Jon Gray and So-Hee Woo (Encore) on Elevating and Democratizing Musical Performance
Find it on: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher
The Guest
Jon Gray is the co-founder and CEO, and So-Hee Woo is the Head of XR at Encore, a company building a live-streaming, interactive, AR-infused music performance app.
Jon is an entrepreneur and software engineer, who prior to Encore, was the founder and CEO of Cask, a big data analytics platform, which was acquired by Google in 2018. Before that, he was a software engineer at Facebook where he worked on Messages and several other large-scale data platforms. Prior to Facebook, Jonathan founded Streamy.com, a content-oriented social network of the web 2.0 era.
So-Hee has experience across many areas of transmedia industrial design, focused on experimenting with the future of products & experiences. Her special interests include, AR & VR of course, as well as the implications of AI and Tech Fashion.
Jon and So-Hee are both graduates of Carnegie Mellon University. Jon with a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and So-Hee with a Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Industrial and Product Design. She went on to receive a Masters Degree in Industrial Product and Design from the ArtCenter College of Design.
The Conversation
In this conversation, Jon and So-Hee talk about how they empower musicians to create engaging AR art to complement their live musical performances. They go on to discuss how they are establishing a middle class of performance artists through the Encore fan experience app and the Encore Studio app for artists. We get into the business, the strategy, and even some philosophy about art and experience.