We would like to take a moment to recognize the brilliant, gracious people who supported this book and helped the co-authors along this journey. We are humbled, honored, and grateful to call you peers, colleagues, friends, and family.

Thank you to …

• Yat Sui for incredible leadership in the metaverse and for an inspiring foreword.
• Our interviewees for your honesty and unique insights:

1. • Dr. Allen Yang
   • Bronwyn Williams
   • Lindsay McInerney
   • Roxanne Lyer
   • Dylan Gott
   • Adam Arrigo

• The Upland team for your support in bringing this book to life:

1. • Idan Zuckerman and Mani Honigstein
   • Lindsay Aamodt
   • Jason Festa
   • Helmut Franco
   • Juan Felipe Campos
   • Han Lu
   • Young Kim
   • Eugene Butenko
   • Bailey Maher
   • Illya Voronov
   • And so many others … thank you for believing!

• The Wiley team. We couldn't have gotten this book across the finish line without your patience and guidance:

1. • Jeanenne Ray
   • Jozette Moses
   • Dawn Kilgore
   • Sharmila Srinivasan
   • Allegra Green
   • Amy Laudicano

Acknowledgments from Cathy

Clarity, peace, and acceptance. I'm so grateful for finding my way to this journey. Thank you to Andy Zimmerman, Brandon Kaplan, Lionel Ohayon, Jenn Doherty, Craig Ayers, Emile Hoffman, Jaime Reixach, Frank Van den Ven, Isidora De Vicente, Ignacio Acosta, and Lily Snyder. The future is wide open. Thank you, Andrew Schwartz, for gifting me the title of “Godmother of the Metaverse,” I owe you more than a T-shirt. Thank you to Lindsey Mac for listening to me and becoming my friend. I cherish you. Thank you, Navah Berg, for checking up on me. Thank you, Rob Crasco, for always being on my side. Thank you to my friends, past co-authors John Buzzell and Sam Wolfe. Thank you to all the men and women who reach out on LinkedIn and share their stories with me. Thank you to my parents for being my support through the hard times and to my brother and his family for being my cheerleaders and my safe haven. Thank you to Iraida Rivas for being my right hand at home. Thank you to Sacha Knop for helping me get my inner strength and power back. I will live in gratitude forever. Thank you to Arthur for being my protector.

Thank you to the Dressners and the Blakes. Thank you to my co-authors for sharing your wisdom with me, and thank you to John for being an amazing editor. Thank you to the Upland family. Thank you to all my industry friends at companies like Roblox, Walmart, Upland, ARIA, Avatar Dimensio, The Sandbox, Niantic, Clinique, P&G, Manticore Games, Ralph Lauren, Nike, Adweek, Outlier Ventures, 776 Fund, Women in XR Fund, and many more. I have so many people to thank but not a lot of space. My heart is filled with gratitude for everyone. Oh, and thank you Wiley for taking a chance on a big idea.

Acknowledgments from Dirk

Inspiration, support, and knowledge. Thank you to those joining me on the journey into the metaverse. First and foremost to my wife, Karin, and my two sons for brainstorming this idea called “Upland” at many dinner table discussions and for providing all the positive energy and support to make it happen. To Idan Zuckerman and Mani Honigstein, my two Upland co-founders, for our famous night of Monopoly that led to starting the company with “.me” in the web address and to everything that came after that. To Ran Landman, who was the first “angel” believer in the company. To Stefan Schuetze, Juan Rodriguez, and Theo Woik, who believed in us as a team. To Kai Bolik, for his expertise and encouragement. To Riz Virk, Michael Terpin, Marc Stilke, and Jan Sprengnetter, for their precious advice. To Yat Siu, for sharing his extraordinary vision and guidance for the metaverse. To Thorsten Heissel, with whom I've shared all of my entrepreneurial endeavors, including our first venture when I was 16. To my co-author Cathy Hackl for her happy spirit and contributions. And to my other co-author and friend of many years, Tommaso Di Bartolo, who moved from Europe to Silicon Valley at about the same time as I did and experienced all the ups and downs of my journey. You've always been a wonderful sparring partner – even though you had one wrong piece of advice ;-). To Wiley for publishing this book. And finally to John Arkontaky, for awesome edits and providing everything needed around the book to turn it into reality.

Acknowledgments from Tommaso

An immense gratitude to those who have been supporting me in the process of learning Web 3.0, which subsequently allowed me to share lessons learned and contribute with perspectives in this book. From an emotional standpoint, a big thanks to lifelong supporters my wife and both my sons, who accompany me firsthand (not easy ☺) throughout all my ventures. To my sister, my best friend. To my brother, whom I always respect and admire. And finally, to my parents, my biggest fans, who taught me early on to convert expectations into gratitude.

A profound thank you to peers who directly and indirectly guided me in this most recent phase: To UC Berkeley, Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, where I guest-lectured in the blockchain class way back in 2017. To Isaac Leonard, my mentor and friend. To Welder Santos and Darcy Nascimento, my spiritual brother and sister. To Lavitor Matzembacker, Eric Montenegro, and Marcelo Souza, my friends. To John Arkontaky, who excelled in guiding us authors in writing this book. To Cathy Hackl, whom in our podcast I love to introduce as the “Godmother of the Metaverse” while joking that with my Sicilian origin it would be misunderstood if I would be called Godfather (much love, my dear Cathy). To Mani Honigstein and Idan Zuckerman. And last but not least, to Dirk Lueth, my Silicon Valley friend who in 2018 asked to pick my brain about the next startup he had in mind to launch, which I advised better not to start because blockchain, decentralized apps, and crypto experience seemed too risky to combine in one project (true story!). I was wrong. I am proud of you, my friend, and for being part of it. Humbly learning one chat at a time, while consciously discovering the unknown unknowns.