Consumer, Media, Travel Tech - 361Firm NY Tech Summit Feb. 25, 2025 This panel at 361Firm's NY Tech Summit discussed the dual impact of technology on society, emphasizing its potential to both improve and harm. MJ Gottlieb highlighted AI's role in community building and mental health, while Speaker 3 noted the risks of immersive technology in creating realistic and potentially traumatic experiences. Peter, with a background in media and finance, discussed the benefits of fintech innovations in scaling digital media. The conversation also touched on the importance of community in addressing mental health issues, with statistics indicating a 6% increase in mental health issues among young people post-COVID. The panel concluded by stressing the need for inclusive communities to combat addiction and mental health challenges, leveraging technology to create supportive networks. AI and technology: Concerns about potential misuse and the need for responsible stewardship. Immersive entertainment: Risk of creating traumatizing experiences due to increased realism. Travel industry: Concern about losing passion for travel due to overexposure on social media. Mental health and addiction: Issues with isolation, lack of community, and inadequate access to care. Youth mental health: Increase in mental health issues among young people since COVID-19.
Consumer, Media, Travel Tech - 361Firm NY Tech Summit Feb. 25, 2025
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
immersive entertainment, community building, AI potential, mental health, social isolation, technology impact, addiction treatment, digital media, fintech innovations, therapeutic applications, virtual reality, oxytocin release, social cohesion, AI-powered platforms, community healing
SPEAKERS Chris Lawes, Peter Rafelson, Mark Sanor, Marcos Isaac, MJ Gottlieb, Speaker 1, Jeff Zawadsky
Mark Sanor 00:00
We're going to have a little more fun. We're going to talk about media as it enters the tech world travel. We're going to talk about immersive entertainment, growing communities with MJ community. That's enough. That's I mean, to kick us off. I just do want to show that 361 is actually finally getting with the times. You don't, you won't, you will soon, at some point, access this of how you hopefully you still need me as a human at some point or my teams. But we're going to get mark out of the way in 2025, with that. That's the That's the theme. So you'll see, actually, this is a good example. This is the domes. You can see. You can when you come on here, you will see what it is we're talking about, or you can see what kind of deal it is, what they're solving for here we pitched in Miami. You can ask questions of it. You can provide insights and all these things. So I say that to that's where we're heading our own. We're trying to move with the zeitgeist. But let's is there you got it. So since you've got it, why don't you share an insight as technology? That's a great picture, right there? Really exciting, how technology is scaring and exciting your worlds?
MJ Gottlieb 01:43
Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things that scares the hell out of me is the ability for technology. So technology has the ability to make the world a better place, or it has the ability to destroy and so it depends upon, you know, whose hands you put it in, you know, and what you're doing, you know, I have a community of about 300,000 members in sobriety and addiction, and with the whole goal of bringing people together and healing, right? And we had some amazing conversations on AI and how AI is making the world a better place. And my first question is, okay, in the wrong hands, how can AI hurt? So it's the same conversation here. So that's what scares me. What excites me is text ability to bring communities together. I don't know if you guys remember, there's this great documentary, I think it's called Blue Zones, and they talked about how people could live Centurions past 100 years old. And what is it about, you know, and you looked and in a lot of the they're eating worse and all this. And it's community. And so what excites me is that, the fact that when you bring affinity groups together and can create community, people live longer. And so if the community is the answer to so many problems, from health to healing, then we need to start leaning in to more community and affinity based tech. So that's what scares me. That's what excites me.
Chris Lawes 03:17
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I'm definitely on the double edge sword side of this. So my world is very much immersive technology and media and the domes, but also holograms and, you know, these different kind of virtual reality experiences. And the end result of all that is basically making making content experiences and gaming experiences that trick the brain more and more effectively into being realistic and into being real, which is very powerful and very positive for teaching and training or for social cohesion and building, you know, trust and intimacy relationships and can be very powerful for for therapeutic applications, but also obviously it could be used to, you know, we joke around in the immersive industry about like horror films that you know you really don't want to make, like the ring or these kinds of, like classic, you know, mall horror movies for like VR headsets and domes, because it the technology is to the point where you can actually, like, Scar someone You know, and truly traumatize them, which, you know, shows the power of the medium, but obviously shows how, you know, dangerous it is. And same thing with AI, you can make, you know, all these new technologies can make it so realistic and so convincing and so engaging that you know, you have to really keep track of your mind, and, you know, pay attention to what you're doing. So unfortunately, I think that that's going to happen for better or for worse. And so companies that come in need to be good stewards of that technology, and we make sure we use it for good purpose.
Mark Sanor 04:53
So we have a Zoomer and Peter, do you want to introduce yourself?
Peter Rafelson 05:05
Thanks, guys, yeah, so I spent my entire career at the cross roads of media and tech and finance. I come from three generations of Hollywood entertainment, but I got deeply into copyright and production. I've written 30 number one songs, including open your heart from Madonna. But what happened was I started managing all of my own copyrights and rights, and eventually I had to learn how to administrate and my sense and do all the legal work. Well, technology really helped me to create a platform which allows the more stringent corporations to accept the proof of title, all of the regulations and restrictions that large companies have, and really fin tech innovations that have driven so much advancement. What does this matter to investors? It's crucial to understand that for the first time, the scaling of digital media is is everywhere, right? Whether it's just on a brand or raising money, it offers an opportunity to invest in ways that never existed before. I'll give you a great example in in creating large scale projects like films and television IP, it was hard for people to invest in in smaller participation. Now with tokens and NFT and funding and group funding and crowd sourcing of crypto, those fractionalized ownerships of these of these titles can really include many more cross border, international, global investments and the early adopters, the ones who get in earliest, are going to really benefit them. I'm
Mark Sanor 07:17
going to call another audible. I'm going to bring music community together. This is to this was the you can see the screen. This was our mental health. Oh, I
MJ Gottlieb 07:34
don't think there's anybody that I've met who hasn't had a friend a family member
Mark Sanor 07:39
who just we have shape. I'll just show this real quick. I believe it. I'm not as adept at this. Need to be. But this was the lead singer of corn, right? The guitarist, yeah, who basically went into places. People that were that were just drugs couldn't help. Therapists couldn't help. You know what helped music, use
Speaker 1 08:04
and treatment has grown and changed, as you can imagine the early days of a a you might see in them. So
Mark Sanor 08:10
immersive entertainment, community and what you do this is these are just some common themes. Now, if we could just all this, do this on an airplane. Now, tell us what you're doing with technology.
Marcos Isaac 08:24
Well, if you want to get that technical on the health side, I would say that there are two things that are great for you that make your life better. One is having more serotonin in your body and more oxytocin. If you want to get a little bit technical, as opposed to dopamine,
Mark Sanor 08:43
play more bracket sports, ping pong? Yeah,
Marcos Isaac 08:46
absolutely. That's why I decided to do more tennis than golf, because it's great for your brains and for your body. But the reason I'm trying what I'm trying to say when I relate this to travel, for example, people are spending a lot of time having these experiences. Instead of traveling on social media and learning everything about everything, my son was traveling with me. He wanted to go to Rome once last year, and I took him, and he was I've seen it all. I knew it all. There was no excitement anymore, because he had seen everything in with the social media. However, that's on one side, and what the way I look at is that you're getting a lot of dopamine, if you want to call it that way, from the social media looking at it, you're getting a kick out of out of that he enjoyed, for example, talking to kids about what he was experiencing. But at the same time, the thing that worries me is that we lose the passion for travel, to get curious and to get to experience things, and that is what helps mental health. Among other things, it's really positive to for you to have that curiosity on that side. That's what scares me the most. What
Mark Sanor 09:53
that was pretty elegant. Well done there.
Marcos Isaac 09:58
What? What I be Well, I think it could be great if we have aI with us in every day. We will have less time to work, but hopefully we will have more time to travel. So that could be a positive. So that's my hope.
MJ Gottlieb 10:14
Yeah, I was gonna say, and that Wes was talking about oxytocin and the release of the chemicals and one of the brands we're working with, because we partner with a number of sobriety and wellness brands. We were talking at this company called Brain tap, which is the top brain fitness app in the world. And I was talking to the founder, guess what we're trying to do, and what people are trying to do is, how do we how do we actually trigger the very chemicals that were that we needed when we were addicted to drugs, right? And just to be clear, 300 million people suffering from alcohol use disorder and 38% of adult Americans, so we're not talking about a small amount of people, and it's getting much worse. And so if we could figure out ways to trigger those same chemicals that oxytocin or trigger the parasympathetic nervous system,
Mark Sanor 11:07
then we could literally on what's that? How's that going? Unbelievable. So
MJ Gottlieb 11:10
this, this company brain tap, and these anxiety wearables and all these companies that we're bringing into the lucid marketplace is showing how we can literally hack and get in to fire those same com think about when you go and exercise and you don't want to exercise, and you're you're crawling into the gym, and you feel horrible, and then after you're out of there, you feel like a million dollars. Peter,
Mark Sanor 11:33
I just saw Peter's hand up, Peter, you want to make a comment.
Peter Rafelson 11:36
You know? I agree with what everybody is saying. I think that the other aspect to art, entertainment, technology, music, is the fact that this is a great and very common way to build bridges and community. And God knows that the mental health isolation is is, you know, the enemy. So I found that I build the platform Digi ramp, which is the digital rights and asset management platform. However, the greatest benefit that it offers to so many people that are being more and more isolated through technology is the ability to connect, communicate and collaborate, and that too, I think, also really supports the health and the benefits of what you speak.
Mark Sanor 12:30
Well, maybe I'm going to bring it back to you, Chris. Now we're going to have 100 cities with your domes right the way. We can connect in ways. You one of your first investors who just wired you money on Friday or Thursday, part of his vision of what you're doing, right? Can you speak to that aspect?
Chris Lawes 12:48
Yeah, I'm just distracted thinking about a company I met when I was at abundance 360 called Apollo, where they make Sano acoustic frequency transmitters. You can either wear them or even put them into the floor panels of a room, and they create a subtle frequency that is almost like a drug or alcohol, like on a very subtle level, but it puts you into a more social kind of a state. And obviously, with the dome, we want to do a similar thing, get everyone out of their houses where they're addicted to their socially isolating devices, and get them into a communal, physical environment with their fellow man, and have a good time and use music and visuals and other kinds of vibrations to, you know, support the brain and support the body, to have therapeutic positive experiences, but also to have, just on a heart level, on a you know, greater than frequency level, social level, human intimacy and connections.
Mark Sanor 13:42
Do you need an Do you need an airline to take you to all those dumps? I
MJ Gottlieb 13:45
was gonna say, what this gentleman said is 100% correct. Peter. Peter, the opposite of addiction is connection. And so when you you know that in my space, someone comes in and they're like, You don't understand, you don't understand how I'm feeling. And then you come into a community and understands, and you're like, Wow, you get it. And that's everything. And so if we can bring communities together, like everybody here on this panel is doing, that's it said that there's this saying those amongs us, no explanation is necessary. Those not amongst us, no explanation is possible. And so when you bring these affinity groups together and people who share this common bond, magic happens well, and
Mark Sanor 14:27
I think, and by the way, that's the magic that happens in the round tables at the end of this conference. Sorry,
Chris Lawes 14:36
yes, I love this event, and I've had some wonderful times meeting more of this community. And you know, there's, like, the pickle ball stuff and the networking and dinners and things, but not everyone actually has those experiences in their life. And you know, fortunately and unfortunately, COVID created, like a huge global experiment on the effect of social isolation and. But a lot of people hypothesize that we would be able to, you know, stop driving our cars and commuting so much and just work from our homes. And, you know, go to virtual concerts from our homes, and like a virtual, you know, concert venue, wearing headsets and all these things. And this would all be sort of the way of the future. And we, you know, we gave that the college try, so to speak, during during COVID, and the results were quite demonstrably bad. And I think a lot of interesting data came out of that, actually, that especially certain types of people really require community and social interaction for their mental health. And I'm glad to see that on all levels, that's being really embraced as like, not just a sort of fun bonus part of life, but really an essential part.
Mark Sanor 15:44
Yeah, I don't know if that brings me back. I don't know if Jeff reson, because during COVID, I experience Jeff. Can you? Can you speak to this? Because my, my pre teen sons, and I don't know if you like, we were moving around 10, like, an hour ago, so important for boys to move around. You know what they did during COVID? To all these boys? They were stuck in front of a computer, and it really just destroyed kids at that age. But that's what Jeff you want to speak to, what you you you do? Jeff zawatsky, that you that's you do
16:24
you want to do the little Yeah? Comment
Mark Sanor 16:26
quickly, yep, please.
Jeff Zawadsky 16:30
I mean, we were Hello to everyone, so I can't be there. I've been Bay area, but we basically, we're building the AI power platform for families with struggling young people, teen and, you know, as the panel was talking about, I mean, how our community, he will tremendous. And to your point, I mean, since COVID, you've had a 6% increase in mental health issues for young people. Get a lot of feedback. Yeah, of
Mark Sanor 17:03
feedback. We hear you. It's probably my, my fault. I was had my mic on. Keep going.
Jeff Zawadsky 17:09
I mean, it's kind of the point where 37 kids see they're not sure if they have a single friend, right? And that isolation is tremendously costly. And right now. You know our mental health system is basically broken. I mean, you know, we haven't really added any modalities. Tele therapy has been helpful in some cases, but you really haven't added any scope. We've got a tremendous provider yet, depending on whose numbers you believe, you know, we need a million to 5 million more therapists. Our approach actually, to doing this, having those experience of having child has gone through this part of the fall, done that clinical partners to work in the field is really about community, and we're using AI to power that community so that we actually have, we partner with section AI founder of LinkedIn, three hop and AI company, it was designed specifically for EQ, not just IQ, so it was trained by therapists and psychiatrists, and we had one of the first API is more than 12,000 organizations waiting on the list, But the CEO is one of my advisor board members, so we've got first access to them. And what we're doing is the basic finding, and the premise of what we found is the way we can attack and fix the mental health crisis in this country is really through the lived experience of other families, not through and we just soft launched last summer, and we were doing it through really going communities. But what we've done in partnering with inflection is we can actually use the AI agent to capture and leverage all the experiences and all of all the families that are out there to really create the sort of career health agent, particularly we're starting with family systems. There's other loads of other applications, from care giving to, you know, we have relationships with the VA and everything else and addiction, but that's where we're starting. That's power with experience. So we're really creating something that sort of, you know, turn the problem on the head, and you get, you know, at any given time, 25 million American families struggling with a young person. So, and the big hidden asset that went out there, because all the parents who are silent dealing with this, you know, reinventing the wheel of care, as I like to say all the time. So using our AI platform, AI power platform, I'll say, we can capture that information and create better treatments, earlier identifications, fewer Eli cost, kind of the whole thing. So in a nutshell, I absolutely agree with what's being said here. In fact, the folks talk about music got some friends who are doing music therapy at that actually is incredibly impactful, but to that point where, so we're sort of building the community. For nobody wants to talk about the team struggling stigma, no, no
Mark Sanor 20:03
one wants, no one wants to talk about addictions either, right?
MJ Gottlieb 20:07
I mean, if you look at So, if you look at the cost of addiction, it's $1.45 trillion it actually surpassed it, right? And that's in lost productivity and societal harm. And so what can we do on the preventative side? And so like we created technology called Sam inside of lucid, which stands for sobriety addiction mentor, which gives a little daily check in each day, and walks that person with 365 assignments throughout the year, which we're now laying heavily AI on top of it, because it's one thing to get sober and it's another thing to stay sober. And so there's these sickness of addiction. Yeah, well,
Mark Sanor 20:48
but maybe this is what I love about our global community. You guys need to connect your communities. Because as my son, who went to a wilderness you know, lot of those kids, the older ones, all facing had that addictions. This was their part of their detox,
MJ Gottlieb 21:06
absolutely, absolutely and like equine therapy and all the so if you think about everybody that's talked about here, from music and community and all different types of communities, right, and how we're able to get together. I mean, I think that the only answer is to be inclusive and combine, as you say, because in this case, we're a strength of numbers, because we're being outnumbered now.
Mark Sanor 21:33
So I think, I think that's
Jeff Zawadsky 21:35
exactly right. I mean, you know, we, we've partnered with, you know, some of the telethermal Health System Georgetown. And because you need to get those numbers, the cold start issues with any community, and it gives you impactful and powerful answers, right?
Mark Sanor 21:57
So what I like, what I like is this was the first of our is having, you know, fall out community. This was the first event. This is the first event that's okay. This is the first it
Peter Rafelson 22:14
was the Hollywood ambassador to Korea. I went over and visited them in the early hours to influence the innovation of k pop, if we follow the best Example of congregation and community, which is church.
Mark Sanor 22:39
Hello, you and I, you want to
Peter Rafelson 22:47
mute churches that were were created early on, pull together millions and millions of members, cross border, cross country, real time they were they honest technology and to see the power of creating that audience and that community. I mean, that's why I'm thinking exactly what you said, Mark, which is even the super the dome technology, the AI technology, the mental health, creating communities, creates congregation, creates commerce.
Mark Sanor 23:25
You know what we need, Peter. Peter. Can you hear me? Yeah, I need a song. I need you to write a song that unites this initiative. Can you do that? You can get okay. We may not get Gaga or Madonna to sing it, but we'll, we will sing it all together.
MJ Gottlieb 23:53
There you go. Good. Well, I will say something. So addiction doesn't discriminate, but access to care does. So what's happening in this conversation with regard to community is, you take these 300 million people that I'm talking about, and the other 38 you know, percent, you know, in aggregate, over 500 million people struggling. You get them to you build a platform, you get them together in one place to heal. It doesn't cost any money, right? And so if you can really see the power of community and our ability to join those communities and get people to heal. You flip that whole model of waiting for people to blow up and get sick and then try to treat them, and that's where that 1.4 5 trillion comes in. And so this is why the importance of this conversation with everyone on this panel, you know how communities heal.
Mark Sanor 24:39
So we're going to transition. That's so
Jeff Zawadsky 24:42
correct. I mean, more than 50% of all US counties don't have a single therapist. Only 3% of therapists in our country are African American. Less than 5% of American therapists speak Spanish, right? And with our you know, health care system, whole community. Things are shut out from camp, so being able to leverage community, get to families after that knowledge, share, that knowledge can have an impact identified situations earlier is really the only way we have fixed this, given the structural problems going
Mark Sanor 25:16
forward. So we have to leave it at that for this panel. And thank you everyone. We'll be doing a break out soon with all of you, I'm joined our 361 firm community of investors and thought leaders. We have a lot of events created by the community as we collaborate on investments and philanthropic interests. Join us. You.