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Welcome to the A16Z podcast. I'm Michael Copeland.

Virtual reality is coming fast, and everyone seems to assume that it will be gamers who get to

have all the fun first. But there are other applications for VR that could also bring it into

the mainstream. It could very well be business users, says A16Z's Chris Dixon. It's anything where you

would want time travel or teleportation, he says. Dixon is joined on this segment of the podcast by

Saku Panditaratne and Kyle Russell, both on the firm's deal team, to offer their perspective

on how virtual reality is likely to enter all of our lives.

2016 promises to be the year when more than a very small number of people will get their first taste of VR.

What does VR look like and feel like?

And what does that shared experience set in motion on this segment of the A16Z podcast?

Chris Dixon starts the conversation.

The first question is kind of where are we in terms of VR, you know, like Oculus and Valve are launching this year.

There's gear and cardboard.

Maybe Kyle, you know, can you kind of talk about the current landscape?

Yeah.

So last fall we saw the launch of the Gear VR, which is compatible with Samsung phones,

and it's kind of the prototypical mobile VR headset.

You take your high-end smartphone, you slot it in, it provides optics

that make the flat screen on your phone into an immersive screen that kind of fills your vision,

and also adds some motion sensors so that its tracking of your head is more accurate.

...