Kristina Serafim of Verizon Ventures

Welcome to the Puck, Venture Capital and Beyond, a show that explores the evolving landscape of the venture capital world. We'll have candid conversations with today's VCs and entrepreneurs who are shaping those changes. I'm Jim Behr, managing partner at Behr, Negron and Troff, and president of CMUG Advisors. This podcast brings change makers to the table to discover the inner workings behind the decision making strategies, and ultimately to how they got to where they are today. We've made tremendous progress, but there's still more to come.

And I don't think there's ever gonna be done, you know. We're gonna, I think, continue to push the envelope and make things more and more compelling. On this episode, we talk with Christina Seraphim, managing director of Verizon Ventures. Christina walks us through the new industrial revolution taking place through five gs technology. She discusses the way AI is helping to create smart cities, advancing interactive technology in health care, and expanding our experiences of live events in the post pandemic era.

So welcome. We are excited to have you here today because one of the things we're gonna talk about is where the puck is going, and we're all talking about five g and all the wonderful things that we can imagine. In the same way this last year, we've had an opportunity to experience Zoom. We're gonna be experiencing a lot of other things that I look forward to you telling us about. But before we jump in, can you just take a minute for our listeners and talk a little bit about your background and what led you to Verizon Ventures?

Yeah. Absolutely. So I started out my career in the technical side. I was an engineer, mechanical and electrical engineer, quite a few years ago. And then after getting my MBA, I spent a couple years in the management consulting field, but for the most part, I was an entrepreneur.

I started a couple companies myself. I cofounded a couple companies. They were both enterprise SaaS companies. Both ended up getting acquired, so it was a great experience. And also I beat the odds of startup success, I suppose, because I had two in a row that had an exit.

I did that for about a decade or so. And then after the second company got acquired, I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do next. Was it gonna be another startup or join a larger company? But I met some folks on the investment side at a fund called Intellectual Ventures. That's Nathan Myhrvold's fund up in Bellevue, and I found their mission and the team just really impressive and fantastic.

And I decided to join Intellectual Ventures, which was my first foray into the investment world. Since Intellectual Ventures for the last decade, I've spent my time on the investing side with the Fund as well as Verizon Ventures. I've been based in the West Coast in the Bay Area since basically since the early 2000s, So I've spent quite a bit of time here in the Bay Area as well as kind of covering the whole West Coast, more or less LA. I spend quite a lot of time there as well. We have several portfolio companies and it's a growing and thriving entrepreneurial and startup ecosystem, which I'm very happy to see.

Verizon Ventures, I joined five years ago, and it's been an extremely interesting experience. In fact, one of the reasons why I joined was Verizon continually pushes the envelope on the technology side. The West Coast presence also has been a critical part of growing the West Coast presence for the ventures team and continuing to source and invest in interesting and innovative companies. They're not all in the West Coast. We're a global investor, but just by way of being here and my network being definitely more West Coast centric, a lot of the companies end up being nearby.

In terms of the broader team, the Verizon Ventures team, we are truly a global team. We have part of our team is in Israel and Tel Aviv. Part of a team is in the the East Coast near the headquarters, New York, New Jersey, and then our team out here. We invest in strategically relevant areas for the various business units. So we essentially enable innovation.

We enable Verizon to stay on top of the innovation across multiple technology areas, five gs being one of them. Five gs obviously is highly strategic and so we've been spending a lot of time on five gs in the last couple years and will continue to do so. It is not the only area. We do invest in other technology areas that are relevant for the company, such as security, which has a horizontal overlap. It's relevant for five gs and the network as well as other areas, vertical AI, for instance, and then a lot of five gs and five gs use cases.

We invest in early stage startups. So early stage for us is anywhere from late seed to Series C, let's say BC. So, not too early and not too late, essentially. We find that to be a time in the evolution of the startups where we can generate the most strategic value for both Verizon and the startups we invest in and work with. They're early enough where they can leverage our technologies, early access to technology, resources, sales and marketing channels, and so on.

So we work with the startups, and we provide much more than just capital. We provide capital as well, obviously, as an investor, but also a lot of additional value added resources and knowledge and know how and access to Verizon's internal and external ecosystem that helps really a lot of the start ups both validate and grow and become successful. So, Christina, the world is talking about five g. Bringing that down a little in terms of what that means. People know, obviously, it's gonna be faster speeds on the Internet.

It sounds like you're investing in and cultivating companies that are gonna essentially be able to take advantage of five g. And so for those people that may not be able to conceptualize what this is gonna mean for their lives, can you maybe tell us just start with one of the recent investments or companies that you're most excited about and tell us a little bit about what they're doing and how that may relate to five g? There are two companies that we invested in that are focused on real time streaming. One is real time streaming for live events, and the other is for immersive. This area of live events and real time streaming, both due to the increasing speeds of the network and five gs as well as the pandemic, definitely created and really showcased a way for consumers to experience live events Both eventually will be back in the stadium and the concert hall, but for the last year and a half or so, we've been experiencing from our home.

And companies like these, like that couple that we invested in along with the in a partnership with Verizon and the five g network, it really enables consumers to have a near venue, near real event from their home. Because we enable things like multi cam views, three sixty, one a, real time VR streaming, volumetric capture, these are all immersive technologies that I think, not just during a pandemic, but will change the way that we view entertainment and other live sports and other live events forever. With these virtual environments that are being created that will then be able to run on your five g network. Where do you see technology going with respect to things like headsets versus contact lenses? And to have these immersive experiences, how do you see that evolving as well?

Yes. I've been involved myself as a both as an entrepreneur and as an investor in the immersive tech, ARVR, for quite some time, even in the very early days of ARVR, and I see a tremendous progress in the industry. Sometimes the expectations in these early when the industry is young, maybe a little bit aggressive. So definitely we've seen over the last decade that, okay, in some areas the adoption is not as fast as it was, the deployment is not as fast as some of the industry reports may have predicted. But we also, at the same time, see what are the key elements to create this mass adoption with connectivity definitely being one of those key elements and key technologies.

As far as the form factors, we're also learning a lot. We saw glass and phones being used for AR consumption. My opinion is that we're making tremendous progress on form factors as well, that it's not going to be one solution for all. We're learning which form factors are best fit for which use cases. For example, we have I mentioned well, volumetric capture is more of a capture technology.

But in terms of consumption form factors, we have an investment in a very innovative startup called Lightfield Lab. It's also a Bay Area startup that does interactive holographic video display. The level of quality that the company has been able to achieve using Lightfield as a technology for holographic display is just tremendous, both for consumption as was interacting with holographic video. And the use cases this technology can be applied to range from media and entertainment to health care, for example. And we also have another investment in a company called Metavist that is surgical visualization company.

So what they do is that they use AR technology for creating three d models of the human anatomy so that the the surgeons can use that model both in surgical planning as well as in surgery use eventually. They're going through that FDA approval right now. They have FDA approval for planning, but in surgery uses another animal. But I believe that they will get there. Where the preciseness of the surgery can and the accuracy can increase tremendously by being able to visualize and interact with a three d model of human anatomy or the tumor that they're trying to address and remove.

So these form factors, such as Oculus and some of the other heads that we use sometimes for entertainment and VR games, for instance, may be fine for that purpose. But for a surgeon that is trying to operate and view the hologram, it is a bit more challenging. So things like the display wall or a contact lens might be much more appropriate form factors. So I think that we are right in the midst of, in the industry, learning about what's the form factor that can apply best for which use case. And there are companies that, like Mojo Vision and VisualDawn, that are creating contact lens for AR versus consumption.

Very, very difficult and challenging problem, but very compelling once we get there. They already have Mojo has a new prototype that you can see where the world is going or see where a few years from now. It's not quite there yet, but it's not in the market yet. But we can envision where it's going just by looking at their prototype. And some of the use cases also that they're targeting initially are more along the lines of military and defense as well as industrial and health care, and then ultimately on the consumer side as well for entertainment and also practical use cases as well, utilities and so on.

In terms of where the puck is going, we know that there's these headsets where you can see three d, and we know the Internet speeds are catching up and going faster and that we're ultimately gonna be living in this world of five g. Mhmm. When we're in the world of five g, in the same way that Bose has got a pair of sunglasses now that has speakers built into them, and you're talking about contact lenses, some of us remember going to movies where you'd wear three d glasses. Do you think that in the same way self driving cars are around the corner Yes. And drones, do you think that contact lenses where we will be able to have an immersive three d experience similar to the Oculus headset.

Do you think that's around the corner? Well, it depends how you define around the corner. Now around a very long corner. I do think that we're seeing really tremendous progress. But as far as mass adoption, that's why I kinda laid out how these companies think and are approaching the go to market, and I'm in agreement with that's probably the best way to approach the go to market, which is first in use cases and working with government agencies on the military and defense field, for example, and then industrial in the manufacturing floor or remote maintenance, for instance.

That's already in some ways parallelized. It's not super sequential, such as let's finish with the military use case then go on. But prior to consumer and consumer adoption, I think these are markets where the form factor really brings a level like the example I mentioned in the health care space where it really solves a problem that the other form factors such as headsets are not able to. Because, for instance, like in military use case or this health care where a surgeon is trying to perform a surgery, having a headset on top is not really conducive to performing that surgery. It's also not conducive to the way that it requires behavioral change, and therefore, it's much harder to adopt those form factors.

So removing and having form factors that are maybe more challenging to implement but closer to enabling these professionals to perform their job in a better way while utilizing AR and VR technology. That's really why I think these markets are a better go to market and place of validation for these new form factors first. And then the consumer will follow, I believe. The consumer use cases are still more I mean, they're education or entertainment oriented, for instance. But by the time these technologies get in the hands of the consumer, I think they need to be fully validated and easy to use, and the cost element plays a factor as well.

We need to get through a few years where we figure out the economics so that it makes sense for the consumer as well. So I think that that's how I believe and I see, not just I believe, but I see the companies we both have invested in or talked to approach the go to market and deployment of their technology in the market. But when you talk about the wide or the long corner, so to speak, and getting the all the way to the contact lenses, I totally understand that. But I know, for instance, that there are real estate companies that are up and running right now where they use avatars, and they literally have virtual meetings. Mhmm.

And I know that people are working on ready player one virtual worlds where businesses, instead of just doing Zoom, can meet in a virtual office. And if you look at the CGI that went on with Tom Cruise, those fake videos, deep fake videos, we're not very far away from being able to be in a room with our CGI self and in a three day way have a meeting where you and I are sitting in a conference room. The question I have is I can do that in two d by looking at my computer screen. I can do it in three d with this big massive headset, which we know not everybody likes, but I believe the Apple's of the world and other companies are working on AR, augmented reality or virtual reality pair of glasses. How far away in time do you think three d glasses are where you and I could be, for instance, sitting in a conference room table in three d right now?

I mean, look, it really depends. Again, I go back to the use case. It's always been that way in the last couple decades since I've been involved with AR in some capacity. Technology has been there in some variation all throughout in the past two decades and continues to be. The question is, is it an easier and more compelling way to do the same thing you can with the alternative?

You brought up video conferencing as an example. For a video conferencing where we just have a conversation like this, it may work just fine to use a simple or existing, more established video conferencing tool like Zoom and others. Whereas, like, in some of the other use cases, like you mentioned, real estate or remote maintenance use cases, where you actually have the need to be in that environment, not so much to see the other person, but more the environment. You need to look around the space, right, in a real estate setting. You need to be able to see whether it's commercial or not, but the the actual physical space in order to make an informed decision.

Remote maintenance, similarly, you need to see device or appliance or machine that you're trying to fix for the maintenance worker. So those are use cases that video simple video conferencing really doesn't serve you well, and you need these type of ability to to really be in that immersed environment. I mentioned a couple of the investments we made. So YVVR is one of our investments. They do real time streaming of VR and three sixty, one eighty from the stadium for live events.

It's more compelling use case because you really feel like you are in the stadium. So it's more of a entertainment and gaming like use case. Do you really have to have that experience as opposed to watching the game and video? No. You don't have to, but does it make the experience much more compelling, much more realistic, much more like I am really sitting in the stadium, I can look around.

I can be in the front row seats and see the field. I can zoom in and see things from multiple angles and playbacks. And to me, when you make it compelling enough by use of the technology, you engage the consumer. You engage the end user. We're going through this evolution of the industry.

I mean, we often time lump AR, VR, immersive three sixty. Those are all very different technologies, but they ultimately serve the same purpose, which is can you create a more compelling experience, whether it's entertainment or whether it's industrial or practical use where you enable the end user to more effectively do that job. So reflecting what this ten years ago, for example, glimpses of the similar technology existed even a decade ago, but it wasn't compelling enough because the connectivity wasn't there, or they really didn't nail the use case that well. So people would try it. Like, I was personally involved in many of the marketing oriented and advertising oriented implementations of AR, clothes try on or makeup try on.

Users would try just to see what it's about, but really there wasn't a lot of repeat engagement back then. Because, again, when you compare it to the alternative, it wasn't compelling enough. It wasn't easy to use. It wasn't that much better than the alternative. Whereas now and as we evolve in this industry, both with the content, the use cases, the connectivity, and the form factors, I think those are key elements that all need to be advanced enough in order for that experience to be seamless and in order for the consumer or end user to engage.

We've made tremendous progress, but there's still more to come is basically the, the summary. And I don't think there's ever gonna be done. You know? We're gonna, I think, continue to push the envelope and make things more and more compelling, you know, even, on the holographic video. There were versions of it for the last ten, fifteen years.

And our investment, in, in Lightfield Lab, for example, that's one company that has taken that industry even to a whole new level that when you compare it to prior versions of holographic video, it's not you you see the the progress and you see how much better it can be. So it's hard to say what's yet to come. We can sort of see our future in the next five, ten years and by what companies are working on today. And it's exciting to see some of these things that we're seeing early signs of. Yeah.

I I think that it's never really gonna be done. It's we're just gonna keep evolving. I completely agree, by the way, that one of the things that's exciting about technology and life itself is that there really is this constant evolution. Whether or not you go back and read science fiction or other things, you can see that there are people that have the time and inclination to be thinking down the road. And even as you're talking about contact lenses, I can imagine, you know, they're doing cataract lens replacement now.

Well, when they replace your lens, who's to say that we won't have some kind of built in ability to see these virtual worlds and stuff. But I do have a more global question, which is a little off topic, which is we take certain things for granted, whether or not our Internet comes on a dish or it comes through a cable or it comes through the phone lines. Five g, if it works, if people turn on their computers and they're able to do what they want, they're happy. We hear all this stuff politically about, well, China's doing all this, and America's doing all this, and Verizon is doing this, and AT and T is doing this. Is America gonna have stable five g networks that we and companies like yours are developing?

Or are we gonna be, for instance, dependent on other countries to control this technology? Where do you see five g going from a domestic perspective? Well, five g is here. It's not coming. It's here already.

You know, like any technology, it's a rollout. So it's here, but deployment continues. And having an ubiquitous coverage will happen. It just takes some time. I am personally though I follow it, but from the ventures team's perspective, we're not really involved in the rollout of the five gs, for instance, obviously.

What we are involved in is finding companies that are leveraging five gs today and will leverage in the future, specifically early stage start up companies that both leverage it from a perspective of improving their existing product or services or sometimes even creating products and services that solely can exist because of five g. I understand that we have these amazing entrepreneurs and creativity in this country and that Yeah. We are lucky to have firms like Verizon who are looking for financing and mentoring those companies. But one of the things I think our listeners will be interested in is, as five g gets rolled out, there are gonna be certain areas like whether or not it's LA or New York or other metropolitan areas that are gonna come first. In terms of the ability to have enough critical mass of a rollout where some of these companies are gonna have enough traction that the regular person on the street is gonna actually start using it.

Any idea from a timeline when that'll happen, where the Verizon five g will be such that if I'm traveling from LA to New York to Chicago to Aspen or Mammoth, then I'm gonna be able to take my technology with me. Well, I mean, the companies that are innovating around five g and creating use cases that are, like I said, either dependent on five gs or five gs can significantly improve the performance of these use cases. And and there are many across different industries from we talked a little bit about media and entertainment and gaming, live events, smart manufacturing, retail, health care. Smart cities is another, big one. The companies are innovating now.

They're startup companies that we primarily, from my team, are closely involved with. They are creating these technologies now with the understanding that five g is here. There's usage of these technologies today that will increase over time as five g becomes more ubiquitous. Two years ago, when we talked about five g or two or three, I don't know, several years ago, when five g was pre deployment, but we knew it was coming because these are technologies, five g and the next generation connectivity technologies are something companies like Verizon start working on way years before it starts getting deployed. So it is from a network perspective and our network team and technology development perspective.

This has been in the works for many, many years. Again, from the startups that are innovating, this is happening now today. This is, an interesting question because oftentimes, we get this question from multiple people in the sense that, well, do these startups have to wait for five g to have mass adoption and ubiquitous deployment in order to turn on their switch and the company starts running? And that's not the case oftentimes. It's usually that five g connectivity brings significant improvement, and they can already demonstrate that improvement to their customer base and their user base.

Their customers are using it now. They're using the early versions and phases of their technologies now, and it will only improve over time. It's not a turn on the switch type of scenario. It's more, like, really, we are iterating. We're learning.

We're putting use cases out in the market to demonstrate capability of five g already. We have been doing that and will continue to do so. I mean, even the comparison from last year to this year, some of these use cases that I mentioned around live streaming or video conferencing or health care, remote maintenance, smart manufacturing, we've already seen tremendous demonstration of the capability through the startup partners that we work with and that some of which we invest in as well. Can you take a minute, Christina, and tell us a little bit about smart cities? And then there's a lot of talk about trying to get, for instance, five g to the more rural areas that can't necessarily afford it, and there's some political movement to try to fund some of that.

But in terms of the complaint people have about not being able to have ubiquitous college and the divide between those that have and don't have, do you see these smart cities, one, being available to rural communities as well, and what do they look like from your perspective? I mean, when I talk about smart cities, what I'm referencing here is really you know, five g, for example, is changing the the urban technology landscape. It's enabling use cases around both managing and and large volumes of the IoT and the video data that is being captured by the security cameras creating safer cities, creating better traffic management, for instance, for cities, reducing, you know, in the context of also safer is both the, you know, accidents and really also even a safer environment. Even on the marketing and advertising side, it's really enabling a much more targeted approach to marketing and advertising in a smart city environment. These are a kind of use cases that we're focused on in terms of and we see a lot of start ups that are innovating.

And, really, it's just with the five g connectivity, it is possible to capture take the smart city security cameras, for instance, to both capture and analyze in real time at the edge large volumes of video data. That was not possible before. And without that component, even though smart cities have been around in some capacity, it's really you need that massive data and you need the real time analysis in order to really make a true change in the outcome, to really see, an improvement in safety or traffic control, for example. What I've seen before, years ago, pre five gs for instance, was that there would be, for example, cities would implement a few cameras at an intersection. Very, very small improvement you can get from that.

And also analyzing the data, not in real time, but really storing it and then analyzing it. So this is what I think how a simple example of how five g and the ubiquitous deployment of five g can really change the environment for a lot of these industries. But since we're talking about smart cities, those are some of the use cases we're focused on. I think it was our chief strategy officer that said five gs is really in the next industrial revolution, which we're seeing the early signs of that across many industries in the healthcare space. And I think it has to do also with the edge.

We didn't talk about I mean, we kind of use five gs and mobile edge compute interchangeably sometimes, but the edge compute, really processing data at the edge, this is what is a critical game changing technology that makes a big difference, especially when there's multiple devices. As we know with IoT, the explosion of devices has already been there, and that produces a lot massive amounts of data. You can't really utilize that data effectively unless you can process at the edge and unless you can get the insights in real time. And that's possible only through five g and mobile edge compute. When you talk about mobile edge compute, let me try to bring this down for our audiences and also for myself.

Sure. I know when I interviewed Steven Dietz early on in the history of the Puck, we talked about self driving cars. We talked about, obviously, the need for low hanging satellites or technology that would provide the five g or better capability. I guess, we tie into the smart city concept of being able to analyze all this data. Yes.

And, essentially, when you open up your mind to possibilities, you realize there's no in need for traffic lights. Right? Because the smart city can literally navigate the cars around each other and the traffic flow in in ways that obviously the human brain cannot comprehend. But with AI and big data, we can get there. So I understand how five g enables all that.

But how does edge tie into that? And is that something Verizon is also working on? It goes hand in hand. Right? So the Edge compute and and autonomous vehicles definitely are part of the smart city and leverage five g and MEC.

The scenario you described, I think it's coming, but I do think that one is quite ways so many years away. And in the examples I gave are more near term, like, being implemented today. They are also part of the future, but more the near term future in there. We can see the implementation already. To simplify the explanation of edge compute is, for example, some of the IoT devices you have, whether it's a wearable for the consumer or a camera, essentially, is an IoT device that a lot of the cities, for instance, have the cameras already that are at the, say, the traffic lights or the city lights that have been capturing video in the past.

They capture the video, they send it to the cloud. There's a huge delay in capturing large amounts of video data, sending it to the cloud, analyzing it in the cloud, and then sending it back and really doing something with those insights, changing the course of action, such as even automated forget about removing traffic lights altogether, even just automating how traffic lights work today. Right? That is a very, very feasible example that can be done in the near future. But what five g and edge compute does is the ability for that data to be analyzed right there at the device level as opposed to having this delay of sending it to the cloud, getting it analyzed, and coming back with the insights, automatically changing the course of action, in this case being when the traffic light turns on or off.

By just capturing real time data, analyzing it at the edge, at the device level, right there at the intersection, let's say, just to simplify this example, and instructing the light when to turn green or red. All of that with five gs and edge compute happens in real time, removes that latency of having to analyze data in cloud or sending the data somewhere else where it creates latency and delay of being able to implement and change an action based on the insights you learn. So from a physics perspective, and we're now going into the realm of the impossible from my perspective, but I understand what you talk about when something goes up to the cloud and comes back. I understand when you're dealing with data, and we're talking about measurements of time that are incomprehensible. Even I've heard things about, like, stock trading on the New York Stock Exchange and how if you have access to the data ahead of somebody, you can influence a trade and the length of the cables and the size.

So I get that there is a latency when you have to go up to the cloud. By the same token, if I'm a camera and I have access to the five g network, but I'm also in real time seeing traffic patterns. Yeah. I presumably have to have access to other traffic patterns and cars coming from other places to have that complete picture. So edge sounds like a network almost where it's closed.

So instead of it going somewhere out of the network and coming back Right. Somehow, it's an Internet of things. Right? That it's staying together and able to work together in some virtual way, which is way over my pay grade. But am I on track at all, or am I missing it?

Well, this is exactly why I said that the scale at which there is deployment of five g and MEC for, let's say, the smart cities example, it makes a lot of difference. This is precisely why you need that scale and coverage as opposed to doing it on one intersection. Even, like, the city of Boston had years ago this is really outdated information, but just using it as a comparison had implemented smart cameras on several corners of few intersections, let's say. I don't remember the exact number of cameras. With that information, you can make a difference, but it's the the scale of that difference and the insights that can be implemented is not the same as if you have much more ubiquitous and a bigger coverage and a scale of coverage, especially in a smart sitting environment.

So that's why it it is important, and it does make a difference as we move through the deployment, that we are seeing much more optimized and much more use cases that make a much bigger difference because the coverage is there. And it's not just the smart city. I think, for instance, we talked about big data many years ago, and then we talked about machine learning. And in my opinion, AI and edge AI is an evolution of machine learning and and data science into a realm where it's an automated decision making. Machine learning used the large massive data that was being captured, a lot of it through IoT devices, would analyze and provide insights.

And then still a human had to make a decision or had to implement that decision. The machine learning provides you recommendations. You have to implement that decision. Versus AI, which is an automated decision making, it really enables but you have to have trust and coverage to really be able to say: Yes, I'm gonna I mean, in many industries, not just smart cities like ag tech or smart manufacturing to say: We have learned enough and we have the coverage, we have the edge compute and edge AI capability, that now we can utilize these massive datasets, create the insights, and automate the decision making. Let, essentially, the action be automated.

Let the action and the different scores take place on its own, if I can kind of simplify it in the way that I'm describing it. But many of those industries that I mentioned, this is, I think, five gs and edge compute and edge AI are the reasons why it is really at the brink of this industrial revolution where we can some of the constraints that existed before with latency, with connectivity, with the reliability and flexibility and the efficiency were not there to really take this course of automated decision making. But now they are. And, you know, Verizon plays a big part in the five gs and mobile edge compute side, as well as the edge compute and edge AI. And in partnership with both small and large companies, I mean, we my team is focusing on partnerships and investments in start up companies, but we also work with larger companies as well in really coming together and leveraging what the applications and use cases that they've developed along with connectivity and the edge compute that we provide.

Are you doing much in Southern California? Absolutely. We don't have anybody on the ground from the ventures team. We do have a huge five g lab there, actually. I'm there quite a lot from the ventures team.

We have, as I mentioned earlier in the discussion, several portfolio companies there. We have the five gs Lab that is really impressive. And I was just there a few days ago and got a chance to see even some of the developments during the pandemic that have been done. The Lab in Playa Vista, specifically in LA, is focused on sports, media, entertainment, and gaming. And a lot of our portfolio companies are there demoed in the lab, but it's really quite impressive from what you can see.

So talking about virtual music concerts or events or in the sports field, we have several investments and companies we're partnering with as well as investments from sensor technologies like ShotTracker that captures data from the athletes as they're on the field to companies that provide VR simulation or VR training for pro athletes, the companies that are doing the immersive real time streaming. You can really see the impact of technology. And, again, the two are tied together. The technology without the connectivity doesn't we know that it doesn't work as well. There's this really mutual benefits here, strategic benefits of the work we're doing with some of these companies.

It's interesting because when I started out as a technology lawyer, people were talking about convergence back in the late nineties. And everybody thought because of the entertainment industry in LA that there was gonna be this huge push to do things. We saw partnerships start up and a lot of things happen. And then after the dot com crash, it slowed down for a while. What I'm hearing you say, and I'm wondering if this is true, is that now that five g is really here and that we have this ability to actually take advantage of these industries.

When you talk about sports and entertainment and you think about a lot of that being in Southern California, I can see a unique role for this convergence to finally be upon us because it was a brilliant idea, and they were talking about changing the different endings of movies and plays and having different alternatives. But what you're now talking about, we're going to a concert and having it be there either at home and watching it, or I know sports teams are talking about selling you a virtual seat where you can be on the court. You can have a floor seat. Right? Yes.

It seems to me at least that Verizon is ahead of the game and playing it smart because having a flagship in Playa, being in the hub of this, it seems like this is the time. First of all, I think, yes, five g and where the immersive I think five g and MEC make a huge difference on the immersive front of sports, music, and media and entertainment. Four g made a huge difference in video and streaming. You know, that was also a big LA ecosystem, continues to be. Right.

But not really necessarily five g relevant. So as the connectivity evolves, so do the use cases. We also have several five g labs. Each one has their own theme based on the allocation they're in and what's most present in that location. So LA, there are more companies that are innovating around an extension of media and entertainment, which is gaming and sports and immersive and music.

We have a lab in Boston, in New York, in Chelsea, here in San Jose, in London. They all have a slightly different theme based on what's most present in that in that area. But all of them are equally impressive. I just think that, yes, as far as the Southern California, I'm really excited to see I mean, I've been following and have spent a lot of time in Southern California myself, and I'm very excited to see this evolution of both the startup ecosystem as well as how that startup ecosystem fits with what Verizon is doing, which is really exciting for me personally. I think you talked about this with one of your colleagues, this notion of the new industrial revolution.

We're gonna see what terms people use down the road. But what I think you're talking about is an immersive revolution, a movement towards oneness. We talked about these things, and we could see how the convergence, the coming together as one. But I love the way you talk about immersion because that makes it seem more real to me. We all know what it looks like to watch a movie.

We all know what it feels like to have headphones on and listen to music. For instance, being under the piano and feeling the music. Being in a concert and feeling the group dynamic, there is something left brain versus right brain. There's something that the right brain gets from an immersive experience that is qualitatively different than that linear left brain way of experiencing the world. And so it seems to me, at least what you're talking about is, it's not gonna be the same as being literally physically together, but it's immersive, which is an evolutionary revolution.

Personally, I don't believe that the intention is that immersive will replace the ability to go and experience these events together with other people in person. But why I think it's here to stay is that because we've already seen it's opened up access to so many people that are across the country and the world that cannot physically be there. So if the concert is in LA or the sports game is in Atlanta and I am in Amsterdam, I can't really experience it until now through immersive. I can have a near real experience through the immersive technology that I don't think that there's anything that can replace really that experience. But I think that it's as good as it gets.

And it really enables access to people all around the world that could not have this access before. If you're a fan of of a band or I'm a big stand up comedy. So when I go to New York, I always go to the seller, the comedy seller. But I'm not in New York all the time. One of the startups we're working with is doing streaming in partnership with YVVR, our investment, streaming in VR out of the Comedy Cellar.

That I can be there for as many of the shows that I can attend, I mean on a daily basis they're streaming. So this is really just tremendous in my opinion and that's why I say it's here to stay. I I think the pandemic made us a little bit aware and it was opportune timing with the availability of connectivity to have all of this come together. It just made us more aware of what are these experiences that we can continue to have even as live events return. Christina, this has been wonderful.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you so, so much. And I'm thrilled to, have met you and look forward to our next meeting. Same here.

Thank you so much for having me.