September 9, 2025 • 21 mins
Ian Rogers is a fascinating pioneer who has worked with some of the most famous brands on earth. He built beastieboys.com in the 90s, helped launch Beats Music and Apple Music, drove digital transformation at luxury giant LVMH, and today shapes the future of digital assets as Chief Experience Officer and Board member at Ledger - the world’s largest maker of cryptocurrency hardware wallets.
He joins Adam Lang from France in the first half of a fascinating One On One.
Find out more: https://fearandgreed.com.au/
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Episode Transcript
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Adam Lang (00:05):
Welcome to One on one by Fear and Greed. My
name is Adam Lang. My guest today, I'm delighted to
say is Ian Rodgers. He's a fascinating pioneer who's worked
with some of the most famous brands on Earth. He
built Beastieboys dot Com in the nineties, helped launch Beats
Music and Apple Music, drove digital transformation at Luxury Giant LVMH,
(00:26):
and today shapes the future of digital assets as chief
experience Officer and a board member at Ledger. They are
the world's largest maker of cryptocurrency hardware wallets now. Ian
is a rare mix of creative and commercial, a technology fan,
a fitness enthusiast, and a brand builder. In this conversation,
I want to explore how he and followed his passions
(00:47):
built iconic brands and what can we learn from his
journey so far because it has been fascinating. Ian, Welcome
to Fear and Greed one on one.
Ian Rogers (00:56):
Thank you, Thank you so much for having me. Great
to be here.
Adam Lang (00:58):
Ian. I am a big fan of the Beastie Boys,
so I've taken a few lyrical liberties and giving titles
to each one of these questions. The first one. So
what you want your life seems powered by curiosity, whether
it is art, books, music, fitness, or technology. Where did
your passion start and how do you use them in
the way you approach business and building brands?
Ian Rogers (01:20):
You know, I think that's the curiosity point, is true,
But it's one of those things that you don't realize
until later in life, right, because the way the way
you are, you feel like, well, everyone must be like that, right,
And then you kind of get to a certain point
and you realize, Okay, I am a bit of a
weirdo and and kind of I'm an obsessive about about
unusual things. Look, I always just think that that I'm
(01:42):
very lucky and that the way that I'm crazy is
actually you know, useful and valuable to some people, because
I've always just been kind of an obsessive person, starting
with you know, music, when I was five years old.
I was lucky enough to have a brother who who
handed down his kiss records and my journey kind of
started there. Also lucky enough to have a stepfather who
(02:03):
was you know, into computers very early, so we had
Apple two computers in the house in the in the
eighties and the early eighties and I was programming and
playing games on those and then I think, you know,
the I think maybe the real question that I'm not
sure the answer to is, you know, why have I
always kind of wanted to be to be living a
couple of years ahead. I was also fortunate to attend
(02:26):
Indiana University in the early nineties and do a computer
science degree there, and we had high speed internet in
the you know, in the student housing and the early
in the early nineties. I almost feel like there could
be a documentary about why that is and the impact
that it had on so many of us, because what
(02:46):
I learned in that moment is that living in the
future is cheating. If you're living in the future, you
can see the future. You don't have to try very hard.
I think, you know, some people actually predict the future,
but if you're actually just kind of living the way
people might live two or three years from now, then
you start to actually, you know, not only do you
learn what the future looks like, but you also learn
(03:07):
what it isn't you know. And I've so I'm always
trying to do things a couple of years in advance
of when they you know, of when they hit the
you know, the public zeitgeist, you know, when ten years
ago and everyone says, oh, you know, uh, speech is
the future, you know, your voice, voice is the future,
(03:28):
and and I was like, well, have have you used Syria?
It doesn't work very well, It's not you know, and
I've was using Alexa at the time, and it was
sort of pretty clumsy either. You could tell you the
weather and maybe said a kitchen timer, but it wasn't
really going to you know, to change your life, you know,
much beyond that. And I think you to me, you
always want to do that I've done. I've done the
same thing with with digital assets and digital ownership and
(03:52):
digital art, and you know, today I'm doing it just
with AI coding. You know, I'm working on a on
a on a coding project using AI right now and
it's incredible. Like what it does that I couldn't do
as a computer science student is incredible. It's also often
frustrating and knowing where those boundaries are, you know, knowing
like what is amazing about it and also what is
(04:13):
you know, what are the challenges that are still to
be solved? I find to be very helpful and give
directive now as to why I have the curiosity to
do those things. I couldn't explain that.
Adam Lang (04:27):
So the future is a competitive advantage.
Ian Rogers (04:29):
I like that.
Adam Lang (04:30):
This next one is calling Paul Revere. You had an
early start with beastieboys dot Com in the nineteen nineties.
That was not just a banded website. To me, it
looked like an experiment in how the music industry model
was changing and bands could use technology to connect directly
with fans. What did you test and learn about the
power of bands, brands and connection.
Ian Rogers (04:53):
Yeah, and I think that to their credit, the Beastie
Boys very quickly understood what it was as well, and
that it was a way that they could communicate directly
with their fans without needing the gatekeepers of either radio
or MTV to kind of bless them before they could communicate,
or even record companies or even record companies. Yes, we
(05:15):
tested so many things. We did really a lot of firsts.
I wish we could say I wish I could say
that we had, you know, kind of a vision as
to how it applied to the music business broadly. I
think we were. We definitely look the Beastie Boys and
I both love punk rock and love you know, DIY culture,
(05:36):
So no question We really loved that you could just
do it yourself and you could write something down and
then anyone in the world can see it. I always
say that the Internet made sense immediately to anyone who
had ever made a fanzine with a piece of paper
and a magic marker and a photocopier, right, because when
you do that, you know how hard it is to
(05:57):
get what you make out to other people. And then
when you have this medium where you can just type
on a keyboard, upload a file and then absolutely anyone
on the planet, uh could you know, could see what
you've created? You feel the power of that. So then
the question is, you know, well, what can you do that?
How do you build those connections? And we used all
(06:18):
kinds of technologies, from Usenet in the early days to
you know, the World Wide Web and and then email lists.
These are you know, kind of early distribution lists, you know,
ultimately to you know, building the first radio station that
was that was run by a record label. You know,
we were we were doing things while the band was
(06:38):
on the road where you know, we would use the
Internet to communicate with fans and then we would gather
them at the show, you know, a just to to
to meet them and feel like we had a community,
but also to to further other things that the band
were interested in. They had a not for profit called
Milarepa that produced the Tibet and Freedom concerts in the nineties,
(06:58):
and they wanted to mobilize people around that. We gave
a dollar from every ticket to charity, you know, and
we would mobilize those local charities on the tour. In
nineteen ninety eight, also, the band had had a record
label called Grand Royal, and we would we would try
to use that direct connectivity to spill over some of
the success that the Beastie Boys had into the other
(07:21):
bands on the label, like Australian Ben Lee shout out
to ben Ley, yeah, you know, and so we would
Those are the kinds of things that we were doing.
So I think the answer is we were always just
trying to figure out, you know, anything we could and
where could this go. And really that was a great
laboratory because then if you look at the things that
I did in the late aughts two thousand and eight
(07:42):
to twenty thirteen, we had a company called Topspin that
was all about direct to consumer marketing and commerce, where
we work not only with the Beastie Boys, but also
David Byrne and Brian Eno and Trent Reznor and Lincoln
Park and lots of lots of great artists who had
really vibrant direct fan and you know, band connections.
Adam Lang (08:06):
So this next one check it out. Your career path,
as you mentioned top Spin, your career path has taken
you across very different industries Yahoo, top Spin, Beats, Apple, LVMH,
Doctor Martin's Boots. What do you think was the thread
that pulled you towards working with each of those brands
and then decide at some point it was time to
leave one world and jump into the next one.
Ian Rogers (08:29):
Yeah, it's not obvious, but I do think there is
a common thread. And for me, what I think I've
always been is a student of how technology is changing culture.
I realized that sort of late in my career because
I'd always been on this digital music journey. You know,
if I started in university in the early nineties at
the Indiana University Music Library, and what we were doing
(08:52):
was digitizing music, and really you could say that the
path was some version of that all the way up
until we launched Apple Music. So for I was super
lucky that for twenty years. I kind of had this
this mission of digitizing this art that I love, and
I was able to achieve that, and I'm really proud
(09:13):
of it. But it also felt, you know, like a
finish line once we got to Apple Music, because we's like, okay,
we've this has now been done, and I realize now
that we collectively have lived through this once in humanity,
digitization of all value. You know, if you go back
to you know, our lives when when we were young
and watching three channels on television, you know, there was
(09:34):
zero percent of the world's information had been digitized but
printing press, you know, and when and and that was
you know, kind of the you know, the book of
Iszation of all of all information, right, you know, I mean,
and we've lived through the digitization of all information. So
for me, going from from Apple Music to lvmhe was
(09:57):
sort of more of the same but broadening. So it
was in other words, I had learned a lot about
how technology changed the culture of music, and I really
was an expert in that, and I felt a pretty
good command of how those physics work, you know, and
that's I think more complicated than most people think. I mean,
(10:20):
only because you know, the music business was in free
fall for fourteen years, kind of denying those physics. You know,
I was saying, you know, the world was telling them,
you know, this music is going to get digitized and
consumed in this way, and the music business said, no,
We're going to sell compact discs forever. And it took
them a very long time to you know, to kind
of search train tracks and move in another direction. So
(10:43):
then my question when I went to LVMH was does
this apply to culture more broadly? And can I get
my arms around that? Maybe I can't. I thought, maybe
I can't, Maybe my maybe my theories don't apply. Maybe
I just am not capable of caring in the same
way that I do about music. But I really did
learn that that thought of how does technology shape culture? A?
(11:07):
Applies broadly and B is broadly interesting, and so watching
it in that and also LVMH and Luxury, and I
would even include other brands, you know, like Satisfy Running
and Mischief based in New York MSCCHF like these are
also really interesting studies of building culture in an era
(11:30):
of new technology. Like neither Mischief nor Satisfy our technology companies,
but they are brands which are being built and growing today,
which absolutely could not exist and build and grow without
the Internet. And that's that's truly fascinating. But now then,
what I realized is that now that we have lived
through the digitization of all information, we are now living
(11:55):
through and we're at the very beginning of the digitization
of all value, right, and that that is what is
represented by you know, blockchains and cryptocurrencies. People get all
wrapped around the axle on you know, a whole bunch
of other other issues, but that's fundamental and undeniable. And
(12:15):
you know, I personally, I always like to be in
a growing industry, and you know, we have you know,
if Ledger is fundamentally for people who care about digital value,
people who are serious about digital value, the number of
people who are serious about digital value will go up
every year for the rest of my life. And that's
(12:35):
a very interesting place to be.
Adam Lang (12:37):
Ian, stay with me. We'll be back in a moment.
I'm speaking with Ian Rodgers, chief experience Officer and board
member at Ledger. Let's talk about body moving. Now. You've
mentioned some of the brands that have become important to you.
You've said that you do not have time to not
(12:59):
run that running clears your head and fuels your ideas.
Can you talk about your fitness and movement, your body
moving that has helped you, not just personally, but help
sharpen your work.
Ian Rogers (13:10):
Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, look, I grew up skateboarding,
so and that was kind of that was kind of
it for me for a long time. And then, you know,
eighteen nineteen years ago, I had a second child and
realized I wasn't going to be skating as much as
I was before I was, you know, I was, you know,
(13:31):
I was really skating a lot when in my in
my mid thirties is this period where skate parks were
all over California and it was just a great time
to be exactly who I was, living where I was
at that age. So I started running, and I just
I just fell in love with it, kind of accidentally,
to be honest. I mean, I started running because I
didn't know what else to do. And it took me
maybe a year to fall in love with it, but
(13:54):
but really did. And then but then I started trying
other things, you know, and I did cross it for
a number of years. I've recently started tai chi, which
is something I've always wanted to do after seeing Iggy
Pop do it when he when the Stooges came and
played at Yahoo. That's a that's another story, but it's
true that Iggy Pop made tai chi cool for me,
(14:15):
and so it just, you know, I think it's for me.
What's been fascinating is I really have learned a lot
from running because I think it's it is a bit
of a laboratory, and I think that there's actually less
difference between body and brain than we think. I think
in all cases, humans are just adaptive creatures. You know,
(14:38):
when you go to sleep at night, your body says, okay,
if he does that to me again tomorrow, am I ready?
And that might be if you're doing math problems all day,
if you're reading books all day, if you're running, you know,
you are what you do, so you have to do
what you want to be. That's the thing I wish
I would have, you know, learned when I was younger.
(14:59):
So whenever I have the opportunity to speak to a
room full of you know, teenagers, I always remind them
of that fact. And then I say, if you want
to be really good at watching Netflix, then you should
watch a lot of Netflix. If there's something else you'd
like to be good at, then you should do a
lot of it. If you'd like to be great at
playing guitar, you should play guitar often. If I'd like
(15:20):
to speak, you know, better French or better Italian, I
should speak more French or more Italian. It really is
that simple. So I think the way that we spend
our time and what we invest our time in, you know,
very directly impacts who we are, which is why I
haven't had a television since nineteen eighty nine.
Adam Lang (15:38):
Brilliant, let's go into galactic. You've been shouldered to shoulder
with some of the most iconic leaders in business and culture,
doctor Dre Jimmy Iovine, Steve Jobs. But I don't know,
was there a leadership habit that you saw up close
that you've carried with you ever since?
Ian Rogers (15:55):
There are many In my career, I've been very fortunate,
and I've had a lot of great mentors, starting with
doctor David Fenski back at Indiana University, but also the
Beastie Boys and John Silva, their manager, has certainly been
a mentor. You know, my good friend Rob Lord, who
we we I worked with on Nolsoft really taught me
how to think. I think Dave Goldberg, who was Sheryl
(16:17):
Sandberg's husband Yahoo, was my steward there. Peter Gocher who
started invented pro tools and and digit created digit design
at Topsmen. You mentioned Jimmy and Dre and and and
also certainly been out on know and really the the
the Arno family, you know, the there's a if you've
ever read the book Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow, the
(16:40):
the Daniel Knneman one of the best, you know, thinkers
on the brain, study studiers of the brain. You know,
if you ask him what's his advice for humans? Uh,
he would he would he would say delay intuition. And
I really saw that with Benn. Know, there were more
(17:00):
than once where you know, we would have a big
debate about something very serious and impactful to the business
and I thought we'd been through it, we'd you know,
really argued it out, debated it out, and now it's
time to move on and act. And he would say, Okay,
let's talk about this tomorrow. And at first I found
(17:21):
it really frustrating. I would say, what are you talking about?
We just made a decision, what are we And but
I realized that it is exactly that Daniel Conneman thing.
We will be smarter tomorrow morning. And so if you
can get between stimulus and response and then you know
(17:43):
you you can you can find wisdom. And I think
that that that's one of the biggest things I've learned.
I think that you know, great leaders, great leaders have
that they have the ability to uh disconnect their reaction
from the from the input.
Adam Lang (18:01):
So intergenerational, let's go to pass the mic. You have
credited hip hop with helping to shape how you see
the world. How did those early lessons about authenticity, identity,
and the search for real continue to guide the way
that you've built brands across very different industries.
Ian Rogers (18:18):
Yeah. I look at the photographer Glenny Friedman. If you
look at Glenn's books, he has a great book on
Rizzali called My Rules. I highly recommend because you look
at it and you go, wait, this is the kind
of the golden era of skateboarding, the golden era of
hip hop, the golden hair of punk rock. You know,
you don't necessarily lump all three of those things together,
but you know, resonates for me, those are those are
(18:40):
three things that I three cultures that I cared about
a lot, and turns out there's a fair amount of us,
and they do they do all represent something similar, which
is you know that your icons are not necessarily you know,
on a pedestal on a stage in an Olympic state.
(19:00):
You know, it's it may actually just be you. You know,
you and your friends can get together and you know,
and create something. I think that that, honestly is the
you know, is the common thread is is you know
that that kind of accessibility of culture, you know, as
(19:20):
as as Rick Rubin said, you know, it took it
off the stage and into the street again, and I
think there there is something very real about that. I
think also you see it in all kinds of places.
You know. It's it's these are the cultures that big
brands end up leaning on to try to be cool,
you know. I mean it's a your your credit card
(19:41):
company is suddenly featuring a DJ and a skateboarder, right,
you know, it's and it's not there's not something inherent
about four wheels and a plank of wood. It's it's
actually about you know, people who are taking their surroundings
and you know, not asking permission and shaping their surroundings,
uh for the way for their worldview. So I think,
(20:03):
I think this is where these things come from, and
I think it shows up in all kinds of places.
I mean, I've over the past four years, I've loved
the world of digital art and it feels very similar
to me, you know, I'm I feel very fortunate that
just like in in in punk rock, if if I
you know, if you go to I remember when I
went to my first punk rock show in Chicago. You know,
(20:23):
I looked to my right and you know, an artist
that I'd been listening to in my bedroom is standing
next to me. You know, you wouldn't have that, you know,
in an arena. You know, if I if I go
see you know, a gigantic band in an arena, they're
they're backstage, askanced, you know, and and you and and
you won't you won't see them. But but I'm you know,
(20:44):
in this world of digital art, I love being in
these things that are emerging and they're unknown and they're
not yet defined. You know. The early days of hip
hop were incredible because you couldn't say that's not hip hop.
You had people who were old, people who are young,
people who were talking about gun, people who were talking
about love, people who you know it wasn't There were
no rules yet, there was no box for it to
(21:06):
be in yet. Those those are when any cultural movement
is fun. You know, as soon as it's become an industry,
time to find a new cultural movement, you know, skateboarding
and the Olympics. Time to find the new sport.
Adam Lang (21:19):
That was Ian Rodgers, chief experience officer and board member
at the computer and network security company Ledger, the world's
largest maker of cryptocurrency hardware wallets. It's a rare treat
to get such an international expert on the show. We'll
leave this interview here and bring you part to next
Wednesday as the next episode about Fear and Greed One
on one series. I'm Adam Lang and this is one
(21:42):
on one by Fear and Greed.
Welcome to One on one by Fear and Greed. My
name is Adam Lang. My guest today, I'm delighted to
say is Ian Rodgers. He's a fascinating pioneer who's worked
with some of the most famous brands on Earth. He
built Beastieboys dot Com in the nineties, helped launch Beats
Music and Apple Music, drove digital transformation at Luxury Giant LVMH,
(00:26):
and today shapes the future of digital assets as chief
experience Officer and a board member at Ledger. They are
the world's largest maker of cryptocurrency hardware wallets now. Ian
is a rare mix of creative and commercial, a technology fan,
a fitness enthusiast, and a brand builder. In this conversation,
I want to explore how he and followed his passions
(00:47):
built iconic brands and what can we learn from his
journey so far because it has been fascinating. Ian, Welcome
to Fear and Greed one on one.
Ian Rogers (00:56):
Thank you, Thank you so much for having me. Great
to be here.
Adam Lang (00:58):
Ian. I am a big fan of the Beastie Boys,
so I've taken a few lyrical liberties and giving titles
to each one of these questions. The first one. So
what you want your life seems powered by curiosity, whether
it is art, books, music, fitness, or technology. Where did
your passion start and how do you use them in
the way you approach business and building brands?
Ian Rogers (01:20):
You know, I think that's the curiosity point, is true,
But it's one of those things that you don't realize
until later in life, right, because the way the way
you are, you feel like, well, everyone must be like that, right,
And then you kind of get to a certain point
and you realize, Okay, I am a bit of a
weirdo and and kind of I'm an obsessive about about
unusual things. Look, I always just think that that I'm
(01:42):
very lucky and that the way that I'm crazy is
actually you know, useful and valuable to some people, because
I've always just been kind of an obsessive person, starting
with you know, music, when I was five years old.
I was lucky enough to have a brother who who
handed down his kiss records and my journey kind of
started there. Also lucky enough to have a stepfather who
(02:03):
was you know, into computers very early, so we had
Apple two computers in the house in the in the
eighties and the early eighties and I was programming and
playing games on those and then I think, you know,
the I think maybe the real question that I'm not
sure the answer to is, you know, why have I
always kind of wanted to be to be living a
couple of years ahead. I was also fortunate to attend
(02:26):
Indiana University in the early nineties and do a computer
science degree there, and we had high speed internet in
the you know, in the student housing and the early
in the early nineties. I almost feel like there could
be a documentary about why that is and the impact
that it had on so many of us, because what
(02:46):
I learned in that moment is that living in the
future is cheating. If you're living in the future, you
can see the future. You don't have to try very hard.
I think, you know, some people actually predict the future,
but if you're actually just kind of living the way
people might live two or three years from now, then
you start to actually, you know, not only do you
learn what the future looks like, but you also learn
(03:07):
what it isn't you know. And I've so I'm always
trying to do things a couple of years in advance
of when they you know, of when they hit the
you know, the public zeitgeist, you know, when ten years
ago and everyone says, oh, you know, uh, speech is
the future, you know, your voice, voice is the future,
(03:28):
and and I was like, well, have have you used Syria?
It doesn't work very well, It's not you know, and
I've was using Alexa at the time, and it was
sort of pretty clumsy either. You could tell you the
weather and maybe said a kitchen timer, but it wasn't
really going to you know, to change your life, you know,
much beyond that. And I think you to me, you
always want to do that I've done. I've done the
same thing with with digital assets and digital ownership and
(03:52):
digital art, and you know, today I'm doing it just
with AI coding. You know, I'm working on a on
a on a coding project using AI right now and
it's incredible. Like what it does that I couldn't do
as a computer science student is incredible. It's also often
frustrating and knowing where those boundaries are, you know, knowing
like what is amazing about it and also what is
(04:13):
you know, what are the challenges that are still to
be solved? I find to be very helpful and give
directive now as to why I have the curiosity to
do those things. I couldn't explain that.
Adam Lang (04:27):
So the future is a competitive advantage.
Ian Rogers (04:29):
I like that.
Adam Lang (04:30):
This next one is calling Paul Revere. You had an
early start with beastieboys dot Com in the nineteen nineties.
That was not just a banded website. To me, it
looked like an experiment in how the music industry model
was changing and bands could use technology to connect directly
with fans. What did you test and learn about the
power of bands, brands and connection.
Ian Rogers (04:53):
Yeah, and I think that to their credit, the Beastie
Boys very quickly understood what it was as well, and
that it was a way that they could communicate directly
with their fans without needing the gatekeepers of either radio
or MTV to kind of bless them before they could communicate,
or even record companies or even record companies. Yes, we
(05:15):
tested so many things. We did really a lot of firsts.
I wish we could say I wish I could say
that we had, you know, kind of a vision as
to how it applied to the music business broadly. I
think we were. We definitely look the Beastie Boys and
I both love punk rock and love you know, DIY culture,
(05:36):
So no question We really loved that you could just
do it yourself and you could write something down and
then anyone in the world can see it. I always
say that the Internet made sense immediately to anyone who
had ever made a fanzine with a piece of paper
and a magic marker and a photocopier, right, because when
you do that, you know how hard it is to
(05:57):
get what you make out to other people. And then
when you have this medium where you can just type
on a keyboard, upload a file and then absolutely anyone
on the planet, uh could you know, could see what
you've created? You feel the power of that. So then
the question is, you know, well, what can you do that?
How do you build those connections? And we used all
(06:18):
kinds of technologies, from Usenet in the early days to
you know, the World Wide Web and and then email lists.
These are you know, kind of early distribution lists, you know,
ultimately to you know, building the first radio station that
was that was run by a record label. You know,
we were we were doing things while the band was
(06:38):
on the road where you know, we would use the
Internet to communicate with fans and then we would gather
them at the show, you know, a just to to
to meet them and feel like we had a community,
but also to to further other things that the band
were interested in. They had a not for profit called
Milarepa that produced the Tibet and Freedom concerts in the nineties,
(06:58):
and they wanted to mobilize people around that. We gave
a dollar from every ticket to charity, you know, and
we would mobilize those local charities on the tour. In
nineteen ninety eight, also, the band had had a record
label called Grand Royal, and we would we would try
to use that direct connectivity to spill over some of
the success that the Beastie Boys had into the other
(07:21):
bands on the label, like Australian Ben Lee shout out
to ben Ley, yeah, you know, and so we would
Those are the kinds of things that we were doing.
So I think the answer is we were always just
trying to figure out, you know, anything we could and
where could this go. And really that was a great
laboratory because then if you look at the things that
I did in the late aughts two thousand and eight
(07:42):
to twenty thirteen, we had a company called Topspin that
was all about direct to consumer marketing and commerce, where
we work not only with the Beastie Boys, but also
David Byrne and Brian Eno and Trent Reznor and Lincoln
Park and lots of lots of great artists who had
really vibrant direct fan and you know, band connections.
Adam Lang (08:06):
So this next one check it out. Your career path,
as you mentioned top Spin, your career path has taken
you across very different industries Yahoo, top Spin, Beats, Apple, LVMH,
Doctor Martin's Boots. What do you think was the thread
that pulled you towards working with each of those brands
and then decide at some point it was time to
leave one world and jump into the next one.
Ian Rogers (08:29):
Yeah, it's not obvious, but I do think there is
a common thread. And for me, what I think I've
always been is a student of how technology is changing culture.
I realized that sort of late in my career because
I'd always been on this digital music journey. You know,
if I started in university in the early nineties at
the Indiana University Music Library, and what we were doing
(08:52):
was digitizing music, and really you could say that the
path was some version of that all the way up
until we launched Apple Music. So for I was super
lucky that for twenty years. I kind of had this
this mission of digitizing this art that I love, and
I was able to achieve that, and I'm really proud
(09:13):
of it. But it also felt, you know, like a
finish line once we got to Apple Music, because we's like, okay,
we've this has now been done, and I realize now
that we collectively have lived through this once in humanity,
digitization of all value. You know, if you go back
to you know, our lives when when we were young
and watching three channels on television, you know, there was
(09:34):
zero percent of the world's information had been digitized but
printing press, you know, and when and and that was
you know, kind of the you know, the book of
Iszation of all of all information, right, you know, I mean,
and we've lived through the digitization of all information. So
for me, going from from Apple Music to lvmhe was
(09:57):
sort of more of the same but broadening. So it
was in other words, I had learned a lot about
how technology changed the culture of music, and I really
was an expert in that, and I felt a pretty
good command of how those physics work, you know, and
that's I think more complicated than most people think. I mean,
(10:20):
only because you know, the music business was in free
fall for fourteen years, kind of denying those physics. You know,
I was saying, you know, the world was telling them,
you know, this music is going to get digitized and
consumed in this way, and the music business said, no,
We're going to sell compact discs forever. And it took
them a very long time to you know, to kind
of search train tracks and move in another direction. So
(10:43):
then my question when I went to LVMH was does
this apply to culture more broadly? And can I get
my arms around that? Maybe I can't. I thought, maybe
I can't, Maybe my maybe my theories don't apply. Maybe
I just am not capable of caring in the same
way that I do about music. But I really did
learn that that thought of how does technology shape culture? A?
(11:07):
Applies broadly and B is broadly interesting, and so watching
it in that and also LVMH and Luxury, and I
would even include other brands, you know, like Satisfy Running
and Mischief based in New York MSCCHF like these are
also really interesting studies of building culture in an era
(11:30):
of new technology. Like neither Mischief nor Satisfy our technology companies,
but they are brands which are being built and growing today,
which absolutely could not exist and build and grow without
the Internet. And that's that's truly fascinating. But now then,
what I realized is that now that we have lived
through the digitization of all information, we are now living
(11:55):
through and we're at the very beginning of the digitization
of all value, right, and that that is what is
represented by you know, blockchains and cryptocurrencies. People get all
wrapped around the axle on you know, a whole bunch
of other other issues, but that's fundamental and undeniable. And
(12:15):
you know, I personally, I always like to be in
a growing industry, and you know, we have you know,
if Ledger is fundamentally for people who care about digital value,
people who are serious about digital value, the number of
people who are serious about digital value will go up
every year for the rest of my life. And that's
(12:35):
a very interesting place to be.
Adam Lang (12:37):
Ian, stay with me. We'll be back in a moment.
I'm speaking with Ian Rodgers, chief experience Officer and board
member at Ledger. Let's talk about body moving. Now. You've
mentioned some of the brands that have become important to you.
You've said that you do not have time to not
(12:59):
run that running clears your head and fuels your ideas.
Can you talk about your fitness and movement, your body
moving that has helped you, not just personally, but help
sharpen your work.
Ian Rogers (13:10):
Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, look, I grew up skateboarding,
so and that was kind of that was kind of
it for me for a long time. And then, you know,
eighteen nineteen years ago, I had a second child and
realized I wasn't going to be skating as much as
I was before I was, you know, I was, you know,
(13:31):
I was really skating a lot when in my in
my mid thirties is this period where skate parks were
all over California and it was just a great time
to be exactly who I was, living where I was
at that age. So I started running, and I just
I just fell in love with it, kind of accidentally,
to be honest. I mean, I started running because I
didn't know what else to do. And it took me
maybe a year to fall in love with it, but
(13:54):
but really did. And then but then I started trying
other things, you know, and I did cross it for
a number of years. I've recently started tai chi, which
is something I've always wanted to do after seeing Iggy
Pop do it when he when the Stooges came and
played at Yahoo. That's a that's another story, but it's
true that Iggy Pop made tai chi cool for me,
(14:15):
and so it just, you know, I think it's for me.
What's been fascinating is I really have learned a lot
from running because I think it's it is a bit
of a laboratory, and I think that there's actually less
difference between body and brain than we think. I think
in all cases, humans are just adaptive creatures. You know,
(14:38):
when you go to sleep at night, your body says, okay,
if he does that to me again tomorrow, am I ready?
And that might be if you're doing math problems all day,
if you're reading books all day, if you're running, you know,
you are what you do, so you have to do
what you want to be. That's the thing I wish
I would have, you know, learned when I was younger.
(14:59):
So whenever I have the opportunity to speak to a
room full of you know, teenagers, I always remind them
of that fact. And then I say, if you want
to be really good at watching Netflix, then you should
watch a lot of Netflix. If there's something else you'd
like to be good at, then you should do a
lot of it. If you'd like to be great at
playing guitar, you should play guitar often. If I'd like
(15:20):
to speak, you know, better French or better Italian, I
should speak more French or more Italian. It really is
that simple. So I think the way that we spend
our time and what we invest our time in, you know,
very directly impacts who we are, which is why I
haven't had a television since nineteen eighty nine.
Adam Lang (15:38):
Brilliant, let's go into galactic. You've been shouldered to shoulder
with some of the most iconic leaders in business and culture,
doctor Dre Jimmy Iovine, Steve Jobs. But I don't know,
was there a leadership habit that you saw up close
that you've carried with you ever since?
Ian Rogers (15:55):
There are many In my career, I've been very fortunate,
and I've had a lot of great mentors, starting with
doctor David Fenski back at Indiana University, but also the
Beastie Boys and John Silva, their manager, has certainly been
a mentor. You know, my good friend Rob Lord, who
we we I worked with on Nolsoft really taught me
how to think. I think Dave Goldberg, who was Sheryl
(16:17):
Sandberg's husband Yahoo, was my steward there. Peter Gocher who
started invented pro tools and and digit created digit design
at Topsmen. You mentioned Jimmy and Dre and and and
also certainly been out on know and really the the
the Arno family, you know, the there's a if you've
ever read the book Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow, the
(16:40):
the Daniel Knneman one of the best, you know, thinkers
on the brain, study studiers of the brain. You know,
if you ask him what's his advice for humans? Uh,
he would he would he would say delay intuition. And
I really saw that with Benn. Know, there were more
(17:00):
than once where you know, we would have a big
debate about something very serious and impactful to the business
and I thought we'd been through it, we'd you know,
really argued it out, debated it out, and now it's
time to move on and act. And he would say, Okay,
let's talk about this tomorrow. And at first I found
(17:21):
it really frustrating. I would say, what are you talking about?
We just made a decision, what are we And but
I realized that it is exactly that Daniel Conneman thing.
We will be smarter tomorrow morning. And so if you
can get between stimulus and response and then you know
(17:43):
you you can you can find wisdom. And I think
that that that's one of the biggest things I've learned.
I think that you know, great leaders, great leaders have
that they have the ability to uh disconnect their reaction
from the from the input.
Adam Lang (18:01):
So intergenerational, let's go to pass the mic. You have
credited hip hop with helping to shape how you see
the world. How did those early lessons about authenticity, identity,
and the search for real continue to guide the way
that you've built brands across very different industries.
Ian Rogers (18:18):
Yeah. I look at the photographer Glenny Friedman. If you
look at Glenn's books, he has a great book on
Rizzali called My Rules. I highly recommend because you look
at it and you go, wait, this is the kind
of the golden era of skateboarding, the golden era of
hip hop, the golden hair of punk rock. You know,
you don't necessarily lump all three of those things together,
but you know, resonates for me, those are those are
(18:40):
three things that I three cultures that I cared about
a lot, and turns out there's a fair amount of us,
and they do they do all represent something similar, which
is you know that your icons are not necessarily you know,
on a pedestal on a stage in an Olympic state.
(19:00):
You know, it's it may actually just be you. You know,
you and your friends can get together and you know,
and create something. I think that that, honestly is the
you know, is the common thread is is you know
that that kind of accessibility of culture, you know, as
(19:20):
as as Rick Rubin said, you know, it took it
off the stage and into the street again, and I
think there there is something very real about that. I
think also you see it in all kinds of places.
You know. It's it's these are the cultures that big
brands end up leaning on to try to be cool,
you know. I mean it's a your your credit card
(19:41):
company is suddenly featuring a DJ and a skateboarder, right,
you know, it's and it's not there's not something inherent
about four wheels and a plank of wood. It's it's
actually about you know, people who are taking their surroundings
and you know, not asking permission and shaping their surroundings,
uh for the way for their worldview. So I think,
(20:03):
I think this is where these things come from, and
I think it shows up in all kinds of places.
I mean, I've over the past four years, I've loved
the world of digital art and it feels very similar
to me, you know, I'm I feel very fortunate that
just like in in in punk rock, if if I
you know, if you go to I remember when I
went to my first punk rock show in Chicago. You know,
(20:23):
I looked to my right and you know, an artist
that I'd been listening to in my bedroom is standing
next to me. You know, you wouldn't have that, you know,
in an arena. You know, if I if I go
see you know, a gigantic band in an arena, they're
they're backstage, askanced, you know, and and you and and
you won't you won't see them. But but I'm you know,
(20:44):
in this world of digital art, I love being in
these things that are emerging and they're unknown and they're
not yet defined. You know. The early days of hip
hop were incredible because you couldn't say that's not hip hop.
You had people who were old, people who are young,
people who were talking about gun, people who were talking
about love, people who you know it wasn't There were
no rules yet, there was no box for it to
(21:06):
be in yet. Those those are when any cultural movement
is fun. You know, as soon as it's become an industry,
time to find a new cultural movement, you know, skateboarding
and the Olympics. Time to find the new sport.
Adam Lang (21:19):
That was Ian Rodgers, chief experience officer and board member
at the computer and network security company Ledger, the world's
largest maker of cryptocurrency hardware wallets. It's a rare treat
to get such an international expert on the show. We'll
leave this interview here and bring you part to next
Wednesday as the next episode about Fear and Greed One
on one series. I'm Adam Lang and this is one
(21:42):
on one by Fear and Greed.
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