The Metaverse is About to Change Everything

A couple of years ago, right before COVID shut down the world, I was sitting with Bob Iger in his office at the Disney headquarters in Burbank and he gleefully asked me if I wanted to see something cool. “Sure,” I said, unsure what magic trick he was about to pull out of his hat. He walked over to his giant wooden desk, covered with Star Wars, Marvel and Disney paraphernalia, and grabbed his iPad. He then sat down on the couch and proceeded to show me video clips from movies Disney was working on at the time, all footage of people and animals that I was sure were real (filmed with actors) but that Iger informed me were 100% CGI. My mind literally couldn’t decipher between reality and a computer-generated version of it. As I sat speechless, Iger looked at me with his trademark all-American smile, and said, “The crazy part about all of this, is that every time we render a new scene, the technology used to make it is already outdated. It’s already obsolete.”