Yuga Labs has been one of the most impressive success stories in Web3 and their full-court press isn’t stopping yet as they hire a new CTO, Mike Seavers. In December 2022, Yuga Labs announced a new CEO, taken from Activision-Blizzard, Daniel Alegre. In that article, I said:
“Yuga Labs may be in the rarefied atmosphere in Web3, but attracting leaders from gaming royalty outside of Web3 is no small feat. Nevertheless, they have with Daniel Alegre, as there are few posts in the games industry more coveted than President and COO of Activision Blizzard. Here’s to 2023.”
Well, with Alegre now leading the line at Yuga Labs, the company has snagged their next target of similar gaming pedigree, Mike Seavers. Seavers has slightly over a decade in the gaming industry, having joined Riot Games, of League of Legends and Valorant fame, in March 2013 as Director of Engineering. From there, he moved up to Head of Technology and then Chief Technology Officer, the role he has now taken at Yuga Labs. However, before joining, Seavers has been at Epic Games as Executive Vice President, working on the Unreal Engine and Fortnite, among other areas.
Now, working under Daniel Alegre, Seavers will be occupying the role of CTO at Yuga Labs continues to expand and build their metaverse. I have written on numerous occasions, particularly in the past few years, that Web2 talent is moving en masse to Web3, and I’m pleased to see it hasn’t eased off.
Mike has a proven track record of taking organizations to the next level, and he shares our vision for how important digital identity and community will be for the future of the internet. We have an opportunity to be the web3 platform at the forefront of community and social engagement, through media and entertainment, and Mike’s expertise will help us scale to achieve that…
— Daniel Alegre, CEO at Yuga Labs
While this is, of course, great news for Yuga Labs, one small excerpt from the press release warmed the cockles (whatever they might be). Seavers said, “There have been rare moments over my career where I felt like a new technology was creating a true paradigm shift for the world […] I recognize that web3 is one of those moments”. I may have held that opinion for some years and even with some evidence, but it is comforting to see an accomplished technologist articulate the notion!
Yuga Labs might be famed for cartoon apes and 8-bit punks, but that is merely their launchpad for a far more ambitious and comprehensive ecosystem, spearheaded by the Otherside metaverse. Incidentally, Otherside tech tests have proven that the company is already on an impressive, dare I say cutting-edge trajectory; Seavers can only improve that situation.
