Neal Stephenson on The Future of the Metaverse

When Neal Stephenson coined “the metaverse” three decades ago, his book Snow Crash was found on the shelves of “science fiction”. While the book remains in that category, many of its concepts are now found in reality… Fast forward to 2022, where numerous companies are now building toward their version of the metaverse, including Neal himself – working on Lamina1 – a blockchain company oriented toward creators.  While the present metaverses don’t perfectly mimic that from Stephenson’s early imagination, we get the unique opportunity to discuss the various design decisions that he’s making, but also the intersection between the metaverse and gaming, the involvement that AR/VR might play, the evolving role of IP, how artificial intelligence fits in, what he’s building and why, and where he gets all of his ideas from. Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 1:20 - Tech's highest impact position 4:35 - What is the metaverse? 6:46 - Interoperability 8:52 - Incentive alignment 13:06 - Immersion requirements 16:30 - VR engineering challenges 20:09 - Skeuomorphism 24:17 - Commercial VR/AR applications 27:26 - AI and gaming 30:51 - The value chain 38:13 - Right of refusal 42:05 - Good and bad tech 46:05 - Fighting “free” 49:16 - Building Lamina1 58:07 - Neal’s design designs 1:03:40 - Inspiration for Snow Crash 1:09:16 - Looking ahead from 2022 1:11:59 - Science fiction writing 1:13:46 - Carbon removal   Resources:  Neal’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/nealstephenson Lamina1’s website: https://www.lamina1.com/   Stay Updated:  Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z Find us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Subscribe on your favorite podcast app:https://a16z.simplecast.com/ Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.