{"id":11550,"date":"2022-07-06T08:05:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T12:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/?p=11550"},"modified":"2022-07-12T09:02:59","modified_gmt":"2022-07-12T13:02:59","slug":"episode-40-a-simple-idea-for-a-complex-metaverse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/episode-40-a-simple-idea-for-a-complex-metaverse\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 40: A Simple Idea for a Complex Metaverse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Daniel Liebeskind is the co-founder and CEO of Topia, a virtual gathering platform that helps people create a social experience in the metaverse. In 2020, Topia was one of the co-hosts of the first-ever virtual Burning Man, a \u201cvibey\u201d virtual vacation and spiritual retreat with over 20,000 attendees. Daniel and David sit down to discuss the profound impact of IRL connections, the challenges of online-only interactions, and how Meetup events in the metaverse can bridge that gap. The conversation touches on everything from the link between wizardry and coding to the lack of serendipity on Zoom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Spotify Embed: A Simple Idea for a Complex Metaverse\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/6IvGLpVOtXs1UoUbRwXB7p?utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Ranked as one of the top <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.feedspot.com\/ceo_podcasts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">25 CEO podcasts on Feedspot<\/a>, Keep Connected with Meetup CEO David Siegel is a podcast about the power of community. For more details on other episodes, visit Keep Connected on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/category\/keep-connected-podcast\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Meetup Community Matters blog<\/a>.<br>We hope you\u2019ll keep connected with us. Drop us a line at podcast@meetup.com. If you like the podcast, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/podcast\/id1545712240\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n<h2>Show Notes<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Before we get into this episode, I have something important to share. Check out my new book <em>Decide and Conquer<\/em> to get to know my story at <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Meetup<\/strong><\/a><strong>. The hardest thing about community leadership is making tough decisions when the stakes are high. They were never higher than when Meetup was owned and sold by <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>WeWork<\/strong><\/a><strong>. In my new book, <em>Decide and Conquer<\/em>, I\u2019ll walk you through a counterintuitive framework for decision-making and the epic journey of Meetup\u2019s surprising survival. Good leaders deliberate. Great leaders decide. Order my book by visiting <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.decideandconquerbook.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>DecideAndConquerBook.com<\/strong><\/a> <strong>or anywhere books are sold. You will like it.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong>&#8212;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>In this episode, we are talking to Daniel Liebeskind. He is the Cofounder and CEO of <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.topia.io\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Topia<\/strong><\/a><strong>, a virtual gathering platform that helps to create a social experience in the metaverse. We are going to learn a lot from Daniel. Here we go.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong>&#8212;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Welcome, <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.topia.io\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Daniel<\/strong><\/a><strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>David, it\u2019s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You might ask, who is this Daniel? As our readers know, <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Meetup<\/strong><\/a><strong> has always been about in-person until the pandemic. Virtual platforms are not going away anytime soon. They can truly drive real community. We are talking to Daniel Liebeskind, an expert in virtual communities and the Founder of <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.topia.io\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Topia<\/strong><\/a><strong>, a virtual community platform. Let\u2019s start a little bit with an overview of virtual communities. Tell us some of the benefits and challenges in virtual communities overall. I want to spend time talking about Topia and you. Go from there.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You probably have similar feelings on this but one of the things about a virtual community that\u2019s interesting is that access to that community is expanded. In person, one of the challenges is you\u2019re geographically and even socioeconomically constrained to those that live nearby and can afford whatever the ticket cost is. Something like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.burningman.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Burning Man<\/a>, for example, has a gigantic community theoretically of people all over the world. The ethos is that they want to spread the principles all over the world but only 70,000 people a year can be at the in-person event. It is incredibly expensive.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How expensive is it? I\u2019ve heard that there are multimillionaires that will go to Burning Man and sit at these high-end glamping experiences. The clothing isn\u2019t that expensive there from what I hear. It\u2019s a pretty penny.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Even the clothing, people spend a fortune on their outfits, costumes, and those sorts of things. The ticket itself is $500. You have to bring all your food, water, and a tent and travel there. It\u2019s in the middle of the desert. All in, it will be something like $1,500 to go. That\u2019s not that accessible to most people. Having a hybrid event where there are people in-person that are part of the in-person community, being able to have millions of people that are part of the virtual community, and having those intersect each other expands the impact that a community can have. That\u2019s one of the things we\u2019re seeing with virtual communities. Frankly, there are communities that exist just virtually. There are many that have both an in-person presence and an annual Meetup where people are able to get together every week in a virtual context from all over the world.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Access is one. The benefits of hybrid are second. Are there challenges in virtual-only communities? If so, what are they? There is a place for virtual-only communities without a doubt. What can they do to try to counteract some of those challenges in your mind?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been a big fan of Meetup for a long time. The mission is to solve the loneliness epidemic. Virtual communities can help with that but they\u2019re not in-person. That distinction remains to be seen. For example, if somebody lives purely in virtual communities, whether they\u2019re going to be cured of loneliness or we need physical contact and in-person energy. We\u2019re still figuring out those kinds of things.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you think you need in-person energy to feel a real connection?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I like in-person. My mission is not to replace in-person but instead to expand access to these kinds of communities, experiences, and human connections to make it easier to do those things. My mission is very much not to have us all live in Ready Player One and never intersect in real life. I love in-person meetings, gatherings, energy, dancing, music, and vibes. It\u2019s hard to replace that. I don\u2019t even think that should be the goal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That\u2019s particularly for niche-type groups like someone extremely interested in FIRE, which is about retiring early, or a very specific area of a hobby that someone might have. If you\u2019re in a smaller city, you\u2019re not going to necessarily have a group of people that are super interested in collecting stamps of DVDs. I don\u2019t know what niche you could get for those kinds of things. When it comes to virtual, it gives you that access to these specific topics, which can be incredibly bonding for many people.<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Each generation has its own story you can draw inspiration from. If you can bind internally to some character arc you make for yourself, it will motivate you to do anything.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>When you talk about loneliness, one of the things that can make somebody feel incredibly lonely is feeling like they\u2019re the only one that they know or that they have access to that is interested or has certain beliefs that they have. You hear that all the time in small cities. It\u2019s one of the reasons that people want to move to New York City when they\u2019re young. I did this. There, for anything that you\u2019re interested in, there\u2019s a whole community of people that are interested in that same thing. You do find that on the internet as well.<\/p>\n<p>I believed for a long time that with the emergence of more universal Wi-Fi, productivity tools, and even the expense of some major cities, people were going to go more remote in general. There\u2019s going to be a drive towards living in the woods and returning to nature. The ability to remote work was expanding well before the pandemic. We saw a trend line. With remote work, you need remote play and community. It would be magical to not have to live in New York City to find a community around your niche interests. That is one of the things that we will see with virtual communities.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I don\u2019t want to get the Zoom gods against us but Zoom is easy because everyone knows Zoom. Everyone has a Zoom account. It\u2019s super easy to use Zoom for one\u2019s virtual communities and virtual events. I want to go too deep into Topia but I do want you to highlight some of the challenges with Zoom and ways in which people can have virtual events that could ideally be more meaningful at Meetup or outside of Meetup.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Zoom is incredible at what it is made for, which is meetings where one person at a time is speaking or where it\u2019s heavily facilitated by somebody that\u2019s putting people into breakout rooms, bringing them back, and curating the experience. What it\u2019s not great for is emulating a real-life cocktail hour or happy hour Meetup. One of the magical things about Meetup if you meet a few people on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/\">Meetup.com<\/a> or you a community or an event and go in person is the serendipity. It\u2019s the wandering around the event, meeting people randomly, not having somebody telling you exactly what to do, and not listening to one person at a time speak the entire time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Any Zoom serendipity is a scary moment. We have seen lots of videos of inappropriate and weird things happening on a Zoom call. That\u2019s not the serendipity you want but there\u2019s good serendipity that could happen. How do you create serendipity in a virtual way?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You need to create context. One of the things about an in-person meeting is that you\u2019re meeting somewhere. There\u2019s a place that you\u2019re meeting and it has context. If you\u2019re meeting at a bar, a bowling alley, or a baseball game, all of these different contexts make a huge difference in how you interact with the people around you.<\/p>\n<p>The bonds that you form with others are based on the social experiences that you have and the memories that you\u2019re able to form, which are largely driven by the context around you. Virtually, Zoom has no context. It\u2019s just people staring at each other in the face. A lot of what you\u2019re seeing with platforms like Topia is trying to make it easy for people to create places and context and bring people together in those spaces in the same way that people do in the real world.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You\u2019re a creator. Why is creating so important to you? You would think it should be important to everyone but it\u2019s not. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I grew up reading Harry Potter. I was embarrassingly old, but I thought that I had magical powers at one point. I would develop them. I have this character arc for myself in my head. As I grew up, I realized that I wasn\u2019t a wizard. I wasn\u2019t going to have magical powers but there was a way to be able to be a real-life sorcerer. Being able to learn how to code is like learning spells and being able to manifest things that you or other people imagine. Some of these are talking about an idea and being able to conjure that thing and then do it in a way where people will get joy from it and love it. There\u2019s something deeply tied to magic, wizardry, joy, and energy in the creation process.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That is one of the most interesting reasons why people decide to go into computer science engineering because, in their minds, it\u2019s the path towards magic and sorcery from the lens of Peter Pan of yore or Harry Potter of now. First of all, it makes me think about how many engineers JK Rowling may have created from her books because it sounds like it had a real impact on you.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not just Harry Potter. There\u2019s Lord of the Rings. There are many other series. With Harry Potter, what was interesting is I grew up the same age as Harry. It was that discovery of magic. It was being a muggle or a normal person and then the journey of discovery, growth, conquering challenges, and being kind to people. Not always being nice, which is something that you point out a lot, and certainly being kind. The whole thing resonated with me. I happened to grow up at the exact moment in that arc.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11577\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11577\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11577\" src=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Graphics-Caption-1-KCM-40-Daniel-Liebeskind.jpg\" alt=\"KCM 40 Daniel | Virtual Communities\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Graphics-Caption-1-KCM-40-Daniel-Liebeskind.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Graphics-Caption-1-KCM-40-Daniel-Liebeskind-473x315.jpg 473w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11577\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Virtual Communities: Virtual communities will not replace in-person gatherings. Instead, they expand on them, making it easier to build human connections.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>For others or the generation before me, it was things like Lord of the Rings and the elven empires and conjuring things that way. Each generation has its stories. It\u2019s whatever you find that you can draw inspiration from. That becomes an internal inspiration. People talk about external and internal motivators. If you can find a story and bind yourself internally to some character arc that you make for yourself, that can be motivating for you to do anything that you can imagine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I feel honestly so motivated to start taking some computer science classes and figure out how to build that. There are different ways of building. I\u2019m more on the business side of the building. You\u2019re more on the tech side. I don\u2019t think you could build amazing experiences without both. That\u2019s a fresh outlook and way of understanding the creative process. Thank you for sharing that.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Technical or business, it\u2019s very similar. There are rules of the game. You\u2019re learning how to use different variables to create success for yourself and also for everybody that\u2019s counting on you and everybody that\u2019s a stakeholder in whatever it is you\u2019re doing. The business side is very Harry Potter as well. If you think of it that way, it certainly can be. You can create whatever you want. I created twenty different things in isolation often. I had different teams.<\/p>\n<p><strong>No one follows you.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Nobody cares. Often, it takes an ability to distribute, bring people together, and lead to make things useful. You can create things that are not useful all day. That doesn\u2019t matter. It doesn\u2019t have an impact and brings joy. There are two sides to any coin. Being able to organize, bring people together, distribute the thing, and get it into people\u2019s hands that care about it is as important as building it, frankly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The most complex creation can be incredibly unhelpful. The most simple creation can be powerful for so many. You\u2019ve spoken a lot about democratizing access, and I love that. Are there any concrete examples that you can give of giving people access that you\u2019ve heard from Topia and outside that people would never have had if in-person was the only way of going?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are many stories. I\u2019m sure you have a lot of them yourself with Meetup. One that sprung to mind is a couple of years ago, we had two countries that were in conflict with one another. We had people from each side wind up at a digital event. They started having a debate. There were other people standing by, listening, and participating in the debate that they were having. I wasn\u2019t there but I heard the anecdote about it. What struck some of the participants and me is that the debate that we were having was very civil because they were seeing each other and looking into the whites of each other\u2019s eyes. They were in a safe context.<\/p>\n<p>If you have that interaction in an asynchronous forum or something and people were hiding behind a username and weren\u2019t looking at each other, that\u2019s when you often get some very toxic interactions. Seeing another human being and being in a safe space makes people act more human. It\u2019s one of the important things in the evolution of the internet into something that provides a more synchronous social context. It makes people act more human towards each other.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s important that you had that. Let\u2019s talk a little bit about what we have both been reading a ton of, which is around virtual fatigue and burnout of people being in front of their computers. There are ways of making virtual events fresh. What advice would you give to the tens of thousands of Meetup readers and non-Meetup readers about how to make their virtual experiences fresh and amazing? How to avoid that burnout of being in front of the laptop all the time? Maybe, it\u2019s not as good as in-person but it\u2019s still a truly energizing experience when you walk out of there like when you come back from an in-person event oftentimes. You\u2019re like, \u201cI met these amazing people. I\u2019m so energized. I have three follow-ups.\u201d How do you create that even more so virtually?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t have a silver bullet for it but there are two things that you find in person that you can better emulate online historically with something like Zoom. One is having the ability to move around, meet people, and frankly leave a conversation that you don\u2019t feel energized by. One of the things that you do in person at a Meetup is to gravitate towards wherever you\u2019re going to get energy or find serendipity. You\u2019re able to leave conversations. Sometimes you have to make an excuse, \u201cI\u2019m getting a drink. I\u2019m going to the bathroom. I need to make a call.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>You have to find some path to moving to the next person.<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Seeing another human being in a safe space makes them act more human. It\u2019s an important aspect of the internet\u2019s evolution that provides a more synchronous social context.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>One of the weird revelations we had in digital is that it\u2019s way less awkward to walk away. In-person, you have to make some excuse but in Topia, you might be connected to eight other people having a conversation, and you walk away. Nobody says anything. Nobody even cares. There\u2019s more permission in a digital context to move in and out of conversations. That can be very calming knowing that you have an escape. What stresses people out about Zoom is they\u2019re locked in. There\u2019s nowhere to go. You can\u2019t get away from it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sometimes you do feel stuck in Zoom. You certainly feel stuck in person. That is a great value of Topia or other such platforms where you could easily connect out of a conversation that may not be working. You had a second thing as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For people that are organizing events, we call these people confluencers. A confluence in nature is where a bunch of different rivers come together and become one. A confluencer in a digital context is a person or an entity that brings people together to be a community. The unsung heroes of the world are the people that are organizing things and bringing people together.<\/p>\n<p>Often they get very little value returned to them aside from creating that energy and bringing their friends together. It\u2019s looking at some of the things that work in person and then trying to emulate those with technologies that allow you to emulate them. Everybody has been to Meetups where it\u2019s amazing, the energy is flowing, and you have so many different conversations.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve been to ones where everybody is stagnant and nobody is moving. One of the interesting things that I\u2019ve found is that movement makes a huge difference in encouraging movement within the in-person and digital Meetup. It\u2019s encouraging people to switch who they\u2019re talking to and announcing, \u201cEverybody, whoever you\u2019re talking to, talk to somebody else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>There are musical Meetups and events. You can switch. That\u2019s cool. You could do that. Speaking of movement, some of the best conversations and one-on-ones that I\u2019ve ever had with people who work with me or I work for are when I say, \u201cLet\u2019s take a walk outside.\u201d You\u2019re walking together. I\u2019m always thinking more clearly when I\u2019m doing it versus the staleness of sitting in the office.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>It does matter when you\u2019re moving around, whether it\u2019s virtual or in-person. You mentioned upfront this virtual Burning Man. If I can\u2019t think of anything that\u2019s probably more physically aligned, it\u2019s Burning Man in some way. Tell me about the virtual Burning Man event that you ran. How many people were there? What happened? What worked? What didn\u2019t work? I would love to hear about that.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We were one of the co-hosts of the virtual Burning Man in 2020. It was four months after our first line of code, which is a month into the pandemic. That was 2020. We ran it again in 2021. We had over 20,000 people each time that came to the experience. They were wildly different. The first time, we were trying to get out a system where people can get together. We built a whole world.<\/p>\n<p>In Topia, you can empower people to build portals to the worlds that they\u2019re building. Anybody that has been to Burning Man knows that you have a main playa and then there are hundreds of camps. Each camp is run by organizers or individuals that take on the responsibility of building something out and offering something to the community. We enabled that as well.<\/p>\n<p>In the first one, we had 50 different camps. There were entire worlds that were built with portals from the main playa. They had events that were scheduled, comedians, and singers. For the second one in 2021, we hosted an entire music festival. We had a whole lineup. That was fun. We had portals to worlds. The worlds were way better built out because we have better tools in that second year.<\/p>\n<p>It was vibey. It was interesting though. To people that had been to Burning Man many times, it was very mixed. Some people are like, \u201cThis is similar. It\u2019s amazing that all these people that have never been to Burning Man are able to experience this.\u201d Others were like, \u201cThis is stupid. It\u2019s nothing like the actual Burning Man. What are we even doing in here?\u201d They\u2019re divided that way, which was fascinating.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11578\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11578\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11578\" src=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Graphics-Caption-2-KCM-40-Daniel-Liebeskind.jpg\" alt=\"KCM 40 Daniel | Virtual Communities\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Graphics-Caption-2-KCM-40-Daniel-Liebeskind.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Graphics-Caption-2-KCM-40-Daniel-Liebeskind-473x315.jpg 473w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11578\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Virtual Communities: Movement makes a huge difference within in-person meetups. In the digital environment, encourage people to switch to the person they are talking to.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>They gave it a shot.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A lot of people had always been curious about Burning Man but had never pulled the trigger. There are a lot of reasons that\u2019s going, \u201cIt is scary. It\u2019s expensive and prohibitive.\u201d They don\u2019t have friends that are going to go with them and the time off. A lot of those people experienced it for the first time. You did get the vibe. They got the ethos. It was a powerful experience for a lot of those folks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s a good way to dip your toe in the water before dipping your entire body into the Burning Man water. It is on my bucket list of things to do one day. Our chairman, Kevin Ryan, has been going to Burning Man for 5 to 10 years and swears by the experience. One day, he and I will hopefully get a chance to go together.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s happening again in person in 2022. The tickets sold out in ten seconds. They sold half the tickets that they normally do. There were five times as many people trying to buy them or something like that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>There\u2019s a lot of deep-seated need to get out and do fun, meaningful, and exciting things. Burning Man is the penultimate of those experiences. As our readers can tell, Daniel is not your typical person. He is in certain ways a tinker and a genius. For those reading, you can\u2019t see what Daniel looks like but he\u2019s got the ponytail, stubble, and cool vibe going on. I know there\u2019s a story behind you and why the community is important to you. Share a little bit about why is community such an important passion of yours. I would love to hear about it.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are a few things. One, I grew up with a large family. We would go to summer camp. My entire extended family would descend on the summer camp and make up a quarter of the kids or something like that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How big was your family? Your parents have how many siblings?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are four on each side and then lots of cousins. My mom was the camp doctor. It was a Jewish camp. My uncle is a rabbi.<\/p>\n<p><strong>This is Camp Liebeskind.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s called the Eisner. That was my first introduction to a community. We would go every year. It was a beautiful experience. Even with my cousins, family events were steeped in a community and seeing dynamics that have stuck with me through life. That was my first deep immersion in a community. I built apps for eight years. I had a dev shop. I built 22 different applications over that time.<\/p>\n<p>I was a digital nomad. I was traveling the world. I lived in Thailand and Bali. There were spiritual communities that I was part of and yogis. That was my inspiration for wanting to create a platform for creators, artists, musicians, and yogis that needed a way to create their digital ecosystems and then bring people together at scale. That was something hard for people that were living in Thailand that didn\u2019t understand computers.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Being kind to people is critical. Be sure to manifest that positive to the world.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I haven\u2019t made something that\u2019s perfect for them yet but that is part of the inspiration. The community, the energy, and the experiences of meeting different people and having serendipity were amazing. I would be living in Bali and I would go to Thailand. I would see somebody from my Bali community in Thailand. The moment that we know each other in this new context was so powerful. In many ways, those kinds of experiences were what drove me to be who I am.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You\u2019re such an extrovert and outgoing. Were you ever in a lonely place? When you were traveling the world, you meet a ton of people. That\u2019s why you weren\u2019t lonely because of those communities.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think of myself as an introvert that\u2019s disguised as an extrovert. When I was a kid, I played a lot of video games. I built games. That was my passion. I had friends but it wasn\u2019t my driver. I liked creating and frankly connecting online. Multiplayer games have been a way that I\u2019ve connected with my IRL friends. I played video games and multiplayer games. That was our thing. I had aspects of being lonely when I was a kid that way. I isolated myself in my room for periods. I had some existential crises when I was 16 to 17 as many kids do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You read a lot of Ayn Rand back then.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I did read <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aynrand.org\/novels\/atlas-shrugged\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Atlas Shrugged<\/em><\/a>. I was a libertarian all of that. I wouldn\u2019t say I\u2019m a particularly lonely person. I\u2019ve always been able to find a community in the places that I go. For periods of time, I have self-isolated intentionally. One of the things that recharge me is alone time. It\u2019s being in the woods in particular by myself, walking, hiking, or going on an epic adventure by myself or with 1 or 2 other people. Sometimes I get overwhelmed when there are tons of people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It dates back to those early days at camp and the impact that camp had perhaps for you on being an outdoors person and how meaningful it was. I was reading a book about the importance of spending alone time, like 1, 2, or 3 days by yourself. It doesn\u2019t mean be a monk and spend 30 days by oneself. The day before Passover, I tested positive. We have a second home. I went to our second home and isolated for five days completely by myself. A lot of people said, \u201cThat must have been so hard to spend the holiday by yourself, etc.\u201d I said, \u201cThere was something very therapeutic about being in nature.\u201d It\u2019s a calving area in nature. It\u2019s healthy. For people that do have that inclination, that can be powerful.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s amazing. Here\u2019s another random anecdote. At the digital Burning Man, we made the whole background black. It felt nighttime and very much like what Burning Man feels like. One night, I left the group I was talking to and having an experience with and biked around the playa for an hour by myself. It felt a little bit like when you\u2019re at Burning Man and you go off by yourself and have some solo adventure as people call it. You can intentionally find loneliness and alone time online even in a social context if you so choose. That can be re-energizing like going into the woods or being in your second house.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Honestly, I would never have thought of that because I think of online as the most crowded place in the world. That\u2019s very interesting. We\u2019re up to the rapid-fire questions. There are quick questions and quick answers. Here we go. What was your first job?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was being a grocery store bagger. I discovered that if you help people bring their groceries to the parcel pickup area, you would get a tip. I was a bagger but then I became a parcel person because they forced my way in there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You could access a time machine. You traveled the world but you haven\u2019t traveled in time to my knowledge. Where are you going and when?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s 1968 or 1969. There was such a crackling of energy, civil rights movements, and social reform. People were pushing the limits on what was acceptable and possible. I\u2019ve always been fascinated with the music and the energy around the music.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11575\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11575\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11575\" src=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Graphics-Caption-3-KCM-40-Daniel-Liebeskind.jpg\" alt=\"KCM 40 Daniel | Virtual Communities\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Graphics-Caption-3-KCM-40-Daniel-Liebeskind.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Graphics-Caption-3-KCM-40-Daniel-Liebeskind-473x315.jpg 473w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11575\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Virtual Communities: You can intentionally find loneliness online, even in a social context. It allows you to reenergize, just like going into the woods or being in your second house.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Are you going to Woodstock? Are you going to one of the marches? What are you going to do?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m probably going to New York City, marches, and Woodstock. I would also go out to Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco and all the hippie hotspots.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you have a favorite quote?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo unto others as you would have them do unto you.\u201d The idea of being kind to people is important. That\u2019s something I\u2019ve read from things that you\u2019ve written and spoken about. I do think that being kind is critical. I love when people are kind to me. Manifesting out in the world and showing the world the energy that you want to receive is important.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Being kind can be the best thing that you do for yourself. For people that needed to be convinced if it is worth it or not worth it, the answer is sometimes the most selfish thing you do for yourself is to be unselfish. Keep that in mind. Thank you for calling it out. What\u2019s something on your bucket list? You have done a ton of interesting stuff. What have you not done that is doable by not going backward in time but you still want to do?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What about going forward in time? This is a weird thing that occurred to me. This is not a thing that is possible yet but it\u2019s connecting my consciousness with somebody else and experiencing the world as somebody else, which will be possible with neuro links. For things that are possible now, I would love to run with the bulls. Ernest Hemingway was talking about it. I don\u2019t even necessarily want the action. I want the energy and the feeling of being in a crowd in that experience. For some reason, it\u2019s something that I\u2019ve always pined for.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You\u2019ve got to do it, not virtually but in real life. Here\u2019s the last question. You\u2019re a real leader in building a community for others, which is an incredibly kind act. I\u2019m confident you\u2019re going to be doing that for decades to come because it is your life&#8217;s passion. What related to that or even unrelated to it do you most want to be remembered by?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I love creating things that people love. That\u2019s my biggest passion. That doesn\u2019t have to be technology platforms. That could extend to helping people to grow and thereby helping to create what they are. If they\u2019re kind to people and people love them, I get a lot of energy and joy from that. Creating platforms, experiences, and moments that people love is something that I would love to be known by.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Daniel, it\u2019s so awesome talking to you.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rock on. Thank you. Take care.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thanks for having me.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong>&#8212;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>This is one interesting guy. When you learn that the number one thing that he wants to do on his bucket list is to change consciousness with someone, you\u2019re talking to someone who thinks outside of the box. There is no box with Daniel. That\u2019s one of the things I loved about this conversation. Learning about his focus on why he became the creator that he is, the impact of both in-person and virtual communities, and the benefits of both were particularly helpful for me. If you enjoyed this episode, then subscribe, leave a review, and check out my new book, <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.decideandconquerbook.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><em>Decide and Conquer<\/em><\/strong><\/a><strong>. Remember, let\u2019s keep connected because life is better together.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>&nbsp;Important Links<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Meetup<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WeWork<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.decideandconquerbook.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Decide and Conquer<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.topia.io\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Topia<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.burningman.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Burning Man<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aynrand.org\/novels\/atlas-shrugged\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Atlas Shrugged<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<div style=\"height:180px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-excerpt\"><p>Daniel Liebeskind joins the Keep Connected podcast to talk about bringing Burning Man online, the metaverse, and the power of IRL connections. <\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":11563,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Episode 40: A Simple Idea for a Complex Metaverse<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Daniel Liebeskind discusses the advantages of virtual communities in bringing people together in today\u2019s vast digital space.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.meetup.com\/blog\/episode-40-a-simple-idea-for-a-complex-metaverse\/\" 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