Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Crypto Daily Bloomberg I heard podcast, and
Speaker 1: I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, Managing editor of Crypto for Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Use It's Thursday, October twenty. It might seem like the
Speaker 1: conversation about the metaverse right now is a combination of
Speaker 1: jokes about Mark Zuckerberg's digital legs, snark about the cost
Speaker 1: of virtual reality headsets, and a real lack of clarity
Speaker 1: on why any corporation at all might want to be
Speaker 1: in this space. So we asked Matt Boyle, god forbid,
Speaker 1: you know, how are you going to take your you know,
Speaker 1: your two hour lunch in France in metaverse? I think
Speaker 1: you'd much rather be at a bistro somewhere. A Bloomberg
Speaker 1: senior report who has written a lot about the future
Speaker 1: of work to help explain exactly what's going on here,
Speaker 1: especially as relates to businesses hiring chief metaverse offices and
Speaker 1: what those folks even do. Oldie Matt, welcome onto the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. What's going on in the metaverse? Well,
Speaker 1: quite a lot if you've been reading the news lately, um,
Speaker 1: But I'm mostly focused for our work shift editorial area
Speaker 1: in terms of you know how our companies and particularly
Speaker 1: the C suite managers approaching the metaverse. What are the opportunities,
Speaker 1: what's the promise, what is the peril? And you know,
Speaker 1: I hate to say this, and we all kind of
Speaker 1: hate to say this, but you know, the jury is
Speaker 1: very much still out there. When the company that is
Speaker 1: the poster child for the metaverse can't get its own
Speaker 1: employees to use its own metaverse, well, that's that company
Speaker 1: that you're referring to, that post a child which renamed
Speaker 1: itself to Meta to embrace the metavers. Uh, there are
Speaker 1: no toes to dip, right, because we're still trying to
Speaker 1: figure out if people people in the metaverse are gonna
Speaker 1: have legs. But this idea of employee adoption of a
Speaker 1: technology is interesting to me because the metaverse is being
Speaker 1: positioned as a it's almost like like a Zoom enterprise
Speaker 1: like products that something for people who work in large
Speaker 1: corporations will find benefit from, which is very different from
Speaker 1: some of the consumer brandings that we had out there previously. Like,
Speaker 1: what's explaining that disconnect? Well, I mean it's funny you
Speaker 1: mentioned Zoom. You know, if the promise of the Metaverse
Speaker 1: or one of the potential promises of the metaverse is to,
Speaker 1: you know, bring employees into some sort of immersive environment
Speaker 1: which may or may not enhance their work experience. I
Speaker 1: think if you hate your manager, you're still going to
Speaker 1: hate your manager in the metaverse. But you mentioned zoom.
Speaker 1: I mean, we can't even get zoom calls right these days.
Speaker 1: There are homes and books being written and research papers
Speaker 1: coming out of Harvard studying interactions over zoom and who
Speaker 1: gets left out on the zoom call and should that
Speaker 1: zoom have been an email or should that thirty minutes
Speaker 1: zoom be twenty five minutes? And my argument is yes,
Speaker 1: the smartest companies are shortening meetings using zoom less because
Speaker 1: they know what sort of impact it is having. My
Speaker 1: wife is on zoom calls twelve hours a day. She
Speaker 1: comes out of a work from home day, she looks
Speaker 1: like she just went through the Battle of the Bulge.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's insane. So if you're saying let's all
Speaker 1: go to the metaverse and have a more productive meeting,
Speaker 1: my answer is why can't we Just you know, we're
Speaker 1: not even getting meetings right now with the simplest of
Speaker 1: technologies for video conferencing. But that said again, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the applications of the metaverse will certainly be
Speaker 1: you know, workplace applications, and how Slack and Salesforce and
Speaker 1: all those various workplace applications that we know and loathe
Speaker 1: are going to happily coexist within some type of of metaverse.
Speaker 1: I don't know. What I do know is, you know,
Speaker 1: it's to be far more relevant for my fourteen year
Speaker 1: old son who lives has for the past ten years,
Speaker 1: has lived in basically three worlds, Roadblocks, Minecraft, and Fortnite,
Speaker 1: and he is so comfortable there. If his first job
Speaker 1: is something similar to any of those experiences, then okay,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of getting you there, but that you know,
Speaker 1: that's when he's twenty four, twenty years down the line.
Speaker 1: So again, I think there's gonna be a lot of
Speaker 1: growing pains here, as with any big shift in the workplace.
Speaker 1: And my god, I mean, how many huge shifts are
Speaker 1: happening at the same time in the workplace as we're
Speaker 1: talking about whether or not the metaverse is going to
Speaker 1: be really impacting corporations. You know, we've got organizing movement,
Speaker 1: labor organizing movements at places like Starbucks. We have people
Speaker 1: freaking out over the fact that they don't even know
Speaker 1: where their remote workers are, much less how to pay them.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so much going on, not to mention
Speaker 1: the whole return to office battle that you know, I
Speaker 1: can imagine how moving work to the metaverse, or corporations
Speaker 1: shifting a lot of their operations to the metaverse might
Speaker 1: become slightly lower priority when they can't even hold on
Speaker 1: to their best people. Work is hard is a big
Speaker 1: takeaway I'm hearing there. But what you're also saying is
Speaker 1: something that we hear a lot about kind of everything
Speaker 1: that tends to be smushed into like crypto plus web
Speaker 1: three plus metaverse, which is the criticism that these are
Speaker 1: solutions in search of problems. And you know, there are
Speaker 1: always going to people who will be like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: Bitcoin actually solves x y Z or Web three solves ABC.
Speaker 1: But there's way less consensus on what's exactly the metaverse
Speaker 1: solves for what it even is when different people are
Speaker 1: talking about it. But that doesn't seem to have stopped
Speaker 1: some corporations from hiring chief metaverse off exactly. But I
Speaker 1: think they're chasing the consumer opportunity here rather than figuring
Speaker 1: out how it's going to change the way that they work.
Speaker 1: I mean, all the luxury companies doing you know, metaverse
Speaker 1: fashion shows and um, you know Starbucks doing their coffee
Speaker 1: related n f T s whatever that turns out to be. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, they are very much looking at this as
Speaker 1: as a branding opportunity, UM down the line away to
Speaker 1: get closer to customers because again, a lot of big
Speaker 1: brands missed the boat with e commerce, were very slow
Speaker 1: to that UM and do not want to miss that
Speaker 1: that boat again. So digital you know, fomo is is
Speaker 1: very much a part of this. But how Proctor and
Speaker 1: Gamble and LVMH and all the companies that are hiring
Speaker 1: chief metaverse officers, it seems like that role is sort
Speaker 1: of being put in place to have a point person. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're in charge. Now. We know there's a lot going
Speaker 1: on with this metaverse stuff and you know, UM, but
Speaker 1: we don't really understand it. I'm a fifty six year
Speaker 1: old CEO from Central Casting. You know, I went to Harvard,
Speaker 1: then Mackenzie and now I'm here. I don't get this stuff.
Speaker 1: Let me hire somebody or find somebody internally for a
Speaker 1: heck of a lot cheaper. You know who maybe was
Speaker 1: talking to me about n f t S the other day. Hey,
Speaker 1: you could be our chief metaverse officer and you let
Speaker 1: you smile. But that's as easy, that's as quickly as
Speaker 1: it is happening in some of these places. You must
Speaker 1: know something about this. Well, now you are are newly
Speaker 1: minted chief metaverse officer. Congratulations, And then there's sort of
Speaker 1: like crickets. THO was like, well, what in the world
Speaker 1: do I do now? And that was the whole point
Speaker 1: of my story. What do these people do all day?
Speaker 1: We know some of them are getting million dollar paychecks. Okay,
Speaker 1: are they deserving of them? Um? We don't really know yet.
Speaker 1: But you know, if one of these chief metaverse officers
Speaker 1: turns their brand into you know, sort of this amazing
Speaker 1: Web three phenomenon, then they're earning every penny or are
Speaker 1: they not. There have been a few stories I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of Kashmir Hill for example, of folks who have tried
Speaker 1: to be in the metaverse, and Alex Brinka the other
Speaker 1: day exactly. Um, and you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: that they have said is it's kind of exhausting because
Speaker 1: you right now to in order to achieve that, especially
Speaker 1: if you're thinking of it as a virtual reality context,
Speaker 1: is like you've got something strapped to your face, ye
Speaker 1: ways over a pound. You know, it's it's a little
Speaker 1: bit disorienting. It's you're there, aren't always other people there,
Speaker 1: right like, So you know that's something that we've seen
Speaker 1: in crypto, for example, there are spaces there's one called
Speaker 1: the Sandbox, as one called the Central Land where the
Speaker 1: number of active users in there like relative to kind
Speaker 1: of like your typical gaming platform is very low, and
Speaker 1: so you've got like a dead zone. Nobody is necessarily
Speaker 1: here a problem, and then you have got the question
Speaker 1: of Okay, I'm here, how do I fill in my
Speaker 1: Excel spreadsheets? Like, like what practically can I be doing
Speaker 1: in the metaverse? To your points about experimentation, given that
Speaker 1: people can't really do much in most cases right now,
Speaker 1: what are some of the strongest arguments you've heard corporations
Speaker 1: make for why they're plowing forward if they are I mean,
Speaker 1: one could be just collaboration. We certainly have been disconnected
Speaker 1: it over the past two years, and you know, for
Speaker 1: a forty something maybe seeing a colleague in the metaverse
Speaker 1: isn't going to be enough. Maybe not enough too then
Speaker 1: you know, having like an in person lunch or a
Speaker 1: drink after work. But maybe for younger workers, you know,
Speaker 1: having a more immersive collaborative experience, whether that's onboarding a
Speaker 1: new employee, doing a training session, sitting in a big
Speaker 1: virtual auditorium to listen to you know, you're your fearless
Speaker 1: leader tell you that we're going to attack this or
Speaker 1: that market, or you know, we're going to do this
Speaker 1: or that. Um, that might be you know, enough to
Speaker 1: get to have people sort of feel a sense. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of getting a better sense. And here are
Speaker 1: my colleagues, and they are you know, I look to
Speaker 1: my right and my left and and there, okay, there
Speaker 1: they are. They might not have legs, but there they are,
Speaker 1: and they're chatting, and we're kind of like passing notes
Speaker 1: during the meeting. And isn't that funny? I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: that will be enough. I'm not sure yet. Um, But then,
Speaker 1: you know, Alex Brinka's story the other day was great
Speaker 1: because you know, she was trying to she couldn't figure
Speaker 1: out if she could type while she was in you know,
Speaker 1: in the metaverse, and and then her makeup got smushed,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, it's like, it's always the everyday
Speaker 1: stuff that ends up being the huge issue here. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just happened throughout technology. You know this better than
Speaker 1: I do. It's that they often overlook the every day
Speaker 1: the cotidian examples like wait, Howard did we account for this? Oh,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. This technology is wonderful. It'll solve
Speaker 1: all our problems. Um. So it's figuring out those little
Speaker 1: things like yeah, can I do an Excel spreadsheet? Can
Speaker 1: I just do my expenses in the Why in the
Speaker 1: world would I want to do my expenses in the metaverse?
Speaker 1: You don't ever do them anywhere? Um? But could I
Speaker 1: be onboarded and meet all my new fellows some are interns. Okay,
Speaker 1: now you're kind of now I'm with you a little bit.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, I might rather be going out going
Speaker 1: bowling with them in real life, but it's a start.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more from Bloomberg Senior Reports.
Speaker 1: Matt Boyle. In the story that you rose about chief
Speaker 1: metaverse officers, you talked about one in particular that wasn't
Speaker 1: even a person. Yes, that was very interesting, as kind
Speaker 1: of prompted my my interest here when someone said, hey, Matt,
Speaker 1: have you heard about these chief metaverurse officers? I said, oh,
Speaker 1: let me look into it. And one of the first
Speaker 1: companies that came up is Publicis Group, which is a big,
Speaker 1: massive advertising giant. Their French, um, their clients are Nestlee,
Speaker 1: Walmart ubs, I mean blue chip clients. They do very well. Um.
Speaker 1: But when I looked into it, they said, oh, they
Speaker 1: hired a chief metaverse officer and said, oh, who is here?
Speaker 1: She I'd love to interview this person, and I realized
Speaker 1: it was not a person. It was a digital avatar,
Speaker 1: a very sleek, French speaking or I guess French accented
Speaker 1: lion named Leon. Of course, his name was Leon, who
Speaker 1: had a YouTube video and he had a linked in profile,
Speaker 1: and he had an email address, although every time I
Speaker 1: emailed him it got bounced act to me. Um, so
Speaker 1: maybe he's still you know, maybe they're not maybe still onboarding,
Speaker 1: or hasn't got his email, or maybe he's like you
Speaker 1: know us young people, he's like email, what's email? I
Speaker 1: don't use the email slack me. Um. But in the end,
Speaker 1: and of course, given Publicius as French, it took them
Speaker 1: three months to get back to me to basically say like, well, yes,
Speaker 1: this is our chief metaverse officer and you know, and
Speaker 1: but like then when they finally got back to me,
Speaker 1: they said, how many hundreds of of agency people are
Speaker 1: actually working with their brands on sort of Web three
Speaker 1: related stuff. I'm like, okay, well now it's getting interesting.
Speaker 1: But again that was because brands really want to figure
Speaker 1: this out. It was not because everybody at Publicis Group
Speaker 1: is working in the metaverse. God forbid, you know, how
Speaker 1: are you going to take your you know, your two
Speaker 1: hour lunch in France in the metaverse? I think you'd
Speaker 1: much rather be at a bistro somewhere. Um. So, yes,
Speaker 1: it really runs the gamut from digital avatars, two very
Speaker 1: high qualifiled people you know who used to work at
Speaker 1: McKenzie and at Goldman Sachs who are becoming chief metaverse
Speaker 1: officers too. Again, the other people I mentioned the other
Speaker 1: day is just like the guy in the room who
Speaker 1: raises his hand when they say, who knows anything about
Speaker 1: n F T S Bam, you're a chief metaverse officer.
Speaker 1: So that's how haphazard the approaches right now among companies.
Speaker 1: But they all kind of agree this is something we've
Speaker 1: got to pay attention to. As you say it's it's
Speaker 1: not like companies haven't done this before, right, like twenty
Speaker 1: years ago, it was like anyone heard of the Internet? Great,
Speaker 1: you know, in charge of our digital and now you're
Speaker 1: the chief transformation officer, the chief digital officer. I mean,
Speaker 1: as we know, the C suites are never hesitant to
Speaker 1: add yet another person to the c suite um. And
Speaker 1: while some of them have real like a chief information
Speaker 1: officer you need, you need a person in charge of
Speaker 1: your internal I T. But then there's a chief Technology
Speaker 1: officer who's like, Okay, well I'm in charge of finding
Speaker 1: out what's next in technology. And then you have a
Speaker 1: chief Digital officer, and now you have a Chief Metaverse officer.
Speaker 1: And I can imagine the four of them in a
Speaker 1: room sort of arguing over like, you know, who's really
Speaker 1: the top tech you know, gun um. I would not
Speaker 1: want to be in that room, but I'm sure those
Speaker 1: conversations are happening somewhere in corporate America. Yeah, just not
Speaker 1: necessarily in virtual reality. Thank you so much, Matt for
Speaker 1: being here. What a pleasure. You can find more of
Speaker 1: Matt Boyle's reporting on the Bloomberg Terminal on bloomberg dot com,
Speaker 1: where he writes for Workshift and on Twitter at biz
Speaker 1: boil and if you're interested in more about the future
Speaker 1: of work, follow Workshift on Twitter at the future yep,
Speaker 1: that's apt t h E f U t U r E.
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