Welcome to Ledger's new headquarters on Canal Saint-Martin. Welcome all of you. As you can see, we ordered the weather, and we ordered Bitcoin to go up. The market is reacting very positively to this news — Bitcoin is sort of skyrocketing. That's what we want. This is a good omen actually — good weather, Bitcoin price going up. Couldn't be a better day.
Thank you to all of you for coming. You come from many parts of the world. Who has actually traveled, taken a plane or something to come here? Okay, so most of you. Thank you for that. Who's coming from Asia? Yes, over there. Thank you. Many parts of Asia. Thank you for being here. Who is coming from the UAE? Over there, I can see. Okay, thank you. Who is coming from North America? Thank you guys. Okay, I'll stop there — you come from everywhere else in the world, some of you Europe, etc. Caribbean, nice.
I'm very glad to welcome you all here because this is also your place. When we thought about designing this office, we thought not just about us, not just about the team. We thought also about our customers, our partners. We thought about everyone and we tried to design something that looks like a hub. Something that represents Ledger, something where when you walk into the office, I hope you understand the essence of what Ledger is, of who we are as people working at Ledger. And so, we also designed this for you, for you to feel comfortable, and for you to feel at home. And I hope that you get that feeling throughout the day, at the party tonight, and whenever you decide to come back to Ledger headquarters, because this is also your home, so you're welcome anytime.
The journey of Ledger has been 10 years, so this is also the 10-year anniversary. And I find it fascinating — building a business and the real estate into which you build a business. This is usually very tricky, because we are VC-backed businesses, and VCs and our investors hate real estate. They hate it. It's the one conversation that is always very negative at the board. You cannot do right with real estate, unless you decide to work from a cave for the rest of your life — your VCs will never agree with your real estate decisions. But, this is why there are VCs and entrepreneurs.
As an entrepreneur, I feel that this is a must-have when you build a company. Of course, you start from a basement. Actually, Ledger 10 years ago was in a basement of La Maison du Bitcoin, not too far from here. We had 15 people working from a basement. It was awful. I was an investor then. I was a board member, and we had the board meeting in the basement, and the board meetings were nice, but the basement was really awful.
And this is a story of a company. Then you go from 15 to 50 people to 200 people to 500 people to 900 people. And real estate is always a question — where do you go? And so, you try to spend as little money as possible because you want to be efficient. You don't want real estate to be something important in your P&L. And this is what VCs tell you.
And then, COVID happens. 2020, 2021, and we were never going to go back to the office. We would all work from home forever and ever. So, it's actually in 2021 that we took the decision of taking this building. I think we signed the lease in '21. It was the biggest transaction in Paris that year. And can you imagine — the year of COVID, the year when people thought that in despair, they would never go back to the office. Or some people hoped they would never go back to the office.
But we decided to be contrarians. You know, if you're in Bitcoin, you're somehow libertarian, contrarian. Like you don't want to do the same thing as everybody else. And so, when everybody was saying we'll always work from home, I thought, "No, I call on that. I don't think that's the case." For several reasons. One, a company always employs younger people. And I thought for younger people, it's horrible to work from home. You come to Paris, you have no friends. You don't have a girlfriend, you don't have a boyfriend. You have a super small apartment. Working from home is not very cozy. You're not rich yet. You're not old with kids, so you don't have this nice house in the suburb of Paris with a garden.
And part of being in a company is coming to work and meeting with your colleagues and making friends. And it's not just working behind a computer and filling in those spreadsheets. I mean, the work has to be done, but there is something of a human connection when you try to build a company. And there is something in being together building a company. And for us it's especially true because we are a hardware company first. And hardware — you can't do it from a distance. You have to see the product, feel the product. You have to go to Asia to see your supply chain and your great partners. You have to do all of these things and it is profoundly human.
And for me the decision was taken, but as soon as we could travel again, I knew this was the right decision — and that's why you're here today. You could have stayed home and tried to watch this online, but it wouldn't be the same. Human connection is a very important business. And the fact that you're here shows your appreciation to us and our appreciation to you. And this is how you build true connections and this is how you build true business.
But this is not just an office. This is not just a place to welcome people. It is a very powerful marketing tool. At least that's what I told my board so they don't fire me. And it worked — since I'm here.
I got inspired by a story in France, the Château de Chambord. Who knows what the Château de Chambord is? Okay, well, so you know that. So, for those who don't — the Disney castle is actually pretty much Chambord. And it was François I who designed it. And the reason why he designed it was not functional at all because the Château was never in use. It was only a marketing tool. If you were invited to the Château de Chambord, you had to be invited first. You couldn't access the Château because it was surrounded by a wall. And so you had to be invited. You could see the Château Chambord, and when you would see it, as soon as you go back to the real life, you would tell everybody how amazing it was, and what a crazy château it was, and how François I was a true king, etc. So, it was really a propaganda tool, a true marketing. And it's funny because that was ages ago, and we feel that these guys had no clue that we invented marketing and everything. The story of humanity is always the same — Chambord was in existence and was used as a marketing tool and a propaganda tool long before.
And so, it was a true inspiration of designing this because this is not just a functional building. This is also a beacon of light for crypto. This is a message that we're trying to send to the world. This is a message that Ledger is trying to send to the world — Ledger and our partners, this is what we're trying to send to the world, like, we exist. We are hardware. It's physical. You can visit us. You can feel what Ledger is. And this is going to be one of our best marketing tools, not just for us, but also for you. This is why you're always welcome here. We have a podcast studio. We have many facilities. You can have drinks here. You can bring your partners as well. This building is made to bring people here and for people to witness the greatness of what we're building together. And only a building can achieve this.
It's very difficult to present a company. You present it on PowerPoint — how many of you guys have seen a company presented on PowerPoint? They all look the same. It's all the same slide. They've got the advisors, the VCs, this and that. But it's very hard to distinguish reality from fake. And you know the adage — fake it until you make it. Well, this is making it. You can't fake a building like this. You can't fake the work that you put into this. You can't fake all of this.
This is the most beautiful headquarters in crypto, period. There's no one else in the world that has something equivalent to what we have here. And so we're very proud of that. I don't know if Reda is in the room. Okay, well there is an architect who did all of this, a guy called Reda, and I gave him the brief. Honestly, the brief was like 20 minutes. He's like, "Okay, this is crazy." I'm like, "Good." He's like, "I want the job." I'm like, "You got it." And honestly, he did this without me looking too much at it. Of course, I did look at it frequently budget-wise. But in terms of driving all of this, he did this on his own with his team.
And this is also what we're trying to do at Ledger. Whatever you do at Ledger, whatever your job is, we are trying to do what's very difficult, what's impossible. We're trying to go beyond. So, I don't care if your job is not an engineer. Whatever you do, you have to push the boundaries of what's possible. And typically, that's what Reda did here with his team and I'm very proud of this achievement. Not because I wanted it, but because I'm proud that Reda and his team could achieve something of that magnitude.
And I'm not saying it. Usually, people that visit the office, this building, are saying it. I get a lot of random emails and texts from people that I don't know that visit the building, but they feel the necessity to tell me, "Oh my god, like you guys got something special." And so this is where you feel the marketing trick. This is where the propaganda begins — when people visit the office, they're closed. They are part of Ledger, they're part of us. They understand what we are about and they want to be part of that journey.
So, I'm really glad that you guys are with us for the whole day. Who's staying for the party tonight? Okay. Drink responsibly, okay? Especially some of you over there, okay? I'm not pointing the finger at anyone in particular. And that's it for today. That's all I had to say. I really wanted to welcome you warmly. This is your home. Please come back again. You have a full day. I'm going to give the mic to our MC, Ariel, who will tell you what this day is all about. We have a few panels coming, festivities tonight. Welcome. And thank you for being here.
