Welcome to the first episode of the Meta Business Podcast! In this week’s episode, we discuss officially launching our new podcast, how we are going to dominate metaverse-themed content, various executives and CEOs discussing the impact of the metaverse on their business, Niantic receiving a $300 million investment from Coatue, and so much more!

From the boardroom to the metaverse, this is the meta business podcast. I

Paul Dawalibi. The master of the metaverse will lead you through the biggest business stories in

the metaverse. Join us as we break down the news and trends from a C suite lens, bringing you

insights, analysis and discussion that you can't find anywhere else. Every single week. Welcome to

metta business. Welcome to episode number one of the metta Business Podcast. I'm joined today guys

by my friends, my co host, the one and only the truly one and only Jeff the juice cone. Jeff,

how's it going? Are you not excited about this brand new podcast, metal business?

I am super excited, you know, to officially call myself a podcast host now, you

know, I've been doing for those of you who are fans of the show. I've been doing a live stream

for I think over a year now. But that's, you know, not officially a podcast. And so that's exciting.

And you know, we're filming this actually the day before Thanksgiving. So I'll get to brag to all my

family and friends tomorrow about how I'm officially a podcaster. So I don't know whether

that's positive or negative, but it's a it's a it's a lifetime milestone so thick.

You are officially a podcaster. I will say for those listening for those watching.

This is definitely what I would call a sister podcast to the business of esports. We are

expanding into whole a whole bunch of other Metaverse content. So this will be a podcast,

really focused on the business side of the metaverse in the way that business of esports was

really focused and will continue to be focused on the business side of gaming and esports. And as

for those who saw the press release we put out last week. You know we have a met a woman podcast

that's coming out literally in a few days that will be focused on women. And, you know, female

executives operating in the metaverse world, helping to build the metaverse on in one way or

another. So a whole bunch of Metaverse content coming your way. But this one specifically focused

on the business side of the metaverse and I will say, Jeff, we've got a busy first episode. There's

like a bunch of stories all ready to talk about. I suggest we just jump into it here. Because there's

a ton and I think

we want to do introductions, introductions first, or everyone just knows us so

well. At this point. I don't know if you want it to, you know,

if anyone wants to get to know us, they can go watch the business of esports there's

you know, about 250 episodes there of content that they can go back and watch or listen to

me. I mean, it's been it is a juicy week. Certainly I think we're hitting almost peak

Metaverse cycle. Yeah, this podcast logic doesn't mark the the top of the metaverse so well. So

Jeff,

I think it is worthwhile. Just sort of the two minutes on you just your background,

why people should be listening to you talking about the metaverse with me.

So so I've been on kind of the business finance side of gaming for about four

years now. Initially, as an analyst at a sell side investment bank called Stephens Inc, where I

covered all the all the Western publishers like take to EA Activision, also the mobile publishers,

as well as small cap esports companies and online gambling, which sort of led me to where I am now,

which is an executive at a publicly traded company called esports Entertainment Group. I run investor

relations and strategy there were an esports, betting and esports entertainment company. I also

serve on the advisory board of a company called motor sports games, which is a publisher.

Jeff, I think most importantly, as the juice again, for those who maybe are new to

our content, you are responsible for some of the best takes maybe ever on our on our on our show,

so I'm hoping there's gonna be more of that here on meta business. I guess everyone hopefully knows

me who's listening right now. But I am the Prophet of esports, the master of the metaverse, host of

the business of esports podcast for a few years now. And the live stream. And you know, I have a

very long history 2025 years of either building companies or investing in companies on one side of

the entrepreneurial slash VC table or the other and have been focused the last few years

exclusively on gaming in the metaverse. I wrote a manifesto three, four years ago now, where my

thesis fundamentally is that metaphor, the metaverse, the metaverse, capital M, its arrival

will essentially change society as we know it, how we have fun how we play, how we work in all

aspects of sort of life. And I think it's fascinating to sort of look at it as its evolving

from a business standpoint, because I think it's there's a lot of news out there. There's a lot out

there. There's no one really bringing insight to the space and just That's what I hope you and I

are going to do here. excited to get going. Alright, let's jump into it. Let's get into some

content here. And I think the first story is is from essentially what it is is a list of

executives that CNBC compiled here that we're talking about the metaverse on their q3 earnings

calls. And so I'm going to bring this this up. There's not you know, there's not much to see

here. And if you're listening, obviously, you're not seeing anything. But they went through the

list of companies that talked about the metaverse on their q3 earnings calls and I just want to

recap some of them and get your thoughts here. Jeff, so Roblox, when when talking about the

metaverse called it, the human co experience that

literally just life okay.

Well, I mean, they he defined it, this is the, you know, the executive at robots as

a place where technology combines high fidelity communication with a new way to tell stories,

borrowing from mobile gaming in the entertainment industry. He says it's predicated on eight

fundamentals, identity, social, immersive, low friction, variety, anywhere economy and civility.

Do you like this definition?

Well, there's, I mean, a lot of words and a lot to take in there. I think the last piece

is probably the most the most interesting. I mean, for me the the important parts of connection, just

pull that back up all the important parts of the metaverse you know are really social. The fact

that you have a social presence there. You know, it's a it's a digital space that you go and you're

you're hanging out with friends, your social you have a shit your own identity within the metaverse

as well as economy. I think that's an important some of the other words he throws in there. I'm

not super sure about like low friction variety. I don't think those are civility. I understand why

you saying that. But I don't think that's like a requisite for the metaverse. But the ones that I

think are important to me are social economy and then obviously virtual.

Yeah, I mean, variety, I think makes a lot of sense in the context of Roblox,

right, because that's a big part of their platform where anyone can go and build stuff in their

Metaverse in their sandbox. You know, I really liked this definition, though. Like, I like the

way robots have all the ones here. I think it's definitely one of the better ones. I'm going to go

through some of the others. But I think Roblox, I would argue, and

before we move on, I just say it's funny how you use, each one sort of defines it in

a way that's best suited for them. So I think the fact that you're pointing out the variety piece,

it's like, well, clearly if your user generated content platform that has a, it's a Metaverse with

various different games within it. Clearly, robots are going to want to define it one way versus a,

you know, Facebook, or now whatever they're called meta meta platforms is going to define it

differently. So I do think that that's something to note here.

True. It's a good point. I just think all but, you know, objectively, I think

Roblox is getting it more right than anyone else, I think is further along than anyone else. In

terms of sort of Metaverse thinking in terms of building what we call sort of the metaverse. I

just I think they're pretty spot on here. Right, David's comment here, other than a bit of the, you

know, the marketing spin around human co experience, which okay, you know, thanks. So

I want to throw out the fact that I think Epic is ahead of robots in this area, but I

think it might be too early in the show for us to get going about that because we could do our own

whole 10 Episode podcast about epic versus Roblox so we'll save

that one for later. Save that one for a slower week. Yeah. So Warner Music Group CEO

Steven Cooper said it's already here. That's basically was his comment that, you know, he says,

I think within these large scale meta versus fortnight, Roblox and others that we will begin to

see an opportunity where providing content and distribution converges. And, you know, this is an

opportunity for Warner.

So do you already hear

argument?

I sort of do and I think this is going to be a recurring theme that maybe we'll we'll

talk about, and we may disagree I suspect on is kind of this concept of a Metaverse versus the

metaverse like the metaverse that we all the purest form, where we sort of plug into this

holodeck and into VR and we're living there 24/7. Obviously, that has not happened yet. But if we

think about sort of the light version of what or definition of what a Metaverse is in terms of It's

a shared shared social space that we go interact with friends, there's an economy, there's

persistence, and there's Yes, you know, digital currency and stuff like that. And and, and items

that are being bought and sold. I think that that does exist in many different games in some form or

fashion. So to an extent, if that's your definition of what a Metaverse is, I think we do

have versions of them currently.

Yeah. You know, I categorize this as sort of typical music company, being a little

behind the eight ball, right? Like, musics never the cutting edge of anything tech wise, right?

They're always a follower in some way. To say it's already here is maybe overstating a little too

much. I buy your point around the meta verse versus a meta verse. But fundamentally, a meta

verse doesn't to me doesn't really count. Right? It's like it gets a participation trophy. But

that's about it. Like the metaverse is what matters here. And I think what everyone's talking

about and excited about and working towards. I don't know if a Metaverse gets anyone really that

excited, or, or the idea of 500 different ones.

So I think you're probably right. But I guess we have to be a little careful as

investors in the space because I just don't think we're even close to this. V metaverse. I mean it

you know, I don't see that being a five year kind of like, that's probably a 1015 20 year kind of

thing to get to the pure version of the metaverse.

I mean, you'd be surprised, like fundamentally, what we're talking about a set of

standards, a set, like some common set of infrastructure and things like that, that other

people can build around, right, like, once, once people agreed on on the protocols for the

internet, like IP and, you know, TCP IP and HTML for web pages. And like, once people sort of

agreed on the set of standards, how things evolve can happen pretty quickly. You know, it's

interesting, you say that, because the next one that I want to bring up here is Vonage holdings,

which is a cloud communications company. And, you know, the CEO Rory Reid says it's not here yet. I

think it's the next five 710 years.

Well, it doesn't make me feel great, but I had the same take is Vonage. Not exactly the

cutting edge, you know, fingers that I'm looking to emulate myself after. But I do think in this

sense, he's right in the purest

form. In the metaverse sense. Yeah. What do you feel about Billy Billy CEO who said

it's too late to get in? And I'll just read some of the comments here, which says Metaverse is a

concept. It's not a product. And before this concept emerges, actually, many of the elements

associated with Metaverse already exist, whether it's VR, tight social community, or social system

or self reinforcing ecosystem, it's already existed. And there's lots of companies already

developing product on those concepts Facebook, Tencent, Billy, Billy, etc. So in his mind, all

the players are already set. All the components already exist. And this is a concept it's not an

actual product. Do you buy this too late to get in arguments?

Interest? I mean, I think the, you know, CNBC there, that's their words, they're too

late to get in. I do like their, their kind of humorous characterizations, all these quotes. I

think the quote was a lot more nuanced. And you know, I laugh when you read this to get in, but I

think a lot of what is nuanced was made sense. Particularly right now I do think the metaverse is

a concept rather than a product. But even even Facebook, they did all that song and dance about

creating the metaverse, but I know we talked about, maybe it was in the context of Facebook.

And actually, it might have been in the context of Microsoft now that I think about it. But on a

recent livestream, we talked about how Microsoft or someone had made such a big deal about

announcing a Metaverse shift, but they didn't actually announce a product. They just were like,

Hey, we're pretty into this Metaverse thing we're gonna like get into it. But they didn't actually

say what the product would be. And I'm not even sure Facebook has really laid out a great vision

about what the actual product will be.

So you, you you agree with this statement,

but I don't agree that it's too late. I think that's a ridiculous thing to say. Yeah.

Yeah. Let me he didn't know what you're spot on that. He didn't say it's too late.

Right. There was nowhere in that quote, this was CNBC. Yeah, sort of extrapolating, and I think it

was an incorrect extrapolation.

The one thing I want to ask you because I do have an opinion on this. And it's a

little bit kind of similar to when people were talking about cloud gaming, like who could

possibly win or do cloud gaming. I kind of think about the metaverse similarly like there. There

will be a lot of different winners within the metaverse like different tools, companies and

people set you know, selling things within the metaverse and different players in the ecosystem.

But in terms of Who can actually create the metaverse? I actually think it's probably the same

five or six giants that can really do kind of cloud infrastructure and kind of everything that

we're talking about with cloud gaming. Like, I don't know that a company, a startup is gonna run

the metaverse, I just don't be don't have the capital, the infrastructure, sort of the brain

power to do it. But I'm curious what what you think if we talk about the metaverse, yes.

Again, I think I come back to always my point of the the end game is not Google

built something or Facebook built something right. It's all of these companies. All of the players

agreed on some set of standards, some set of core technologies, so that everyone can plug in and

create, right, like, fundamentally, I believe, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, all these players

will have huge presences in the metaverse, but not that if any single one of them creates it. We've

missed the point. I don't know if that makes sense. But it's like, again, it has to be it has

to be more like how the Internet what we call the Internet today came about not so much a product

from one company. I think everyone can be a winner.

It's a bold statement. Especially coming from you.

Look 10 on 10 on 10 cent and Dolby both of them they categorize as it's vague.

Tencent. See President said on Metaverse, I think this is actually sort of a very exciting, but a

little bit vague concept.

I think we should make that the tagline of the podcast.

We are gonna make it less vague. You are gonna get real insight here. And Dolby

live retiree CEO said I think the metaverse I guess can take many forms. But ultimately it is an

audio visual experience. Which if you're Dolby is

like what someone says on an earnings call when like they vaguely have heard the word

Metaverse and some investor asked, it's like well, it's it's pretty interesting. It's gonna be a

thing. I think you'll use your eyes and your senses and it'll be there. We're looking at it but

we're not sure yet. Okay, great answer.

met these met ease is head of investor relations. I really liked her comment.

She says whatever it is, that ease will be a fast runner. No position on, on where they stand in

this but but clearly they're going to be a dominant player here.

And I think I, I respect that from from one fell i are professional to another, it's,

you know, I don't know what's gonna happen, but I know we're gonna be heavily involved, like,

the worst comment here.

It's not like the most insightful, but

how hard is it? If you know you're gonna be on these calls, and you know, this is

gonna come up, given all the hype in this space. How hard is it to develop some semblance of a

strategy and communicate it a little like a little more clearly, rather than? Well, we don't know

what it is, but it's common, and we're gonna be a part of it. Not not the best one. I thought

Coinbase co founder and CEO said CNBC categorize this as it has something to do with crypto. So

Coinbase is co founder and CEO said I think with the 10s of millions of Americans out there that

are now using this asset class for all kinds of things, not just financial services and unique

payments and things like that, but also art and new forms of governance and identity in the

metaverse and it's just so exciting. The millions of young people, the talented young people all

over the US are coming into this field.

I think his comment was clearly more about about crypto and their company versus the

metaverse but I do I love CNBC. His characterization. I think it's probably he's

probably right. I don't think it's a requirement. Like I don't think the metal you don't need crypto

to have the metaverse. But if you think about the metaverse being this digital world that sort of

proud and this could again be a whole nother topic series we could dive into but like what is the

role of government in the metaverse will meta versus have their own government? Will it be you

know, governed by the sovereign territory that your physical bodies in rather than, you know,

your digital, your digital mind state? Given that nature of the people who are probably early

adopters of the metaverse might be sort of anti government or anti government but but more in this

decentralized economy. It does make sense that crypto would probably be the dominant form of

payment.

No question. It's just it's again, it's kind of a fun. It's fun to see how you know,

there's there's not a clear view on Metaverse here in his comment, right? It's not like they're

saying this is what We're gonna do here's who we're partnering with. Here's right it's, it's

thrown in at the end of a sentence where crypto may exist, right? And it's interesting to see that

the CEO of arguably one of the largest crypto companies in the world today, right? Coinbase

probably the biggest exchange I think Metaverse is not top of mind, right. They just see a lot of

opportunity elsewhere. They're obviously bullish on their crypto business. And it's, to me this

felt a little bit like it's a it's a side note. It's it's like, you know, it's, it's not it's not

the main, it's not the main entree here. It's an appetizer for them or it's some part of the meal.

Same thing here with Hasbro, CEO of Hasbro. Hasbro's Wizards of the Coast sorry, who said it's

the digitized Game of Life says I think the metaverse is shorthand for entertainment is

digitizing and entertainment is the game of life game of life being like their board game Hasbro's

board game. I mean that that seems maybe a little fishbowl kind of your point.

I love that one.

Bumbles president said it's something we're Bumble will be that was CNB, C's

characterization ordinaries. They wrote on the metaverse piece. Were really taking a web three

lens on this in particular, by the way, that's another

one of the most ridiculous but we're taking a web three lens on this. What does that

mean? Please, I don't know who literally don't know what that means. I don't like to know, but I

don't.

Meaning we are I'm sure somebody will build a more virtual experience. And we will

happily engage and be there when they do that with avatars, etc. But what we really think is really

interesting in the near term, is the application of blockchain and crypto in general, to the

experience that our communities have. Fundamentally, we are not just an ecosystem, but a

community of people. This is true on Bumble and Baidu, but it's particularly true as we think, as

we think about the kind of reimagine Bumble BFF. Look, that's buzzword soup. I don't know what

Bumble has to do with blockchain and crypto to be very,

right. Yeah, I can see them. The Metaverse making a lot more sense for Bumble than

blockchain, besides the fact that maybe like a lot of people who are blockchain enthusiast want to

like hook up, and they have similar interest. But like other than that, I literally can't think of

anything that it's sometimes I wish some of these executives should be like, Well, look, we're a

dating app like we. We don't really have a Metaverse play at this time. Like, why would we?

Like our thing is like having people meet in person. And like, you know, get married, or

whatever.

Yeah. But there's a direct Metaverse corollary right to their business. Your

Avatars can they can meet, right? Like, yes,

if they got married or going to have a strategy, have a strategy where it's like, okay,

we're going to create a something on Roblox where, like, you can meet in robot, you know, a Roblox

experience where feed they matched, and then you get, like, transported to some beautiful beach and

you get to, like, have a conversation at the beach, you know, like at the bar or whatever,

like, Okay, that's a strategy, like just being like, well, it's gonna be crypto and others and

fts. Like, that's just buzzwords that you've thrown out there and haven't actually thought

about it. So if that's the case, just, I don't know, I would rather you know, an executive say,

like, look, we understand this is a big theme, but it's also not our core business currently. And

it's still emerging. So we're going to look into it and when we have a strategy, we'll communicate

that to our investors. It just seems like such a better answer than kind of what these people are

doing.

Agreed, although bumbled to me is one that should have had like you like you

outlined a perfect one where it's like, such a great opportunity to talk that up right? And to do

even a basic activation that's not, you know, capital and Metaverse but on an existing platform

and to give Bumble I guess a little bit okay, I think during the pandemic, they did do

a lot with virtual not necessarily virtual but like they had an input where like if you've met

someone you can do like a virtual date like a zoom date or whatever within the app. So like, it's not

I think, yes, they're not totally thinking about it. But yeah,

um, Qualcomm obviously said it'll run on Qualcomm chips, which is not that

surprising. And there's a point there right other than other than Apple phones, pretty much

everything runs on Qualcomm chips these days. veritone unity and Roblox all said in some words,

that it's going to be a lot bigger than Facebook, which Agreed, agreed, right even though great to

see Facebook putting resources and manpower and things like that. ROBLOX smartly says it will have

ads. Again, Roblox I think at the cutting edge. We expect ad agencies to have the capability to build

Metaverse experiences their Chief Business Officer exactly

what I said about Bumble, you know, yep.

Disney CEO said Disney will have one. They're gonna have their own metaverse.

Disney, William would have some great thoughts on

which, you know, it's not. That's not I could see that. And I could see them going

sort of trying to go solo on this, despite, you know, this, to me is a bigger conversation, which

I don't want to go down this rabbit hole. But there is a bigger conversation that if the big

tech companies and big media companies like Disney or Facebook, right, are building it all for

themselves. Do you ever get to that sort of interoperable set of standards, right, like, true

kind of creation of the internet moment?

Well, to some extent, I mean, it kind of almost when you were saying that it reminded me

a little bit of kind of what's happened with direct consumer and streaming where everything

used to be bundled together and you would just have like your one cable package and you had all

the channels. And now it's become you have to subscribe to all of these different ones. So like,

part of me is like, is that what's gonna happen with the metaverse? So we're gonna basically have

like, various different you know, subscriptions to different meta verses where it's like, Oh, you

want to like go on a Disney rollercoaster. Like, hopefully you've been paying your Disney Disney

Metaverse app like, you know, Disney plus Metaverse version laughing but

I think that is super spot on right that that that like multi Metaverse world?

Probably does feel end up feeling like that. I hope it doesn't go there. Right. And we can debate

at great length if we think it is going to go there or not. My personal feeling is it's probably

too early to say just yet. Yeah. World. WWE like World Wrestling Entertainment thinks it's coming

to that that's pretty much it in terms of you know, those were the most interesting ones. I

thought in terms of executives viewpoints on the metaverse, it is interesting and fascinating in my

mind to see how they all frame it in their own business. And and look at the opportunity. Are you

surprised that there's not clear like agreement across the board?

No, not at all. Because I think you no one, like we said earlier, each one of these was

sort of defining the opportunity in such a way that made it seem like they were going to be one

of the winners. So it's not surprising that they're sort of all framing it that way. Also, I

think some of these people were sort of just asked that on the spot and didn't really have a concrete

strategy. So not that surprising that we got a lot of different answers some funny some, you know,

insightful. But yeah, not not surprising. It was great article to start on, because it really sort

of like sums up where we are right now, which is like when you have some of the smartest people,

the smartest executives in the Fortune 500 That all don't really some of them have a strategy.

Some of them don't. Most of them don't know how to define what this opportunity is. I think it's just

a cool place to start because it shows where we're really not even in any one right now.

Agreed. Well, I think the next story, Jeff is is maybe the perfect follow up,

which is the massive amount of dollars flowing into the metaverse, anything Metaverse at this,

you know this stage. And and this is the antic the headline here's the antic receives $300 million

investment from Cotu go to

their very well respected tech guy Trump and

and and so kuttu made a $300 million investment in the company valuation $9

billion the antic says they're going to use the money to invest in current games, new apps, expand

their Lightship developer platform and build out their vision for what they call the real world

metaverse. Because for those of you don't know Niantic specializes in AR like augmented reality

games I think most well known for Pokemon Go even though they have they have done other things.

They've done a few others but none was remotely the same. Like they had a Harry Potter

game they had a Jurassic Park game and I don't think either has actually done like 10% of what

what Pokemon Go is done. Although it's kind of wild, like Pokemon Go as is, you know, we feel

like the mainstream hasn't heard about it since the summer of 2015 or something. But it's it's

like continuing to grow. And it is a over a billion dollar game, I believe yearly.

I mean, where do you stand on this one, Jeff, in terms of, I guess three questions.

One is there is them and I think this may be a sort of a common theme. That's gonna that's gonna

come back episode after episode which is is their use of the word Metaverse here, right? Like

Correct. Is this? Is this a Metaverse right like or is this just a buzzword they're throwing in to

what do you think of the valuation and three like and maybe this is related to one where does AR

sort of fit in that in the strategy for you here and there Lightship platform which feels it sounds

like is kind of like a Roblox style sandbox, right where anyone can come in and build stuff on the

antics AR kind of tech.

Yeah. I might have to ask you to repeat some of those questions because they're all

good, but I forgot some of them in their use of the metaverse or real world. Metaverse honestly

doesn't make a ton of sense. I do I like the vision that they're they're sort of going for here

though. Because I think one of the things when I think about the metaverse is if you're going to

have a very slow adoption curve. And I think that something like this can sort of be a little bit of

an easy on ramp for older people or folks who wouldn't immediately plug into a VR headset or the

metaverse or whatever we want to call the pure version of the metaverse. But I think the idea of

either using AR or having some sort of glasses that augment the the current real world to create

something of a again, I guess I hate to use their term real world metaverse. I actually think that

that is a very like, like I would be in the in the very near term, fairly to very bullish on that on

that concept.

I think that's super interesting. So you're what you're saying is, AR is the gateway

drug to the real Metaverse potentially? A little bit. Yeah. Because you think is the the thinking

there that it's more accessible adoptions easier,

more accessible? It's just easier. Yeah, it's a bit easier to wrap your wrap people's

head around. It's kind of like opt in opt out very quickly. But it's kind of creating the real world

version of a little bit of what the metaverse is, right? If you're putting digital, it's almost the

exact reverse, right? The Metaverse is all about putting yourself into a digital world. This is all

about putting digital things into your real world, which is just to some extent, a similar concept.

From business standpoint, I could make the argument and from a technology

standpoint, I could make the argument if anything that AR feels like a harder problem to solve.

Right, like to get great AR where, you know, we're talking, I don't even know what's a good, like sci

fi example. But you know, to get a great AR Yeah,

I think that makes sense. Where

you know, there's a chip in my eye that overlays my whole world with totally relevant

information like that, I think is much tougher. From a technology and business standpoint, that's

a much tougher problem to solve for. Then, here's the set of VR glasses, and an omnidirectional

treadmill, like, go explore a totally virtual world where you don't have the sort of the

requirements to navigate or the messiness of the real world.

So I think that's true from a tech perspective. But from a consumer adoption

perspective, I think it might be a little bit, a little bit of an easier hurdle to get people to

say, hey, put on these classes. And you know, every once in a while you're gonna see something

cool in the real world, or like you can, you know, pull up someone's social profile when you're

looking at them if they've accepted it, or some, you can think of different different way and I

don't even know if this is necessarily what Niantic is doing, because that's not really what

Pokemon Go is and what they've done. But I think you can you can make an argument that that's a

little bit easier for a consumer to adopt than for for them to dive in headfirst into the metaverse.

Yeah, I would I would just argue that their their characterization of Metaverse

even like adding real world in front of it doesn't make sense, right, like Metaverse, by definition,

I think by all agreed definitions, and definitely I would hope, the one we're talking about here is

it's a digital world by like, by definition, and so it feels a bit forced to me. You know, there's

this bigger sort of business question of, is it a buzzword used to just generate interest in

investment, right like is, is the fact that they called it a real life? Metaverse part of the

equation to get to that $9 billion valuation. And that was my second question,

Jake. So I mean, you know, it's hard to say like, I think with with some of these

things, you know, when you're talking about buzzwords with investors, you don't see that

quote, matter quite a new, you know, better than AI. So Correct. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I

don't know if that matters quite as much when you're talking about like, a, you know, someone

like Go to Investing in a private round. Like, I think the executives, they're smart enough to kind

of do the same thought exercise we just did and say, Hey, I could understand that this could be

interesting and valuable, but it's not a metaphor. So I don't think throwing Metaverse in front of it

would make them want to pay more. I would, I would hope. Whereas if you're in the public market, you

might be able to get away with you know, throwing Metaverse in front of whatever you're doing and

you know, some retail investors are going to get really excited about it because they think it's,

you know, this new new trend, but correct me if I'm wrong there I don't know.

So where are you on on The $9 billion valuation?

I don't know, because I don't know enough, you know, if we're talking about just what

I am aware of with what Niantic does and kind of how Pokemon GO and the success of their last two

games, following up on that, it seems, you know, very high. Having said that, I would imagine that

this is kind of a platform play, and they have a toolset that they think, you know, go to is

presumably making a bet that there's going to be developers developing on whatever this protocol

is. And they are sort of the platform layer for future AR technology and AR games, which I think

it's a lot easier to be bullish on that, then, then, you know, what, what is currently Niantic

with the games that they've launched.

You know, what I thought was interesting. That came out of this press release,

was they didn't quote any revenue numbers, right? They didn't quote any, like, concurrent player

numbers like not none of that. What they quote, the one stat that they quoted was, it says over

the years, our players have walked more than 17 point 5 billion kilometers.

I think that's a good one.

Is this a success metric for?

I mean, on that momentum, that's cheap. It's cheap on developers. The valuation

just steps a walk is like less than one time.

This is true. Is this a new metric we're gonna have to look at if we're talking about

VR, and AR kind of developer makes them this bias. You'll buy it. Man that flew by that that guy's

we're going to try and keep these episodes going forward to about 30 to 45 minutes. So you get sort

of all the metaverse business news information, the biggest stories, you get our discussion, our

commentary every single week. So expect these to drop weekly expect them to be 30 to 45 minutes

long, you're gonna see me and Jeff, do this every single week going forward. So definitely

subscribe. Tell your friends about it. If you're fans of the business of esports. Definitely. This

definitely, I think will be up your alley. Hopefully you enjoy the content going forward.

Jeff, you wanted to say something?

Oh, no. Sorry. If you guys, I don't know if you can hear my son crying in the

background. Hopefully Paul can edit that out. But I know this is really fun. It's gonna be hard to

keep him to 3045 minutes because there's just so much for us to us to talk about. We had like five

stories we didn't get to. So I'm excited to keep this guide and this has been great.

Yeah, and like I said, guys, if you're listening to this, definitely subscribe to

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