Do I look like a B*tch?
Notes From Mark Zuckerberg’s Interview with Lex Friedman
Jules: Describe what Marcellus Wallace looks like!
Brett: What, I-?
Jules: [pointing his gun] Say what again. SAY WHAT AGAIN. I dare you, I double dare you, motherf%$ker. Say what one more godd*mn time.
Brett: He's b-b-black...
Jules: Go on.
Brett: He's bald...
Jules: Does he look like a b*tch?
Brett: What?
[Jules shoots Brett in shoulder]
Jules: DOES HE LOOK LIKE A B*TCH?
Brett: No!
Jules: Then why you try to f%$k him like a b*tch, Brett?
Pulp Fiction (1994)
In a previous article, I wrote about how college dropout Mark Zuckerberg’s success with Facebook convinced me to drop out of college as well. After all, college didn’t promise me a high-paying job, a successful career, or even the possibility of a career at all, but it did promise me student loan debt backed by the US government. That scene from Pulp Fiction played in my mind when I heard that Mark became the youngest self-made billionaire ever by betting on himself, “Do I look like a B*tch?” So I dropped out and started my own business. To say that Mark Zuckerberg has influenced my life is an understatement. Lex Friedman’s latest podcast with Mark allowed me to gauge his long-term goals for the Metaverse and gleam key takeaways about his plans.
The first key takeaway reveals Mark’s unique approach to developing technology. He sees himself as a Tech Psychologist and believes that what makes him different from other Silicon Valley CEOs is his emphasis on how the product works with the user’s psychology. We can trace the DNA of this philosophy through products as early as Facebook. The “Like-Button” creates a psychological feedback loop that is a badge of honor that displays the user’s popularity. His specific approach to the metaverse is to simulate the feeling of presence in this artificial environment. Part of simulating that feeling of presence is honing in on small details. Mark Zuckerberg for example, highlights the importance of having eye contact in the artificial world. The peer-to-peer immersive experience requires the ability to look someone in the eye and know that person is looking back at you. As opposed to Zoom calls that show everyone looking straight ahead. Eye contact as well as other small gestures seem to be his focus to sell the illusion of presence. Mark also highlights the importance of hands not needing arms to feel like an extension of the body in a virtual world. Yet providing haptic feedback when interacting with inanimate objects such as tables and chairs goes a long way to sell the experience.
Another interesting observation was how he viewed the metaverse itself. Mark Zuckerberg views the metaverse as a period where people spend the majority of their time in immersive digital worlds. As opposed to an addition to people’s already immersive digital experience such as using apps on their phone. Mark sees the metaverse as an extension of a person’s already immersive digital life. I’ve always admired, Mark’s foresight when building Facebook to be extremely scalable to export those internal tools to the public. Tools such as ReactJs & GraphQL greatly assist web developers when building full-stack applications. So it intrigued me to learn that Meta is working on an artificial intelligence builder bot that uses voice commands to build virtual worlds. Every feature in the previous sentence should excite developers. Voice Commands have been at the center of Science Fiction for many decades. In a movie when the hero interacts with his electronics, he simply speaks to them. Along with the metaverse, Meta could accidentally create an entirely new industry solely focused on Voice Commands. The system also uses AI to change the art of environments to resemble different art styles such as comic books or video games. This expands the possibilities available to storytellers to create worlds that look and feel unique.
Meta has put significant thought into the role of avatars. They are creating a path for both photorealistic and expressive avatars that have their use cases in different scenarios. For example, the expressive avatars could be used in social environments as built-in ice breakers. Examples include showing up as a meme or your favorite cartoon character. Photorealistic avatars instead will be used to attend work meetings and other professional activities. Mark has put considerable thought into the economics of the avatar, including what clothes it would wear and the necessity to allow users to shop for new clothes. He even sees NFTs as a valid solution for monetizing an avatar marketplace.
Overall, I think this is Zuckerberg’s thing, he owns it. From developing the Occulus to feel “human-like”, to sinking billions of dollars to make the metaverse a thing, this is his baby. I honestly can’t say I’m as passionate about the metaverse as he is. I see the value he brings by building up an industry in its infancy to a mainstream audience. As this industry grows up to become the dominant way we interact online, many billionaires will be minted. Any entrepreneur that catches this wave and can carve out their slice of heaven will be decently rewarded for many generations to come. Still, I’m just not sold. Mark Zuckerberg is attempting the Herculean task of trying to recode society’s habits. He will spend billions of dollars on this industry to convince people to join the metaverse but it’s still anyone’s game. My doubt isn’t around if Meta’s marketing dollars would convince people to join the metaverse but if Meta would be the one to reap those benefits. After all, Meta isn’t the only player competing in this space. When Apple releases their VR goggles later this year, with their track record for quality and an already extensive app marketplace, Meta could run into an unstoppable force. I’m also disappointed how Mark doesn’t have an extensive plan for Blockchain or Smart contracts. He mentioned how he would like to look into NFTs for an avatar economy but what about the use cases that projects such as Decentraland provide? The ability to buy virtual real estate could become a massive industry. When we are talking about Meta’s ability to compete with Apple, they need every edge they can carve out. We don’t want another failure like Libra.
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