degenerative phase, sometimes there's great sacrifice that will happen. And we've heard words and terminology like universal basic income. That's a real thing because I said it about two years ago and I've been saying it forever since. Is that what happens when the technology becomes more advanced than a technologist? So that's now come to pass is that technology has become so advanced that such a rapid clip that it has superseded and outdistance our technologists in our community, including our artists, which are one of the same in a very powerful way because you can have art without technology, but you cannot have technology without art.

17:57

Christopher

But we'll put a pin in that. But when we talk about this Degenerative phase, what we have to be mindful of is that there was a time when the print press all of a sudden showed up in the world. But before that they had been writing hand letters and quills and ink and all the different things that they would use and have all these different scribes and all these different writers. And when the print press came on the scene, it was terribly disruptive towards many people in the world in different professions. But what also happened is that it accelerated the tempo and the cadence of print media. And so when we arrived to this place where we're at today, when it comes to generative free trade transformers and large language foundational models, what we have to realize is that we have now entered into a much more accelerated fashion and an upgrade in the cadence of technology and the technical advancements itself.

18:56

Christopher

And this is why we continue to see these technologies that abide within the eco habitat continue to scale. And let's lean in for a second, because all the technologies that we have out here, usually we'll look at just like the Metaverse and XR. You mentioned spatial computing earlier. Or we'll look at DeFi and DAOs and NFTs and so many other different technologies that are in market, and we say, okay, these are what abide within the Eco habitat. You may have artificial intelligence that's flanked by machine learning and deep learning and neural networks and smart assistants, so forth and so on. And then we'll have the acronym of XR, which flanked by VR and AR and MRX. Spatial Computing and Metaverse and all these different types of things. And then we'll do the same thing with Fintech. We'll do the same thing with robotics. But the reality is that we have much more than just those particular sciences, these applied sciences and technologies that abide within eco habitat.

19:50

Christopher

I put together the framework and deployed and distributed out this summer, which brought us into the Eco Convergence. Eco Convergence shows forth that we actually have 54 technologies that abide within the Eco habitat, of which each technology has four subsets per technology, bringing us to over 270 different technologies that abide within the Eco habitat. And here's the thing, Nadja. These technologies aren't just sitting there. They're not dormant, and they're not new. These technologies have been going through a natural refinement revision themselves, and these technologies are beginning to scale. Well, what happens when these technologies begin to scale? Some are coming into market, but what happens when these technologies begin to scale.

20:33

Christopher

But they begin to pair together? And this is what we call the merge pairing. Now, when you take these technologies and pair them together on a morph scale, we don't completely know what they'll render out to be. In fact, once they pair together, all of a sudden now the amalga of what's been brought together by the pairing of these technologies, when those pair together, that's what we call technological convergence. And so here's the situation at hand. Yes, today we're talking about artificial intelligence.

21:06

Christopher

Yes, today we're talking about the metaverse. But what about tomorrow, when we bring those two technologies together and we're talking about immersive intelligence? But here's the other thing that we have to be mindful of.

21:17

Christopher

When we examine the eco habitat of technology itself by way of eco convergence. Is there's only two things of those 270 plus technologies in county, there's only two things that influence each of those technologies. For example, XR does not influence every single technology within the eco habitat. It does not.

21:37

Christopher

Artificial intelligence does. But the only other thing besides artificial intelligence that influences every other technology within the eco habitat is human intelligentsia culture, human intelligence. Because why? Artificial intelligence is an extension from human intelligentsia. So rightfully to be said that when we talk about XR and extended reality, we're not just talking about simulations and hyper realistic environments. What we're really talking about also is artificial intelligence. It is also a subset to extended reality. And the reality is that with AI and where we're headed, which many believe that AGI has landed, and that's greatly debated right here in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, whether AGI has landed, we can all agree that Superintelligence hasn't. I personally do believe that AGI has arrived and that the Turing test has been met and exceeded and that bar continues to move. But where we're at right now is that the defining and the understanding of this technology is moving at such a rapid clip that we are only capable of understanding based information that we're given.

22:57

Christopher

But here's the rub, and I'll be done with this for the moment. Here's the rub right now. The very thing that we seek to understand in its progress in scale, this very thing called artificial intelligence is the very thing that stands to be the biggest threat of the information that we generally would retrieve to understand technology itself. Why? Because it's the greatest disruptor to misinformation, disinformation and the ecosystem of information itself. Now we have a problem on our hands.

23:32

Nadja

Yeah, I mean, you touched on so much there. But I think one thing I really want to highlight is, well, two things, and I'm going to start with the easy one, because I think that's the one that I need to ask you as soon as possible. But I'll ask the second part of the question as well. I think what you highlighted about technology not being a technology or only the technologies that we use, but a much bigger set and collective of different technologies, many of which people are not even aware exists. So I think the first thing maybe is really just to define again, if we think about technology, what is it that we should be thinking about? What is the definition of technology? So that being the first part and then the second one you mentioned. And I would like you to also answer the question about the definition of technology in the direction of the second question.

24:30

Nadja

If you think about these two sort of all-pervasive technologies, AI on the one hand, and the human intelligence, the human culture, the human transference that we imbue into all of the products and technologies that we build. If you think about technology as a definition for AI. On the one hand, as one of the technologies and humanity on the other hand, how are we going to prevent the definition from being skewed only in the direction of the companies building the technologies, which, obviously, they have their own prerogatives, they have their own incentives to define a technology in a specific way. Whereas obviously if you think about the human element then it's something that should be far more inclusive and equitable to make sure that a technology represents everyone that gets involved with it and has to use it. Because I mean it's inescapable at this point.

25:32

Christopher

Yeah, sure, totally. And I hear you on that and let's go there. Let's just lean in and I'm enjoying these questions. They're really spot on and rather apropos for those that are with us. I hope that you're still leaning in with us and taking these notes when we start talking about in a very particular way of technology. One of the things I set out years ago is I defined myself as an emergent technologist. And when I came to Silicon Valley, I came living out of seat in my car. I was living under my car when I first moved to Silicon Valley because I really wanted to further deepen my understanding of know, I was raised by a technologist but I wanted to go even further. And when I came to the Valley, I was taught by many women and men that were brilliant technologists and that are brilliant technologists.

26:25

Christopher

And I realized that I had such an affinity for wanting to understand on a more rudimentary level what is technology. This very thing that you ask and I've wrapped my whole entire career based on technology and humanitarianism. And so when we talk about technology, what we're really talking about on a very light but very direct and very firm vertical is that we're taking science and we're applying it and we're converting it and making it into a tool. So everything that we use today in the sense of technology that we purchase and that we buy, much of what we're actually using is a part and a piece of science that was once vague and what's once in a kiosis state. But we are able to take this science and to be able to break this thing down into a concrete form of understanding and we're able to take this technology and apply this science and to be able to create tools.

27:30

Christopher

Well, what we do with these tools is it now forces the opportunity to go back into this kiosis to go back into what we don't know this Thing called science and to better be.

27:42

Christopher

Able to further understand its nature and how we could take its nature of science and to better understand what science is on a grander and macro scale. And so where we've arrived today is when we talk about these tools such as GPT, these tools such as virtual reality and augmented reality and using HMDs and headsets and start talking about blockchain layer one. What we're really talking about are breakthroughs in science. But here's the deal being that technology is moving at such an accelerated clip, as we talked about earlier, especially the cadence of technology has accelerated. We will one day, sooner rather than later, look at all these things that we find rather astonishing and brilliant and we will look at them as the value of a hammer or a screwdriver, a tool.

28:38

Christopher

They have their place in the development of things. But compared to what we are getting ready to unlock and what we are presently unlocking, all of this that we interact with, that we find so innovative is really rudimentary. And the thing that we must take in consideration that we've gone through an ideative phase, hardware development phase and a software development phase.

29:04

Christopher

But the next natural progression that we must adhere to is going through the Stage of humanity first, meaning at this intersection between technology and humanity for whom we have been ideating and developing and building hardware and software for in the first place. We must take that into consideration. Because if we do not get a Grip on accessibility and education and community

29:30

Christopher

Development and equity and quality and safety and privacy and wellness and ethics, if we do not lean into that if we do not make that the first priority for why we're building, then we will have nothing to innovate for. We are out innovating ourselves. We are completely so keen in and so focused on disruption that were quite literally disrupting our own selves. And that is never a good thing. So what part of my mission has been is to create this platform called Gatherverse which has turned into a massive community. Because it seems to me that what is more important than continuing to build disruptive technology that many people don't understand, many people can't afford, many people are losing their own careers and job paths to these things that we disrupt. To me, this is about amplifying human voices. This is about creating real opportunities and experiences for humans and for people so that there's true human betterment protocol, practice and procedure and sustainability at hand.

30:49

Christopher

And the reality is, while we continue to say that we've arrived to this nexus point in the crucible of opportunity, we have so much of the world that doesn't even have common Wi-Fi and broadband and we haven't even unlocked the potential of what it is to give people access to Wi-Fi. And so we are at such a disproportionate weaponization against ourselves that ultimately when we get to the point where we feel like we've arrived to the certain next step, when we start talking about web4 and web5, we will be hit with a reality that's going to be a very difficult and tough pill to swallow.

31:32

Christopher

Is because we forgot about humanity and That will come back on us.

31:42

Nadja

Yeah. So thanks for ending us on a light note, I think these things that you've touched on, they are as difficult as they are to swallow, because they make us realize just how powerless we can be in the face of all these huge companies. And systems that are not necessarily for us because we are the product and then the products are sold to us with ourselves in it. A sort of data cannibalism. So these are very important and sobering realities. But on the other hand, to make things a little bit lighter, it's the same as climate change. Climate change is happening on a massive scale involving large corporations and governments. But then the average populace is told, oh, you should switch off your lights and you should recycle because those are the things that kind of is going to make or break the tipping point.

32:40

Nadja

So with technology, it's much of the same. We are involved with it at various levels. Some of us are building products that speak to the solutions or that speak to doing it in a better way. But for the average person, they are simply consumers of technologies and everything that goes with it. So in the face of all of this, which it can be a damper, I mean, it can be quite disheartening to think, well, there's not much I can do. What is your advice even, let's say, for someone listening to this and going like, oh my God, there is just so much and who am I? I'm just the average person. So what message to give this person? And I think I'm including pretty much all of us here, because even as someone that works in technology and I know that I'm spending every day focused on building something that will be good for the world, not something that's going to make it even worse than it already is.

33:44

Nadja

But even for me, there's these moments of going, well, is there really something we can do in the face of so what would be your advice to pretty much everyone that feels like this at some time or another?

33:57

Christopher

Sure. I'm going to focus on three things you brought up and I think they're absolutely prevalent. One, you're right about climate. In fact, we're getting ready to make announcement at the end of this week. We're launching seven new platforms with Gatherverse of one, which is five events that we have coming out. One of those events is called it's too late, The Gatherverse Summit for climate. It's too late. We've reached a threshold according to what we're seeing with science and more. And right now it's about how do we deal with this sea change that's happened in our planet. Listen, you asked how's everything going. I'm in California. We just had quite literally yesterday, a hurricane and an earthquake reach our shores. We have flooding in this state that I'm sitting in right now in Southern California, flooded everywhere. And so when I start thinking about it's too late.

34:51

Christopher

When it comes to climate, the number one thing that our focus should be on, if you will, when it comes to climate responsibility is alleviation. But let's get into more of the positive opportunities. I was in Germany a few months ago, and I was at an incredible symposium by Tubingen University. And there's a person that was talking about Meta, and she know she's bringing about human trafficking and talking about some of the things that people are allowed to do through its platforms secretly and to be able to hold Meta accountable for these things that are happening and force this demand and that demand. And I said when I got up and did my fireside because it was a discussion that we had with great contestation and that was welcomed, checks and balances, if you will, to what was said. And it kind of dawned on me in Germany and it's kind of been with me for some time, is that we're afforded and we have never been in such a better opportunity right now.

35:49

Christopher

Instead of me trying to take all this energy and try to change Elon Musk, his approach to Twitter, why don't I go build my own? Instead of me trying to get Mark Zuckerberg to do my biding and to be able to say, hey, you should operate with Meta this way and that way or Instagram or any other platform.

36:08

Christopher

Why don't I go out and build my own platform? We've never had more of an opportunity to democratize access tools than we do today. And I see people constantly subjecting themselves to Fortune 50 and Fortune 500, and I'm not knocking that, but they subject themselves to these jobs at will where a bunch of people, candidly, especially executive leadership, could care less about you or your families. Now is the time. Through all that's been built and handed down, you've never had a bet. I think you have a better opportunity of going to build your own platform under your own agency and autonomy with success than you have marching inside a Fortune 50 and Fortune 500 company only be let down by a turn of a dime operation. I know so many people here in Silicon Valley in the past three to four months that have been fired and let go of.

37:02

Christopher

And these weren't just any just simple type of jobs. These were very important positions where you know that they're relevant in today's market and they were just as easily dismissed as we had supper from last night. And so the reality is that we must take advantage of these tools. These aren't just hobbyist moves that we're making when we talk about lab to funding and lab to market and the startup culture we are talking about now, this is the way that you need to survive. We need to move from this gig mindset to startup mindset and creating micro economies and centralizing our own communities through human centricity. This is where it's at. So I really am so supportive of those that take the initiative to go and dig in the trenches and chop that type of wood and build out their own platforms with their own opportunities to monetize and leverage and build and collaborate.

38:06

Christopher

This has never been a better time to do it now. And let me say this, because now you have AI tools that can do the work of 100 people. And so the traditional process from lab to funding and lab to market, especially when we talk about acceleration and incubation phases, those have now changed. Your incubation time doesn't have to be four to six months. You can get it on and meet your, you can literally meet your co-founder somewhere in this world having never met them in person. Build a platform scale, go multinational and find yourself going through an exit acquisition of a multibillion dollar company and never met your co-founder. This is true.

38:49

Nadja

Yeah. Well, I was thinking to myself, I'm going to use part of this recording as my alarm in the morning to get me going. Because it's very inspiring in the sense that it's so incredibly true that we are not only talking about a revolution or truly an evolution in technology, but we are also talking about the same thing in just people's ability to be self. Sovereign. And I want to go back to what you said earlier about COVID having been this pivotal moment, because COVID showed people a possibility that many had never had before. Some of us have the luxury to work from home. We have the luxury to take time off from work. But there are also many people in the world I mean, most people in the world don't know another life other than getting up in the morning, going to your workplace, wherever that might be, inside or outside.

39:43

Nadja

Staying there pretty much the entire day, coming back when you're tired, having to do only a limited few things before you wake up. Well, go to bed, wake up and do it all over again. So I think the idea being that COVID unlocked this part in people's brains, where they went like, wow, you know what? There's actually a different way to live than I like it. So similarly. I think the same is happening in this concept of the micro economy, which I would love for you touch a little bit more on and maybe specific to the technology industry and really, whether it's web3 or even NFTs more specifically, or the entire ecosystem. AI and all of the other emerging technologies that are not as publicly popular as the ones that I just mentioned. What is a way that the average person can look at this idea of how to create a micro business?

40:39

Nadja

I mean, at a time where, as you say the rise of the big tech companies and the big tech platforms have been with us for a long time. But at the same time, we see the most recent example being twitter on the one hand and threads on the other. That even if you have the numbers, even if you have the entire huge databases and incredible amounts, of capital to inject into your platforms. It doesn't necessarily mean that people are satisfied any longer with these big solutions that are out there. So there is a possibility for more and more people to go elsewhere, to find their community, find their tribe, as people say. But you as the average person wanting to build a solution because you don't agree with what the big tech companies are putting out there, how is this something that can be achieved in a time where, especially with the market being down, there's not as much funding into companies as there used to be?

41:44

Nadja

So this is really a very difficult time for founders, for a lot of founders, how to maintain the hope, how to push forward, knowing that this is the time to be doing this, as you said, sure.

41:58

Christopher

One of the things and you brought it up, and I'll touch several points that you made and let's lean in and chop this wood. First of all, we have come through this pandemic and my thing is, why would you come out of a pandemic where there was so much death and so much depression? Why would you want to come out on the other side of that and still do the same things? Why would we? Who wants to do the same things after looking at all of that? I mean, you would think that we would come and emerge and say listen, I don't want to work and subject myself to abysmal and depressing Fortune 50 and Fortune 500 job where I'm not even happy in dealing with these people and the state of conditions of what they're building. It's like someone wants you to go put down your axe and then pick up their axe to chop wood for their house. I would rather take the time that I have on this earth, grab my axe and chop wood for my own house.

42:56

Christopher

44:08

Christopher

45:00

Christopher

Because you mentioned there's none. Listen there is a lot of money out here. There is a lot of deal flow if you know how to get it. People say well I don't know how to get my proper pitch deck and I don't need to get listen I've seen deals done based on what's written on the back of a napkin. Don't tell me that you have to go create the most perfect pitch deck and have to get the perfect 92nd elevator pitch. Stop listening too much of the Gary Vaynerchuk and get out there and handle what you need to handle and go out there and pitch and find the money because it's out there. Companies corporations, public sector, private sector, venture capitalists it's one of the reasons why Gatherverse just a month ago announced our 300 million dollar human capital fund. Why? Because I believe that we need to find better and quicker ways for people to get money and guidance and mentorship especially for the ones that haven't been on this path before.

45:53

Christopher

A lot of people are on the primrose path when it comes to building technology because they don't know what they're doing. They read a Sam Altman book they come over here to Silicon Valley and they think that they're ready to go and throw down on Sandhill Road and raise a bunch of capital in Lou and they find themselves moving back to the Midwest or whatever state that they came from because they found out how difficult it is. But for some the ones that have really dotted their I's and crossed their T's and got good information they came out here and they found success. But here's the deal. It's not just going to be handed to you, but we have so much democratized access available, and we're able to live and operate and move in certain ways that we never have been before. The new standard for how we live in this hybrid economy dead ass that you literally legitimately can meet your co-founder on the other side of the world, and she and you can come together, brainstorm, build based on the platforms that we have through telepresence and communication.

46:49

Christopher

Build out your platform, iron out the details, and go straight to market and earn your capital. Instead of always thinking that we need to go with investor capital, carry and keep intact your whole pie, your whole, entire pie. Instead of giving out a slice here to this guy, a slice here to that gal, keep your pie, grow your platform and hire people and build your small micro economy that is very doable in this world. And we're not listen, the tools that are available today are only going to get better. And this is the thing. This isn't necessarily the alternative option that we're talking about. I'm talking about we need to start adapting to the mindset that this is the only way that we have to go. Because companies are becoming less forgiven. They're not giving you as many losses as they used to. They realized, how much money did we just save by going on lockdown?

47:42

Christopher

How many cups of coffee did we not have to pay for? Oh, Pinterest just gave up a $90 million lease in San Francisco and said, hey, we found that we have a better opportunity to build virtually than in person. We're not going back to doing business as usual the way that went. All those people that worked for Twitter, I sat across the table from the global head of accessibility at Twitter. She thought she was good and comfortable. Look, Twitter came out in the beginning of the pandemic, said, hey, you never have to go back and work again. Oh, that's until we sell the whole platform. And that changed the game. Who wants to be subjected to the while of the man when you could actually run your own platform? Taking advantage of all of these tools that we've been making and hacking and coding all this time for what did we do it for?

48:28

Christopher

Well, we did it so that you would have a fair shot that you're not subjected to 1% business dealings, that you can actually build and govern your own platform and hire your own people and set your own standard and your own rules today. But just remember, when you're building it, always take in consideration to build with humanity first. That's accessibility, education, community development, safety, privacy, wellness, and ethical considerations. Do it the right way and you will find a friend in this world. You will find support in this world. It's not by the Gatherverse community. There are communities global wide that you don't even know that exist, that are an advocate for you. So I'm all about chopping that wood and helping lead this evolution because now is the time for people to speak and stand in their square and get in the trenches and do this together. We cannot do this alone.

49:23

Nadja

So I think when I said earlier that I was going to use a clip from this interview as my alarm clock in the morning, I think the number of people who will be doing that just jumped. Christopher, you're so right because I think to go back to something you said earlier, we came from this industrial age thinking and brought that into web one. But I feel that in web3 we have a very unique sort of thinking where the money was flowing so easily at some point. And it does every time that there's a bull market that founders, when it is a bear market, as it is now, it's almost all or nothing, black or white, either all the money is there or there's no money there. Whereas in AI I speak to so many different founders that do bootstrap and do get the product ready to market and out there before they even think about funding.

50:16

Nadja

So what is it about web3 specifically that we can change these mindsets so that people do think about it in a more long term sustainable basis and do focus more on building even when the funding is not there?

50:31

Christopher

Sure, I think that's a great question. And one of the things that we have to be mindful of is when we talk about web3, we're talking about an ecosystem. We're not just talking about tools in this ecosystem. What we're really headed into, and this is exciting, what we're really heading into is the anime economy. Meaning that in this virtual ecosystem of interaction and communication through a decentralized agency.

51:00

Christopher

That people will enter into the metaverse, especially once we get the interoperability of the open metaverse standards really ironed out, empowered. And it's AI powered too. Once we get this thing ironed in and we're in this transitionary phase, remember the degenerative stage? And then we're also going at the sales same time into the regenerative phase. Well, what does that mean? That means the old way of doing business is fading. It's dying, it's transitioning. And there's great sacrifice that comes with that. Universal basic income is going to be needed. Our artists are under assault right now. Not just our writers that are protesting in the world that's already lost billions of dollars because of these protests, but we're also talking about their designers and graphic artists. And our developers are going to be under assault soon because we're democratizing code and the capability to develop, especially with AI powered tools.

51:51

Christopher

But here's the deal. The animate economy that we're going to be able to operate within this virtual ecosystem of interaction and communication. And within this ecosystem there's going to be buy, sell and trade. And we're not just going to be subjected to fiat and we're not going to be necessarily completely using crypto assets. We're going to have real world assets, one to one opportunities. And we're going to operate and buy, sell and trade within this ecosystem of interaction and communication in this animate economy. But here's the deal. Once you establish, buy, sell and trade within the metaverse, the natural next thing that must come is ethics. Now ethics come from morals. Morals are brought in by each and every single individual that interacts within this ecosystem. From these morals stem ethics, meaning agreed upon rules. And once these rules must be set because you have buy, sell and trade and commerce and barter and all the different things that come with that, you have to create public and private sector governments that will form meaning that we will one day soon refer to whole entire virtual communities and states of existence within the virtual spectrum.

53:04

Christopher

We will refer to that commonly as we may refer to Paris, as we may refer to Texas. Why? Because we are creating new boundaries and borders unlike anything that we've seen before. And we are defining this Wild West, this new frontier. Right now as we speak. Many of us will not appreciate the magnitude of what we are innovating today until many years down the road. And you will look back at this time and say I was part of that and I had no idea that I was actually contributing to that. And we're going to be operating within this virtual ecosystem of interaction and communication with decentralized public sector and private sector governments and orders of business unlike anything we've ever operated before. And fiat is going to be challenged and it's already being challenged significantly. But through this crypto winter, if you will, the bull, that natural refinement that brings us into intermediary currencies such as real world assets brings us deeper into tried and tested crypto assets.

54:19

Christopher

That is going to be a game change. But then you might ask yourself, well what happens when we have this virtual ecosystem, interaction and communication, this animate economy, then what happens? What proceeds after that? Well naturally what happens is that it goes into web four. Web four brings us into AI automation. Now we're going to have a lot of time on our hands because we don't have to be as hands on as we used to because our AI symbiotes are going to be carrying that workload for us. Well then what happens with that? And AI automation sets in. Now that brings us into web5. Now we're talking about physics. Now we're talking about something completely different which many of us aren't equipped to be able to even fathom or touch upon. By then we'll probably be knocking on the door of high AGI, artificial general intelligence or even super intelligence.

55:16

Christopher

But here's the deal. Now is the time to build your brand, your platform, and find ways to monetize. Why? Because you have to start looking at this is your village. This isn't just another startup.

55:38

Nadja

Wow. What a beautiful note to end off with. Before I go to, unfortunately, the only question that we have time for today, but I think you'll agree with me, Christopher definitely has to come back on the show because I have about 50 million questions left to ask. So this one is from Steforia, and I think it's a good question to kind of bring us full circle from the very beginning of the show, where we spoke about what is the metaverse? And so the question is, how do you envision the metaverse impacting the way we communicate, collaborate, and interact with each other in the real world?

56:16

Christopher

Can you say that again? It broke up just a little. I'm sorry.

56:20

Nadja

No worries. So the question is, how do you envision the metaverse impacting the way we communicate, collaborate, and interact with one another in the real world?

56:33

Christopher

Sure. So the metaverse is the intermediary position that when we think about and this goes full circle to how we kick this. Talking about ethnography, the idea was never for us to tap and stare at our devices. The idea is to one day get inside of our devices and operate within them. The greatest developed technology in the past three decades, undoubtedly the greatest and the most refined, has been the power of communication.

57:14

Christopher

What the metaverse will do is the hope is that it serves as a bridge for communicating and delivering and receiving to one another. Well, what does that mean?

57:29

Christopher

That means that we have an opportunity to create bridges into places that we didn't even know that existed. And not just products, but information. Information one to another, but more so, culture. Remember, when we talk about culture, cross cultural communication, intercultural development, what we're really doing is we're talking about exchanging from.

57:56

Christopher

One to another information that goes beyond AI and Python and all these other things that we find so fascinating. Why is this? Listen, I hope everyone's listening to this. Here we go. Why is this? Because the number one thing that AI will never be able to do, it will never be able to duplicate, is the human code. It's human genetics. It's human DNA that's been passed down through the ages and dispensations of time. And what we want to do is create more bridges to be able to communicate and exchange that with one another. And that can never be duplicated by artificial intelligentsia. It can only be facilitated by artificial intelligence, AI. And so while we're building and making and hacking and coding, always remember humanity first standards is the way to go. And the greatest code that we have on this planet is the human code.

58:59

Christopher

I hope someone got something out of what was said.

59:03

Nadja

Christopher wow. I can only say thank you because any other words would fall flat. Not that thank you is any better, but it absolutely comes from the bottom of my heart. I think that the many different areas that you touched on today are so incredibly pertinent and I would genuinely love to pick up this conversation in the future as well because I think there's just so much to unpack that 1 hour is not nearly enough. So I'm sure that after the show, there's a lot of folks either listening live or on the podcast afterwards who would love to stay connected to you. So before I say goodbye to you, where is the best place that folks can follow you and just stay up to date with your thoughts and what it is that you're doing with Gatherverse and other projects?

59:47

Christopher

Nadja

Awesome, guys. To the audience, live or recorded, very much appreciative, much appreciated. And just a huge thank you from me for joining us each week as we speak to all of these incredible minds. So I will thus catch you again next week for another episode of The Future of NFTs brought to you by AdLunam. Cheers, guys, and Christopher, much love. Speak to you soon. Bye, bye, guys.

Christopher

Thank you. Peace.