The AR Show: Sophia Dominguez (Snap) on the Importance of Product Focus (Part 2)

6:13PM Jun 28, 2023

Speakers:

Jason McDowall

Sophia Dominguez

Keywords:

ar

snap

wearables

people

technology

experience

spectacles

augmented reality

building

company

create

visual

utility

world

learn

work

ultimately

focused

years

tools

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 episode is the second part of my conversation with Sophia Dominguez. To recap, Sophia is the director of AR platform partnerships and ecosystem at Snap, which has been the last three years. Previously, she was the CEO and co founder of serve the first search engine for AR and VR, which was acquired in 2020. In 2015, she was the entrepreneur in residence at Rothenberg Ventures, and was the first person to travel the world with Google Glass and document how people reacted to seeing and experiencing the first AR headset. So he graduated from NYU in 2013, with an individualized BS degree in how technology impacts human interaction. In this the second of our two part conversation, Sophia talks more about utility and the role of technology should overtly play in our lives.

We're still in the same thing, like yes, we have an iPhone, or you know, Android. And yes, it's a touchscreen, but we're still like confined to these like, little screens or rectangles all the time. And it's just not the way that we interact with the real world. And so I think like, I think about the future of augmented reality and kind of immersive computing as a whole. When we get to the point where when we're interacting with technology, in the same way that we're interacting with the real world, like, that's what, you know, success looks like, that's when we're can look back and be like, Wow, we did it. It doesn't feel cumbersome or like, I'm like using technology. I'm like looking at a screen. I'm just like going about my life and technology happens to be a part of it.

We go on to talk about Snap's, wearable strategy, as well as the hopes and recognize gaps there. We're talking about expected benefits of being laser focused on AR technology, rather than also working on VR and Mr. The perspectives on privacy and how recent advancements in AI fit into AR. As an added bonus in this episode, we hear from two snap partners use of Omar, the co founder of Seen and Michael Nicole, founder and creative director at BLNK Digital had a chance to briefly chat with both of them at the recent snap Partner Summit and we're going to start our episode there is remind you to find the show notes for this and other episodes at our website, the AR show.com. And please of course support the podcast@patreon.com slash var show. Let's dive in.

We're gonna start this episode with a couple of quick perspectives from to snap partners. First up is Yousef Omar, co founder of Scene.

Hi, everyone. My name is Yousef Omar. I am the co founder of a company called scene and we are well I'm based in Australia. What brings you to snap Partner Summit this time around? Well, one I'm in currently passionate about SNAP, I mean, I'm rocking Snapchat Bitmoji t shirt. Right now I'm wearing a pair of spectacles that are head mounted display units. Why am I here, snap are invested in our company, we've got 12 shows on the platform. These shows are like seeing Healthy Minds in survivors seeing money. They're looking at the lived experiences of people that have gone through various things and can share their experience. I'm here to learn, I'm here to learn about the future of augmented reality. I'm here to learn about the future of content. I'm here to learn about the operating platform of the future, which to my understanding is gonna be built around the camera.

So talk to me a little bit about your experience and your enthusiasm for wearables as a platform for experiencing the types of things that you're creating.

I really believe storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to create more empathy and understanding, especially in a country like the US where we are right now. It's so polarized people live in different worlds, they have vastly different views on what the truth is. But I really believe if we could see the world through somebody else's perspective, we might start to empathize with them a little bit more. And that's what really makes me passionate about wearables is the opportunity to overlay stories onto the world that help you see the world through somebody else's perspective. I think there's two sides of wearables. One of them is capture and capturing the world through somebody's perspective. And the other side is consumption. And that's to do with more like AR world facing.

As you have a variety of platforms ultimately to choose from, to kind of share the stories that you're so passionate about why snap, what is it about SNAP and its environment that is created that draws you here?

The first thing I would say is if you're a small to medium sized business, or even in visual creator, you don't have the bandwidth or the resources to do everything, right. I can't be creating AR filters on effect house at tick tock and spark AR and Instagram. I've got to like pick a horse and get behind that horse that I think is going to win the race. And when I look at snap, I really think they have the Royal Flush when it comes to wearables. I think there's a bunch of ingredients that you have to succeed in the space you have to have a good operating system and Snapchat is a good camera base operating system. You have to have an audience that are camera first and this audience has camera first. You have to have good tools for developing AR and to have Lens Studio. You have to have great hardware and they have great hardware like I'm wearing right now. And most importantly, I think if we're moving into wherever world, you got to trust that company, right? I don't know if I necessarily trust certain zone companies that exist today to have a camera in my face, but I think Snapchat have been built on an ecosystem of trust. And when you take all those together, I think they really do have the 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace, they have the Royal Flush when it comes to wearables.

And through this experience, and through the things you're creating, what do you hope to accomplish? What does success look like for you a year, three or five years from now?

We want to be the world's most immersive storytelling company. And what does that mean? I think we all trying to trying to figure that out. What I can tell you is the way that we currently engage with technology with the mobile phone, at least from my perspective is not very nice. I just had a kid he's he's now 12 weeks old. And I hate the idea that look at him through a mobile device, right? I feel so disconnected, I don't feel a presence at all. I am excited about a future where wearables make us more present where we're able to engage with the world. And I think sometimes when people think about wearables, they'll think about it as like a casino in your face, like these things like like so much going on. It's not that I think AR is like subtle information when you need it most. And at its best case, it gets us back out, it gets us back out into nature and appreciating it gets us back out into physical conversations and looking at each other in the eyes, as opposed to through a screen. It gets us traveling the world and not like taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower through a glass screen. But actually looking out at the world. That's the future, I want to be a part

of amazing use of anything else you want to share.

I think that there's been a bunch of companies that were built and became billion dollar businesses in the mobile phones and web two, right, Uber and Lyft, and Airbnb, and even Snapchat to some degree. And I think that there's going to be a whole bunch of companies that are going to be the web three companies that are going to be wearable that are going to create products and services for that world. But to get ready for that you have to start making those investments today. Right? It's a huge jump from from where we are right now in terms of the kind of ability to create 3d assets in terms of these various stepping stones. Like, if you're building it's about like building train tracks, you don't build train tracks the way people used to live yesterday, you build it for where they're going to live tomorrow. And it's the same with kind of thinking about AR and wearables, you've got to start planning for how people are going to consume content tomorrow.

Next we'll hear from Michael Nicolle, founder and creative director at blink digital.

I'm Michael Nicole, and I'm the founder and creative director of Blink. I learned about lens studio when first launched to the public third party developers through working on a music video with Jared Leto and 30 Seconds to Mars. I was doing graphics for this music video and a bunch of other little stickers and icons for them and their music label, Interscope Records, saw the work I was doing had recently been in contact with snap about doing one of the first music lenses. And they asked me as a freelancer, if I'd be interested in doing it, because they knew my background, I had a television broadcast 3d animation After Effects motion graphics background and a lot of those tools can actually be used in that pipeline. So they asked me if I was interested. I did say yes. And it was crazy after that. A lot of other record labels and musicians and artists saw what we had created and reached out to that initial client through word of mouth. And I became the go to guy for music lapses. So Right Place Right Time, but also talent. 100% I think is super important for a developer or creator for anything, but to just create great work and continue creating great work. And that's actually hard. Consistency is tough. But if you can continue to deliver, you'll get to where you want to go. I think my my story is kind of a proof case of that. Just doing great work, word of mouth. Being great to work with helped me build my company into what it is today. About two, three years back, we took all of what we had done out there in the music industry and partnered with snap to create all of their music, carousel lenses. And we've been doing that for the last three years. We're starting to work more with events and festivals and concerts. So it's moving just outside of, you know, creating a lens that's a marketing piece for a rollout of an album or a single. We're starting to move more into the world and using the world as our canvas. I think long term. We're wearing AR headwear. And first of all, I think that's where we're all building towards. It's Brick by Brick piece by piece if we can show people what they can do. That's kind of the hardest part sometimes, but I think what we're all building towards is that AR enable headwear. Worlds. And for me, I believe that what's going to be very important in that world is doing things that I like, and find entertaining. And I don't want it to be run over with ads and pop ups and navigation. Sure, of course, utility will be great. But I want to put on a world that I want to be in. And I think musics gonna play a big part now. I spoke on a panel earlier about some work we did with Taylor Swift. And, you know, I think using the world as your canvas, and thinking outside of venues and concerts and stadiums for where you go to see music, what we're going to end up doing is walking down the street, and take a ride on Fifth Avenue enter adherence worlds, take a left on Fourth Avenue, enter Nicki Minaj, this world, you're gonna have the ability to turn that on and turn that off, but those are the ones I want to live in. And I think a lot of people are going to just as you put on headphones today, you know, still listen to music and still enjoy yourself. So why can't it be visual and auditory? When we have that headwear to do it,

you have a lot of options, ultimately, sort of partners to work with technologies, tools, tool sets to work with, why snap, because that

was the best, honestly, technologically, there's just things that you can do on snap that competitors can't even touch. They're so far ahead of the game. That's it's important for me to provide my clients but also create content and experiences that no one's ever seen before. I don't want to live in a world where I work with platforms that I just create the same thing over and over again, I really gravitate towards snap, because they're just so far ahead.

Now, let's dive back into my conversation with Sophia. 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 in the AR glasses of the future?

Yeah, it's a great question. So you know, snap, ultimately, we're a small company, especially compared to, you know, the other, like, more more giant companies, right. But even as SNAP grows, we're only going to have a certain number of people working at snap, like, we're always going to be kept in some sort of way. But the amount of creative people that exist in the world, and talented technical people that exist in the world, like SAP is never going to be able to employ all of them. And so by building this platform, and investing in like segments of the business, like areas, who are expanding snaps, AR platform technologies into other partners and applications. And so by helping educate and teach more of the creative and talented people in the world, how to use our tools, as we expand, there's going to be more and more opportunities for more and more creative people to start building their businesses, because snap, we're never going to be able to make all of the experiences. And that's like the definition of a true platform. And so that's why it's really important for us not just to invest in our own technology and our own partnerships, but to bring the rest of the ecosystem along the way with us. Because like, we're never going to be able to build it all. And I think in a secondarily from that, just like the ideas that we can get from the community, are going to be ones that we never thought of internally. And the use cases, I mean, again, going back to this, you know, the importance of building a diverse and global ecosystem, is because so many different people have, like various problems that they want to solve. And like, if they see our technology, and they can use that to solve a problem. We'd much prefer them to do that, because they're thinking about it day in and day out, right? Like they're like obsessed about it, if they can use our tools to solve that problem. And that's just outside of our core wheelhouse. And we can just focus on building the technology. That's where we want to go. And that's, you know, why we do and invest in areas of the business like areas why we invest in spectacles, because it really is more of this like platform layer. And when you think about spectacles, like that's just you know, that's like a hardware paradigm. And all the developers that are even today building with lens studio, they're gonna have to start, you know, evolving, how they build lenses today on Mobile, into wearable experiences, right, like the user experience is going to be different, something that we found with the next generation spectacles, which we launched in 2021 for developers, you know, we had a touchpad and that was like the For our way of interacting with it, and everyone wanted to use their hands, like, it just felt so much more natural. And so, you know, a few months later, and we invested really heavily in our machine learning team and hand tracking team. And so then we added hands for spectacles, right. And the reason why we launched our next generation spectacles in 2021, was because we were like, we can learn so much faster if we build alongside our community, because of the ideas that they're gonna have. And also the feedback that they're going to bring to this product. You know, it was never intended to be a consumer device, it was very much like, we're a small company, we have this technology. And we want to learn from what you all want to build. And, you know, one of the other learnings that we had outside of this, you know, the importance of hands, which, you know, feels obvious in retrospect is how important it is for teams to start working together on spatial experiences. Because you're, again, you're moving from, say, a screen, a pretty small screen on mobile, or even in a mirror, which is just like a much larger phone screen. And you have a set guidelines of like, okay, the button goes here, and like the tap interaction is here. But with spatial experiences, somebody can look all around you. And there could be a button that suddenly appears under a table, not to say that that's the best user experience, but like that could happen. And so having a diverse set of people thinking through the problems that are trying to solve while building this more spatial experience, it's actually really important. And some people are going to be really great at scripting and like building the interaction design, and other people are just going to be really, really good at figuring out, let's say, more like tracking technology, and like how to leverage this and other people are going to be really good about design. And so with the spectacles developer program, originally, it was really focused on individuals. And what that meant was, we were onboarding, you know, say, I think it was like 40 developers every few months to build on spectacles. And after a few months, we were like, the more the more successful experience, the more robust experiences, the ones that we found ourselves, like wanting to showcase were built by teams. And so in the last year or so, we've pivoted the whole developer program to really hone in on teams, and focus on teams and B select teams based of the product that they're trying to build, and how they want to use AR technology to do so. Whereas I think on mobile, like if someone's working on a team, that's amazing, that's really great. But it's not necessarily required. Whereas I think, when we think about specs, this transition, it's really much more team based. It's more technical, there's more thought that goes into, like spatial design, because you don't have this screen is kind of like the, the wall so to speak, that doesn't exist anymore. And that also ladders up to like, how are they with partners or teams? Like how does a company who's exists in the market, that's, you know, building a fashion company, not even an AR fashion company, but if they were to build an AR team, they'd probably not just have one person, they probably have multiple people, because they need to be thinking about design, and then engineering, etc. And so I think those are other learnings that we're starting to see and, you know, carving out that path for them. Because not everyone's going to use one CD on the same way. But they're building the same thing. And that's okay.

As you've now had a couple of years to observe the experimentation that is happening alongside the hardware evolution. Do you have a growing sense for where you think those early successful experiences are going to be? One of the one of the reasons ultimately, so I appreciate that, at today's state, right, the snaps has spectacles have evolved from really about capturing a moment to at least in this Developer Edition, being able to deliver an experience. And as we roll, you know, the technology forward and we get to a point where the company decides the experience and the hardware, everything's good enough to be sold to consumers. What do you think it'd be the reasons or the use cases why some people will ultimately buy a pair of these features snap spectacles?

Like I said, to two thoughts, they're going back to what we were saying around like the importance of making augmented reality useful and valuable. That's even more important. When it comes to wearables. Why, again, you have to remember to charge it, you have to have to provide like a 10x experience for you in some sort of way. And so I think, like leaning, not necessarily more on utility, but it's just like, how can we provide value to people's lives? That is currently like kind of annoying to do on your phone? Or could be like so much better with a wearable? And so like, that's kind of like the high level construct of how we think about those things. And whether or not like that's self expression, or that's education, or like the use cases? I think it's like, that's up to the teams who are building on the device. Like, what problem are they trying to solve as long as it's useful and valuable to enough people? And that's like the most important thing for us to think about versus just like, going super hard to like very specific categories or use cases. Because if it's not valuable to people, if it's not like, at least having them think about it, Oh, should I wear my air glasses outside? Should I go do this thing outside today wearing them? Then it doesn't matter if like it's a game, or if it's utility experience, or educational experience, if it's not providing value, like no one's going to do it. And so I think like, that's like the first threshold and at a high level, that's like, really what we've spent a lot of time thinking about. And when I think about the industry, actually, because we were talking about books earlier this week, and I started reading, make something wonderful, which is like excerpts from Steve Jobs. I'm not sure if you've to check that out highly recommend. And they quoted Steve giving a talk on June 15 1983, about five months after Apple introduced the Lisa computer. And he said, I'll read this, I can't tell you why you need a home computer right now. I mean, people ask me, Why should I buy a computer in my home, and I say, well, to learn about it to run some fun simulations, if you've got some kids, they should probably know about it in terms of literacy, they can probably get some good educational software, especially if they're younger, you can hook up to the source and and you know, do whatever you're going to do. But other than that, there's no good reason to buy one for your house right now. But there will be there will be. And again, obviously, this is 93. And when I read this, that's kind of I was like, Wow, this feels like the last 10 years of working in AR and VR, right? It's like everyone was just like, this is going to happen. And we don't exactly know why. But like people are going to use this every single day. And it's about like investing in the technology and figuring out like, again, taking this tool and making things easier for people in their lives and valuable to people in their lives. And that's like directionally, where we're investing. And then, you know, we can talk about like all the different technology and things like that. But the idea and really, the more interesting part of augmented reality, for me, at least, is you can actually wear this device outside of your home, you don't just need to wear it, you know, stationary, seated at your computer screen or in front of your TV, etc. You can use it to explore the world. And that's a lot of the ideas that we're thinking a lot about, like, again, if you can go out and experience the real world and you have augmented reality glasses and you're wearing them what value can we provide to you in the real world versus I think, you know, being stuck in your home, which is more so where like other inside virtual reality devices or mixed reality devices, which hopefully by this time, we'll have a new device in the market. But again, those are going to be more so focused in the home, versus this idea of exploring the world outside experiencing the world. And, you know, you take your phone all around with you. And that's really, you know, ultimately, like where Eric glasses

will go, always with you offering a 10x experience. Yeah, it really makes sense. Are we as true value? As you evaluate? What's been done before by snap or even by others? What do you think are the hardware gaps that we need to solve or that stamp needs to solve to make these things consumer grade to get them to the point where they can have a chance of becoming mainstream?

It's a good question. I mean, I think, obviously, I'd feel the view. And again, like our next generation spectacles were very much for developers, I think field of view is a really important one. So expanding the field of view. And the reason being, again, you want to be able to see a full experience in front of you, if it's an augmented reality experience. And the larger field of use, the more you know, of the AR experience, or AR content that you can see in front of you. Battery life is another one. I think ultimately, when it comes to battery life, there's a number of trade offs, right, it's like, the minute that you get to like a more sleeker wearable form factor, there's given takes. And I think, as an industry, that's just something that all the, you know, companies have to think about and have to prioritize. But that's a big one. And I think over time, like the longer battery life is going to be huge. And, you know, I think when it comes to let's say we we use waveguides, in order to have the contents rendered in front of you. And I think over time, those technologies, the visuals will get even crisper and look more, you know, realistic. And I think those sorts of investments are just like a function of time. But ultimately, you know, going back to that Steve Jobs, quote, people will do whatever, as long as it provides a 10x experience. So if you're providing value to people's lives, people will overlook so many different things, because it's helping them do this faster, better or more simply. And I think that's all, you know a lot of what the learnings are more recently in this AI wave as well, right? It's not like anyone was sitting there like Google search. It's so difficult. But then things like Chachi Beatty, and, and now with Google's investments in Bard, right? Those things and even like with my AI that we have in SNAP, that's just how people want to search for things or like ask questions. And so suddenly that goes from that is like a 10x experience. So when you think about AR, not everything has to be perfect. Or we could be like operating on the same hardware devices. But if something if a product or tool or capability exists, and that makes people's lives better, faster, easier, all those things disappear and goes away.

How important do you think visual search ends up playing into this? We talked about this notion with chat GDP, we as humans like to interact with things as if they are more human like. And so it makes sense that if the computer can be more conversational, and we give it our natural language, and we get back something that is natural language like that does a brilliant job summarizing the entirety of the internet. That's amazing. It's a great text experience, there's so much about AR is the visual side of it. And it's not just explaining with words, it's really using our eyes to interpret or the camera to interpret the world. What do you think visual search kind of plays into the overall Yeah, importance of kind of AR and its evolution.

I mean, visual search is so incredibly important because it provides value to people's lives and connects augmented reality content experiences to the context of the world around you. She's just like, so important, like mobile AR like headworn AR like period. So on Snapchat, and also on our next generation spectacles be called this feature or visual shirts scam. And so scan, let's Snapchatters search through millions of lenses by matching what you see through our camera to the most relevant experiences available, whether that's like from fun content to like, help you take like a more perfect snap, or for your like more useful content to help you search and learn, right, like we have an integration that allows you a scam, you can take a picture of a plant, and then I can tell you exactly the information from from that plant. And that sort of thing, especially when it comes to eyewear. So important because it's just it's like our like, secure Third Eye ultimately. And so if your third eye can tell you more information about the world around you, and or provide you experiences based off of like where you are, that's so so important. And it's not like scan isn't, isn't being utilized today over 170 million Snapchatters scan the world around them every single month. And ultimately, what they can do is like find a product, discover a song, solve a math problem that's incredibly popular, as I'm sure you can imagine, identify a dog or plant a car. But that doesn't mean that you know, that's like a solid thing. There's so many more areas that we can invest in when it comes from visual search. And as you think about entering into a world where cameras may be always on or providing you more information about the world, like those investments across the board and machine learning artificial intelligence is critical to the success of augmented reality and super valuable to consumers.

So snap, from my perspective, and I've even read it recently by some other journalists is, has been an amazing source of innovation for so many years, so much so that some other large companies, it feels like from the outside use snap as it's really the Incubation Center of the r&d Center for their own efforts. So as you continue to be relatively smaller than some of the peers, at least at the moment time, how do you stay competitive with a company who is spending three times snaps annual revenue every year on their AR and VR initiatives? How do you stay ahead of that competition?

Yeah, well, we're relentlessly focused on augmented reality and cannot say the same about most other companies in the space, like whether that be investing in virtual reality and mixed reality and also doing augmented reality. And, quite frankly, I really do think there's something so unique about being focused on one technology, right? Like, what you're going to learn and what we're going to learn from focusing on augmented reality, and exploring the world outside. And how you can have are the AR experiences that can provide value to people outside, that's not going to be the same learnings, what you're going to see with successful applications on virtual reality headsets, or mixed reality headsets. And so because we're smaller, but also because we're really focused. I think that that serves a huge number of advantages towards the future of augmented reality. And I do think there's like a certain passion at not to like our core values are kind, smart creative. And I really do think like, people who work here very much adhere to that. It has like a sort of like startup energy, like, yes, we're smaller, but the passion that breeds through people, especially about AR, like, it's so unique to be at a company who cares so much about the future of augmented reality in any org? Right? Like, I remember my first week at snap and kind of solidified me joining snap, and I was like, I made the right decision. And Evan, does these Sabina weekly, all hands, for Ask Evans. And I think like half of the hour was spent just like talking about augmented reality. And I was like, This is so cool, right? You don't get that at any other company, or any other public company really, like, you're gonna hear about the metaverse or, you know, VR, Mr. Whatever. But like that singular focus allows us to just stay ahead and solve our customers problems, and capabilities and build the right tools for them. And I think ultimately, especially, you know, within the organization that I'm in, and my team, you can really think about championing the voice of the AR developer, and how do we bring us out of the early days and enable them to just do this full time?

Yeah, I love that one. That focus. I think that the because there is so much focus on finding the opportunities where the technology exists today, while also continuing to experiment with where the technologies are at the very cutting edge and where they hope to be tomorrow. There's so much great synergistic feedback loops in there, it's going to be only two steps benefit over time. One of the other ways that I think is, is really importantly, different about snaps perspective and approach is as it relates to privacy. And I hate it that in this world, where we talk about a future in which there are cameras truly everywhere, and in your face all the time, at least potentially in your face all the time, as they might be a part of the glasses sort of kit. How do you think about our approach this idea of protecting privacy for users in their private lives in their private spaces?

Yeah. So snap has always been designed with privacy and safety. Like from the outset, I would say like, that's also been a unique differentiator for us over time. And as we invested in our platform and capabilities, we've been really focused on identifying everyday human behaviors, and then finding different ways to make them better through design, innovation and technology. But while still ensuring that new features and products align to our founding values around privacy, safety, and just the overall well being of our community. So like, for example, when it comes to augmented reality experiences, we don't collect biometric data that can be used to identify a specific person, or engage in facial identification. And so like be, you know, the AR experiences can be used to identify whether something is like an eye or nose, but it can't identify an AI or nodes belonging to any specific person. So that really goes back to like, how we approach like our technology and building our tools is like, yes, there's a lot of value when it comes to building for humans and like this human centric design, privacy by design approach, because ultimately, that's also why people love Snap, like, I think people trust us, our community, trust us. And you know, that's never going to change, whether that be like air mirrors or spectacles or on mobile.

Throughout your career, you've been tied to this notion about the human experience. And it's effect by technology that takes effect of technology on the human experience, I should say. So where do you think AR fits into this? Now that you've had a lot of years exploring this from a lot of different perspectives? How do you think maybe from today's phone based experience and tomorrow's glasses base to clear experience that AR will affect positively or negatively that human to human interaction?

It's a great question, I still go back to this feeling that I had when reading feed, or, again, like holding my T Mobile sidekick, I can't like get this memory out of my head. And I'm like, This just doesn't make sense. Like, I'm looking at this little screen and like typing on this keyboard. And I knew this was I don't even know how many years ago now, like, maybe 20 years now. And we're still in the same thing. Like, yes, we have an iPhone, or you know, Android. And yes, it's a touchscreen, but we're still like confined to these like, little screens or rectangles all the time. And it's just not the way that we interact with the real world. And so I think like, I think about the future of augmented reality and kind of immersive computing as a whole. When we get to the point where when we're interacting with technology, in the same way that we're interacting with the real world, like that's what you know, success looks like that's when we're can look back and be like Wow, we did it. That doesn't feel cumbersome or like, I'm like using technology, I'm like looking at a screen. I'm just like going about my life and technology happens to be a part of it, it's when the

technology can disappear. And we just have the utility, when you see kind of thing and really broadly here, but as you reflect back across the various exploratory and entrepreneurial experiences, and your current time at snap, and if you're having a conversation right now, with an aspiring entrepreneur who wants to leverage AR technology, as part of their offering, what advice would you share,

focus on a customer, like focus on solving a problem? And if that customer is you, great if that customer is your friend, or your family amazing, just like really hone in on a problem that you want to solve, and build a product that brings them value? And if augmented reality is part of that solution, amazing, but don't force using augmented reality? If it doesn't make sense, right? Like, I've seen, like a number of, you know, startups, and they're like, oh, you know, I'm building this app, and it has AR in it, and I'm like, Right, but why am I using AR? Or like, what's the core experience? Like, I don't get it. And I think like, people fall into this trap of just like trying to, like, use technology because it's cool, or it's hot, or it's new or whatever. But then they lose sight of like the problem that they're trying to solve. And by being like, relentlessly focused on the problem, what you use the solutions, that technology, all of that will just like naturally reveal itself. So I think like, that's the most important piece there. And if our, you know, thinking or talking to a founder today, it's also like, I know, people talk about the future of AI and machine learning, I actually do think it's gonna be really, really important to understand the tools because that underlying technology is going to be so well integrated into the future of augmented reality. And so having an understanding of how it works, and like the various creative tools and how you're doing your workflows, like all of that knowledge is gonna come in handy as you start to, like, build out whatever product you're trying to build, and to not, you know, shy away from it, because it's just hot right now, like, eventually, you know, this is like, we're in a hype cycle. But the what stays is going to be like the core technologies that get integrated into the platforms, and like the various tools and technologies, and AI and AR, like brother or sister, like they're just so important to the success of one another, as we're going back into cameras, right? Like, you need the camera to see to understand, it's all using machine learning artificial intelligence. And to not shy away from that, and really go deep there.

Let's wrap up with a few lightning round questions here. Besides the one you're building, what tool or service do you wish existed in the AR market.

So this is gonna sound really basic, but I use, whether that be like the measure lens like that are available on Snapchat, there's a number of them. And then also, I like always go back and test with the Apple app just to see kind of where technology is. But I use those things all the time. And they're still not that good. I just want like a really like a great measurement AR experience. And by that good, like, I think it might be like about our tracking technology and things and especially if you're using it to be like I'm you know, on my bookshelf, and I just want to know the distance here. And here, you're like up close, or like even further away. Sometimes you can get like varying results. And I'm always so frustrated around. Like, I feel like there's such an opportunity to be like best in class, like, you're a team that's just like just doing measurements or like some like super specific utility, but you're like best in class and everyone's like, that's number one. I feel like you can make quite a bit of money doing that, because people don't measure things a lot. Like it's a pretty good behavior. And I don't think anyone's solved it like best best in class yet.

extending this to last is one future. What experience are you most excited about having on the glasses? Is it this thing about measurement? Or is it something more?

I mean, I, I'm kind of nerdy in the sense of like, I love utility stuff, I think like the basic elements, like even of just like how do you think about weather or like, navigation? But how do you do it in a way that's like 10x From what exists on mobile, right? Like, we're so used to the weather apps, or like, seeing if you've all seen the same icons for you know, decades. And I'm like, I even when I you know, I get the weather and I'm like, Okay, it's 70 degrees like what does that actually mean? Like you tell me what I'm supposed to wear? Like there's just so much innovation when it comes to a utility that I think augmented reality can really provide and again going back to this, most like best in class like what is that like best in class utility, whether experience or something this A daily habit that you know exists, that can be pretty visual. And there hasn't been a lot of visual innovation and like, I automatically go to weather. But I'm sure there's like a number of other opportunities. But I, I love this idea of like, how can someone be think about augmented reality? When it comes to weather and like, utility or something that you do every single day? What does that look like? I'm sure somebody can make like a lot of money during doing that do. I mean, like, how many calendar apps have been created and then sold, and then they die. And we all are back on, you know, our basic camera applications, right? Like, there hasn't been a lot of innovation outside of dark sky, really in weather. And I think visual mediums can provide a lot of that, especially for something that you'll be wearing outdoors.

It makes such a great point that often we ask the question was not really the question we want the answer to. It's just a means to get to the information that will help us answer the question really want, which is exactly how should I prepare myself for the day? What should I be wearing? Do I need to be wearing sunscreen or had stayed on an umbrella today? Right?

Do I need to bring a jacket even if it's warm outside now? Like I just yeah, you have to calculate all of that information in your head. And there has to be a better way to do that, especially with like visual mediums like AR

Yeah, a question back to books, which we've had quite a few here in this narrative already. But what book have you read recently that you found to be deeply insightful or profound?

Yes. Okay, tomorrow, and tomorrow. And tomorrow, I forget the name of the author, incredible fiction book. And it's the story about this duo who, over the course of like, from college, basically, up until you know, their old age, are building games together. And it goes back and forth between the two different storylines, the interpretation of events are different. But there's just so much like creative energy, and you really feel like you're along for the ride, as they're creating these various games that are based off of personal experience. And say, I finished that book, and I was like, I want to make a game. But yeah, highly, highly recommend that. But

cool. If you could sit down and have coffee with your 25 year old self, what advice would you share with 25 year old Sophia,

I think invest in health and wellness routines for yourself. It's funny when I had a company, I mean, obviously, like having your own company, it's just very stressful. When it came to snap, I was like, I'm not gonna be that stressed, I'm gonna have so much time because it's what I know, it's a personality thing. Like, if you're very, you know, are perfectionist or driven or motivated all those things, no matter what you're doing within your career, you're gonna go like 120%. So just no matter where you are in your life, no matter how old you are, ideally, the younger you are, like, figure out in ways that can help you relax, like relieve stress. What are the things like outside of work, that can just like help you almost like be a better person, and like, feel better, like not get burned out? vest and meditation, whatever you IVs like, whatever thing that you need to do? Figure that out, I think I, you know, have like, pretty much on for my startup to joining snap. And I'm like, just starting to do a lot of these things now. And like, what are the ways that I can be better for myself and like my body. And if I were 25, I'd be like, go to the meditation course right now those you know, like, doing it a few hours a week is really important and can be very helpful for you long term.

It's worth the investment, even when you're busy. Yeah. Any closing thoughts you'd like to share?

Just thanks so much for the time today, it was fun to take a trip down memory lane and still be with someone who's been in the space longer than most. So we appreciate what you do.

Yeah, definitely very much my pleasure. Where can people go to learn more about you and your efforts there at snap?

I think best place is my Twitter, Sofia EDM, but it's not for electric dance music. Those are actually my initials. I learned that after I made the handles. But I think Twitter is the best place also save for LinkedIn. And then to learn more about SNAP AR platform visit ar.snap.com

Amazing. Sophia, thanks so much for the conversation.

Thank you. Can you appreciate it?

Before you go, I'm gonna tell you about the next episode. In it. I speak with David Fattal. David is the co founder and CTO of Leia, a company revolutionising visual experiences through light field display technologies. In our conversation we get into David's background in quantum physics, and how that led to the formation of Leia. We get into what a light field display actually is, why it's useful and how the company is bringing its vision to life. I think you'll really enjoy the conversation. And please consider contributing this podcast@patreon.com slash the AR show. Thanks for listening