Jan 2, 2019 · 47m · a16z
a16z Podcast | The Present State and Future Possibility of Virtual Reality
0:00 / 0:00
▶ Watch on YouTube →
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Hosted by Kyle Russell alongside Andreessen Horowitz researchers Sakundala Pantharatna and Beau Cronin, this podcast episode evaluates the technological, perceptual, and commercial ecosystem of virtual reality. The panel explores hardware trajectories, spatial presence, social telepresence, and practical applications spanning education, enterprise productivity, retail, and virtual tourism.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 5.6 Guest teaching 3.6 Guest disagreement 1.3 The host pushing back 1.4
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 2:30 Saku Rejects DK1 Presence Framing
Saku directly counters Kyle's claim that the Oculus DK1 achieved VR presence, explaining that true presence requires positional tracking.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 2:58 Kyle Cites VR Reaction Videos as CounterevidenceKyle pushes back on Saku's correction by highlighting viral videos showing users falling out of chairs while using the DK1 on roller coaster demos.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 2:30 Saku Corrects Host on Oculus DK1 CapabilitiesSaku explicitly reframes the host's premise regarding DK1 capabilities, clarifying the technical distinction between rotational tracking and visceral presence.
The host holds their own ▶ 40:54 Kyle Breaks Down Light Fields vs 360 VideoKyle demonstrates deep technical knowledge by clearly explaining the hardware, optics, and positional rendering differences between light fields and standard 360 video.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current Consumer VR Hardware and the Evolution of Presence | 5 | 6 | 3 | 3 | When Kyle suggests that the Oculus DK1 achieved full presence, Saku directly corrects him, explaining that presence requires positional tracking that DK1 lacked. Kyle attempts a mild defense by citing viral videos of users falling off chairs during roller coaster demos, but ultimately concedes to Saku's framing. | |
| Next-Generation VR Input Devices and Interactivity | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Beau and Saku outline next-gen input devices like Vive Lighthouse controllers and Nintendo Power Glove antecedents. Kyle facilitates smoothly and sets up questions regarding design paradigms without friction. | |
| Design Paradigms and Form Factor Evolution in VR | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | After Saku and Beau draw analogies to film editing and multi-touch smartphone UI, Kyle demonstrates strong technical expertise by synthesizing potential form factor trajectories, including standalone headsets versus tethered compute setups. | |
| Non-Gaming Applications and Social Virtual Reality | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | The group collaboratively explores non-gaming social VR. Kyle contributes the insight that consumer social VR will be built around mundane everyday interactions like visiting parents virtually rather than just major live events. | |
| Shared Live Experiences and the Perception of Presence | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Beau educates the host on the neuroscience concept of 'filling in' sensory details. Kyle references his hands-on experience with the Oculus Toy Box demo to discuss avatar gesticulation and questions the social acceptability of full-body VR gear. | |
| VR Applications in Education and Abstract Learning | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Kyle actively enriches the discussion on educational VR by citing Kerbal Space Program, NASA's educational adaptation, and interactive 3D cell division models. | |
| Enterprise Tools, Productivity, and Telepresence | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Kyle shares first-hand context on Andreessen Horowitz's operational use of Beam telepresence robots to illustrate present-day telepresence dynamics, probing the guests on avatar design choices. | |
| E-Commerce, Virtual Fashion, and Spatial Design | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Kyle analyzes how digitally mapping exact body measurements onto avatars could solve apparel sizing and return rates in e-commerce, expanding on Saku's fast fashion commentary. | |
| Virtual Tourism and Image Capture Technologies | 7 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Kyle displays high technical domain knowledge by detailing the distinction between 360-degree video and light-field rendering, asking probing questions about computational bottlenecks and proposing hybrid mesh-lightfield solutions. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Pantharatna: Oculus CV1 consumer VR headset will launch in 2016
“And we're still waiting for The consumer, which is like the super high quality version, which is coming out next year”
Cronin: Samsung Gear VR is priced at $100 plus smartphone cost
“Now Sam, with the Gear VR, you have something that's available for anyone to buy for a hundred dollars on top of the price of A Samsung phone.”
Cronin: No standalone mobile VR headset offers positional tracking without external camera
“And positional tracking is not available in any purely mobile system that doesn't have an external camera”
Pantharatna: Original VR vision and Nintendo Virtual Boy included gloves
“It's worth noting that the original idea of VR was not just a headset, it was a headset and gloves. So if you guys remember, like Nintendo Virtual Boy, which is very, AT is very gawky and retro. It wasn't just something you put in your face, but it also came w…”
Russell: VR users will combine gloves, controllers, and tracking cameras
“In a few years, we're, you know, people like us who are really into the cutting edge are going to have, what, gloves, Plus hand controllers, plus maybe cameras tracking our hands. We're going to have all of these different constraints that are going to limit w…”
Pantharatna: Film Editing Tropes Took 30 Years to Emerge After Cinema's Invention
“It took like 30 years before the jump cut was invented, so that's like, you know, you're cutting from, you know, it used to be just like filming people on stage, like a recorded play and it took a while for all those tropes of editing to develop.”
Russell: Mobile VR power will eventually render desktop graphics gaps irrelevant
“And, you know, once they're as powerful as a gaming PC of today, you don't really mind the jump in graphics compared to, like, what your desktop could provide.”
Pantharatna: VR is the next major platform beyond gaming
“Our thesis is that VR is not just going to be for gaming. It's going to be, it's a, you know, it's like the next platform.”
Cronin: Social features are a core requirement for VR platforms
“I'm one believer, and I know that there are others who think that, you know, social is not just something that's a nice to have in VR, but for many application domains, a core and fundamental capability that is going to be built into everything.”
Russell: VR room-scanning will replace traditional phone calls
“I think that we're gonna see a lot of social usage of people getting in their VR headsets and quickly scanning in the room they're in and then hanging out with their mom for 20 minutes instead of doing the phone call.”
Cronin: Brains fill in incomplete haptic feedback if visual cues align
“If you get a certain amount of, for example, visual cues right, then even very incomplete or crude Haptic cues will feel very complete because your brain is expecting them, and it's going to basically fill in all those details that, you know, may not actually …”
Pantharatna: Full VR bodysuits will live in arcades, not consumer homes
“The whole full bodysuit thing might be like a, you know, a throw, a comeback for the arcade. So maybe not everyone will, you know, buy the, like, camera kit and bodysuit and, like, eye tracker and every single input device, but you might have some places which…”
Pantharatna: Information presented in VR is retained better than reading books
“Seeing something on screen, you know, sticks in your mind more than reading it on a book seeing it in VR even more so.”
Cronin: History and science education should be taught in VR
“For VR and education, I think that it's fairly obvious that both history and science education should just be in VR. Like, why on earth would I want to, you know, read about a, you know, these important historical events rather than be present within them?”
Cronin: High Fidelity is using cell biology as an initial VR application
“High Fidelity, one of the, Philip Rosedale's company, is, Is using cell biology in particular as I think their sort of initial application for exactly this reason.”
Pantharatna: Developers Want VR Headsets Displaying 10 to 15 Virtual Screens
“Nearly every developer I talk to about VR wishes that they could have a headset that they could put on and have, you know, 10 or 15 screens to code on.”
Cronin: Holding Business Stand-Up Meetings in VR Is Definitely the Future
“I was really excited to see that Altspace, and of course their early adopters, they do their stand-up meetings in VR right now, and I think that's awesome. I mean, it's obviously weird and awkward to a certain degree right now, but that is, that, that's defini…”
Cronin: VR and AR Will Eliminate the Need for Physical Stores
“The idea behind behind VR and also AR, which we'll get to in a second, is that it really eliminates that, that final reason that you actually would ever have to go to a store.”
Pantharatna: Most VR content relies on 3D rendering, not 360 video
“It's worth mentioning that most VR isn't done using either three 60 or light field. It's done in the same ways games are made using three D modeling and rendering like the same techniques people use to do special effects in movies.”
Cronin: VR eliminates scarcity of premium live experiences by digitizing them
“Being courtside at a basketball game is one kind of prosaic example of that. I mean, you're basically removing the scarcity of courtside seats. You are transitioning that scarcity from the world of atoms and, you know, it's now, you know, zero marginal cost, w…”