Wonderful friend and role model Angela Dalton, CEO & Founder of Signum Growth Capital, joins me for today's episode! We dive into Metaverse chat, with topics like Zoom leapfrogging us into metaverse-like experiences by allowing multiple sensory points, how economies are being shifted from offline worlds, and NFTs as a window into engagement/programmable royalties for artists. Angela describes her incredibly successful career, and the women supporting women support network she heads. As for actionable development, we talk about being in an environment where you are believed is critical, thanking the positive role models, bringing other women up and starting support groups for each other.

Welcome to the meadow woman podcast. We address the

issues, opportunities and challenges facing women in the

development of the metaverse the biggest revolution since the

internet itself. Every week we bring you conversations with top

female talent and business executives operating in the

gaming and crypto industries. Here's your host Lindsey, the

boss POS, the meta woman podcast starts now.

Hello, and welcome to the meta woman podcast part

of the holodeck media Podcast Network. I'm your host, Lindsay

the boss pause, and from struggle to success for covering

it all. Are all of our returning listeners. Thank you so much for

listening for sending me comments. I'd love reading

those. They're supporting the show. It's been so wonderful to

have feedback from you all. And to all the new listeners out

there. Welcome. I hope you enjoy this as much as the feedback

I've been getting. That's for sure. My guest today is someone

that I've been fortunate to meet through both on and offline

connections, which has been so great, we, we have some really

wonderful mutual friends. I'm just delighted to be working

with this woman. And I'm so excited to introduce Angela

Dalton CEO and founder of signum growth capital. Angela is a

rockstar in the world of crypto and gaming. Way too many

accolades to name here, one that was recently announced is that

she has officially joined the board of directors at FaZe Clan,

as she calls it, the creme de la creme of the esports brands.

Angela, I can't wait to dig more into your background and just

talk more about the things that you've been working on. But just

to start, could you give kind of a overview of who you are, what

you do the high points of your career and all that good stuff.

Sure. Thank

you so much for having me, Lindsay. This is really

exciting. After listening to a few of your shows, so far, there

are several of them. And I I'd say that my career started in

the traditional finance world so and I was always in technology.

So in a traditional investment bank, as a technology

specialist, touched both investment banking, equity

research, sales and trading. And again, always is kind of the, in

the trenches expert on the tech space. And in 2003. So I started

going to eat three's video game show in 2000, I think, one or

two, and then it was either 2003 or 2004. When the week came out,

and I was going time for me, yeah. Oh, no way, I couldn't

believe that little demo booth. And I just played and played and

played, I was playing tennis I was, you know, doing dance apps.

I mean, I was just having so much fun. And it was, it was

around that time that I started thinking, you know, I'm kind of

in this in this world of traditional media. And also in

this world where, you know, big investment banks, where people,

you know, media was a huge sector. And everyone wanted to

really flocked to cover these media companies in an in depth

way, and mostly old, old media companies, legacy media

companies. And to be honest, I kind of thought, wow, gaming is

so much more interesting. And also, by the way, nobody's going

there. So I don't have to fight for it. And, and so over the

years, you know, I really dug into this concept that, you

know, TV advertising, what is going on here, there are still

today $160 billion of TV advertising a year. And I always

say that it is there's this window called the TV screen. And

there are $160 billion being thrown through this screen to

empty living rooms. And it's it's amazing that that can do

you know continues to happen even today. If you look at

Gartner and other industry groups, they've project that

that spending level will remain the same. And so, you know, for

years, even though, you know, really getting into gaming, and

I knew I knew this gamer mentality, which was anti

amortizing and I agree with it wholeheartedly. I was always

kind of fascinated with what could actually get to real

engagement. So that's one big thing that always drove me do is

that even though I did all of tech media Telecom, most of my

career, I've always gravitated to the cut most cutting edge

tech, which brought me into bitcoin brought me into esports

I was the first kind of, you know, sell side wall street

type, who covered esports as an analyst, and did kind of the big

deep dive primer, which was before Overwatch launched and,

and then got into Bitcoin, you know, got into, you know, just

various technologies to try to figure them out. So those are

really That's really kind of what drove me. And then what,

you know, we went to, I left to go to Evercore partners as a co

founder of the equities business, and managing the tech

media telecom sector. And, and was, was allowed to have that

was the first moment where I was allowed to kind of stop running

as fast as I could and, and really, like think we meet and

my partners and I, we all thought about, like, you know,

bringing in 87 people, we were running fast, but it was really

much more stand back and think strategically about, you know,

the business etc. And so we ended up building that business,

which was great. There was an exit moment, which took me to

Guggenheim Guggenheim allowed me to really just lean into my

passions, which is emerging tech. And then I was I met the

gentleman who finalized the ERC 721 standard for NF Ts.

And that was about a year after I listened to Tim Sweeney's

presentation on the metaverse and the two of those together

resulted in a major epiphany, which was NF T's had the ability

or the potential to solve a problem that had been that

existed in gaming for decades. Meaning, you know, people buy

sell and trade assets in the game for, you know, for a long,

very long time, excuse me, and they had not, there wasn't

really a way to do that in a in a way that the publishers and

publishers sanction way. And that, so I thought, wow, you

know, NF T's could be that window, that instead of the TV

screen, there could be a new window that brands could look

through and actually find real engagement on the other side,

and, and provide creators a way to actually own their creations

and to take more of the higher percentage of the value that

they read. So I left to start to new growth capital. And that's

all we do. We focus on this intersection of crypto gaming.

Culture, I call it crypto meets culture. So anything mass market

needs, meets crypto.

Okay, well, there's a billion things to pull

on there. But I want to give a brief shout out to E three,

because I love it that was you know, that used to be such a

such a center for gaming. So it's kind of cool. gaming

industry is a little bit strange to me in the fact that

conferences are so important. I have not worked in another

industry where I thought conferences were such a good

place to meet gathered, talk about ideas. And the

second little crypto conference, Lindsay,

I am positive it's very So as someone who has been

to gaming conferences that delve into crypto, I mean, the Twitter

communities alone for crypto are like out of this world. I can't

even imagine the real life. And then a second little shot I

wanted to give is that Did you see the news about Wii Sports

coming to switch? Because I have heard nothing but good things

about it. And then it's even more realistic and even more

fun. And you can do two v two in your own living room and all

kinds of stuff. I love it. So be on the lookout for that. Yeah,

I'm actually really looking forward to potentially demoing

it or getting it soon here. I'm also a big wii sports fan. But

want to go back a little bit because you started starting in

investment, banking and working in the investment world for a

whole portion of your career. And I know that you said you

always kind of were in the emerging technology business,

and you definitely walked through kind of the things that

you're into now. But what has been the thing that's kept you

on emerging technology for so long? What excites you about all

the change and the growth that you've been seeing in the

emerging tech, starting, you know, at E three in 2001, all

the way up into Tim Sweeney in the metaverse and now into

signum growth.

Honestly, curiosity probably and the I'm I'm

passionate about figuring out behavior change. I know that

sounds a little weird, but it's and I didn't really realize I

was passionate about it. But until I started seeing really my

kids you know I have kids I have little brothers that are 15 ish

years younger than me I've got kids that range from 20 to 10

Believe it or not, so we've got a lot of generations going on

around me and and I've always loved you know, I've always

loved to just watch behavior change and try to figure out

what it means for culture shifts and you know, my son when he was

11 a lot of most people who know me know this story came to me

and and told me He was going to start mining Bitcoin. And it was

the biggest kind of argument that we had gotten.

Ah, that is a fair statement from an 11 year old.

Yeah,

Dad, I don't know anything about that yet. And

anyway, we negotiated and he instead built a Minecraft server

and ran his own Minecraft server. And that was when

Minecraft had just come out. This is like, maybe, recently

come out, it was like 2012. And so he. So that caught my

attention. I started watching him play Minecraft and thinking

this is not what I've seen before. This is your friend,

there's no bad guy, there's no you know what I mean? And yeah,

who was just a lot of building and constructing. And then I

also saw this, this shift in his own relationship with his

friends and his own ability to communicate, he was, you know,

all of a sudden on Skype all the time, quickly articulating his

thoughts, which I hadn't seen him do. And I saw so many

benefits from this creativity and collaboration like that.

creativity, collaboration, and, and, you know, just the, the

ways the the negotiations that were happening, all of those

felt like pretty big behavioral shifts for that generation. And

he's now 20. And, and so that was a big, that was a big one

for me. He did, he did, but he was a gold rank League of

Legends player, which, you know, most moms don't brag about, but

I brag about that all the time.

Why not? I think we're finally getting to the

point where everyone's bragging about those kinds of

achievements.

That was also like, you know, the, the team aspect of

it, the, you know, and then my daughter who is more of a analog

artist, she is not. She's not digital, she's analog, but just

this collaboration and creativity. And Tim Sweeney is,

you know, kind of mantra of, you know, developers to the front of

the line creators to the front of the line. That's a big

cultural shift and beverage.

So what do you think about and this is a little

off topic, but what do you think about offices in the metaverse,

then I've seen a lot of competing ideas. One of the

things that is a little bit odd for me is I've been working from

home for gosh, since the beginning of March of 2020. Now

I haven't had to go back into an office and I I frankly love

being work from home as do I think a lot of people who have

made that shift. And I've seen a lot now about I know that

Facebook just announced kind of a bigger virtual office in

horizon worlds and we're seeing more of that and I don't know

that I would want to put on a headset in my home. I don't know

that every experience is going to be translated well into the

metaverse, but I'm curious to get your thoughts specifically

on that because there is obviously an in person aspect to

the collaboration and the creativity that I think could

potentially be captured in the metaverse but yeah, I just I I

would just love to get your your opinions on office life in the

metaverse. But that's something that we talk a lot about

entertainment. And that's the fun stuff, the exciting stuff.

What about the kind of day to day stuff where we rely on

communication and collaboration and creativity? Like, what does

that look like?

Yeah, so I I think that the uncanny valley is real. And

I think that there's a an aspect to virtual work virtual, you

know, activity that that I almost feel like zoom has

leapfrogged a lot of the technology advancements that

were made in that. Yeah, this is sounds a little strange, but I

feel like we weren't really used to being one of many squares on

a screen and conducting a meeting. I mean, you know, I

remember in early COVID, my grandmother passed away very

sadly, but we pulled off the funeral and it was authentic,

and all of we could see each other's faces and emotions and,

and I think for real connection to happen. I think zoom, you

know, you know, we were zoomed into the metaverse like I always

say that we have this we have this moment where all of a

sudden we had multi sensory activity going on on Zoom. And I

think that led to us wondering whether or not we had met in

person or on or just on Zoom. And the reason we have that

multi sensory experience is because we can see expression so

a couple of weeks or a couple months ago so I am a theme

developer for Ark invest and we're advisors to Ark invest and

Kathy Boyd as well and I just love the the team and the ethos

Is there and we have a brainstorm every Friday for two

hours, which I would love for you to join Lindsey either very

cool. It's really nice. It's such a mind advancing kind of

two hours, my favorite two hours a week. And I did a an

experiment, I created an avatar, I spent quite a bit of money on

my avatar to look really perfect. And I, I that was my

first meeting. And I used it there. And then I committed to

using it for a week in meetings. And it was, it was too, it

looked too much like me, but not enough like me that I

can find any belly. Yeah, might as

well just take, like, just use Zoom, like you can see

my face. You know, I couldn't laugh with my real smile. I

couldn't. There were too many things that I couldn't do. And

then there was another weird thing, which is that when other

people were talking, my mouth was moving. That's just a

template. But I just think that, you know, in a lot of, you know,

Metaverse spaces without the ability to see real expression,

I have a hard time seeing the real work environment moving in

that direction. I mean, we have seen a few of those spaces.

That, um, has one Eric Billy's company. But yeah, I think that,

you know, they it's

V tube has been the popular one for trying to

capture expression. But I think you're right there is. Yeah, at

what point is it just easier to just use your human self on a

screen versus entering an entire world. Also, this is an aside,

but I can't, I can't believe imagine the physical side

effects of wearing a VR goggles, and having to adjust in and out

of different worlds for multiple hours at a time per day. I think

that that would be a little difficult. And I don't know that

we've necessarily explored the physical challenges of working

in in the metaverse. As I'm sure there's plenty of research

happening at the companies that believe in this. But I would be

I am very curious and very excited to kind of think about

that. Even just the strain on your eyes and what that's like.

Yeah, so there's, there's a long way to go. But I, I find the

Zoom perspective that you gave, certainly interesting. So thank

you for sharing that. And going back to what we're talking

about, there is so much growth in this space. I mean, we start

off with office space and kind of skipped over even the more

fun parts of it, you could say. But I want to actually hear from

you about what that growth means for people who put money into

it. Why did you decide to build a firm around emerging tech? And

what is the draw of the metaverse for someone who's

examining it from an investment angle? There's so much out

there. How do you decide? This is what this is what I think is

going to work this isn't?

That's a really great question. So we, you know, have

organized some some funds around later stage investments. When we

started the company, my number one goal. This kind of sounds

strange, because everybody who knows me knows that I, you know,

epic, Isaiah, Isaiah all the time ever games and Tim Sweeney

are kind of my North Star in terms of the business model. And

so we wanted to be investors. So we wanted to be investors in

discord. We wanted to, because we think that you know, those

two companies and there are others are really going to be

forms for the metaverse not. Right now, there's this

understanding of Epic Games, which people know about Unreal

Engine, but most people think of fortnight, I don't even think

we're gonna think about fortnight as the first well,

fortnight will obviously clearly exist, but like, the first word

that comes to mind won't be fortnight, it might be the

description of the backdrop, which is like a playground where

we have or work environment or a movie theater or you know, a lot

of different things. And so I think from an investment

perspective, that opens an enormous opportunity. So if I

think about Epic Games as an example of a Metaverse backdrop,

and I think about discord as an example of a communications

platform, or the metaverse the it's almost like the homepage,

the old school homepage when people used to have their WWW

dot, you know, met a woman podcast.com page. Now that has

moved to these Metaverse spaces. And instead of just instead of

just looking at a website, we can actually almost be in the

quote store with the other people who care about that store

mingling and the cash register happens to be there. So from an

investment perspective, it's it's it's extraordinarily

exciting because these economies that are building up, are being

shifted from offline worlds. And so I want to be invested in

those spaces literally, where new economies are bubbling up,

because I think that we've seen it, you know, we've just seen

the Zero to One moment, you know, that from the beginning

to, you know, this, this, this kind of, you know, bend an S

curve in the early days is pretty dramatic. And so I what

we are excited about, and what we're digging into, are really

early stage, Metaverse, tools, companies and software companies

and content creators that are doing things in a different way.

And then really the other end of the barbell which is, which are

these later stage backdrops for the metaverse where, where we

believe several companies have a release.

That makes so much sense. I wanted to kind of

there's a piece I wanted to talk about a little further. Oh, and

that was that the nether epic announcement with Lego? And oh,

gosh, Sony has totally, totally blanked on the three companies

that were part of that now. But are you? And this is a question

I've asked of guests before? Are you thinking of the this is?

Honestly this is a consistent business pattern, we see what I

think is most likely to happen. Is it a pattern that's happened

in tech all along? Right, where you start with a bunch of

different companies. And then eventually a few companies

emerge as kind of the the dominant leaders in the space.

And then those companies begin acquiring the smaller companies

and create kind of larger conglomerates. In this matter.

It was easy to imagine with social media, I mean, that's

exactly what happened, right? We have a bunch of large platforms

who have been not necessarily bought up all the smaller

platforms and really don't want to get into an antitrust debate.

But by and large, innovation kind of follow these patent

follows these patterns of, you know, you have a ton of players.

And then those players get whittled down into the players

that are really successful. And then the really successful

players start to spur on the cycle of innovation by buying up

the smaller players. That's a pattern we've seen time and time

again. Are you thinking that with Metaverse child

experiences, the same pattern is going to be followed? And do you

see a future where we have where we are engaging with multiple

platforms, multiple companies, or do you think that there is

going to be and this is? This has been widely debated, but

that one Metaverse that we all log into the Ready Player One

Future have we all put on a certain headset or piece of

hardware and we're all in there together at the same time?

Can I just say really quickly that I love your style

of interviewing because this was not one of the questions, but

this is just and I love it.

For all the listeners out there. I sent a

list of questions. And then I asked maybe three happens every

time but he

was my background. I love this question because it's

it's actually the reverse of the old world in that I could see

the Epic Games metaverse. And other Metaverse is like and I

don't believe there will just be one I believe there will be

many. And but I could see the backdrop the playground that

whatever you want to call it. I could see that as a breeding

ground of new exciting, entrepreneurial spirit like new

exciting companies that instead of getting gobbled up, get born,

you know what I mean? Like I think it's going to be a spark

of you know that it's going to light a fire under

entrepreneurs. I mean, it's going to bring more kids, more

adults more people generally, to these Metaverse bases to create

real companies that where they can make real money and they

can, you know, hire people and create new products and sell new

products and maybe even sell products to other companies that

are down the road in the metaverse from them. So I view

it as a is really the opposite of the old school gobble up

every company and roll it in a suit. Like I call the you know

what we all in public markets referred to with Facebook is

just the whack a mole strategy. Like as soon as you know

Instagram looks interesting, like you know, bang it over the

head and that's a great bang and bringing in bang bang, you know,

and and, and, and I think that, you know, companies like discord

and an epic and others see, really an opportunity to create

a breeding ground for creativity and entrepreneurial.

That's definitely been shown so far and it's not

without its own set. have issues, that's for sure. There's

been some really amazing reporting around that with

robots in particular. But I do like this idea. And this gets

into what this podcast is about, right that a lot of the barriers

are then removed, even as you mentioned, age barriers. But I

also think that there is a real opportunity for other barriers

of gender and income and race and sexual identity that can be

removed in a place where you're developing online tools via an

online platform, and not necessarily having to contend

with some of the real world settings that we all contend

with. That's been a popular topic of conversation here and

elsewhere. So I'm sort of enthused about that portion of,

of the changing way. We're thinking about tech development.

But getting back to one of the questions I actually did write

down, there's so much press around all of this, and a lot of

it is is very negative. I think a lot of it is kind of so funny,

because every time I bring up the metaverse, there's always

someone out there who says I had Second Life. And it's like,

well, I mean, yeah, that was that was a platform to enter the

metaverse and now we have new ones. And now we have different

ones. And now we have different ways of engaging. So there's no

problem with highlighting Second Life, but also we can think

beyond Second Life. Does Brazil

did have a really incredible foresight in

designing Cyprus. Super

cool. Yeah, I would love to give credit to

Second Life. I'd also love to give credit to a lot of the

other things that are happening without just bucketing it all

into Second Life. And I know that there's so much potential

in this space, but as an enthusiast, what do you think

about some of the criticisms? What are some of the positives

that you're excited about? Just how do you how do you contend

the negative and the positive balance that all out

is, it's really tricky in crypto right now, and in NF

T's and in Dows, decentralized autonomous organizations in NF

TS specifically, I mean, I'm obviously, you know, crypto

native, left, you know, left my traditional place in 2017, to

create a business around NF T's and gaming. And the metaverse.

And what we've actually seen has so far been mostly Babbie,

there's been some really, really exciting and creative, there

have been some exciting breakthroughs, true

breakthroughs in the technology, and a lot of the really exciting

things that that I referred to earlier in terms of NF T's been

windows into real engagement and NF T's representing, you know,

programmable or providing programmable royalties for

artists. That is that that that is happening, and that's

amazing. But I think that, you know, the gamer backdrop in me

or, you know, like the understanding of how gamers

think and act is, you know, the anti advertising the skepticism

around money grabs, is actually valid. I think that, you know,

the crypto industry has really needs to clean up its act in

terms of these run polls, and, you know, money scams, and I

think that, you know, Jason Citron, the CEO of Discord said

it best when somebody challenged him as to you know, whether or

not why weren't they moving into NF T's and web three. And he

said, we see a lot of, you know, promising, you know, aspects to

web three, but we were really focusing now on fixing the scam

spams and frauds. And I think that that will naturally evolve,

and here's the way I think it will naturally evolve. So right

now, if you are, if two or three people decide to create a

company, and they decide to issue a token, and they use that

money that they raise from issuing the token to build their

company, that and then they still control, they still

control the company, they control all the actions. That

and if that token is publicly traded on an exchange, for

example, that's no different from a company in that there is

there is in an information balance between the the

founders, and the general public, right. And there is a

publicly traded token that represents the ownership of that

of that project or company. And I think that the onus is really

on those founders to, you know, live out the ethos of crypto,

which is decentralization, in my view, and which is, you know,

and even if you don't believe in pure decentralization, which in

gaming and I don't believe that things I don't think it's

possible to start at As decentralized, I think things

naturally evolved, you know, the network's naturally evolved to

be decentralized. But still, in that process of moving to

decentralization, what we're going for here is

democratization like democracy, we're going for bringing in

people that never had access before. We're going for this

concept of creators and developers to the front of the

line, we're going for transparency. So if we're going

for democratization of finance, and value creation, and we're

going for self sovereign wealth creation, we're going for all of

these ideals, then we need to be we need to see founders who are

also transparent about their ownership, their operations. You

know, and and the idea that, that, you know, if you see one

of these pumping dumps, you know, you have to be asking, you

know, is, is this even what we set out to do? And the answer's

no, this is totally gotten off piste, in my view. So I think

we're gonna get there. And I think that's going to come from,

I think that's going to come from disclosures, better

communications with the public, having had a 20 year career in

securities, it's just really important to disclose what

you're doing and to have, you know, meaningful communications

with the public if you have a publicly traded token, which

represents ownership in your company.

So I used to work in tech policy, and there's a

tech policy nerd in me is just screaming with questions about

regulatory approaches. But I don't want to get into that,

because that's gonna lead us down a wild rabbit hole. And

that's a conversation that we can have offline, to be aware of

what your your congressional folks are up to when it comes to

the crypto space, and how they could potentially damage it with

some of their purchase. So everyone go look it up. If you

haven't already. There's some congressional folks who are

working on very good things, and some ones that were not so. And

I we will leave it at that. But I also have never heard such a

true explanation of growing pains that didn't relate to

physical ones. Because the whole time you're speaking, I couldn't

help but think growing pains, these are all growing pains. And

so hopefully, once things get bigger, there's also some

improvement there. I wanted to push a little bit though, on the

esports and gaming piece, or I'm sorry, esports and crypto piece,

because I want to hear from your experience, what some of those

Nexus points are, where the two overlap very well, we talked a

little bit about your skins trading kind of digital asset

types of things. But what other ways of you know, fan

engagement, player base growth, Twitch growth, event streaming

growth? esports Pro League, see amateur leagues, how to all of

those, in your mind relate to crypto, what are some of the

opportunities you see there?

Yeah, so there are so many, I'll just touch on a few.

So one, I think obvious one is, you know, the NBA Top Shot, like

the like, which is all of the moments in esports. And all of

the you know, whether it be you know, winning an award, whether

it be a great moment in gaming, whether, you know, it be, you

know, a great promotion, there's so many moments, and so I think

that all of those could be NF T's. And I think that they would

have the same kind of value that, you know, a three point

shot, you know, basketball, you know, in the basketball court

app. And I think that, you know, another and I also think that

the esports business model is challenged, I thought esports

would be first I really did. I thought they back in 2017 I

thought well esports will clearly lean into this first

because their business models are challenged in terms of you

know, making money and this is a no brainer way for them to just

like add on revenue at almost no cost. And you know, tokenize

Yeah, like you said skins digital assets. I hadn't thought

of moments until NBA Topshop. But and, and they haven't

because I think you know of the skepticism around NF Ts and the

money grab aspect of it, which I totally get. I think that the

other big thing I see is brands I see a you know, so we got

involved very early with mythical games in LA and I loved

one of my favorite moments in watching the development from

the seed seed seed round when I met John Linden at a at a demo

day in LA which was amazing. And you know from those early days

to now, one of my favorite moments is when they launched

the BLANCO called Sharpie, which was the Burberry Blanco and I

bought the, about the pool shoes, and I bought the

armbands. And the idea of having a Sharpie character in my game,

you know, they they sold out in seconds. And that is a big

shift, because it's not, it's not the kind of advertising that

gamers hate. And then I do not like and and the reason why I do

hope the metaverse evolves, or grows up in a way that is

completely different from, you know, the Facebook's of the

world and Google's in the advertising base models, I hope

we leave that are dead, because it creates I think advertising

creates this conflict of interest, this human conflict of

interest between creators and their fans. But I do think that

brand engagement in in fun, creates an inauthentic human

conflict of interest. Because I think that as a, you know, from

back in 2017, what I used to say was, I want to take my Gucci bag

from the holiday party to the Mario Party. And so that that

concept, you know, still exists, and Associates

pause really quick because that is an amazing way

of saying a Gucci bag from the holiday party to the Mario Party

like that is going to probably be the title of this episode.

That's perfect.

I mean, people like to identify themselves with brands

as a way of signaling who they are. And so I see just a huge,

you know, potential there, I always one of the behavioral

shift, thought pieces that that we wrote early on, and that I

got to I got to deliver to MIT students in I've done it now,

this coming year will be my fourth year in a row. And it's

about the combination of NF T's and gaming is this idea that and

usually half half the deck back then was mythical games, because

they were the only example that we have. And now we've got more

examples. But the idea was imagine back in, you know, when

I was growing up the house, or the home that I grew up in, in

the suburbs of Kansas City was the center of identity, it was a

center of status. And the radius around that house was basically,

you know, I could get in my car, I could drive somewhere my car

is identifies me and my status, I can invite people over to my

house, and I could, you know, lay the table with fancy China,

there's art on the wall, I've got my chocolate lab, you know,

like all these things kind of identify who I am. And when the

first Millennials graduated from college, Facebook was born, the

iPhone was born, Instagram was born, you know, these all

happen, you know, in succession. And all of a sudden, the center

of gravity for status and identity is now that little

rectangle in your hand, you can go to Machu Picchu, and take a

selfie. And all of a sudden, that's a lot more impactful than

having a you know, having a piece of art on the wall. And so

this this this explosion of mobility that we all got to

experience and you know, the velocity that came with that

with you know, if I can Rent the Runway next weekend to send it

back and run another dress, you know, take a selfie, um, you

know, here I am. And in the new med in the new world that we're

going into now, I'm very excited because that that interim that

that adjusting adjustment phase, I guess, or I don't know,

interim step, you know, the beginning, the beginning was

physical and physical world, the interim step was digital

representations of physical and the new world is digital on

digital. So, I'm really excited about that move to, to that to

that fully digital space. And I think what it'll include for all

of us, is just the digital version of that house back when

you know, kind of like the one I grew up with grew up in Overland

Park, Kansas, you know, it's gonna have my the wallpaper I

use I see it with my 10 year old and I've been playing Roblox

together for years. And she's got it's very it's just get it

out. She's got her space and she's having lemonade stands and

she's got outfits galore. And, you know, so I think I love what

we started with esports and wound up in kind of

identity factors. That was very fun.

So many brands are so important for esports were part

of the, it was

a logical transition, I was not

criticizing at all, it just was a very, very fun to listen to

you talk about all the possibilities. We've kind of

circled around this topic too. But I do want to end with a

discussion on on your career as a woman, you, especially

starting in investment banking, I'm sure you have several

stories. And you had mentioned earlier, you know, we don't have

enough women in tech, and we're always trying to kind of get

more in and feed that pipeline a little bit better. But how do

you think we can improve diversity in the tech industry?

And are there any specific kind of action items or programs or

anything of that nature that you've seen where you think,

wow, it would be great if this was everywhere.

So I am going to go back to So in 2019, I was

honored to ask to speak on women in leadership and financial

services, there still aren't as many women as you as you might

think, even now, in financial services and investment banking

and in, you know, general finance, and in crypto, I

thought there would be more. It's probably even more male

dominated gaming, as we know, you know, it's pretty male

dominated. Anyway, I was inspired by Michelle Williams in

2019, when she won the Emmy Award, and her speech, you know,

she kept saying, this term, this this phrase, believe her is what

she kept interspersing in her conversation hers in her speech,

and it was all about thanking her bosses at Fox for paying her

pain or equally, at the time she went, she had just been in all

the money in the world. And it was uncovered that she was paid

$1,000 For reshoots. And Mark Wahlberg was paid

$5 million. Because I remember that

and, and so when she won the MA for it was for Fossey

Verdun. At that time, she's she just said, I want to thank my

bosses for treating me equally repay me equally and for

believing me. And that whole believing me taps into a lot

with women, we have impostor syndrome we have there's,

there's a lot there. And it inspired me to start thanking

the mentors in my life, most of whom are men, because that's who

I've been surrounded by my whole career. But I think it sets an

example to call to give a public shout out to somebody who does

do the right thing and support women and just try to encourage

more of that positive behavior. So that's one thing that I tried

to keep in the back of my mind is to thank my mentors along the

way, and I've had so many I'm so grateful. And then the other

thing is just to, you know, pull another woman up anytime you

can, if anybody calls me to ask me to speak on a panel. And if I

can't do it, I always try to give three women as replacements

just because the more of us they get in the mix. You know, the

better it'll be it takes time takes a lot of time,

unfortunately, but I think just bringing each other up one, one

thing that, as you know, because you just joined us, which is

exciting. A few years ago, I was at game speed, and we there was

a women in you know, gaming breakfast. And one of the other

attendees as usual, James and I afterward, after the conference,

we talked and we thought, you know, let's create a women in

gaming that that breakfast, let's let's do that every couple

of weeks. And so now we're on we're on two and a half years

later, we've been meeting every two weeks. I think we've taken

off maybe during the holidays, we took off a week, and we took

up a couple of weeks during one week each summer. But we have

been really excited to see we have women founders and gaming

execs and investors in gaming and we call it wigs, wigs on

women gaming zoom on Wednesdays. And our Discord is really

important. We don't have any it's all Chatham House rules. We

don't have any, you know, LinkedIn posts after we don't

have any. You know, the purpose is not marketing. The purpose is

really to actually truly ask, you know, ask each other how can

we help so we have assets and offers like, what would you like

from the group? What can the group what can you offer to the

group and then each week we spotlight another woman, you

know, founders, that girl investor and interview her like

you're interviewing me on this podcasts. So, you know, I'd love

we'd love to have more, you know, women reach out. And so

that's that's that's just a couple of ideas. But I think

bringing other women up and bringing other women along with

you is, is pretty

it's been a in the the pace of progress has been a

shared disappointment as the right word but shared point as

sadness, I suppose, right? consternation Yeah. For several

of the people that I've brought on, but I am happy to hear and

part of the reason why I started this particular podcast was for

the same reason, I do think that positive reinforcement is really

important. If shame worked as a tool of making people's behavior

better, our society would probably look a lot different.

And I don't think it would be in a positive way. So I am happy

that there's been a wave of positive reinforcement and

calling out good behaviors. I think that's, that's really,

really critical. And it offers the chance for so many different

people to be role models, which is really neat. So before we get

to the very last segment, I want to read a quick little summary

of all the stuff we talked about, because we covered a lot

in this 45 minutes. So much so fast. We actually started off

with a discussion on Zoom and leaping into Metaverse like

experiences by allowing multiple sensory inputs and points from

sounds and emotions, facial expressions, etc. But basically,

that was our first mass entry point into Metaverse like

experiences, and allowed us to be ourselves which is really

going to kind of change the way we think about digital advert,

avatars, and interacting digital spaces. When it comes to your

vast experience in investment opportunities, and banking and

all of the stuff. I like that you pointed out that Epic is

your North Star, I think that's a incredibly brave stance to

take. Not not brave in the sense of a poor choice, but brave in

the sense of most people don't call out what they're exactly

looking at. So I appreciate you sharing that, um, economies are

being shifted into online worlds and new economies are bubbling

up. And you are looking to dig into tool companies, software

companies and combined with a later stage kind of backdrop. So

like you said, the two ends of the barbell, the really, really

new and innovative and creative portions and then the legacy

companies that have a good strong backing and a career in

innovative technology. We also talked about the pattern of

Metaverse development and how it's not going to be a bunch of

small companies merge into a bunch of big companies who then

buy small companies are getting a different kind of hamster

wheel of development there. In the epic Metaverse is kind of

showing that that playground is a good breeding place for the

entrepreneurial spirit and new new companies can be born

there's much fewer restrictions on age, gender, all the other

things that might hold someone back. This talked a lot about NF

T's other windows into engagement and programmable

royalties for artists. But how crypto needs to clean up the

fact because a lot of companies are spending time working on

scam spams and frauds. very succinct way of demonstrating

some of the issues comes to opportunities in esports,

there's an immediate opportunity that's just like NBA top shots

with lookalike. There's also a lot of opportunity with digital

on digital identity indicators. So brands getting into

advertising, but in such a way that does not create a conflict

of interest between creators and putting out advertisements

themselves. So it allows for brand engagement and brand

identity on the user end, which is really special. And then we

ended with a short discussion on how being in an environment

where you're believed is so important. And it's also

important to thank your positive role models that bring other

women up and offer support to anyone who might need it. So

with all of that in mind, and our wide ranging discussion

there, I like to end every podcast with a moment of

reflection, just a chance for you to look back on your career.

And I will ask you, what is one thing you would like to tell

your younger self about getting into the gaming slash crypto

slash emerging technology industry and being successful?

Well, I would tell my younger self it's funny because

I hadn't read this question. But I'm gonna think about it right

now. I you know, I have gotten more of I've become more of a

risk taker. As I've gotten older, usually people become

less risk or more risk averse. I've become more risk seen.

Like, I think one of the, you know, best things that I did was

actually go work for when we started the company, or for the

web three foundation on the launch of polka.we. Didn't get

into that, but that was very early days in a brand new crypto

network. I knew a lot about Bitcoin, that I was just

learning about crypto, and it was a risk. I had a really

strong gut that the ethos of Gavin wood and the other you

know People who created polka dot was the right ethos for

crypto. And I'm really glad that I did that it was I did it

without a lot of information. I did as much research as I could

very quickly, and then I and then I went on my gut. And I

wish that I would have done that more. When I was younger, when I

was younger, I was typically the only woman in the room and I was

trying to, I went down the conservative route most of the

time, because I thought, well, you know, unless I know

everything, I'm not going to come out and say what I think

unless I really have every single detail, unless I, you

know, and, you know, and by the way, also I've got, like, all

these student loans, and so I'm gonna get a really good paying

job, and I'm gonna work my way up. And it's just so liberating

to be an entrepreneur. And to go with my gut more, I used to be

more analysis, and I love numbers as much as the next

person, you know, but I used to lean into those that the

quantitative analysis more now I lean more into the qualitative

and into people, because I learned over the years that the

hunch on people is, is the thing like that is the thing. That's

how I know I'm on the right path is if I'm with the right

people. Oh, I love that. And as someone who was

sort of part of the great resignation, and I left my job

in 2021, and it's been a scary world, but it also has been more

fun than I've ever had. So that is really, really wonderful

advice. And that was something that I personally needed to

hear. Thank you so much. I'm

just you, and also in the business of esports, you

provide such a great perspective. And so I really,

you know, want to say thank you for all the work you're doing.

Yeah, that's cool. I really appreciate that. You

know, this has been a phenomenal project to work on. And I'm just

so grateful for all the support. Angela, thank you so much for

coming on. Where can people find you follow you keep up with

signum, all of that good stuff. So

signum. jc.com is our website. And then we write a

blog blog called bits of signum, on substack. And so anyone can

subscribe. And you know, we have a discord. But we're going to

get to the next phase of our business where we invite

everybody on to talk and brainstorm. And so we'll let you

know more about that when we have it.

Yay. That's so much fun. For all of our

listeners out there. Please be sure to leave those five star

ratings and reviews or just send me your really nice comments, or

come on this podcast and compliment me here. As Angela

has just shown, be sure to check out other holodeck podcasts,

including meta business for all the metaverse finance stories

you could ever want. Business esports for interviews with

industry leaders. I'm on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn

at Lindsay paws. You can catch me Wednesday nights on the

business of esports life after show and you can catch this

podcast and your feed every Tuesday but sometimes Wednesday,

and we will see you next week. Thanks for joining

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