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Vegas’s “The Sphere” could kick off a new era in tech-intensive building projects

Earlier this month, The Sphere in Las Vegas — funded by Madison Square Garden Entertainment — was (finally) fully unveiled. There’s been a lot of hype, but we’ll get into the building’s backstory, the tech behind it, the future of weird buildings, and what the point of all this is anyway.

Five years after first breaking ground back in 2018, The Sphere is almost fully operational. While shows won’t start for the ~18,000 seat arena until October, the exterior is already lighting up the Vegas skyline with ads and images. You’ve probably already seen the viral images of the building projecting itself as a massive eyeball or… whatever this is.

But what goes into making this $2.3B orb work?

The tech

The Sphere’s official website boasts a lot of math equations behind the project that you can dive into, but we’re more interested in the physical hardware.

Sphere Entertainment Co. (the parent company behind The Sphere) has developed Big Sky — what’s considered the most advanced camera system in the world — to film content specifically for the interior and exterior screens. The single-lens camera boasts a 316-megapixel, 3-inch x 3-inch HDR image sensor, and can capture 18K x 18K images at up to 120 frames per second. Sphere has only built ~10 of these cameras, and considering the previous top-of-the-line 8k camera from RED cost $80,000, we can see these running filmmakers nearly double the price.

As far as tech inside The Sphere itself goes, you’ll find:

• An exterior of 580,000 sq. ft. of 1.2 million programmable LEDs

• A 160,000 sq. ft. interior LED screen with a 16K resolution

• 168,000 embedded speakers

• More than 10,000 immersive seats with an infrasound haptic system and environmental effects including scents, blowing wind, and changing temperatures (think Disney World’s Mickey’s Philharmagic on steroids)

All of the memes and jokes about the exterior might get tiresome, but the tech behind this building remains ultra-impressive.

Return on investment?

With all of these innovative venues being built, what’s the point? Are they merely meant to be billionaire pet projects, or is there a viable business here?

The genius of The Sphere might be its ability to be both a gimmick and a true revenue generator. There’s obvious income to be made as far as concerts and events within the venue (and they’ve already paid U2 for a grand opening residence in October, to the tune of $10M). To draw a comparison to another leading venue, Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado makes roughly $50M annually in ticket sales.

What sets The Sphere apart from other venues is its ability to double as an advertising hub in one of the most consumer-primed cities in the US. Many estimate an 8-figure annual return, with comparisons to Times Square (which nets roughly $60M per year).

22nd-century construction projects

So what other semi-dystopian-but-ultra-impressive building projects are on the horizon? Quite a few, it turns out.

Unlike most bachelor party mistakes, the MSG Group isn’t staying in Vegas — they’re in advanced talks with city officials to bring a ~$2B sphere to London. The Brits seem harder to convince that the concerts and job creation is worth the supposed eyesore. TBD on an actual timeline, but MSG seems to be sticking by their late-2023 completion target.

You also might have heard of the project known as The Line in Dubai. The 100+ mile-long, 1,500+ foot-high “cognitive city” is estimated to cost nearly a trillion dollars to build, backed by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF). They’ve already broken ground on “phase one,” but expect a 50-year timeline before this future city is complete.

The Line claims to offer “unparalleled livability,” with eventual plans to accommodate 9 million people across less than 15 square miles through vertical living – including “daily essentials” like school, groceries, and work within a five-minute walk of any given home. The project also aims to be zero-carbon, with no cars or roads, and plans to use autonomous drones to deliver goods throughout the city. It’s crazy .

There’s plenty more futuristic architecture in the works, too, from underwater cities to the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi, with Qatar’s World Cup venues already fully realized. From a tech perspective, we’re interested to see what other projects pop up — and what shape these planned projects end up taking.

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AI may fuel a personality test renaissance

As our society gets more secular, people are reaching for ever-expansive ways of understanding themselves and their personalities, habits, + behaviors. Sometimes, it’s for romance, other times, it’s for companies evaluating potential hires.

The most virally (and maybe capitalistically) successful example: Co-Star, founded in 2017, when the stars aligned with the emergence of astrology in our popular culture. It raised $15M and has become a mainstay amongst a younger generation as a ‘brutally honest’ pocket Zoltar. This summer, they’ve set up a next-gen, TikTok-bait fortune-telling machine in a Manhattan magazine shop (Iconic Magazines on Mulberry, for the locals). It’s called “The Void,” and integrates GPT to feed users answers to existential questions.

Then there’s the psychometric testing for employment and beyond:

• Pymetrics (acq. by Harver) uses neuroscience techniques and AI to develop brain games for job seekers, helping match them into roles based on how existing employees match + pattern to the game outcomes.

• Good&Co raised over $10M before seemingly shutting down, developing personality assessments based on the Big Five personality traits to help people understand their work style and fuel job matching.

• Traitify raised $22.2M before being acquired by AI company Paradox for their personality-driven candidate screening software.

• Clever, an influencer marketing agency, uses Myers-Briggs personality tests and horoscopes to facilitate communication across its remote-first company.

• CyberconIQ trains new employees with a journey tailored to their personality type. They say that the “relatability” makes users willingly consume training material even when it was not explicitly assigned to them.

• And a VC firm in Kentucky, in an effort to reduce bias and capture a more diverse group of founders, has developed a piece of software called Wendal to assess founders according to 13 entrepreneurial traits to determine if a meeting will prove fruitful for investors.

The rise of these platforms isn’t without certain risks – although Co-Star utilizes NASA data to personalize its horoscopes and notifications, experts have been concerned that its soaring popularity takes advantage of human curiosity, oversimplifying people’s understanding of their relationships and habits. Psychometric startups have employed legions of IO and HCI experts to fend off allegations of bias and algorithmic ambiguity.

Why have these applications been so successful

Whether it’s Co-Star, Sanctuary, or The Pattern, astrology apps are more fueled by AI and personalization than ever – sometimes to the point of being confusing. Take, for example, a reporter who was told via notification to “investigate the debt industry.”

Co-Star’s UX is sleek and enticing, It plays with nostalgic and astrological imagery on a high-contrast black-and-white background, and harkens to a form of millennial minimalism that contrasts with social media and the apps we’re overwhelmed with every day. It encourages users to invite friends to evaluate their compatibility or change their outlook for the day based on their charts. Their aggressive approach to get you hooked harkens to Duolingo, now infamous for its passive-aggressive reminders and charismatic owl mascot.

And with a rise of “spiritual but not religious” individuals according to Pew data, it shouldn’t surprise us that people are looking for something to help them interpret themselves…and the world.

Headspace and Calm have filled the void of community and low-cost mental health services, collectively raising over half a billion in funding. Kintsugi raised $30M last year to develop voice analysis software to detect signs of anxiety and depression. Woebot Health offers an automated chatbot to hash out your feelings – and they’ve raised $123M for the cause.

What comes next

Large Language Models (LLMs) are well-suited to be a steroid to this ‘cottage’ industry. Imagine being able to chat through a Myers-Briggs assessment instead of having to answer dozens of questions. Co-Star’s notifications could be even more specific to you as it begins to learn about you over time, and use LLMs to provide you with seemingly endless fresh content to keep you hooked.

Then, there’s the advancement into companionship and constant conversation.

Character.ai has raised over $150M, is valued at over $1B, and offers customizable AI companions as chatbots, with a vast number of characters and personalities available to users. Their apps have millions of downloads, and their web app was reported in May as seeing more than 200 million visits per month (the company reports that users spend an average of 29 minutes per visit, 3x what ChatGPT sees). That beats engagement on YouTube, WhatsApp, and Roblox.

Combine the existing virality potential of astrology, or the fascination with StrengthsFinder, and you suddenly have some very engaging potential products for market. Counseling, coaching, interactive games – the options are endless.

On one hand, it’s the opportunity for new frameworks with which to understand ourselves, discuss our issues, and develop as people. Many in tech can readily rattle off their Myers-Briggs profile (‘astrology for MBAs’), despite its lack of scientific rigor.

On the other hand, there’s user privacy, AI hallucination, and over-reliance on pseudo-science (grifting, exploitation, and even malicious manipulation) to be concerned about.

Whether it’s star alignment or professional assessments, there’s a lot of tech to pay attention to here. Maybe you don’t worry about your “Moon being in Pisces” (quotes added by our astro-skeptical CEO), but we can be sure about one thing – VCs care about those who do.

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