Trinidad Hermida and Jon Radoff talk about Diversity & Inclusion in the Metaverse, Web3, DAOs

Trinidad Hermida: Dows, decentralized autonomous organizations, I love the concept because I really do believe that a lot of times a lot of other people benefit off of black culture. The geniuses that we have and what we bring to the table and I believe that Dows are an opportunity for us to keep some of that generational wealth within the organization and utilize

Trinidad Hermida: all of our gifts to elevate everybody who is a part of it.

Trinidad Hermida: Trinidad Hermita sits down with Jon Radoff for this fireside chat about the metaverse. Trinidad was the head of diversity and inclusion at Niantic. She's also the founder of the Hermita Company, LLC. The Hermita Company partners with organizations to develop out of the box diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that relate to their bottom line. Let's jump into the chat.

Jon Radoff: All right. Welcome back everyone to another fireside chat about the metaverse today. I'm super excited that Trinidad, you could join me in this conversation. So here's the reason why I asked Trinidad to join in. So Trinidad has done work in diversity and inclusion for many years now. That's what you were doing at Niantic. You're doing something new now that I want you to tell us all about. But I think that thinking about the audience of folks who are showing up for these videos with thought leaders that I'm creating, I think there's like two big constituencies. There's like people who come from game development and they know the issues around diversity

Trinidad Hermida: and inclusion at least they should know the issues around it. And some of them frankly are asking why do we keep talking about it?

Jon Radoff: Why aren't we doing enough about it? I want your take on that. But we'll also talk to the people out there who are thinking of this as much broadly, more broadly, they're thinking of this as the metaverse and a lot of new opportunities and new applications and a whole new crop of creators making stuff. And what do they not know? What do they hope for? What could maybe change in this new economy? So that's sort of like the table of contents, I guess, for this talk. But we're going to go to a lot of places, I'm sure. So Trinidad, thanks for being here.

Trinidad Hermida: Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

Trinidad Hermida: Yeah, so tell us a little bit about what you're doing now.

Jon Radoff: You've left Niantic where you were heading up diversity and inclusion there. So what's new?

Trinidad Hermida: Woo!

Trinidad Hermida: What's new? I have the opportunity of creating what's called the Hermita Company at LLC. And I'm consulting companies on how to build equity through empathy. And it sounds really nice, warm and fuzzy, but it's really going into companies, looking at their policy, looking how they treat their people and finding ways to impact and empower the leaders and the systems that may be to create a more equitable workplace. I also have, I'm a co-founder of an augmented reality company. I love mixed reality. And so being able to create opportunities in the space, I'm a web free early adapter. I'm all in everything. And so I'm just, I'm enjoying this journey of exploration and finding ways to tap into the metaverse, tap into generational wealth for my people and empowering this generation to come with the tools and the knowledge. Like I really do think our parents, if they knew the amount of opportunity that was in this space, they would have encouraged us to be game developers, encourage us to be low into crypto, encourage us to do something cutting edge, which was risky. And so I try to raise awareness around that.

Jon Radoff: Awesome. So glad that you said web three. We're going to totally be talking about NFTs and DAO's and all that stuff. And if you're hearing some of those things for the first time, just get ready for your mind to be a little bit blown on what these decentralized autonomous organizations are enabling. But let's start with games and game development. What do you think people should know about the workforce in the game industry today? I'm just going to put that out as a very broad question.

Trinidad Hermida: Very broad.

Trinidad Hermida: The workforce in the game industry, let's go back 20 plus years when to talk about what

Trinidad Hermida: I sort of mentioned earlier and I'll dig a little deeper, which is growing up my parents were engineers. I had a couple of options to go to school. I could be an engineer, a doctor, lawyer or preacher and I chose preacher because that seemed like it was the easiest one out of the bunch.

Trinidad Hermida: And you know, learning that there's so many opportunities in this space now that I'm

Trinidad Hermida: tapped in, I'm like, wow, like the disparity because my parents wanted to make sure that I wasn't struggling. My parents wanted to make sure I had security. My parents wanted to make sure that whatever job I got, I was going to be able to create a life for myself. And because they didn't know that gaming, because they didn't know that diving into, I remember back in the day when I bought my first Bitcoin, right? I was going to Vegas and because I remember Vegas had the first Bitcoin, I don't even know if this is true facts, but I knew that there was an ATM, a Bitcoin ATM in Vegas, right? And the airport, right? And so I would go to Vegas, have a blast, put my money into Bitcoin. And then whenever I'd go to Vegas, because I play, I'm a bill, I like to play pool, saw billiards and tournaments and stuff like that. And so all my winnings and all the things I put into Bitcoin, but I blew it. I blew it because I didn't realize what it was going to become. It was more of like, let me save my money in Bitcoin and then come out. And I was, nobody in my family was like, no, shouldn't I invest that or hold on to it or anything like that because nobody in my family knew about it. And so that's the disparity that I'm talking about. So in the game industry, there's this huge equity gap when people of color come into the game industry of knowing how to navigate it, be successful in it, growing it, excelling it because nobody above us or someone who we looked up to could give us the cheat codes. So we're seeing a disparity where our black and black brown folks are like a portion of this industry and it's growing, but we're growing in the entry level areas, not in leadership. And so that's the biggest difficulty. And I used to talk a lot about ways to get more black and brown leadership in gaming and in tech is to take people from other industries that show leadership qualities and give them the game industry bootcamp. Like come on in, we're okay with you working with us at EA, at Niantic, at Unity, but we're going to give you a little bootcamp. We're going to make sure you network with the right people. We're going to make sure we give you the cheat codes. Because we want your leadership here. And I don't see that that real desire to pull from other industries because the game industry seems like, oh well, we're so tight knit, we're so close, we want people who have that historical knowledge. And we're not going to get the balance in our leadership if we don't do that.

Jon Radoff: By the way, if it makes you feel just ever so slightly better, I was mining Bitcoin back in 2011 and I sold a bunch of it way prematurely.

Trinidad Hermida: But in the game industry, so why do you think companies aren't more receptive to what

Jon Radoff: you just described, which is to build those bridges or networks out to other industries?

Trinidad Hermida: I think fear, that's usually the root of most things is fear that someone's going to come in and change the culture or we're not going to be able to be as free as we used to be or I think fear is a big piece. I think lack of education on how leadership skills are transferable and how they can transfer multiple industries. If you're a dope engineer and you're a founding engineer of a Fintech company, I can see you being a founding engineer of a game industry startup. That's maybe I just think outside the box, but that to me could be like a simple shoe in. You have this education. Now let's teach you about this billion dollar industry and let's give you some of the cheat codes. And I like talking about cheat codes a lot because I feel like one thing that is a lack in our VC world is putting the cheat codes like open source, right? When you're an engineer and you go to GitHub, there's open source things and to be able to put the open source of what it takes to actually have a successful pitch or at least the essence, the framework. And then we can build in what the necessities are in order to be seen, to be heard.

Trinidad Hermida: This is all imperative and important to people being successful.

Trinidad Hermida: So I really do believe that there's an opportunity here, especially in a billion dollar industry, we're running out of talent, we're running out of top talent and we need to start looking into other industries for leadership and top talent.

Jon Radoff: That's a good point because it's really hard to hire people right now. Like, first of all, the game industry all in when you include the game sold, the free to play economies, the hardware, esports, everything, it's like $400 billion right now is the year is the recent calculation. And that's only going to grow from here. It's going to grow a lot, especially when we think about the metaverse, which we're going to get to soon enough when we talk about Dao's and Web 3 and our play to earn games and all that fun stuff. But it's an enormous industry that really has an insatiable need for talent, for people at all levels actually. And there's just sort of gaps in pretty much every company you can imagine right now. So it's almost like people should realize this as pure enlightened self-interest, like to be able to even be to grow as an industry or as an individual company, we're going to have to get better at this. So I feel like there's a couple of sides to this that I'd love you to comment on. So first of all, what does someone like me need to know to get better at this?

Trinidad Hermida: Woo!

Trinidad Hermida: I really want to do this right now.

Trinidad Hermida: I think that what you need to know, you need to know that we're not going anywhere.

Trinidad Hermida: So you might as well allow this community and people around us to partner and to utilize our genius. And I think you need to know that there's a ton of black and brown people who are in mixed reality, in Web 3, in the, like, in it, in it, and not people who don't know what they're talking about. Agenius is who are doing some cutting-edge phenomenal things. So it makes sense to partner, collaborate, fund, let us fail. One of the best things that I love doing is bass failing. And I try to set people up when they interact with me. I talk about, you know, in order for me to be innovative and to think outside the box, I have to be willing to fail. And one of the disparities that I see in, like, BC world and in funding, black folk have to come 100% perfect almost. You know, you probably times you're going to let us fail and give us multiple chances of funding to try to get something right. You know, I don't have the friends and family that I can raise 100 million in friends and family. Like, my friends and family are just trying to make it. And I'm not even trying to hate. Like, my first millionaire, my family, came out of an IPO. And I was just like, finally, you know, we have a millionaire that came out of my IPO, but it's like, and then now they're giving back to the family and investing in the family so that we can have this buffer of being able to fast fail. But we didn't have that before. And he needed to take a risk in order to even be a part of that. You know, but he has onsen and I had, and I was always like, you know, hey, I got your back. If this failed, I got your back. You're not alone. But a lot of people don't have that. And so I think understanding the equity gap is another thing that you need to know. I don't have onsen uncles who've been successful at this. I don't have investors who know me by a first name basis. I don't have the ability to go before investors multiple times and mess it up, right? Like, it's like, wow, this black woman made it here. Now she has to be perfect. Show me your black girl magic.

Trinidad Hermida: I'm like, bro, like, I don't know everything.

Trinidad Hermida: I'm just coming to elevate this conversation, empower people with this excitement that I have around what the future may hold for all of us and realize there's enough room for everybody. And that's not what the hedge fund people think about. You know, like, they're like, oh, no, no, no, let's keep it amongst ourselves because we like the lives that we live. But billion, a billion dollars, that's a lot of money. And I think that he's a lot and there's enough for all of us.

Trinidad Hermida: And so, yeah.

Jon Radoff: If I've learned anything about running companies, starting companies, it's that you make a lot

Trinidad Hermida: of mistakes.

Jon Radoff: Some people get lucky, I guess, and their survivors should buy us and just everything goes great.

Trinidad Hermida: That sometimes happens, but more often than not, the whole process of growth actually is

Jon Radoff: from the mistakes and what you learn from it. I kind of liken it to like, if you lift weights, right? Like the most powerful part of weightlifting is when you fail. That's when the growth occurs. And I feel like as long as it's not failures that are absolutely catastrophic, like there's the one path of it, which is in any given startup, there's those little mistakes along the way that help you get there. And then even, you know, a startup that doesn't work, if you can learn from it, if you don't cause a lot of damage to other people in the process, then that's okay too. Like I think that's one of the great things about, or at least that's one of the great things that I like to imagine anyway is great about the place we live here in America, which is it's more often than not a place where you can fail, but you're saying that for some people that's just not their lived experience and I'm hearing you on that.

Trinidad Hermida: Not at all. And because of that, there's also deep rooted trauma and a beer of even getting there. Like, you know, one thing that I love talking about is intellectual property. And if you're a creator, you have a lot of it, right? You practice it daily, you try new things. But when you put so much weight on one thing being successful, you tend to hold it close to your bosom, right? And you don't want to let it go. And that essentially could hinder people from being able to fast fail. And try something and say, wow, I'm going to take, I'm not going to throw the baby out with the bath water. I'm going to take the things that were beautiful of this experience and then elevate it and innovate it into something new. But if that's what you put all of your eggs in, it's almost like gambling, right? Oh, I'm all in, you know, and then you're like, dang, you had a full house. How did you get that full house?

Trinidad Hermida: You know, and understanding that that's not everybody's experience.

Jon Radoff: Yeah.

Trinidad Hermida: And I guess one observation I have for people in the game industry or who are building

Jon Radoff: the metaverse now is all of these people are customers as well, right? So to think that you can build products for the whole worldwide diversity of people with all of their lived experiences without having those people be part of the creation process,

Trinidad Hermida: that to me seems kind of crazy.

Jon Radoff: So like to me, that's the missed opportunity just in the pure ultra capitalist, pragmatist sense that if you take nothing else away and you're at that level, think about that missed opportunity there to bring people in and help you actually make stuff that you're customers care about.

Trinidad Hermida: 100%.

Trinidad Hermida: Yeah.

Jon Radoff: So what, so we've talked a little bit about like what people like me can learn from it.

Trinidad Hermida: What would you tell people that are from diverse backgrounds who want to work in this industry and they're really hungry for it?

Jon Radoff: Like, I know it's harder for them.

Trinidad Hermida: So it's obviously harder for them because there's not people like them in the leadership

Jon Radoff: roles by and large is sort of one of the impediments that I heard you talk about earlier. What can you say to them? Because I also think they need a little bit of hope here as well. I talk to people all the time who are frustrated by exactly what you're saying, but what should

Trinidad Hermida: they do?

Trinidad Hermida: I think they should network the behinds off.

Trinidad Hermida: I don't think that everybody is withholding information.

Trinidad Hermida: I feel like this, I will say as far as the game industry, it is really tight. It's a huge industry, but it's a tight-knit industry. So networking, getting out there, getting on Twitter, getting on LinkedIn, diving into people's inboxes and checking in with them and saying like, hey, come with your paragraph of what you're trying to create, build, or information you're trying to find. I will say that the Web 3 community is pretty dope in the sense that there's so much open source information. If you go on Twitter and just follow everybody who's talking about it, I think you can learn a lot if you just take 15 minutes a day and just scroll through your Twitter and ask questions. And I also think there's a couple of open source documents out there on the web that it's there's basics. John, if you know some, spit those out, but I do believe that if anything, the networking

Trinidad Hermida: piece is huge.

Trinidad Hermida: Contacting us, because I think you're open and I'm open to connecting you with people who I'm connected to, who maybe know more about this than I do. And being vocal, letting people know that I'm interested in this, I don't know this. I know like NFTs blew up overnight and I'm just like, wow, it would be dope to have, and there's crypto tutors. There's a fancy fight as a friend of mine and she does crypto tutors and that's like a podcast that happens. There's this podcast. There's other people who are like sharing information. I think that's imperative in order for all of us to really win in this space, but it has to be reaching out and getting beyond the fear of connecting with people so that you can be open to maybe a couple of options because I find that people love talking about themselves. Come on. And so if you reach out to someone, you say, hey, I'd love to learn about your journey and how you got here. I really do see people being willing to have that conversation. And there's some that you're going to like close the door on and those you just keep in moving. But I feel like being adamant about pushing yourself and networking and growing, there's a lot of organizations that are popping up.

Trinidad Hermida: Yeah.

Jon Radoff: So you said get out of your comfort zone. I mean, this is a tough, tough industry. Everybody has to get out of their comfort zone. And if you are someone who historically has just been underrepresented in game companies, then it's going to be even more so, I guess, is just the harsh reality of it. But I'll say that that message also applies to people like me because the biggest excuse I always hear from other game studios are just not just game. And I don't want to overly pick on game companies because this problem is actually, I think, fairly endemic to just the technology industry more broadly. I always hear the excuse of, oh, well, I'd hire more, quote, unquote, diverse candidates if I saw the candidates. And that's their excuse for not having black people, not having women or whatever their excuses. So what I've really discovered and maybe this is my message for people like myself is, yeah, get out of your comfort zone. It does actually require effort. It doesn't just happen. You just, just excusing yourself out of it is not, it's not great. And you're missing that opportunity that we talked about earlier because we're building products for a global audience of everybody you can possibly imagine. So go out and throw yourself into those communities and try to connect with people and feel uncomfortable. And guess what? Maybe it goes back to this empathy you were talking about. You'll gain some empathy for those folks who feel like that every day, right?

Trinidad Hermida: 100%.

Trinidad Hermida: 100%.

Jon Radoff: So you talked about, let's talk about that because I think actually there's a huge number of learning experiences for say the game industry there. And also, it's an opportunity because the way it's unfolding is different than the way the game industry did. Like the distribution channels, the marketplaces, the way creators are gaining attention, building their communities. It's all happening from scratch right now. And that seems to be opening the door to a lot of people to participate in this who got left out in the past. So I think that's just really worth focusing on a little bit because I think that's just amazing to watch that happen. And also, you look at that, say as a game industry person who has been hearing some of those excuses I referred to earlier. And you're like, well, here it's happening. Like it doesn't seem to be a problem in some sectors. Like why have we been missing out? Like, so you mentioned earlier, you've been getting involved in Web 3. We should actually just take a moment to find some of this stuff because some people are probably hearing some of this stuff. I'll let you do it. What's Web 3? What's a Dow? What is this whole so why is it interesting?

Trinidad Hermida: You do the, I can do some of it. Let's share that. I'm definitely going to put your perspective. Bot leader in this space. I've been focusing more on, okay, so fun fact is I love the concept of building games on blockchain, which is not new, but I think it's a dope opportunity to then also have NFTs as assets within the game, have some real transparency around the dealings internally. And it's a really, it's a big community effort. So everybody who's involved. Dow's decentralized autonomous organizations, I love the concept because I really do believe that a lot of times, a lot of other people benefit off of Black culture, the geniuses that we have and what we bring to the table. And I believe that Dow's an opportunity for us to keep some of that generational wealth within the organization and utilize all of our gifts to elevate everybody who's a part of it. And so I'm definitely, I'm not like a super creator, but in the augmented reality space, I like the idea of mapping locations and creating experiences within those locations that have NFTs, that have the ability to be assets that we could take home with us and have these experiences within our own home. So that's how I navigate and move and shake in this area. But I also have friends who created Dow's for various reasons, for networking, Dow's for creating communities that are elevating certain topics. There's Dow's that are giving back to the communities and helping third world countries. I mean, there's just so many different ways to utilize this system that can generate, it's essentially, I mean, I think of it differently. There's layers, but one way that I think of it is like, say bye-bye to nonprofit organizations. If you want to do a nonprofit organization, it's going to affect the community and with a smart contract, with the way that's very clear where the money is going, what's happening and how it's giving back to the community.

Trinidad Hermida: Dow here we come.

Trinidad Hermida: And some people don't like that transparency and that's another conversation.

Jon Radoff: Yeah. And they start as grassroots organizations, really. I mean, you can do whatever you want, I guess. It seems to me that Dow has been successful. Dow's are a new form of governance. Well, they're not so much a new form of governance as it's technology really helping to streamline the process and enable it from a bottom's perspective rather than like the top down perspective where maybe a CEO comes and raises capital and structures a shareholder organization. So in a Dow, usually the ones that I've seen be successful, they start on Twitter, Discord channel, and it's people that really care about something and they come together and that community creates the Dow and you don't have to go find that CEO. You don't have to raise a bunch of capital just to get started because the tech is there to automate it. It's a change human nature, but it makes a lot of these structures a lot easier to get together. And I think that's maybe a little bit of the problem with, say, game development in contrast with this. Like, so game development, the financing of it, the distribution of it, so much of it is so dependent upon not just sort of training and the skill sets of the craft, but just who you know, who your networks are. And it just makes it super challenging for people to come from the outside. I mean, that's why they call it like a break, it's a break in industry. Like you got to break into games, right? But this is all happening new. There isn't that whole set of networks. Not that being fit, like if you're famous, it'll help you no matter what, like for whatever you do. But so it's not to discount the role of fame and being an influencer or whatever. But the fact that it's all happening in this novel way from the ground up now is the opportunity for people to get involved and do things that don't have that whole institutional

Trinidad Hermida: baggage behind it.

Trinidad Hermida: I agree. And that's the beauty of it. And that's why I want more and more people to not be afraid of it because it's new or maybe you don't understand the ins and outs of it. A lot of the leaders that I work with and I talk to when they broke into an industry, like for example, AR, they didn't know exactly what they were. Nobody knows. Like, more than anything. Exactly.

Jon Radoff: Yeah, exactly.

Trinidad Hermida: Everything about what they're doing. But it's like, oh my gosh, I just broke into this. I created an organization that can grow beyond me and benefit everybody that's in it. Like, it really counteracts kind of like where the world is right now where it's consumerism and me, me, me, me, me, me, and how can I win? It's almost like we're finally coming full circle to what about the communities that we love and when we cab these communities, how are we elevating each other with the geniuses and the gifts that we all have? I use like Soho House, which is elite, but you know, like the Soho House is, right? Like if you were a part of the Soho House, you could go to any Soho House in the world and you can benefit from being a member. And when you're in those rooms and you're in those spaces, you're able to interact in network of people who essentially have the same vision and mindset that you do. And this is what a doubt is. It's like people coming together with similar agendas, mindsets, visions and saying let's do it together for everybody that's a part of this.

Trinidad Hermida: Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Radoff: It doesn't change human nature at the same time, right? So we're still going to have the effect of capital and power and all of that. Like what are your thoughts on that? Like our DAO is going to just turn back into the same as everything else once, I don't know, all the vested power interests start getting involved, which they'll will. They'll get drawn into it, right?

Trinidad Hermida: That's already happening. Like, there's a lot of, there's a couple, not a lot, but there's a couple of VCs that are really interested in this space and they're starting to tap in and give some money and get their feet wet.

Trinidad Hermida: And I think that, yeah, I think that's a possibility.

Trinidad Hermida: I would hope that before that happens, that more people are able to dive in, try, get their feet wet and see if this is something that they really want to be a part of. And I think because right now we have this opportunity and we're sharing this information, I wish we could tell this from the masses. I do think that there's an opportunity to change that narrative.

Jon Radoff: Yeah. I mean, so part of the way I'm hoping to help is just, I think there's too much technology, which means that you need a lot more capital to create stuff. I mean, that's what Beamable ultimately does. We're just trying to make this whole world accessible to creators so that it's less about programming, more about storytelling and art. And I feel like I'm learning a lot from what's happening in all of these new NFT art market places and things like that because they are about the artistry of it. And it's freeing people to focus on the craft of whatever it is that they like to do without having to be, say, a computer programmer, although there's lots of interesting coding-type stuff and I love coding, I grew up coding. But to me, it's how do you help people express themselves, tell a story online, create a world for someone else, and as soon as we can tap into a whole planet full of people that bring their life experience into that, that's what I want to go online and do. I want to go into the metaverse and just experience all these things that right now you couldn't really capitalize on, like no one would understand it, right? Like they'll probably make bazillions of dollars once people make some of this stuff, but you wouldn't get anybody to fund it. Like I look at Roblox, like look at all these crazy games and experiences on Roblox.

Trinidad Hermida: No game publisher was ever going to fund any of these things.

Jon Radoff: It took a kid in a lot of cases, like some teenager makes a game in Roblox and guess what? And then it has like 10 billion plays in it. There's just this huge, huge universe of stuff like that still to be created. So you just got to unleash craters on it, get rid of the bottlenecks. My small part of it is to remove the technology bottlenecks.

Trinidad Hermida: But these newer structures with DAO's could potentially also unlock organizational structure,

Jon Radoff: new forms of governance were teens and communities come together about what they care about.

Trinidad Hermida: I'm excited about it.

Trinidad Hermida: I honestly am grateful to know you and for what you do in this space because I also think that there are predators out there. Like let's keep it 100%. Like this N and T will help crypto wireless. If you don't know the cheat codes on how to protect yourself and protect what you're building, then you could essentially lose it. And I think that's an aspect that what I would like to see more investors and people who want our creativity, right? Like they want us to go on Roblox and create. They want us to go on Unreal and create unity and create because that builds up the platform.

Trinidad Hermida: And how are you going to protect us?

Trinidad Hermida: If we're choosing to create on your platform.

Trinidad Hermida: And then also, don't just give us a 1% of the pie.

Trinidad Hermida: That's another thing too is if you know that certain people have the gift of creation and you want to utilize their social capital and what they can bring to the table, fund them.

Trinidad Hermida: Give us the money.

Trinidad Hermida: And then I also think that there's a disparity around how much it takes to create. One software engineer salary in Silicon Valley is around 160 plus thousand. That's on the low end, right?

Trinidad Hermida: Starting.

Trinidad Hermida: Like, so if I need to create something and I don't have beamable, I don't have the tech piece that is there, I'm trying to build something from scratch. I need at least 300 plus, maybe 500K to just build a prototype, to just build something that will get investors interested in what my idea is. And I think that there's some game companies, some organizations that understand that. And they're looking at how can we empower this generation with the tools. But I also think that there's a disparity as understanding what it really takes to build something. And to spend hours and hours and hours on Unreal or hours and hours, hours on Roblox,

Trinidad Hermida: that's free money.

Trinidad Hermida: Like that's not free money, but free. I'm giving you my free and electoral property because you've made it easy for me to do so, right? But what do I get out of it?

Jon Radoff: Well, you get a little bit of money back for your Robux or whatever platform you're in, but they take most of it and your customer stays in that environment. So that's another part of the whole Web 3 universe, which is what I think the metaverses, by the way, when I define the metavers, it's really just the next generation of the internet, but it's much more decentralized, which opens up the whole universe of creativity to everybody who wants to create a world, wants to create a game. I think these walled gardens are fine. They'll keep going if they can create great tools to make it easy for people. I'm all for whatever tools allow people to be creative, but what I'm hopeful for is a future where it's like publishing a website. You could just publish the web page as easy as it is to do a game, to do a world, and if you can imagine it, you can get it on the screen. That's where we need to get to, to empower all of these creators because capital is an impediment. If you have to write lots of lines of code and just build a lot of stuff that's not core to the vision for something, that just gets in the way. When we started talking, Trinidad, you talked about your new work that you're doing around empathy. I want to talk about that a little bit more if that's okay. What should people know about empathy?

Trinidad Hermida: Why is that hard?

Jon Radoff: Why should people know about empathy?

Trinidad Hermida: Why should anyone care about this?

Trinidad Hermida: So let's go back to historically work. Was it the industrial? How do I get people to leave their small businesses, their homes, and come work for me, for my big

Trinidad Hermida: vision?

Trinidad Hermida: I think that there's this whole idea of human resources, HRBPs, business development, has become almost our focus of how do we help the business more than we help people? I'm going to get stoned for this.

Trinidad Hermida: Empathy is taking this idea around the people who are our biggest asset, which a lot of

Trinidad Hermida: companies have lost sight of. If all your people, I think if anything, we've seen it during the pandemic, right? If all your people walk off, how are you going to keep this business up low? Because your people are your biggest asset. How are we empowering people to bring their authentic genius and want to give you their genius? The generations before me and my parents were loyal to a fault. What I mean is when they worked for a company and they got this opportunity, they stayed there for years. I know there's some employer employees that have been with companies for 25 plus years. You don't see that today. You see a generation that saying, we're going to jump. We're going to jump. That's where I'm going to get my elevation of my growth. I can't stay with one company and get my incremental 2%. The reason why Silicon Valley birthed so many millionaires was because people who had the ability to risk jumped at the right time to start up, that ended up IPOing, which ended up making them millionaires. You don't see a lot of black and brown people doing that because the risk is I may not have a check to provide for my family. The empathy piece is focused on a lot of times we're stuck here with data. You could throw a rock at the internet right now and find so much data on why building a balanced workforce, a diverse and inclusive workforce is better for your business. We still see the disparity in tech and in gaming where that's not the reality. We also could throw a rock at the internet and see that women are paid, sense on a dollar of men. But do we see companies saying, by the way, we fix that because there's total, there's so much information out there that we're like, you know what, we're just going to fix it and we're going to pay women what they're worth. No, every year we have to have a conversation around how to about pay disparity. So just because the knowledge is out there doesn't mean that it's connecting to the heart. So when I talk about empathy, I'm talking about love. I'm talking about taking that journey from that 12 inch journey from your head to your heart. And when I believe it's like coming from your head to your heart and it's something that you feel, it will move you to the next step, which is action, your hands. So I talk about head heart hand method, which is like a lot of times companies want to know the data around things. And I think that that's a cop out. Yes, data is imperative so that we know marketplace data and all those different kinds of things. But if you don't have the journey from why this data matters to why it how it's impacting the people who you work with, the communities that you work with, the women who are not being paid enough, all that and a bag of chips, then there's not going to be a move to the hands, which is where there's actual action around putting your hand in the ring, showing up in the arena and being vulnerable and providing capital, providing opportunities, giving someone a chance, even if they've failed multiple times. So the empathy piece that I love talking about is, have you made that journey from your head to your heart? Do you know why this is imperative for our communities and why it makes sense? Or are you stuck in the data realm, which is important. I'm not knocking data. I have parents as engineers like, you know, data. My dad thinks about, oh, that was the best way to move this couch from here to here. I'm like, I never understood why my dad thinks like that, but it's who he is. I also try to get my dad, and I use my parents as an example a long time because they're so dope and they've warned me into who I am today. But like, how do I get my dad to care about where he places that couch affects me? Like how do I get the companies to care if they're, and this is going to be controversial, but like a company saying, I want to do a government contract and knowing that if I do

Trinidad Hermida: this government contract, then the, you know, the people in the company who are going

Trinidad Hermida: to be affected by that and how that could essentially take a whole slew of people and say, by the way, you can't work here anymore just because of this contract. So just things of that nature, I don't know if that makes sense.

Jon Radoff: Well, in some ways, we're talking about game design and game making again because when I hear you talk about your dad and moving the couch, there's sort of the, there's the math part of that, which is optimizing the path. And if you are a game designer, you could figure out the heat map that shows you the optimal paths and where players go through that journey. But there's also the storytelling aspect of what you were saying, like how does it make you feel to have that, you know, piece of furniture be in one place or another and game creation is like that. There's a right brain in a left brain part. There's the highly analytical coding kind of thing, but there's also the storytelling and the artistry. And that level of left brain right brain seems to be absent in a lot of organizations for, for whatever reason. So the something that I hear all the time when I get into diversity and inclusion conversations with people in the industry who've been affected by it most is they just tell me they're at a frustration level such that like, listen, I don't, like I have people, women have told me like, listen, I don't even want to talk about the subject anymore because I just, it is what it is. And it's just even frustrating to talk about no change occurs. So why bother talk about something that no one wants to change? Like, and that level of frustration is really, I mean, definitely it's up first of all just upsetting to hear. And also, I guess embarrassing that, that like that's where we still are as an industry that we haven't been able to make realistic change beyond like press release announcements and stuff like that. What do you want to say to people who are at that level of frustration? We're talking empathy now. Let's empathize.

Trinidad Hermida: Well, at that level of frustration, I think we have to acknowledge the trauma, we have to acknowledge the hurdles, the, just to be still in the industry after everything that's gone over the last couple of years, let's not even talk about 20 years. Last year.

Trinidad Hermida: The last year. Last six months. Like, it's like, wow, like you're resilient. You're strong.

Trinidad Hermida: But a lot of people, like, I don't want to be like, I want to be able to show up. Right. My job, go home, be with my family and not have to endure these microaggressions that I

Trinidad Hermida: endure every single day coming to work. And I tell people all the time, like, take care, put the

Trinidad Hermida: mask on yourself first, right? But at the same time, if we don't have trailblazers and people who are willing to endure and create access, be a voice. Yeah, I don't see the industry changing. And that's and that's tough. It's like almost like we have to be, we have to have our soap box and our tools, which is like the work that we do and we provide for these places. We have to walk with both. And and it comes at a risk, John, it comes at a risk because at the end of the day, I could lose my job because of my mouth. I can lose and it's like, you know, and a lot of times when you're doing these, these equity conversations or having these tough conversations with leadership, you could be pinpointed and and ostracized or retaliated against just for being a voice. And I'm not saying that that's been my total experience in the industry, but I will say that like being outside is a lot easier than being inside and having my job be at risk for something that I said or did to empower people with the information that is needed in order to change the scope and of how we think

Trinidad Hermida: around this these topics. So it's definitely a risk. And I would tell them,

Trinidad Hermida: blow it up, blow it up. Like I mean, continue to think outside the box, continue to be a voice.

Trinidad Hermida: But I'm also be easy on yourself and don't be in and misogynistic behavior is a thing in the

Trinidad Hermida: industry. So just because your woman doesn't mean you're an advocate for other women, just because you're black doesn't mean you're black advocate for all black people like I've seen compliant people who are like, I've made it in this industry. I've done fine. Don't bother me. Don't ruffle my feathers. You know, the white man's my best friend. I'm just like, okay, great. But don't close doors and block other people from having a voice and raising awareness around their lived experience. I hear

Trinidad Hermida: all the time like, well, John didn't offend me. You know, Harry never offended me. So I don't

Trinidad Hermida: understand why you're raising so much, so much hell and, you know, and and what that you didn't have the same experience I had with Harry. You didn't have the same experience I had with John. So it's like it's just we need to come together with empathy, which is saying put yourself in a position of

Trinidad Hermida: how am I going to empower the generation to come? Like, the I promise you, my I've had some

Trinidad Hermida: I've been able to work with some dope millennials and the generation after them. And when I say that they're smarter, faster, like, I geek out at the ability to mentor and speak life into and advocate for because they are the future and they don't think like I do. They don't think like the

Trinidad Hermida: generation before me or before me. And so I'm just like, how can we build a world that is going to

Trinidad Hermida: take care of them and going to empower them and allow them to create some things that I've never

Trinidad Hermida: been able to create or experience? Yeah, I feel like the thing you said earlier about resilience,

Jon Radoff: that's got to be something we can all relate to whoever we are because at some point in our life, I can think of times for myself like, I've been strong, but I don't want to have to be strong, right? Like, that's that's sort of the two sides of it. Like, it's great that you're strong, but wouldn't it be great to not have to be either? And there are challenges. So I hope though that one

Trinidad Hermida: thing everybody takes away from this. First of all, understand that if you're from say the

Jon Radoff: traditional industry of game making, like, there's a lot of opportunities out there that are being left on the table that if you don't bring in team members at all levels, including leadership, that you're just you're actually missing out on a lot of opportunities. I mean, on top of that, it's just like humane, like we should build an industry for everybody, like setting aside the sort of the pragmatic business aspects of it. And then for everybody out there, we get it that it's tough, but maybe that's where the metaverse will change things up at least somewhat because there are these new opportunities surfacing, whether it's Web 3 or Art creation or blockchain games or DAO's that are built around stuff we haven't even imagined yet. Like,

Trinidad Hermida: that is a little bit more of a clean slate. So I would just say get curious, get inspired by this

Jon Radoff: conversation, read stuff online that will help you come up to speed on what these opportunities

Trinidad Hermida: are and go for it. When you post this, I'll put like a couple links below so that people can

Jon Radoff: do some research on Web 3. Yeah, awesome. So definitely look down below in the description. We're going to have those links right in there and subscribe to this. If you like this kind of conversation, we'll put a link so you can find Trinidad as well and reach out to her and find her

Trinidad Hermida: online. But this has been a super great conversation in terms of me just learning about things and

Jon Radoff: things that I should really just challenge myself to do better at. I hope if you're listening, you're like me, you similarly feel like, you know, this is the day that I'm going to actually do something to to step up and make the world a better place, make your company a better place, make it a better place for people. That's why we're all here. The metaverse is really just a way to have expression, human connection, all of that stuff. Let's make it better for everybody. I agree. Thank you, John. Yeah, thanks so much for being here Trinidad. This has been a really

Trinidad Hermida: important conversation. I'm honored. All right, everybody. Until next time, maybe we'll meet in the

Jon Radoff: metaverse. Check out the channel. There will be many more conversations with thought leaders like

Trinidad Hermida: Trinidad here.