Sean Pinnock, Avalon: The future of video games, AI coding, and gamification for founders

Welcome to another CEO wisdom podcast. We have Sean Pinnock on today's the CEO of Avalon's client of mine. Great guy. Absolutely wanted him on the pod to discuss his background, discuss video games, discuss the growth of Avalon. So Sean, welcome to the pod. Tell us a bit more about yourself and what you've been up to. >> Yeah, thanks for having me, Charles.

So I'm CEO here at Avalon. Before Avalon, I was a serial entrepreneur, built a number of companies primarily in the game space, but had a dream of doing something really big, something gamechanging in the EA space. And that brings me to Avalon, uh, where we're making it really easy for anyone to create their own games, their own content, their own experiences using natural language.

>> And why is Avalon the big home run? You've tried many startups before. You had some success, you had some failures. Why is Avalon the one? Um, you know, the most valuable games company in the world today is Roblox. And we know it's the most valuable company in the world because they've lowered the bar of accessibility for anybody to create games.

And then over time as a platform, they've expanded into a multi-billion dollar franchise where everyone's coming in, they're creating experiences, and they're playing each other's experiences. The problem with Roblox today is that while it does an excellent job solving its problem for its users, it caters to a very niche market of mostly children. Um, Avalon is attempting to do the same thing, but for a more mature audience and with a more mature tool set, using AI to essentially revolutionize or evolutionize what Roblox did before.

So, we believe it can essentially be the next Roblox. >> There you go. And before that one, I believe the company was Cyber Dream. Can you tell us a bit more about that one? Also, why did you make the transition from programmer and technical designer to actually being a founder? Um well, you know, I always wanted to be a founder. I I knew I always wanted to build my own companies.

Um and even now as a founder, I'm still a programmer. I'm still an engineer. I I technic I I lead engineering across all of our efforts. All the things we build are very engineering heavy. But um yeah, I I really only got into engineering because it was the way it was a means to an end. It was a way for me to be able to build the things I actually wanted to build.

Um, and as I grew that skill set and I became more confident in that skill set, I learned that I could take that those set of skills to build my own businesses. I >> think you could recommended me uh the Blizzard book or some someone did at least. I'm I'm currently listening to that audio book right now like how uh Blizzard uh has risen and how they they fell as of late if we can even say that they fell because I I think Blizzard is still a great company.

worked at EA. Um, what did you learn from these companies, EA specifically, and also what's your take on uh Blizzard? >> Yeah, I mean, Blizzard's a a great example. You're probably more recently knowledgeable than I am, but Mike, I know, so I know Mike Morheim. I've actually um talked about Avalon a few times. Moreheim is one of the CEO founders of the the Blizzard franchises, so you know, and um you know, they created um what I would consider to be one of the greatest companies of all time in the games industry.

Now, um it was also one of the I think largest tech acquisitions um ever, although that might not be true anymore with AI, but it was at the time one of the largest private acquisitions ever at $69 billion. Um so obviously they did something right there. Um, now Mike Mooreheim left the company which I think you see a lot with with game studios is that you know you get the founding team that leaves the company and the initial like integrity and vision um tends to shift and I think and I'd argue that's a big part of reason why they're I would say not the really a skeleton of the company they were before.

Um, and EA I would EA was a welloiled machine when I worked there. Um, I worked on the Madden franchise. Uh that that game alone brings in over I think a billion maybe two billion dollars in revenue a year. Um in that building I was in they also worked on FIFA. They worked on NBA. They worked on another number of games and that that building I think we had 800 employees in that building.

Um they printed money and they worked like clockwork and I learned a lot about how to ship things, how to get things on time, how to work with production. Um but I also learned that I didn't want to be a cog in a big machine. So >> what about Ubisoft from my native Montreal? So, I never worked at Ubisoft. Um, but you know, the a big part of what's made Ubisoft successful historically is they lean into new technology.

Um, and that's worked really well for them. I would say up until recently, I don't think it's worked out as well, but historically, they've leaned into new technology that other developers were afraid to lean into when they've done that and they've done a number of best a number of places and they've won really big. Um, obviously also the Assassin's Creed franchise, um, when it dropped it, I think it changed the game for Uzi Soft and they've milked that thing, I think, about as much as you can milk a franchise.

Um, but that seems to not be working hard as well anymore. So, >> right, what's the future of video games? Because it seems Blizzard there was like the World of Warcraft moment, which was like subscriptions and there was buying items inside games, which I think uh, Activision is still surfing on such companies, right? Is it having full control over what you build?

Is it giving the powers to users to actually build? Like what's what's going on? >> Yeah. So, I mean, right now the there's really there's the narrative of what's coming and there's the and there's the what we're seeing work today. Um, you know, platforms like Steam, platforms like Roblox, platforms like UFN, um, have essentially eaten the games industry.

um they're they soak up I think you know just Roblox and UFN alone is like almost half the games industry. You throw in Steam and it's you know 70% of the games industry. Um and so we're seeing these platform plays change the game. Um but I I would argue that there something's coming and a lot of game developers are I would say reluctant to admit this but um AI is going to just change the way games are made, the way games are played.

When you take a platform like Roblox and then you give everyone on that platform the ability to create high quality games nearly instantly, um the whole industry is going to shift pretty dramatically. And I think a lot of publishers are seeing this. We've had the most layoffs uh this year in the games industry there's ever been. Um it's been a terrible year if you're a game developer.

I think something like 30% of the industry's been laid off this year, which is normally it's been a growing industry every year for the last two and a half decades. Um but this year was the, you know, the worst year ever for the game industry. And I don't know if it's going to recover because I, you know, all these AI tools that are coming out that are essentially going to replace people's jobs.

>> Yeah. What's your take on that? Is the future like uh Ready Player One in which everyone is watching like u AI porn and just like fully stuck in that world while us entrepreneur keep on building and feeding these people. >> I don't know. Um it's you know this is sort of a deeper philosophical question. AI. I think AI is both a beautiful and terrifying prospect.

Um, you know, I say this to somebody that's really interested in AI in a number of verticals beyond games. Um, but specifically international games currently. It, you know, as humans like why why do we get up in the morning? Why do we do a thing? You know, right now we all have a sense of purpose through the work that we do. But what happens when the work that we do no longer actually adds value to society, right?

Right. And that's going to be the case for I would say a lot of people in the next over the next decade. Um slowly starting to happen now and I think it's going to be a lot more prevalent in a decade from now. And then what do people do with their time, right? Are we are we jacked into the metaverse um hanging out in trailer parks? I I certainly hope not.

I think we can create a better future than that. But I think it's going to have to be deliberate. I think if we if we let ourselves go astray, it could end up looking something like that. I think we have to be deliberate and be coordinated and be effective. um or you know the future could be not ideal somewhat dystopian. >> Well, what's your relationship with video games?

Because me it's been on and off. You know, I own the Switch for some time. I sold it because it was I found it was just not productive. Uh then this year I bought a PS5. My excuse was uh sim racing, right? Because I want to be a race car driver as well. But then I bought Call of Duty of course and Diablo and find myself like playing almost daily and I'm like yesterday I didn't play with Proud myself because it's so addictive.

Uh but it's also way my other excuse is to let the steam off, right? Like as a founder if I had a hard day just like 15 minutes in which I can relax. So how how do you use >> video games nowadays? Uh what's your relationship with them? >> Yeah. So, you know, when I when I decided I wanted to make video games, um I was 19 years old and the games industry was not like it is today.

Um today, I would say there's a there's an over surplus of content. Um there's like it's like what do you like you can pull out your phone and you can literally do anything or you can keep yourself entertained glued to your phone or glued to a computer for weeks. Um but you know, when I started in the games industry, I just really had a single mission.

It was, hey, I want to make people happy. This world's really messed up. There's a lot of bad stuff going on, and I feel like video games is my way to do that. And um as I've matured a little bit, sort of the blinds have been taken off a little bit because there's a lot of games that are being made that are I would call um really extractive, right? They're not they're not necessarily adding people's lives and and I don't want to create that kind of experience.

It just sort of against why I started doing this in the first place. So um my personal relationship with games has sort of shifted over the years. I still am in this and still want to make Avalon because I want to make people happy and I want to make other people make their own games to make other people happy. But I'm also very aware of sort of the downsides and the negatives of not just games but media in general.

Um, so for me personally, I play a little bit of games. I would say a few days a week just to unwind. I also I have three kids. I play some games with my daughter. It's just just for fun. Um, but I think it's still a great way to unwind, get a little bit of head space, clear my head. Um, but I I have to be physical, too. Just playing video games is great, but some people that just that's all they do to unwind.

I think it's really important you get up, you move, you go to the gym, you do something else because you you need that blood moving. You mentioned this masterpiece of a video game that I heard about I think yesterday as well like the Paris developers. I I forgot the name of the game, but is that one good example of a game that stimulates creativity and actually create neurons and values while while you play?

>> Yeah, I mean I would I would argue so you're talking about Clare Obscure Expedition 33. Um I would argue that >> that is the case in that I mean, that's the kind of game I would play it and I would leave with it imaginative and creative and inspired and ready to do something new, right? And that's really, you know, I really fell in love with games when I played the Final Fantasy franchise as a kid.

And I left those games thinking like, "Holy crap, there's like dragons and there's spacecraft and like there's these magical spells and summoning people people from other world." Like, you leave something like that inspired. And as an entrepreneur, you start coming up with all kinds of cool ideas, things you can do, ways you can change the world, ways you want to treat people.

Um, and those are the kind of games that I like to see that I like to see more people make. Um, but they're somewhat rare, too. Those are hard, special beats to to build. >> I'm talking about kids, about to have my daughter in a couple weeks from now. Uh, Minecraft, do you believe it's beneficial for kids? You believe generally that video games can be beneficial for kids?

>> I think they can be in the correct doses. Um, I'm obviously very biased. I grew up playing video games. Um, but I think they can be in the correct correct doses. I think Minecraft, you know, you have to be careful with the online platforms, Roblox, Minecraft, all those platforms, but I would argue those platforms have the ability to really be a a majorly creative output.

Um, if you look at, you know, a lot of the social experiments I've done with Minecraft, um, people are essentially simulating what it's like to live in a society. Um, there's some great actually I would really recommend folks watch one of the Minecraft civilization videos. um go on YouTube and people like simulate growing up in a society and it's it's kind of eerie.

Um it's sort of reminiscent of what actually happens in reality. You also get lots of uh videos of people creating amazing things, expressing their creativity. You get the same thing in Roblox. Um so I think there's something there, but I think it's all in moderation. Right. I wouldn't want my kids playing uh you know, six hours a day and neglecting everything else in their life.

Right. >> Right. Do you think us founders can gify our business to the point that it feels like a video game? You must have done something around that. >> Uh yeah. I I mean, you know, why do you why do you come back to to video games? Well, it's because it, you know, feeds certain parts of your brain. It's like dopamine, right? It's um makes you feel good in a certain way.

And I think there's absolutely something to be learned there. No matter what kind of business you're building, right? If you're building a SAS platform, um if you're building a medical company, I mean, you want your users to be engaged, to be entertained, to have fun. In fact, my previous company, Cyberdream, um, a lot of the work that we did was in simulation and training and gamification.

So, we used to take applications that normally you wouldn't play for fun, something like a, hey, you need to learn how to give this person CPR uh, to train them uh, for the arming. Um, that's one of the things we built and we had to gamify that because we wanted it to be fun, we wanted it to be accessible. And so, a lot of a lot of businesses I think should um, look into gamification uh, for the technologies we're building.

I think I saw a whoop ban on you. Is that a good example of gamifying? >> Oh, that's a great example. Duolingo, right? Whoop. I mean, this is, you know, they they've taken data and they gamified. It's a lot of fun. I I check it every day. It keeps me keeps you going to sleep. Better time. >> What's your biological age? >> Um, it's about my age. Uh, which it was much worse when I first started the Whoop.

It was >> It was about seven years older and I got it down to my age. >> Oh, >> Yeah. I this is I mean when you're when you're inside coding all day long for eight years it wrecks your body. >> Um so >> I think I have six years younger but I'm a biohacker. Uh I take these things seriously. Not as much as Brian Johnson but uh >> that's awesome. >> Certainly one of my obsession and I'm certainly going to lose couple of years this year with a baby coming.

What does your dayto-day look looks like and how did you get from seven years older to to your actual age? So, um, you know, building company, I've been building companies for the last 15 years. And, um, I spent, I would say, eight of those years just up all night writing code, like doing doing business, right, every night. And, um, you know, I was fairly successful, but it cost me.

And I, so I I was a college dresser. Um, I was a, you know, high school athlete, like I was very fit, but I really just went all in on on being successful. Um, but now, you know, I do red light therapy every day. I drink smoothies every day. I have a pretty strict diet. I go to sleep around the same couple hour window, although sometimes I still cheat a bit and I'll be up late working.

Um, so that's helped a lot. You know, I work out every day or at least at least every other day. Um, but I'm I'm actually quite into Brian Johnson. I'm quite into longevity and so I'm not really doing a great job of it, although I've improved. Um, I would like to uh focus more on it in the future and take it more seriously. Maybe maybe get my numbers closer to where you're at.

And why do you think guys like us love Brian Johnson when most people hate him? >> I mean, I don't I feel like hating Brian Johnson is almost like self-loathing. Do you not love yourself? Do you not want to live a long time? Do you not want your family to live a long time? Like, I don't get it personally. I mean, so one of the one of the things I'm actually really interested in and I may take a swing at after Avalon is um you know, longevity.

I'm I'm a excellent engineer. I'm excellent with AI. I think AI has a very novel use case for solving um health. Um but who wouldn't want to who doesn't want their loved ones to pass away? Wouldn't you love to cure cancer? Wouldn't you love to you know that's what Brian Johnson's all about. Brian Johnson's about hey like how do we maximize our health span?

How do we stay healthy as long as we can? And for entrepreneurs that gives us more time to to make a difference. Cool. I can be healthy younger, be fit longer. I can build more cool things. I mean there's so many other businesses and things I'd like to do. one day I'd love to, you know, travel the stars or um, you know, do a lot of other cool things, build a lot of other cool technologies.

I want to see what the future's like, >> right? And I mean, we're both hyperfocused on success. Maybe you are even more, which sounds odd because I'm hyper ambitious myself, but I don't stay up at night certainly to to code stuff. I sleep eight to nine hours a night. still value my longevity because I think that me just staying alive and uh I'm like on the shoulder of open AI for example how amazing was that right like the chat GPT moment and >> I'm just benefit benefiting from all of that what's your what was your logic when it came to yeah like grinding at night and and do you also prioritize happiness?

Have you always been like a happy dude while building what you're building? Um, I've mostly been pretty happy and pretty grounded, I would say, because of my wife and I I have a good circle of friends that I do spend some amount of time with. Not much, but some amount of time with. But I would I would, you know, I've come I've matured a lot, I would say, in my in my years is building.

I I would actually argue that, hey, staying up late and working your ass off doesn't actually pay more dividends than just a healthy night's sleep. Like, and when I when I work all night, which I do still, and I try not to do it, it's become like a bad habit over the years. um my next day is wrecked. And so like cool, like I worked, you know, 24 hours in the last 30 and now great, my next day is, you know, I'm working I'm working six hours or four hours, right?

Whereas you could be consistent, you can be top performing. Um I would argue that really if you the the long game, good night's sleep every night, work out every day, just keep grinding out for years, take care of your body, take care and so that's where I'm pushing towards and I've gotten much better at um in the last decade. Uh, but I was really bad at that for a few years.

And so like it's short-term gains, but long term I think it's just not the way to go. >> Yeah. Just working at night, being a night all and not doing like 24 hours. I guess that point because I'm pretty sure you're still very productive at night. You must be like deploying a lot and coding a lot and >> I'm just keep it as is just not 24 hours. >> Yeah, I'm a I would consider myself to be preiex engineer.

Um, and I don't, you know, it's people don't like bragging, whatever. It just is what it is. I write a ton of code. Um, and now proi stuff I can put out is crazy. Um, it's I'm doing so much work. >> I mean, >> like clawed code that I mean the open claw moment was crazy. >> Crazy. And that guy built that by himself with AI, by the way. And he never would have been able to do that for free AI.

There's no way. It's impossible. There's things way too. >> So inspiring, right? Like of what you can actually do if you're very talented. I mean this guy's a 15 20 years overnight success right which is also inspiring but uh it's just crazy the message he sent like you open AI you entropic just do better aentic than you do better contextual memory here we go >> but he got acquihired by openi I was pretty sad this >> yeah good yeah I mean good for him you know I mean that's that's

a I think he got like 500 million or something a huge huge payout Oh yeah. >> Okay. >> I don't know the number. I I I saw a LinkedIn post about it. It was a big number. >> 100 million. But then I asked Chadypt, which probably not the best source, and it told me an aquire of around 10 to 20 million in salary. >> Had way more than that. >> There's too much.

I mean, I I mean, look, I I don't know for sure. I'm guessing, but I I think the value there is just too big. I would be very surprised if only 10 20 million. Um uh but anyway um yeah I mean that the stuff you could create now with AI is crazy. I think you know there's a lot of I've worked as an engineer most of my career worked with many hundreds of engineers and I see a lot of engineers very resistant to the idea.

And if I'm being honest I think they feel threatened. I think they they they're they're scared because their identity is tied into this into being able to write code. And now you're getting people that are layman >> turners >> that turn into hackers. And then guys like me that can just pump out so much code it'll make your eyes bleed because we we're just leaning fully into the technology and are an engineer.

Um I think they're feeling threatened. I think they're scared. Um and so they're they're creating all these reasons why this isn't going to be successful. And I don't think it's true. I think they I think they should be afraid. They should be scared. Um I I don't think I think programming landscape is going to shift dramatically over the next five years.

Um, there's going to be some bumps because it's not perfect. I can tell you I've spun up platforms, projects that, you know, I write 100,000 lines of code in in a couple weeks like on the side and the whole thing comes crumbling down, right? You have to learn a lot. Now that I've learned a lot, I know how to use it properly. And the stuff we're doing in Avalon now with it is is amazing.

We're building so much cool tech so much faster than I ever could have before. >> Right. How rare is it to have a guy like you that has business acumen and can code at the same time? Is that like the founder of the future? like just full stack and not even needing a co-founder or do you still need a co-founder in that case? >> I mean, you know, I've built my last company, I was a solo founder.

>> It's hard. Solo founding is really hard. >> The biggest thing is you're you're kind of you you really need someone to like bounce like, hey, is this right? Is this the right direction? Um, but it it can be done. I don't I don't really think it's the future. I think I'm sort of a rare bird. Um, I do think that there's a ton of like my cousin um and and you probably are following this boat as well is non I would call him nontechnical and he's built a very successful company.

He's done like 20 million a year in revenue in his most recent company. Had a company before that where he did 10 million a year in revenue and he's all sales simpler products, right? Simpler simpler ideas. Um, guys like me tend to be uh we try to build crazier things and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes sometimes it goes huge, right?

You get guys, I would say like Elon Musk that build multi-billion dollar companies um that are more engineering and you can see the you know the crazy things that can happen when it does go well. But you get a lot of guys that try and build something it doesn't work um and try too too heavy in the engineering and I think you need the the well-rounded skill set.

I think as an entrepreneur that's really been one of my biggest challenges is I tend to as a as opposed to you know first building the um you know the electric battery I go let's let's put a rocket on the moon guys like that's where kind of where I my head goes and starts and then I learn okay wait in order to put a rocket on the moon I probably need to solve these other like eight things that are very profitable first um and that's been a big challenge for me I think as an entrepreneur um and so I think being being realistic being level-headed uh being able to have that business acumen is very important in addition to technical skills Love that.

Where can people find out more about you, Sean? >> Uh, so LinkedIn, uh, Sean Pinnick at LinkedIn and on X at Sean Pinnick. Um, if you want to look into the thing we're building, Avalon.online. If you want to be a part of it, you want to learn some more, join our Discord. We're bringing in folks to our beta now. >> There you go. So we're Sean and