Podcasts – Page 12

Podcast notes – Rise of Virtual Influencers – David and Jay from Hume (Zima Red podcast)

Guests: David and Jay
Host: Andrew from Sfermion
Hume = Metastar entertainment studio

David background:
Studied economics in college
Vaudeville Ventures – media + tech, product strategy
2014 discovered Bitcoin
2017 discovered Ethereum (dapps + open Internet + no gatekeepers)
Started Abacus blog to educate and share

Jay background:
Singer / actor
Tisch school of arts
worked w/ top brands and artists – League of Legends, Selena Gomez
saw problems w/ artist mistreatment, lack of revenue share

The two met on NYU class trip to China

Created 2 virtual artists for fun / as a sorta joke (Ivan and Peter), talking in German accents, playing around – grew them into virtual characters

Now it’s $0.0035 revenues per stream, split between many parties
70%+ taken by labels, and upfront payments to artists (eg, like $100K) must be later re-paid from revenues
Can lock you up for 5-7 albums, but labels can drop you anytime
Top artists and managers make money, but vast majority of artists don’t, and the support characters don’t (like songwriters)

Rise of micro communities – make $100K from NFTs / relationships with smaller audience, retain music ownership, more leverage in record deals

Hume Collective = Metastar entertainment studio
Metastar = music driven virtual artists
artists: Ivan and Peter, AngelBaby

AngelBaby is a “fully evolved virtual being” (launched Oct 2021)
she’s a Fluf, came from Fluf World – all open IP
she has lived 1K years already, rich history
“she eats a lot…parties…she’s pretty wild”
there’s an evil entity from her original world / era, they’re fighting each other
the lore will emerge in songs, video, NFT media

NFT PFP projects (profile picture collections) are different countries, trading volumes are GDP

untapped power of open IP / open creative assets – more collaboration and partnerships than ever before – power of trustless systems
saw it in DeFi, now seeing it in creative / art

imagine if Disney’s Aladdin were fractionalized, allow collabs w/ Marvel stars like Iron Man, power of community ownership of character

virtual artists can collaborate with many more people – best vocalists, best instruments, best songwriters – more creative contributors

ASM – Altered State Machine – NFT brain with AI that can plug into digital avatar, learn environment + game rules + develop personality

Host – Watson AI released on Twitter became racist in 10 minutes
we’ll interact with memes and anons and not know they’re AI

Lessons as founders
-must have conviction to stay with it for years before seeing success
-importance of communicating well with cofounder
-approach your day like it’s day one

Revenue sources
-each Metastar will have NFT drops
-brand sponsorships (metaverse + physical fashion)
-live performance and music (imagine traveling virtual concerts)

people will become virtual influencers – motion capture suits, pseudonymous personalities, create your own rigs

will be hybrid world of influencers – 1) pure virtual; 2) human + virtual identity; 3) normal human

in future, we’ll see a lot more NFT interactivity – different projects, metaverses, items, characters that can inter-op and play with each other

Podcast notes – David Sinclair and Matthew La Plante on brain health and brain aging

Hosts: David Sinclair and Matthew LaPlante

6.2M Americans over 65 living with dementia
This number will continue to grow

If you reverse aging, Alzheimers and dementia can go away, you can recover memories

Epi-genome – computer that reads the genome (genetic) software
Ex differentiation – when a cell begins to malfunction, forgets its proper role

Horvath clock – your biological (aging) clock
Measures DNA methylation
Can measure this for a dollar
Measured 112 yo woman, and brain organs were much younger than all others

Brain ages slower than rest of body
Partially due to protective barrier (skulls)
Brain cellular turnover is low
Volume of brain after 40 reduces 5% per decade

For most of history, we only really needed brain until 40s / 50s – but now we live until 70s / 80s
Our fast changing world – need to constantly learn and adapt, need more brain plasticity

3 longevity pathways that respond to adversity
1. M-tor
2. AMPK – low glucose
3. Sirtuins
They all work together, protect body
Proper lifestyle changes generally benefit all three

M-tor role in autophagy – recycling and garbage collection

Sirtuins – 7 genes in body
Sirt1 (sp?) seems most important for brain aging
Need to up-regulate sirtuins, can do it with NAD boosters, resveratrol

Diet and exercise
Mediterranean diet – very clear benefits to brain aging, proven to reverse mild cognitive impairments, in fact its a spectrum the more Mediterranean your diet the better the outcomes
Olive oils (oleic acid, also in avocados), red wine (polyphenols, resveratrol), less red meat
Standard Western diet has much more fat and red meat

B-vitamins are important – especially vegetarians can be deficient
Aging is accelerated when lacking B-vitamins

Alcohol, smoking, also harmful – related to homo-cysteine

Doctors can see blood vessel lining in back of retina – if they see a lot of plaque, high chance of imminent heart attack / death

“Your eyes are your brain” – when you look at someone’s eyes, you’re looking at their brain

Fatty acids
Normal diets often lack omega3 fatty acids (like in fish) – help with wound healing, depression
Eat salmon, mackerel, sardines
If plant based, find ALA high foods – flax seeds, walnuts, linseed
Oleic acid in olive oil and avocados is important too
Seaweed

Why omega 3s?
Important fat compound in brain, insulating material for brain, protects against inflammation

Exercise
Even walking can > better memory and cognition
Activate sirtuins pathways
Relates to executive function
Study: 6 months of cardio exercise for 55+ showed dramatic improvement in aging indicators
Study: 10 weeks of strength exercise increased BDNF, marker of new nerve cells, brain re-growth
“Get moving before it’s too late”

Supplements
Metformin – AMPK activator (which also affects sirtuin pathway)
Fish study: metformin in their food > better performance on memory tests
Cells make more mitochondria, lower blood sugar in bloodstream
High blood sugar is bad for all tissues, especially cardiovascular system
2019 study: Metformin > 55% prevention in diabetes incidence
Metformin might directly impact NAD too
NAD levels go down over time, increasing degradation as we age
NAD boosters to help cognitive functioning, brain repair
2004 study: NAD-H treatment slowed Alzheimers

Sleep
Hypothalamus controls your daily rhythms
Sirt1 and NAD important role in your wake / sleep cycle
If you lose Sirt1 / NAD functioning, you won’t sleep well, age prematurely
As you get older, you lose ability to sleep
Intervene with diet, exercise, supplements
How to sleep well?
Supplements: MNN (sp?), magnesium, l-theanine
Get light right when you wake up
Can supplement with blue light machines
One night of sleep deprivation increases amyloid beta production by 5% (bad)
If you deprive rats of sleep, get diabetes in 2 weeks

Podcast notes – Neil Howe, author of The Fourth Turning – Blockworks

Host: Mike Ippolito
Guest: Neil Howe, author of The Fourth Turning, works at Hedgeye

Generational theory wasn’t popular after WW2
Rebounded in 1960s-70s – generational gap caused by Baby Boomers, who had very different values from the war generation
Boomers wanted to take over and challenge their parents
Boomers aren’t builders, but they’re very expressive

Co-wrote Fourth Turning w/ Bill Strauss
Both authors had written already about generational issues
Fourth Turning wanted to look at series of generational changes in American history
Didn’t expect cycles – it was an epiphany as they researched
Certain kinds of generations always follow others
Interdisciplinary approach, sociocultural cycles

“Gen X” wasn’t coined until 1992 – Material Girl, hip hop culture, didn’t like Boomers’ hypocrisy, jaundiced and cynical views

Major civic revolutions / upheavals once every ~80 years (average lifespan, called a “saeculum”)
Each generation is ~22 years, 4 of them = ~80-90 years
Every turning tends to end in a crisis
1770s American Revolution > 1860s Civil War > 1940s WW2 > 2020s

Mike:
“Want to rebel against our parents”
Ray Dalio’s long-term debt cycle (every 80 years, great deleveraging in financial markets)

Fourth Turning has lots of linkages with cycles in other fields – economics, culture
Re-aligning political elections occur in sync with these cycles

“It doesn’t look good at the moment”

Every time you have a crisis, every one who had a living memory of the last crisis is already gone – eg, WW2 forgot Civil War, today we forget WW2 and Great Depression

Every turning is a generation – ~20 years
Each turning is when you’re moving from childhood > young adulthood > mid life > elder
The whole social mood changes as each generation shifts

Fourth Turning is final phase, the “crisis phase”
A civic / reconstruction phase
Associated with scarcity, the Depression, the great wars, the revolutions
Periods of great disorder
Institutions have become sclerotic / dysfunctional
Need rejuvenation / forest fires to clear out the brush
Allow new resources and new institutions to flourish
Periods of tremendous social growth

“We always make our biggest changes during times of crisis” – after WW2 we established Social Security, Bretton Woods + IMF + World Bank
Same after Civil War – national currency system, transcontinental railroad, etc

Lots of tribalization today – red vs blue zones, extreme political opinions
More people think a civil war is likely
Fascism vs socialism
Participation in politics has skyrocketed – voter turnout, “Trump solved that problem”
Rapid deterioration of growth prospects for young Americans
Book “Big Sort” shows how Americans are geographically dividing by culture and politics

Now likelihood of a great power confrontation caused by Russia invasion of Ukraine

Our current Fourth Turning started in 2008 with Great Financial Crisis
This phase will extend to 2030
Very low GDP growth, inflated markets with QE and low rates, driven by Central Bank policies and MMT
Long-term inflation expectations are exploding
Powell wants to be Volcker now, must fight inflation

America has enormous deficits today – no more stimmy, higher interest rates, Ukraine conflict, China struggling – bleak picture
Fed can’t really intervene now to protect markets
After mid-term, likely both Houses will be Republican
Both parties don’t really have consensus leadership

Mike: “something eventually has to give” – but then there will be genuine improvement
Realized other great powers aren’t democracies – China, Russia

On youth:
They invented the word “millennial” – high school class of 2000 was initial cohort
Did book “Millennial Rising” – they’re special, risk averse, attached to parents, less crime, collective teamwork / organizing

Greatest distrust with democracy is among younger people – believe it empowers older / richer people – thus the move to collectivism

Podcast notes – The Economist overview of longevity and anti-aging research (Babbage)

Podcast: The Economist (Babbage)

Rich world life expectancy is 70+, increasing by average of 5 hours per day

Victorian times – terrible doctors, but great engineers – clean water, better nutrition – lifespan really improved

20th c – defeated many infectious diseases, antibiotics after WW2, another step change

Countries with highest lifespan – Southern Italy, Japan
“can get to 85 just by living like the Japanese”

Why do we age?
Genetic material gets damaged
Machinery of gene expression
Major cellular molecules – protein synthesis, mitochondria go wrong, proliferation of senescent cells

Aging is root cause of many diseases – cancer, cardiovascular, neuro degenerative
If we can combat these fundamental aging pathways, we can fight a lot of these diseases

Most promising is altering blood plasma
Parabiosis – mice blood systems being shared, old mice improves from sharing with young mice
(Gavin Belson from the show Silicon Valley)

Cellular rejuvenation – transcription factors (Yamanaka factors)
If you apply them to body cells, they will “take them back to factory settings”
Yamanaka – Japanese biologist, won Nobel Prize – creating pluripotent stem cells
Can create cells identical to your body’s cells for experimentation and treatment
Risk of uncontrolled proliferation (cancerous cells) if mis-used

New research shows you can reverse (some) epigenetic marks of aging
Treatment on old mice becoming metabolically younger, can repair skin wounds better, seem to be healthier, expect to live longer
Proof of concept stage

Silicon Valley
Altos Labs – $3B in funding, “world’s best financed startup company” – led by prominent researchers
Focus on Yamanaka factors and “integrated stress response”, cells that have gone AWOL – metabolic problems, diabetes, Parkinson’s
Trying to develop novel approach to diseases caused by cellular malfunction – indirectly improving aging
“Natural selection cares less and less about multi cellular organisms as they get older”

Heart attack – lost tissue isn’t replaced, a scar forms, causing loss of function, so the heart remodels, get larger, walls get thinner, can lead to heart failure
Today transplantation is only cure, life expectancy afterwards is only 10 years
Identify cell types in heart that can be stimulated to create more healthy tissue
Trying to restore embryonic cell development in adult hearts (eg, like epicardial cells)
“regrowing parts of the heart”
Identify high risk patients, give them pre-treatment (like a pill), to prime cells to heal / repair when heart attacks happen
Organoids – small organs in dish – multiple cell types – eventually “derive heart in a dish”

Unity Biotechnology
Senescent cells – “cells in your body that have turned against you”
Senescent cells cause damage to neighboring cells
It’s a slow insidious assault inside your body
Vision is take a pill, get rid of your body’s senescent cells
In mice, experiments to tag these cells and remove them – cognition better, improve health
Now research focus is on the eye – to improve vision, suffering macular degeneration / color loss

Much of this research may not extend lifespan but can extend healthspan – number of healthy quality years
Lot of these treatments work for everything except for your brain – more complex and unpredictable
“What do you do about the brain?”

Podcast notes – Jason Choi (Spartan Group) and Frank Chaparro (The Scoop) – New $200M Metaverse fund

Guest Jason Choi
Host Frank Chaparro

Metaverse is a virtual world – games, ecomm, new experiences – use the term broadly, “ online gaming + social experiences defined by digital ownership”

FC: Crypto twitter can be considered a metaverse pre cursor

Will take 5-10 years before truly immersive VR metaverse
Current metaverse are bare bones eg Sandbox
Lack of economic activity inside metaverse – rails / tech missing to buy and trade things besides simple tokens

Cold start problem – easy to create the worlds, how do you get 1M users to come in and consistently hang out
First build good games and experiences – like Fortnite, then extend to things like concerts (Travis Scott), ecomm

VR Chat on Quest – lots of content is user generated, but developers aren’t properly compensated

Metaverse analogy is to layer 1s – a platform for other developers and for users
Maybe a less extreme power law – fat tail of metaverses that cover niches, specific games

Jason grew up in HK, started a small venture fund, doing crypto podcast
Spartan was started by former Goldman partner, Jason joined
Initially focused on Defi
Advisor to Dapper Labs / CryptoKitties
After they found Axie Infinity, thought growth + revenues was really interesting, made big bet that became lucrative
Dove much deeper into gaming + NFTs
Decided to setup fund to invest properly
Have $110M Defi fund too
Metaverse fund will be larger check sizes

3 investment areas
1. Infrastructure layer – immutable, flow, game engines, hardware
2. Experiences (games), social apps, metaverse storefronts
3. Value add layer – guilds, studios, discovery + aggregation

NFT Worlds project
Tied their NFT lands to servers on Minecraft – tapping into its massive userbase
Assets are still on Ethereum

Guilds
2 types of guilds
1) Macro – large balance sheets (YGG, Avocado)
2) Micro – long-tail, 20K of them, a few people, very reliant on scholars
But all guilds are still very reliant on Axie and Axie-type games
Guilds are marketing channels for games
Guilds could become studios, create experiences
Barrier to entry is low, differentiation is team (do they have prior gaming industry experience?)

Defi
Prices don’t reflect the innovation and usage
Defi rails for NFTs will be interesting

NFT areas of innovation
1. Fractionalizing NFTs
2. Collateralizing NFTs and taking loans – how do you determine price and rate
3. Lending NFTs
“Still in ICO days”

Jason’s podcast Blockcrunch
180 episodes since 2018
Passion project
Ran out of crypto blogs to read
Reason to reach out to influencers / experts
Doing a new Shark Tank series, have pre-launch founders come pitch
Active on Twitter too

Heavy metal fan
His favorite band Synyster Gates dropping NFTs directly to fans, don’t have to pay middleman like Facebook

All risk assets gone bonkers the past 2 years
Massive growth in fund sizes – Bain Cap $560M new fund, lots of sideline capital
But prices have slightly cooled recently
Funds will need to be either thesis specific, or go super early stage, or get super big