Towards a new form of capitalism: An interview with Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu

Profile

◉Yat Siu

Animoca Brands Co-Founder and Executive Chairman

A Hong Kong-based entrepreneur born and raised in Vienna, Austria. He is the co-founder of Animoca Brands and is known as a technology entrepreneur leading Web 3.0. He has received numerous awards, including the World Economic Forum and Young Global Leader. He studied at the University of Music and Arts in Vienna and is also the director of the Asian Youth Orchestra.

Animoca Brands is known as a global leader in the Web 3.0 field, investing in more than 500 companies in the industry. What do you consider to be the most important point when making an investment?

Yat Siu (hereinafter, Yat): In the first place, when it comes to general investment, I think it is about identifying the power and talent of entrepreneurs. However, unlike other investors, we look at two important points when investing in the Web 3.0 field.

One is that we believe in the growth of decentralized networks. Blockchain is basically permissionless and has no concept of monopoly. In other words, it is close to open source software. In the current Web 2.0, companies such as Google and Meta have strong networks. However, they are not decentralizing the network. They keep it in their own hands and, so to speak, monopolize the network. For example, if a user charges through Apple, the business must pay the so-called "Apple tax" of 30% of the amount paid by the user. If a business objects to this, Apple can expel the business from its network. Also, on Instagram and other platforms, a user's existence can be erased with a single decision from the management. In other words, the network does not belong to the user, but is completely owned by the platform. This is the current state of Web 2.0.

Web 3.0, on the other hand, is different. In this concept, the network belongs to the user, and the tokens held by the user, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, are also the user's own assets. Owning a token is synonymous with owning a part of the network. And there is no one who can instruct others to build something on that network. This state is what makes a network truly open.

Therefore, only entrepreneurs who believe in an open and distributed network can succeed in the Web 3.0 field. We need to find such entrepreneurs, but this is not easy.

The second point is the existence of a community. We believe that sharing value with the community is the fastest way to grow a network.

Web 2.0 entrepreneurs will think first about how to profit from users. They focus on obtaining value, such as "I want your money" or "I want to sell you this product." However, Web 3.0 has the principle of "sharing value" and is different from the previous structure. Entering the Web 3.0 network is like becoming a co-owner of the project or business. Among them, sharing value with the community is an extremely important time for growing the project, and I think entrepreneurs need to share more value with various users.