Makers of The Metaverse: Anton Bernstein Of Pocket Worlds On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
At the stage we’re in now, with web3 still being fairly new to most consumers, traditional web2 tech individuals who successfully make the leap into web3 are generally naturally curious & early adapters. Of course this may be an oversimplification, but in my experience, web3 people find each other because they are continually seeking new experiences & new avenues for growth — financially or otherwise. However, I’ve found that the basic principles are similar, but the mediums have changed. In lieu of traditional networking events people meet in Discord channels, Reddit forums — or even in Highrise!
The Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality & Mixed Reality Industries are so exciting. What is coming around the corner? How will these improve our lives? What are the concerns we should keep an eye out for? Aside from entertainment, how can VR or AR help work or other parts of life? To address this, we had the pleasure of interviewing Anton Bernstein.
Anton Bernstein is co-founder and CEO of Pocket Worlds, the parent company of both Highrise and Everskies. With over 13 million installs, Highrise is a leading mobile-first metaverse serving over 2 million monthly active users who create avatars, build environments, host experiences, and trade collectibles. Since 2016, Anton has managed the virtual community with one vision — to expand Highrise into the largest digital nation on the Internet, where citizens can live, play, serve each other, and earn an income.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?
Originally from Moscow, Russia, I moved to the United States in 1991 right when the Berlin wall came down at the mere age of 5. In Russia, My dad worked at a water power plant and due to the inability to earn an expanded wage in the Soviet Union, the plant paid him in computers when he performed well. Growing up, I was exposed to computers very early on and started playing and making games because one thing we always had was computers in our home. I spent most of my older childhood growing up in New Jersey, like most teenagers, playing games online with friends while talking on the phone. I’d also use map editors in Starcraft and Warcraft to build game modes, host Counter-strike servers, and make websites to earn a side income. Games were always a deeply social experience for me and a way to make an income.
For college, I attended The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania to do “business” which I quickly realized was just finance and consulting — not appealing to me in the slightest. Out of college I worked for two venture companies: Insight and Redpoint, but quickly left to find Luxury Escapes in Australia which today generates over $300M in revenue. Luxury Escapes taught first-hand marketing and product development, I learned here that I am more motivated by creativity & empowerment than discounts & sales. That’s what eventually led me to initiate Pocket Worlds with Jimmy.
Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
My AIM screen name is still Sauron0796, growing up I loved Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s incredible commitment to building a world, including its own language, was the most immersive and impressive concept to me. Ahead of its time, the story was a video game in book form. In my opinion, open world games have gotten closer to the feel of Lord Of The Rings, but Tolkien is a once in a generation genius. His work inspires me everyday & was a key inspiration for Highrise World, an accessible and mobile-first platform, providing the opportunity to build a custom experience with true digital ownership & autonomous governance. As far as games go, I was always so impressed by Bioshock and the world they created there. Bioshock was developed by a creative lead who incorporated ideas by 20th century dystopian and utopian thinkers such as Ayn Rand, George Orwell, and Aldous Huxley, as well as historical figures such as John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Walt Disney.
Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in the X Reality industry? We’d love to hear it.
In 2013, my co-founder Jimmy and I met in San Francisco back in through mutual friends, both hungry for a new career challenge. We both grew up gaming and quickly decided to embark on our own venture and launched Pocket Worlds with the vision of creating an app that would bring people together. Following the release of a few smaller projects, we turned our attention to what is now called, the metaverse. I’ve always been passionate about emerging technologies and creating new ways for people to form meaningful connections so we began building our first UGX mobile-first metaverse world, Highrise. The concept that really got Jimmy and I started was a strong belief that social networking needed to be more than just news feeds, messaging, and ad-driven business models that didn’t benefit the masses. Our goal was to have a richer, more human, better engaging online experience that becomes ubiquitous. We didn’t know what that would look like yet, but we knew it’d be accessible (on mobile) and built by its own user base & community.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?
As anyone who works in web3 will tell you, a career in web3 is the best way to meet captivating, intelligent, out-of-the-box thinkers from all around the world. Our first mobile metaverse, Highrise, has been growing year-over-year for the previous eight, both in revenue and user-base, but I will admit I was still somewhat shocked when I found out that Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams was a dedicated user and huge fan of the Highrise game. Maisie and her boyfriend, Reuben Selby have since become amazing friends and collaborators for our company. Maisie was recently the cover star for Hunger TV’s magazine and I was so honored when she approached and asked to interview me for a Q&A piece on the metaverse.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Well actually, the first app Jimmy & I created ended up becoming a huge flop. A good idea to start, Photoscore was a dating app in which women took the lead, assigning a numeric value to sort through and rank different fellas. Surprisingly, this was the first female choice-centered dating app of its kind at the time — Bumble didn’t appear in the App Store until late 2014. And yet, despite its progressive vision, Photoscore was rejected from the App Store, and the project likewise found no support from the growth accelerator Y Combinator. When their third party member decided to call it quits, Jimmy and I changed directions. Over the next year and a half, we would successfully launch two entirely new apps: Pocketz and Harvest Crossing. Both new apps were games with a focus on socializing, our lesson learned this was our sweet spot.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My first co-founder for Luxury Escapes actually taught me a lot about how to be more assertive and close deals. Although he wasn’t always right, he sure knew how to keep moving things forward. His decisiveness taught me the value of swift and committed decision making. There’s really nothing worse than stalling a company’s growth while you “think about it”, you’re really just delaying the decision making. Certainly, you have to do your own research but procrastination in decision making affects everyone in your company.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
At the beginning of this year, we announced Highrise World, which we will be launching over the next couple of months. Worlds now gives our users the ability to create their own custom metaverse communities that live on the block chain. We’ve seen an increased demand for custom metaverse experiences in recent years and even months, but building one takes significant time and resources. We believe that the future of social connectivity lies in the metaverse, so we’ve removed those barriers to entry. We’re rolling out our world building tools, the same tools that our team used to craft Highrise into the successful, thriving metaverse it is today, and allowing anyone who owns LAND on our continent to use them and follow our roadmap to success. In short, anyone can create their own metaverse, simply dubbed a Highrise. This will help people by expanding access to the metaverse and allowing for greater access online. And, by building on our continent we’re ensuring it’s done in a fair, safe manner. By building an entire digital continent, parcels of which are available to own in the form of LAND, we’re fulfilling our mission of expanding digital ownership opportunities for all.
Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. The VR, AR and MR industries seem so exciting right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? Can you explain or give an example?
The most exciting concepts in the metaverse industry to date deal with digital ownership, the creator economy and the GameFi market. I believe that the future lies in the metaverse and our products, specifically Highrise World, are accessible and mobile-first, providing all the opportunity to build a custom experience with true digital ownership & autonomous governance. We are initiating a prosperous online economy that will enable new work opportunities for creators, collectors, and experience hosts from impoverished countries. A populated virtual world will bring the physical world closer and make you feel more connected within a community while helping to tear down global economic disparities and increase access worldwide. We also recently announced that our community-owned metaverse Highrise World will be supported by the Avalanche subnet — making it Avalanche’s first-ever metaverse subnet. This historic move merges the benefits of a GameFi economy with the existing, community-first infrastructure that’s contributed to the existing success of Highrise.
What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?
I would say the three most concerning areas in the metaverse today for me are equality, governance & protection. The Web3 mindset is for everyone to have the same experience and Highrise has set-up in game guard rails to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity. Although I grew up playing social interactive video games, I know today they are not as safe or what they used to be. Cyber-bullying online is a huge problem and our goal is to diminish it by implementing AI features in chat rooms to detect inappropriate content and shut it down quickly. Lastly, MR governance is worrisome because in order for all these virtual worlds to stay spinning they have to work correctly, a failed example being Club Penguin. Highrise enables its users to have a healthy environment where the treasury is successfully managed & infrastructure is taken care of.
I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?
After the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, people are even more hungry for real personal connection. Work teams are becoming increasingly more spread out — like mine which is all over the world — connecting people together & sharing experiences has become more important than ever. The metaverse allows people to escape & interact with a community so when they resume their WFH life they can focus more clearly on the tasks at hand their employer asks of them. Virtual worlds help make the real world more connected in an increasingly spread out globally diverse universe.
Are there other ways that VR, AR and MR can improve our lives? Can you explain?
Our products, specifically Highrise World, are accessible and mobile-first metaverses, providing all the opportunity to build a custom experience with true digital ownership & autonomous governance. Not only do we provide the tools for any brand, community or individual to create a custom metaverse through the Highrise World Builder, but we also empower successful digital ownership through our dedicated subnet blockchain. With this transition, simply put, a shift from web2 to web3, creators have full ownership of their content. Landowners can govern and monetize their metaverse how they see fit & build unique in-world experiences that engage with their users. And, on top of that, Highrise has a robust and active existing user-base ready to make this leap into the metaverse. Unlike similar metaverse worlds, Highrise has true user engagement — providing a never-before-seen capacity for engagement & income for the people that use it.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about working in your industry? Can you explain what you mean?
One of the biggest ongoing MR myths, both in media and in practice is that the metaverse is primarily male dominated. Our virtual world, Highrise, is over 75% female based, and some of the top performing creators are female, like Maisie Williams. As of March 2022, a survey conducted in the United States found that metaverse interests in men were doubled that of women. My biggest rationale for this incorrect trend is the survey data recorded are from metaverses like Decentraland & Sandbox that don’t have true user engagement like Higrise, therefore cannot adequately interpret the trends at hand.
What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The VR, AR or MR Industries?”
At the stage we’re in now, with web3 still being fairly new to most consumers, traditional web2 tech individuals who successfully make the leap into web3 are generally naturally curious & early adapters. Of course this may be an oversimplification, but in my experience, web3 people find each other because they are continually seeking new experiences & new avenues for growth — financially or otherwise. However, I’ve found that the basic principles are similar, but the mediums have changed. In lieu of traditional networking events people meet in Discord channels, Reddit forums — or even in Highrise!
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Digital economies enable direct transactions between creator and consumer. In the physical world, you have a massive supply chain with rent seekers in between each stage. A worker in China works on a fabric that’s shipped to a factory where another worker builds a shoe that’s shipped to a distributor who sells to retailers who then resells to the end consumer. The workers ultimately see less than 5% of the revenue of those shoes they initiated. In the digital world, because there’s no physical limitations, the relationship between creator to consumer can be more direct. I believe in this new world, where the economic inequality that exists simply because somebody is born in a different country dissipates. The idea that anyone born in a lower class community in China, with less resources can build something of value and sell it directly to someone born into wealth all the way in America. In doing so, the world becomes more equal over time and is a huge reason why I love the creator economy.
We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
I would love to sit and have a private meal with Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games, and the creator of the Unreal Engine, one of the most-used game development platforms. I think Sweeney would be the best candidate to build a mass adopted virtual world. Sweeney was chosen recently as person of the year for building and turning Fortnite into a social network with his company, hosting online events such as Travis Scott’s in-game concert which drew over 28 million viewers. He has his hands in the big next everything, to be able to sit down and expand our vision together would make Highrise even bigger success than it already is.
Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!
Makers of The Metaverse: Anton Bernstein Of Pocket Worlds On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
