September 16, 2025 • 23 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.
In the second part of the interview, we delve into his time in digital transformation at luxury giant LVMH, how fitness supports him, and his current role 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 second 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. I'm
Adam Lang. My guest today is Ian Rodgers with part
two of his one on one interview. Ian is a
fascinating pioneer who has worked with some of the most
famous brands on Earth. In the first part of the interview,
we talked about his time with Beastieboys dot Com in
the nineties and how he helped launch Beats Music and
(00:26):
Apple Music. In the second part of the interview, we
delve into his time in digital transformation at Luxury Giant LVMH,
as well as his current role as Chief Experience Officer
and board member at Ledger, the world's largest maker of
cryptocurrency hardware wallets. I hope you enjoy this second part
of the interview with Ian Rogers. Ian, in the first
(00:52):
part of this interview, as you know, I took a
bit of poetic license and used Beastie Boys hits and
their titles to frame each question, and this one is
rooted down at LVMH. You're inside the world's most famous
luxury brands. You've talked about some of that. What does
luxury teach about building and protecting brand value that you
(01:12):
think every business leader could understand better?
Ian Rogers (01:17):
Yes, when I first got to LVMH, they told me
they take a one hundred year time horizon when they
think about their brands. And honestly, I laughed out loud
because I thought it was a joke. You know, I
come from a startup world where you know, six months
is the time horizon.
Adam Lang (01:34):
One hundred days!
Ian Rogers (01:35):
Yeah, exactly. And but they are serious because the brand
is the asset and you have to think long term.
There was another saying there, which is, you know that
the employees take an oath against short term revenue because
when you when you prioritise short term revenue, you are
(01:56):
by definition selling out the long term revenue. You know,
you're kind of hoping for the You're you're kind of
admitting that the long term revenue is your relevant because
you're not sure if you'll still alive that long. And
you know, But but for them, they they make They
made many decisions which are counterintuitive, whether it was like
the amount of money that they were investing in stores
(02:17):
at the time when people said that stores were were
a dead end, or simply you know, buying an operating Sephora.
You know, you can point to one hundred things that
that the street thought was counterintuitive for LVMH, but they
fit the thesis. And I think part of that thesis
is that you do not need to appeal to everyone.
(02:37):
And I think that's why LVMH is such a modern business,
because I think that, you know, attempting to appeal to
everyone in the era of the Internet is a losing battle.
And that's I think that you know, what we have
is you have to look at the underlying things about
how culture is moving and then don't try to swim
against that stream, swim with it. Uh, you know, so
(03:01):
we have what I The reason that I went to
LVMH is because fundamentally, I believe that the Internet is
moving us from mass market to massive niche, and it's
moving us from a world where marketing is hyper efficient
to a world where quality is hyper efficient. The reason
is because as consumers, we have unlimited choice, and we
(03:22):
can drift to the brand that's at the mall or
the brand that we find on Instagram, which is you know,
tailor you know, which is really targeted directly to us.
And so you know, to do that, you have to
be something that a consumer would recommend to another consumer,
and that's you know, and that's what you have with
with these luxury brands. They have built cultures that have
(03:46):
deep meaning, you know, heritage that's built over you know,
decades at least, and and then they have built communities
that will that that have meaning. And when I wear
a brand, I'm not only you know, clothing myself. I'm
actually communicating meaning and culture. And that's what you have
(04:07):
to do. And that takes a long time, you know,
by by definition, you know. And again, watching a brand
like Satisfy or Mischief build this is illustrative because it's
one thing to have built this ninety years ago, it's
another thing to build it in today's internet climate.
Adam Lang (04:26):
I heard you talk about LVMH and learning storytelling plus
time equals value and another statement you made culture comes
towards you over time. Both of those involve patients time.
As you suggested with Bernard Aneau, just suspending that impulse
and action for our audience who might be building their
own brands or their own assets, or even as it
(04:49):
applies to personal brands, can you talk a little bit
about that.
Ian Rogers (04:51):
The value of time, what I've come up with is
fifteen years. That's how long it takes for a brand
to but really become a brand. My initial notice of
this fifteen year thing was about technology. In the nineties.
I was playing around with getting content over the internet
(05:15):
in my living room and it was it didn't really work,
you know, it was sort of buffering, buffering, buffering, you know,
but you know it was it was sort of I
was like, Okay, this is this ultimately will work. This
is difficult today, but ultimately this will be the way.
Many years later, I was speaking to my mom on
the phone and she said, oh, by the way, you'll
(05:37):
find it interesting that I canceled my cable subscription and
I only have Roku now. And in my head I
sort of scrambled. I went, Okay, how long did that take? Like,
how long was it from when I was playing around
with getting content over the internet in my living room
to my mom canceling her cable subscription, you know, to
something that's really material for an average customer.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
And it was fifteen years.
Ian Rogers (05:58):
And that has become a pattern and that I've seen
over and over and then I started to notice it
on the on the brand side as well. That you know,
brands in their earlier days, they can have momentum, they
can have hype, they can have a moment, they can
have a fad, they can have a trend, but it's
only after they've been around for fifteen years that they
(06:19):
really start to have this kind of sustainable international growth.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
And you know, the one of the clearest.
Ian Rogers (06:26):
Examples for me in recent memory is Golden Goose Shoes,
which you know, kind of the founder of that company
was able to really build a brand and build a
cool brand, but it had to get the time had
to go on to where you know, an icon like
Virgil Ablow would kind of point to it and go, oh, yeah,
that was the cool shit when I was a kid,
(06:47):
you know, and and that that's what has to happen.
It's I also, I think it might be fifteen years
because it might actually be generational. Yeah, you know, with
the BacT Boys, what we realized was that, you know,
over time, the kids in the front row were always
the same age. You'd come back ten years later and
the kids in the front row are still sixteen. But
(07:08):
then what you realize is that you know, the ones
who are ten years older are you know, are fifty
feet behind them, And then you know, fifty feet behind
them are the ones that are my age. And that's
what it takes like it is, it does take time.
It takes you know, sort of generation to do this,
and I think I think it might be everywhere. I mean,
I was, I was saying last year, this is this
(07:29):
is Bitcoin's year, and people would say why, and I'd say,
because it's fifteen years old. Fifteen is it is some
sort of it's it's if you've managed to stick around
for fifteen years, then you obviously have some kind of
staying power. But also you've not only saturated one generation,
but you're probably you know, gaining momentum on the generation
behind them, and that builds something sustainable.
Adam Lang (07:53):
Let's go to shake your rump in FT's a non
fungible token basically a digital certificate of ownership recorded on
the blockchain, and it can prove you own a unique
asset like art or music. How has you being a
collector shaped your view of why digital ownership matters?
Ian Rogers (08:12):
Again, this is a you know, when you're living in
the future, you can feel the future.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Well, what's what's.
Ian Rogers (08:17):
Interesting to me is that you you do start to
feel like when you explore any new art form, you
you find the edges of it, you start to figure
out what's real what's not you know, what what touches you?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
What? What doesn't?
Ian Rogers (08:36):
I think, just like I said earlier, or you said,
you know, storytelling plus time equals value, I was quoting you, Yeah,
and so you know, you it's always the story behind it,
what's the context?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Who?
Ian Rogers (08:50):
You know, we talk about digital art, but really digital
art wouldn't be interesting if it wasn't for the artists
who happened to use digital as a medium. So what
we're really talking about is, is you know, the human
behind it? What was their motivation? What have they done?
What's the story is it? Is it a feat of
kind of technical creativity? Is it a is it a
(09:11):
conceptual piece like you know, is it simply photography? You know,
I'm interested in all of the above, but for you know,
for for different reasons. But what you realize is that
digital as a format is actually very accessible. You know,
if I have a photograph on on my wall, it's
you know, the relatively difficult for me to kind of distribute,
(09:32):
you know, and share that, Whereas you know, if I
have that in digital format, then you know, it's quite
easy for me to share it and to tell that story,
you know, to others and share that story with others.
So I think what I find interesting is is is
exploring you know, what it is and what it isn't.
But what I found is that personally I value digital
(09:56):
art more than physical art, and if I buy a
piece of physical art, I actually would like it to
come with something digital. I would I would like to
have to have both.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
You know.
Ian Rogers (10:07):
We bought a very nice photograph recently, and I've had
this feeling of feeling sort of disappointed that.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I didn't also have a digital.
Ian Rogers (10:16):
Version of it, you know, because it now can't live
next to the rest of my collection. It can only
live in the wall of my house, which feels quite
limiting in a way. And again that's just part of
like living in the future and sort of you know,
feeling the feels that come you know, from you know,
from living in the future.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
I think part of it, though, is just you.
Ian Rogers (10:36):
Know, being a part of an emerging culture where the
rules are not yet defined, and of course there's a
lot of nonsense, a lot of you know, a lot
of hype, a lot of places where you feel, you
know strongly about a piece of art, and there's you know,
absolutely no one else who appreciates it, which is very
much like being in the world of music, where you know,
(10:58):
you may love an artist or a song and you
can't understand why the rest of the world doesn't hear it.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
The way that you do.
Ian Rogers (11:04):
But to me, that's the fun part. It's where I
like to be.
Adam Lang (11:08):
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 go to check your head. You
are applying your skills at Ledger. Ledger is not a cryptocurrency.
(11:29):
It's the world's largest maker of cryptocurrency hardware wallets. So
for those of us who are still learning about this technology,
how do you take a product that people might think
of as technical or niche and grow it into a
brand that people understand and turn them into fans.
Ian Rogers (11:47):
So Leiger makes the most secure way to hold and
work with and utilize your digital assets on the planet.
So you know, we have seven billion smartphones on planet Earth,
and the vast majority of them have some kind of
a value management app on them. Your banking app, PayPal, Venmo, Robinhood, Revolute,
(12:10):
et cetera.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Right, so we all have some.
Ian Rogers (12:12):
Way that we're managing digital value and as I mentioned earlier,
we're living through this once in humanity digitization of all value.
So the same way that we all have a password problem,
you know, if you have a digital life, you have
a password problem, you also have a digital value problem.
And really Ledger is the only way to solve that problem,
(12:33):
and to solve it elegantly. It's the it's it's about.
It's about security, it's about privacy. It's about not having
that counterparty risk that could lead you into you know,
crises like FTX and Celsius and the rest of these.
So there are thefts and scams and all kinds of
things in this you know, digital asset world, and Ledger
(12:56):
is your protection against that.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
It is the way that you should, if you're doing it.
Ian Rogers (13:01):
Correctly, hold your digital value. So you know, you have
this thing which is which you know, what I love
what I love about Ledger is you know, it actually
is a better mouse trap. It actually is better than
simply having an application on your phone or simply having
an exchange. It's built on something that's fundamental. So to
(13:21):
answer your question for me, you have to start with
something like that to be able to build, to build
a brand, right, you know, because you now you have
something real that you're that you're building on top of.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
And you know, so.
Ian Rogers (13:34):
What we're doing every day is is you know really
like you know, education is is highly leveraged for us
because people who are educated become Ledger customers. But then
it can't be just about like let me teach you
what's right. You know, it has to be easy to use.
It has to it has to do all of the
things that you needed to do, and then you have
(13:54):
to communicate about it through use cases that are meaningful
to people. Know, how can I how does this integrate
into my life? How does this improve you know, my
life and what I do? And also it needs to
be you know, it needs to be fun. You know,
like like Jimmy Iveen thought about, you know about headphones.
They shouldn't look and feel like medical equipment. You know,
(14:17):
it should be exciting and something that you are proud
you know, to wear on your head or in our case,
you know, carry in your pocket and you know, and
and pull out and show a friend and and and
be proud of being a part of UH. And so
to me, you know, the building a brand also goes
into building the product, bringing that product to life, creating
all the functionality and the use cases in the product,
(14:39):
and then ultimately the way that you you present that
product to market. We're now the the Jersey partner of
the San Antonio Spurs and that's a great opportunity to
build brand awareness but also educate and you know, and
bring people into this new world of finance and to
and to bring them the benefits of this new world
of finance and and bring them along on that journey
(15:01):
with you.
Adam Lang (15:02):
Let's talk about sabotage. You mentioned ft X, and the
collapse was a painful work up call for many Thirty
thousand people are still waiting on liquidators, with some losing
a large amount. Can you explain the difference between leaving
your cryptocurrency on an exchange and holding it holding it
yourself in a Ledger wallet?
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yew.
Ian Rogers (15:22):
The you know, the the innovation of cryptocurrency is permissionless money,
you know, fundamentally, you know, I always like to come
back to the fundamentals. And in the case of the Internet,
you know, you have you have a very simple idea,
which is one computer can talk to another one. And
you know, the amount of innovation that that's brought to
(15:42):
humanity is tremendous, right, But it really is that simple.
You have a network of commuter computers that can talk
to one another, you know, and as a result, it's
it's actually you know, changed our our lifestyles. So, you know,
with in the case of you know, blockchain and cryptocurrency,
so you also have a very simple idea, and that
(16:03):
is that you can have scarce digital value and it's
easy to it's easy to transact digitally. But that opens up,
you know, a whole bunch of use cases. But those
those use cases they only exist because it is permissionless money.
Otherwise it's the same thing that we we had, you know,
thirty years ago with Visa and MasterCard. It's you know,
(16:25):
it's what blockchain isn't is a centralized company with a
centralized database that tells you how much money you have
and what transactions have happened. What it is is permissionless
money with a distributed ledger where we can issue tokens
and transact in this permissionless environment. Now what that means though, is,
(16:47):
you know, if you have the ability for self custody,
then security is paramount because that means that that digital
value could be lost and it could be lost easily.
It's actually very difficult to say, steal a billion dollars
in gold bars. It takes a lot of trucks, right,
It's very very easy to steal a billion dollars in
(17:08):
digital assets. And so whether it is on the custodian
side you know, the bank or the exchange, or it
is on you as an individual, security is paramount and
extremely important. And that's what Ledger does for both customers
and exchanges. We create that that security. So whether you
(17:32):
are entrusting it with a player like FTX, or you
are entrusting it yourself, that security is super important. But
the what's incredible to me is that we have, you know,
four trillion in digital value with ten trillion easily in sight.
And there are not five places on the planet that
I would recommend you store, recommend to a friend they
(17:54):
store their digital value, right, there are very few. I mean,
FTX seem like a very trustable company. You know, the
guys on the cover of Forbes and they're doing Super
Bowl ads and they've they've got you know, they're associated
with people in Hollywood, people in Washington, and must be okay, right.
I think that's that's the reminder that we need to say,
(18:16):
you don't know unless you know. And what Ledger allows
is for you to know you can hold your value
in secure self custody and know that it's safe. You
know there, you know, there were no Ledger. No one
who held their value in their their Ledger was at risk.
It's not even that they just didn't lose and it
(18:37):
was like, ooh, we got lucky. They were not at
risk when everything happened with Celsi, it's with FTX, et cetera.
And that's the position I think you'd like to be
in as somebody who is holding digital value.
Adam Lang (18:49):
My final Beastie Boys reference is sure shot looking ahead.
What is the sure shot for Ledger? What's the vision
that you're working towards where Leja sits alongside Apple, Louis Vite,
Homebaates or any other household name. And what can our
audience learn from the way you're approaching that challenge.
Ian Rogers (19:07):
Well, I think you know, as I said earlier, with
seven billion smartphones on planet Earth and the vast majority
of them having some kind of a value management app
on them, Ledger is the premium way to manage your
value if you are serious about digital value. And again,
more and more people are serious about digital value every
single day, then you really need a ledger in your.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Life to protect that value.
Ian Rogers (19:30):
So, you know, our vision is simply to do a
very good job of that. You know there will be
a lot of services in the world of digital assets
and digital value. You will use your ledger to connect
to those services, and therefore you'll do it in a
way which protects you, protects your assets, so security protects
(19:51):
you as an individual, privacy, identity, et cetera. And you know,
gives you the broadest array of you know, of services.
So you know, think about it the way that again,
you you're on the internet, you have you know, your
your preferences are behind thousands of websites, and hopefully you
(20:12):
have good password hygiene. You use a tool like one password,
you know, to protect your online presence and your digital identity.
You know you'll in that in the same kind of
you know, analogous way in the world of digital value.
You know, you need a ledger to protect that digital value.
I think also though, this is the other side of
(20:33):
the AI coin, and what I mean by that is
if AI delivers digital abundance, blockchains deliver digital scarcity, and
we're We're living in a world where how do I
know that it's you that I'm speaking to on the
other side of this of this computer? What where's the
where's the proof the proof of And then if you
think about it, we need proof a lot in our lives.
(20:56):
We need you know, we need proof of age, we
need proof of citizenship in the future, we need proof
of humanity. Right, how do I know that the person
I'm speaking to on Reddit is not a bot? You know, like,
this is a real problem. It's not a futuristic problem,
it's a this is a today problem. And so you
know Ledger also, you know delivers you know this this
(21:17):
kind of proof, identity proof. Also, we're moving into a
world of agentic AI, where AI will be will be
acting on your behalf. You know, I think ten years
from now, the notion that you know, you go to
a website and put in a date range and choose
a city and then choose from a list of airplane
You know that that's not the way that the computer
(21:39):
interfaces will work. You'll talk to an agent, You'll tell
it what you would like, and the interface will actually
be between the agent and the service as opposed to
you know, you and your mouse and you know, sky scanner.
But in that world you also need to federate your identity.
Maybe it's your your you know, your airline rewards log in.
But also certainly I don't want to give my credit
(22:02):
card to that AI agent and have it just you know,
go go do what it wants to do. I need
it to come back to me and say I have
found you this ticket on this date, would you would
you like to give some money? And then I need
to be able to securely say yes, I authorize this transaction,
so you know, to answer your question. And looking you know,
further out on the horizon, you will need a ledger
(22:24):
to not only kind of protect your you know, your
private keys and your digital assets today, but in the
future your identity and also to act on your behalf
in a world of of agentic AI. So there's a
you know, there's a very long roadmap, and we absolutely
cannot go forward with all of the technology that we're
(22:44):
going forward, the the the digitization of all value, the
you know, the introduction of kind of super intelligence into
into the you know, into our lives without having the
protection of our secrets, our privacy and secrets includes value.
Adam Lang (23:03):
Ian it's been an absolute delight talking with you. Thank
you for joining us today on Fear and Greed one
on one.
Ian Rogers (23:09):
Thanks very much for having me. Thanks for the great questions.
It's fine too.
Adam Lang (23:12):
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. I've learned so much
in this interview today. I'm Adam Lang and this is
one on one by Fear and Greed.
Welcome to One on one by Fear and Greed. I'm
Adam Lang. My guest today is Ian Rodgers with part
two of his one on one interview. Ian is a
fascinating pioneer who has worked with some of the most
famous brands on Earth. In the first part of the interview,
we talked about his time with Beastieboys dot Com in
the nineties and how he helped launch Beats Music and
(00:26):
Apple Music. In the second part of the interview, we
delve into his time in digital transformation at Luxury Giant LVMH,
as well as his current role as Chief Experience Officer
and board member at Ledger, the world's largest maker of
cryptocurrency hardware wallets. I hope you enjoy this second part
of the interview with Ian Rogers. Ian, in the first
(00:52):
part of this interview, as you know, I took a
bit of poetic license and used Beastie Boys hits and
their titles to frame each question, and this one is
rooted down at LVMH. You're inside the world's most famous
luxury brands. You've talked about some of that. What does
luxury teach about building and protecting brand value that you
(01:12):
think every business leader could understand better?
Ian Rogers (01:17):
Yes, when I first got to LVMH, they told me
they take a one hundred year time horizon when they
think about their brands. And honestly, I laughed out loud
because I thought it was a joke. You know, I
come from a startup world where you know, six months
is the time horizon.
Adam Lang (01:34):
One hundred days!
Ian Rogers (01:35):
Yeah, exactly. And but they are serious because the brand
is the asset and you have to think long term.
There was another saying there, which is, you know that
the employees take an oath against short term revenue because
when you when you prioritise short term revenue, you are
(01:56):
by definition selling out the long term revenue. You know,
you're kind of hoping for the You're you're kind of
admitting that the long term revenue is your relevant because
you're not sure if you'll still alive that long. And
you know, But but for them, they they make They
made many decisions which are counterintuitive, whether it was like
the amount of money that they were investing in stores
(02:17):
at the time when people said that stores were were
a dead end, or simply you know, buying an operating Sephora.
You know, you can point to one hundred things that
that the street thought was counterintuitive for LVMH, but they
fit the thesis. And I think part of that thesis
is that you do not need to appeal to everyone.
(02:37):
And I think that's why LVMH is such a modern business,
because I think that, you know, attempting to appeal to
everyone in the era of the Internet is a losing battle.
And that's I think that you know, what we have
is you have to look at the underlying things about
how culture is moving and then don't try to swim
against that stream, swim with it. Uh, you know, so
(03:01):
we have what I The reason that I went to
LVMH is because fundamentally, I believe that the Internet is
moving us from mass market to massive niche, and it's
moving us from a world where marketing is hyper efficient
to a world where quality is hyper efficient. The reason
is because as consumers, we have unlimited choice, and we
(03:22):
can drift to the brand that's at the mall or
the brand that we find on Instagram, which is you know,
tailor you know, which is really targeted directly to us.
And so you know, to do that, you have to
be something that a consumer would recommend to another consumer,
and that's you know, and that's what you have with
with these luxury brands. They have built cultures that have
(03:46):
deep meaning, you know, heritage that's built over you know,
decades at least, and and then they have built communities
that will that that have meaning. And when I wear
a brand, I'm not only you know, clothing myself. I'm
actually communicating meaning and culture. And that's what you have
(04:07):
to do. And that takes a long time, you know,
by by definition, you know. And again, watching a brand
like Satisfy or Mischief build this is illustrative because it's
one thing to have built this ninety years ago, it's
another thing to build it in today's internet climate.
Adam Lang (04:26):
I heard you talk about LVMH and learning storytelling plus
time equals value and another statement you made culture comes
towards you over time. Both of those involve patients time.
As you suggested with Bernard Aneau, just suspending that impulse
and action for our audience who might be building their
own brands or their own assets, or even as it
(04:49):
applies to personal brands, can you talk a little bit
about that.
Ian Rogers (04:51):
The value of time, what I've come up with is
fifteen years. That's how long it takes for a brand
to but really become a brand. My initial notice of
this fifteen year thing was about technology. In the nineties.
I was playing around with getting content over the internet
(05:15):
in my living room and it was it didn't really work,
you know, it was sort of buffering, buffering, buffering, you know,
but you know it was it was sort of I
was like, Okay, this is this ultimately will work. This
is difficult today, but ultimately this will be the way.
Many years later, I was speaking to my mom on
the phone and she said, oh, by the way, you'll
(05:37):
find it interesting that I canceled my cable subscription and
I only have Roku now. And in my head I
sort of scrambled. I went, Okay, how long did that take? Like,
how long was it from when I was playing around
with getting content over the internet in my living room
to my mom canceling her cable subscription, you know, to
something that's really material for an average customer.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
And it was fifteen years.
Ian Rogers (05:58):
And that has become a pattern and that I've seen
over and over and then I started to notice it
on the on the brand side as well. That you know,
brands in their earlier days, they can have momentum, they
can have hype, they can have a moment, they can
have a fad, they can have a trend, but it's
only after they've been around for fifteen years that they
(06:19):
really start to have this kind of sustainable international growth.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
And you know, the one of the clearest.
Ian Rogers (06:26):
Examples for me in recent memory is Golden Goose Shoes,
which you know, kind of the founder of that company
was able to really build a brand and build a
cool brand, but it had to get the time had
to go on to where you know, an icon like
Virgil Ablow would kind of point to it and go, oh, yeah,
that was the cool shit when I was a kid,
(06:47):
you know, and and that that's what has to happen.
It's I also, I think it might be fifteen years
because it might actually be generational. Yeah, you know, with
the BacT Boys, what we realized was that, you know,
over time, the kids in the front row were always
the same age. You'd come back ten years later and
the kids in the front row are still sixteen. But
(07:08):
then what you realize is that you know, the ones
who are ten years older are you know, are fifty
feet behind them, And then you know, fifty feet behind
them are the ones that are my age. And that's
what it takes like it is, it does take time.
It takes you know, sort of generation to do this,
and I think I think it might be everywhere. I mean,
I was, I was saying last year, this is this
(07:29):
is Bitcoin's year, and people would say why, and I'd say,
because it's fifteen years old. Fifteen is it is some
sort of it's it's if you've managed to stick around
for fifteen years, then you obviously have some kind of
staying power. But also you've not only saturated one generation,
but you're probably you know, gaining momentum on the generation
behind them, and that builds something sustainable.
Adam Lang (07:53):
Let's go to shake your rump in FT's a non
fungible token basically a digital certificate of ownership recorded on
the blockchain, and it can prove you own a unique
asset like art or music. How has you being a
collector shaped your view of why digital ownership matters?
Ian Rogers (08:12):
Again, this is a you know, when you're living in
the future, you can feel the future.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Well, what's what's.
Ian Rogers (08:17):
Interesting to me is that you you do start to
feel like when you explore any new art form, you
you find the edges of it, you start to figure
out what's real what's not you know, what what touches you?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
What? What doesn't?
Ian Rogers (08:36):
I think, just like I said earlier, or you said,
you know, storytelling plus time equals value, I was quoting you, Yeah,
and so you know, you it's always the story behind it,
what's the context?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Who?
Ian Rogers (08:50):
You know, we talk about digital art, but really digital
art wouldn't be interesting if it wasn't for the artists
who happened to use digital as a medium. So what
we're really talking about is, is you know, the human
behind it? What was their motivation? What have they done?
What's the story is it? Is it a feat of
kind of technical creativity? Is it a is it a
(09:11):
conceptual piece like you know, is it simply photography? You know,
I'm interested in all of the above, but for you know,
for for different reasons. But what you realize is that
digital as a format is actually very accessible. You know,
if I have a photograph on on my wall, it's
you know, the relatively difficult for me to kind of distribute,
(09:32):
you know, and share that, Whereas you know, if I
have that in digital format, then you know, it's quite
easy for me to share it and to tell that story,
you know, to others and share that story with others.
So I think what I find interesting is is is
exploring you know, what it is and what it isn't.
But what I found is that personally I value digital
(09:56):
art more than physical art, and if I buy a
piece of physical art, I actually would like it to
come with something digital. I would I would like to
have to have both.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
You know.
Ian Rogers (10:07):
We bought a very nice photograph recently, and I've had
this feeling of feeling sort of disappointed that.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I didn't also have a digital.
Ian Rogers (10:16):
Version of it, you know, because it now can't live
next to the rest of my collection. It can only
live in the wall of my house, which feels quite
limiting in a way. And again that's just part of
like living in the future and sort of you know,
feeling the feels that come you know, from you know,
from living in the future.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
I think part of it, though, is just you.
Ian Rogers (10:36):
Know, being a part of an emerging culture where the
rules are not yet defined, and of course there's a
lot of nonsense, a lot of you know, a lot
of hype, a lot of places where you feel, you
know strongly about a piece of art, and there's you know,
absolutely no one else who appreciates it, which is very
much like being in the world of music, where you know,
(10:58):
you may love an artist or a song and you
can't understand why the rest of the world doesn't hear it.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
The way that you do.
Ian Rogers (11:04):
But to me, that's the fun part. It's where I
like to be.
Adam Lang (11:08):
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 go to check your head. You
are applying your skills at Ledger. Ledger is not a cryptocurrency.
(11:29):
It's the world's largest maker of cryptocurrency hardware wallets. So
for those of us who are still learning about this technology,
how do you take a product that people might think
of as technical or niche and grow it into a
brand that people understand and turn them into fans.
Ian Rogers (11:47):
So Leiger makes the most secure way to hold and
work with and utilize your digital assets on the planet.
So you know, we have seven billion smartphones on planet Earth,
and the vast majority of them have some kind of
a value management app on them. Your banking app, PayPal, Venmo, Robinhood, Revolute,
(12:10):
et cetera.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Right, so we all have some.
Ian Rogers (12:12):
Way that we're managing digital value and as I mentioned earlier,
we're living through this once in humanity digitization of all value.
So the same way that we all have a password problem,
you know, if you have a digital life, you have
a password problem, you also have a digital value problem.
And really Ledger is the only way to solve that problem,
(12:33):
and to solve it elegantly. It's the it's it's about.
It's about security, it's about privacy. It's about not having
that counterparty risk that could lead you into you know,
crises like FTX and Celsius and the rest of these.
So there are thefts and scams and all kinds of
things in this you know, digital asset world, and Ledger
(12:56):
is your protection against that.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
It is the way that you should, if you're doing it.
Ian Rogers (13:01):
Correctly, hold your digital value. So you know, you have
this thing which is which you know, what I love
what I love about Ledger is you know, it actually
is a better mouse trap. It actually is better than
simply having an application on your phone or simply having
an exchange. It's built on something that's fundamental. So to
(13:21):
answer your question for me, you have to start with
something like that to be able to build, to build
a brand, right, you know, because you now you have
something real that you're that you're building on top of.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
And you know, so.
Ian Rogers (13:34):
What we're doing every day is is you know really
like you know, education is is highly leveraged for us
because people who are educated become Ledger customers. But then
it can't be just about like let me teach you
what's right. You know, it has to be easy to use.
It has to it has to do all of the
things that you needed to do, and then you have
(13:54):
to communicate about it through use cases that are meaningful
to people. Know, how can I how does this integrate
into my life? How does this improve you know, my
life and what I do? And also it needs to
be you know, it needs to be fun. You know,
like like Jimmy Iveen thought about, you know about headphones.
They shouldn't look and feel like medical equipment. You know,
(14:17):
it should be exciting and something that you are proud
you know, to wear on your head or in our case,
you know, carry in your pocket and you know, and
and pull out and show a friend and and and
be proud of being a part of UH. And so
to me, you know, the building a brand also goes
into building the product, bringing that product to life, creating
all the functionality and the use cases in the product,
(14:39):
and then ultimately the way that you you present that
product to market. We're now the the Jersey partner of
the San Antonio Spurs and that's a great opportunity to
build brand awareness but also educate and you know, and
bring people into this new world of finance and to
and to bring them the benefits of this new world
of finance and and bring them along on that journey
(15:01):
with you.
Adam Lang (15:02):
Let's talk about sabotage. You mentioned ft X, and the
collapse was a painful work up call for many Thirty
thousand people are still waiting on liquidators, with some losing
a large amount. Can you explain the difference between leaving
your cryptocurrency on an exchange and holding it holding it
yourself in a Ledger wallet?
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yew.
Ian Rogers (15:22):
The you know, the the innovation of cryptocurrency is permissionless money,
you know, fundamentally, you know, I always like to come
back to the fundamentals. And in the case of the Internet,
you know, you have you have a very simple idea,
which is one computer can talk to another one. And
you know, the amount of innovation that that's brought to
(15:42):
humanity is tremendous, right, But it really is that simple.
You have a network of commuter computers that can talk
to one another, you know, and as a result, it's
it's actually you know, changed our our lifestyles. So, you know,
with in the case of you know, blockchain and cryptocurrency,
so you also have a very simple idea, and that
(16:03):
is that you can have scarce digital value and it's
easy to it's easy to transact digitally. But that opens up,
you know, a whole bunch of use cases. But those
those use cases they only exist because it is permissionless money.
Otherwise it's the same thing that we we had, you know,
thirty years ago with Visa and MasterCard. It's you know,
(16:25):
it's what blockchain isn't is a centralized company with a
centralized database that tells you how much money you have
and what transactions have happened. What it is is permissionless
money with a distributed ledger where we can issue tokens
and transact in this permissionless environment. Now what that means though, is,
(16:47):
you know, if you have the ability for self custody,
then security is paramount because that means that that digital
value could be lost and it could be lost easily.
It's actually very difficult to say, steal a billion dollars
in gold bars. It takes a lot of trucks, right,
It's very very easy to steal a billion dollars in
(17:08):
digital assets. And so whether it is on the custodian
side you know, the bank or the exchange, or it
is on you as an individual, security is paramount and
extremely important. And that's what Ledger does for both customers
and exchanges. We create that that security. So whether you
(17:32):
are entrusting it with a player like FTX, or you
are entrusting it yourself, that security is super important. But
the what's incredible to me is that we have, you know,
four trillion in digital value with ten trillion easily in sight.
And there are not five places on the planet that
I would recommend you store, recommend to a friend they
(17:54):
store their digital value, right, there are very few. I mean,
FTX seem like a very trustable company. You know, the
guys on the cover of Forbes and they're doing Super
Bowl ads and they've they've got you know, they're associated
with people in Hollywood, people in Washington, and must be okay, right.
I think that's that's the reminder that we need to say,
(18:16):
you don't know unless you know. And what Ledger allows
is for you to know you can hold your value
in secure self custody and know that it's safe. You
know there, you know, there were no Ledger. No one
who held their value in their their Ledger was at risk.
It's not even that they just didn't lose and it
(18:37):
was like, ooh, we got lucky. They were not at
risk when everything happened with Celsi, it's with FTX, et cetera.
And that's the position I think you'd like to be
in as somebody who is holding digital value.
Adam Lang (18:49):
My final Beastie Boys reference is sure shot looking ahead.
What is the sure shot for Ledger? What's the vision
that you're working towards where Leja sits alongside Apple, Louis Vite,
Homebaates or any other household name. And what can our
audience learn from the way you're approaching that challenge.
Ian Rogers (19:07):
Well, I think you know, as I said earlier, with
seven billion smartphones on planet Earth and the vast majority
of them having some kind of a value management app
on them, Ledger is the premium way to manage your
value if you are serious about digital value. And again,
more and more people are serious about digital value every
single day, then you really need a ledger in your.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Life to protect that value.
Ian Rogers (19:30):
So, you know, our vision is simply to do a
very good job of that. You know there will be
a lot of services in the world of digital assets
and digital value. You will use your ledger to connect
to those services, and therefore you'll do it in a
way which protects you, protects your assets, so security protects
(19:51):
you as an individual, privacy, identity, et cetera. And you know,
gives you the broadest array of you know, of services.
So you know, think about it the way that again,
you you're on the internet, you have you know, your
your preferences are behind thousands of websites, and hopefully you
(20:12):
have good password hygiene. You use a tool like one password,
you know, to protect your online presence and your digital identity.
You know you'll in that in the same kind of
you know, analogous way in the world of digital value.
You know, you need a ledger to protect that digital value.
I think also though, this is the other side of
(20:33):
the AI coin, and what I mean by that is
if AI delivers digital abundance, blockchains deliver digital scarcity, and
we're We're living in a world where how do I
know that it's you that I'm speaking to on the
other side of this of this computer? What where's the
where's the proof the proof of And then if you
think about it, we need proof a lot in our lives.
(20:56):
We need you know, we need proof of age, we
need proof of citizenship in the future, we need proof
of humanity. Right, how do I know that the person
I'm speaking to on Reddit is not a bot? You know, like,
this is a real problem. It's not a futuristic problem,
it's a this is a today problem. And so you
know Ledger also, you know delivers you know this this
(21:17):
kind of proof, identity proof. Also, we're moving into a
world of agentic AI, where AI will be will be
acting on your behalf. You know, I think ten years
from now, the notion that you know, you go to
a website and put in a date range and choose
a city and then choose from a list of airplane
You know that that's not the way that the computer
(21:39):
interfaces will work. You'll talk to an agent, You'll tell
it what you would like, and the interface will actually
be between the agent and the service as opposed to
you know, you and your mouse and you know, sky scanner.
But in that world you also need to federate your identity.
Maybe it's your your you know, your airline rewards log in.
But also certainly I don't want to give my credit
(22:02):
card to that AI agent and have it just you know,
go go do what it wants to do. I need
it to come back to me and say I have
found you this ticket on this date, would you would
you like to give some money? And then I need
to be able to securely say yes, I authorize this transaction,
so you know, to answer your question. And looking you know,
further out on the horizon, you will need a ledger
(22:24):
to not only kind of protect your you know, your
private keys and your digital assets today, but in the
future your identity and also to act on your behalf
in a world of of agentic AI. So there's a
you know, there's a very long roadmap, and we absolutely
cannot go forward with all of the technology that we're
(22:44):
going forward, the the the digitization of all value, the
you know, the introduction of kind of super intelligence into
into the you know, into our lives without having the
protection of our secrets, our privacy and secrets includes value.
Adam Lang (23:03):
Ian it's been an absolute delight talking with you. Thank
you for joining us today on Fear and Greed one
on one.
Ian Rogers (23:09):
Thanks very much for having me. Thanks for the great questions.
It's fine too.
Adam Lang (23:12):
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. I've learned so much
in this interview today. I'm Adam Lang and this is
one on one by Fear and Greed.
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