the Metaverse has been positioned as both a successor state to the mobile internet, as well as a platform for human leisure, labour, and existence at large. The success of this vision depends on whether the Metaverse has a thriving economy. That includes competition and a constant cycle of disruption/displacement, a large number of profitable enterprises (especially small-to-medium businesses), capital mobility and strong consumer spending.

The Tenets Of Metaverse

The most common of the existing payment rails in the US are ACH (“Automated Clearing House”), Fedwire, CHIPs (“Clearing House Interbank Payment System”), Credit Cards, PayPal, and peer-to-peer payment services like Venmo. These rails have different requirements, merits, and demerits.

The Existing Payment Rails

Wires can only be used between (and thus through) banks, are only available during non-holiday weekdays and during business hours, transactions are not reversible, cannot be used to request funds (so it doesn’t work for credit card payments, invoices, etc.), and have high sending fees (e.g. Chase pays <$0.15 per wire, but charges $25–45 per outgoing wire), receiving fees ($15 to receive), and additional fees for non-USD wire, failed wires, confirmations, etc.

Limitations Of Wire Transfer

Credit cards are another key payment rail. They involve swiping a physical card (or entering credit card information), after which a credit card machine or remote server captures account information and digitally sends it to the merchant’s bank, which then submits it to the customer’s credit card provider, which either grants or denies the transaction. This process takes one to three days and typically costs merchants 1.5–3.5% of the transaction.

Existing Payment Rails: Credit Cards

Digital payment networks include PayPal, Square, and the Cash App. Individual accounts are primarily funded via ACH or credit card, at which point the platforms then serve as a centralized/single bank used by all accounts. As a result, all transfers between users of the same payment platform are effectively just reassignments of money held by the platform itself.Payments are instantaneous and when money is sent between friends and family, these platforms typically charge no fees. But when a business is paid, 1.5–3% transaction fees to the business are common.

Digital Payment Platforms

In the virtual world, the economy primarily involves goods that only exist virtually, which are bought via purely digital transactions. This economy is also large. Roughly $54B was spent on virtual goods, skins, and lives last year, compared to $42B at the movie box office and $30B on recorded music in 2019. It also poses no systemic financial risk, does not play a critical role in society, and has thousands of market participants and a dozen competing platforms. This should lead to creativity, innovation, and competition in payments.

The Fight to Control Payments in the Metaverse

In truth, the “rails” of the “virtual economy” today are much worse than those of the “real world.” They’re more expensive, cumbersome, and slow to change.As an analogy, the current technology is based on precedents that are closer to the founding of CHIPs in the 1970s than either PayPal or the iPhone.

The State Of The Virtual Payment Rail State

PlayStation and Xbox users need PlayStation Network and Xbox Live IDs to access online games and must usually pay additional monthly fees to access these games, too. Player entitlements (trophies and game purchases) are also forever locked to these platforms. If you buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on PlayStation, you can only ever access it, and many of the achievements from beating it, via PlayStation.

Gaming Consoles Turning Into Subscription Platforms

A household can just as easily buy an Android as an iPhone, or a PlayStation not an Xbox. But in the digital/virtual era, market power comes primarily from network effects and scale. And each of these platforms works hard to lock developers and users to their platforms by forcibly bundling separate businesses, such as hardware, drivers/APIs access, software distribution, payment solutions, services, identities, and entitlements.

The Network Effect

Apple uses its control over the App Store to prevent iOS browsers (whether made by Apple, such as Safari, or others, like Google Chrome) from using most of WebGL, a JavaScript API that allows for complex browser-based 2D and 3D rendering. Apple claims this restriction is for device performance, as native apps typically outperform browser-based experiences that must speak to native drivers through “translators.” However, this policy conveniently prevents developers from making rich games without Apple’s tools which elude its store fees.

No Rich 3D Effects In iOS Browsers

Apple prohibits applications from using its NFC chips for payments, thereby ensuring Apple Pay is the only digital payment solution that can use tap and go. Apple claims this is for security, but third-party developers, such as Marriott and Ford, are able to access the Apple NFC API so users can open doors. This seems like a far more dangerous use case than a $5 coffee.

NFC Double Standard

The very premise of the Metaverse presumes that the “next” platform shifts from hardware-based operating systems and hardware-centric experiences to persistent and ubiquitous virtual simulations. We already see this today. The most popular games in the world, such as Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft, are designed to run on all endpoints, and none requires nor succeeds because of specific hardware (nor are they optimized for any specific devices, either).

Changing Rules Using The Metaverse

If the value in the Metaverse will be primarily driven through virtual worlds and virtual creations, rather than better phones, then we want the most profits going to developers of the virtual platforms and the developers on them. However, you can’t access the Metaverse except through hardware, and every hardware player is fighting to be the (or at least a) payment gateway to the Metaverse. This is why Facebook, which lacks a major operating system, is investing so heavily in Oculus. And why Snap is developing its own AR hardware, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/21/snap-ceo-evan-spiegel-were-happy-to-pay-apple-30percent.html?__source=sharebar%7Ctwitter&par=sharebar">while defending Apple’s 30% take</a>.

The New Age Game

Apple does not deserve 30% of a transaction for virtual real estate or virtual avatars that are created by developers that don’t use any of Apple’s standards, built on a virtual platform that runs on nearly every device in the world, and not integrated into any of Apple’s products — all because the end-user has an iPhone (which they might have bought for Apple Photos, iMessage, or superior hardware). Nor should Apple take 30% of a sale price in the event those assets are traded. Or 30% of virtually provided labor or kickstarter-like loans.

The Undeserved Cut

All of the major NFT platforms and blockchain-based worlds are browser-based and lack console releases and mobile applications. These console and mobile platforms control their browsers and, as mentioned earlier, do not support common (and open) standards for complex rendering, rich user input, and more. As a result, developers are forced to choose between impractical fees or mediocre experiences.

The Web Browser Rocks

In the West, these systems would normally be at the mercy of the hardware gatekeepers. However, Tencent grew so powerful so rapidly in China that it even holds leverage over Apple, who allows it to process payment for its Mini Programs without taking a cut. Notably, Facebook asked for the same permissions in the West but was denied — even if it limits payments only to small tips for on-platform creators and waives its own cut.

Yes To WeChat, No To Facebook

Beyond various platform fees, the Metaverse economy is adversely affected by the policy decisions of various virtual platforms and publishers. These policies make it harder for users to spend money, maroons user spending, penalizes users for spending diversity and or using multiple platforms, and limits the utility of all purchases and constrains total investment.

The Challenges of the Proto-Metaverse Economy

Consumer spending today is constrained by the knowledge that no games last forever. Think, as an example, of anything you might buy on holiday but can’t bring home in your suitcase — a Boogie Board, a water bottle, a costume for Día de los Muertos. Expected obsolescence always constrains spending.

 Expected Obsolescence

Open economies, trading, and increases to commercial item value inevitably trend towards play-to-earn mechanics or behaviors, which can quickly devolve into “work” that ruins a game’s sense of fun and fairness. And the larger the Metaverse economy and more firm the ownership rights, the harder it is for a developer to correct this. There is a reason why, today, almost all of the major NFT/blockchain-based “games” are actually centered on collecting or speculation, rather than more traditionally-defined gameplay.

The New Game Economics

Over time, developers will figure out how to support “Metaverse” business models. And they’ll use the Metaverse’s comparatively larger economy to quickly surpass more “legacy” game makers. Free-to-play gaming, after all, was once considered a radical business model that at best would lead to lower revenues for a given game and at worst cannibalize the industry. Instead, it proved to be the best way to monetize and a core driver behind video gaming’s cultural ascendance.

Transversing Towards The Metaverse Business Model

Some economic solutions will likely emerge to facilitate the transition to an open Metaverse economy, too. For example, developers might bake degradation into an asset’s code — this skin works for 100 hours of use, or 500 games, or three years total, during which it slowly wears. Alternatively, users might have to pay an additional fee to bring an item from one publisher’s title to a competing publisher’s (just as many goods have import duties in the ‘real world’). Or pay more in the first place for an “interoperable edition.”

New Solutions For Upcoming Problems

A decentralized database isn’t needed to prove or manage asset ownership (if the NBA or Disney or Valve said who owned an image file or virtual currency, everyone would believe them). Nor is it needed to safely and quickly transfer money (Alipay and PayPal move billions per day via purely digital networks). What matters is not whether the blockchain is technically superior in a given way, especially compared to its current, point-in-time alternatives. Rather, it’s whether blockchain standards can more effectively enhance developer profits over time, and in turn, grow the Metaverse economy.

The Potential of Blockchain and the Metaverse

The decentralized, permissionless, trustless, automatically compensating blockchain model has several benefits. Most important is the fact that developers and users can invest their time and capital with confidence that a blockchain’s policies, incentives, or economics won’t change arbitrarily over time, or in pursuit of rent-seeking.

An Ideal Blockchain Network

If the ethos of Web 2.0 was “don’t be evil,” a blockchain-based web 3.0 is “can’t be evil."

Blockchain’s permissionless, trustless and financial systems also enable their networks to be widely decentralized in operations and adoption. The former minimizes control, increases performance time and liquidity, while decreases gas fees, while the latter increases network effects and utility. Programmable tokens, meanwhile, enable developers to easily issue governance rights to their users and reward contributions.

The Future Is Decentralized

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether, can be bought, sold, and traded globally and across almost all wallets (whereas PayPal cannot send money to a Venmo user directly) and in seconds to minutes, with no intermediary taking temporary custody. Users do not need a bank account, nor is it necessary to join a mega-platform such as Square, Microsoft, or Sea Limited. Sellers and businesses don’t need to negotiate, register, or sign long-term agreements with crypto rails, either.

Crypto Economy Shows The  Way

Regardless of whether cryptocurrencies become a common form of payment in the “real world”, they’re increasingly being used in gaming via NFTs and blockchain-based studios - and for initial user payments, in-game currencies, and UGC payments. As a result, the “crypto Metaverse” suffers from substantially less currency fragmentation than today’s gaming ecosystem (i.e. Minecoin, V-Bucks, COD Points, Robux, etc.), supports two-way exchanges.

Virtual Assets

The NFT(Non-Fungible Tokens) market has shown obvious signs of excess speculation over the past year. But it’s also clear that the hard-coded promises of NFTs — irrevocable ownership, open economies, and the ability to endlessly repurpose virtual assets — has led to substantial consumer spending. Open standards typically struggle to generate greater developer revenues, especially in the media business. Not so in crypto.

NFTs: The Promise Being Delivered

Today, only a tiny fraction of online users and gamers even have a crypto wallet, and almost no brands and games issue NFTs. But irrespective of multi-month dips in the blockchain/crypto/NFT economy, we see more of these groups embrace blockchain-based experiences each month. This produces a virtual cycle that drives more users to register a wallet, mint an NFT, or integrate crypto assets, which also increases the value and utility of all other blockchain products, thereby bringing more to the technology.

The Game Has Just Begun

Blockchain standards also look like the best way to engage today’s major games, gaming platforms, and brands into the emerging Metaverse, too. While companies like Activision Blizzard and Take-Two may recognize the potential of open economies and platforms, they’re unlikely to sign onto any system managed by a competing platform, such as those of Valve and Epic, as they pose too much strategic and financial risk.

The Winner Takes It All

Developers are held back by the worry that, in an open item economy, they might create far more value than they themselves capture. For example, Developer A might produce Skin A for Game A, only for Game A to decline, and Skin A become a popular (and valuable) item in Developer B’s longer running title. In this case, Developer A has actually created content for a competitor that beat them! Or maybe it just turns out that Developer A’s creations have become iconic and highly valuable, thereby netting players orders of magnitude more profit than the developer.

An Open Item Economy

The most disruptive aspect of digitally-native “programmable” payment rails, however, is how it enables greater independent collaboration and funding.Using smart contracts, a new, multi-member entity can be created within minutes. No signing documents are required, nor credit checks, lawyers, government filings, or even direct knowledge of the members. Smart contracts also automatically manage all payment flows, governance rights, information rights, and ‘bylaws.’

Virtual Collaboration and Funding

An inside look at why the Metaverse matters, it's economics, challenges and the future

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Cryptocurrency

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Artificial Intelligence

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Technology & The Future

Metaverse

The role of payments, payment rails, and blockchains in the Metaverse. Part 
VII of ‘THE METAVERSE PRIMER’

Payments, Payment Rails, and Blockchains, and the Metaverse — MatthewBall.vc

All technologies have the potential for good and evil, useful and harmful.
The science-fiction depiction of the Metaverse in Ready Player One showed that a virtual world enables your wildest dreams on-demand while the real world decays because the virtual one is so much better.
A survey uncovered some fears of people, such as:
<ul>
<li>Leaving reality behind</li>
<li>Health concerns</li>
<li>Technological feasibility</li>
<li>World building - who will "own" the Metaverse?</li>
</ul>

The Impact Of Technology

When large portions of humanity are spending time working, playing and connecting in the Metaverse, it will be reasonable to assume we would spend the same amount of time as we do now on our phones, computers and TV.
Later, when virtual reality is indistinguishable from the real world, societies will do everything in virtual reality except for eating, sleeping and using the restroom.
Virtual reality will enable anyone to stay connected, even if they are physically far apart.

Leaving Reality Behind

If our virtual avatars can look however we want and can do anything we want, why would we spend time living healthy?
For the foreseeable future, our physical bodies will be used more than today since we will be moving around more in VR instead of looking at a screen and using our fingers.
The other side is mental health. People may spend more time in the Metaverse to escape their real-world responsibilities. Online bullying can also be a problem.

Health Concerns

The Metaverse is in many ways the next phase of the World Wide Web, from 2D to 3D.
The network facilitating the Metaverse's functionality will need massive upgrades on hardware and software fronts and require significant investments from large and smaller tech companies.

Technological Feasibility

We don't know who will "own" the Metaverse, if anyone.
Most companies will build their own worlds, experiences, shops, etc. While it might be decentralised like the internet, there is a probability that governments will not allow this form of monopoly unless creators can develop a socially acceptable governance structure.
It will take time for developers to learn about best practices as a consistent experience will be vital across worlds.

World Building

The Metaverse Explained Part 4: Challenges | Loup

The Metaverse is a virtual universe where you can do anything, be anyone, or go anywhere. You can inhabit new "earths" that are not bound by physics laws.
The Metaverse initiates two major disruptions in:
<ul>
<li>The physical world</li>
<li>The internet</li>
</ul>
The economic implications of this combination could give huge opportunities that could drive growth in the real world.

The Metaverse Economy

The Metaverse will be a network of worlds with different things to offer and different levels of popularity.
The way to monetise traffic in the Metaverse is similar to the ways governments and shopping malls generate revenue. Developers of top locations in the Metaverse will be compensated for their efforts. The competition for capturing valued in the Metaverse will result in the same capitalistic forces of modern history.

The New World

The Metaverse is the successor to the internet, and all the worlds in the Metaverse are equivalent to the internet's websites. We can now visualise and experience what the worldwide web can offer in a 3D user interface.
This new interface will reveal new opportunities for existing websites to reinvent their user experience. For example, instead of looking at some photos and reviews on a webpage, you would be able to touch and test out the digital version of an object.

The New Internet

High Fidelity is an existing social virtual reality company and is a good example of how the building blocks of the Metaverse and its economy are put in place. High Fidelity Metaverse gives open source tools to build anything you can dream of, like avatar clothing, items, and buildings. Creations are certified and recorded on the blockchain, then made available for purchase using High Fidelity Coin (HFC). The items you acquire or create within the game is linked to you, where you can bring your avatar from one world to another, including your skills, belongings, and appearances.

High Fidelity Case Study

With an economic system in place, the Metaverse could drive significant growth in every industry. Wall Street analysts will be asking the CEO of major organisations what their Metaverse strategy is on earnings calls. Companies will have teams to advertise, sell, or build products in the Metaverse.
A new generation will be able to learn, make a living or build the next big company because of the economic structure provided by the Metaverse.

Economic Impact

The Metaverse Explained Part 3: Economics | Loup

Virtual reality is a tool. It allows for infinite simulation.
For example, a consumer who experiences VR with a quality VR headset can completely immerse themselves in another world that is not limited by reality.

Why Virtual Reality Matters

In the 1992 sci-fi classic, Snow Crash, author Neil Stephenson describes a virtual-reality-based successor to the internet. The 2011 novel Ready Player One popularised the concept where you can do anything, be anyone, and go anywhere regardless of real-life circumstances.
Computers, the internet, and smartphones give us that life on a two-dimensional screen. But in a three-dimensional Metaverse, we can experience all the world wide web has to offer in a natural user interface.

History Of The Metaverse

Just like it's difficult to imagine life now without your phone or the internet, the Metaverse will become an integral part of life. Anyone with a virtual reality headset will be able to experience the best of what life has to offer and be unbound by the laws of physics.
In the Metaverse, teams can sit around a virtual conference table, and friends can play billiards with a pool stick. Instead of watching YouTube videos to learn how to make lasagna, you will be able to practice with your friends or strangers.

An Integral Part Of Life

“people come to the Oasis (or Metaverse) for all the things they can do, but they stay for all the things they can be: tall, beautiful, scary, a different sex, a different species, live action, cartoon, it’s all your call.”

The Metaverse may be more transformative to businesses than the internet has been. Companies will have entire teams dedicated to thinking about advertising, selling, or building a product within the Metaverse.
Entrepreneurs will have a platform to build products and services. Our children will go to VR universities and have jobs that don't exist yet, jobs related to the Metaverse. Overall, the Metaverse could be the largest market opportunity of the next few decades.

The Future Of Every Industry

The Metaverse could be experienced in three stages.
<ol>
<li>A head-mounted display and two hand controllers. VR today only influences sight, hearing, and a limited form of touch.</li>
<li>Haptic bodysuits and omnidirectional treadmills or shoes could allow the body to feel and move around a virtual space as it would in the real world.</li>
<li>Advanced VR will include neurohaptics. Neurotech is a technology that can use signals from the brain to replicate a virtual environment without any user interface.</li>
</ol>

Entering The Virtual World

The Metaverse Explained Part 2: Why It Matters | Loup

The Metaverse is a virtual universe where the limits of reality are your own imagination. In the Metaverse, you are one of the people on the street. You look down and see your hands and feet; you look up and see the skyline. The experience doesn't feel like a video game - it feels real. Virtual reality is a tool that permits infinite simulation. Therefore, the Metaverse has the potential to be one of the most impactful technological developments of the future.

The Metaverse Introduction

Name almost anything, and it's possible in the Metaverse.
You can catch an esports tournament, shop for both digital and real-world clothes, take a free course at a learning centre, catch up on work from the real world at your virtual desk. Then you can earn Metaverse cryptocurrency that you can also use in the real world.

What You Can Do In The Metaverse

In the Metaverse, you can customise your character's appearance and abilities. A significant amount of Coin is spent on it every day.
You can shop for real-world items in the virtual store, from furniture or new haptic gear to a pizza. Companies will have virtual stores in the Metaverse and compete for prime retail space in the premier worlds. The incentives to earn and spend in the Metaverse will be just as important in the real world. Advanced neurohaptic VR will create a virtual experience almost identical to a real one.

Player Customization

The Metaverse Explained Part 1: An Inside Look | Loup

Market cap: US$36.50 billion Palantir Technologies Inc. is one of the tops AI stocks for the bull run in 2022. This AI-based company is known for building and deploying software platforms for the intelligence community in the US for assisting in counter-terrorism investigations and operations. Palantir Gotham is a software platform for the government that allows users to identify patterns hidden deep inside enormous volumes of datasets. Palantir Foundry helps to integrate and analyse data in one place efficiently.

Palantir Technologies Inc.

Market cap: US$3.28 billion C3.ai is another popular artificial intelligence stock for investors in the global tech market. It operates as an enterprise artificial intelligence software company across the world. The AI-based company is known for offering Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service applications through a wide range of services and solutions such as C3 AI suit, C3 AI Ex Machina, C3 AI CRM, C3 AI Inventory Applications, C3 AI Customer Churn, C AI Predictive Maintenance, and many more.

C3.ai, Inc.

Market cap: US$2.59 billion Lemonade, Inc. is an AI stock for bull run for providing multiple insurance products covering stolen and damaged property. Leveraging artificial intelligence helps to protect customers if they are responsible or accident or damage to another person or any property. It is known for operating as an agent for renters, pets, life insurance products, and many more.

Lemonade, Inc.

Market cap: US$1.78 billion iRobot Corporation is one of the top artificial intelligence stocks for 2022 owing to its integration of artificial intelligence and robotics. It designs and builds robots across the world while offering Roomba, floor vacuuming robots, Root robots for children to learn to code, and Braava, automatic floor mopping robots.

iRobot Corporation

Market cap: US$1.69 trillion Amazon.com, Inc. is one of the top AI-based companies with popular AI stock. It operates through three segments known as North America, International, and AWS. It is popular for leveraging artificial intelligence, cloud computing, IoT, and big data for providing a wide range of services, solutions, and products to meet customer satisfaction across all industries.

Amazon.com, Inc

Market cap: US$2.53 trillion Microsoft Corporation is one of the AI stocks for many years for its reputation of being an AI-based company. It is a popular tech stock for developing and supporting software, services, and solutions worldwide with its multiple segments. It operates through segments such as productivity and business processes, intelligent cloud, and more personal computing. It also offers a wide set of cloud-based and on-premises business solutions for organizations and enterprise divisions.

Microsoft Corporation

Market cap: US$935.65 billion Meta Platforms is gaining popularity for constant up-gradation of services through artificial intelligence, machine learning, and many more. It is one of the tops AI stocks across the world for helping people to connect for personal and business matters. It operates through two segments— a family of apps and Facebook reality labs. This AI-based company offers augmented reality and virtual reality-based consumer hardware, software, and content.

Meta Platforms, Inc.

Market cap: US$76.10 billion ABB Ltd. is an AI-based company with a popular AI stock in the global tech market for leveraging artificial intelligence for automation and robotics. It is popular for manufacturing industrial automation, robotics, and motion products. It operates through multiple segments such as electrification, robotics, and discrete automation, industrial automation, and motion. It includes artificial intelligence applications for the process as well as hybrid industries.

ABB Ltd.

Market cap: US$139.82 billion Applied Materials, Inc. is one of the top ten AI stocks for a bull run for providing software to semiconductors, displays, and other industries. It is known for operating through three segments— semiconductor systems, applied global services, and display and adjacent markets. It leverages cutting-edge technologies to provide factory automation software for semiconductors. It has launched a new optical inspection system known as ExtractAI to detect defects of AI chips with artificial intelligence software.

Applied Materials, Inc.

Market cap: US$129.17 billion ServiceNow, Inc. is one of the top ten artificial intelligence stocks set for a bull run in 2022. The AI-based company offers enterprise cloud computing solutions that automate services for enterprise across the world. There is a Now platform that helps in workflow automation, AI, machine learning, data benchmarking, and many more. It offers a wide range of IT services and solutions such as IT service management products, IT service management applications, IT asset management, and many more.

ServiceNow, Inc.

Investors should be aware of the top ten artificial intelligence stocks that are set for a bull run in 2022. AI-based companies are determined to provide highly profitable AI stocks for bull run.

Top 10 Artificial Intelligence Stocks Set for a Bull Run in 2022

In game design, you don’t worry about what users want or needs, you focus on how they feel. They don’t use your product, they play it. We must understand human motivation as it relates to enjoyable product experience
Intrinsic vs Extrinsic motivation:
<ul>
<li>Intrinsic: We do things because they are inherently satisfying</li>
<li>Extrinsic: We do things to earn rewards and achieve external goals</li>
</ul>
Rewards can undermine intrinsic motivation in the wrong environment. Gamification works when the underlying experience was already a ‘game‘ – work is perceived as a game

Game Design & Human Motivation

Games need good goals: concrete, achievable, and rewarding The design of these goals can help gamify your product fueling your potential for the flow state. Products need rapid and robust controls and platforms, the extreme ease/efficient use of a product can make it feel more like a game.
Five key components of flow:
<ul>
<li>Know what to do next</li>
<li>Know how to do it</li>
<li>Free from distractions</li>
<li>Get clear and immediate feedback</li>
<li>Must feel a balance of challenge and skill – if the activity is too hard, we feel anxious. If the activity is too easy, we feel bored.</li>
</ul>

Flow State as a Product

“Flow is not what you’re doing, it’s how you feel when you’re doing it”

<ul>
<li>Always raise one round of capital ahead of schedule when possible. At any given point, you have 6-10 years of financial runway</li>
<li>It helps you make deliberate decisions proactively rather than reactively. Create momentum – narratives and product waitlists can help you get ahead. </li>
<li>Don’t buy into your own BS – while narratives can bring in money, don’t be pressured into spending the capital outside of the ventures means. Wait until you meet product fit and use the capital for scaling.</li>
<li>Understand your market value proposition. don’t grow before you’re ready to grow</li>
</ul>

Start-Up Advice

Think as long-term as you possibly can. The most valuable companies are the ones that last the longest. Think big, know from day one what your multi-billion dollar story is going to be

Rahul Vohra of Superhuman has adopted some of the most cutting-edge approaches to making a business product people *want* to use, rather than have to use. In this episode, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE talks to Rahul about how any startup founder can apply the principles of game design to their products, and why this is becoming increasingly important in a world where users (rather than IT) increasingly decide which products win.

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Startups

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Podcasts

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Product & Design

Host Mike Maples Jr from venture capital firm FLOODGATE offers lessons from the startup super performers—BEFORE they were successful—featuring interviews with some of Silicon Valley’s most legendary entrepreneurs and thought leaders, including Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Nextdoor co-founder Sarah Leary, Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Kreiger, and more.

Starting Greatness

Rahul Vohra of Superhuman: How to create business products people *enjoy* using

How to Create Business Products People *ENJOY* Using | Rahul Vohra on Starting Greatness with Mike Maples

Startups exist because they radically change the category. A startup can either make a better version of something or create a new way of seeing a problem. If a startup tries to make a better version, they’re playing the comparison game by the leader’s rules. A better way is to be the only one. In a world that sells bananas, you want to be the world’s first apple.  Category design is then creating a minimum viable different future that early adopters choose. By choosing that different future, they join your movement. As the movement grows, it becomes a market because it defines the category.

Startups and Category design

I’m not the best, I’m the only. You want to force a choice and not a comparison.

The printing press was a democratising technology. When the Roman Empire became corrupt, the Pope tried to establish order. But ruling institutions often become more interested in keeping their status and power than serving their real function and consequently started to fleece their people. From this came three technologies:<ol><li>The printing press allowed Martin Luther to print the Bible, and suddenly lots of people could read.</li><li>Double-entry accounting let merchants of Venice trade in a decentralised way without central authorities.</li><li>Gunpowder changed the asymmetry of power that knighthood enforced.</li></ol>

Democratising category designers

The internet is much like the printing press because anyone can circumvent the traditional media. Bitcoin is a sophisticated accounting system that enables people to bypass the fiat currency system.

Modern-day democratising category designers

When people see too many problems in a state, country, a product, and there is a denial that things need to change, they will abandon it. Exiting broken institutions will give a voice its power. <ul><li>Bitcoin is an exit voice. It said that the fed is mistreating the dollar and the only choice is to opt-out and own a different kind of currency.</li><li>The cloud culture is another. People can exit physical locations but still be part of a networked economy where it pays you but doesn’t have much of a hold on you.</li></ul>

The exit voice

The future doesn’t happen to us, it happens because of us.

Understanding how broken institutions work is merely observing a natural cycle: A centralised organisation can make decisions quickly, but with time it becomes a caricature in itself. So it will slow down, people in the centre will make all the decisions, and nobody will be able to get anything done without asking for permission.  That's when you want to be decentralised. Everyone can make things happen independently, but if that carries on for too long, there will be too many different ways to do something, and efforts will be duplicated. This is when you will move back to centralisation.

The natural cycle in history

In the 20th century, you got rich by investing in companies that were a bet against a different future. Startups used to be something similar to a hobby turned into a business, but they are going to animate breakthroughs and create a different future. They are creating new categories instead of dominating existing categories. The future will happen because of us. We can either join movements that will create breakthroughs that build a different future, or we will tear things down if we make bad choices as a society,

Startups creating a different future

<ul><li>The company can’t be compared to any other. It envisions a different future.</li><li>It post-dates the creation of the internet.</li><li>Do the people leading the institution understand software in a fundamental way and use levers to move the world?</li></ul>

How to identify and join a breakthrough movement

When people say that robots are going to eat the jobs, they reveal a particular world view where the world is centred on the industrial giant institutions, such as factories and big businesses where every person is part of the cog. But we don't live in that world anymore. Software is eliminating the need for people to work at companies. In the past, you had to work at a company because you couldn’t produce your product at scale. Now people can exit that system. They can use software to build their product and distribute it. They can be in multiple networks simultaneously.

Robots eating the jobs

In the last century, we trained children to be employees who follow the rules. They had to subordinate their own desires, ideas and creativity to the organisation's needs. In the 21st century, we need to teach children to define and shape their own destiny. We need to teach the importance of personal agency and understand that the world is working in a decentralised way. Learners should focus on their strengths, learn computer literacy, financial literacy, probabilities, and understand how to think about the odds.

How to train people for this century

Mike Maples Jr. is the co-founder of Floodgate (early investor in Twitter, Twitch, and Lyft) and the host of the Starting Greatness Podcast. In this conversation, we spoke about surviving how an entrepreneur survives near-death experiences, the balance of centralization vs. decentralization, why you should seek to join a breakthrough company, and how to manage your own psychology. Emoji to describe this episode: 🤯 Mike's Links Starting Greatness Podcast / Twitter Advice by Patrick Collison Continue the conversation with me... Twitter / Instagram / YouTube / Website

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#166: Mike Maples Jr. – Why The Robots Are Not Going To Eat Your Job

Why The Robots Are Not Going To Eat Your Job

It basically talks about the possible fundamental particle of mass, and the presence of other dimensions of space-time.

What is string theory?

<ul><li>The problem faced in newtonian physics(and by Newton himself) was that, although he could mathematically calculate gravitational pull, he was baffled by HOW this gravitational force was exerted through an inert medium like space on a celestial object so far apart.</li></ul>But it could be successfully, mathematically be applied to astonomy, except for the 'how'.

Newtonian physics

Now, coming to Einstein's era,he postulated that,<ul><li>space time has got 4 dimensions(including time), (like Newton did), but he also managed to explain the how, which Newton couldn't.</li></ul>According to Einstein, <ul><li>without any matter on the fabric of space time, it appears to be flat and linear</li><li> when matter is present, this space-time fabric warps and curves around that matter, alongwhich gravity attracts.(check pic)</li></ul>

Einstein's theory

<ul><li> Theodor Kaluza, theorized that electromagnetism(just like gravity) exerts its effects as warps and curves in a 5th dimension (including time).</li><li> Furthermore, using the assumption of the existence of a 5th dimension, he could also successfully mathematically derive out, not only einsteins equation, but also the equation for electromagnetism.</li></ul> That is it formed the basis of a unified theory, where every other physical theories could be derived from.

 Kaluza-Klein theory(KK theory) : Kaluza part

<ul><li>Oskar Klein, went a step ahead to postulate that there are relatively smaller dimensions which are curled up, located at a microscopic level of the larger dimensions. </li><li>just like how an electric cable from afar seems to be single dimension, but for small ants on the cable, there are much more dimensions(clockwise/anticlockwise) to that cable than a single dimension as perceived by the observor.</li></ul> <ul><li>That is according to Klein, ultramicroscopic enlargement of the visible dimensions could lead to the demonstration of, curled up microscopic dimensions.(check image)</li></ul>

  Kaluza-Klein theory(KK theory) : Klein part

Coming to the present era,<ul><li>Superstring theory - Talks about the smallest, indivisible entity which makes up space.</li><li>i.e. We know, matter is made of atoms, which is composed of a nucleus, a proton and an electron. We have even gone further and found that, these micro particles are made of packets of energy called quarks.</li></ul>

Superstring theory

<ul><li>According to string theory, quarks are actually constituted of dancing, filament like form of energy, which looks like a vibrating string. </li><li>And these can vibrate in different patterns(frequencies), leading to production of different types of particles based on the vibrating frequency. </li></ul>This is the ultramicroscopic landscape of the universe. The matter within matter.

<ul><li>Mathematically speaking, a very fascinating result was obtained, while applying and trying to incorporate Newtons, Einstein's equations.</li><li>The string theory equation holds true mathematically in a scenario involving 10 dimensions of space and 1 dimension of time(i.e. a 11 dimensional system), which has not yet being observed by man</li><li>The discovery and exploration of these extra dimensions could also hold the answer to why the 20(actually 26) <a href="https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.codata.org%2Fuploads%2Fimages%2FTable%25201-CODATA%2520Recommended%2520Values%2520of%2520Fundamental%2520Physical%2520Constants%25202014.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fcodata.org%2Fcodata-recommended-values-of-the-fundamental-physical-constants-2014%2F&tbnid=vz1jX8rjxOjTaM&vet=1&docid=OX1uvsqAeHzkPM&w=2156&h=1446&itg=1&hl=en-IN&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim">fundamental constants</a> have such distinct values which are relevant to the decimal.</li></ul>

String theory's mathematical implication

<ul><li>The geometrical shape of the ultramicroscopic landscape, is called as Calabi Yau manifold, and is postulated to be one which folds in on itself.(see pic) </li><li>The shape of the landscape is thought to be what determines how the filaments of energy vibrate. </li></ul>

 Geometry of the ultramicroscopic landscape

<ul><li>Since, we have only observed the existence of 4 dimensions(including time), but have mathematically figured out the existence of 7 more dimensions, many experiments are being conducted to empirically observe them.</li><li>One such experiment, done in the large hadron collider, where, particles moving near the speed of light are allowed to collide head on, to see if any resulting debris (called as gravitan) enters into any of these unknown dimensions.(This is calculated by measuring the total energy before and after the collison, lesser energy after the collision implies energy has been lost somewhere).</li></ul>

Realisation of string theory

The essence of the fascinating string theory. 

Physicist Brian Greene explains superstring theory, the idea that minuscule strands of energy vibrating in 11 dimensions create every particle and force in the universe. View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/brian-greene-on-string-theory Talk by Brian Greene.

String theory - Brian Greene

Find 100+ Facts about Technology - Curated by others from trusted sources like Books, Podcasts & Articles - Genuine Insights from like-minded Users like You!

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