Matthew Ball (left) and James Gwertzman discuss the metaverse.

Matthew Ball and A16z’s James Gwertzman discuss how to unlock the metaverse

There is a lot of breathless speculation about how transformative the metaverse might be. This morning we heard from two leaders who are good about explaining what it means and how disruptive it could be: Matthew Ball, CEO of Epyllion and author of The Metaverse; and James Gwertzman, partner at A16z.

They talked about what technologies are needed to unlock the potential of the metaverse, which many describe as the next version of the internet.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.