The Power Of Community, In The Real World And The Metaverse | Greg Isenberg

Scott Melker (0:00)

This episode is sponsored by the HBAR Foundation and Bullish. Stay tuned for more information about both of them later in the episode.

What's up, everybody? I'm Scott Melker, and this is The Wolf Of All Streets Podcast. We're twice a week. I talk to your favorite personalities from the worlds of Bitcoin trading, finance, music, art, politics, sports, basically anyone with a good story to tell.

Now, one thing people don't talk about very often is that the success of a cryptocurrency, and many companies, is really based on one specific thing, and that is the community. We like to think that we're in it for the tech or for the price, but generally, it's that strong community that drives the price of a cryptocurrency drives the success of a coin or a company. Well, today I have a guest who's a master at building those communities. He's worked with companies like Tik-Tok, WeWork, Reddit, Nascar, FedEx, and now is focused largely on Web3. We're lucky to have him here, I would say. Greg Isenberg, welcome to the show. I can't wait to talk about Web3 and community building with you.

Greg Isenberg (1:02)

Thanks for having me, man. And wow, what an intro.

Scott Melker (1:05)

Yeah, well, it's true though, right? And I don't know how you originally got into it, but it feels to me like, especially now as NFTs and Web3 are starting to become more popular, it's really how many people are excited about it and feel that, you know, inherent draw towards the project that really drives the success. Would you say that's true?

Greg Isenberg (1:28)

Oh, a hundred percent. And when I look at actually like some of the most successful Web3 entrepreneurs, it's interesting to see how nerdy they are, if you think about it. Like these are the kids who are killing it in RuneScape, you know, crushing it in World Of Warcraft into like the weirdest stuff.

And because they've learned those dynamics of like niche communities, you know, they're kind of equipped. They're the best equipped. Yeah, the people who are best equipped for Web3 are the nerds who are spending a lot of time playing video games.

Scott Melker (2:05)

That's revenge of the nerds in real life. Yeah, exactly.

So, why are they then able? I mean, what is it about the experience of playing those video games that makes them so adept at building these communities?

Greg Isenberg (2:19)

Well, I think it's a few things. So it's the dynamics around earning digital assets, buying and selling.

I actually used to, I don't even talk about this publicly, but I actually used to play professional Counter-Strike as a kid. And Counter-Strike, for those of you listening, I'm sure a bunch of you played, you basically, it's this five versus five game, you earn skins that you can customize your skins.

There were secondary marketplaces where people were earning these skins and buying and selling it. And the entire ecosystem, from the professional standpoint, was based on a protocol called the IRC, which is basically a precursor to Discord. So if you think about it, it sounds pretty similar to how certainly the NFT and DAO community space works. You have buying and selling and trading. You have teams and hierarchies that exist. So for example, like I was on a team, there were certain like VIP people in my chat. It was this goal to bring as many people into the chat as possible and build community. And we did things like creating merch, all that sort of stuff, these community building tactics that I think just equipped us pretty well.

Scott Melker (3:33)

How rich would you be right now if you could have actually done play to earn Counter-Strike in the same way that exists on, say, Axie Infinity or these games that we're seeing in development now, if those skins that you had won had had real world value and utility?

Greg Isenberg (3:48)

I mean, richer than I am maybe today. I think it's one of those things where if you log on to a video game, you don't want to see how long you've played.

Sometimes some video games is like, you've been playing for 128 days and think in the future, you'll look at that as like a badge of honor because you'll see how many digital assets, what real life consequences of earning those digital assets. But yeah, I mean, back in the day, we were just earning it for fun, which is cool too. But I still think that there's a place for play to earn as well.

Scott Melker (4:21)

Yeah, but my feeling is that with play to earn, we're going to have a legitimate transfer of wealth to talented teenagers who are very good at video games.