Many startup founders are pitching ways for creators to use non-fungible tokens, says Ben Mathews, general partner at Night Ventures. But the creators he talks to don’t see much utility in these buzzy digital assets, he said. One-year old Night Ventures is the investing arm of Night Media, the management company of Jimmy Donaldson, or MrBeast—YouTube’s highest-paid creator. Night's close connection with creators has helped make Mathews acutely aware of their challenges.
“There’s some cognitive dissonance. I spend my day hearing pitches from founders about how the future of the creator economy is all going to be decentralized, to turn around and talk to some of the biggest creators in the space and hear ‘I have zero interest in Web 3,’” Mathews, who was previously an investor at Bessemer Venture Partners and is based in Austin, said in an interview with The Information.
