Dr. Michael Kollo is joined by John Kraski, one of the top voices of LinkedIn and director of strategic partnerships for Metaverse company LandVault. They discuss NFTs and bridging the Web2 – Web3 divide.
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John Kraski
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Hi everybody. This is Mike Kollo for Crypto Cappuccino. Today. We have a very interesting guest, John Kraski john is one of the top voices on LinkedIn. He often talks about NFTs talks about web three and more recently he's been talking a lot more about the connection between web two and web three, and how to create those bridges. He was recently in New York city. So I was really happy to catch up with him and get some of his thoughts on that conference, uh, with NFT, but also his more general thoughts about adoption in this space and what he see. Hope you can join us.
Hi everybody. This is Michael Kollo from Crypto Cappuccino, and I'm here with John Kraski. Hi, John.
How you doing? It's uh, a pleasure to be here.
Awesome. Now you are coming at me from Austin, Texas, Austin,
Austin. Yes, Austin, uh, been spending a lot more time in Austin over the last six months. And, uh, I love it. I love it. I I'm, I'm based currently in LA, but my new company's based in the UK. And so I'm kinda all over the place, but, uh, I guess that's the new world we live in, right?
Exactly. The world. The world is our.
Exactly. Now that we are free from pandemic. Well free in very commons. We, we can be wherever we wanna be.
I, I don't know. Every, I think everybody that literally went to NT NYC came back with COVID so
yeah, right, exactly. Um, I, I was very lucky. I was, we were in Austin for the consensus conference and I was telling my colleagues as we were getting on the plane from here in Australia, that I was like, look, we we're almost odd zone to get it.
If you haven't had it, just, just get ready. Uh, we, we both got lucky. None of us got it. But G is it's, uh, there was a lots of opportunities to, to for mass spread events, but be before we got into New York city, because I'm fascinated by, by what happened there. Tell me a bit about yourself, John. So how did you come to be here at this moment of your life?
It was, it was luck actually, but I, I, I guess it all makes sense. Now, I, as I was telling you, before we started the show, I actually started my career as a CPA. I worked for KPMG price water. Then I worked for GP Morgan, uh, in investment banking. And. Then decided to go and get my MBA at the university of Southern California.
I always wanted to be on the entertainment side of, um, you know, um, kind of our, you know, I always, I, I wanted to be on the business side of entertainment, so that was always something that really fascinated me. So I ended up working for Disney when, um, I was at USC, I worked for Spanish communications company.
I worked for a really well known TV producer. And then none of it seemed to pan out. So I took this like crazy, crazy detour, became an executive in the luxury interior design space for almost a decade, worked on the white house for the Obamas celebrities like George Clooney, Cindy Crawford, Harrison Ford.
Actually, I have a funny story about Harrison Ford. I won't, uh, talk about that now, but if you wanna bring it back up, I'll, I'll tell you about it. Uh, I, I, the pandemic happened and like all I had been in the space for almost 10 years, the pandemic happened and I was just like, what am I doing with life? My life, I, I had spent $150,000 on my MBA at USC.
I really wanted to be in entertainment and technology. So I used the, the pandemic to really kind of like look at my life and almost reset it. So I went down the, the path of like all the typical suspects, you know, Disney Warner brothers, Facebook, Google really tried to get into one of these, you know, top tier web two companies I probably applied to about a thousand jobs, had a hundred interviews, got rejected by 99 of those companies.
And then all of a sudden on LinkedIn, I applied this job N FFC genius didn't even didn't even know what an NFT was, but they, they, they said they loved my profile and wanted interview me didn't make any sense. Cause I had didn't even know what NT was, had no crypto experience, no blockchain experience. No web three experience didn't make any sense, but to see, oh, love my resume.
We had a really just nice chat half hour went great. He's like, Hey, like let's have you talk to CEO. Talk to him for another half hour. And I actually didn't get the job that I interviewed for. They said I was overqualified, but they liked me so much. They're like, Hey, we're just gonna find a spot for you.
So. That's that's how I ended up in the NFT web three space. I'd love to tell you, I, it was like strategic and targeted, and I always had this passion for blockchain and web three, but no. So I actually had to even learn what NFTs were before those interviews. And I started to get really excited about it.
Cause I could see the power of what NFTs and blockchain could do to really allow brands and creators to better monetize their, their, their assets. So it, it spoke to me on a very human level, but, um, But yeah, it was, it was, it was kind of blind luck, but it, it kind of all made sense because honestly I had never been happy in my career for the past, you know, the past 20 years prior to that, I just, I, I didn't like being a, a CPA that never was a fit for my personality.
I didn't really like working at a bank. I definitely did not like being an executive in luxury interior design space. Um, it just, it just, wasn't something I was super passionate about. So I I'd been struggling forever to just kind of find my lane in life and then wet three happen. And I, I guess, because the industry's so nascent, it gave me a chance to really sort of reinvent my, my personal professional life.
Like, like I said, you know, they didn't have a job for me. So I was actually able to create sort of my dream job within the, you know, the structure of, of, uh, the company that I went to work for NFT genius. And I've kind of taken that and propelled it now into my new job, uh, at, at Landal, which is one of the world's largest metaverse builders.
So super thankful. Um, yeah. You know, all those, all those failures, all, all, all those. Depressing days of not loving my job, they all make sense now and all have actually been able to take all those learnings and apply them to. What I do now, you know, like I have a very, I don't know, it's, it's a moderately successful podcast.
It's not, I'm never gonna be Joe Rogan, but it's, it's like 10 times more successful than another podcast that I had done before, which was complete failure. Um, you know, so it just like, you know, like all, all these different things, you know? Cause I have a podcast now, like LinkedIn, I never, I had been probably playing around with LinkedIn for 10 years.
Just never had the right messaging and the right vertical. And then all of a sudden I got into NFT and web three space and I just started like kind of posting every day. And it, it all started turned around, but it, it, it wasn't like, I just like decided to do LinkedIn a year ago. I I've been trying to figure out LinkedIn for like a decade.
And so it clicked there. So, you know, LinkedIn started to started, you know, click on all cylinders, the podcast thing. And then in just terms of, you know, business development and, and strategic relationships with what I do now and build community, it's something I've always done. I, I I've naturally been able.
Meet great people connect 'em with other people, but I never monetized it. And now that's sort of my job. So I get to go around and host all these amazing breakfasts and events around the world. Um, with, uh, it used to be NFT thought leaders. It's now it just got rebranded last week to good morning, Webre live.
And you know, we, we host, you know, these in real life events where we're really trying to build community the right way in the web three space. So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's weird. All, all, everything, all, all, all the things I did before that just weren't really turning into success now kind of all crystallized and kind of are all kind of swimming and formation in the, in the same lane.
So, uh, I'm just super thankful, but I, I guess I'm proof to anybody that to never give up. I, it literally took me 20 years to even figure it out, uh, in terms of my career and my personal life, but I just kept plugging ahead and hoping one day it. Happened and web three, was it, but that was not the plan. I, I was not planning to be a, a LinkedIn, uh, celebrity or be an advocate for web three.
Definitely never part of the plan. I, but the, the original plan was like, you know, get my NBA entertainment at USC and be like a, a famous movie producer and Andrew or something really cool. That was the plan. You would hated it. You would've hated it, John. It would've been terrible. Terrible. Yeah. That's that's funny.
I actually talked to somebody today. Was an agent and they were just like, I thought that was the dream. And they, they were just like, they literally couldn't stand it after like a day of doing it. So, yeah. Yeah. Right. It's uh, but yeah, so that, that's that, that's the story.
It's funny how life is, is that journey, right?
So when you look back over it, you kind of. Thread a credible story through it. Right. But at the time when it's happening, you just have no idea. As you said, a thousand applications, a hundred interviews, 99 rejections. Um, in a smaller way, I went through something. Well, a couple of times similar in my life, uh, again, in my case, he was with a PhD early twenties guy, trying to figure out where you're gonna go.
You know, all these different applications and then, you know, London comes through and suddenly you live in London for the next 14 years, but G is you, would've not planned it or known it or, or gone that way. So, no, that's fantastic. And look, I mean, you've done incredibly well, so I, I think LinkedIn top voices, you've got LinkedIn figured out, so that's fantastic.
And so for all of us, LinkedIn junkies, uh, we are desperately jealous. So I'm gonna move on that topic before. Um, you know, I revealed that I might be one of these people. So you went to New York and you went to New York NFT action. And you posted a fantastic comment on it, but, but tell me about how, what you thought about New York NFT
My, my perspective on NFT NYC. So I, I I'd gone last year as well, which was a big party. I think, you know, people were coming out out of the pandemic and they were excited about in real life events. The vibe for this, this, this most recent N FTN we say NYC was a lot different. It felt more like a funeral for a lot of those, those people that were sort of the so-called superstars of the, the prior NFT N YC, the D gens, the, you know, the, the, I don't know, the, the NFT flippers, I, I don't know what you wanna call 'em.
They kind of knew that the kind of the, the jig was up and it was kind of like, this was kind of their last Torah and you start to see a lot more of the builders that are coming into the space. One of my, my favorite events was a, an event by moon pay. I, I love what they're doing. I love the team. They built out.
They're really, they're really focused on, you know, gen pop adoption of the, you know, the amazing web three technology. And I, I, I just, I can't say enough great things about that van, but it was, it was really focused on onboarding brands from web two to web three. Just very educationally focused, just a really smart room.
And then we had our NFT thought leaders breakfast that, uh, SOAs the first day an amazing turnout. We probably had over 200 people there in the capacity. There was like 70. So, so else told us that was the best event they've ever had for a breakfast, um, in a long time. So that, that was a, a nice compliment to receive, but the energy was electric.
People were there just to meet collaborate, figure out how to, to work together. So, yeah, NFT NYC. I think those two events, that was an event I hosted. And then another event that, you know, a bunch of people from my breakfast invited me to the moon pay event. But in general, the conference was, it was a little stale.
It was a little flat in terms of energy. Most of the people that are there not even going to the conference with the day I, I spoke half the people didn't show up cuz they were hung over. So I just think, and there were there's 1500 speakers. There's no way there's 1500 people knowledgeable enough to be speaking about NFTs right now.
I feel bad because I'm sure there's a lot of people that spent their hard earned money and dedicated the time, really trying to increase their knowledge base. But that's just, that's not the way it needs to be done. So definitely one of the things we want to do with good morning web three live or community building organization is to really start focusing on the educational part.
So we're gonna be doing like a weekly newsletter. we, um, you know, interviewing top innovators and creators in space who are going to be working on some type of conference. I, I think it, I think the Austin thing is still probably a go at this point. We just need to figure out internally, um, um, how, how we wanna structure it, but it really would be focused on bringing a lot of those web two brands into the conversation.
Because again, the conference really didn't have enough web two brands in my opinion. And that's where all the growth is. They're they're not still being included. It's still a little too web three. So the next step is to start bringing in those, those individuals into conversation. And I've done that with some of my, my own personal events.
And it's exciting. I had a, a VIP dinner a few months ago in LA and some executives from golden Sachs were there and they loved it. And it was just such a fun experience to see them kind of immersed in the web three world. They couldn't get enough of it, but it's that kind of inclusion with tho those, those brands and those individuals to get.
not only excited about the space, but also just to like increase their knowledge level. Because a lot of these deals, like in my experience are just kind of dying because the executive team doesn't understand what, what the technology is, how it's gonna impact the organization. They don't even know how internally, how they're gonna build it out.
You have to convince a C CFO that, Hey, this is a marketing expense or the revenues it's in almost impossible to project revenues right now. So there's just a lot of things that have to happen, but all these problems just create opportunities. So that's the way you should look. You should be excited. Like it's a mess.
There's lots of chaos right now, but that means opportunity. So jump on and get, jump on board and get involved because this technology's going nowhere. So the reality is, is I, you know, I missed out on the web two train. I didn't really take advantage of it, maybe the way I should have, but this is the same feeling I had.
Cause I grew up in Seattle. And it's the same feeling you had when Amazon and Microsoft were in the early. You just, you, you get that same feeling about the space. It's definitely there's something special happening, but get involved now because, uh, this is like a runaway train. That's, uh, not slowing down anytime soon.
And I think, I think compared to web one and web two, this the. The, the, the, the evolution of this is happening in a much quicker scale. So, yeah.
And just on this, cause I think the topic that we also connected on was this notion of, of providing the bridge, right? So between web two web three, and I think that generally goes with the entire blockchain industry.
Like we're moving into a phase now where they need to start applying this technology to industry problems. I need to go and help people solve those problems rather than what it seems to be at the moment, which is almost like. A hippy commune in the middle of the desert, trying to recreate their own economy, bar economy, some point they have to take some of those ideas back to back to the big city and, and, and start to apply it.
But, but in terms of what you see there at the web two to web three, is there a particular industry or industries at the front of the queue for this either because they are more innovative by nature. So they kind of interested in this space or because the solution really solves a problem for them.
I mean, that's, that's a, that's a great question.
I'll, I'll tell you the industries that are not like jumping on as entertainment, which, which we thought was like, we thought that would be entertainment would be an early adopter. They're gonna be a very slow adopter. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you know, when I worked at NMT genius, my, my verticals were TV, film, sports, um, pop culture, and, um, And music music, you know, music was one.
I, you know, I feel like though in entertainment, music's probably gonna be the first one. That's gonna really kinda figure it out. And, and the only reason I even say that is based on conversations, I'm having with builders that are building some amazing products. And, and literally like today, I literally had four conversations with people I'd never met before and they were all, it was all music.
Web three blockchain ideas. So yeah, I, I feel like music right now that music's circling. I feel like music right now just based on my, my sort of sphere of influence is gonna be one of those, uh, industries is gonna jump on a quick keeping film. I don't know. I, I don't know. I'm not really seeing much in, in my world.
It's even interesting or happen. I, I even know that Netflix is not even last time. I talked to somebody there that they're not even looking to put this on their product roadmap for a couple years, which is completely insane. And then, you know, I've, I've had conversations with automakers. I know some stuff going on in the medical world.
I think real estate maybe could be, there's gonna be some interesting things there, there seems to be some buzz happening there. But yeah, I mean, I, I, I don't know. I think music right now seems to be sort of the, the number one for my, uh, Kind of a radar in terms of what's happening. So, which is exciting.
I mean, I, I think I've certainly seen a lot of stuff in sports. I mean the tennis, rugby, FL that kind of stuff again, little bit more along the lines of trading cards, you know, what used to, to, yeah.
Those are collectibles though.
Yeah. Yeah. Collectible kind of stuff. They're not really the full gamut.
More kind of like your, your dipping, your toe in the water. Like the immediately. Immediately obvious things to kind of, you know, attract a new generation to your brand and product and, and put your, um, yeah. Essentially put your sport in front of them to make sure that they kind of are trading that are thinking about that.
But I guess, because the big, the big question for me with NFTs generally is whether they start to evolve beyond the sort of digitalization or digital representation of a picture or a video. Onto something more sophisticated, like a code base or an algorithm or something else. And then you create anything that has relevance to have scarcity that can be traded in that way.
In which case it's a bit more of an industrial use case. It's almost like, you know, um, things like, uh, information packets that are being traded versus the marketing spree, which I think is probably one of the most, obviously in front of you elements between the metaverse and, and between these other ideas that you can put your brand and your.
Your product in front of consumers in a much more exciting way, in a much more engaging way in a much more kind of a, a repeatable way. So I, this is why I'm sort of surprised at luxury brands, for example, and Chanel and all those are not at front of your list in terms of where you think that might go.
Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, all the big fashion companies are obviously adopting it and, but they've even done, you know, all those, all those kind of drops have been very small and bespoke. I mean, those. Mean luxury fashion. I, I don't know. I just don't consider luxury fashion, mass consumer adoption. I mean it's yeah.
I mean, yeah. Cause so, so that's why the music to me is more interesting that that feels like a more of a, a mass consumer adoption plan. I, I, I just, I've seen, I've seen real products. I've seen a music file sharing platform that just blew me away. It's very web 2.5 built by a, a former metae. One of the cleanest things I've ever seen.
And it's just so simple. And I don't even know if it mentions the word NFT. So that's, that's the other thing too. I mean, this, this terminology's nonsense. I mean, we're not, you're not getting any, any mass consumer adoption. If we keep talking about NFTs web three, this and that. It's it's, it's almost unnecessary to be honest.
So, yeah, for sure. So, yeah. Yeah. But no, I mean, the fashion stuff is, is super interesting and they're doing their thing, but I talk to people in fashion all the time. I, they, they, they they've, you know what, the fashion people though, they're, they're great at creating hype and buzz, but I, I don't know. I haven't seen that many like products or, you know, projects.
I'm like, wow. That's like a game changer. I mean, the Doche Giana was cool. Whatever you go, you get visit the factory. You gotta go to some cool fashion shows. It was like what six NFTs. And there was some digital stuff, but I mean, beyond that, I mean, I, I don't know what their, where roadmap is. I, I just think, I think, you know, Starbucks I know is really looking into it.
That could be super interesting as well. So I think, I think like consumer product companies, you know, using the NFTs, like for loyalty, I think that's super interesting. I think a brand where you can level up the customer experience, I'm a Soho house member. I know that they're kind of toying around with the idea.
Launching NFT to level up the, the customer experience. Because I mean, as me as a customer sauce, I would pay another five to $10,000 a year through an NFT for, you know, elevated access to certain other benefits that I, I currently don't receive. So I think that's the way the brands need to look at it.
Like how can I level up the customer experience for my, my rabid fans and, and really take it to the next level. So I think that's where NFTs really can unlock some magic. And just make things more sticky between the brand and the customer, the, the, the potentials there. It's just time to start building though, right?
I mean, all these things, all we can come up with a million ideas right now, but you need builders to execute it. So that's the other thing I've realized. I've, I've heard every idea at this point, but unless you execute it, it's pointless. Because even when I started in the space, the company I was at literally.
The that the, the initial idea of why, what worked at that company completely pivoted five different times. And by the time I left them was like, I, I don't even know what you guys were building anymore. It's because it's not what I signed up for, but it was initially a music platform. And then when I left, it was basically cartoon PFP projects.
Um, so I was just like, wow, this is a ma a massive pivot. Uh, definitely didn't execute their, the initial vision. So it's, again, execution strong management teams, great people. I mean really basic, basic things that all apply. The same fundamentals apply to web one and web two that made business successful apply to web three.
So I think that's the thing. If there's one thing I'm good at dumbing things down, like literally just like let's get back to basics in terms of how to build a proper business.
And, well, we, we talked a little bit about this notion of product as well, like for product managers and building, building, building.
One of the things that I noticed in this space is there is a lot of emphasis placed on building, like building for builders, right? So it's a little bit like what AI was at the beginning when people kind of created lots of different libraries that to share with each other here, you're building for other builders as well.
And I feel like if we're gonna build that bridge back to web two or even traditional economy, then you need product people because product people are gonna go and talk to people in the street who are not web free people. And ask them what their problem is and then figure out actually, whether your product actually solves a problem or whether you're kind of propagating more of your kind of bias in terms of yeah.
Web3, Web3, Web3 but actually it doesn't really do much.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean the, the route is, I mean it, the process of buying and NFT and getting the metaverse, it's still clunking. It's not fast and there's nothing. There's nothing. There's nothing frictionless about it right now. It's no it's.
Yeah, but I think, I think your point was well made, which was you want this digital infrastructure.
So the same way that I have apple pay or whatever else on my phone, I want to have access to that readily eased to my digital wallet that I can either pay or look at my NFTs or whatever else. And then it, you know, you can take this down to this notion of levels of, of membership or V I P or whatever else with different organization, different elements.
I mean, this was mentioned about Amazon. For example, if you love Amazon, you wanna own, it shares you're a prime member. Maybe there's all multiple tiers of, of engagement and proximity you could have with this company based upon this tokenization. Right. And so whether you are deriving, NFTs as benefits, or whether NFTs are themselves, these tokens, the idea is that yeah, you are, you're getting closer to.
To tier of engagement. I guess the question becomes like, how do you then share that with others? I mean, one of the big elements of art or digital art is that it's traded with each others and there's a little bit of competitive tension and so on, uh, you know, would, would brands wanna continue to, to maintain that?
I mean, I'd love to, I, I love some of the luxury car brands. I really enjoy looking at these cars or enjoy visiting them. I'd love nothing more than to have unique, you know, Once a generation released NFTs or tokens or items or whatever else that I, that I can, I can look at. I mean that these are really cool things.
I pay money for that. I mean, it's like membership of clubs, right? It's kind of like your little communities.
Yeah. Now that's yeah. I mean, I was, I was talking to a major global auto maker last year and they were going to be doing a, I think it was 120 year anniversary edition. Like there's, they're just gonna make literally 120 cars.
Um, And they were thinking about leveraging NFTs because the demand for those 120 cars was gonna be much greater than, you know, what they, they were manufacturing. So I just thought NFTs would be a super interesting use case. Cause I think the secondary market on those would be insane and they would benefit, right.
So if they, but if they don't use the NFPS, then they're just gonna go sell those. And then the buyers of the, of those of those cars are the ones that are gonna benefit in the secondary market. But I just think it would. Also like the exposure in the secondary market for the brand would just be amazing.
They would be able to control that experience as well. So yeah, I mean, that was, and you know, I mean, beyond even that, you know, they can more like more mundane uses. They can be using the, the NFTs for car service records and supply chain and all these other use cases. Uh, yeah, the, the, the possibilities are endless, but, uh, Trust me there.
There's plenty of smart people starting to think about it. So I'm, I've been that, that's the one thing I like going back to the NFT thing, NFT NYC, it's a lot more builders starting to enter the conversations and be a part of these men. So I'm, I'm really happy about that.
That's really good. Maybe one of my, my last questions for you, John, around this kind of thing.
So, um, in your experience when engaging with web two to web three, so traditional industries. Who within those organizations, do you see taking up that mantle? So if you walk into one of these industries, who's the person who goes, yeah, I got this. Is it the COO COO? Is it the chief marketing officer? Is it just the, the intern who's, uh, you know, below the age 25 going guys, I think we should innovate here.
Um, I mean, who, who, who do you see, uh, in your vision?
It's, it's a mixed bag. It's pretty rogue right now, to be honest with you. So. When I was in Amsterdam, I was, I was meeting with, uh, the individual from one of the big music labels and he just took it upon himself to be that person. But then he found out what happens is somebody says, oh wow, web three.
And see, I wanna be that person in an organization. They start having all these conversations with people like myself and other brands. And then they take it up through like the CMO or the, you know, the CFO or their chief innovation officer. And then they find out that there's five other people in the organization doing the same thing.
So that's. Been kind of what I've seen from most of these big organizations, it's kind of the same story. I mean, I don't know what your experience is, but that's kind of what's happening. And then, then they create this like internal web three task force, which means basically nothing's getting done anytime soon.
So that's, that's kind of where we're at. There's other organizations, obviously that are a little more. Tightly, you know, wound and they're, they're really executing to make it happen, but that's, it's, it's a very, it's a very small amount. It's probably absolutely handful,
but, but I think, I think that's really important.
Cause I mean, again, just to run this parallel with AI, AI was also one of these technologies that came along about 10 years ago, promise to do a lot of things in terms of efficiency and outcomes. And so on, a lot of companies ran POC. There's a tremendous interest to run proof of concepts. Um, but very few of those actually materialize into larger scale or even core activities, very minor, even 10 years on now.
And partly again, it's the notion of how do you assign revenue? How do you put this at the core of your offering as opposed to nice to have, or a satellite thing or on the edges? Cause at the moment, as you say, technology is younger. Still not have mass adoption. So we understand why today it's a POC, but in order for that to be kind of again, bought into and, and actually rolled out and committed to and become eventually a core part of the value proposition, surely you need to, um, as you say, go up to the.
To the, uh, vertical of all of the executives and say, hi guys, chief revenue officer, we're gonna be able to increase your revenues by 20% using this new technology. Yes. They're bought in right. COO. We're gonna be able to improve your efficiency of your operations, using some of these digital wallets and infrastructure by 20% great you're bought in cetera, et cetera.
Like unless you go through that, where you end up there is you end up in a smaller segment of their business in a small little niche group who loves you. But has no power to essentially scale that, you know, idea or, and anywhere near across the entire organization.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I was in Amsterdam, I, I met with the, the head of web three for a big auto group in Europe.
And he just said, he said, how does a web three or NFTs help me address my KPIs better than what currently exists? And I was like, wow, that's actually, that's the best advice I've gone from somebody at a brand that actually is the, the simplest way to look at it. That should be the first question you're asking.
What are your KPIs? How are you currently addressing them? And then you, as you, you know, you as a, as a, as a web three founder or, uh, executive can go back and come up with solutions to address that. But I like that actually, that was, that was some of the clearest thinking. I've, I've, I've, I've seen so far in the space.
It comes back down to economics of it all. Okay. I mean, again, it, I think when you're in the web three space, it's hard to see that I think when you're trying to build a bridge between web two and web three, which is what we're talking about, um, or indeed any new technology you have to then speak the common language.
And again, in my experience, the common language is economics or kind of, you know, the dollars in the sense that there are technologies which are more intangible value like brand and, and various other things. So I wouldn't dismiss that, but a lot of these things could be quantified and ultimately the things that be quantified into.
Something, uh, ends up having more reality in a conversation and more tangibility that there's more reason to go and spend five or 10 million updating infrastructure marketing, telling the world that you're gonna be embracing NFTs. For example, if you know that you're gonna make 15 million or you think you're gonna make 15 million out of that activity, right.
Yeah. I mean, I mean, I know ADIs has had in a Nike artifact, I've had some successful drops, but I'm like super curious how many of those people are actually like hardcore Adidas or Nike fans? Are they just, you know, flippers and, and sharks and speculators? I, I, I don't know. I'm sure that they're trying to mine that data to figure it out.
Is this actually, is this really helping our brands with our core customer and the customers we want to attract and retain in the future?
Yeah. I mean, I, I, I see a large part of the NFT working really well with the metaverse or something more immersive, because then it feels like you're interacting with it.
You're using it or whatever. Otherwise it's a little bit like a key chain. You've got it on the side every now and then you like, oh, that's the nice key chain, but ultimately there's no kind of in usage, which is why the gaming industry, as it creates these entities and trades them. And there's some value to, to you.
But again, that's just such a beginning part. If you think about. Why haven't we, why are we not talking about I'm sure we are, but we could be talking a lot more about metaverse as it pertains to adult education. And it pertains to, I don't know, nature watching or whatever. I mean, just, just pick an, any other activity that you'd like to be actually immersed in rather little cartoon characters, running around, making silly signs at each other.
And, and being somewhat inappropriate, um, and you'd rather kind of go, okay, well, why don't we have, I don't know the, why can't I sit in, you know, a Japanese nature garden in my immersive metaverse experience and, and that's actually, my NFTs are related to that activity.
I mean, yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's a, it's a it's it's valid question.
I think, I think that these kind of questions are gonna start to get answered more and more over the, the coming quarters. So
I cannot wait. I cannot wait, have a VR headset. I'm ready. Ready. It might be a previous generation one, but I I'm set for the early adoption. It's good. Well, listen, thanks so much for your time today, John.
I don't wanna keep you cuz it's uh, hot in Austin and uh, I'm sure that a, a cold beer Becks or something, uh, similar.
I, I actually have another big podcast I have to go on tomorrow. So no beers until after that. So yeah, so. I, I like to, I like to stay fresh when I come onto these podcasts and give always my, my a game, but it's always an honor to be asked to come on a podcast.
I, I really am. It's I'm always humbled. It's uh, Such a fantastic opportunity and uh, hope your listeners enjoy. And obviously, you know, find, find me on LinkedIn. That's that's where I live. Most of the that's it the day. Yeah, that's it, that's a find me reach out. You know, I, I did something new today on LinkedIn, not, not something new, but I just made a, more of a focused effort.
And that's how we, we even connected just really. Get back and actually make a bunch of time this week to have conversations with people that have emailed me because my inbox does get flooded. And sometimes it becomes so overwhelming that you just kind of shut off. But I, I literally just TA I had, you know, a bunch of calls and conversations, even like this with just people that have reached out over, you know, the last few months.
Some of my favorite favorite conversations. So if anybody wants to know, what's the most important metric on, on LinkedIn, it's definitely real human connections and having these conversations, cuz you just never know one of them could change your life. I would say the majority of my, my friends now life are people I've met on LinkedIn last year, which is completely insane.
And it's, it's always, it's always interesting cuz you feel like after you leave college that you really stop making a lot of new friends, but. In this space and on LinkedIn that you can, you can really, really ramp up your, your, your personal and, and professional network very quickly, especially in web three.
So LinkedIn for me has been that tool highly, highly recommend it, get involved, start following content creators like myself. Obviously, obviously you as well, Michael. So, you know, You know, it's, it's, it's important, you know, engage, find other people that are commenting, start commenting their post, maybe reach out to 'em at the DM, have a conversation.
And it kind of snowballs after that. So LinkedIn, I'm telling you right now, LinkedIn is the great equalizer right now, so, oh,
I couldn't agree more. I mean, I, um, that, that's how we connected. I, I saw a fantastic question from you about, about New York city NFT made me really think about. A deeper way of, of what's happening.
And it kind of prompted me to reach out to you and you were quick to, to reference, but I love your post recently. Uh, well, not that recently, I guess it's three, uh, three months ago now, but had to launch a NFD project in 2022, over 1000, uh, 1000 likes 328 comments, top voices of, uh, thing. And it's really sensible and it's nice.
And the comments that you see underneath it are proactive and positive and people are, are kind of debating in a miniature way. Some of the things that are happening and thinking about it. So it's, it's a propagation of positive social dialogue and, and kind of, you know, not just positive in the sense that we talk about something POI good, but, but we're helping each other.
And there's a learning element to which, which I love about, um, uh, LinkedIn generally. So I I've like you I've met some wonderful people on, on LinkedIn. I continue to do so. Um, especially thought leaders, especially people who are trying to think about things deeply and trying to find a venue for that. I used to have another podcast here.
It's called cures quant, where I interviewed all these people for about a different topic area, which is AI in, in, um, financial services. Now I have the pleasure of, of interviewing people like you, who are thinking about web three and, and this next evolution of blockchain. So for me, it is just a, uh, It's an absolute pleasure.
And, and it's an absolute cornerstone of my, of my engagement into that world, um, that, that, that LinkedIn provides. So we're both LinkedIn fanboy. I, I get the, you're a top voice. I'm not a top voice, but, but we're both linked.
You could be there. Hey, I, Hey, trust me. I I'm gonna do a post tomorrow. I mean, I, I went from from 10,000 followers to 35,000 followers in one year.
So anybody can do it. It's just, you gotta be dedicated post every day. Just engage. Yeah, you, it sort of consumes your life, but in a good way. So it's, once you get over the hurdle of like, okay, I can post every day and it, there's nothing to be scared about. And you start like meeting up with people in real life or having conversations.
It, it, it snowballs and it becomes very natural and I'm, I'm so thankful. It's, it's insane that the, the network you can build, if you start to engage. I just, uh, I just can't, I can't advocate enough. I, a lot of people don't execute, but there's other people that do when I tell them what to do and they, um, I see the results.
It's, it's pretty insane. I, I help one person go from 1000 to 6,000 followers in just a month by just doing a couple basic things. It's not, it's not even that complicated. Yeah. That's awesome.
Well, uh, awesome. Well, thanks so much for the advice and, uh, yes. And your thoughts on an FTS and, and community building and, um, yeah. Have a lovely day.
Thank you.
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