MetaRick™️

Things I work on: - San Diego Sales Community - VR & AI for enterprise companies - Host a Tech Podcast - Advise startups on GTM

Another bad PLG flow… tried ‘sign up with google’ Forced survey about me as a user, okay sure. Finished survey and got kicked to a request demo form… where I had to type in the same information again. Bad experience & gave time to look at other tools.

I don’t know if everything happens for a reason but the belief that it does is more useful than the alternative. When you don’t know, why not default to optimism?

Just requested a demo for a product I’m interested in buying + sharing with community of other potential customers. Request demo form kicked me to ‘start a trial’ instead of a conversation… Horrible customer experience.

There’s two ways to develop expertise: 1) Do research to become the most knowledgeable. OR 2) By executing tasks you become the most capable. The most capable is exponentially more valuable than the most knowledgeable.

At Snapwire we always talked about treating success and failure the same. “Taste it and spit it back out.” Learn from both, let yourself feel the impact. But don’t allow yourself to linger in either, because both could destroy you.

Seems like there’s a cloud of hopelessness floating around society right now. So many people talk about isolation and doomscrolling content, reinforcing negative self talk. How do we become more optimistic? Simplest thing that works for me, go outside and talk to strangers.

I have an opinion on the Meta layoffs that is contrary with most of the VR industry and much of the media, but strongly held. This is not a disaster. They still employ the largest team working on VR by about an order of magnitude. Nobody else is even close. The "Meta is abandoning VR" narrative is obviously false, 10% layoffs is basically six months of normal churn concentrated into 60 days, strictly numbers wise. The majority of the 1,500 jobs cut in Reality Labs (out of 15,000) were roles working on first-party content, internally developed games that competed directly with third party developers. I think this is a good decision, and I thought the same back when I was still at Oculus. Change always sucks because people lose their jobs in the process, but in a world of limited resources, Meta heavily subsidizing their own (with money, marketing, placement, etc) at the expense of core technical progress and platform stability doesn't make sense. Crowding out the rest of the entire ecosystem, even less so. Every developer big and small, even the hyper-efficient ones, have had an extremely hard time competing with games developed by Meta-owned teams with budgets and teams that spend vastly in excess of earning potential. People will point out that these teams did an awesome job and got awesome reviews from critics and customers alike - yes, and fucked up though it is, that makes the problem even worse! Some people will say "they should have just funded those developers as external studios rather than acquiring them, then!". Yes, I agree, but hindsight is 20/20. Do you think Oculus expected to only sell 700 copies of Rock Band VR after spending eight figures to make sure it was ready and awesome for Rift CV1 launch, to the point of bundling the guitar adapter with every single headset? Of course not, but sometimes you learn what the world actually wants from you the hard way. TL;DR, I feel really bad for the people impacted, but this is a good thing thing for the long-term health of the industry, especially the ongoing incentives. (Nobody at Meta knows I am making this post)

Every time you lay in a field, you feel a sense of calm... like your whole nervous system resets back to the pace of the universe. Look up at the sky and ponder how grand the scale of everything is... feel the grass and remember that you're one with all of it.

Your values are a reflection of the content you consume. Consume better content, have better values 💡

Book 1/20 for 2026 📚

Few things matter more than a good friend 😊 If someone comes to mind when you read this, stop scrolling and text them something nice.

Men have our own challenges... but the struggles really are just very different.

I've developed a deep admiration for the women in my life. I didn't understand their experience, but now I see the weight they carry, and how often they still show up with strength, care, and competence. caring mothers, successful businesswomen, some who do both. Just wow.

Women get so much outside input. Much harsher judgement for "wrong" choices. Family is protective of them. Friends trauma dump. Pressure to be either a Trad Wife or Girl Boss. It must be challenging to make your own choices when the whole world is telling you how to live.

@EvanSitlerBates @XpertVR 🇨🇦 👨‍🚒

From scrappy university experiments to working with hundreds of fire departments across North America. VR has become a "no-brainer" for firefighter and emergency training. youtu.be/2tnG6_cDgPc?si…

In a world where people respond less to emails and calls… re-allocating budgets from spray and pray cannons back into higher touch offline opportunities might be the best option. It’s also just a better experience for customers. They get to really know you before buying.

Plus you get to share this content on socials boosting trust at scale and giving nurture content for follow ups.

The biggest change unique to GTM caused by AI: success of offline in person events. Ironically it’s the only 100% non AI interaction left. Real relationships + more engaging content sharing stories about in person activities. Could event + community managers become the new BDRs?