Game On: Marc Andreessen & Andrew Chen Talk Creative Computers
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Our assessment is basically that the world has changed. And the world has changed, is changing, and we're going to try to change IT further this enormous moral panic ground A I and another one around cypher and so forth. And so it's just this constant kind of age of negativity.

Academic are not trying to figure out how to jail break these things. And I just get so excited and I I just sharing on the jail breaks and just so excited the last thing I want as these things locked down, like I want these things to be out there, like doing all crimes sic crazy stuff. When I look at a what I see, a sort of a new kind of computer, a fundamental new kind of computer, every once a while, you get a platform shift. It's like dramatic enough for IT basically means that you both kind of kind of have to reinvent from scraps the whole idea of what the thing is in the first place.

There's something really interesting about gangs. This industry has long outsides the music on moving industries. Yeah, it's often still overlook. Sometimes it's not taken seriously. And this is all despite the fact that this very industry and it's structural chAllenges have brought us some of the most cutting and technologies used in a variety of other industries, whether that P, G, P, U, virtual and augmented reality physics engine, multiplayer experiences and a whole lot more.

So in today's episode, you'll get to hear a extensive co founder, mark, and races tag on my games are such an effective driver of this innovation. And of course, mark s got one to witness and participate in many of those technology waves. First hand, as a founder of the world's first widely use browser, noise ac, which of course became a vessel for many games itself.

In this episode, mark and asic, extensive general partner at a excise games, Andrea n, discuss so many things, including the roots of tech pessimism, engaging government effectively in tch. Why all of this matters for the gaming community, why asic cy had enough conviction to raise a dedicated games fund, the current AI wave, of course, and whether this is different from the rest, and even what mark himself would build today if he didn't have a handful. But first, let's kick things off without mark bonds, with the sun over, you guess that games.

And by the way, this is one of many more sessions recorded during our exclusive multiple k games fun accelerator, which we call speed run. And the good news, in fact, the great news is that we just announce speed run three point out who is coming to los Angeles. So if you're a founder or if you ve thought about founding your company, or quite Frankly, if you just know someone who should found a company at the intersection of games and technology, make sure to let them know about speed.

Run three point of applications are open today until may nineteen, and you can learn all of the details at asic scene 点 com flash the run three， or you can find the link in our show notes. As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential industry in any asic e fund. Please note that asic scenes year in a zuhri ates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this park recast. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see a extended 点 com slack disclosures。

Mark, I don't know if you remember the first time we met, but we actually had a conversation about singa because is during the whole facebook platform and we have lunch at hobby. This was like your favorite spot in paleo. And I know many years later, actually, we were just talking about this, that you and your son jj, have continued to have gaming as part of your experience, part of your life that you share. And so tell us about what you guys do together and kind of your connection.

yeah. So i've got any year old just after night, actually on sunday, his birthday present was a brand new ways or gaming laptop. And he loved ted right out of his little shoes.

So it's currently glue. Do IT was actually impressed. They have the sixteen of screen because we want to be portable, but they have screen and I think they want of four inches. So I never be the next present.

Yeah, look, I mean, for those of you who don't have kids, the great thing about having kids is that you as a parent, you get to just buy all the stuff that you always wanted as a kid, and you do that, you know, the cover of like, yeah, you know, this is for a kid and then you bring in home and then you take IT out. Then you just basically play with that and then afford an hour, the kid is really herriton about you because you're not letting him do IT. So yeah, we do a lot together.

Has been through four waves of gaming enthusiasm, by the way, is ending. He goes back to mine. Raft was the first one. And then robo ks and the herbal space program in matter.

We're home schooling and so he's doing like a ton along with this a lot of math and physics and computer science rocky design with the science teachers not like that. So like turbo space program turns out to be just like incredibly good for that recently faced toria. And so he is building empires on the only planet fighting bugs.

I'm holding back on with the new game held diverse and diverse two. I'm holding back on the held divers two for the moment. But I really meet the flame is, let is just a matter of time.

Well, in gaming is such an instrumental part of a lot of people's sort of personal experience with technology and computing. And many folks get into tack. And many of my friends, because they were hired ting games, trending work around all the share ware restrictions in the nineties or all the modern versions of that. And one of the interesting things that's been observed is that gaming as an industry is where a lot of these kind of alpha technologies, whether it's GPU or 3d or avatar ars， have been created. What do you think of this kind of the conomo example of that in your mind and what you think this happens in the gams industry in particular?

Ah this is really a super old trend. And so this probably goes only way back to the public space war, just like one of the first video games that was on, I think, time sharing mainframes back, like you're playing at the university of and then course. Pg, really on incredible studia.

Pg, it's hard to remember that what a bit breakthrough that was at the time, making that really seventies basis, even per person on computing, I think, is the idea of having a nk. Gay machine. This, that no one bush built, this fond of a tari built the first pung game, and he put IT IT in a zap.

The amount of you and the owner, the pizza a, called him up the day later and things broken, piece of junk, get the thing out here and he goes. And of course, the problem is it's so jammed with porters that IT literally, physically can't take quoters anymore. And so this was recurrent phenomenon.

I think it's a bush of things. I think one is, as we say, as sort of other market fit or people building for themselves. And so people who are a supercomputers tend to love gaming and they tend to want to build great games.

I think another part is just the sort of both they need in the opportunity to kind of really jammed the thoroughly forward on what the rock capability is, whatever the technology is. Remember, when three d celerity is new, the minute you have that as a core capability, IT was just like, what's the most sophisticated of possible three day game you could build? And that happened before you started doing like cat cap of things.

So I think it's that there is also a great thing about IT, which is games, our mass market phenomenon, especially these days. And so that lets you to drive Price points down. IT gives you like a direct sort of like a real path to be able to take whatever that your capability is and drive IT to the mass market superfast. And so yeah, I fully expect this trend continue, and that's obviously what we're seeing with the ee right now.

A I.

by the way, also mix is real. The killer is like a very wide march. Well, IT seems .

like so much of VR been marketed as sort of productivity and being able to do meetings and so on. But all the data saying that it's sort of high school super high retention.

it's all kids basically playing social multiplayer gaming, but it's visibly of the social gaming envionmental, not to a social envionmental. Those games are key to the experience.

That's right. Everyone in audience has read your technology manifesto and over a couple questions on this, right? So I think first is just you had to write IT because obviously, most people, for what a reason, don't seem to be optimistic today. And so why are there so many self hating technologists? What is the sort of so there's this .

recurring phenomenon in the history of new technologies, which is every new technology tends to come with what's called on moral panic. And moral panic is based this term for basically there's a new thing. And so therefore, it's evil in, bad in to show the world.

And if you go back in time, it's basically every single new technology. And so there was a huge controversy and introduction of lighting because I was going to to disturb nature. There was huge controversy about bicycles, rascals for a super controversial technology when they first came out, because IT was the first time Young people who could easily get to, like nearby towns and villagers for dating purposes.

And that really upset people. That actually the magazines at the times, like eight hundred and sixty, eight thousand and seventy, the popular magazine at the time, actually had this thing. They did this whole moral panics on this thing called icy cle face.

And then those articles about out, if you got a bicycle and wrote that the exertion required would cause your face, you know, and then if you are the bicycle like, your face would freeze like that. And then, you know, when I was a kid, there was a massive moral panic. Craon video games, I mean, was super clear, I mean, just super clear.

First person shooters, especially when that column tragedy happened, is when that whole thing went just like completely parachute. But IT was this incredible, incredible thing of, like, we're training an entire generation and killers. And of course, what happened with video against took off and actually sleep for the next thirty years, violent crime in the us.

actually. Dw, like a rock. So if anything, the correlation was the reverse. And so there's just this tenants now there, enormous moral panic and another one to one crop to and so forth. And so it's just this constant kind of bridge of negativity.

And I think it's just something I guess a fair minded person would say it's like, fair enough. The thing with your technologies is they actually do change the social order. They do actually change how society works.

And so maybe there should be some society kind of screening mechanism for kind of deciding whether these new technologies are good ideas or not. Maybe that's the generous explanation ation. That sort ungenerous explanation is just people panic and freak out.

And then IT always sounds more sophisticated to be negative than positive, right? Is like the positive person is accused of being polyana an wide eyes and immature, not cynical enough. And then the pessimistic person always sounds world where and wise and all that.

And so there's this vice that if and so these just like cost and there's just like costs, I kind of play IT on us to buy us and add us and then there's a choice and this is, you know why I wrote the manifesto. There's a choice of like how we think about these things, right? And it's really easy.

I'll let people talk you thinking that something bad is happening or doing something bad, there's something dangerous, takes real force of will to go because of that and say no is actually be really good anyway is now that new technologies don't have active consequences. Technologies are tools and they are going both negative and positive consequences. But there's just such a rich history of the moral panic predicted societal dome, and that I actually turned out everything overwhelmingly on that was fine. And I think that will continue to be what happens.

And you study this quick closely. It's unusual to me that the moral panic not only is originating in places outside of tech, but weirdly like inside of tech as well, which is by point about the self hating technologists. Like, why is that a thing?

The woman else? no.

No, no, gensec s. Jie jie was Jessie has to save us. I think there actually .

is a little bit of a generational thing to IT. The bombers were like super socially activated in the sixties and seventies with the antiwar protest, the time in the hippy movement, everything I got like and like politics and super animated. And then jena's jena's.

We were all sort of mysterious types of of cynical blazer. We would like the reverse of the bomas. We were just like distance age, and we were slackers. And we were going to take this time seriously. And then the millennium, like the multiple just activated, like they activated what the multis experience two thousand one nine eleven, two thousand eight financial crisis twenty sixteen was to see a dramatic change in american politics. yeah.

So then when they are just activated and our industry is a very large number of very Young people who are very smart, very idealistic, very hard working, very conscientious, very motivated, and they tend to take things really seriously. And it's the superpower of that as a sad, but it's also they take less of things, be too seriously. There's just a broader r kind of thing going on.

I think jensie is going to be fascinating. And then the generation after IT, there's an interesting book by the psychologist named gene twins and two goes through all the charts to call the behavior of gz, is actually looking quite a bit different than the number respects. It's going to be weird.

Hard is what do you grow up with? So if you group free internet, the media to bring around the S I don't know, like actually person point to grew around with with a social media that seems to me to be somebody with no meadii defences at all, which is like a boomer, right? So you take like somebody raised like water cricket and you like can ject them on a facebook, right? They have no ability code that whatsoever, right? Monists are kind of in middle jenee monists jenee is like pretty t right.

And so we're still like made IT everything when being like gene and you know the generation whatever going to be called the generation my son is and like gene alpha, whatever is going be called there is going to grow up having had like basically the full diet of like crazy internet, basically basically pop politics, just crazy barker's bananas, like stuff coming at, you know, the level of sophistication the kids have our like memes is just off shirts, right? And so new generations are going to be a much Better at dealing with this whole media politics matrix kind of unfolding. What you also have.

I I think growing up in the internet now, you also have like an infinite platter of subcultures that you can be part of. And that's a lot of very independent viewpoints compared to a world where we have x number of approved new sources and so on. In your essay, you talk quite a lot about some of the negative impacts of overregulation.

You have two sections won around energy and kind of what's happened in nuclear. And of course, the current ongoing discussion about AI. Now in the past, we've seen the government actually sponsor these very big innovation projects, and we've been doing more around government engagement. What is a modern kind of protect political position actually look like and what's the right way to engage government.

And yes, so people look back, you know, movie in hybrid that just swap the Oscars. Ars, which is, of course, a stronger movie, tells the manhattan project story. And then there's the famous Apollo project.

People look back on that, my friend Peter tea, a particularly it's back on those projects and says, well, those were kind of great achievements over to the moon and the winning world war two. And like massive government organized, ed taught down open hybrid era growth military project. They build new cities in three days, and they get all the world's leading physicists in one place and everybody.

He's working on a single goal, but it's just an amazing achievement. And it's like, why can't we do that anymore? And and with that sort of the deep question ones, why can't the government do that anymore? And the answer is just that was an artifact of its time, in particular the manhattan project in the four days.

Apollo is in the sixties. Modern venture capital startups, as we know and understand that we started, started in seventies. And so I think a big thing there is just at a selection, the kinds of people who can run projects like that just don't work for the government anymore.

They are in the private sector. And so just that happened is not available. And if you need to rein you're views on this, you just take a look at the california high speed rail project, which is now over ten billion and spent with zero ground broken, like not even in the inch of high speech. It's like the telephony high speed rail prevention program. And I think they're going to spend like a hundred billion dollars, like literally not amazing.

Well, all these are measured by cosa mile or whatever. And what happens we need divide by any zero.

exactly. There's these bar extensions happening and which is a more national city o and I think it's is like this darker effect for every year that goes by, you add like another billion dollars to the cost and then project out the date another three years. So it's just this project is just going to a go to infinity.

I just think those days are over. It's just not happening. And so what happens, by the way, anybody basically smart i've een into in the government basically says the same thing like the pennon.

We're not to build new weapons systems in gon we're going it's going to be private sector and therefore, companies like Andrew, our talent here is private tor. And then the relationship between government private sector is just always a little bit fraught, right? There's facing two ways to regulate things.

One way to regulate things to serve traditional american way, which is everything is a loud, except that which is prohibited is sort of one approach to law. And there's of the classic eupeptic approach, which is the opposite, which is everything is prohibited, except for that specifically prevented, right? They use just passing as A I Y, right? It's gonna a version of that, right? yes.

So you can do A I in europe if you get approval from the government at a time, which they won't you. And then we applied that method in the U. S.

For nuclear power, right? We basically decided a nuclear power was prohibited by default, right? The nuclear power story is tremendously illustrative of. So Richard next son, in the early one thousand nine hundred seventies, implemented two programs paralo. A one was a programme called project independence, which chose to build a thousand new civilian nuclear power plants in the us.

By the year thousand and eighty, and the goal from the name project independence with amErica to be energy independent from the rest of the world. So number one, to be able to pull completely out the middle east, no more of that. And the number two have basically infinite, clean and clean, zero carbon and zero carbon emissions energy coming from nuclear power points.

You notice that IT didn't happen, but that only because his other program was called the nuclear regulation commission and their job was to prevent that from happening. And they did not prove a new nuclear power plant design for forty years. wow.

And so they implemented sort of I get this other form. And so at that level, it's like, okay, then we're going to get what we want. And we as a society have to decide which way we want this to go.

Everything about how the american government Operates is orient towards trying to switch more and more to the sort of classically european model to try to bit to choke off avenges. For private innovation, a lot of people think those ideas are good, because risk of what the things are wrong, but the consequences are very severe. Basic logic, if the public sector can do IT, the private sector is not allowed to do IT is not going to happen.

And so IT like these are really big questions. And of course it's hard. You know, these are not super flashy issues that are easy for a politician get up in front of people talk about this isn't going to draw much press attention ever was sort of more politically sort of inflaming topics. But i've says a very serious underline topic.

How do you think about when founders read your manifest? You, as soon as I came out, there were such a ground swell of support and all the builders on social media talking through this. And how do you think about what founders can do or should do if they agree with everything that you're saying? What's the next level after showing social media support and then what after that?

Yeah so first is look, so this is actually super helpful. So part of is just what people proud to stand for, right? To stand for something, you have to be like a relegate and you have to be like ready to just get attack by everybody and to just have all your friends think that you're being stupid or evil, like that's hard for people.

And so the more people who actually stand up and basically say that they have a position, the more socially acceptable IT is everybody else to do IT. That's one. Two is like I went current founders to get super involved in politics because found her selle time jobs.

But there are politicians who are more on the right side of these things. And other s we're supporting we've launched sort of a really ambitious political program in the last year because we've just had IT with people basically taking free shots and all start up. And so we're trying to support a lot of the position on the right side of these issues.

And I think that something that people might choose to do. And then third is look at some point, especially if you're an industry, we are going to run this kind of thing. I think that is working about and not for the first few years, but is your company gets built out.

I think more companies, especially more Young companies in our industry are going to a have to step up and build policy groups, policy teams and political programs and have packs and put real ever get into this quite honestly. I mean, part of what's happening is big tech is against us because a lot of the political issues of now were a civil war inside the tech industry, where the big time companies are love ing very aggressively for regulatory captures. So they're loving very aggressively to have basically laws and rules that only they can comply with because they've got regions of lawyers and compliance people.

And so forest to be able to comply with all kinds of complicated rules. They're in washington all the time. And I have been for several years now basically lobbying to have regulatory barriers such that they can function. But starts can't. And I think more Young companies are just going to have to confront that directly.

You and I think in the games industry in particular is an interesting one because I think many of the folks here are many of the folks in audience. They're like, i'm part of this industry that's just about making things that are fun, like all the stuff seems so far away. And I think one of the things I would remind everyone of us, look, everything that's happening, the games industry around A I is gna absolutely affect all of us.

It's also gaming is a global industry. So you're already seeing a lot of interesting things happening in the G O. Political fear.

How active can a ten center in a night easer one of those bee? And how easier heart is that to launch the products in europe? There is a whole number of kind of consumer safety provisions.

You know, then a lot of the most interesting new platforms like U E F N and robotics, which are user generated context platforms, all the metaverse work that's also happening as well. All of those kind of follow into the whole war that happened over social media, user generated content. Because in the end, as soon as users get to actually make things and express how they feel, then all the sudden it's not that different from social media. So I think a lot of the issues, mark, that you mention in the manifesto are actually quite close as issues in .

the induction. It's not like a far away thing. The social media companies all thought that they were creating fun things for people to play. Like, I was like twitter. What did you can't have a breakfast and right if you were like a fan of twitter, you'll like, ow, it's great way to talk about my kind for breakfast. If you thought otherwise, you just thought we ter was stupid and didn't matter IT IT was irrelevant.

And my favorite example as facebook, facebook got just tons of just like this is the most trivial, stupid, useless thing that doesn't matter of, why are these people doing this, that is something important. And there is almost a deal for facebook to get up by yahoo early on. And remember, a certain very prominent technical alist be in a book right now.

I said at the time if he said bickford should take the billion yahoo deal on facebook days like one point two trillions, so he said facebook should take the billion dollar hoo position and run away as fast as his little foot flops can Carry. Um IT was just like her, just like absolute dismissal that this stuff would ever matter. And then basically within five years, IT was like, facebook is like the living demand and carnett on earth and destroying everything. IT went from like useless to evil.

And one staff, right? You know, he is never just like that. This is kind of cool, right? That's never. This story is just for some people like IT is even a pointless, are fucking evil. And look, there is a history in games like this and gaming the companies in the past to been through this. And so it's worth at least being attention .

to for your whole career. Up to this, you've been the founder and entrepreneur then starting a sixteen z if you were hypothetically exiled for a few years and you had a team of a couple dozen people to work on any problem, if you're choosing, what area would you and focusing on, and if you say I, i'll have to deeper into that obviously sense of such a big space. Yeah.

so I should starve by saying I have not pressure tested the following idea at all. I haven't. I need the things that we require our founders to do before you find them in terms of actually thinking anything through. So this is just me speculating because i'm not going to do IT. There is something I think super, super fascinating at the convergence point of us to say immersive entertainment or experiences.

And I think vrar is one version of that, but also just like immersive world's on traditional screens, the intersection of that and the intersection with A I and we're doing a lot of work in A I, A lot of working gaming, a lot of working media. And so I spent a few more of time talking folks in gaming. Think about A I games.

I spent also three more of time talking to people in entertainment and industry about A I and movies and TV of things like that. Of course, that's quite controversial already, but it's okay. The assumption in a lot of these conversations, just so a is a new way to create m assets or A S A new way to do special effects and movies.

I kind of wonder they're actually a new earth form here, right? That's actually not a game and not a movie, but it's something in the middle and it's something that's like an experience that's like totally relative user and experience that never ends. Everything is generated on the fly with the level of such of energy, but not just take kind of feedback loop between the user in the system.

The metaphor of people who use for this, as you know, dreams, is they're like a new medium here, which is basically creating dreams. And when you might say, seem sound obvious, because if I I can easily learn to generate content, and that seems like I straight forward thing. But interesting is like that's not a movie, so very different than a movie because, by the way, I might go for five thousand hours, right? And you might be seated by a human creative.

But you know, I might then be very related to specific ser weren't like that IT might be like a game but is also not quite a game because maybe you're not playing IT yb, you're experiencing IT or maybe it's some other kind. You react to IT live in IT and different way. And there is no president for this.

There is no model. There is no company that does this. The movie studio aren't going to do IT because they just make movies. Game studio companies aren't to do IT because they make games. And so I think there might be something new. And then of course, there is a single player version, but then there's, of course, the my buying ones, which are the actually multiple er dreams like what is that right?

I think the new format s are definitely interesting always because you could imagine when user generated content and getting content online, when youtube gets popular in two thousand five thousand six, you might have thought h all the content creators are going to make movies and put on youtube. But that's actually what happened.

They actually ended up making all these flags and all these shows and all these sort of new native formats that exists only on youtube. And then IT turns out that watching an hour of ten second video clips is actually more engaging than the hollywood format of that. And so I think in the same way, just as IT might be easy to think about just cost savings for gaming, for A I, that doing something that's completely a new format like you're talking about sort of feels like that. The.

and I, just as you want, I gotch a movie I can see in this head. I can see him doing the mouth of ninety minutes of movie versus forty five youtube videos. no.

So I finally created a movie club, the ad movie club, but which is sunday at lunch where we watch move. He likes that we start at the room. And so yeah, I think there's lot of signals that things ahead of in this direction.

Yes, yes, talk about A I down and something that obviously the whole firm and and yourself are spending a lot of time on. So people often compare A I to just these big general technologies that have emerged over the last few decades, whether is mobile or internet. You've obviously watched several, these from the front seat.

To what extent is AI and everything else been happening? Remind you of some of the prior waves verses. What way is a completely new and different for me.

that was happen the right now? Doesn't matter any of those in the reasons, because when I look at A I, I see a sort of a new kind of computer, a fundamental new kind of computer in the way I would describe that. This goes to all the conversion issues around I also, which is for eighty years we've had a model of a computer, which is sort of super literal thing, that came to math a and cycles the second.

But you specifically what to do every single time, you know? And we call these deterministic computers, where you tel IT exactly what to do. IT always gives you the same answer.

Better way, if IT doesn't give you the right thing, something is because you screw up, right? You program IT wrong. When I use l answer, the fusion models with these things is, no, i'm dealing with a different kind of computer, right? There's input, there's output.

It's doing things for me, but it's a probably stic computer. And IT starts with the same question twice that gives you different answers is which is just enough itself a pretty my bring thing. And then there's the holus nation thing.

The whole nation thing is an incredible thing, is like engineers look at the Lucy ation thing and they like, well, this is like a crippling problem. I can't believe this thing is like making a answers. IT doesn't know what the truth is, but if you put your kind of creative hat on our talk to creative people, they're like well as creating, right.

It's like you have a computer is creative things, right? And you get in only philological debate about what the nature creation is, an originality, all that. But like it's creating things and sometimes the things that creates are pretty funny and pretty retaining.

These are creative computers. They have been all these examples recently. But I think I was asked, airlines put one on line as the cost of a support, but a lot of airlines have some bread ment policy where you can give free flights to go to funerals or something.

And there's that Alice realizes didn't have agreeement policy, but the L. M. Felt sorry for the customer. So I made up reveal policy and promising refine on this ticket.

And then there was another case where the gm beal ship put up a sales chatbot, and I talked the customer to buying a tesla. So and I see it's like puzzles is really great car, much more environmental friendly if you're little mind to do you look at that your horse, ed. But if you put your creative at or like, wow, it's like the cool thing i've ever I get excited.

I live on twitter and it's actually I not trying to figure how to jail break these things. And I just get so excited and I I just sharing on the jail breaks and just so excited. The last thing I want as these things locked down, like I want these things to be out there, like doing all kinds of crazy stuff, I think it's absolutely antasari.

Is like, I think the metaphor, if anything, is just like the creation of the microprocessor or something, is the birth of a new kind of computer. By the way, if you go back in history, there is a great book on neal network, which is the foundational technology behind all. This was actually to eighty years ago, in one thousand nine hundred and forty three.

amazing. The first neural network aper, that basically all of our work today is still derry from that. There was actually a debate in the nason computer world in the thirties and early four years when they were just the stuff to start to work.

And there was a whole school thought that said, what they call vini machines sa in kind of model was actually the role model. And that basic, the entire computer should have been built from scratch on the model of the human brain. And they had basically this exact discussion back then, and sort of a very crude, simple form, and sort of history one way.

And history is gonna come back around. And now we have both to choose from. And so I think now we're going to live in a world where basically you're going to have a proliferation of a is in the same way that you've had microchips, by the way, there are going to be pair.

basically. I think anything with the chip is onna have an A I and you're just going to assume that everything has an A I. And there is going to be many billions of tiny models running everywhere. There's going to be a few big god models in the sky. Then there's gonna a lot of stuff in the medal being customize and tailor.

To what if extent you think that when the web was created and when mobile apps are created because there is this rushed to sort of redesign the user interface that that sort of allowed new startups to sort of be able to come in new existence with sort of the mobile native way of doing things as opposed to the prior version? And this is interesting because the platforms are still kind of the same. And so to what extent you think in combine just have the upper hand by just integrating AI features into their existing products versus start up speaking able to do something ruching? yeah.

So this is the big thing that we always think about in our daydreams and venture capital, which is like, okay, they're certain technology ships for the incomes could just have and then there's really not an opportunity for startups. And this area here would be photoshop just as A I photo editing. And you're done right? It's just is done they just they're done.

Role he's going dobe is the company, by the way, that's true for a lot of new technology are like that. You just going to add the anything. And by the way, even mobile, like there were some new mobile companies like uber and lift in bnb.

But look, google and facebook adapt the mobile just fine. There is no mobile searching, right? That took over.

One of the recent instagram is so bigger because facebook liberates made IT big by transfer over a lot of the usage. And so IT turned out there wasn't independent start of opportunities. But every once in a while, you get a platform shift.

That split dramatic enough for IT basically means that you both kind of can and have to reinvent from scratch the whole idea of what the thing is in the first place. And so like journey, so photoshop plus I major ny or deli. And so in the full version of platform shift, basically the whole idea of photoshop plus image dating is just at some point, this becomes completely relevant.

Can you believe people use to do that? People used to fit with pixel like seriously, because you'll live in this new world. In new world, you will just tell machine what you want for a photo, for an image, and it'll generate as many options as you want.

And it's generating you something is Better than you would have been able to do anyway. And you're totally happy. The whole idea of fitting with image pixels is like writing and machine code.

People still right? Horses is just like for like rich, fancy people 会 测算。 And so in this scenario day, people will still the imagination, but IT will be like three, like weird designers in early or something that will still be this kind of thing. Graphic designers in their retirement just be a new way of doing things right. And then basically are bad, always is like when we make mistakes, because we kind of over estimate that degrade, which is is going to happen.

But our whole thing is to basically tried to get in front of this and try to really make the assumption that gonna have complete turn over and looks this is happen before, like there's an entire generation to main from soft companies that turned over that didn't exist anymore. Basically once the PC came out. A lot of the PC ofer companies never adapt the web.

A lot of those companies just want a way these kinds of shift to do happen. They are radical. The key question that was like kenney reinvent the entire product, can you imagine the old rules don't apply anymore? There's a completely different way of doing this. Certainly feels like talking a little .

bit more about kind of in companies that sort of this thought that there is a world in which the AI models are owned by a small number of companies. The god models in the sky verses the version where there are lots and lots of little things. And I know we've talked quite a bit about the role of open source potentially in A I IT would be great to hear you expand on that and the importance of that.

If you listen, the big companies in this part of what we call the sort of incomes big to companies doing A I and and what we call the new incomes, which, like the companies that have a billion of dollars, companies with the audience comments, if you listen to them, you see, hear two things. Number one is obviously everybody is only ever going to use the big models.

And the reason for that, by the way, is very good argument in that direction, which is there's just always going have the best answers, right, where they basically say is like this markets gna be like the search market was like, which is, of course, you're always just going to ask google lagus like there's no market for vertical surge changes in all these different domains. Google just always gives you the best search on practically everything. They turned out there was no start of opportunity to to build smaller search engines.

And so it's just obviously that everybody he's just going to run and everybody is onna tap into A H H GPT or claude something or API and pay by the drink. And that's the way, going to work. And then of course, everything you hear from those companies is A I is scary and evil and need to be regulated.

And we need this regulatory wall so that startups can't function anyway. And by the way, we should probably ban open source for edit because that's also involves theory. So it's sort of interesting how those state must go together. We are big believer s in the exact opposite. Like I said, we're big believer s that there is just going to be such a giant number of use cases specific and there be a giant number of like a local use cases.

Your door knob is going to have A L A minute is going to control whether not people get through the door, right? And are you really going to do a around trip up to the supercomputer in the cloud to do that? By the way, do you want to because do you want the supercomputer in the cloud knowing who's coming in out of your house? And there's just the cost associated with that is going to be very expensive relative to what you can do with this small model in the darn up and by extension, and everything else. Then yeah, open source is clearly a way to kind of give people the flexibility to be able to implement A I and basically everything. And we're verified about that as one example where the major investors in the straw, which is right now the leading A I open source company, yes, and we're going to fight hard to help them six have this model to see yeah I mean.

it's been so impressive go from I remember being at a point where we were all just sending articles around and screen shots of things that we were doing on ChatGPT y to all the sudden this being really the primary focus on the firm .

and ton of hiring, a ton of new efforts, everything and its related video. And it's just like, wow, the implications of this, like the entire nature of what video is could change, right? Just like the entire assumption of what's in the video and how rest users like the whole thing.

One of these things where you could imagine looking back in a decade and being like, I can't believe people used to watch videos at all, which doesn't make any sense. It's like washing a asylum vibe. Obviously, video should be like responsive in real time, this kind of thing. Entire world of everything involving video might just like completely change.

awesome. Well, i'll wrap up with one or two kind of final questions. One is talk to us about how when we began doing more investing in games.

And actually, before I even showed up at the firm, I think we had invested in singh, oculus and a couple others, I think Christie s, and had pioneer a lot of IT. But what was that? That gave you personally the conviction to take on games as one of the main areas for a sixty?

Yeah, then there's a classic argument you will hear in venture if you talk to VC. Is this class argument you'll here as toy VC. Shouldn't investment games basically an artifact in my view of load of the eighty, ninety two thousands period in which is actually was pretty dangerous in investment games? And the reason for IT was just number one games or sort of you is like quashed driven business, like a movie or something.

And then there were just echo omics, the float from that, that basically said the movie studios make most of money movies, the platform publishing companies like make most the money in games. And even if you started to start up studio, you building your game. French is i'll just step bot by one of the platform companies.

And there's not really much upside to IT because of the industrial logic of distribution and all those things. And so IT was not considered to be a viable area for venture investment for a long time. Our assessment is basically that the world has changed.

And the world has changed is changing, and we're going to try to change IT further. And I guess I say several things. So one has game as package software that looks like a movie versus game as sort of permanent platform. Foundation that then you end up building twenty or thirty or forty years of experiences on top of now this is getting more obvious because you know any go right through your my craft or blocks.

There's more, more examples were are clearly this is exactly what's happening basically from a business standpoint, asset that should grow on value for decades and they can keep getting users and keep betting content, keep betting experiences and keep broad out. That's totally venture investment that there's a great businesses. So that's one.

Two is looked like all these other technologies kicking in. And so the traditional game industry was an artifact historical of basically not being online, right? And even still today, what against you buy like they may have multiple player mode and not really built as like full online experiences, but now you can build t as like full online experiences.

And you can take advantage, you can, every economist you can to have use generated content platforms. You can use many ways to make these just like fundamentally more sophisticated experience and so hard to get the benefit of all these algan innovative. And then I was, say, third is just founders.

This is of the thing of the past, is like a lot of the great game designers of the past, and a little bit like movie records. They want to build a game. They want to get paid in cash to build this game.

I want to build another game is probably different game. fundamentally. They kind of want to work for a studio because best where they get that deal. Our kind of founder is not that our kind of founder wants to build a product, but then he wants to build business and to build a company and want to build something that's gonna, environing and expensive and have enormous vision and become very big important in the and have a giant R N D agenda and very aggressive product to grow map and so forth. And then when their own thing and then actually being controlled, the whole thing. We've been very encouraged by the number of my people coming out of gaming who want that because they see that other sectors of software attack and they want to do that and then were .

also trying to help and curse that yeah and that's persons been one of the most interesting things about building the speed run program is just being able to use a marketing motion to just discover all the founders that want to work in game studios are the building infrastructure of the ding A I. And just the enormous number of them. Many of you know that last year when we put this out there, IT was nearly six thousand companies actually applied to be part of the speed on program, and we anticipate continuing to grow. And so there's just a fantastic amount of talent thing .

is very exciting for me as I think games is entertainment and a fantastic, very socially positive product. And I love is great. But also we mentioned earlier, like the games are always are on like the cutting edge of applying or technology.

Yes, I also think like the skill set of what IT taste to make great games. I think also more more just going apply in many other domains. And so people try this for, like some day there going to be a great educational experience, a great on an educational experience.

And it's going to look and feel like a game like that just seems like this so clear, right? And the great health problems of our time, if you just look at the numbers, the heart problems of our time are not like red and things that just happen to us. The great health problems of our time with the consequences of our own behavior.

They they called meta lic diseases. In fact, you're lazy, you don't get to sleep, right? And then is all this downstream diabetes and cancer.

Everything is hard to text, is downed am from that is very clear, the whole, the world of health care is not of some things wrong going to go to. I get a fixed health has to be transformed into healthy my entire life because I making myself healthy. And that's a hard thing to do.

And the system that supports you in doing that is going to feel like a game IT because IT has to be engaging. IT has to be something that you enjoy dealing worth. And so there's no question like that's going to happen. There's all of these other areas of life and business, I think, that are going to get transformed by this kind of mentality and skills set in.

Righting on something that you ve said in the past is we're willing to spend a billion dollars building grand theft of auto, and we're willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to create a movie. But when IT comes to what is the most amazing computer science to win class, how much money are we willing to put in to that versus how much amazing output do we get from potentially building something at that quality for something like.

yeah it's amazing. You the best university in the world, you guys all but through this, mostly, I think you gonna lege at least for one day before you drift up. But the moves like made this like super clear, right, is just okay, mtc s one to one, like whatever that is. It's just, oh, is after whatever two hundred or whatever amount of time they put in, trying to figure out it's just still due in front of shopboard.

It's just like really and so yes, so they thought and I always proposing in the firm is let's the model where you had Stephen spoiled berg to make c us want to want right? And is the two hundred million dollars in and it's like the most like fantastically ally entertaining thing you ve ever seen. That's the movie version you have.

I don't somebody to make that sound like a make game version right? exactly. Look, could you afford to do that? It's like, well, look, you just take the total number of kids in the world that need to learn computer science, at least in theory, the numbers that there you can make the economics work yeah so yes, people have taken things that this there been really successes.

but nobody y's done the big thing. Yes, I think talk about what you hope a sixteen and also just honestly, this broader community founders is able to accomplish in the gaming industry and kind of the adjacent sectors. What is success look like for what's your aspiration .

for what happens in the in is a lot ways to think for transformation. We talk a lot about new business models. We talk a lot about applying game methods, outset of gaming.

I think those are all great. And then again, I think entertainment, always like this. Entertain is trivial.

Every team is not trivial. And I supposed to go through your life depressed, being like drug. Oh right.

Like we're supposed to have fun. Like I was supposed to be fun, supposed enjoyable. We're supposed to have like games and movies and things that we like to.

It's great, right? So the single biggest one we would just love for there to be is just to be Crystal clear that the primary opportunity for the best people in this field as they can build companies and they can build companies that are able to be independent, they're able to have very distinct visions, very radical ideas. They're able to build teams to execute against that.

And then really crucially, based on their early success, they are then able to build themselves into institutions that can really endure for a long time and then have extremely expensive product road maps, right? The example, this facebook, I tell the flip story earlier, this twenty billion lars market worked himself in a position where do that? And the google guys have been able to do that in other early in cars.

And and so when these companies get in position where theyve got like that kind of basically vision at the home, the sort of founders and founders s at the best company is, then they have their early win. They can get a position where they can start to really do really big, ambitious things. And so I think my hope with me that the companies that all of you are doing, the result of that is going to be a set of companies that are really, really world finding in the decades.

Amazon.

let's give mark hands.

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