The AR Show: Sophia Dominguez (Snap) on How Technology Impacts Human Interaction (Part 1)

9:51PM Jun 26, 2023

Speakers:

Jason McDowall

Sophia Dominguez

Keywords:

ar

augmented reality

vr

people

snap

technology

build

feel

company

working

experience

book

talking

years

spectacles

world

explore

content

headset

snapchat

Welcome to the AR show where I dive deep into augmented reality with a focus on the technology, the use cases and the people behind them. I'm your host Jason McDowall. Today's conversation is with Sophia Dominguez. Sophia is the director of AR platform partnerships and ecosystem at Snap where she has been the last three years. Previously, she started the widely followed "All Things VR" newsletter and joined Rothenberg Ventures as an entrepreneur in residence before co founding her first company Svrf. There, she created the first API and SDKs for searching and rendering 3d face filters. They powered over 280 million AR experiences and Sophia successfully sold the company to Poplar before joining Snap. Sophia began her career by attending NYU with a focus on how technology impacts human interaction. She then organized one of the world's first wearable technology conferences before working in product and operations for a startup focused on visual messaging.

In this, the first of a two-part conversation, Sophia shares a number of insights, including her unique and early perspective on headworn AR, the pivot she took an AR VR platform startup, how Snap sees the evolution of AR and wearables, some of the numbers around AR usage there at snap, the evolution of the partner program, and the core pillars of snaps AR platform focus, including the recent addition of shopping and commerce. Here's Sophia in her own words.

At Snap, we fundamentally believe that augmented reality represents the next major shift in the way that people will use computing like period. And at a higher level, we've always focused on designing technology that enhances the real world. And we believe that this approach is just the most compelling and also just the healthiest path forward for us as human beings. And because we open to the camera, it offers us a wide range of opportunities when it comes to how augmented reality can be used. Something that's maybe often overlooked because people just feel like it's you know, maybe that's like gimmicky, or simple or silly is that it didn't feel like you were using technology, it just felt really fun and natural. And going back to what we were saying earlier, like, at the end of the day, consumers they don't care if it's augmented reality, or like the technological components of what made that experience like work really well. They just want it to be fun or useful in their lives.

Snap is on the path to become the comprehensive developer platform of choice and AR. As a reminder, you can find the show notes for this and other episodes at our website, thearshow.com. And please support the podcast patreon.com/theARshow. Let's dive in.

Sophia, when I was younger, I remember there was this Neil Steffensen book that I loved. And it's not the one that most people cite. It was called the Diamond Age. And one of the concepts in this book was this, this notion that you had the primer. And it was this magical book that contained this artificial intelligence and all of this insight into kind of the world's knowledge. And it was a an assistant that helped them in character solve some really important set of problems that exist in that particular fantasy world. And of all of his books. That was the one that stood out most for me, was there a science fiction book that you really enjoyed when you were young, and that kind of had a big impact on you?

Yes, in fact, when I was 13, I was lucky to my middle school teacher gave us required reading to read feed by Mt. Anderson. It's not a super popular book. But you know, it talks about a future world where we all have a chip in our bodies, and everything is AR and VR. But we didn't call it that. For what it's worth. It is a dystopian novel. But towards the end of it, I just I was obsessed with it. Like I reread it about three more times. And it was really influential on me because at the time I had a T Mobile sidekick. And for those of you who don't know what that was, it was, you know, kind of like a next gen smartphone at the time, you had access to aim and you could text really easily with a keyboard. And I just always liked technology or was interested in technology. I loved this idea of new phones and new things. But suddenly, after reading this book, and seeing and visualizing this world where content was just in front of us as we walked, or we were able to touch con like technology or content and three dimensions in the same way that we interact with the real world. I just it felt so natural, you know, wasn't a question. I was like, this is where things are going. And so I looked down at you know, my T mobile smartphone, and I was like, What is this? Like, what, why are we operating in these screens, this doesn't make any sense. And so just from a very, very early age, I was able to kind of see this future of what AR and VR would look like, of course, this novel did depict a more dystopian or negative future. And, you know, I told myself, I want to work in this industry, whatever this thing is called. But I don't want that to happen. I want to work in it to make sure that we don't go down this more negative path of, you know, feeds everywhere and continental in front of us and us being controlled by advertisers. And so that was the first book that was pretty influential. And then actually this, the second book that was really influential was Rainbow's End. And I'm not sure how familiar are with that book. But that was the first time it described the way that we'd be using AR and VR in our normal lives in a really interesting way. So, for example, in the book, there's this girl, she's sitting on the swing, and she just, you know, has her eyes open, but suddenly is like going into another world or interacting with technology in some way. And I think it was like her father, or someone who was another character in the book kind of walks up to her and sees Oh, shoot, you know, she, she's, I forget exactly what they called it at the time. But like, based off of what her eyes look like, you knew that she was doing something with technology. And I thought that those two books for me kind of let me explore what the future may look like in this more fictionalized way, but also set the precedent for me getting into augmented reality. And I was just fortunate enough to stumble upon these books, quite early age that got me to where I am today.

So these sorts of influences really are these books, I should say, really kind of took hold of you and help to guide you, in that future peer of yours. And it really early on, you kind of had this, this appreciation seemed this realization that there's gonna be this large impact that technology was going to have on the human experience. And you know that one of your objectives as you read through these was to make sure that we didn't go down the dystopian path. Yeah, experience was a positive experience. What are some of the other things you kind of pursued? Whether it's through education, or just some other experiments where you kind of gained a deeper appreciation for the risks or the realities of how those two things come together these technologies, these New Age technologies in the human experience?

Yeah, great question. So I went to NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. And I knew, from pretty early on, I wanted to do something regarding technology, I tried to be an engineer, I was not a very good programmer. So then I ended up taking a lot more like business courses, sociology courses. And in my freshman year, in my second semester, I took a class on religion and popular culture. And the teacher or the professor was quite interesting had all these takes on how religion comes about in even the social media at the time, and things like that. And he asked us to write a paper, just exploring whatever topic that we wanted, and how it could potentially relate to religion. And for whatever reason, I wanted to prove or try and see if I could compare Google to God. And it's funny now, you know, seeing all this, like, open AI and techy beauty and, and all these things kind of come about. And so I went off exploring, if I could prove that Google would be, you know, comparable to how people think about God. And this is when I started to revisit the feed book. And seemingly, these two, you know, concepts may not, you know, automatically relate to one another. But where I was going was that I kept thinking, Well, if we have access to information, and we're always asking information from let's say, in this case, Google or at the time, and going less and less to God, like what does that mean for the future of religion? How are people experiencing God? Are they experiencing God in the same ways, just based off of, you know, all of the technologies that were available at the time might be this is like, over 10 years ago at this point. And I kept thinking about feed, and feed was just this idea of like, okay, now that we have more and more information, how are we going to live in a world with more access to information? What is it going to look like? How is it going to feel around us. And that ended up becoming my entire senior thesis, which then translated into my degree, which was exploring like how technology impacts human interaction. And I ended up you know, reading the senior thesis, and the whole base of it was around how big data is going to affect augmented reality and virtual reality worlds, and how the technology that we have today is really going to change the way that we interact with not just technology, but also the real world. And there was just something really interesting about that time, because all my friends thought I was crazy. And I would say words like augmented reality or virtual reality. And they were like, What are you talking about? That sounds so far fetched and sci fi and I didn't feel that way at all. I just felt like no, this is the future. This is what how we're going to interact with technology because these rectangular screens, it doesn't make sense, right? Even, you know, now fast forward after going through the pandemic, and we spent so much time on Zoom and video calls, and there's just no replacement for like three dimensionality that we experience in the real world. And, you know, in the next, you know, 1020 years, we're going to start to see a lot of the these ideas that come based off of like, what the visual worlds that you know, feed and these other books, Ramos' end really depicted where it's just like, you shouldn't be able to to use technology in the same way that you interact with the real world. And that's also, you know, the future of what augmented reality really does promise. And you know whether or not you want to go off into a different world where you're going into virtual reality, or you want to, you know, be more stationary and use a mixed reality device, or whether you want to explore the world with augmented reality. I think ultimately, all these technologies are just really culminating into a way that just should feel more natural. Because right now, and I think even the pandemic and the way that everyone felt about being so much on their computer, it's, it's not it, and we know that it's not it. And, you know, the fact that I was able to just explore these topics in college, and that ended up you know, kick starting my career, which, which I'm sure we'll get to really served as this like really nice foundation of exploration and a lot of ideas of what the future of AR and VR should look like. Because at the time, no one really knew, I think we've made a lot of progress over the last decade or so, really defining like how people want to experience you know, more immersive technologies. And we still have like, quite a long road ahead. But that's what's so exciting. And I feel very fortunate to feel like, Yeah, this is going to be like my life's work, because I feel like it's it's really endless. And definitely, I want to make sure that we're not in a world where there's advertisements everywhere, or you know, that that YouTube video that everyone refers to about just like advertisements everywhere, as you're like walking down the street. I really don't think that anyone really wants that to happen. But it's something that we have to think about. So profusely when designing these technologies. I do read my senior thesis, like every few years, and I'm like, wow, I was really onto something. And it's also a good reminder of, you know, things do take a long time, I think at the time, you know, in college, I was like, everyone's going to be wearing AR glasses and like five years. And you know, lo and behold, 10 years later, we definitely have have a quite quite a road to walk down. But that was kind of the genesis of you know, my early years. And then when I graduated from college at CES 2013, Google Glass had just come out. I remember, you know, when they announced Google Glass, and I was like, wow, this is this is the future, right? Like, it's all happening, like it's gonna happen in my lifetime. I was, you know, very poor college student. And I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with my career or life yet, but I knew that Google Glass, it was very special is a very special moment in time. I'm not sure if you remember, but when when Google Glass came out, it was very negative, right? Like the press, were calling people glass holes, and just the general sentiment was just like, how could you wear something on your face? You know, what, what if you know, how do you know if someone's recording you, what's the value in this, etc, etc. And I kind of looked at that. And I was like, I feel like people aren't appreciating, like how special this moment is. And maybe it was because I was just passionate about the space. But I ended up putting together a project where I became fully sponsored to travel around the world with Google Glass and document that people reacted to the first AR headset, if we want to call it that. And so I ended up traveling to about six different cities over the course of about six weeks wearing Google Glass the entire time. I mean, obviously, I didn't sleep with it, and, and a few other, you know, areas, if I ever felt unsafe, I would take it off. And that ended up culminating into a blog where I blogged about it, and every single city. And then at the end of the trip, I also created a video with all the footage that I had captured, of people wearing the device of me interviewing people with the device. And like one of my favorite takeaways was when I was in India, just walking on the street. And people would run up to me and say like, are those Google Goggles? Or like, what are you wearing? What is that, and they would have so many different ideas. And we're so excited about what the future of this technology could do, rather than basing it off of what technology existed today. And that brought back my whole excitement into kind of the future of like, what augmented reality could be, be and also served as a really great foundation for thinking about the importance of building diverse global ecosystems. Because again, in the US, largely people were pretty negative about it, but you know, taking it abroad, hearing other people's perspectives, ideas of it, people who are young and old, everyone had a different idea or a different concept of what they would do if they had the device. And yeah, that kind of, you know, kind of solidified it for me where I was like, I want to do this for my life.

Just on this the details of traveling the world wearing Google Glass and measuring recording people's reactions to this. Was it the case that as you were outside of the US, there was a lot more curiosity, interest, excitement, than trepidation or rejection?

Yeah, I would say most places? Yes. You know, I think in Germany, I probably had a similar framework to how people were in the US or there was just more questions about it. Most people actually didn't know what Google Glass was. And so they would be like, What are you wearing on your face? I think in the video, someone who's just like, you look like an alien, right? Like, it just is like, Who is this, you know, random, you know, young woman walking around the streets wearing this device? And other things, it'd be like, how do I know if it's recording? Like, will you tell me if I took a photo, can I see the photo, and things like that, and a lot of those learnings actually, you know, taking, you know, step back going into the snap landscape, I think like when they started thinking about spectacles, and then also launching spectacles, it was very much built with this, like, there's always going to be a light to show you that like if you're recording. And so we've really taken this, like human centric and privacy by design standards, that a lot of the people when I was wearing Google Glass were actually asking about, and I think it's very important for any device maker to really be thoughtful about that human experience, and to let others know if you're recording or if you're taking a photo of them or taking a video of them. And that was the main feedback from people versus like, no one ever called me a glass hole, at least to my face to my knowledge. And people always, you know, looked at it with curiosity, and with questions or ideas. Again, going back to India, these two different people really stood out to me, one person wanted to use the Google Glass camera to map their entire hometown in India, because they're, you know, at the time, I'm sure this has improved quite drastically, but at the time, there were no addresses. So if you had to ship something, it would be like, ship this, you know, whatever box to the house that's next to the red, you know, gas station, right. And the other one was like, Oh, my family works in factories, we would love to use Google Glass to help with DIY assemblies to just make it easier, because they're always spending time looking down at the manual. But if you could use that in real time, and you could see what they're trying to build right in front of you. That's just such a better experience. And up until that point, and you know, I was young, I hadn't even thought of those use cases, or neither scenario. And I think that's also another reason why. When I think about augmented reality, it's really about the use case and what you're going to be building, rather than thinking about it as like, Oh, if I add AR this product is going to be successful. It's like, you think about what product are you trying to build? And how do you use technology? How do you use augmented reality to, quote unquote, augment the experience, versus that it's going to like solve all of your problems, like start with the customer and start building for the use case, and then use the technology to help you do that.

It's a tool to solve a problem. As you went and explored, you know, how, how you might use it, as you were doing was traveling to do all this sort of engagement, all the scenarios in which you found the device useful.

I mean, the photos honestly, the photos and videos that I've captured are just a really unique perspective. And also, I look back at the videos, it's like pretty low quality, all things considered, but there's just certain memories that are feel so much more realistic. Like I remember taking a video blowing one of those, like, really large bubbles, have you ever done that in the park? And just seeing that captured in a first person scenario? You know, I go back and rewatch that video because I'm like, Oh, this is just such a blissful moment. And you can't get that with your, you know, holding your phone and with your hands, or even if someone's taking a photo of you, right, and just like that first person perspective that you can capture in these videos, is just so much more real and human. And I think, you know, when I think about these glasses, yes, the cameras really important. And that's kind of you know, also, but like at snap, we learned 2016 Like, you know, we ship the first spectacles that had cameras on it. And we wanted them to be super fun to wear and like bring design and style and utility into daily life. But having a camera on your face isn't enough of a reason to wear it every single day. And you know, I'm sure we'll talk more about the evolution of spectacles later. But to me, the best use of Google Glass was the camera and the thing that I wanted it to do the most that I had struggled with was maps. And why is because you know, just like battery life and phone and things like that. But I still think like maps and those sorts of use cases like more utility based especially while traveling are really important. for any sort of headset,

when I first became interested in augmented reality, it was often imagining myself as a traveler in a foreign land. Those sorts of use cases are always the ones that came first and foremost to the mind. Yeah, mind, this notion of having a translator there visually orally, to have navigation guidance to have some sort of historical perspective on what's going on. All these sorts of things, this makes the world a more accessible place, more enjoyable and potentially enjoyable place. I just still in love with these sorts of use cases. Yeah, you've noted that some of these learnings you've taken away at the time, you already had a perspective that the American reaction, the generic media infused American reaction was these were unacceptable social contraptions, glass holes, because there's a camera in your face all the time. And as you travel the world, you found that there was some alternative reactions, some anticipation of what could be possible with sorts of things around navigation and mapping and, and guided instruction. And that potentially, as long as there's the right sort of notifications about whether the cameras on and, and whether it's being recorded, there might be more acceptance of these sorts of devices. Were there any other key takeaways you kind of took from this experience,

going back to the importance of building a diverse ecosystem, right? Like, everyone comes from their own background, their own experiences, and is going to have different ideas, and they're going to think about how to solve different problems that affect their lives. And ultimately, people as a whole are more similar than we are different. But being able to pull from people's experiences and what excites them, what they're passionate about, what value will bring back to their lives. And making sure that if there's a device, it's not just for, let's say, a certain audience, it's not just for tech people, it's not just for gamers, or it's, you know, in different countries, like, that's so important. And that has always stuck with me, and throughout my career and working on, you know, various sorts of companies. I just think that, that learning is just so important to always keep top of mind, especially when, you know, working on platforms designing technology, because, again, if you're not thinking about how the technology can be used to solve problems, and or how the technology can be used to impact a person's life, then you're probably not thinking about designing technologies in the right ways. And that's like really important to do to like, bring us closer together as humans

love to come back to this topic of the AR, wearable. And we definitely do that in the experience you having here at snap, but I like to take a step backwards in time forward in time, depending where we are in the story. And talk about some experiences in between kind of this post collegiate exploration of this sort of technology impacting humans, and ultimately your time here at snap. And after some time in product operations, I had an opportunity to become an entrepreneur in residence at a at a venture capital fund. And for those that run around in the world of startups, we hear this term entrepreneur in residence every now and then. I'm not quite sure exactly what it is. And what goes on there. Can you describe what it means to be not from residents at least at Rosberg ventures?

Yeah. So at Rothenburg, they had a accelerator and it was the first AR VR accelerator in the world. And this is like 2014, I want to say, so very, very early days. And Dylan Flynn who at the time was a VC at Rothenberg reached out to me, I had a newsletter called all things VR, which I started after, you know, my Google Glass trip. And it was a way for me to continue these learnings about a Google Glass and just like helping people understand what is AR what is VR, because so many people were asking me, like, Hey, what is this thing? Like, should I care? And I started this weekly newsletter, within the newsletter, it would just be like, you know, news roundups, and just like educating people more about what's happening in the space, talking about companies that are being formed in the space. And then I also had a Content section. And so this content section was, you know, trial that various largely at the time VR applications or content, then make recommendations for people to go and experience because it was just hard to know what was good, really, and there were various platforms, and I just made sure to try everything and kind of recommend that to people. So Dylan, he was a newsletter subscriber, and he reached out and he was like, hey, like, you know, what are you working on? And I was like, I don't know yet but like, I'm growing the newsletter. It's going pretty well. Mind you at the time, the industry as a whole was probably less than, like 20,000 people. And he was like, would you want to ever become a venture capitalist? And I was like, no, like, I definitely want to do a start up. I'm not sure what I want to do yet, but I'm just like spending, you know, the foreseeable future, building up his newsletter and like coming up with ideas. And he was like, What do you want to come to Rothenburg and continue to explore these ideas. We're about to start this AR VR accelerator. We're admitting I think it was like 10 to 15 companies. And you can help them do whatever they need, whether they need product help, like marketing help operation, I'll help you name it. And so I was like, you know, that sounds like a really great on the ground experience. And so I went, I left New York and I moved to San Francisco to join Rothenburg as their EIR. And from day one started working with all the different companies, probably most notably, VR chat was one of the companies that was in the first like Rothenberg Ventures AR VR accelerator. And I got to work with all these different founders every single day and like, whatever their needs were, so was that like, hey, we need help growing like our user base? Or like, can you just do user testing for us? Can you help find people to test our product. And what was so interesting about that time is, like, we're all operating on like dev kits, like this was like the, you know, DK two was available the Vive you know, headset with, like, all these wires, and just like really, like, complicated setups, but these, this group of founders, they were so excited about the future, and we're all building like, respectively, their own businesses. And yeah, out of that time period, I have, you know, still have like, really close friends from those days. And Rothenburg was like this really interesting hub of almost like a magnet, like anyone who's interested in the space because like coming to Rothenberg Ventures, we had like demo days, and just like really fun events. So anyone in the space could just like, come by, try out, you know, the companies that were being built at the time. And yeah, I feel very fortunate because I got to meet so many people at that time. Interestingly enough, many people who are now at snap, but then also, you know, who have gone on to have their careers at like, Oculus, or Facebook Mehta, Niantic and more and, and some of them who, you know, like VR chat, have grown to build a very successful, you know, AR or VR company, which is really exciting. And I did that for a little bit less than a year. And I, through that time, was working on my newsletter, especially this content section. And the feedback that I kept getting from people was like, I have a VR headset, but I don't know what to try or like, you know, I have this headset, but I don't know what to try. And so through that with my co founder, we ended up starting stuff, which the original vision was to build the first search engine for virtual reality content. And once I started that, I then left Rothenburg and then decided to move back to New York, which is risky at the time. But you know, the first engineer that we wanted to hire was based here. And I think, you know, in San Francisco and never really felt like home for me versus New York. There's just an interesting combination of people here. There's, you know, people who are in tech, but then also people who are in the arts. And there's just like such a melting pot of creative people in New York. And when I came back, I wanted to make sure that people who were working in AR and VR could come together kind of learn taking the cues from what I learned at Rothenberg. And so I ended up starting these events called reverie. It was like an invite only event. It started out monthly. And then I got really busy. So ended up being quarterly and then eventually got too busy. But each month we would bring anywhere from like 20 to 60 people together. It wasn't the meetup it was just like everyone who's working in the space, who's doing something interesting can just come hang out for a few hours and kind of talk about, you know, all things like AR and VR. And that was just a really great way to come back to New York and feel like there was a community of people working in the space. And then it also just like a really great way to stay up to date on all the content that was coming out which then you know what I was working out at my company.

I'm just imagining these meetups that are not quite meetups was almost as much of a way for you to really stay on the very cutting edge of what was coming as it was to build the community but kind of had both sides of that.

Yeah, and but I think it's, that's always important, right? Like, even at snap, like it's so important to bring people together and our developers together to connect with one another whether that's to get new ideas to think about new opportunities to learn what others are doing to potentially serve as ways to recruit But, and then also make friends like some of my closest friends actually are from me coming back to New York and and bringing people together. And even for those that I, you know, fallen out of touch with, it's just every time I see them, you know, like once a year or a couple times a year, it's always just so refreshing, like, oh, how are things going, like Where have they progressed in their career, and it's been really, really amazing to see how many people have stayed in the industry and how much passion there is in the space, which has always drawn me in general to the space because people are just so creative, and they see the future and kind of Ignore the naysayers, right? Like of people, VR, like that's for gamers or AR like that's for nerds, or no one's gonna do that, like our phone is fine. And so yeah, in some ways, these people were like the rebels. And you know, the industry is much bigger now. But those who started early, by and large, have have stayed pretty committed, which has been great.

Yeah, absolutely. Whenever I encounter folks like that, who say the current technology is fine. I was saying, You're right. Current technology is fine. But it's possible for something even better

than Henry Ford, that Henry Ford, quote, where he's like, if we would have asked people what they wanted, they would have told us a faster horse.

Exactly. We want something. Yeah. Exactly. incremental improvement on the existing thing. Yeah. So as you were starting this as getting stuff going, you had this vision that because there was this growing body of folks who are excited about VR and, and needed guidance on what they should be engaging with? What sort of experiences they should be trying? How did you kind of set up the vision for the company? And and why is it you thought that this particular problem set was unique and needed a specialized solution?

I mean, again, the vision really started from the newsletter, because I was spending so much time just like combing through like, and there was websites, and there was apps, and app stores and all the things. And I was like this, it shouldn't be this complicated, just find like really good content. And so with my co founder, we built like a very basic demo app that just like helps people build like very simple ranking algorithm that doesn't help people explore based off of certain category, or use cases of content that they would want to find. And so we indexed a range of different websites that were available. And from that, we ended up raising our first round of funding, which was a million dollars to go off and explore, like building out what the first like VR search engine could be. And I should say something that we wanted to do was be or didn't have to use a headset in order to experience surf, because we always felt like that was kind of the bottleneck, right? It was like, you had to remember that your headset was charged, you then had to load it up, and then you'd have to experience it. And that was just really hard in order to grow Minh the demand. But then also, how do we get more people into the industry, which was like the kind of like the underlying goal for surf. And after about a year, what we started to notice was that VR content was interesting. But there was a lot of 3d content that was being created. And a lot of the 3d content made a lot more sense in augmented reality. So we actually ran some tests with Lens Studio, which is snaps, augmented reality tool. And we published a few of the experiences that we had serve onto snap chat using Lens Studio. And I think within, you know, a few days, we have like millions of views. And that was, you know, compared to I think maybe we had like a few 1000 views or something when we were mostly web and then focusing on VR, and kind of a light bulb went off. And we were like, you know, augmented reality is hitting consumer demand. And it's meeting people where they are today, right, which is on their phones. And ultimately, there'll be a step function when, you know, headsets, headsets are more readily available, and people are experiencing this content. And so from those learnings, we then pivoted away from virtual reality and focus on augmented reality. And at the same time, we created a studio team site called serve studios and sister Studios was making augmented reality content with various brands and kind of celebrities. And the deal was that we would if we made the content for you know, said brand or celebrity, it was then searchable and indexable in our database. And we built an API that allowed other companies to pull our content from and then integrate it into their own applications. And I forget the exact numbers, but you know, thanks to the reach that like snap provided, we were getting like millions and millions of views every single month and then also leveraging those partnerships to, you know, get integrated into our API and all Those sorts of things. And so that kind of set me back on this path of augmented reality and just realizing how many millions of people were using it at the time. And now the numbers are even bigger, right? Like, our most public number is that 250 million people use augmented reality on Snapchat every single day and growing, that's not stopping anytime soon. So I still, you know, stand by that pivot decision. And when we're thinking about, or when I think about like surf, and those sort of moments, like moving away into this more scaled reality, I was really glad that we went that path. And ultimately, a lot of those stepping stones did lead me to snap ultimately.

And what was that transition for you from sort of to snap?

So in 2019, we had raised $2.2 million had really amazing investors. And we are thinking about our next round. So we had raised a seed round. And the next phase for us was going to be a Series A, and, you know, we're thinking about just the overall landscape and something my co founder and I spent a lot of time talking about was, okay, if we raise an A, which needs to be, you know, at least $3 million round, that needs to last us essentially for the next four years, because in four years, there's going to be like a huge uptick of whether that be headsets or like augmented reality usage, this is only going to get bigger, but we need to have enough money in order to I think, Phil, I'm liking his last name right now, the founder of Second Life,

Rosedale Philip Rosedale. Yeah,

he said, like I said, this about VR startups was like, be a cockroach don't die. Like this is going to take a long time. And so that was in our heads quite a bit like, whatever we do right now, whenever money we raise right now we need to be 100% confident that us as an AR company, we're going to be able to make it to a be around or like monetize in some sort of way or have like said number of integrations, in order to make that beat around successful. And then the second thing we thought a lot about was the amount of money and I believe our number was like at least $3 million. So we went out to raise and I think we had like a million or 1.5 and commits for the next round. But we kind of cobbled together the $2.2 million over the four year history of the company I hadn't, you know, made or my co founder, we hadn't really made money at all in four years. And when we couldn't get to $3 million, we had to be like very realistic with ourselves like, Okay, do we want to raise 1.5? And do another round? And you know, probably like 18 more months? Or are we really bullish that in the next four years, there's going to be some like exponential growth curve when it comes to like AR companies making money or some success when it comes to our API. And we couldn't get there we were like, we just don't see how it's going to be so exponential, again, for like AR companies, and like platforms to provide ways for companies to make money and to be successful building AR companies without just like, ongoing fundraising and kind of giving more and more of your company away. And so because of those two reasons. And then the third one being, we had to invest a lot in machine learning to help ease the creation of 3d content, right, because that would be like a huge time suck. And that was gonna require even more capital in order to, you know, bring on the right engineers, or create servers to be able to, like render this out. And so for those reasons, then we decided to sell. And we decided to sell like, you know, October 2019, we're in the middle of acquisition talks, this is like going to 2020, and then COVID hits, and everyone's stock goes to like, you know, very, very low, everything gets on hold. And so that was a really tough time. But I just, you know, with my co founder, both of us were just like, this is still the right decision, like we need to just sell the company and kind of have like a soft landing. And so we ended up reaching out to a number of people in the AR and VR space. And ultimately, this company, poplar is based in the UK, they were super excited. They're like, we want to use all of surface technology. We want to use the API, we have this tool that we've built. And so anyways, we did a deal with them to sell them the technology and a few people from the team to like, serve as consultants to be able to, like help them integrate it. And then I personally I was like, I just want to work at a platform company to solve the problems that like we as an AR first company faced. And so what Yeah, Once the deal closed, I had some some mindspace. And to me that company was snap. And the reason why it was snap was because they're leading and still are leading at the forefront of AR, we had so much success when it came to building AR experiences on Snapchat, I knew the platform Lens Studio incredibly well knew the team incredibly well. And, you know, I was part of at the time, which is called the official lens creator program. So you get like a verified account on SNAP. Since I've joined, we've now changed it to the snap lens network, which I'll get into. And I even started talking to bench were in Ventura, and at the time was like the VP of partnerships, and we started talking about me joining snap. And so he ended up creating the role for me that I'm in now. And so I joined as the head of air platform partnerships, as the only person on my team for about a year, which is probably one of the more insane years of my life. Now. You know, fast forward, the team is like 13 people and very thankful for them every day. And you know, something from the day one that I started, it was like, Okay, how do we incorporate more of this business mindset into these programs that we're creating? Right? So that was part of some of the logic changing from the official lens creator program into the snap lens network? How do we make this more professional? How do we start transforming these creators who have been for quite a while hobbyist? And how do we enable them to build real businesses and make their livelihoods building AR on the platform that they want to build on? Which was snap and Lens Studio? And yeah, it's been it's been quite the ride, which I'm sure we'll get into,

from the outset was that your intention as you entered snap it, it felt fit the profile, the type of company you wanted to be at was working on a set of problems that you were familiar with and excited to continue furthering? And what was it this notion that you wanted to evolve it from catering more towards hobbyists to enabling those to be real businesses built on the back of stamp?

Yeah, that and then also, I was always really appreciative of the approach that snap had taken with spectacles. And so it was like, you know, ultimately, it's going to be these creators who are building on AR type glasses, even though at the time, you know, we didn't have like AR glasses, they were just really, you know, wearable cameras. And how can I help move augmented reality out of the early days? Right, and I think we talked about this a lot in VR, and not so much an AR. But, you know, some of the more defining moments of a platform is if people can make a livelihood off of building on said company's platform. And yes, you know, people could make some money building online studio and and building on Snapchat, and whether they were like starting agencies or starting to be hired by advertisers. But it was like, how can you unlock, like on platform monetization, in addition to anything relating to like advertising or building experiences for brands and celebrities or companies, and also, how does that ladder up to this like wearable feature, which was, you know, kind of going back to my passion areas, and there's something that I'm personally very motivated and excited about, and snap kind of had those elements. And it was just a no brainer when, when thinking about that path and option. And we're continuing to exploring how we can support AR craters, developers and teams, both grow their careers and build businesses on the snap AR platform. We recently started experimenting with a small group of creators and developers from the snap lens network to build lenses with digital goods, including unlockable power ups, AR items, or extra tools within a lens that Snapchatters can redeem with tokens. And, you know, we've been exploring, like various ways to further support our AR developer community that offer new business models to build lenses beyond building lenses for just clients or brands. And so we're currently working with a number of, of these AR craters, developers and teams within the snap lens network to build more of these digital goods within lenses. And we're excited to learn more from the Snapchatters and learn from our developers, like what success looks like, and what Snapchatters want to redeem the tokens and their lenses. And, you know, when I had my own company, that was like, the thing of like, oh, this is like, the thing that I we really needed as a company. And so it's really cool. A little less than three years of being at snap, we were we launched that. And that was just only one part of the journey because also being really heavily involved in spectacles and the developer ecosystem there.

I'd like to approach step maybe from the perspective of some of the key pillars the company sees as its thinking through its AR initiatives, whether it's on the smartphone itself or through the glasses, and then we can kind of get into how glasses really fit into the overall story. But when I look across the sort of pillars that I see snap pursuing, I see a lot of emphasis, of course, on self expression, it's kind of the origin of the company in the Snapchat app, a lot of emphasis on entertainment. And then there's this emphasis on commerce, which I saw a lot really recently when we saw each other in person there at the snap Partner Summit recently. Am I reading that? Right? How would you think about the snaps pillars around AR,

just taking a step back, you know, snap, we fundamentally believe that augmented reality represents the next major shift in the way that people will use computing like period. And at a higher level, we've always focused on designing technology that enhances the real world. And we believe that this approach is just the most compelling and also just the healthiest path forward for us as human beings. And because we open to the camera, it offers us a wide range of opportunities when it comes to how augmented reality can be used, you know, started with self expression, well, you know, that's by and large than Snapchats, like core use case, right? Like, we want to be the fastest way to capture and share a moment with your friends and family and, and more. And that's kind of what we became known for, right? Like the first lenses, whereas the dancing hot dog, the vomiting, Rainbow the dog ears, but something that's maybe often overlooked, because people just feel like it's you know, maybe that's like gimmicky, or simple or silly, is that it didn't feel like you were using technology, it just felt really fun and natural. And going back to where we were saying earlier, like, at the end of the day, consumers, they don't care if it's augmented reality, or like the technological components of what made that experience like work really well, they just want it to be fun or useful in their lives. And so that's why, you know, self expression was definitely the first one. But now we're getting to a place where one self expression is it's mainstream, right? Like over two and 50 million people use AR and Snapchat every single day and growing. And to just like, tap into some more figures there, we did a research partnership with Deloitte, where we found that by the year 2025, which is very close now, over 75% of all smartphone users will be using augmented reality every single day. So while we're incredibly proud of this 250 million number, that's only going to be growing. And it's not just going to be growing for self expression, but it's again, going to be based off of like, what people what problem people are trying to solve their daily lives. And so that's also why we started to invest in commerce and shopping. Because just based off of the technology and and how it exists today, shopping, commerce is just is a no brainer, right? Like, how cumbersome is it going into the store, and then trying on clothes, and then returning things or buying things online. So if augmented reality can help solve that problem, and help, you know, reduce return rates, or provide value to people their daily lives, like we wanted us there. And then I think beyond that, maybe it's like a little bit more utility. So it's like helping people learn about the world, whether that's like exploring new cities, like music festivals, educating people about like, their surroundings is really, really important. And I would say education is a really core pillar for us, and definitely an area we want to continue to invest in. And then there's two other, you know, kind of use cases and categories are play. So it's like, how do you create an interactive experience that you want to engage with? What does that look like? I think we have like a number of different examples in this like play category. But like, that's just such a big, wide ranging category of like interactivity, and fun. We have a lot of different features within Lens Studio. So for example, connected lenses, which helps bring people together into a shared experience. And that's an area we're really heavily investing in. And then last, but definitely not least, is like within wellness. And for me, wellness also encapsulates fitness. And so that's like leveraging maybe like body tracking technologies. We have a number of different companies. We're talking to you right now about how do you like leverage the camera to understand your breathing to understand your like, how your facial movements are, like, how calm you are, etc. And so directionally, those are kind of some of the categories that we're actively thinking a lot about. But in general, just around how we can evolve augmented reality to just be more useful and valuable to people in their daily lives.

It's grown quite broad over the last few years. I like this splitting the bucket between self expression and play and wellness, and commerce and utility. I guess that was the fifth one that you mentioned as well. Yeah, do Kitchen. Yeah, education. Those are wonderful buckets. One of the ones that that got a lot of attention here very recently was this bucket around commerce. It is an area where augmented reality seems to offer some real benefit. He kind of hinted at some of those things around this notion that we can reduce returns if you have the ability to see yourself in that product, whether that's eyeglasses or footwear or whatever it happens to be. But I also saw something at the at the event that was more geared towards the the in store experience. Can you kind of describe the strategy that snap has around the commerce set of offerings around AR and how they all fit together?

Yeah, at SPS this year, SPS is our Partner Summit or annual Partner Summit, we talked quite a bit about areas, which is our new software as a service business. So AR Enterprise Services short arias for short. It's a mouthful. And what that does is it brings AR AR technology into customers own apps and websites and physical spaces. And the first product that areas launched at SPS is shopping suite. And so when shopping suite is it's a set of about five different features, including the 3d viewer, AR Tryon, fit finder, all of which exists to make it easier to shop and allow retailers to make AR creation and management like much more simple, fast and cost efficient. And so some of the early partners from shopping suite is a company called gooder. And what they found was that their customers were 81% more likely to add products to their cart after using AR Tryon. And then relatedly a different partner. So it's Princess Polly saw 24% Lower product return rate after using fit finder. So those are just like two examples. But in general, I think like this idea that augmented reality can have like that much impact on people's businesses is huge. And even if that's on their own website, or in their own app, like the value that this technology can bring. And then for like the physical in person kind of activations we unveiled our AR Amir's so that brands can bring their products to life inside their own space and in their own store. And so we announced this with Men's Wearhouse, and then also Nike. So they're both two different companies who are leveraging AR mirrors to enhance their in store experience. And it's really fun. If you've never tried one before it just you go up to the mirror, and you can see, you know, like the digital garments overlaid on top of you. I think over time, the goal with that is imagine if you go into a store, and you're like, I really don't want to go in and try on that dress or whatever, I just want to know what size I am. And if this will fit me, that's kind of like the vision for those mirrors. And I think that there's a number of different use cases for the future of mirrors. But again, it's like it shouldn't really feel like technology, it should just feel like you're enhancing the experience, you're making it easier for people you're bringing value into people's lives. And rather than just like, hey, use this thing, because the technology exists. And that's definitely like how we're approaching, you know, retailers and the shopping experience. Because it just provides a much more richer experience that hopefully also can like save on costs. And that's not even talking about, you know, any of the technology that can be leveraged in the garment creation process as well. There's kind of infinite opportunities there. Rather than having to, like make the physical product if you're able to understand how it would fit digitally on you, that should you know, help reduce waste and a number of other things in the future.

That's amazing. I remember I think it was, gosh, it's been five years May or so back, L'Oreal, but mighty face mighty faces. I don't know if they're the first or there's the first memory of the company that tried this in store virtual Tryon experience. And I remember seeing at the time thinking How brilliant is that? What an amazing idea to be able to, to work through that even the in store experience the makeup counter. I mean, there's totally so much better if you can fly through all the options so much more quickly and find the right thing for you totally for both the consumer and for the retailer.

Yeah, and I think you know, Maldives is a great example. And it's also like, again, I know we're talking about in store but also on your mobile phone, right? Like we've done a number of partnerships with sunglass makers, right? I think Cindy opticals one of them and just like you know how cumbersome and kind of gross it is, especially after COVID like try on all these different sunglasses and kind of know what your look like and it's impossible to order online. But, you know, with AR technology, you can actually get a feel for what the glasses are going to look like on you. And you can make much more informed decisions before you buy versus, you know, having to be like, oh, I need to go to the store and then I bought at the store doesn't carry it and etc, etc, or you order online, and then you're, you know, being wasteful doing returns. So there's a lot there.

So when you put this into the the larger context of the snap strategy, so we have so much consumer oriented activities going on, you leverage the amazing audience and in the Snapchat platform, to enable creators to now make a livelihood on the platform, you've made that evolution, you're expanding, now you got these multiple buckets, you're investing in AR, and now you have this enterprise component on. And it's not just an enterprise component that plugs directly into Snapchat, but it's an enterprise component that plugs into the underlying core technology that team has been working on. And in brings out into a different sort of format. So how does that fit into the bigger picture of where snap is going?

Yeah, what just one thing before we get to that, I will say, we still have a lot of work to do when it comes to like helping creators, developers, teams monetize, and like become more professional. It's not like, oh, we shipped a product and like check on a box, I think we there's a lot that we need to invest in and prove out and provide them opportunities. And so we're launching our first learning management system, which is going to have a set of new curriculum, with about a dozen courses, the foundation, the blend studio, with intermediate and advanced coursework, rolling out, like throughout the rest of the year, and a lot of education that we're investing in is around like, how do you build a business? How do you become professional? How do you make money? How do you start working with brands or clients? And then of course, like, even going into the digital goods within lenses, how do you make a successful lens that like, allows you to have like recurring revenue for the lenses that you create. And I think there's so much still that we need to do, because ultimately, it's like, the platform that wins is the one that allows people to one build their livelihoods. And at the same time, like enjoy doing it. And I think like, that's what's so valuable about Lens Studio is that when you use Lens Studio, you can publish to Snapchat, you can publish off platform to camera kit, or, you know, work with like shopping Suite customers. And then last, but definitely not least, is you can build for spectacles. And so this just suite of capabilities that all come from Lens Studio really serve as a really great foundation for how we think about the future. So right now we have about over 300,000 AR creators, developers and teams, from almost every country in the world using Lens Studio, they built over 3 million lenses and their lenses have been viewed over 5 trillion times. And while that's really great, like how do we all make them, like even more successful? How do we bring them more value? And as we think about the future of spectacles? How do we set them up for success, when the lenses that they're going to create are going to feel more like experiences, they're going to feel more like contained, you know, environments that hopefully you you're revisiting, you know, hopefully daily, but you know, at least multiple times a week, and what are the technologies that we need to invest in, in the platform to enable these developers to be able to have the building blocks to one build a really great experience, to build a successful experience and then three, like make enough money, so they can keep doing this and like do this full time? And what are the learning that we need to provide for them to ensure that they have all the information that they need in order to be successful. And I think like that really is the focus area right now, it's just like, we really need to be focused on building pathways for the AR community to build sustainable businesses to support themselves to do this full time. Because that's what really gets augmented reality out of the early days, and also is a ladder up to this, like wearable future that so many of us care so much about and are so passionate about. But kind of like the foundation's really need to be there. So that people don't have to, you know, have another job working nine to five and you know, hacking on them studio and night, right? Like, I think like really dedicated focus and thinking of waking up and thinking about augmented reality experiences every single day, finding their customers finding the right problem to solve and how augmented reality can can like help them solve the problem that they really want to solve. That's, that's where we are and all the technology laddering up into that is for their success.

Beautifully stated. Thanks. It makes a lot of sense that so much investment right now is going into laying this groundwork for what exists today, which is a fanatical base of end users who are super excited about using Snapchat and the leveraging As you noted 250 million of them leverage AR every single day. And so to build a foundation of technologies that allow the Creator economy to work on top of that, in such a way that it's not just something that's fun for them to do, but it's something they can do with a lot of pride to make something really amazing and actually build a life around it. Yeah, and all with an eye towards a stepping stone towards the glasses themselves, and more always on or potentially more immersive sort of experience or certainly different perspective on the experience. Yeah, that all fits linearly. In my mind. It's like, it's a wonderful strategy to take advantage of what's working today, and prepare for the future. But the area's program and the focus on the enterprise, it makes sense to bring enterprises into the fold. And it makes sense at some level, from a strategic perspective to take all of the great technology that companies made and apply it in other related contexts that are still AR, but a different form factor. But one of the things that I'm curious about is how from snaps, telling of the strategy, how those kind of tie in how does building enabling Nike or Men's Wearhouse to have these sorts of in store experiences? How does that tie back into laying the foundation ultimately for expanding this Snapchat ecosystem or enabling spectacles and the AR glasses of the future?

The conversation with Sophia continues in the next episode. We'll talk about snaps wearable strategy, the expected benefits of being laser focused on AR their perspective on privacy, and how recent advancements in AI fit into AR. If you've enjoyed it thus far, I think you'll continue to enjoy the conversation. So I'll see you there. Thanks for listening.