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Steve Zhao

Founder & CEO, Sandbox VR · 3 appearances on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutive@zhaosaurus ↗LinkedIn ↗

Steve Zhao is the founder and CEO of Sandbox VR, a location-based entertainment company providing full-body motion-capture virtual reality experiences. Prior to launching Sandbox VR, he founded the game studio Blue Tea Games, developing popular casual narrative titles before pivoting to VR.

33statements → 24claims → 6claims resolved → 33%fully supported → 4.18/5average certainty → 1.61/5average debate potential → 4.4/5argument clarity · the sources → 2said about them ↓

2 supported 2 partly supported 2 contradicted 2 not yet assessed 16 not checkable as stated how the 24 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 21 assertions · 7 insights · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 24 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 6 are resolved, 2 are not yet assessed, and 16 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Steve argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Sandbox VR partnered with Netflix for a Squid Game VR experience
“And that is why we decided to partner with Netflix on Squid Game.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 39:40 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Zhao: 73% of consumer virtual reality headset buyers churn
“73% of all VR users churn, right?”
Steve Zhao May 3, 2019 ▶ 3:32 The a16z Pitch Room: Sandbox VR

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
40% certainty 4
100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.4 / 5 directness 4.8 · coherence 4.7 · precision 4.2 · compression 3.8

answered every one of 24 assessed questions directly

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

271 words/min while actually speaking · 18.2 um and uh per 1k words · 6.3 false starts per 1k · 27.5% of pauses land inside a clause

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 10,254 words across 3 episodes of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

Everything Steve Zhao said on the a16z Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Disclosure
Steve Zhao invested 95% of his life savings into Sandbox VR
“So that's when I decided to basically take my life saving and put it into you know, Sandbox. And I remember the moment I did that was at the bank. Even the bank executive was like, are you sure you want to do that? That's like, 95% of your savings. I'm like, y…”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 17:55 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sandbox VR lost 110% of revenue during COVID pandemic closures
“For us, we lost a 110% of our revenue, because not only did people, we couldn't open any of our stores, so there was no sales, but we also had to refund everyone that booked.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 25:35 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sandbox VR laid off 80% of staff with three months runway
“We were trying to raise that Series B during the early 2020, and we had about three, three months of runway left. So we had to let go most of the folks. We let go about 80% of our team.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 25:48 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Insight
Steve Zhao: Handing customers highlight videos before exit boosts sharing tenfold
“If you were able to hand them the video before they leave they have a tenx chance of just talking about it, sharing it going about it”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 30:01 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Steve Zhao: Sandbox VR convinced landlords to fully fund new buildouts
“We were able to convince landlord to fund our project entirely.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 31:08 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sandbox VR titles hit average US theatrical movie box office revenues
“We're starting to have experiences that are starting to hit box office numbers. Our titles are starting to hit, like, theatrical releases, the average US theatrical domestic box office release revenue.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 34:24 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Assertion Open · timeframe Feb 2026
Sandbox VR is rebuilding its OS for third-party white-label development
“So one of the things we're doing is actually, we're creating, we're rebuilding our operating system so that it's white labeled, that other developers can actually build on top of our system.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 50:28 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Insight
Steve Zhao: Out-of-home entertainment must be 10x better than at-home options
“And whatever you have that's out of home must be 10 X of what you can get at home. Otherwise, people will just do this at home.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 54:02 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Steve Zhao: Sandbox VR locations reach profitability within two months
“Every location that we open up in about within two months of operations are profitable. There are some locations that the profit margin is comparable to a software company.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 1:01:02 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Assertion Contradicted
Zhao: 73% of consumer virtual reality headset buyers churn
“73% of all VR users churn, right?”
Steve Zhao May 3, 2019 ▶ 3:32 The a16z Pitch Room: Sandbox VR
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Zhao: Sandbox VR will expand from 14 to 50 rooms by year-end
“And soon, by the end of summer, the end of this year, we will go from, we have 14 rooms now, to over 50 rooms.”
Steve Zhao May 3, 2019 ▶ 7:28 The a16z Pitch Room: Sandbox VR
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Zhao: VR holoplexes will become as ubiquitous as movie theaters
“So we envision that one day these holoplexes, which could be 20 to 40,000 square feet in space, can attract hundreds of users, will be as ubiquitous as movie theaters.”
Steve Zhao May 3, 2019 ▶ 8:14 The a16z Pitch Room: Sandbox VR
Insight
Steve Zhao: Build for what users will want in two years
“One of the biggest lesson I learned from mobile games is you don't create what's popular today. Because by the time you're done, it's going to be 10 months too late. So our job is to figure out what do people want in a year or two.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 12:07 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Insight
Steve Zhao: Multiplayer gaming is about social interaction, not environments
“You know, great thing about games, it's really about playing a game with each other, right? The game object isn't the environment. It is your friends.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 17:32 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sandbox VR achieved 100% occupancy for 100 consecutive days initially
“So what happened was, pretty soon, we booked out our space, you know, a hundred percent a hundred days in a row.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 24:25 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Insight
Steve Zhao: Wireless streaming transforms VR like sound transformed silent films
“I think an analogy that we would use is what sound is to silent films? It's what the wireless streaming is to our VR platform. Because once you add a sound, there's a genres that wasn't possible before that you can utilize now.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 39:15 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Assertion Supported
Sandbox VR partnered with Netflix for a Squid Game VR experience
“And that is why we decided to partner with Netflix on Squid Game.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 39:40 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Steve Zhao: Half of Sandbox VR's first title audience was female
“When we launched that, we were surprised that half the audience were female.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 42:25 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Insight
Steve Zhao: Shared-space VR requires environmental tracking over headset tracking
“In a shared space, it needs to be tracked from the environment rather than from the headset, which is inside our technology, which is tracking, you know, from a single, like cameras within a headset.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 44:55 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Steve Zhao: Sandbox VR will double down on deep immersion over accessibility
“For us, we're gonna double down on immersion. We're gonna make it as real as we can, and just do a lot of tricks in our bags, We haven't used yet.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 53:07 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Insight
Zhao: Winning the location-based entertainment market requires owning the content
“In order to win the market, you have to own the content, right?”
Steve Zhao May 3, 2019 ▶ 37:05 The a16z Pitch Room: Sandbox VR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sandbox VR launched with under $300k and six months of runway
“What we had back then was just 200,000 dollars, 300,000 dollars with six people with a lifeline of six months left.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 20:50 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sandbox VR's first venue was a 16th-floor unit with broken pipes
“We ended up getting a location in Hong Kong. Even though Hong Kong has seven million people, we were able to find a building with zero foot traffic, and the rent was insanely cheap. You know, the water pipes were broken, and we were on a 16th floor. There was …”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 22:15 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Steve Zhao: 100% of Sandbox VR Chicago customers booked online
“We're able to open in our Chicago location. And during that time, we were in a mall that had zero foot traffic. But a hundred percent of our customer booked ahead online.”
Steve Zhao Feb 22, 2023 ▶ 31:56 The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR

Show 9statements(9 left)

The other half of the tape: Steve Zhao's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode on the a16z Podcast. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Andrew Chen 1

Statements about Steve Zhao, by other people (1)

Insight
Siki Chen: Sandbox VR built full-stack because no VR ecosystem existed
“There's no technology, so we have to build technology. There's no stores to place this technology, so you have to build a store. And there's no content, so you have to build the content. But over time as you get scale, all of that changes.”
Siki Chen May 4, 2019 ▶ 2:53 Founding Stories: Sandbox VR

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0011112018episodesmentions
0112018episodes it came up in
000.50.5112018episodesmentions per episode
2018 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (3)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
The Challenge of Replicating Reality with Steve Zhao from SandboxVR Feb 22, 2023 34m
Founding Stories: Sandbox VR May 4, 2019 8m
The a16z Pitch Room: Sandbox VR May 3, 2019 4m
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