Metaverse Influencers and Thought Leaders Shaping the Virtual World

The metaverse is still being defined and developed, but some important people are speaking up. There exist individuals who assist in the education, guidance, advancement, and creation of the successor to the present-day mobile internet. Here are ten most influential people in the metaverse niche who hold significant influence and can aid in gaining a more comprehensive understanding of the metaverse’s current and future state.

Metaverse Influencers: Top 10

Neal Stephenson

In his 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson used the word “metaverse.” for the first time. The pioneers of VR were already building artificial worlds, but Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash fleshed out the vision of escaping to a place where digital displaced the physical. Stephenson is stepping into the marketplace with his own vision of how his fictional idea might manifest into a tangible, believable world. He’s working with Peter Vessenes, who runs the Bitcoin Foundation, to start Lamina1, a company that helps creators create a virtual world. Learn more about the history of the metaverse.

Matthew Ball

Ball has launched the Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF with Genvid Technologies CEO Jacob Navok and Roundhill Investments. The ETF provides individuals with the opportunity to invest in companies that are currently facilitating the metaverse or are poised to do so in the future. Mathew Ball’s essays have been influential in shaping the Metaverse for years. The strategic, technical, and philosophical foundations of this new medium are covered in his book.

Cathy Hackl

Cathy Hackl is a highly esteemed tech futurist and business executive with extensive experience in metaverse-related fields. She started a company called Futures Intelligence Group. She helps big companies and famous fashion brands grow in the virtual world. Her work includes consulting, speaking, and media personality. In 2023, Hackl started VerseLuxe, which is a luxury tech label that is both a label and a lab.

David Baszucki

David Baszucki has been working on bringing the gaming industry into the Metaverse for years, as the founder and CEO of Roblox. The vision of connecting the world was what he founded Roblox in 2004. He’s all about letting his users do the work for him. The company raised $520 million in private capital at a $29.5 billion valuation earlier this month, building a big war chest. It has the ability to utilize the funds to construct the metaverse and populate it with the creations of users.

Tim Sweeney

He is the founder and CEO of Epic Games, which is responsible for one of the world’s most popular games, Fortnite. Sweeney is also the inventor of the gaming platform referred to as Unreal Engine. The world is not just the creation of Epic or another corporation, he said. “It’s a group of talented people from all over the world who make great content.”

Jensen Huang

Jensen Huang founded NVIDIA to address the issue of 3D graphics for the PC. Then Nvidia moved on to the next level of computing: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Huang reached out to the Metaverse to create NVIDIA’s Omniverse, which is now available in a beta version. NVIDIA Omniverse is a cloud-based platform that makes it easy to work together in real-time. Omniverse lets creators, engineers, and researchers work together in virtual worlds.

Philip Rosedale

He was the first person to create Second Life, a virtual civilization. He explains that Second Life demonstrates specifically that technology can be a good thing as it relates to improving human relationships. You can read lots about this from other people than us—in academic papers. We know there’s a lot of good that can happen when people are in virtual worlds together.

Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple

Beeple became one of the most influential visionaries in the NFT field by selling many works of art as nonfungible tokens (NFTs) for tens of millions of dollars. Beeple’s NFT collage “Everydays: the First 5000 Days” was sold for a record-breaking $69.3 million at Christie’s in March 2021. Beeple is a well-known person in the cryptocurrency industry. He has around 600,000 followers on Twitter and 2.5 million followers on Instagram.  Learn more about metaverse and NFTs.

Lindsey McInerney

Lindsey McInerney holds the position of Global Head of Technology and Innovation at Anheuser-Busch InBev. She possesses a comprehensive understanding of the global software industry, owing to her direct experience in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region.

Krista Kim

Kim, the founder of the tech-oriented movement, has devoted her professional life to the notion of digital consciousness. She represents SuperWorld, a virtual world that lets people and businesses create, discover, and make money.

Rafał Siejca

CEO of Mazer Inc. and XR Wizards, companies responsible for developing the metaverse platform called Mazer – a virtual space that combines entertainment, business, education, and professional applications. He is an experienced manager and leader, specializing in software development for major financial institutions. However, he has also nurtured a profound interest and passion for virtual reality and digital worlds for many years. He was the creator of one of the world’s first teams that collaborate daily in the metaverse. As a result, he brought an entirely new quality to remote work, providing an ideal environment for digital nomads who desire to collaborate from anywhere on the planet.

Author: Rafał Siejca

Rafal has over twenty years of corporate experience, including roles at Millennium Bank, Comarch, and leading software teams at PZU, one of Europe’s largest insurance companies.As one of Poland’s few true VR experts with a decade of experience, he ensures timely, high-quality project delivery as CEO and CTO.