There's no shortage of tech podcasts, but few give you a true dose of the future.

The A16Z podcast is an exception.

It takes you straight to the innovators behind new materials, data centers, self-driving cars,

even electric boats, eavesdrop on the future with the A16Z podcast.

HBR presents.

Hello and welcome to Exponential View with me, Azim Azal.

The world is changing at an amazing pace.

We're entering the exponential age.

It's a fundamental rewriting of our economic and social order catalyzed by radical, remarkable technologies.

On this podcast, I want to bring some clarity to the complexity of this change by helping you understand

the trajectories of these technologies and their implications for business, economics and our daily life.

The metaverse has burst into the imagination and the corporate strategy of many companies around the world.

The technology firms in particular are casting around for the next dominant computing platform.

The one that follows a smartphone and they seem to think the metaverse will be it.

Now many questions remain about the shape of the metaverse, the applications that will succeed in it,

how we will use it, will we even live in it.

But one thing seems clear, the metaverse will bring with it some aspects of a modern financialized economy,

the intersection between web3 technologies, digital currencies, non-fungible tokens,

and these new electronic environments is getting stronger and stronger.

But what will it mean?

So an old friend of mine, old in the sense that I've known him for a while,

but young at heart and scintillatingly brilliant, has been a previous guest on this podcast,

...