The Metaverse, Crypto, Virtual Society

This episode is a deep dive on all things metaverse, defining what the metaverse is, and what it isn’t; covering frequent misconceptions (and nuances) around how VR or virtual reality, videogames, and other applications relate (and don't relate) to the metaverse; and discussing how communities, fashion, sports, and more play here.

We also go into where crypto comes in -- including discussing trends in on-chain gaming, DAOs; themes like interoperability, composability; etc. But we also go well beyond technology -- and into science fiction, the arts, low-fidelity design, narrative, and much, much more -- in this wide-ranging, hallway-style conversation between:

• Herman Narula, author of the new book • Virtual Society: The Metaverse and the New Frontiers of Human Experience • ; Narula is also the CEO and co-founder of Improbable • ; • Elena Burger, deal partner on a16z crypto (where she focuses on games, NFTs, web3 media, infrastructure, and more); Berger also wrote a thoughtful review • of Narula’s book; • ...and host Sonal Chokshi (who also shares writings on topics such as " narrative collapse • " and more as well as past episodes of the a16z Podcast with Narula on distributed systems at scale, gaming • , and more).

For more on metaverse from the a16z crypto, please see this piece. To order Narula's book, please select from here.

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web3 with a16z is a show about building the next generation of the internet, from the team at a16z crypto. As a reminder, none of the content is investment, business, legal, or tax advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.

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