Future of web3 media and entertainment

Transcript

[Music] foreign mic check one two how's everybody doing today we're good come on yeah how's everybody yeah exactly okay okay okay okay okay okay we're gonna this is gonna be a fun session we're you're not We're not gonna go into all the uh the the crazy topics I'm just gonna just just just uh connect with you guys real quick so um and just real quick read this disclosure just so okay you guys read it okay perfect [Laughter] um so my name is Chris Lyons I'm one of the GPS and president of web3 media at Andreessen Horowitz uh and I'm excited to to come here today uh first and

foremost we're in Paris so shout out to Paris for just being amazing as always um exactly few more talks we can then we all have some champagne so it'll be perfect so um I'm here to talk about this this idea I've been thinking about and actually been talking um just been been been researching for a while it's it's a concept that's called hiding the wires and I'll get into that in a second but first I just want to just give you a little bit of background about me my name is Chris I'm a crypto Punk that's me it kind of looks like me and my misty here so um shout out to all the punk holders um I've actually started off in the music industry I was a music producer and engineer I've been I founded a fund within the recent horror What's called

the cultural leadership fund uh it was a fund that connected the world's greatest cultural leaders so athletes entertainers musicians Executives so the best two Tech best new technology companies so really kind of like play at this intersection of culture and Innovation uh and through that I've just really had a lot of conversations in regards to where the future of crypto is going how brands are interested into this place uh and you know in the opportunity that we can actually present here today at ECC so look I I view you know everybody you know threads they got to 100 million users in one day or you know blah blah blah like and there's so many companies that are going super fast for us I believe that we need to hit 100 million users within using the

blockchain specifically eth um and but we have a problem and we have a very big problem and unfortunately the problem is us so you know I hate to I I know I I love all the words and all the jargons and all the pieces but every single time when we talk about our technology we lead with the technology we lead you know ZK hold stinking sharding you know nfts all these terms now we we all know we do it right I mean it's it's okay it's okay we can admit this is a self-help session we can all talk about it together um and so like that if we're going to

get to 100 million users I think that one of the big things that we have to do is we have to talk about amongst ourselves how we can use this almost kind of like a uh it's almost like a uh Avengers you know we're The Avengers we're coming into the room we're figuring out all the good stuff how to actually change the world and then we have to go back out to the regular people you know the people that know anything about crypto don't know anything about technology and we have to be able in order to share these opportunities um and so this is where I come into this this idea around hiding the wires so this is a you know plasma you know flat screen TV it's a beautiful TV amazing infrastructure you know looks great at home but then imagine if you know if you

were at home you're like oh this is amazing this is a great TV but let's go and throw some wires on there you know let's actually show how it's uh how it's done you know like that the art of the of hiding putting a flat screen TV on a wall is that you don't see any of the actual infrastructure behind the scenes and that's kind of where I think the opportunity can present with uh with with the future of web3 and so we want to be able to celebrate the technology infrastructure and and also work on the mainstream applications at the same time and so I'll give you just a few examples of where you know the wires were held so you know as I mentioned before I was in the music industry I was a music producer and engineer I used to work with Jermaine Dupree I don't know if

anybody's heard of uh so so deaf or Mariah Carey or any of these people these kind of a big deal and I learned a lot of things from them but one of the things that I learned was this idea around you know just the actual technology itself you know we're all Engineers we're all thinking about the future and and whether it's code or whatever but the music industry was one of the first first industries that I learned that technology was important but it wasn't What mattered for the actual end user and so um so I don't know if you guys ever heard of MP3s I don't know you know some people it might be dating people a little bit you know raise your hand if you went to a MP3 conference before no nobody oh no exactly so that's that's that's that's kind of the point so like

if um so when I was when I was a producer I would always go um talk to the to the artist I said hey please send me a WAV file I need a wave file it's the highest quality version of the file of the song and that way I can Master the song and keep it on the highest quality file if you send me an MP3 It's a super small Meg it's great for email however it's not going to give you the highest quality version now I would tell them this every single time and every single time they would send me an MP3 file why because it was easy they didn't care they didn't know the difference all they wanted to do is get the song sent over and they focus more so on how can I email you this file as opposed to because you know a

traditional WAV file is like 25 Meg where MP3 is like four so like that there was a a very interesting Insight that I learned is that the artist did not care about the file all they wanted to do was get the product out so they they could go to the club or go to the radio station and play their song as quickly as possible and so that's and so now if you fast forward today you know we have companies like Spotify Apple music you know title you name it where no one cares about what the file is all they want to do is have the end experience they want to figure out what it's like and I have a million you know a billion songs in your pocket you can play anything that you want and no one cares what what type of files the aiff

is it a wave is it an MP3 all they want to do is just press play and so the music industry was one of the first places where we could actually see this this opportunity of hiding the wires another industry which I think is super interesting that we use on an everyday basis is a credit card industry now this is how the actual credit card industry actually works you know you imagine if American Express would say hey I you should come join us because our interchange fees are lower than Visa you know our Merchant Bank is so much cooler than anybody else's right and so this is a super super technological industry but that's not what they sell they actually focus on experience and luxury and you know not everybody gets the uh you know

hop out the helicopter with the Catwoman suit but you know it's it's it's the idea of selling the actual end result and I think that that's another another analogy in terms of where you can hide the wires nobody knows how your how the credit card system works however we use it every single day and it's an important piece of technology and it's actually an extremely technologically savvy type industry and it Powers the entire world right and so and this is how companies actually be able to present themselves from the end result um the last analogy that I would say that you can kind of think is GPS raise your hand if you just walked here you knew exactly how to get here nobody well you did you you must live here maybe uh but and also raise your

hand if you thought about oh I'm actually using GPS technology today okay a couple people you know thinking about okay yeah it's really interesting right because GPS technology is actually an incredible infrastructure and you see how just how how the process is and all of us are Builders and you know back in the day when people were building GPS technology they didn't realize that they were going to create the infrastructures of companies like uber where you're not focusing on oh hey I'm using GPS technology GPS technology is actually the underlying infrastructure behind some of the biggest companies that that we use on an everyday basis and they're focused on the end experience you want to be able to you know go on your date and pull up in your you know S550

Mercedes-Benz and not have to worry about any of the details right and so same thing with with uh with Airbnb you know now using the actual technology itself you can get the benefits of you know the experience and focus on the application now this is the thing like we have a huge opportunity on our hands right we can do this like but we have to hide the wires we have to be able to say okay guys we can talk about all the future and all the technology and all the infrastructure but we need to focus on the application layer and in order for us to do that you know like we have to do this the right way um and so I know that you know it's it's been an interesting time right now so

shout out to everybody I know it's the winter season but it's still hot outside so you know it's it's but we've been doing well you know especially within the future of of you know where if eat is going where the industry is moving how many people the demand everybody coming here today uh I know that we're all gonna make it right and so you know just just to share a little light like we're moving in the right direction if you think about just you know the curly daily active users within the ethereum ecosystem we're around 400 000 users on a daily active basis 1.4 million in December of 2022 that's when all you guys were either buying or selling or selling your bags one of the two so but it's really it's like the momentum is continually moving forward also if you think about just like participation

within Dow governance um you see the voting unique voters proposals are really moving up up and to the right and you know nft creators and world have have earned over 1.9 billion dollars in royalties uh since 2021 and so if you think about just the future of the industry and where the possibilities are we've been doing a lot of great work and and that's why I think that there's there's so much more that we can actually kind of do so like what are some examples so for me it's like when you say You're Building I I see this all the time I talk to all the big Brands I work with a lot of the you know whether it's everyday people or Aunt also work with some of the best technology companies or in Webster companies in the entire industry and so what the one

thing I hear is that oh I'm building this this product or I'm going to release this thing and everyone's like oh cool cool and then you here I need a token or like I need to address your wallet and so what happens is that we actually go from a user base of 100 million users to 400 000. the second we over emphasize the idea of hey this is a web 3 product or this is that and it's so as opposed to just saying hey this is a brand new feature this is a new asset this is an opportunity for you to actually connect directly with your create with your user base and your audience and so it's really interesting so I found this analogy it's pretty funny so it's like this is Popeye it's like Popeye is like a web 2 company right and so this is where I see like

where the possibilities are so Popeye is like a web 2 company you know no muscles right now but the opportunity is within web3 which is the spinach you know so imagine like when you have these web 2 ideas and Concepts and and in in areas where you can also then increase um you know the actual the the future of the industry by adding web through technology and adding a lot of the projects that we've talked about today then now you get big muscles man and so that's that's the future of the industry uh is where you can actually bridge the gap by using the infrastructure behind the scenes and then being able to actually adopt and create more of a demand with everyday users and so you know this to me everybody wants big

muscles and I think that we all can agree that web3 it's it's web three for a reason right like this is where the future of the space is going this is where the next generation of the internet you know my partner Chris Dixon talks about the opportunity to read write and own and this is the opportunity for us to own our our own infrastructure and so you know we can all be friends we can all be friends it's a possibility I believe it you know one day we will have a an ECC and a web 2 conference together you know but the funny thing is is that like what what the what the [ __ ] is web3 you know like what is it really like who this is jargon I mean this is stuff and I'm I've been saying went through this whole time

because we're all no one even realizes it but if you go out to the restaurants if you go to your friends your everyday people ask them what ask her uh what or your mom what web 2 is what is web one like nobody knows and it doesn't matter like at the end of the day people don't think about how the technology is and how it works they just want to be able to have the end result and have the experience so what are a couple examples that that I've seen that have just really started to kind of move move the needle so like this is my friends at artifact and this is LeBron James wearing their brand new artifact sneaker right LeBron's not over here thinking oh my like I just minted this this brand new artifact sneaker no he's It's The End Result it's the experience however

in order for him to get that shoe he had to actually interact on chain which is the actual opportunity where you can Bridge you know everyday experiences and applications and have delightful opportunities that allow now if you know artifact wants to send somebody a a gift or now they know exactly who their user base is and you have dope ass shoes right there so another example um which is actually like I think started the the last Bull Run was NBA Top Shot NBA Top Shot why why did we have the bull run like in in 2020 2021 it was really because everyday people were able to actually interact on chain you know when you bought your and when

you like people understood the idea of saying okay I have a physical collectible I have a card you know and now now I could actually own that moment on a digital collectible right no one that wasn't necessarily over emphasizing nfts even though they did say nfts a lot but they allowed everybody to actually just use you know an email address or credit card application but they were still underlying blockchain technology that was really helping move the future and so I think that that's another example in terms of how everyday experiences and opportunities and how we can get the infrastructure um you know Tiffany's is a great is a great example where you know they they do what they do best which is actually make jewelry right they make amazing jewelry uh but then they said okay well what how do we actually interact on chain and so they

created 250 um crypto Punk necklaces where you were able to um actually grab the nft mint it burn it Fork it and do the whole thing right and so and all with being on brand which aligned with the company so and then this is the last example this is um the the Dior they just most most recently released these um and so these are just like this is this is literally hiding the wires there's no wires like so on these shoes you literally I can just snap and type an NFC chip and then from there immediately you're automatically brought onto a website where you can log on you get a digital collectible um you have proof of authenticity and this is all on chain so now um you're able to actually know who the

audience is they can send you drops they can send you gifts if you you know I'm wearing my shoes I don't yeah they're pretty fly I like them shout out to deal uh but if you're going to actually you know resell them now you can have proof of authenticity you can actually move them around and so like you can actually keep the track of ownership which is exactly what the benefits of what crypto could actually be and so and there's so many brands that are doing this you know I I personally think that Paris is a great ecosystem just because of the uh the number of brands that have embraced Webster and I think that that's that's one reason why we're seeing so many uh adoption within the luxury and fashion industry but there's so many brands from Starbucks and what they did with polygon

to Chanel and Nike and their sweet dot Swiss program and so like I encourage as we're building these technology infrastructures and these platforms and these layer twos and the the tokens and the application layers that really think about how these Brands can actually work with everyday people um and so at the end of the day look we got to continue building Great Tech like you know that's that's what we're all here for I think that you know we have to do this together uh to actually build the future of the industry and you know one within Andrews we're super excited about finding the next generation of Founders and the next best technology companies and so that's where it all begins but we got to make sure we can you know let go a little bit of the

jargon hide the wires like I think that we can do it I'm super bullish on crypto I've Loved cryptos ever since you know 2013 once we once we I learned about coinbase in 2017 with Dapper and then now with this next wave and it's continuing to become you know the future of the infrastructure and that's why we're all here today but I incur I just give it a try like try having a conversation about your product with in to to the everyday user and once you can do that that's when I really believe that we can start to amass this huge adoption of crypto but it starts with us you know we're the Avengers we're all coming together thinking about how the future of the world is going to work but in order for it to happen we have to make sure that the everyday person that

that has no idea what crypto is that it doesn't need to know they just want to be able to have a delightful experience and it's because of Founders and Builders like you to actually go out and and create these products and so we have to just kind of do this together but you know we're all going to make it so you know I believe that web one Web Two web three it doesn't matter what it is like we're all here together and I really I'm super excited about the future of the industry and this was just a little Public Service Announcement that's saying it's okay to hide the wires uh and so you know I'm Chris Lyons uh and thank you guys for enjoying my TED Talk [Applause] laughs

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