8de299d0-34bc-11f1-a340-eb6b217fc656

Virtual Reality & Life After Meta

Show notes

"If you are in a position where you can speak up, then I feel you have a responsibility to do so.” — Britta Hummel

Key Takeaways

  • The core technical challenges behind modern VR systems are largely solved — the bigger challenge today is finding meaningful and sustainable use cases.
  • Virtual reality has enormous potential in healthcare, trauma therapy, education, and professional training — especially when designed intentionally around human needs instead of engagement metrics.
  • Building inside Big Tech can create incredible opportunities for experimentation and innovation, but also environments where dissent and critical feedback become increasingly difficult.
  • Humane technology is not about rejecting technology altogether, but about building and consuming it with more moderation, thoughtfulness, and responsibility.
  • Many people in tech are searching for deeper meaning in their work, and purpose-driven technology can fundamentally change how work feels.

Learn more about Britta's work:

If this episode made you rethink how you can use your own voice to make tech more humane, how virtual reality is adding real value, or to create a crowdfunded VR headset, let us know in the comments or spread the word.

More episodes & shownotes: https://www.hello5050.world/podcast

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/Hello5050World

Producing partner: Tess Marketing Consulting & Stephan Germann https://www.tess-marketing.ch/ https://videopodcast.studio/

Show transcript

00:00:00: I think we're at a broader inflection point where dissent is becoming harder.

00:00:03: We see that in business, politics and public discourse And the ability to dissent as essential both individually and societally.

00:00:14: So if you are in position when you can't speak up And I was in that position because i had decided to leave the company.

00:00:23: I have decided to live industry so there is nobody who was able to badmouth me and hurt my ability to get a new job, cause I wasn't interested in any of your job almost also financially stable enough to do all this then feel you have responsibility to do so on behalf off those that are more vulnerable than.

00:00:44: Welcome to Hello!

00:00:45: fifty-fifty world, the podcast where we break tech bubbles

00:00:49: before they break us

00:00:50: and when you talk about people who make tech more humane.

00:01:01: Today's conversation on The Hello!

00:01:03: Fifty-Fifty World Podcast is with Britta Hummel.

00:01:06: Britta is a former engineering leader that has now focused on human centred systems.

00:01:11: I got to know her few years ago as she spoke in a panel discussion.

00:01:19: Today we talk about virtual and mixed reality, how it works where creates value.

00:01:25: And we're not!

00:01:26: We'll learn about Britta's life after Big Tech why she left what she does today.

00:01:32: Let's dive in.

00:01:38: Welcome Britta to the Hello!

00:01:39: fifty-fifty world podcast.

00:01:41: Thanks so much for having me.

00:01:43: You've worked on products like HoloLens at Microsoft MetaQuest Oculus Quest at Metta.

00:01:50: What draw you into Virtual or Mixed Reality?

00:01:53: Okay, I guess i'll start from the very beginning.

00:02:04: And then my partner got a job in the

00:02:12: U.S.,

00:02:13: and I had no plans of moving to the US myself, but eventually i decided to follow him... ...and I still wasn't particularly interested in a career at Silicon Valley!

00:02:24: But what else do you do other than having a career?

00:02:27: So I started working with startups there.. ..and fell in love with start-up life.

00:02:35: It was a great period in my life.

00:02:37: I learned a lot and turned out, it wasn't bad at all

00:02:40: either.".

00:02:41: Then the startup that I worked at, Canista got bought by Microsoft on.

00:02:45: there was in two thousand ten.

00:02:48: At the time, Microsoft is already stealthily building something called Project Fortaleza.

00:02:52: That was the world's first augmented reality display because of big deal back then.

00:02:57: And now as computer vision researcher at the time when he was lucky coincidence That's what that small team needed.

00:03:04: So I joined them, and Fortaleza later shipped as we now know is Microsoft HoloLens.

00:03:10: Soon after realized my heart was still beating for startups so went back to the startup world And right when one of these start-ups had to fold at a time COVID hit in twenty nineteen i got the call from then Facebook To join their Oculus Team to work on their virtual reality device The Oculus Quest One!

00:03:30: So that's how I ended up working on two virtual or augmented reality hitsets, one by Meta and one by Microsoft.

00:03:37: You were actually there quite early-on?

00:03:39: How was the vibe at the time when you started building these products in both Microsoft and also Meta afterwards?

00:03:46: How is it to build technology at such a big scale?

00:03:50: Early-on, the vibe was great because things are more organized like a startup for Delisa at Microsoft A twenty person core team that had a lot of leverage at the organization because The project lead he had previously shipped.

00:04:06: The Microsoft Kinect, the world's first body tracker similar to the Wii if you remember that time and so He had a Lot of street grids in the company.

00:04:18: And yeah So we could experiment a lot We can build a lot In.

00:04:22: That part was really great.

00:04:23: and similarly when I joined Facebook at the time.

00:04:28: Oculus had been bought by Facebook in twenty fourteen, but it has still preserved some of that original vibe and was really cool to work there on early days.

00:04:38: with a lot experimentation.

00:04:40: we have leverage as well.

00:04:42: We had reviews all way up to Mark Zuckerberg, to shape the direction of the device.

00:04:48: So the early days were the best.

00:04:51: I'm almost regretting that i only joined in twenty nineteen.

00:04:54: The earlier days are even cooler

00:04:57: These R&D departments or projects and big corporate companies.

00:05:02: they often feel like startups right?

00:05:03: so you kind get both startup vibe but also got benefits from a big corporation.

00:05:09: was it your experience?

00:05:10: yeah absolutely.

00:05:13: Vibes mostly existed at the beginning, and then more mature products got longer they were in market.

00:05:19: The more corporate it became.

00:05:22: that happened with both companies.

00:05:24: What was the bet for Microsoft?

00:05:27: And also for Meta to invest into virtual reality technologies like what are use cases?

00:05:32: we're driving this development

00:05:34: Back then.

00:05:35: Facebook's use case really clear gets a large scale user base.

00:05:43: We have the family of apps.

00:05:45: There are Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp in messenger business that literally draws billions of users.

00:05:52: so very clearly that was Mark Zuckerberg's end goal And Apple and Google both had platforms off their own with leverage.

00:06:02: That is something he wanted to build for his company as well.

00:06:06: What were people expecting to be doing in virtual reality back then?

00:06:09: Like what about this standard use case of virtual reality.

00:06:14: So before it was bought by Facebook, the Oculus team mostly built a gaming device and that worked pretty well at some point.

00:06:26: but

00:06:32: No, I

00:06:35: mean what we've seen in the last few years.

00:06:38: The Metaverse bet is pretty much dead.

00:06:40: it got replaced by the Beton AI and We have seen meta-deprioritize the metaverse with seeing waves of layoffs.

00:06:50: So my prognosis for whats gonna happen next isn't very positive definitely on the meta side given What i've seen internally?

00:07:00: And what were seein' In media now since I left bet on virtual reality will die out at Meta.

00:07:07: And then the question is, who is continuing that technology?

00:07:12: Right now we have metas.

00:07:14: biggest competitor is the Pico from ByteDance, The Makers of TikTok so those might be taking over the market.

00:07:22: there's also headset by Valve which another one scheduled to be released this year.

00:07:28: So Those are the Biggest Contenders.

00:07:31: One of my colleagues was recently at a conference where there were lots virtual reality use cases in research, so this is something that even I as student realized.

00:07:41: At universities there are lot of students projects about virtual reality and now you're saying it's not clear how the industry will continue?

00:07:49: How do we see tension between research and actual applicability for this

00:07:54: technology?".

00:07:56: a point of general gadget lover like back in the days we were building VR because it's cool and Because We Can.

00:08:09: I am now much more grown-up, And i no longer believe which at builtick.

00:08:14: Because we can.

00:08:16: But I see A lot Of opportunities to use this technology.

00:08:20: To do good research is one thing.

00:08:23: but I also See for example?

00:08:26: I'm currently involved In a pilot with two hospitals here in Switzerland where They are treating severely wounded patients and these people undergo very painful wound treatment sometimes for several hours, several times a week.

00:08:38: And some of them our kids.

00:08:40: so the hospitals are evaluating whether we can use VR to distract patients during this procedures.

00:08:45: That's just one example.

00:08:47: there is also used cases for VR from mental health.

00:08:50: they're great examples where VR is used treat phobias through reconditioning or exposure therapy trauma treatment.

00:09:00: And then what's already in the market is VR as being used for training professionals, an emergency response and healthcare industrial safety.

00:09:09: so I think we are should stay around to question who builds it?

00:09:13: Who builds a version that people can stick behind?

00:09:16: Yeah, absolutely.

00:09:17: We'll dive a little more into that later on.

00:09:20: first I want to touch briefly On what you've mentioned.

00:09:22: You recently left meta right and so you also shared That in a blog post.

00:09:27: the reasons why he left?

00:09:28: Do you wanna share some of these reflections with us?

00:09:31: Oh boy yeah.

00:09:34: In my article i describe three forces that built up over My time at Meta.

00:09:39: So The First was that power And ego really became less checked the letter you went.

00:09:48: And then second, speaking up or descent became increasingly risky.

00:09:53: and lastly the kind of leadership that I practiced empathy multiple perspectives psychological safety supporting my team quietly from behind instead of loudly putting myself in the foreground was becoming less and less efficient in that environment which rewarded loudness.

00:10:13: What was your breaking point, sort of the moment you realized that you have to leave?

00:10:19: There were a few actually.

00:10:22: I have to admit for a long time i didn't fully see it because... ...I loved work.

00:10:26: we had strong team high performance ratings with lot of agency so that masked problems.

00:10:33: and also believe things changed around the time Covid hit.

00:10:35: but yeah if.. one or two specific things.

00:10:40: There was a meeting where senior executives repeatedly called their colleagues work fucking stupid multiple times and what struck me most wasn't even the language, it's that nobody pushed back despite at least part of his argument being factually wrong And even the most senior person in the room I still have this image on my head them just absorbing it with hanging head, literally hanging head.

00:11:05: So it was the power dynamics that made it unsafe to disagree.

00:11:09: and once I saw that there...I saw it everywhere.

00:11:12: like when we had to give a demo of our work to Mark Zuckerberg, Handlers would adjust room temperature for him or during another demo to him and boss RCTO they brought in their favorite chairs.

00:11:23: so It really an echo chamber.

00:11:25: There is no way bring up feedback.

00:11:29: it just didn't survive because of the power and eco culture.

00:11:33: And I don't even think they did that deliberately, It was something that crept upon them... ...and that was hurting their bottom line efficiency without them really noticing.

00:11:42: So so that was one.

00:11:45: i have another big point but made me realize that this is not the right company for me anymore.

00:11:52: I have to be quite careful what I say here because Switzerland does not have whistleblower protection, but what i can't say it's my personal impression was that child safety wasn't a priority in The Metaverse.

00:12:04: It looked like... To me.. Like the same playbook applied back on the day to grow.

00:12:09: Facebook and Instagram Was now being applied to the metaverse.

00:12:14: I grow at all cost mentality and in my mind that didn't pay enough attention to the most vulnerable people on the platform which were children.

00:12:24: It's really brave of you to share these reflections, um i see that also in your face.

00:12:30: right now that this is a hard time in your life that you went through You decided to speak openly about it.

00:12:37: what made you decide to do that?

00:12:39: Well, it wasn't something I did lightly.

00:12:56: and also a sense of responsibility, I guess.

00:13:06: We're at the broader inflection point where dissent is becoming harder.

00:13:09: we see that in business, politics or public discourse And i can see the ability to dissent as essential both individually and societally.

00:13:20: So if you are in position when you cannot speak up And I was in that position because i had decided to leave the company.

00:13:29: I have decided to live industry so there is nobody who was able to badmouth me and hurt my ability to get a new job, cuz'I wasn't interested in your job also financially stable enough.

00:13:41: do all this then feel you have responsibility on behalf of those are more vulnerable than How

00:13:48: are you feeling now a few months after you've published this article?

00:13:53: What was also some reactions that your received.

00:13:57: It's been overwhelming, honestly I'm not social media person.

00:14:00: i don't do podcasts or other social media engagements allot so it did NOT expect much traction but in the end sub-stack counted forty thousand views.

00:14:11: hundreds of people reached out and public comments and privately.

00:14:16: And those were the most insightful ones, they said things like hey your article deeply resonated but I'm terrified of reacting publicly to it in any way.

00:14:26: so i'm thanking you in private.

00:14:28: just want to acknowledge how brave it is for me speaking up about this also now on the podcast.

00:14:33: thankyouso much

00:14:34: can put out a brief shoutout to few folks that inspired me?

00:14:41: because others did.

00:14:42: So I stand on the shoulders of giants here, people who've spoken up much more loudly and a much higher cost.

00:14:51: so what i did is really not comparable.

00:14:53: also...I want to give a shout out to Kelly Stone Lake here.

00:14:58: way before all the things we're seeing now in media had become public and will likely face serious financial consequences as a result, or Brian Bowland who lived to testify infront of several senate committees.

00:15:11: He was a VP at Meta Beforehand.

00:15:13: Or The Brave Woman Who Is The Plaintiff In The Landmark Addiction Lawsuit Against Meta on YouTube At The Moment.

00:15:20: I'm very thankful for you because each person encourages the next to speak up.

00:15:25: Thank you for sharing.

00:15:26: That's absolutely true!

00:15:29: We'll switch gears a little bit, if that is okay with you and we get back to your passion of virtual reality.

00:15:37: You said...you don't really want to go into the industry but are still working on virtual reality technology.

00:15:45: I would love hear from you what some technical challenges excite you about virtual reality these days.

00:15:52: So virtual or mixed reality, I think is that a very interesting inflection point on the tech side?

00:15:59: I believe the biggest problems are actually solved and meta Is the company in that did solve those technical challenges.

00:16:07: A lot of credit goes to them for doing so.

00:16:12: The business side I believe it's the real problem.

00:16:15: but i go into the technical side first with a quest three and three as we've essentially solved the tracking problem already since a while.

00:16:24: We have display tick that is advanced enough, unless you're big stickler for display acuity You'll be fine with displays we now have and also of ability to mix and sprinkle in VR content on top Of The real world In A way That makes sense.

00:16:39: For example I could put a virtual monitor right onto this table that were sitting in front Right Now or On the wall in Front us And we can produce all this at a price point that works for consumers.

00:16:53: So you've mentioned also the technical challenges are solved, but they're business challenges and not solved?

00:16:58: What are the bottlenecks that your seeing right now with virtual reality?

00:17:03: I think We don't have a contender in the market to build a headset That gains enough adoption.

00:17:11: i'm Not talking Mark Zuckerberg pipe dreams, mainstream adoption of the metaverse.

00:17:17: But I'm talking about adoption by businesses sufficiently so that we have a sustainable business.

00:17:26: more than one person told me recently if somebody decides to make a crowdfunded open source headset then i'll donate.

00:17:33: So this is my call to action for the tropes who've recently departed or laid off meta-employees.

00:17:38: Make an open source headset, The World Needs It!

00:17:41: Feel free to laugh.

00:17:42: feel free to ridicule.

00:17:43: I don't care.

00:17:44: i know it's not easy.

00:17:46: you're some of the best people in the world.

00:17:48: ParmaLucky was able to make a headset.

00:17:50: You can do it and you Can Do It Without The BS Politics That You've Had To Endure In The Last Few Years.

00:17:57: You

00:17:57: Also Ventured Off Now And Started Your Own.

00:18:01: Start up again, right?

00:18:02: So do you want to share a little bit about what you're doing now.

00:18:06: Yeah I'm happy too!

00:18:07: iIm a bit allergic the word start-up these days because coming from Silicon Valley this always implicitly implies hyperscaling and taking over their world becoming unicorn gathering as much venture capital that there is.

00:18:21: That's not something we want to do.

00:18:24: We want first and foremost build tech for good.

00:18:30: We're a group of three senior-ish women from ex-meda who left on their own terms.

00:18:38: And we want to see how can use VR, do our small part make the world better place?

00:18:47: In essence...we feel that we've accumulated quite negative karma working for social media giant even if were working in other family of apps but on the VR side.

00:18:57: so now What can we give back if anything?

00:19:01: And so right now, we're building two things under the brand Waven.

00:19:08: One is Waven Bilateral and one is Wiven Access.

00:19:11: Waven Access as what I've already alluded to before were currently involved in a pilot program with two hospitals here in Switzerland who treats really wounded patients that undergo painful wound treatment sometimes for several hours, several times a week.

00:19:27: And we are working with those hospitals to evaluate whether we can use VR to distract those patients.

00:19:33: and the other thing where building is called Waven bilateral waven bilateral was born out of realization.

00:19:40: I personally had benefited tremendously from having access great trauma therapists overcome my own childhood trauma And I was very privileged because i lived at places that were hotspots for where those therapists were trained in these modalities, namely San Francisco and Singapore.

00:20:02: Also because I worked in tech therefore could afford to pay for the treatments out of pocket.

00:20:07: most people are not in this situation And yet we have hundreds of millions of people who are in need some form trauma treatment.

00:20:14: If you're interested, I can recommend the book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.

00:20:20: and the consequences of untreated trauma or PTSD inability to hold down a partner or a job addiction self-harm Or worse harming other people or harming our planet?

00:20:34: I saw that current model doesn't work.

00:20:39: Not only do you have to be incredibly privileged as I've been, but also the whole model doesn't scale.

00:20:44: A therapist has a caseload of around twenty clients and we had maybe thirty thousand officially trained therapists in modality that i was treated with.

00:20:54: so way not enough.

00:20:57: So if we truly want to heal our world We need to start healing trauma And to do this we need to democratize access And that's what Waven bilateral is about.

00:21:09: Really cool, can you share a little bit about this treatment?

00:21:13: That you could get through Waven kind of putting on the VR headset and then What happens?

00:21:19: yeah so as it happens The modality that led to a breakthrough in trauma treatment worldwide and also solved my own trauma is called EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.

00:21:38: And that lends itself extremely well to implementation in VR.

00:21:43: That's what Wavon Bilateral is doing.

00:21:45: we have an implementation of a part

00:21:50: of

00:21:51: EMDR In the headset working prototype currently testing in closed alpha version.

00:21:59: The important disclaimer here.

00:22:01: I'm not going out and saying, hey everybody should do self EMDR because that is not safe to do.

00:22:07: You do need a trained therapist to do that.

00:22:09: but what I am seeing as if we could stretch out the time from seeing a therapist weekly to maybe once a month or even less depending very much on particular situation.

00:22:19: If we enable people To help themselves between sessions then We can start to scale trauma treatment two more.

00:22:27: So it's basically complementary to seeing a therapist.

00:22:31: Yes, that's exactly right

00:22:33: and so I've never done this EMDR.

00:22:35: And how can i imagine?

00:22:37: That you're following with your eyes kind of something thats moving in front Of You?

00:22:42: or How does It look like?

00:22:43: yeah that's close To what happens.

00:22:46: so In emdr What Happens is that you literally get visual auditory Or haptic stimulation on both sides of your body in an alternating fashion.

00:22:59: So you can, in a simple form imagine putting on headsets and getting an alternating tone on the left and right speaker or follow a visual dot with your eyes at a therapist's office.

00:23:13: that sometimes is therapists' finger or they use light bar with moving light let it move from left to into your hands that vibrate alternatively.

00:23:28: And all these three things are inputs, they became very easily replicate in virtual reality with way less tech overhead, weightless bulk and one single

00:23:38: device.".

00:23:39: How does this project now waven compared to previous jobs?

00:23:44: What excites you about

00:23:45: it?".

00:23:46: You know out of my twenty five years For a good fifteen years I've struggled with the lack of meaning.

00:23:52: We worked on cool tech, yes but what was the impact?

00:23:55: How did it positively impact people and the

00:23:57: planet?".

00:23:58: And i always envy friends who work in fields like medical that were actually making positive difference.

00:24:03: But i also thought i liked the skills to do that!

00:24:06: So now after quitting meta... all these companies, this is late-stage capitalism.

00:24:13: There's no way that inside of the system you can find meaning there because they really isn't any meaning to their work!

00:24:21: They're dollars.

00:24:24: and what I've found now is purpose... The need for projects I'm currently working on are making money.

00:24:32: in fact i am losing them at the moment but have never had more fun To everybody who struggles with exhaustion or disappointment, lack of purpose at work and you don't know what to do about this.

00:24:48: If your financially safe enough to do so I'm telling take the plunge.

00:24:53: craft your own job find a job where meta folks have some best skills in the world.

00:25:00: Craft a job for yourself.

00:25:01: we can use our skills.

00:25:02: help others.

00:25:03: I promise you the burnout you feel right now, it will evaporate.

00:25:06: You'll be filled with a deep sense of purpose that you haven't felt in years or maybe ever.

00:25:11: Yeah doing something meaningful either helping others or the planet is the best feeling ever.

00:25:17: Would you also say this happened to you?

00:25:19: That exhaustion left once you found Waven

00:25:25: Absolutely.

00:25:26: It took a while, but with Burnout they say it often gets worse before it gets better and that was absolutely true.

00:25:33: I wasn't depressed But i had an immense level of physical exhaustion to the point That even you know going grocery shopping or looking after my kids Was hard.

00:25:44: And that lasted for a few months.

00:25:46: and during that time I did what I could... ...I worked when I was able too.. ..and I didn't When I wasn´t.

00:25:51: so thats over time how I scaled up back up my ability to work.

00:25:55: And now I'm as enthusiastic ever, too.

00:25:59: do this next chapter?

00:26:01: Awesome!

00:26:02: So one last question for you before we dive into the rapid fire questions.

00:26:07: so looking ahead into the future a little bit where'd you see tech or virtual reality in general going and what kind of role would you like?

00:26:17: So it may be a bit of weird analogy, but I think tech right now is at point where the food industry was in the seventies or eighties.

00:26:25: Some you might remember this – At least our household and my mother's generation.

00:26:29: chemicals and highly processed foods were deemed progressive and great for us!

00:26:33: And more so than better.

00:26:34: we were babies being fed with formula which considered superior to breast milk convenience.

00:26:40: food was invented At home, soups and sauces would be cooked with ready-made packaged stuff that was full of artificial aroma.

00:26:48: And of course massive profits were being made by the food industry which addicted a whole generation to highly processed sugary foods.

00:26:58: And so now, all these years later we are learning about the health disadvantages of all this.

00:27:04: We learned that eating food as it comes out from Earth is in most cases much better for human health and that the food industry's capitalist self-interest was not serving humanity well at all.

00:27:15: I believe, or choose to believe that tech will reach a similar inflection point as the food industry did.

00:27:22: A bit of tech is actually really great for medical reasons and disaster recovery.

00:27:28: there's lot of great use cases but too much take especially everyday people in their daily lives.

00:27:33: it very bad humanity as whole society even more so if its coming unregulated from big

00:27:40: tech.

00:27:41: And what do you think we can as technologists or anyone working in the tech industry right now to help getting over that inflection point?

00:27:50: So, I would love for everybody pay attention too is to consume and build tech in moderation and thoughtfulness not in excess.

00:28:04: Also my call is to regulators We need to regulate late-stage capitalism in the tech field because those companies aren't not gonna try to addict you.

00:28:17: And that's what we're seeing right now with social media and even with mobile phones in general.

00:28:22: so three a question of what i'd like to see personal action by employees buy consumers, Action by regulators, I love what the EU is currently doing in terms of regulating big tech.

00:29:05: We'll now dive into the rapid-fire questions to end this wonderful conversation.

00:29:10: Are you ready for this?

00:29:12: Let's go!

00:29:12: All right, first question if you could rewrite any line of code in any product what would you do?

00:29:19: change social media feeds from engagement base two bridge building based algorithms?

00:29:24: that's What we heard From In your last podcast episode.

00:29:27: so shout out To The Last Person who was at This Table Before Me.

00:29:31: Awesome.

00:29:31: shout out to Vardon and Sparkable here.

00:29:34: The second one is what's an everyday act of allyship that anyone can do?

00:29:40: If someone gets spoken over in a meeting or get any form of unfair treatment, if you are in the relatively safer position speak up say something.

00:29:50: for example You could double down on what X said.

00:29:55: I don't think we've considered Y. Yeah,

00:29:58: absolutely.

00:30:00: And the third one is whose voices do you think we should hear more of in tech?

00:30:06: I think we need more people with a spine.

00:30:08: I think We need more People that show up With moral clarity.

00:30:11: look around and Look who those people are.

00:30:14: My bias view right now it's The high performing women Who dare to speak out relatively More and they were prepared To live with the consequences.

00:30:22: i'd like to Hear more outspoken men to stand In for what's Right.

00:30:28: Very true.

00:30:29: And then the last one, if there's one thing that listeners remember from this episode what should it be?

00:30:36: We need an open source crowdfunded headset – It needs to exist!

00:30:40: It can't be.

00:30:41: we have to choose between Meta and its biggest competitor.

00:30:45: Pico from BiteDance is the maker of

00:30:47: TikTok.

00:30:49: Awesome Thank you so much Brita for being here and sharing all your experiences in tech world.

00:30:57: Thanks so much for having me.

00:31:04: There was another powerful conversation with Britta today, what stuck with me on one hand is that virtual reality technology has real world value.

00:31:15: I really loved the examples that Britta shared of the treatment of wound patients That are being distracted with virtual reality and also What she's building with Waven used in trauma therapy.

00:31:27: Real Value added here With Virtual Reality.

00:31:31: It's also interesting that technically virtual reality is already there, but use cases don't necessarily align with maximizing business value.

00:31:41: I also loved the idea she shared of building a crowd-funded VR headset and would love to hear from listeners if you know any projects going in this direction.

00:31:51: Last but not least, whistleblowers like Britta and others deserve respect for having the courage to speak up about issues in tech and beyond.

00:32:01: Thank you all so much for listening in today.

00:32:04: As always, we appreciate if you share this conversation with someone who should listen into it... If you drop us a comment of what resonated with you or if you want to support us!

00:32:16: We're now also on Patreon where you can support us financially too.

00:32:20: continue with this podcast going forward and end-to-end Today's Conversation.

00:32:24: A little reflection How can you use your own voice to make tech more humane?

00:32:32: Thank you so much and until next time.

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