My friend
@ShaanVP had an awesome thread on the metaverse a few weeks ago.
He set a clear, understandable definition of the metaverse:
The metaverse is a time, not a place.
It’s when our digital life is more important than our physical life.
If you believe in that definition (I do), then it pushes an interesting second order question.
What happens when that shift occurs?
I think everything gets a lot more extreme.
Why?
The world doesn’t get any bigger, but our surface area of exposure increases exponentially.
We have more insight and visibility into everything that’s going on.
This will put more pressure on the proverbial pressure cooker.
Here are 10 examples:
1. Opportunity
As more economic activity moves online, constraints and barriers go away.
You can be 10,000 miles away and considered as a candidate for a job.
Measurement pushes away from inputs (politics, facetime) to outputs (deliverables).
2. Competition
More opportunity brings more competition.
Tasks will get "re-rated" to their global economic value.
- Growth Assistants in the Philippines (shoutout
@jspujji) - Developers in Eastern Europe
- Bookkeepers in India
Business will now truly be a global sport.
3. Outcomes
Software allows for infinite leverage and (theoretically) infinite upside.
A lot of people in tech think we’re in a bubble.
I think we’re just getting started.
We’re going to see more companies that are started by fewer people with bigger results.
4. Engagement
More stimuli at our fingertips - notifications, tweets, messages, information - creates short consideration spans.
We either engage with short form content - e.g. TikTok - or long form content - e.g. 2 hour podcasts / binge TV.
The middle is no man's land.
5. Empathy
@DaveChappelle has a great quote: "When you see everything, it’s hard to care about anything."
Again the middle drops out.
Pro - there's less friction to engage on things that matter to us
Con - there's zero mindshare to engage on things that don't matter to us
6. Impulse
When friction reduces, decision making becomes faster.
We're seeing this play out live in many areas right now (most notably crypto).
Faster decisions = faster outcomes = faster iterations.
A virtuous cycle on the way up or a vicious cycle on the way down.
7. Voiced Opinions
More and more perspectives will come online with increased connectivity.
This will lead to an increase in bottom up analysis + more ground truth discovery.
It'll also lead to a lot of noise.
Curating the right information diet will be key.
8. Agitation
As more of my life is spent in the digital world, I've noticed I get agitated over the smallest things.
- Phone not connecting? Annoying.
- TV not streaming? Annoying.
- Browser not loading? Annoying
Subconscious, but we'll all continue to push in this direction.
9. Comparison
We get to see a curated sliver of everyone's life in real time now.
In the future, it'll get even more curated and dynamic with faster feedback loops.
If you’re not careful this can create serious cognitive distortion.
The comparison game can be infinite.
10. Polarization
Most people feel isolated because their viewpoints don't resonate.
But what happens when you take that viewpoint and extend it to 8B people worldwide?
Tribalism increases.
Why change your position if you can find people online that sympathize and agree?
Think about a world that has extreme:
1. Opportunities
2. Competition
3. Outcomes
4. Engagement
5. Empathy
6. Impulses
7. Voiced Opinions
8. Agitation
9. Comparison
10. Polarization
I don't know how that plays out, but I do know there will be lots of disruption and innovation.
As with anything, the metaverse is not “good” or “bad” on its own.
But there will be good and bad that comes from it.
If you believe the premise that everything is going to become a lot more extreme like I do, the second order effects are really interesting to think about.
If you enjoyed this tweet, give me a follow.
➡️@RomeenSheth ⬅️
I tweet about:
- Scaling a $50M+ bootstrapped business
- Interviewing titans of business
- Investing a few million a year in world class founders