How to Navigate Web3 - Joeri Billast

In today’s episode, I chat with Joeri Billast, a best-selling author on Amazon, renowned Web3 strategist, and host of the Web3 CMO Stories podcast. In his spare time, Joeri is a Leuven, Belgium-based Fractional CMO in B2B tech, leveraging his unique expertise to guide businesses in NFT and Metaverse marketing, driving substantial impacts in an emerging tech landscape.

Navigating the world of Web3 can be complex, so we began with the basics. What is Web3 and what innovations are represented under this umbrella term? What are the common misconceptions of Web3 - both opportunities and risks for enterprise organizations - and how can leaders maximize its value?

And we ended with a fun projection of Web3’s future. Where is it going in the next 12-18 months? And how will it affect working professionals like us?

I admittedly got to indulge my inner technologist here, and Joeri was kind enough to share his knowledge, insights and hopes for the future. It was a really engaging discussion, and I hope you enjoy our conversation, as much as I did recording it.

Joeri Billast

Joeri Billast is a renowned Web3 strategist, hosts the Web3 CMO Stories podcast and is a best-selling author on Amazon. Known for his W3X Marketing Mastermind and his work as a Fractional CMO in B2B tech, Joeri leverages his unique expertise to guide businesses in NFT and Metaverse marketing, driving substantial impacts in the emerging tech landscape.

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Matt Burns

Matt Burns is an award-winning executive, social entrepreneur and speaker. He believes in the power of community, simplicity & technology.

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Transcript

Joeri: It? Well, most people that I talk to about web three because it's a rather new term, not so many people know what it is, and if they think something of it, they think it is cryptocurrency. And then what do you think? They think about trading, they think about scams, they think about, um, people trying to avoid to pay taxes and so on. They think about about negative things and think also about be rich fast because you are, uh, speculating on the market.

Matt: Constraints drive innovation. Hey, everyone, it's Matt, here for another episode of Thinking Inside the Box, a show where we discuss the innovative ways organizations and their leaders overcome complex issues at work. If you're interested in checking out our other content, you can find us at our shiny new website, insidetheboxpodcast.com and on all your favorite podcast platforms by searching Thinking Inside the Box. And if you enjoy the work we're doing here, consider leaving us, uh, a five star rating, a comment and subscribing. It ensures you get updated whenever we release new content and really helps amplify our message. In today's episode, I chat with Yuri Belast, bestselling author on Amazon renowned Web Three Strategist, and host of the Web Three CMOS Story Podcast. In his spare time, Yuri is a Leuven, Belgium based fractional CMO in B two B Tech, and leverages his unique expertise to guide businesses in NFT and metaverse marketing, driving substantial impacts in an emerging tech landscape. And so he was the perfect person to dig into this topic. Navigating the world of web Three can be complex, and we began with the basics. What is web three and what innovations are represented under this umbrella term? What are the common misconceptions of the technology, both opportunities and risks, in particular for enterprise organizations, and how can leaders maximize its value? And we ended with a fun projection of Web Three's future. Where is it going? 12, 18, 24 months? And how will it affect working professionals like us? I admittedly got to indulge my inner technologist here, and Yuri was kind enough to share his knowledge, insights, and hopes for the future in what was otherwise a really engaging conversation. And I hope you enjoy it as much as I did recording it. And now I bring you Yuri Belast.

Matt: The best podcasts, Yuri, are the ones that you actually embarrass yourself. So I'm, uh, looking forward to this conversation. Thank you so much for joining me today. How are you doing?

Joeri: I'm good. Matt always excited when I can be on podcasts. Uh, as you know, I'm myself a podcast host, but when I can be guests, it's also exciting. And because you were on my show and I'm now on your show, it's even more fun, I think.

Matt: I agree. And, uh, one thing I love about being a guest when you're normally a podcast host is you can put your feet up, you can take a break, and so can I, because I have someone to work with to have a great conversation. We've had a few of them offline that have certainly informed what I think is going to be a really cool chat today. But for those who don't know, you bit about your background, your experiences, and what's led you to today.

Joeri: Yeah, of course. So actually, as people, maybe they hear my accent, I'm in Belgium. So, uh, big time difference with you. So my background is I had a business analytics company before, so I'm already for some time an entrepreneur, but not in marketing as I am now. This was an It company. We were measuring stuff, creating balance, scorecards, performance management and so on for companies to make better decisions. And also at the same time, Matt, since my studies, I have had an investment club. So, um, I'm been following the stock market, buying stocks, selling stocks, and so on. And at a certain moment, I decided to sell my former business, which was around business intelligence, as I said. And I said, I want to do something new. And then I said, what will I do? And sometimes in life you need to make a new decision. So I was looking at what are the possibilities? And then I said, you know what, I will do something with tools and with efficiency and help businesses use better use of software and so on. But because of doing that, I need to create a new brand, like a new personal brand, a new company brand. And then, um, people ask me, Yuri, how did you do that? And I was using social media, Matt, because LinkedIn was a thing. And I was using LinkedIn to build, uh, my brand again. And then I decided at a certain moment, okay, this will be my focus, social media marketing. I also do some public speaking and I start speak about Facebook, LinkedIn and so on. And so this was the background. And maybe yeah, you can ask maybe a next question about Web Three, but this is actually where I'm coming from. So the business intelligence background, the financial, the investment club, and also the pivoting from business intelligence to marketing to B two B marketing.

Matt: Yeah, no, it's a really cool story. I also think it's interesting because you've worn several different hats along that journey. So, as you know very well, there's a certain skill set to being a founder of an organization. And there's a certain skill set for supporting people in a client facing capacity versus being an in house consultant or an in house practitioner. Um, and you have a breadth of experiences across a number of disciplines that I think are at the leading edge of innovation in organizations, whether they be small to medium business or large enterprise. So it's been really the catalyst for a lot of our fun chats. And um, certainly I'm sure we're going to have many more after this conversation. You mentioned web Three, though. And I think that's the area where you're trying to differentiate yourself in the market, both in terms of your thought leadership, but also the services and the community that you're building. For those who may not be familiar with the term, who may have read the term in passing, if you wouldn't mind defining Web Three. But then also what drew you to that, because you could have spent your time going more down the analytics approach, you could have jumped into HR technology. I'd be curious to understand why web three?

Joeri: Yeah, so as I said, I was into business intelligence with my first company at the time that I decided to do that, that was hot. It was like everyone was saying, okay, this is the new thing. Built intelligence, big data, and so on. So I like new ideas, new tech, so I like to be on the forefront of technology. And then I told you I was into social media marketing. Social media marketing ads were a thing at that moment, was like, okay, I need to understand that I've ever even written a book about it, about social media marketing, which did actually very well, uh, in North America. And then I said I was at a conference, social, uh, media Marketing World. And um, I was not expecting that. I was already following the Web Three space because it's interesting, it was grabbing my attention. But then at that moment, people were talking about this. Like Michael Stelzner, who is into social media marketing, he was talking about Web three. All of a sudden, I met Mark Schaefer, who is, uh, a well known marketer. He has written a lot of books. He's a lot about personal, uh, brand, community building and so on. I met him, I was speaking to him, we became friends, and I was helping him with launching his community on discord in Web Three. So started to organize metaverse events and so on, which is probably also term that not everybody will know. But then, um so why web three? Because it's at the forefront of technology. And I feel that with my background, with it, with finance and with marketing, everything comes together for me. So it's easier for me to learn and to understand what is happening in the space because of my background. Because in web three, everything is evolving really fast. So that's the why. Now, what is web three? I was at Social Media Marketing World again um, this year, and I hosted the Web three table Talks. And people came to me, yuri, what is it? So I said, okay, in simple terms, what I say is everyone knows. Probably depends, of course, of your age. But there was Web one. When the internet started, web One was all about consuming content on the internet, like browsing, surfing, going to websites, and consuming it, only reading. And then Web Two came. Web two, I explained it as in both directions. So you read content on the internet, but you can also write on the internet. You can put stuff on social media, you can put stuff on LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs, and so on. So it was in two directions. But a problem with Web Two is that we see now that you don't own your data. You don't own your data on LinkedIn, on Facebook, and so on. And Facebook can decide from one day on the other. And I've had this with clients that they just delete or deactivate your account mhm, because you don't own your data. And so the promise of Web Threes, in simple terms, is that it solves that problem that you own your data, that the data is not centralized, but it is decentralized, that it's transparent, because in Web Three, it's linked to the blockchain. The blockchain is actually a chain of blocks that cannot be changed. So everything is also visible for everyone. So it's transparent and it's also secure. So that's actually, in simple words, what I understand by Web Three. Also to note, uh, Matt, for me, Web Three, it's more like an umbrella term. An umbrella term people talk about crypto. Crypto is a part of Web Three, but it's only instead of dollars, you pay with crypto, instead of euros you pay with crypto. It's your currency. Whereas there are other concepts like, uh, we can talk about estate if you want, but about NFTs, which are digital collectibles, about the metaverse, uh, which is a virtual world and so on and so on. So it's an umbrella term. There is a lot to talk about, um, but in a few words, I would say that's how, uh, I would define it.

Matt: And let me just take it down to one further level. It's to your point. An umbrella term that captures everything from NFTs to cryptocurrency to blockchain, to the metaverse, to artificial intelligence. In the same way, the Internet of things was also an umbrella term that meant to capture a lot of different things, whether that's machine learning, artificial intelligence, et cetera. It's a really fascinating space, and I think it's an important time to have the conversation for a number of reasons. I mean, HR people or frankly anybody in the business world, we've heard if you've been in the industry for any longer than five months, you've heard buzword terms pop up. I've heard countless buzwords pop up during the course of my 2025 years in the business world. And I've been guilty for attaching myself previously to trends such as the metaverse, which I still believe will become a thing one day. But I found myself certainly buying into trends and certainly dismissing others. And Web Three, with its savvy branding and its wonderful name, I'm sure some people are at a stage, for whatever reason, where they're like, you know what, not one more thing. I can't not understanding how fundamentally it's going to change how we do everything at the consumer level at work, um, a number of different capacities. To your point, it will be as foundational as the original advent of the Internet has been on everything that we do. That being said, aside from people not appreciating the gravity of what Web Three is going to mean for them, what are some other things that people get wrong about the technology, or misconstrue, or may not be fully realized about the technology?

Joeri: Well, uh, most people that I talk to about Web Three because it's a rather new term, not so many people know what it is. And if they think something of it, they think it is cryptocurrency. And then what do you think? They think about trading, they think about scams, they think about, um, people trying to avoid to pay taxes and so on. They think about negative things and they think also about be rich fast because you are speculating on the markets. But it's not only about crypto. No, I would say there are so many other things. There is the blockchain, that is the technology. Everything is based on that. And there are so many, I would say benefits, utilities. The same thing with NFTs, which is also a concept, as we said in Web Three. In the beginning, people thought of webt, uh, like GPAC that you can see and then people buy it because oh, it looks nice and it's like art, but okay, that doesn't really have a utility. But now people start to understand and that's also one of the things that people don't see, most of people don't see. But now more and more people start to understand that it is the utility, the benefits that are linked to an NFT that are important. The same thing with the metaverse. Also people look at the metaverse, oh, but is that for gaming or that's like a video game and so, um, on, but again, therefore education is important and therefore is just try it out for yourself to see what it is, to understand it. Because the metaverse, it's way more it comes from the gaming. It says a gaming background. But there are so many possibilities that there are so uh, yeah, those are some of the misunderstandings or beliefs that people have that are a bit too limited, I would say. Welcome.

Matt: Hey everyone, it's Matt here. I hope you're enjoying today's conversation. And before we continue, I uh, want to update you on my latest creative.

Matt: Project, this Week at Work.

Matt: Every Friday at 07:00 a.m Pacific Standard Time. That's 10:00 a.m. Eastern and 03:00. P.m GMT. My good friend Chris Rainey of HR Leaders and I discuss the latest trending topics on the minds of executives globally. From organizational culture to technology and the future of work.

Matt: We cover it all, and we invite.

Matt: Some of our favorite colleagues to join us, from Dave Ulrich to Whitney Johnson, um, and executives from iconic brands such as NASA, Krispy Kreme, and WebMD.

Matt: What can I say we like to keep things interesting.

Matt: And if you've been following us for a while, you'll no doubt recognize the fun partnership chris and I have developed.

Matt: Over years podcasting together.

Matt: We're not afraid to be real, share our own, um, challenges, and ask the tough questions.

Joeri: Joining?

Matt: Well, that part's easy. Follow me on LinkedIn, click the bell icon on the top right of my profile, and you'll get notified when we go live.

Matt: And now back to our discussion.

Matt: Yeah, I think that's a great way of saying it. I think any technology that comes to the market nowadays is so complex that your first impressions of it are likely going to be the tip of the proverbial iceberg. In this case. At the risk of going down a Metaverse rabbit hole, which I'm known to do on this podcast, as you know, I'm a huge advocate for the technology. I'm a convert. Um, we use it in our organization for part of our own process. I've used it in the sales process. We've used it, obviously, to produce a three day conference. Um, the use cases for me are very clear, and there will always be an adoption barrier to virtual reality because it's predicated on having had the experience, trying to explain to someone what it's like to be in the Metaverse, having had them not put on a headset before. I learned the hard way, the expensive way, that's a really big chasm that you have to be able to cross. And I think at some point it will become more ubiquitous. But I think it's going to require a multitude of use cases which bring people in to that modality such that they will say, oh, I went to see a concert of Justin Bieber in VR. That's why I bought the oculus headset. And now that I'm here, wow. It'd be so much better if I could do my team meetings in here, because we could all be at home, but yet feel like we're in the same room. So much more inclusive, so much more dynamic. Um, we can do brainstorming even though our team is global, but we can never bring them together because it's too expensive or time zones or other limitations. But now we can have those in person sessions and really feel like we're collaborating in a way we couldn't unless we were, um, again, in the same space. So, that being said, I think it is a super interesting place and I love the depth of what we're talking about. You also host a podcast, and you mentioned this earlier. It's a fantastic show for those who haven't heard it, web, three CMO stories. You're talking to people who are at the front lines of this technology that are looking at use cases, both for the consumer, but also internally helping organizations move through that whole change journey. What stands out for you? I mean, you've had a number of conversations. Do any in particular stand out because you either thought the individual was ahead of their time in terms of being able to quantify it. Maybe the use cases they're developing are compelling. What are some of the highlights of, uh, the podcast?

Joeri: Yeah, as you know, in the meantime, I have over 100 episodes that I've recorded, ah, people from the Web Three space that are building in this space, but also people that are, I would say, on the edge, like marketers, like people like Mark Schaefer and Joe Polizzi, mhm. They, uh, are known for marketing, but they are touching the Web Three space. So they are explaining to me, how do they enter, what is their vision? So those were, of course, episodes that I will always remember, because they are known in the space and they are talking in easy words. People can understand what they explain about Web Three. But on the other side, there are so many people that are building stuff, uh, like loyalty programs, like good conversations that I had was, for instance, with Tara Fern, who is, uh, building stuff. And this is really amazing, the vision that those people already have about where it is going, because it's not so easy, it's moving every day. But the way that they are building and having people around them and building community, because that's one of the most important aspects that every time I hear it, like the community, that you have to build those communities, uh, and more and more in Web Three, it's more important than it was already in Web Two. And yeah, some of the episodes, it's people that are doing stuff like art exhibitions in the Metaverse, who are doing art or education in the Metaverse already. This is happening as we speak. Um, people that are, like I said, those loyalty programs, people that are building metaverses themselves, like software, if you will call it software, or even decentralized metaverses that now exist, which is like Metaverse. But then in the ideal Web Three world, decentralized people like Fanzo around, um, NFTs. They explained to me Fanzo explained he's known for this, has actually he did a podcast during one year. Every day he recorded and released a podcast episode, and every day he bought an NFT. So he explained me his journey, how he did that, how he created those NFTs, and how he build his community. So those are really interesting stories to know. Where are people coming from? What is their vision and how are they applying those technologies. Uh, and actually, I must say, because now I have the luck that a lot of people want to come on the show. And I try to keep a balance between lots of different stories, uh, and a bit like you trying to ask the right questions to come up with these stories that they are not coming on my show to sell their server there. Explain where they're coming from, why are they passionate about this industry? What are they building? And Matt, it's, for me, all about networking, because doing these episodes with those people that have a leading role in the space helps me grow, helps my audience grow, and I can also help out people with that. Uh, yeah. Could talk for ages about my show.

Matt: But we're going to I mean, this podcast is going to be so long, but we're going to continue this conversation because you and I intersected a lot of really interesting spots, and I think our journeys in a lot of ways have happened in parallel. For us, the podcast is similar. I had an observation five years ago, so it's not like this was like, um, a thought. This is five years ago. I recall being in a class in my MBA program, and I was actually in a marketing class, of all things, and we were talking about just the relationship of our society with information and how if you go back even just 50 years ago, information was currency. People had it or didn't have it, and certainly people that had it, in some cases hoarded it because they could monetize it, they could paper out access to it. So I'll use the example, and it's one of many examples, I'm not trying to pick on academia, which I have done on this podcast before, but that's just for the purposes of making it easy. Professors, the ones who were very, very good, well published, thought leaders of the day, would, of course, release their knowledge out in digestible pieces on a predictable interval. But they'd have a base of knowledge that often went much deeper. And to access that, you'd have to pay them to speak, or pay them to consult or pay them to advise your organization. Nowadays, information is democratized, so people have access to it in most modalities. And the academia world is struggling with a space where they have to put all their information for public consumption and make it translatable, whereas before, it was kind of an echo chamber. So the podcast, for me, was the solution to a problem where I said, there's so much information out there. Like, there is so much information, there's no possible way you can consume every piece of content that's created. You can't even scratch the surface. Every day, a thousand new podcasts are created. Every single day. You can go on YouTube and go down a million rabbit holes. There's TikTok everything is fighting for our attention. The reality is, most of the people that listen to our podcast, like your podcast, don't have the time to do the research to figure out, uh, what are the compelling stories, what are the compelling use cases, who are the compelling people in this ecosystem. And as a consequence, what we're really doing is we're curating, we're synthesizing, and we're trying to tell some stories along the way. And that's what our podcast has become. It wasn't a tool to monetize it it wasn't a platform for us to become thought leaders. It was about how do we have fun conversations that we're already having, but then how do we draw attention to those for people that might also benefit from the dialogue that's happening on certain topics? Which is why almost all of my topics that we have on here are problems that either I'm trying to solve for or that my network is trying to solve for so that we can be in service to some ways of thinking about it. And I'm also mindful of the fact that it has to be mildly entertaining, at least, because people's time is valuable, and they have to make sure that they're spending their time in a useful way. At the same time, I have a full appreciation of how hard it is to sell that idea and how hard it is to sell Web Three more broadly. You mentioned earlier that there's some misconceptions at times with people around their understanding for the technology. I think that's a fair statement, and I empathize with that. And I think about specifically my old background, which was enterprise organizations, companies that were 10,000 and above and largely global. A lot of times change, happen quite slowly, and that when you're in a big company, it's almost like its own echo chamber, where you may not be, uh, as aware of what's happening in the broader market, because you don't have to be. You're so focused on what's happening in your own organization. Therefore, when we're trying to introduce ideas like the metaverse, like artificial intelligence, like NFTs, into large organizations, there's going to be some natural resistance or a knowledge gap that has to be closed. I'm curious as you're having the podcast, as you're consulting and advising organizations, as you're helping founders of, uh, companies bring their ideas to the market for a topic or a service or a use case that may not be. Traditional. How are you helping them bridge the gap with prospects, either through storytelling or through other methods, so that their solution gets its proper care and attention in a market that's already just saturated with information?

Joeri: Yeah, that's a good question. Indeed. You mentioned it already. So there is a part of education they need to understand, because if they are not aware or understand, what is, uh, Web Three? So it's difficult to have the conversation, of course, by storytelling, by explaining them, by explaining the stories, how the metaverse, how NFTs, how it could work to solve a problem that they already have in their business, that have already what can an NFT be for a company? Like I mentioned already, it can be a loyalty program. So I explain probably they have already a loyalty program, and then explain, how could you do this better with an NFT? Or what are the problems that you're having right now with this solution, this service? And how could Web Three be a solution for that? How could the Metaverse be an alternative for now? Those meetings, those gatherings that you are doing and where there is a lot of traveling, a lot of organization, how could the Metaverse? So I show them through examples, through stories of maybe other companies like them, what they are already doing. And I try to make it really concrete, but also by educating them, what is it? How would that look like? And also, like I mentioned, I have my podcast. I also, uh, do public speaking when I talk about this. And by doing the podcast, by doing that, by meeting people, I exercise every time to explain them how it could benefit from them. Because that's always the question. And also with my content that I try to make, I always try to answer four questions in my content. Like, the first one is why me? So why is that organization? Why is this person? Why is this entrepreneur? Why is Web three relevant for them? So that's the first piece. Then why this? Why actually okay, what you explain now with these NFTs and this program and solution, why this is something I should implement. The third one is when I speak to them is explain why I would be a good guide to help them. And then, of course, important method is the why now question, which I have get a lot so that companies are hesitating to take action because they don't feel a sense of urgency. And therefore you always have those people that want to be ahead of the game, that see an opportunity that, um, want to go there, and others that are lagging behind. And that's my focus, to find those people that have the same mindset as we have to be at the forefront of technology.

Matt: And it's a challenging space to be, because as you mentioned, it's evolving so quickly, that being at the forefront really requires an investment of time, of resources to be able to keep pace with what's happening. And also, as I mentioned, filter through some of the noise because let's be fair, there is also a lot of noise in anything that's innovative. The Opportunists of the world come from many stripes. Some of them are opportunists trying to solve real problems, and other ones are trying to not trying to, but are creating real problems. So there's definitely an element of, um, credibility that needs to be built in anything that's transformational, which makes the work that you do all the more important and all the more challenging. I know one of the ways that you go about solving it is through community. You mentioned this earlier, and one thing I was really struck by from our previous conversations is the collaborative platform you've created, the W Three X Marketing Mastermind Group. I think it's an incredible concept. I think it provides a lot of value to the market. I'm just curious, how valuable has that been for you in terms of. Knowledge sharing and fostering growth. And specifically, how is it helping support the work you're doing with clients?

Joeri: Yeah. So, like you said, it is a real Mastermind. So this means that everyone can come up with challenges and also help the other. So it's not like teaching that I am talking and everyone is listening. So it's in every direction. The more people have in a Mastermind, of course, the more ideas, the more solutions you have. So how did that start? It started by people asking me questions about Web Three and how it could benefit them. Um, people thinking about a project, thinking about, whoa, it's a big investment to hire a consulting company and to do that. And they didn't feel like, should I do this? I don't speak their language, and so on. So by my Mastermind, I tried to solve this. Of course, in the beginning, the most people came from the Web Two space. It was more like educating them, training them, explaining them, all of the concepts. But now we already have done that. So they also have, like, projects. There is one restaurant owner, and they want to link an NFT, a, uh, loyalty card, a membership card, if you want, to an exclusive club for people that are visiting his restaurant and that they want to have something extra. Next to that, he also wants to do stuff in the Metaverse, maybe a digital Twin, or maybe organized gatherings in the Metaverse. And instead of directly hiring a consulting agency and discussing with them and actually they tried to do that, but they really felt not understood, felt like a number, felt like they were not replying. And then they found me. And so I am helping them more like a guide, like an intermediary, like a coach, like a brainstorm partner to discuss with them. Okay, this is a solution you want, okay? Instead of building everything from zero, what are the other possibilities? Okay, because of my network, because of the podcast, because of the events I'm going to, because of my activity on LinkedIn, I know a lot of people in the space, so I can connect them with people. So instead of building an NFT kind of thing from zero, I can say, okay, there are platforms that exist that offer what you need. And I know the owner, so I can connect you with the owner. So I invite the owner of this NFT platform on the Mastermind. Other people benefit because they talk directly to him. This owner benefits because he gets directly feedback. And these I built relationships with people during the Mastermind. So it's about it's about learning, it's about connecting, networking, it's about similar challenges and also implementing that and coming back the week after and talking about this and talking about problems. And other people learn from that. And so that's what I really like, to bring people together that are like minded, that want to be a step ahead and also, of course, it's a Web Three Mastermind. But now I included AI because there was a demand for people in the Mastermind. AI is there. We need to see also the benefits from AI. Now we can include it into our Web Three strategies to grow and so on. So this is, of course, something that helped for me personally, because hearing their questions, it always challenges me too, and people in the community now mastermind too, to come up with answers. And if I cannot come up with an answer, Matt, so I invite someone, like I said, that can know the answer or we discuss about it. So everyone is growing. Actually, what also important is that, uh, everything that is said in the Mastermind stays within the Mastermind. So people can really share their problems, what are they think of what are their worries or what are their wins. And this creates a bond. And yeah, uh, everyone gets a lot of benefits out, uh, of it in that way.

Matt: Well, it's the new in my way of thinking. It's the latest evolution of education in some ways. It's the latest evolution of community building in some ways. Uh, again, from an academic perspective, some of the traditional ways we go about doing things just don't necessarily make as much sense as they once did. The idea of lecturers with overhead slides and PowerPoints, more recently, talking at ah, students about their knowledge versus facilitating a conversation, people don't learn that way. People don't retain information that way. The idea of doing memorization and recitation as a method of learning is just like, never really made sense. But to your point, bringing together like minded people that are trying to solve similar problems and learning from each other, that is the way human beings learn. We learn through discussion, we learn through practical application of concepts, we learn through the experiences and the network that we build that can support us in the moment when we have those challenges, versus pulling up a textbook and looking for page 87 where this note was. So I think you're providing a really valuable platform and community for people that are really just trying to keep pace with what's happening. Not to put too fine a point on it, but when I think about the implications of AI in particular, the people that don't get on board with artificial intelligence and its applications for business are going to find themselves. In a very tough position three to five years from now because it is an absolute accelerant on every part of the value proposition in business. Whether it's customer facing, whether it's internal. It is a force multiplier like we have not seen since the Internet. So I know there will be, to your point, a bunch of early adopters. They're probably already launching AI companies, they're in the market, they're raising capital, all that. There'll be the glut of people, which will be somewhere in the middle and they'll wait for a couple of examples and they'll jump in and there'll be those laggards that struggle to make sense of what this new world looks like. And I think we're entering into an era now of digitization where it's not going to be as forgiving, for those people that don't come along the journey, like when I remember with the advent of the internet, I mean, I'm of an age where I didn't have a cell phone in high school or college. They came out after that experience for me. I got my first BlackBerry when I was in my mid 20s, so the internet wasn't in my hand like it would be for generation Z and generation Alpha. As a consequence of that. I remember a world where decisions took longer to make, where work life balance really was a concept that you could honor. There's different things that are evolving nowadays, and people could take time to be adopters of ecommerce, or take time to have video conference calls, be a modality of communication in the workplace. That won't be the same learning curve for folks with web three. They're not going to have 15 to 20 years to figure that out and decide they want to get part of it. The train is moving much faster. Um, so what I'm interested to see actually, from an HR perspective, not to go on a completely different tangent, is we saw with the evolution of our economy from industrial into knowledge base that some people left the workplace, they're like, you know what, I'm cashing out my ticket, I've done my time. I don't want to learn a new way of doing things, so I'm going to retire. We're now in a workplace situation where five generations all inhabit the same workplace with artificial intelligence coming online. There are people who were in their forty s who are saying, I don't know if I can rethink the way I've been doing things. So I think a mastermind group is a perfect way to bring together a bunch of people who are trying to solve those problems. And given our previous conversations, I would encourage anybody who's thinking about how do they close those knowledge gaps but through community. Um, I'll put the details for the mastermind in the notes of this podcast, so we make sure that people can connect to that if they're interested in exploring that further. Uh, I'm curious. We've talked a bit about the technology, we've talked a bit about where it's come from. I want to spend some time, if you don't mind, asking some bigger questions. And there's some tough questions where it's going? So if we could pull out your Belgian magic eight ball and give it a good shake. I'm not going to ask you to project ten years out because that's an impossible question. But if we're talking twelve months from today, where is the state of web three as it pertains to an enterprise customer? A fortune 1000 business? What does their life look like in the context of web 312 months from today?

Joeri: Okay, twelve months that's still doable. Because if you talk about ten years, that's so much things impossible. But if I would say what I'm excited about the Web Three, and the benefits that I see are like the personalization possibilities, the fact that you can be really more user centric, you can be really, uh, more customer friendly, user friendly, with all the possibilities that Web Three offers. And where you also give your customer clients, uh, the feeling that they don't need to give you everything, they don't need to give every detail, every data there is, um, privacy becomes more important. More people are aware of that. But on the side of the business in Web Three, okay, there can be privacy, but you have more data than before in certain ways because people now decide what they share. For instance, with NFTs, people will start to have more and more NFTs on the blockchain. But that is visibly for everyone. So if choose to show that you have this NFT, you went to this event, this marketing event, or you are a fan of this artist, and you have an NFT, so it's visible on the blockchain if you want it to be. Of course. And this offers possibilities for businesses small or bigger, uh, to use them to target those customers and to know things about them and to help them also in a certain way, also for customer support and so on can be useful. Then we are more diving towards the AI, uh, but also AI. For me, it's all linked. Web three AI NFTs metaverse. Um, there is also the aspect of the digital currencies, but that's a whole other discussion, um, that will be changing our lives. Uh, yeah. So I think in twelve months there will be a lot of changes because I see we are now in the bear market, but I think we are at the end of the bear market. It's not financial advice, but you know, at a certain moment, those things will go up, those cryptocurrencies. There will be another atmosphere around it. Apple will come out with this, headset will be there. The Metaverse will begin, be more interesting for people. There will be a lot because Apple is not investing in a headset, not to do anything with it. So people will be talking about this.

Matt: It's a content play.

Joeri: Yeah, right. So it's a content play. And, uh, more and more businesses that are building stuff will be showing it, will be outside, will be showing it to the world. So in twelve months, I think a lot of new possibilities will be visible. People will be more excited. And therefore, I think now is a good time to get educated, to really understand what is Web Three. To get your hands on an NFT, to visit an event in the Metaverse, to see what does it look like to understand the possibilities and to start understanding what it means for your business or for your company? Yeah, so I'm really excited about it.

Matt: You and me both. And I'll make you a deal. If it doesn't realize the potential that you and I think it has, we can do another podcast ten years from now and talk about what could have, should have, and would have been. Um, but I think you're right. Jokes aside, I think you're absolutely spot on. I think it's going to be a bit of a whiplash for some people when they realize just how quickly things are going to be moving. I get super excited about that because I see it as a force for a lot of good. I understand that we've been through iterations with things like social media, where, again, force for good, but also maybe a force for division. I think the same potential exists for Web Three, for AI, and that's not to discount all the good that's going to come from it as well, but I think there's going to be a lot of good. When I think about Web Two. To your earlier point, I think about the opportunity for organizations and individuals to provide scale and to provide scalability, and that's obviously a critical part of efficiency in business. I think Web Three is exciting for me because to your point, it provides the same advantages of scale, but it provides personalization. And whether that personalization is an illusion or not, it still provides the feeling of personalization in an HR context that looks like an onboarding experience. Just for Matt as a customer, for a bank, it looks like an advisor that really understands what's going on in my financial past and where I want to go in the future. It provides a level of service that simply is just not available today at scale without paying a premium for it. It's an absolute democratizer for access to markets that would otherwise not be available. You mentioned before the stock market. There are a lot of people that are in the stock market. There are a lot of people that are not in the stock market, and a large reason why people who are not in the stock market, aside from, of course, the obvious resource constraints, is intimidation about what to do when you're in the stock market. And there's almost this narrative that the people that are at the front lines have access to information that gives them an advantage. And I'm just a new person investing my limited means in the market. AI is going to completely disrupt that industry, where being the person who whispers in somebody else's ear is not going to be the level of currency, uh, it once was. The AI will democratize access to the right kinds of trades, the right kinds of information, so people can inform themselves and make better decisions and ultimately help, I hope, democratize access to a number of different modalities, to a number of different use cases, because we are in an era, unfortunately, of innovation and inequality. And I think we have some work that we could be doing, and technology can be a great force for that. Yori I think we could talk about this for the next week, but I want to be sensitive and respectful for your time. For those who want to get a hold of you, who want to find you, where is the best place to do that?

Joeri: I think the most important places to find me is, uh, if my podcast, as you already mentioned. So if you Google it, Web Three CMO stories, you will find my podcast website, but you can also find it on every podcast app. I have my own blog personal website, which is, uh, webdrine. Net or. And web three is actually Dutch for web three. So it's W-E-B-D-R-I-E. Uh Net, and next to that, like we met on LinkedIn. Matt LinkedIn is my main social media channel. I would say. I'm everywhere. You can find me everywhere. There's only one person with my name, I always say. But I am most active on LinkedIn, so I'd love to connect, uh, and to have a chat.

Matt: We will link all those details in the podcast, show notes. And I would absolutely encourage folks, if you're not following Yuri right now on LinkedIn, go to his profile, click the bell icon, make sure you're seeing his post, seeing his content. The easiest way to educate yourself on things like Web Three, things like AI, is to change your content span so that you're being fed the types of content that you want to see. Right now, I've been on an absolute tear following people in AI, web Three, because I need to see more of that content in my feed. And it inevitably leads to great conversations like this. Yuri, thank you so much for your time today. Looking forward to continuing this chat offline.

Joeri: Yeah. Thank you, Matt. It was a pleasure.

Matt: Bento HR is a digital transformation consultancy working at the intersection of strategy, technology, and people operations. We partner with organizations, private equity and venture capital firms to accelerate value creation and identify the organization's highest leverage initiatives. And this can take place in many forms, from strategic planning and alignment to technology procurement, implementation, and integration, along with organizational design, process reengineering, and change management. With our proven track record of working with complex, high growth organizations, we provide a uh lens that goes beyond the balance sheet, increasing enterprise readiness, resilience, and value. For more information, check us out@bentohr.com.