Cathy Hackl: The 'Godmother of the Metaverse'

Clinique had a problem. The marque wanted to “enter the metaverse,” but it didn’t privation to bash truthful successful a mode that was cringey. So, it called a pistillate named Cathy Hackl: the “Godmother of the Metaverse.”

Her credentials? Hackl, the “chief metaverse officer” of Futures Intelligence Group, a metaverse consulting firm, has worked successful metaverse-related fields for astir a decennary – oregon fundamentally since the dawn of meta-time.

This nonfiction is portion of Road to Consensus, a bid highlighting speakers and the large ideas they volition sermon astatine Consensus 2022, CoinDesk's festival of the twelvemonth June 9-12 successful Austin, Texas. Learn more. It primitively appeared successful December's Culture Week.

Just inquire Steven Spielberg. When filming “Ready Player One,” Spielberg partnered with the virtual world headset institution HTC Vive, wherever Hackl served arsenic “VR Evangelist.” At Magic Leap, an augmented world company, she worked with the antheral who coined the word metaverse, Neal Stephenson. And implicit a twelvemonth earlier the existent craze, she wrote articles for Forbes similar “The Metaverse Is Coming And It’s A Very Big Deal.”

It was specified a large woody that Hackl near a cushy occupation astatine Amazon Web Services to “take a large stake connected the metaverse.” Now she advises brands – similar Clinique – connected however to presumption themselves successful this unusual caller market. (Her enactment with Clinique fetched a glowing write-up from Vogue Business.)

In an interrogation with CoinDesk, the Godmother shares wherefore the metaverse is larger than possibly the crypto assemblage realizes, wherefore avatars are accelerated becoming “emotional surrogates of ourselves" and however successful the future, “every institution is going to request a metaverse strategy.”

The word “metaverse” tin mean 10 antithetic things to 10 antithetic radical – adjacent wrong the crypto space. When you commencement moving with clients, however bash you explicate it to them?

Cathy Hackl: I usually commencement from the past. Web 1 connected information, truthful you got the internet. And did that alteration thing for your brand? It astir apt did. Web 2 connected radical and you got societal media, the sharing economy. Did that alteration thing for your brand? Of people it did, right?

And present we’re successful the improvement of Web 2 going into Web 3. And Web 3, it connects people, places, and things – oregon people, spaces and assets. And those people, spaces and assets tin sometimes beryllium successful a afloat virtual environment, similar astir radical thin to think.

But it’s besides going to beryllium successful our existent satellite with immoderate level of augmentation, astir apt done a wearable. So, Web 3 is benignant of enabling the instauration of the metaverse, and the metaverse is simply a convergence of carnal and digital. Think of it arsenic the successor of what comes adjacent connected the internet. It’s similar your integer manner catching up to your carnal life.

That’s a beauteous expansive view. So, it includes not conscionable blockchain projects, similar Decentraland, but besides augmented world from accepted platforms?

Yeah. Even Snapchat, the things that they tin bash with the camera for augmented world – that’s a metaverse play. That’s each portion of the metaverse. I person a beauteous expansive view, and portion of that comes from moving successful VR (virtual reality) hardware, spatial computing and augmented world hardware. And erstwhile radical deliberation the metaverse is lone virtual reality, oregon lone afloat immersive, I deliberation that’s a beauteous constrictive view. And a beauteous dystopic one.

With that wide of a definition, I’m guessing the blockchain metaverse projects are lone a tiny portion of the wide “metaverse pie”?

It is small, but it’s ever increasing. You’ve got SoftBank starring the concern for $93 million successful a Series B [for The Sandbox]. Upland conscionable raised $18 million, I believe, with a $300 cardinal valuation. You’ve got a batch of these blockchain projects – similar NFT (non-fungible token) gaming metaverses – increasing truly fast.

How does blockchain acceptable into your imaginativeness for the metaverse?

You cannot alteration the unfastened decentralized metaverse that galore of america imagination of without blockchain, right? Blockchain is the underlying component. NFTs are a spot of a stepping-stone into the metaverse erstwhile it comes to ownership of integer assets and integer identity. How bash you really alteration that? NFTs are a large portion of that equation.

What’s the biggest imaginable for brands?

One of the large things that I effort to research is, “Is direct-to-avatar the adjacent direct-to-consumer?” Again, it’s stepping-stones. When we substance people, we usage emojis; we don’t adjacent constitute anymore. We usage an emoji to correspond a message. Our emojis – and by hold our avatars – are becoming affectional surrogates of ourselves.

In bid to correspond yourself arsenic an avatar, that’s a large thing. Because it’s a infinitesimal of self-expression, it’s a infinitesimal of self-exploration. And however bash brands play into that? Well, I’m going to person to outfit my avatar. Maybe I privation to marque a connection and deterioration Supreme. Fashion and civilization spell together. How does your avatar amusement up, right? What does it look like, what does it wear? There are going to beryllium a batch of opportunities for brands. And determination volition beryllium opportunities for them to prosecute with the younger generation.

I tin spot however it’s evident for immoderate brands – particularly successful wearables and manner – to get progressive successful the avatar game. But however astir for little evident brands? I mean, however does a nutrient institution marque a metaverse play?

Well, radical are saying that Chipotle caused the [Roblox] outage. (Of course, it didn’t origin the outage – let’s get that straight.) But a marque similar Chipotle tin travel successful and say, “We’re going to bash a burrito, and we’re going to springiness distant $1 cardinal worthy of burritos successful the game.” I deliberation those types of things are absorbing and fun, and the assemblage is engaged, they enjoyed it.

What bash you spot arsenic immoderate of the biggest obstacles that request to beryllium flooded for the metaverse to go much mainstream?

There are a batch of things that request to happen. If you look astatine however galore radical really person [digital] wallets, it’s really a precise tiny number. And it’s a generational thing. My kids recognize integer ownership successful a mode that possibly older generations don’t. They emotion buying integer assets and their skins. Once my kids get older, they’re going to question, “Why can’t I instrumentality this plus that I paid truthful overmuch wealth for successful Roblox, and determination it implicit to Fortnite?” Eventually they’re going to expect that.

And that leads to much of an appreciation for NFTs and a tendency for unfastened worlds, got it. What other is needed for the metaverse to instrumentality off?

There volition beryllium a superior request for computing power. And close now, evidently you’ve got proviso concatenation issues related to chips, truthful that mightiness dilatory things down.

There besides needs to beryllium a batch of acquisition wrong organizations – and not conscionable the marque squad – to recognize wherever this is headed. And for companies, there’s already a endowment war, truthful it’s hard to prosecute people. When you recognize that each institution is going to request a metaverse strategy, past hiring is going to get adjacent harder. That’s wherefore I partnered with Republic Realm to make the Republic Realm Academy, for enforcement education.

How does Facebook acceptable into each of this? What’s your absorption to Mark Zuckerberg’s meta play?

I instrumentality the bully with the bad. I mean, it is simply a validation of the enactment that galore of america person been doing for years. So, I’ll instrumentality that. On the different side, with Facebook being truthful literal with the sanction “meta,” it does formed a spot of uncertainty and shadiness connected the metaverse. The large happening is disorder – radical reasoning the metaverse is Facebook. It is not.

I was astatine an lawsuit having meal with immoderate speakers. I sat down, and idiosyncratic asked maine what I do. I said, “I bash metaverse strategies.” And they said, “Isn’t that Facebook?”

[Laughs.] Yeah. So, I deliberation determination is that level of confusion. I don’t cognize however galore radical work the quality that Facebook rebranded to Meta, and they learned the connection due to the fact that of that.

How galore years until we get to a “Ready Player One”-style metaverse?

First of all, I volition accidental “The Oasis” (the afloat immersive level successful “Ready Player One”) is not what we should purpose for. That’s beauteous dystopic, wherever the existent satellite has gone to s**t, and you person to flight reality. [Laughs.] I don’t privation to flight reality, but I privation the metaverse to beryllium determination amusive erstwhile I privation to person amusive – alternatively of Instagram.

So however agelong until we get there?

I don’t deliberation anyone tin enactment a clip oregon date, but I volition accidental that this decennary is simply a decennary of gathering and pioneering. We’re each testing, trying to recognize however it each works. This is the decennary wherever those foundations are created. It’s a clip of alteration and a clip for creators. Now is the clip to build. Now is erstwhile you commencement to fig out, what does this mean? Where are we going? And what does our institution oregon marque person to bash to beryllium prepared for the future?

The Festival for the Decentralized World

Thursday - Sunday, June 9-12, 2022

Austin, Texas