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This Week in Startups

GameStop poaches Amazon execs, Streaming stalls + Genies CEO Akash Nigam on Avatars & NFTs | E1233

This Week in Startups

Jason Calacanis

Technology

4.21.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2021

⏱️ 65 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jason kicks off the episode with the news: an update on the Tether (02:02), how Gamestop poached Amazon talent (06:17), and the first-ever decline in the average number of streaming accounts per household (19:04). Then, Akash Nigam joins to discuss his company Genies, why everyone will have an avatar, the metaverse, NTFs & more (25:10).

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. We have a great interview today with a

0:04.3

caution. Niggum, he is the founder and CEO of Genies.com. This is a digital

0:09.8

avatar startup. That is launching their marketplace on Dapper Labs, which you

0:15.3

know has a blockchain and NFTs and was responsible for the NBA's top shot.

0:21.6

And it's a fascinating discussion of the history of avatars, virtual spaces,

0:25.6

and what the next generation of avatars and monetization options will be in the

0:30.3

metaverse. It's really science fiction, and you're going to really enjoy that

0:34.4

discussion. And they've raised a ton of money, like a lot of people in the NFT,

0:38.8

digital goods, and metaverse space. But let's get into some news first. We like to start

0:43.8

the show now with news. So if you haven't noticed, we're going to start with news

0:49.5

every day and then go into the interviews. This means the episodes will be about

0:52.4

75 minutes, I think. And we have three news stories to cover today. GameStop is

0:57.4

hiring a bunch of Amazon executives, and they've raised a ton of money. We're

1:01.7

going to go into the quick tether update for our tether investigation. And streaming

1:07.8

is seeing its first decline in the number of subscriptions that each person has.

1:12.0

That is fascinating subscription overload. So let's do the work. Stick with us.

1:17.1

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1:24.2

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1:31.2

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1:39.0

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1:44.4

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1:50.0

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