Jacob Navok: Computing and Network Needs of the Metaverse

11/04/21 • 42 min

Jacob Navok is the co-founder and CEO of Genvid, which is the leader in interactive streaming technology. They are working on one of the most interesting problems in the pursuit of the metaverse vision which is, how do you get millions of people to concurrently be participating and interacting in one live experience with no latency (delay or lag)? This is as opposed to what’s happening right now with server sizes of around 50 people in say Fortnite concerts.

Jacob was the co-author of the networking and compute articles in Matthew Ball’s Metaverse Primer series. There he outlined the technical and infrastructural limitations and challenges we have today to make the metaverse a reality.

Beyond the buzz around what kinds of new use cases and consumer experiences the Metaverse will enable, it’s important to think about the foundations. What is the infrastructure and computing power we will need to actually power this future? This is not something that will be solved by any company alone, but a collective effort of all the builders of the internet.
ABOUT THE GUEST

Prior to founding Genvid, Jacob led worldwide business development and strategy at Square Enix Holdings, reporting to the CEO. He also built their cloud gaming division, Shinra Technologies, where he met many of his Genvid colleagues.
SHOW NOTES

[5:20] Definition of the Metaverse

[7:20] Why VR is not representative of the Metaverse

[13:05] Concurrency and the challenges of hosting live, synchronous events with millions of people

[17:35] Twitch as the first example of massive multiplayer concurrent gaming

[19:40] Rival Peak, Genvid’s Live Interactive Multiplayer Reality Show with AI contestants

[22:50] Hacks for the concurrency problem

[25:30] Why decentralized systems don’t work well for live 3D experiences

[27:15] Future use cases of live synchronous events

[30:30] Social platforms like FB, Twitch, Discord as identity systems of the Metaverse

[37:15] Why FB keeps investing in AR/VR

[39:10] How will life in the Metaverse be different from the real world?

[5:20] Definition of the Metaverse

[7:20] Why VR is not representative of the Metaverse

[13:05] Concurrency and the challenges of hosting live, synchronous events with millions of people

[17:35] Twitch as the first example of massive multiplayer concurrent gaming

[19:40] Rival Peak, Genvid’s Live Interactive Multiplayer Reality Show with AI contestants

[22:50] Hacks for the concurrency problem

[25:30] Why decentralized systems don’t work well for live 3D experiences

[27:15] Future use cases of live synchronous events

[30:30] Social platforms like FB, Twitch, Discord as identity systems of the Metaverse

[37:15] Why FB keeps investing in AR/VR

[39:10] How will life in the Metaverse be different from the real world?

Previous Episode

Kyla Scanlon: Gen Z Creator on Why Decentralization and The Metaverse Matters

The creator economy, crypto, and the metaverse have been probably the buzziest concepts of this year (or in tech at least), and Kyla Scanlon straddles all three of these worlds on a visceral level. She is a content creator who focuses on financial education, which entails explaining to people hard to grasp concepts like crypto and other vehicles for decentralization. And by being a creator, she naturally occupies a majority of her life in the online world, aka, the Metaverse. As a GenZ (or as she’d like to say, a Cusper, which are are GenZ folks on the cusp of being a Millennial) and an online creator, she has forged a livelihood online through her work, and as a result, has made many rich relationships with people online, even more so than offline. In her own words, she is a prototype for the concepts that she creates content around.

This is what made my conversation with her so interesting and meta. Foremost as an educator, Kyla explains and unbundles difficult web3 concepts such DAOs, NFTs, Social Tokens and Defi. From her creator perspective, she explores how these emergent concepts directly impact her life and her work. Finally, as a GenZ, she muses about why these concepts (especially this desire for decentralization) are emerging for her generation and what it might be a cultural reaction to. We explore some real issues for GenZ such as the growing sense of loneliness, the dark and exhausting elements of creator culture, and the repercussions of growing up with information overlap and no room for processing and introspection.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Kyla Scanlon is a popular financial content creator and educator. She started options trading in high school, previously worked at Capital Group and was a participant in the TAP program. She is now building a financial education company to onboard people to the world of investing. You can subscribe to her financial content on substack, Youtube, TikTok or wherever you like to consume your content.

SHOW NOTES

[3:55] The power and influence of creators

[8:30] DAOs as a community organizing vehicle

[13:50] NFTs, digital ownership, and how they can serve creators

[20:40] Social Tokens and the idea of monetizing every aspect of yourself as a creator

[23:55] The loneliness of being a creator

[25:40] Living life more online than offline

[27:40] The Metaverse as a solution to information overload

[30:20] Loneliness

[32:35] How to create the right education framework for younger generations

[34:35] Defi and the future of finance

[36:10] Why decentralization matters for GenZ

[38:00] The Debt Ceiling, economic collapse, the Fall of Rome

Next Episode

John Linden: Making NFT Games Mainstream

NFT games is the new topic that’s been gaining major momentum in the metaverse/web 3 conversation. The fundamentals of NFT games is that the ownership model of game assets are user owned and transactions are encoded on the blockchain. This creates a utility value for NFTs where it can actually live in an environment where it brings tangible value to people, rather than just being say a jpeg piece of digital art that’s hard to show off.
The magic of NFT games shows through the economic opportunities that it creates for people. A simple example is Axie Infinity which is the most popular NFT game right now. In the game, people can buy these axies, which are these adorable pet creatures that you can train to get better and better at battles. As your axie wins more battles, it appreciates in monetary value. Based on the work you do ‘training’ axies, you can make money off of your hard earned work (through the appreciation of that asset). In fact, a huge fraction of the population in the Philippines have started to rely on playing axie infinity as their main source of income.
While the Axie example is straightforward, as you can imagine, for more sophisticated games and experiences, the infrastructure to power these transactions gets more complex. In this episode, we will explore the building blocks to help foster the NFT game ecosystem for developers, players, brands, influencers, etc.
ABOUT THE GUEST

John Linden is the CEO of Mythical, a next-generation game technology studio creating universal economies driven by player ownership of NFTs with utility. Prior to Mythical, John was the President of Seismic Games (acquired by Niantic Labs), developer of Marvel Strike Force and Magic the Gathering: Valor’s Reach. Prior to Seismic Games, he was a Studio Head at Activision Blizzard on the Call of Duty and Skylanders franchises.

Before entering the games industry, John was the Co-Founder / CTO at Adknowledge and at OpenX and built his own startups, Planet Alumni (acquired by Reunion.com) and Litmus Media (acquired by Think Partnership)
SHOW NOTES

[5:50] What are NFT games and how do they make games better for people?

[13:10] Understanding collectables culture

[16:10] Economic engine behind NFT games

[18:00] How to have zero gas fees

[23:15] Developer interest in building game economies on the blockchain

[25:50] Focusing on assets over tokens

[29:10] How can NFT games live on the Apple Store?

[31:10] New roles and jobs that NFT games can create

[36:55] Why are NFT games becoming mainstream now?