I just recorded a podcast with Ian Rogers, Chief Experience Officer of Ledger. He was involved in launching Apple Music, served as Chief Digital Officer of LVMH, and is pushing new trends into the mainstream. At Ledger, he understands the future of combining security, identity, and self-custody through devices like the Ledger Stax. His perspective on technology and the future is fascinating. I hope you enjoy this episode of the Unchain Culture Podcast.
I'm happy to answer all questions, especially hard ones. You asked about Apple Music or Spotify—I still use Apple Music. I'm biased because I helped create it with Beats Music. Trent Reznor was creative director, and we wanted to make an app for music lovers. iTunes was lacking context, like a spreadsheet playing music, so we built Beats Music to include rich information. When we sold Beats to Apple, Spotify bought the recommendation system team, which improved their recommendations like Discover Weekly. So, some Beats Music lineage is in Spotify.
I don't know if I'm good at spotting trends. As a skateboarder, I'm used to people making fun of my style, only to adopt it later. Perhaps it's about being fearless and following your own obsessions without caring what others think. I've never felt connected to mainstream culture in music, fashion, or politics. I'm drawn to subcultures, so I might not be a trend spotter, but I've always been outside the mainstream.
I've always been a technologist. My ancestor came on the Mayflower, so I have frontier spirit, wanting to be in new things. In 1993, I built digital music products; in 1997, I saw the internet's potential. A consumer internet of six billion people isn't interesting anymore; the fun part is over. Digital music was solved once it was on every iPhone. LVMH allowed me to apply music lessons to culture, seeing how the internet moves from mass to niche markets and makes quality hyper-efficient. Ledger came personal through friends Pascal Gauthier and Tony Fadell. After the ICO boom, I realized Ledger would be gigantic for digital ownership and security, similar to Cisco for the internet.
I've been aware of Bitcoin since 2009-2010. I bought the O'Reilly book around 2014. I bought crypto in 2015 and sold my cost basis in 2017 because it felt like dot-com madness. That gave me an objective view. Digital ownership in our digital lives is inevitable. Bitcoin is a tremendous narrative, probably the greatest brand of my lifetime. Ledger is to digital ownership what Cisco was to the internet—we'll have more digital ownership tomorrow. I don't argue about it; just wait and see.
If you're using a centralized exchange, what's the point? You're gambling, not being a revolutionary. Crypto is about permissionless money. If you use something like PayPal, it's not different. Use Bitcoin to protect the network. There are only two sane choices: a trusted custodian or secure self-custody. Insecure self-custody isn't an option. So, for storing crypto, you have fewer than five choices, including Ledger.
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