Communication Key
It’s good to talk, to find like-minded people to share ideas with, and this will be as important in the Metaverse as it is in the real world. With such platforms as Microsoft Teams and Zoom popular choices for virtual communications these days, there are folks out there building something similar for the Metaverse. Gather — founded in 2020 by Phillip Wang, Alex Chen, Mohammed Kumail Jaffer, and Nathan Foss — is a totally remote, virtual platform which improves how people connect, communicate and interact online. The four-person founding team came up with the idea for Gather after contemplating the question: “How do you stay close with friends and family that don’t live near you?”
Gather
From this, the guys at Gather developed the Gather office, a world where “it’s easy to share something with anyone in your space”, such as a note, a website, calendar, or even a music soundtrack.
More fun and absorbing than the usual fare offered by virtual platforms, the Gather office interactions are so much more natural, and with some 10 million users, it is definitely the real deal.
But, to see it all for yourself, check out the YouTube video below on how a Gather office goes down:
The Gather platform offers:
• GATHER FOR REMOTE WORK
Whether you’re a team of 20 or 2000, the platform makes it easy to create an engaging space where you can collaborate and connect with your team
• GATHER FOR CONFERENCES
It transforms your event into an immersive experience that captivates attendees from start to finish
• GATHER FOR EDUCATION
Educators and students can create a virtual school experience that rivals any in-person class
• GATHER FOR SOCIALS
Celebrate with friends and family in Gather for holidays, birthdays, and every special moment in between
With the platform out of the way, let’s now take a look at the people who made it happen, the founders:
Phillip Wang is the CEO at Gather. A technologist and builder at heart, he spent a great year at Siempre building and exploring better ways to have relationships over a lifetime. That work spanned everything from wearables to virtual living rooms to VR, and the work is continued as we build the Metaverse at Gather.
He has worked on AI, RL at CMU, self-driving cars at Cruise, and ML at Microsoft, plus many other passion projects.
Wang obtained a Computer Science degree from Carnegie Mellon University.
VP of Product is Alex Chen. Prior to co-founding Gather, Chen worked as a Software Engineer Intern for companies like Twitch, Pure Storage and Facebook.
Chen received a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Mohammed Kumail Jaffer is the startup’s CTO. Before Gather, he co-founded two companies and spent a brief period as a Software Engineer.
He obtained a BS in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.
Gather’s final co-founder is Nathan Foss, who has worked on self-driving cars at Cruise, Atari-learning AI at MIT and a decentralized social network on IPFS, as well as founding two startups.
Foss gained a BS in Mathematics and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Since it was founded, it has raised $76 million in total funding over two rounds with the likes of Sequoia, Index, Dylan Field, Jeff Weiner, and YC helping the startup realize its dream of building virtual spaces for gatherings, a key component of the Metaverse.
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