📃 Summary of Issue #023

• Intro: Our first Emerging LA events down in Long Beach

• Highlights: From our hosted side events ✨

  • Happy Hour Mixer that had 115 in attendance

  • VIP Dinner with 16 leaders from XR startups, music industry, Korean culture/govt, and Samsung

• Insights: The Future of XR from AWE 2024 Recap 🧠

  • Notable panels & quotes from leaders

  • Keynote with visionaries of XR

• FYI: Don’t miss our 2 events this week! 🔥

  • AI’s impact on Future of Work

  • AI & Web3’s impact on The Future of Creative

Emerging LA Events

Centered around AWE, the world’s largest event for AR/VR/XR, we hosted two back-to-back events focused on the transformative potential of Spatial experiences.

Happy Hour XR Mixer Afternoon

Our Happy Hour mixer at Padre was a resounding success, with Emerging LA taking over the patio.

We had an impressive turnout of 115 people, including locals from the LA area and visitors in town for AWE.

It is always good to see some my favorite people: Faraz at Lightspeed, Todd of AI LA, Aaron Childress, Darren Jones at Disney, the Hartmann Capital team, and the Samsung Next team who all flew down from the Bay Area.

Follow by a Small VIP Dinner

The intimate VIP dinner at Gladstone's, with 16 attendees, was an amazing night of good conversation and great food with a waterfront view into Long Beach.

This diverse group included individuals passionate about XR, leaning towards the music industry and Korean culture. Notable attendees included:

• Sewhang Kim, COO of ATTRAKT and manager of FIFTY FIFTY (K-pop group with number 1 song "Cupid" on TikTok in 2023)

• Evan Li, executive at AmazeVR (immersive concerts)

• Grace Park and leaders from the Korean government's startup programs

• Summer Watson, a music label executive from Vol. 1 Records (a joint venture with Epic Records & Sony Music)

• Julia Yan, a growth leader from TikTok

🧠 Insights: AWE & the Future of XR

Takeaways from VCs, founders, and leaders at industry events!

Notable Panels

I couldn’t help but geek out over the discussions in the main stage with some amazing speakers. I took many notes and am sharing a few down below!

Beyond the big room, I was able to catch more intimate discussions with from Maddie Callander (Boost VC) and Jasper Brand (BITKRAFT).

A standout for me was the discussion with Jackson Vaughn (Konvoy Ventures) over breakfast on the future of gaming and the various opportunities across all emerging tech: AI, web3, and XR.

Creating the Immersive Future with GenAI

• “The best way to interact with Gen AI is through XR." - Said Bakadir (Qualcomm Sr. Director, Product)

• “Stop worrying and learn to love AI! It works well together with XR.” said Ori Inbar (Co-Founder AWE and Super Ventures)

• Advancements in GenAI are helping to unleash truly endless creative possibilities in AR, discussed by Bobby Murphy (Snap CTO & Co-Founder) Bobby Murphy, Paige Piskin (Social AR Developer & Influencer), and Mike Boland (AR Insider's Chief Analyst)

Spatial Computing from Mixed Reality & Mobile

• Niantic’s Brian McClendon and Erik Murphy-Chutorian demoed its latest products along with 8th wall to show the foundation for immersive services and creation tools to map the real world and make it “spatial.”

• Charlie Fink observed that the presence was most dominated by Mixed Reality (MR) from Oculus Quest and Apple Vision Pro, and the surge of Mobile AR tools, with AI having a remarkably low profile compared to his expectations.

• Tom Furness, XR Hall of Famer and Founder & Chairman of the Virtual World Society, provided an update on the work of the Virtual World Society and recounted his history in developing the Super Cockpit for the USAF in the 70s-80s.

Korean Metaverse Expo Takeover

• The Korean Metaverse was my personal favorite of the expo floor! I enjoyed playing with the products and meeting the founders who came all the way from Korea: dob Studio, HAEGIN, LBStech, MOPIC, Qlab, Rebuilder AI, The2H, and YATAV

• Congrats Playbook XR and its founders, Jean-Daniel LeRoy and Skylar Thomas, whom I met earlier this year at USC's Iovine & Young Academy startup demo day. Keep building!

Keynote from VR Legends

Visionaries: Palmer Luckey & Darshan Shankar

One of the highlights of AWE 2024 was getting to attend the "Visionaries" panel and learning firsthand from the pioneers of VR.

• Palmer Luckey (Founder of Oculus VR and Anduril)

• Darshan Shankar (Founder of Bigscreen VR)

• Stephanie Riggs (Ink & Paint) as the moderator

The Origins of VR

• Palmer Luckey built his first VR headset prototype in 2009 at age 17 in Long Beach while living in a trailer. The original Oculus was a DIY kit for enthusiasts. It became clear early on Kickstarter that people wanted fully built kits, not DIY.

• Darshan Shankar was playing with the DK1 in 2012. When the DK2 came out in 2014, he immediately started building Bigscreen and shipped the first version of software in 2016 on Rift. While the focus has been on software, they later started to build some hardware.

VR Progress Over the Last 10 Years

People often think that VR development has stalled, this is wrong! It has actually advanced exponentially over the last 10 years.

• The HW & UX: The first set was 350g with 640 pixels; now it's 100g with 20 times better resolution

• The Units Sold: Oculus sold 55K DK1s and 250K DK2s in 2014. Last year, 20M Quests were sold, which is more than the first 2 years of iPhones and the Nintendo 64 at its peak during that game console cycle

• Active Users: Gorilla Tag has 1M daily active users playing

The bars of success have drastically changed, and expectations are warped.

Philosophies of Hardware Weight and VR Narratives

• "Every Gram Matters" is Darshan's philosophy in hardware development.

• The opportunity within XR is in content and software. Hardware is tough and requires a huge network and a lot of capital.

• “Narrative Paradox” is a concept from Stephanie Riggs, who said the more touchpoints of interactivity, the more complicated it is to tell & experience narrative. In other words, porting IP from TV into VR falls short and requires content created for the immersive medium.

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