 Hello everyone, welcome to theCUBE's special presentation of the Unstoppable Domains Partner Showcase. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We have here CUBE alumni, Sandy Carter, SVP and Channel Chief of Unstoppable Domains. Sandy, great to see you. Congratulations on your new assignment, exciting new company, and thanks for coming on for the showcase. Well, thank you, John. It's so fun to always be here with you through all my companies. It's really great. Thanks for having me. Well, it's been pretty amazing what's going on in the world right now. We just had the past Super Bowl, which is the biggest event in the world around advertising. A lot of web three, crypto, blockchain, decentralized applications. It's here, it's mainstream. We've talked off camera many times around the shifts in technology, cloud computing, we're now with web three, and some are even saying web four. A lot of technology programmers, people who are building new things are all in the web three world. It's really going mainstream. So what's your view on it? I'll see you're in it too, you're leading it. I am in it too, and it's so exciting to be at the verge of the next technology trend that's out there. And I'm really excited about this one, John, because this is all about ownership. It's about members, not users. It's quite fascinating to be honest. What is web three? What is web three? Define it for us, because you have a good knack for putting things into perspective. People want to know what is this web three? What does it mean? Okay, great. That's a great question. In fact, I have just a couple of slides because I'm a visual learner, so I don't know if you guys could pop up just a couple of slides for us. So first to me, web three is really all about this area of ownership, and that's whether it's in gaming or art or even business applications today. In fact, let me show you an example. If you go to the next slide, you will see, like with Twitter, and John, you and I were there. I was the first person to on stage announce that we were gonna do tweets during a major event. And of course, I started on Twitter back in 2008, pretty early on, and now the valuation of Twitter is going up. I got a lot of value, and I helped to attract a lot of those early users, but my value was really based on the people, right? Building my network, not based on that monetary valuation. So I really wasn't an owner. I was a user of Twitter and helped Twitter to grow. Now, if you go with me to the next slide, you'll see just a little bit more about what we're talking about here, and I know this is one of your favorites. So web one was about discovery, right? We discovered a lot of information. Web two was about reading the information, but also contributing, right? With that two way dialogue was social, but web three is now all about membership, not being a user, but being a member, and therefore having an ownership stake in the power of what's coming. And I think this is the big differential, John, if I had to just nail one thing, this would be the big differential. That's awesome. And I love that slide because it goes to the progression. Most people think of web one.o, the worldwide web, web pages, browsers, search engines, web two, better interfaces, you got mobile, you got social networks, and then it kind of got messy, bots and misinformation, users of the product being used by the companies. So clearly web three is changing all that. And I think the ownership thing is interesting because if you think about it, we should own our data. We should have a data wallet. We should have all that stored. So this is really at the heart of what you guys are doing. So I think that's a great way to put it. I would ask you, what's your impression when people you talk to in the mainstream industry that aren't in web three, they're looking at that are coming in, what's their reaction? What do they think? What do they see? Well, you know, a lot of what I see from web two folks is that they don't understand it, first of all, they're not sure about it. And I always like to say that we're in the early days of web three. So we're like in that dial-up phase. What was that? Was that AOL, remember that little sound that they used to make? You got mail. Yeah, you got mail, that's right. That's where we are today with web three. And so it is early days and I think people are looking for something they can hang their hat on. And so one of the things that we've been working on are what would be the elements of web three? And if you could take me to one more slide and this will be my last slide, but again, I'm a very visual person. I think there are really five basic assumptions that web three really hangs its hat on. The first is decentralization or I say at least partially decentralized because today we're building on web two technology and that is okay. Number two is that digital identity, that identity you just talked about, John, where you take your identity with you. You don't have a identity for Twitter and identity for LinkedIn and identity for a game. I can take my identity today, play a game with it, bank with it, now move on to a metaverse with it, the same identity. The other thing we like to say is it's built on blockchain and we know that blockchain is still making a lot of improvements, but it's getting better and better and better. It's trustless, meaning there's no in-between party. You're going direct user member to institution if you would, so there's no bank in between, for example. And then last but not least, it's financially beneficial for the people involved. It's not just that network effect that you're getting, it's actually financially beneficial for those folks. All five of those give us that really big push towards that ownership notion. You know, one thing I would point out, first of all, great insight. I would also add and love to get your reaction to it. This is a great lead into the news, but there's also a diversity angle because this is a global phenomenon, okay? And it's also a lot of young cultural shift happening with the younger generation, but also technologists from all ages are participating in all genders. Everything's coming together. It's a melting pot. It's a global, this is like the Earth is flat moment for us. This is like an interesting time. What's your reaction to them? Absolutely. And you know, I believe that the more diverse the community can be, the more innovative it will be. And that's been proven out by studies by McKinsey and Deloitte and more. I think this is a moment for Web 3 to be very inclusive. And the more inclusive that Web 3 is, the bigger the innovation and the bigger the power and the bigger that dream of ownership will become a reality. So I'm a hundred percent with you on the diversity angle for sure. Good big news tomorrow launching. This is super exciting. First of all, I love the acronym, but I love the news. Take us through the big announcement that you're having. Yeah, so John, we are so excited. We have over 55 different companies joining together to form Unstoppable Women of Web 3, or we call it WOW3, Unstoppable WOW3. And the mission is really clear and very inclusive. The first is that we wanna make Web 3 accessible for everyone. The second is we don't wanna just say we want it accessible for everyone. We wanna help with that first step. We're gonna be giving away $10 million worth of domains from Unstoppable, which we believe is that first step into Web 3. And then we're gonna be action-oriented. We don't wanna just say we're gonna help you get started or just say that Web 3 is accessible. We're gonna launch education, networking and events. So for example, we've got our first in-person event that will occur at South by Southwest. Our first virtual event will occur on March 8th, which is International Women's Day. And there'll be two components of it. One is an hour YouTube live so that people can come in and ask questions. And then we've got a 24-hour Twitter space. So almost every half an hour or every hour on the hour, you're gonna have these amazing women talk to you about what is DeFi? What is Minting? What is Web 3 all about? Why gaming and Web 3? I mean, it's just gonna be phenomenal. And in that, we wanna support each other as we're moving forward. This whole concept of from the very beginning, we want Web 3 to be diverse. And I wanna also point out that you've got some activities on the March 8th International Women's Day. But it's always every day in this community because it's a community, right? So this whole idea of community inclusion continues every day. So talk about those activities you're having on March 8th. Can you share what's happening on International Women's Day? Yeah, so first we're gonna have a YouTube live where we're gonna go in detail into what is Web 3? What is DeFi? What is an NFT and why do they exist? Then we're gonna have this 24 hour Twitter spaces where we've got all these different guest speakers from the 55 different companies that are supporting the initiative. We're also going to launch a list of the 100 most inspirational women of Web 3. We're gonna do that twice a year. And we decided, John, not to do the top women, but the women that are inspirational who are pioneering the trail, who are having an impact. And so we want it to be a community. So it's 100 of the most inspirational women of Web 3. We're also setting up a Web 3 Women's Speakers Bureau. So I cannot tell you, John, how many times people will call me up and they'll be like, we really want you to speak here. And when I really get down to it, they really want me because I'm a woman that can speak about Web 3. But there are so many women who can do this. And so I wanted to have a place where everybody could come and see how many different diverse people we have that could speak about this. Yeah, and that's a great thing because there are a lot of women who can speak on this. They just have to have their voices found. So there's a lot of discovery in that format. Is there any plans to go beyond it? You mentioned some workshops. What are the things, can you give another quick highlight of the things else you're doing post the event? Yeah, so one of the big things post the event is working with girls in tech. And I know you know Adriana, we are going to host on their platform. They have a platform for mentoring. We're gonna host a track for Web 3. And during International Women's Day, we're gonna auction off some NFTs that will contribute to that mentoring platform. So we've got folks like Lazy Lions and Bella and Dead Heads that are gonna donate NFTs, we'll auction those off. And then that will enable the ongoing platform of girls in tech to have that mentoring that will be available for the next generation. We'll also do events both virtually through Twitter spaces and other means as well as in-person events. I just mentioned at South by Southwest, which I'm really looking forward to. We're gonna have our first in-person event on March the 12th. It's gonna be like a brunch. A lot of the women told me, John, they go to all these Web 3 or crypto events and everything's like a frat party in the evening. And they're like, why can't we just have a nice brunch and sit down and talk about it? So at South by Southwest, that is exactly what we're gonna do. We're gonna have a brunch and we're gonna sit down and talk about it with all of these companies. And John, one of the things that's amazing to me is that we have over 55 companies that are all coming together to support this initiative. To me, that was just overwhelming. I was hoping to get about 20 companies and so far we have 55. So I'm feeling so excited and so empowered by what I see as the potential for this group. Yeah, well, first of all, congratulations. That's a really great thing you're doing. If you need place on theCUBE to post those videos, if you can get copies, we'd be glad to share them as well because it's super important to get all the great minds out there that are working on web three and have them showcased. I got to ask you now that you're in the trenches now doing all this great work. What are some of the buzzwords that people should know about in web three? You mentioned it's the five main pillars as well as the ownership, the paradigm shift. We got that. What are some of the buzzwords that people should know about? How would you rank those? Well, I think there are a couple. Let's see. I mean, one is, if you think about it, what is a decentralized application? Some people call them DApps. DApps, you'll hear that a lot. And a decentralized application just means that you are leveraging and using multiple forms. There's no centralization of the backend. So everything is decentralized or moving around. Another is the gas fee. This comes up a lot. Many people think, oh yeah, I put gas in my car, but a gas fee in web three is you're actually paying for those decentralized computers that you're using. So in a centralized land, a company owns those computers. In a decentralized land, since you're using all these different assets, you've got to pay for them. And that's what the gas fee is for. The gas fee is to pay for those particular types of solutions. And many of these terms that we're talking about, minting, what is an NFT? We'll be explaining all of these terms on International Women's Day in that 24-hour Twitter space as well. We'll look forward to that Twitter space. We'll share as well. In the web three world, when you look at it, when you look at what Unstoppable is doing, it's a paradigm shift. You laid it out there. What is the bottom line? What's the most practical thing people are doing with the domains? What's the, because it's definitely headroom in terms of capability. Single sign-on, you own your own data, integrating it into wallets and decentralized applications and creating this new wave, just like the web. More web pages, better search. More pages have the search has to get better. Flywheel's kicking in. What's the flywheel for Unstoppable? Well, I think the flywheel is the really around digital identity. It's why I came to Unstoppable because I believe that the data about you should be owned by you. And that identity now travels with you, right? It's your wallet. It's your healthcare data. It's your educational records. And it's more, right? So in the future, that digital identity is going to become so much more important that it is today. And, oh my gosh, John, it's going to be used in so many different ways that we can't even imagine it now. So for me, I think that digital identity and it really puts that ownership right in the hands of the members, not in anyone else's hands, a company, a government, et cetera. It puts the ownership of that data in your hands. I just love these big waves and these shifts because you mentioned healthcare. Imagine an NFT is that sign-on where you don't have to worry about all these HIPAA regulations. You can just say, here's me, here's who I am trusted. And they don't even know my name, but they know it's trusted. And everything just trickles down from there and all the databases are called. It's all immutable. I got my private key. It unlocks so much potential in a new way. Really is amazing. I agree. And even just think about education. I was with Arizona State University and so my daughter took some classes at a community college and I wanted to get those classes and have those credits available for her university. How hard is that? Just to get that education and everything is paper. And I had to physically sign. I had to physically mail it. It was pretty crazy. So now imagine that your digital identity contains all of your degrees, all of the skills that you've gone through, all of your experiences, John. You know, you told me before the show, all these different experiences that you have that I didn't know about. I'm sure a lot of people didn't. What if you had that piece of your, of you that would be available that you could use it at any time? It's locked in LinkedIn. It's her silo. Again, I'm a huge believer in silo busting going on. This new generation is not going to tolerate experiences that don't fit their mission. They want to have liberation on their data. They don't want to be the product. They want to have the value and then broker that value for services and be able to be horizontally scalable and pop around from place to place without logging in again or having that silo platform have the data. Like LinkedIn, you mentioned my resumes. I'm basically LinkedIn, but I got webpages, I got some stories, I got videos, I'm all over the place. I need an NFT. And just think about LinkedIn, John. You could say that you graduated from Yale and didn't even graduate from Yale because nobody double checks that. But in a wallet, if Yale actually sent that information in so you could verify it, right? It's that verification that's done over the blockchain, that immutable verification that I find to be, you know, very powerful. And you know, John, I was just, we were just chatting with some companies earlier today that are web two companies. And they're like, oh, okay. All this is just for people. Like it's just for consumers. And I was like, no, this is for B2B. You've got to start thinking about this as a company. So for example, if you're a company today, you know, how are you going to entice users to let you see some of their data? How are you going to look at ownership when it might be done via a DAO and maybe a part of a piece of art, a part of a company, a part of real estate, like Parcel who you guys are going to talk to later on. You know, look at how that is going to change the world. It's going to change the way funds are raised. It's going to change the way you buy carbon credits, the way you buy art. If you're a consumer company, think about games and end game economics. People are now playing game. That money is real and your brand could be positioned. Have you thought about that? Yeah, I think that point is you mentioned earlier about Twitter being the user. You had some personal connections. We didn't monetize it. Now with Web3U owner, one of the things that I see happening and it's coming out of a lot of the unstoppable interviews as well as what we're seeing in the marketplace is that the communities are part owners of the talent of like whether it's an artist or music artist could be the cube team, it could be the communities are part of the fabric of the overall group ownership. So you're starting to see, you mentioned DAO's, okay, that's one kind of it. So as users become in control of their data and owning it, they're also saying, hey, I want to be part of someone else. Artists are saying, be my stockholder. Own my company. So you started to see ownership concept, not just be about the individual, it's about the groups. Right, and it's about companies too. So I'm hoping that as part of our unstoppable women of Web3, we do have several companies who have joined us that are, what I would say traditionally Web2 companies trying to go over the chasm into Web3. And I do think it's really important that companies of all types and sizes start looking at the implication of that ownership model and what that does. So for example, it's a silly one, but a simple one. I bought a Lazy Lion. It was actually part of my signing bonus, which is also interesting, right? My signing bonus was an NFT and now my Lazy Lion, I now own that Lazy Lion, but the artist also gets a potential percentage of that. I can put my Lazy Lion on a T-shirt. I could name a store after my Lazy Lion, because now it's mine, I own it. I own that asset. And now myself and the artists are kind of teamed together. We're like a joint venture together. It's fascinating new models that, and there are so many of them. After ETH Denver, I was reading some of the key takeaways. And I think the biggest key takeaway was that this space is moving so fast with so much new information that you really have to pick one or two things and just go really deep so that you really understand them versus trying to go so wide that you can't understand everything at one time. And to keep up, it's really, it's a mission today. To keep up. Is that an interesting example about the Lazy Lion, the artist in relation to with you? That's a smart contract. There's no law firm doing that. It's the blockchain. It's no disintermediation is happening. It's trustless. Back to those five things we talked about, right? You know, upon the blockchain, it's decentralized at least partially. It's a digital identity. It's financially beneficial to you and it's trustless. That's what that is. There's no, it's a smart contract. There's no in between. Can't change. It's immutable, can't hack. Once it's on the blockchain, you're good to go. Sandy, well, congratulations. Great to see you. Unstoppable women of web three. Wow, three, great acronym. We're going to support you. We're going to put you on our March 8th site we're putting together. Great to have you on. Congratulations and thanks for sharing the big news. Thank you so much, John. Great to be on. Okay, this is the CUBE coverage of Unstoppable Domain Partner Showcase. I'm John for your host here with Sandy Carter. Thanks for watching.