Kind: captions
Language: en
i always believe that like if you think
that something is going to be important
find a way to start working on it
there's only so much that you can really
learn by thinking about something in the
abstract you you really learn by like
putting an idea out there and seeing how
people use it
mark zuckerberg welcome to the show
thanks for having me i'm excited to be
here
dude i'm very excited to have you so as
i was saying before we started rolling i
am obsessed with the metaverse and about
a little over a year ago we pivoted our
company to be entirely focused on web 3.
i don't use the word metaverse a lot
just because i worry that it's quite a
ways off
but the core principles of what you're
doing i think really align with my
vision of where this goes anyway and so
looking at the massive investments that
you guys are making into the space it
seems like a no-brainer that you guys
even though the metaverse obviously will
be built by a lot of people that you
guys will be arguably the largest
individual contributor
there's a lot of parts and pieces though
so how do you think about the metaverse
what is it and what are the steps to
make it real
yeah so
the way i think about this i mean
i think you're right i think the
metaverse and web 3 are related concepts
but
are also distinct
the metaverse i think of as
an immersive internet sort of the the
next chapter of the internet after the
mobile internet the successor if you
will um there's always a platform that
comes next and i think that the
metaverse is is going to be that and i
think that the defining characteristic
of it is that you'll be able to feel
like you're present with other people in
it and if you're designing social
interactions and and kind of uh
platforms for people to to interact with
each other which is basically what i
spend my life doing
um
the ability to help
people feel present with another person
and all that goes into that right it's
you know feeling like you're there
feeling like like you can see people's
expressions clearly like you can make
eye contact like you can um kind of
physically interact you know hear where
they're coming from spatial audio you
know be able to express yourself in
three dimensions all of these things
that go into a feeling of presence i
just think it's going to deliver way
better social experiences and a feeling
of togetherness
than any other technology that we've had
before and we try to kind of simulate
that on
phones and other screens that we have
you know we're doing this you know and
right now and i can i can see on a
screen it's it's not you sound
functionally i can i can see your face
so that's nice but i don't think you
know neither of us is under any illusion
that we're we're um you know we don't
feel like we're together um
so i just think in the future whether
you're in
virtual reality or um augmented reality
and you know maybe we do a version of
this conversation in the future where
you know i'm a hologram on the couch
next to you um and and you can see that
through your glasses um
or or any of the other platforms that
are getting built i think that's just
that's going to be
just unlock a lot of new social
experiences and then on top of that
you're going to be able to do all kinds
of new forms of entertainment
new types of hanging out
more physical types of computing like
things around fitness that don't really
make sense on mobile phones um or or
computers today and i think it's going
to transform work too right so just be
able to walk anywhere you want and snap
your fingers and have your perfect
workstation up and then if you want to
collaborate with someone they'll kind of
show up as an avatar or a hologram next
to you and you have that too so um
so that set of things
is um is how i think about
the metaverse and
um and i think you're you're right that
we're certainly investing more than
anyone else is in this um there's a lot
of science that needs to still get
solved a lot of this isn't just you know
engineering questions around all right
let's go build stuff over the next few
years they're actually unsolved
questions that need to get worked
through and
we have kind of hypotheses on how that
might work but for a lot of the hard
questions we have you know five six
seven teams um you know trying to take
different bets on it and we'll see see
what works um so that's an important
part of it i do think that that will end
up being an important contribution to
the whole field and i'm excited that
we're doing that there's a builder in
the space and the space is moving so
rapidly i'm constantly asking myself am
i focused on the right piece so as you
develop these you know six or seven
teams how do you decide which problem
you're going to tackle so obviously
you're starting with your thesis you're
about bringing people together so
presence plays a huge role for you but
like how did you decide how to balance
vr versus ar or ai like how how do you
know in what order to attack this
multitude of problems
yeah i i think that that's a a really
great question um
and
you know we're taking a
fairly
first principles and maximalist approach
to this
of um
basically saying what are all the things
that we think need to exist
um in order to build
this software experience i mean at the
end of the day we we are a um you know
software company we build technology
that helps people interact with each
other that way but you know we feel like
we've run into all these limits in terms
of what you can do on a phone or on a
computer or just a flat screen um
so
from that perspective i think that these
immersive platforms
for hardware around virtual or augmented
reality are going to be really
fundamental and then there's all these
different technologies that need to be
advanced there so in order to get
holographic displays i mean no one's
built anything like that before you know
with with the um you know the level of
quality and kind of field of view that
you need and resolution
much less in the form factor which is
like a normal pair of glasses so there
are just all these different parts of
that that you need to work on so it's
not just one problem at a time i think
you know when i was getting started in
building facebook you know 18 years ago
when you're a small team i think you you
do things one thing at a time um you
know now if if i just say what is the
the part of what we're doing that's the
most important it would it would
probably be the social platform work the
horizon work that we're doing and the
avatar's work to help people express
themselves
but fundamentally i don't think that
that stuff will reach its full potential
without also
a lot of um invention that needs to
happen in virtual and augmented reality
to be able to experience this so we're
also working on display technology and
um and you know things like eye tracking
and face tracking so when you're in vr
you can actually make eye contact with
someone or when you when you smile or
you know move your your face around that
gets translated to your avatar
automatically and those are things that
are going to be in the the next vr
headset that we're releasing or hand
tracking so we don't have to you know
carry controllers around with you
everywhere that you go which i think is
um no controls are good for some things
you know just like how on your ipad you
have a stylus it's good for precise
input but i don't think we're gonna you
know in in the future version of your
glasses that you're wearing where
those can produce holograms and
augmented reality i assume you're not
going to be carrying around um uh
controllers with you all the time right
so so you need some combination of a
kind of hand tracking um which is you
know advanced it's you know some
combination of ai and computer vision um
to basically be able to in real time
track where each of your fingers are and
be able to interact that way but there
are other types of inputs too because
you don't also want to walk around
through the world and kind of have your
hands in front of you all the time um so
we're working on stuff like these neural
interfaces where you just have this
wristband i mean this i think is
actually one of the wilder things that
we're that we're working on where um and
there are a lot of we could go pretty
deep on neural interfaces if you wanted
to i mean there's a there's
there's a whole different ways that you
can you can kind of get at how can you
make it so that your your mind can kind
of speak to a computer the solution that
we've sort of come to
is um
it's called emg and you do it on the
wrist which is that the basic idea is
that you know we all have
extra
motor neuron pathways to communicate
from our brain down to our muscles right
so they're actually all these different
pathways that you could be using to
communicate to control your hand but
they're redundant or unused for
different reasons and you can train
yourself to basically use them to
communicate to a
a wristband or a computer typing
different letters or different things
like that so eventually you'll just kind
of have this little thing it looks like
a little fitbit or a wristband and and
and you'll be able to you know type
quickly by you know barely even moving
your fingers when they're in your pocket
or something like that so there are all
these different things so it's you know
going back to your question i don't
think it's just like one thing or
another it wouldn't be that useful if we
made a lot of progress on on holographic
displays but then you had no way to tell
the glasses what you wanted to do um so
it really is this um this pretty
open-ended thing which is you know why
where and why we're investing you know
10 or 15 billion dollars a year in this
at this point that's so crazy
just like the internet changed the world
forever
web 3 is going to change the world
forever as well and if you're interested
in learning about the blockchain
cryptocurrency nfts and what all of this
actually means and how it's going to
make for a brighter future i have
created web3 university to teach you
exactly what's going on and make sure
that you aren't left behind registration
is free everything is laid out in
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then you can go through step by step and
you'll be well prepared to get started
you can go to
web3u dot io to register it's completely
free and we'll be updating the content
there regularly as things change i'll
see you guys inside take care and be
legendary peace
i'm just i mean i'm grateful that we
know that the the
social media and social networking
business that we have is um you know is
that sufficient scale that we can fund
all these investments and this you know
wild and futuristic type of work but i
don't know honestly i wish more
companies did that right because there
are a lot of profitable companies in the
world and i'm just glad that we can kind
of keep on innovating on the core social
network part of what we do but also kind
of funnel a lot of that into
helping to hopefully define the the next
generation of um of what computing and
social interaction is going to be no i
totally agree especially about the idea
of hey it'd be wonderful if more people
did it i think there's a couple you know
things going on here so one if we step
back even just trying to give a really
succinct definition of what the
metaverse is i think it's very hard and
the reason i think it's hard and i'd
love to hear your feedback on this but
the reason i think it's hard is that
when you talk to somebody who's really
visionary in this space
what they end up keying into is that the
virtual world sheds the need for
obeyance to physics you can do anything
you've talked about you know you won't
need a tv a physical tv anymore because
i can just project a screen that will
appear as if it's on your wall or it
could surround you or it can start being
on your wall and then surround you and
so we're no longer beholden to what we
can mount on the wall what can be
manufactured in the manufacturing space
and so when people talk about this
they start with okay we need glasses and
we have to you know make things smaller
so that they fit and they end up talking
about you know eventually we're plugging
into your brain in some fashion whether
it's you know on your wrist and just
reading the electrical signals or
actually doing like a neurolink style
thing so to to begin to narrow it down
because what i
what i know in my own business is
eventually i have to translate that
grand vision into what i'm going to do
with the next 15 minutes
and so as i look at where you guys are
going and you've broken things out into
product lines obviously keying off of
the mission of helping people
communicate and connect better
but you have a lot of different
strategies that you're pursuing so i
want to start to understand like what
are the the near-term horizons and then
i said there were two things the second
thing is and we'll take these
individually
but the second thing is overwhelm men
like i i want to spend some time later
in the interview just talking about how
the hell
you look at this massive problem
and figure out one how to sequence those
15-minute blocks so that you're actually
doing something intelligent with your
time not being overwhelmed when the
world's like this is never going to work
mark you're crazy
so
starting with the first one for a second
how do you begin to um what do you think
is the nearest term what's going to be
the first one to pop is it horizon is it
ar glasses what's going to be that that
immediate thing that hooks us yeah sure
but even before that just to
you know you you made this comment about
how it's hard to define what the
metaverse is i mean i would just offer
my definition of this
is
in an immersive internet where you can
feel a sense of presence with the people
who you're with and the the
things or places that are that are
around you um i'm gonna push on one word
in that definition that i think will
help people yeah sure internet what do
you mean like when you say an immersive
internet meaning that everything's
interconnected that i can shop i can
talk to a friend i can listen to music
or something else
well i i mean that is in the sense that
you know we have this mobile internet
today that you can access from phones
wherever you go but
the way that we experience the internet
today is that
you're looking at it right it's on
screens in front of us and
i think that this next generation
you're going to be in it right so
instead of basically looking at a
document um you know maybe you'll
have a hologram in front of you that has
a screen and um
and and you're going to be able to be
editing it with someone who's sitting
next to you and it'll feel like you're
in the scene
rather than you just kind of have have a
phone or have a computer and and kind of
the internet is something that's on a
screen in front of you you're going to
be immersed and present with the people
who are there right so at the point
where you're at your dining room table
and someone has a hologram next to you
are you looking at the internet or are
you kind of in that scene at that point
i think that that's the sense of
presence that i'm talking about and then
all this other stuff about breaking down
physics um i think comes from that but
this the sense of presence is really the
fundamental defining characteristic of
the metaverse i think it's you know the
and and that is i just think in our in
our personal interactions um
that's the thing that just creates a lot
of magic and it is so
unique compared to every other form of
communication that we have so i think
having a computing platform that can
deliver that
is just really meaningful if you know
the vision of what you're doing is to
try to help people connect better
so you know going going back to your
question around you know what pieces are
we gonna see first
i i think
you know it's
it's an interesting question in that i
think when you're kind of a startup
you're framework of doing something for
15 minutes then doing something for 15
minutes after that i think that
sort of hyper prioritized serialization
is the right way to think about things i
think somewhat of the art of running a
larger enterprise is parallelism and
being able to do a bunch of different
things so i think that's that's been a
big change in terms of how i think about
running a company or what we're doing
that i've needed to adapt to over time
because there is something that's just
really fulfilling about being able to do
a thing and then get feedback that it's
done correctly and then then kind of go
do the next thing
and whereas parallelism it's so abstract
you're like working on a handful of
different things and they're each sort
of on a longer time frame and you don't
necessarily get as much feedback um
so you need to be a lot better about
finding signals that show that the work
is either on track or not so you can say
hey this one's not going well i need to
go check in on that um in terms of you
know what are what are people going to
see first um
the quest vr headsets are
getting quite popular right so that i
think was the first thing that we
shipped as part of reality labs that
has had some mainstream success and it's
not as big as you know phone or
or you know computer yet but um
but you know the jump from quest one to
quest two in terms of sales was very big
we're going to continue um shipping
devices at a pretty fast cadence um the
the basic way that we're thinking about
this is we want to have a
uh like a basically a consumer device
um you know in the price range of where
quest one and in quest two have been
then we also want to have
a work device uh basically something
that will
eventually
replace your laptop or your workstation
at work where you'll be able to do
productivity in it or if that gets to
the experience of like you're at your
desk and you can just kind of open your
your arms and get your kind of perfect
workstation get the
as many screens as big as you want laid
out um
collaborations that way you can kind of
feel like you're there with people
you're working with and they can either
show up as avatars or holograms or you
know one of the screens in vr can be
screened access zoom and you know people
who aren't in vr can basically just show
up on your desk or at the head of the
table when you're in a conference room
meeting with um with other people in vr
so i think you're gonna get productivity
collaboration um a bunch of that kind of
stuff so you're gonna have this consumer
line for vr and you're gonna have this
work line
we're gonna ship the first version of
this work line later this year this is
basically what project cambria is i
talked about it at connect last year it
has a lot of new features in it from you
know color mixed reality to eye tracking
and face tracking like we talked about
before for being able to make eye
contact and have your facial expressions
just translate to your avatar
automatically so i think there are going
to be a bunch of things that are a big
step forward
but i think the bottom line is you kind
of need to because um
i think the
a person who's going to use the device
mostly just for hanging out or playing
games
i don't know maybe they probably
wouldn't want to pay necessarily a
thousand dollars for a device but if
you're replacing your workstation with
it then you know i know a lot of
companies would be willing to pay that
amount or even more to to have something
that increases you know i mean if if if
i could increase the productivity of
every engineer at our company by two
percent that would be worth a lot of
money right so you're just gonna be able
to pack more technology into that and
then we're kind of gonna alternate where
you know one year we'll do the consumer
version then the next year we'll do the
work version and then the next year
we'll do the next consumer version and
so on so that's kind of what you're
going to see on the on the vr side in
terms of metaverse software
horizon is really i think that that's
we're putting a lot of energy into that
and horizon is really starting to get
quite built out the creator tools are
starting to get a lot better and now a
big part of the focus is going to be
just growing the community because if
you're if you're building a social tool
then obviously having people there is is
an important feature for that once it's
at a certain level of maturity so you
know we're going to focus a lot for the
rest of the year of not just having it
on quest but also making it so that you
can jump into a world and horizon from
facebook or or instagram or when you're
in a a uh a video call on whatsapp or or
messenger you know it's it doesn't just
need to be a a kind of uh video call
with your camera you can sort of be
embodied as your avatar and and be in in
a virtual world and horizon interacting
with people so i thought those kind of
experiences will be pretty cool too and
because a lot more people have phones
than vr headsets now um for the for the
foreseeable future um i know that's
going to be important for getting that
off the ground but that's that's a big
next step too and i would i would guess
that over the next
you know 12 18 months we'll see really
quick growth um in the horizon community
and and for creators and i'm pretty
excited about that and then on the ar
side um
you know we shipped this the ray ban
stories product um
partnering with with luxottica that was
sort of the first smart glasses product
and we're basically taking two
approaches on ar we're basically trying
to say
take a normal pair of glasses at a
reasonable price point and on the one
hand put as much technology as you can
into it so for ray-ban's stories first
version we were able to get cameras and
um and speakers and microphones you can
you can capture photos and videos and
you can take phone calls on it you can
go for a run and listen to music with it
and you have an assistant in there um
and then you know for for whatever we do
next we'll try to you know pack even
more technology into it while keeping a
kind of classic form factor and a good
price the other approach that i think is
helpful to take is basically starting
from what you're really trying to build
with with ar which is okay you don't
just want cameras in it you want
holograms right so um for that you need
like a a kind of laser you know
projector that's in the the arm of the
glasses and then you need you know the
holographic wave guides with big field
of view that can basically show uh you
know whether it's another person like
like we've talked about maybe a future
version of this we're doing this where
you're a hologram on my couch or i'm a
hologram on your couch but in order to
do that you want a pretty wide field of
view you want that to be in a great form
factor that's a lot of new technology
that's i mean it's just a lot to pack
into glasses that are maybe five
millimeters thick you know basically a
projector wave guides computer like a
chip um you know batteries microphone
red speakers um
tools to basically cameras and sensors
to to be able to do hand tracking things
to have and understand where your eyes
are and where you're looking so we can
render things correctly just it's just a
ton of stuff so the first version of
that i think it's you know maybe it's
not going to be quite as
small as the smart glasses or quite as
affordable but i think over time these
two things are basically going to
converge until you have one set of
products there so you already have the
smart glasses at some point in the next
few years i i hope we'll we'll basically
have the first kind of full ar glasses
and then it'll just be this race to
combine those together but that's sort
of the road map um i don't know long
answer question but um but that's that's
a you know a lot of what we're building
on makes sense now so one as somebody
who is so i'm as an entertainment
company i'm approaching all of this from
i need the problems you just listed to
be solved i don't have the budget to
solve them very happy
that you're in there solving a lot of
these problems now i have a thesis right
now about where i think nfts fit into
all of this that right now i feel a bit
like an outsider i'm certainly not the
only voice but i feel a bit lonely i
want to run it by you see what you think
so
right now i think nfts are being treated
by a lot of people as a financial
vehicle and it's primarily attracting
the attention of people that treat it
much like they would treat an investment
or a stock market portfolio and my thing
is that it's a signaling molecule
and that it's never going to go where it
needs to go until we can get past the
where you know the vast majority of the
energy is financial in nature
and so the way that i look at it is it
becomes a you hold things in your wallet
that signal affinity to me as the
creator right so if you come into my
what i'll call a metaverse archipelago
my little island which i'm hoping you'll
deliver the apis that we need for people
to bounce around which i think is
absolutely critical but for now you're
going to be in my little corner of the
metaverse but i can create experiences
which is how we think of it and the nfts
cue me as to what experience you would
want so maybe you bought a t-shirt and
it has like we have one of our shirts
has a heart symbol on it my wife and i
actually teach a class on relationships
so if you have the heart symbol we can
give you a custom experience where we've
motion captured ourselves you can come
in hear us talk about it ask questions
whatever and somebody that doesn't have
that shirt is not going to see that
experience or if we partner up with
we're fiendishly trying to partner with
different anime companies and so if you
have one of their nfts that now unlocks
access to an island let's say within our
space and so we look at the the nfts as
a way for you to signal and then
obviously as this gets more complex and
people have a thousand nfts in their
wallet that we've got ai that goes in
and goes okay people that have these
three nfts like this kind of experience
they stay longer whatever and now you
can create something is that how you
guys are approaching nfts i know that
you have some pretty big plans for nfts
yeah so
first
let me just say that i really agree with
your point around expression you know i
think where our whole thrust as a
company is around
helping people connect and communicate
so we tend to think about these
interactions that people have as
i mean part of communication is you're
exchanging information but a lot of it
is just signaling and expression and
saying something about yourself and
you're trying to find like-minded people
and form communities and express your
values and i just think we have such a
deep need to be understood
as people and so much of what we do from
you know how we communicate to you know
what our hair looks like to the clothes
we choose to all this is goes towards
sort of expressing those values and and
what we care about and what type of
communities we're a part of i think that
there's
no reason to think that that will be any
different in um digital spaces right
that that's a lot of what you know early
social networks
started off as and and i think that
they've become more sophisticated in
terms of helping people express and and
share the expression that they want
um
but when i think about nfts in the
metaverse i think you know people are
gonna if you're spending a lot of time
um you know whether it's working in vr
if a fair amount of your meetings now
are are kind of happening in in virtual
reality in the metaverse or you know as
a hologram you know sitting there with
someone then you're gonna care about
what you look there and um and you're
probably not going to want to wear the
same thing every day right so you're
probably going to you know have a
collection of clothing and digital
objects just like um you have clothing
in the physical world and
um and you're going to want that
clothing to be meaningful and express
something about you so you're not just
gonna want to be like generic like a lot
of these early systems okay what what
what color shirt do you want but you
know which designer made it which
creator made it that's going to be
meaningful and i think that that needs a
whole format for commerce and i think
nfts are going to be a really important
part of that and then of course the
other part of this is around
interoperability and if you buy a shirt
or a sweatshirt um you're not just going
to want that to work in one app you're
going to want to be able to go to
another place and have it work too um it
would be pretty annoying if um you know
your your whole kind of physical
wardrobe um
i mean i
i guess there are some parts of this
it's like i don't want to wear a suit
most of the time but i guess if i'm
going to meet with someone in the
government i do or something like that
but um
but
in general for the things that we want
to express about ourselves
you kind of want to be able to do that
in um in in you know wherever you want
so interoperability is important and i
think nfts and the blockchain will
hopefully unlock that what do you think
about when people push back on that and
they're like look you you're never going
to be able to bring a game character
from one game to another
um how do you respond to that
well
i mean i think it's probably pretty
extreme to say you'll never be able to
do that i think look i think it is true
that some things only make sense in one
context or another right for example i'm
not going to be a person who wears a
suit casually i mean some people do that
but um but you know like i was just
saying i will do it if i'm going to a
formal meeting but it is true that like
that's a context that only you know
makes sense for me is part of what i do
similarly if you're you know if you're
playing a you know military simulator
game and you're you know someone who is
sort of in all this military guard it
probably won't make sense to to kind of
um
to bring that into some other
experiences that you have but it's a
pretty big leap to say that just because
some things won't transfer between
experiences
to say that nothing will um and i think
it's really important to build out the
infrastructure in the rails so that way
developers can have things transfer
between if they want to so okay maybe if
you're building like a military game um
you don't choose to let people wear
casual clothing you say okay you have to
be dressed as a soldier fine that's the
choice that the developer the designer
can make but i i think in a lot of
experiences especially social ones where
people are getting together and want to
express something about themselves
you're going to want these things to
transfer and i would imagine that if we
make this pretty easy for it to be
interoperable then a lot of developers
will choose for that to be the case even
if not everyone does yeah i mean there's
there's a lot of information i think um
sorry an infrastructure that needs to
get built just to get to this place
where
the default for developers is that they
can easily enable that interoperability
and that's one of the reason why
we're starting building
for nfts not just in our metaverse and
reality labs work but also across our
our family of apps and i mean one of the
new things that i wanted to to announce
and share today
is um
we're starting to test digital
collectibles
um on instagrams that creators and
collectors can display their nfts and
you know a huge part of this i think it
goes back to what you're saying it's
about expression right and saying
something about yourself what do you
want on your profile what's the
collection that you want to show um you
know maybe there's a financial component
about that and that you know people
bought these things and maybe they want
to sell them at some point but a lot of
it is about expression and certainly in
the context of a social network that
makes sense so i'm really excited to
start testing this um we're going to
bring similar functionality to facebook
soon too and then maybe to other apps in
our in our family and um we're also you
know going to work on augmented reality
nfts basically 3d nfts that you can
bring to instagram stories using spark
ar so that's our kind of software ar
platform um so you can put this kind of
digital art
into 3d spaces and um and kind of
project it onto onto physical spaces as
well so what all this sort of adds up to
is you know for the foreseeable future
they're going to be a lot more people
using things like instagram and facebook
and on their phones um then using
virtual or augmented reality glasses
maybe by the end of the decade that
starts to shift but you have eight years
until that so um so in order to kind of
help establish some of this
infrastructure so that way you know more
people get used to it they get used to
seeing it they get used to interacting
with it
developers get comfortable with the fact
that hey this is really in a lot of
different experiences so i can bet if
i'm building something that people are
going to understand what that
interoperability is and want to be able
to take things and bring them from one
place to another i think just as kind of
a whole ethos and norm of how this stuff
gets built
if we can start
helping to push the world towards that
now
that's something that i think we should
be working on over the coming years so
that way by the time the the metaverse
becomes this ubiquitous thing that that
we all spend a lot of time in um it can
be done in an interoperable way
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yeah man that gets really exciting for
me so my obsession even though we're
building something that i have referred
to as a game-like experience
my emphasis at least in the early phases
is the experience side and i think the
the big thing i want people to
understand about the metaverse is it is
a long walk to get there that will be
done in these steps and so introducing
the ability to bring an nft into your
facebook or instagram story
like that's one of those steps where
that will be fun in and of itself so now
i'm guessing but like i can imagine a
world where people can edit that within
they can get the character to move to
dance to whatever they could change
clothes and their story all virtually
and but tied to the nfts that they have
i could see a store owner modeling their
own nfts that people could buy in their
store you know doing some sort of swipe
motion and their clothes change
obviously that's pure speculation but
that kind of thing like as that
infrastructure begins to take place
people focused on oh you'll never be
able to bring one character from one
game to another but you'll be able to
bring them from experience to experience
to experience and there's going to be so
much that's experiential versus gaming
yeah i mean for this first release we're
more focused on digital art and digital
collectibles more than clothes clothes
have a lot of additional challenges for
interoperability because the the
clothing interacts with your avatar and
your your body type and the physics of
the environment and i mean we have whole
teams just working on
realistic physics models for clothing as
you move around having it bounce
appropriately and
if you're designing clothing for one
environment you also want it to behave
consistently so there's there's a bunch
of
kind of open formats that i think need
to get developed
in order for clothing to really be
interoperable and that is you know as
you say a part of this longer journey
towards getting towards the metaverse
but the the part where i think is is
quite possible to build out today
is is around digital art and digital
collectibles and displaying that on your
instagram profile
and and you're certainly right that this
is this is just step one i mean it's a
it's a test it's on the path um towards
uh where we want to go but fundamentally
we believe that this is going to be an
important technological direction for
the world and for the work that we're
doing so you know i always i always
believe that like if you think that
something is going to be important find
a way to start working on it there's
only so much that you can really learn
by thinking about something in the
abstract you you really learn by like
putting an idea out there and seeing how
people use it and and then we'll we'll
get feedback on what we should build
next and we'll just keep on keep on
iterating on this and you know like a
lot of stuff
in web3 or probably any area of
development you know it's not the first
or second versions that end up being the
biggest thing that you do it's it's you
know by the time you get to v3 or v4 and
you've gotten a few rounds of feedback
that things can really blow up and be um
and be a lot more meaningful so you know
we're committed to this we're going to
keep focusing on it um and it's it's i
just think part of an important technolo
technological direction overall
do you guys have anything on the roadmap
that would allow people to like in a
facebook group use an nft as a gating
mechanism so you can only be in this
facebook group if you have this nft
yeah i mean that's that's certainly i
think gonna be an important part of this
i mean nft is as a mechanism for proof
of ownership or proof of
authenticity um you know people already
experimenting with with this on with a
bunch of nfts outside of our our
services and and um yeah certainly i
think that that um
that seems like one important use case
to support over time so yeah and i did
mention that we're starting on instagram
i mean the news today is that we're i've
been talking about how we've been
building something today we're actually
shipping it right and getting started
with that so that's exciting it's um and
it's always fun to go from talking about
something and building it to getting in
front of um of of real people and
getting feedback um
but um
but yeah the facebook integration is is
coming soon and i think i think use
cases like what you're talking about are
gonna be pretty important there i think
that they're probably useless for that
with an instagram too not just not just
facebook but but i think groups is is
one where that would make sense yeah i
think people are going to be surprised
when you really sit down and think about
all the different ways that you can use
an nft as what i call a signaling
molecule that it
it offers some instruction whether it's
something simple like letting somebody
into a group or it's something more
complicated of show a video but only to
this person or
um if you have that you get this for
free i mean there's all kinds of things
that people can do and you know right
now partly because of gas on ethereum
and things like that you get people
making like they want every nft to be
worth a fortune but i think as people
begin to rethink them and as they can be
sold more affordably that a whole like
world of options will open up in terms
of how people can use this stuff
now as i start thinking about that it
inevitably takes me to ai and how we use
ai to discern patterns as people have
more and more and more nfts what's the
role that ai is playing for you guys in
what way are you investing in it
well
i mean ai is probably one of the i mean
it's
one of the technological trends that we
see that continues to make even faster
progress than than i predict on a kind
of consistent basis so that's been
really awesome to see and it powers so
much of what we do i mean on the in the
social network part of what we do um you
know the ranking of what you see in
facebook and instagram
this is largely an ai problem i mean
that's like a state-of-the-art um
implementation there and our business
ads showing you the the best thing out
of the millions of possible ads that we
could show you like what is the thing
that you're gonna care about that's a
big ai problem
um
keeping people safe on our services is
is a big ai problem um within the
metaverse i think there's a handful of
these too so you know we talked a bit
about avatars before
and um you know i think people are gonna
have a range of avatars right so on the
one hand um you might want a
photorealistic avatar that really like
looks exactly like you do um for more
formal meetings or um you know work or
things like that and then i think we'll
have more stylized avatars that are a
little more expressive and fun but still
on the on the spectrum of being an
expression of of kind of your authentic
identity and then i think there's this
other dimension
which is more about fantasy so i think
you'll want a a maybe expressive
cartoony style avatar but maybe you want
to be a dragon one day um you know and
so you have all these different use
cases for for avatars and and kind of
how these things show up and and and how
you'll show up in these different
experiences but now let's say
um you know one of your favorite
designers and creators makes a a
sweatshirt that you love and you you buy
it as a virtual good how is it going to
work between those those different use
cases well i mean i think one of the
solutions
is you can build an ai system that can
help adapt the piece of content so that
way okay here's what the sweater would
look like on a photorealistic version of
you here's what the sweater would look
like on the stylized kind of cartoon
version of you here's what it might look
like on the dragon version of you um
and
i mean that i think is gonna be really
powerful for the whole metaverse economy
because now all of a sudden if you're a
creator you just basically design the
thing once and the ai helps scale it to
how you want to express yourself in
these different modes
whereas without that um you know maybe
um you know this is sort of a form of
interoperability too because without
that maybe the the designer or the
creator makes one thing and you can use
it for you know just your photorealistic
avatar for example then it doesn't work
for the others and
you know if it's if it's less valuable
if you can't use it in as many cases
then you're probably not going to be
willing to pay as much for it which
means that now that the creator is
either not going to you know have as
many sales or people aren't going to be
as interested in it so the ai i think is
going to unlock a ton of use cases like
this um
i mean here's another example we showed
this
prototype of something called builderbot
which is basically a helper for people
creating worlds in horizon and the idea
is instead of and we have this whole
scripting language where you can be in
vr and and you can kind of drag things
around and lay out the world um the way
you want which is pretty wild and fun
it's like the first creation tool where
you're like in the thing that you're
creating as you're building it right so
you're not you're not writing a script
and compiling it and seeing what it
looks like um or drawing something on a
screen
in photoshop you're like in it and
building it
but now with ai
we also have the tools so you can just
say okay put a tree over there um
actually i want a tree can you maybe
make that tree have more branches um all
right maybe it's false so make the make
the tree
maybe the branches should be the the
leaves should be turning red and yellow
instead of green um it's like okay put a
waterfall there well you know whatever
however you want to design this thing
being able to script it or or kind of
put it together with your hands is one
thing but also being able to use ai to
just describe the world that you want to
create and have um an ai help build it
do you have to load the assets or can
the ai actually
construct the trees the clouds the
whatever um i mean
i think over time it'll get even more
generative but i mean there's a whole
road map here as well right now we're
mostly focused on okay it knows a
certain number of things and
and we want you to be able to express
those but i mean in one of the demos
that i did i was like all right here put
some clouds in the sky it's like
actually make them cumulonimbus clouds
and like new you know it you know we
were able to make it so that it kind of
had a sense of what that that was and it
and it made clouds that that were that
were accurate to that so over time um i
mean obviously it's going to know what
the concepts are but being able to be
generative even for things that it
it doesn't have you know texture for or
something like that i i do think is
where we want to go with that but
there's there's a long road map on that
on that too
how do you think about ownership and all
of this so even as you were describing
that scenario where the the ai if the ai
isn't procedurally generating it can
people
create items that they contribute to
that but they put a price tag on it like
how do you think about that that seems
to be in web 3 people that are hardcore
web3 they love themselves some
decentralization and they definitely
love ownership where do you come down on
those two really big ideas
yeah i mean one of the things that we're
working on for horizon is basically the
ability to just import anything
um
that you make outside and have have an
asset store around this that that people
can exchange or buy things and um i
think some people are going to want to
just help create an open source set of
assets um just because they want to see
the community thrive and they they want
there to be a good set of basic stuff um
you know as a company we're also
incentivized to put a lot of general
stuff in there so that way people have
good building blocks when they're
building a world that they can that they
can use so we're investing
many millions of dollars just in in kind
of basic um kind of open source free
content creation as building blocks for
these worlds but
look i mean a huge part of the goal is
to enable creators and to grow the
metaverse economy and in order for that
to work um
people need to be able to sell things
right and um and and that means that you
you need a sense of ownership um so
we're we're absolutely going to be very
focused on that i mean we have this goal
where
we're not going to build the vast vast
majority of the the worlds that people
build um or use in in the metaverse so
someone has to and the people who are
doing that need to be able to make a
living doing that so they they need to
you know whether that's um you know
designing things then selling them or
designing experiences and then having
people access them for free but then um
you know being able to sell experiences
within that there are all these
different business models that i think
will be possible but fundamentally if
we're going to be able to support
millions of creators
making a living helping to build out the
metaverse then then yeah i mean i think
this concept of ownership and and
the commerce that that enables is is
just going to be really critical what
about decentralization so obviously it's
a mixed bag for the web3 community as
like this
sort of renegade pirate attitude
starting things up to be
working alongside of really established
companies and how do you think about
that tension and yeah how do we navigate
that forward
yeah
i think any movement like this
has
people who are just
very ideological and then people who are
more practical um as well and and look i
think every version
every evolution of technology so far
has had
some things that are centralized and
some things that are decentralized
there's an equilibrium between those so
i think the idea that you're going to
get to some world where everything is
decentralized and you don't have any
large companies that are playing any
centralized functions
that seems highly unlikely to me but
what i do think you know there's this
old saying
that there are two ways that value gets
created in the world by bundling things
and by unbundling things and it's um and
i do think that what we're seeing is
web 3
through decentralization means that
things that were previously bundled or
bundled as maybe another word for
centralized can now be unbundled or
decentralized which i think frees up
space to maybe take some things that
were chaotic before and now do and now
centralize things in different ways
while having other parts of the
ecosystem be decentralized and basically
express different values um that may be
more relevant for for where society is
today and the needs that people have so
i i certainly think that we're we're
going to see decentralization of a bunch
of things um
but i mean i don't know here's another
analogy