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CreativityTranscript
00:03all right so we are gathered here today because we've just announced the launch of ledger stacks
00:10which is the next step in ledger's hardware journey um i think it's really important to
00:15actually discuss this crypto experience that ledger stacks brings in the evolution that
00:20it comes with from ledger um but i i want to do that by starting actually with you you know
00:25we happen to be two midwesterners in paris further away than most i would say or thought we would be
00:32um but you've had this career where i'd argue technology is always fueling the evolution of
00:37how culture shows up in daily life from beastie boys to win app to beats music to apple to lvmh
00:43technology becomes this distribution for culture you know the medium changes but not the need for
00:49technology to change how we use it as we become a more global world with the internet and so i'd
00:54love
00:54to kind of hear a bit more about you uh and how you sort of came to be with us
01:00today well i mean i
01:02think i'm just got lucky uh you know i was a kid who loved music and you know i guess
01:08i guess loved
01:08culture because you know along with music comes all kinds of other things from like you know horror
01:15comics to you know horror movies i guess and skateboarding and you know i i think you know
01:23one thing that's important in my story is that i was always a lover of niche culture so i grew
01:27up in
01:28a small town in indiana where we didn't even have a record store um yet i love these things that
01:33were
01:34impossible to get even when you drove an hour to the record store so what i had to do was
01:38to you know
01:39go near notre dame the university and buy a copy of maximum rock and roll and then take it home
01:45and
01:45mail order to get what i wanted so you know that was in the 80s so in 1990 91 when
01:52i got to university
01:53and i got online this is pre-web but you know there were internet communities then that are
01:59really in so many ways no different from from reddit or discord today um but that was where i met
02:05people who liked the same music as me for the first time so the internet to me was was really
02:10just this
02:11this place to kind of get what i wanted um which i wasn't finding around me um and then i
02:17think you
02:17know that that led me to a whole bunch of opportunities i mean i studied computer science
02:21in the early 90s and it was really very difficult to stay in grad school in in the mid 90s
02:27because
02:27there were so many jobs that you could get you know outside of outside of the university um you know
02:33but i i was lucky and just sort of fell into this slipstream of digital music um from the from
02:39the
02:39very beginning um when it was science fiction all the way through to the iphone um now what i
02:47became inadvertently with that was a student of how the internet is is changing culture um and and i
02:55suppose more broadly maybe how technology changes culture because you're always looking for patterns
03:00and you're you're looking for you know the pattern you know first it's like is this similar to the
03:04pattern i saw last year and then you know now you know that i'm older it's okay how is how
03:10is what
03:11we're seeing in crypto similar to what we saw um in the evolution of the internet but but then you
03:16know it it encourages you to read more and especially being part of the music business you know i was
03:21always struck by the fact that you know we pretended like the music business had been around forever
03:26but really it had only been around for a few decades um so we always kind of wanted to go
03:31back to when things were better but but then you gain some perspective and realize
03:36well wait a minute you know none of none of these things are divine these are all just industries
03:40that were you know created by people who came not too long before us and you know maybe change is
03:47actually the constant um you know so i i think that you know that's how that's how i ended up
03:52here
03:52was you know loving culture loving music loving skateboarding um and studying computer science
03:59and then just being lucky enough to put those put those two things together um you know the way i
04:05look at it you know we're all crazy in our own way and and i've been really lucky in that
04:09the way that
04:10i'm crazy is is valuable to someone you know i i love culture i love technology um and you know
04:17i've managed to to sort of put those put those things together and into a career which i mean i
04:23never
04:23even had any aspirations of having a career to be honest um you know but uh but i but i
04:30thankfully
04:31i have passions and you know those passions have have intersected with something that you know has
04:36become at least somewhat professional i mean we've we've kind of joked before about you know like you
04:41don't believe in religion but you do believe in music and maybe you just actually are a product of
04:46scarcity right like within music there are genres and people could call some genres niche or small but
04:52that actually could still be millions of people that are excited by a topic or by by an item and
04:58so
04:58it's almost as if your career has brought you to respect and understand that the amalgamation of things
05:04that are deemed small is actually larger than the sum of parts that most people recognize and so
05:09therefore you're sort of primed to understand and adopt what could a digital asset be right like
05:15how could you take music and go from the way you think about the collection of music to the introduction
05:20of digital assets i think there's definitely something something to that i think i've been
05:25super lucky in that you know if i was somebody who um you know loved mass culture i think the
05:32internet
05:32would have been like you know totally scary right and i knew a lot of those people you know as
05:38as the
05:38music business was going from a 30 billion dollar industry to a 15 billion dollar industry they just
05:42wanted it to go back to the days of you know the backstreet boys and britney spears and and that
05:47was never
05:48my goal you know my goal was was not um you know my my goal was was actually to you
05:54know have people
05:55who love things that are niche um have a more perfect marketplace in a way and i and i i
06:00think
06:01there is something really interesting in in what you're saying about scarcity being some sort of
06:06inadvertent theme because you know i i've always said that you know i remember when i saw steve caballero
06:13who's a skateboarder wear a misfits t-shirt i think it took me two years after that to find
06:18an actual misfits album you know and and not for lack of looking you know so but i think it's
06:23hard
06:23to imagine those days right when when the entire world isn't at your fingertips when you didn't like
06:29just ask a question and immediately pick up your phone and type it into google or youtube or whatever
06:34and find the answer right you know you actually had to go record store to record store asking people
06:39you know for these sorts of things now come all the way full circle on discogs.com oh and by
06:46the way
06:46you know the misfits were a very unpopular band that's why they were so hard to find they were not
06:51uh you know a mass a mass market product by any by any means in the 80s um which is
06:58also but you know
06:59now i was in las vegas a few weeks ago and i saw the misfits skull on the sunset strip
07:04because i think
07:04they were playing a halloween show at at a at some casino and um a couple years ago on discogs
07:13the
07:13most expensive album sold that year was a misfit seven inch that it sold for more than ten thousand
07:17dollars right so that that notion of you know again the way that i frame you know what what i've
07:25lived
07:25through is the internet is this revolution of information you know where information went from
07:29being locked behind gatekeepers whether that was fm radio or cable television or newspapers or
07:36magazine companies there were there were media gatekeepers and unless you owned some spectrum
07:40you didn't get access to talk to people right you know to that being completely unlocked like that's
07:46what the internet did fundamentally anyone can go register a domain and go i can be as big as yahoo
07:53right that would that that's what the what the internet you know was all about now i think that we're
07:59into a separate revolution and that's a revolution of value and i think you're right there's something
08:04about that combination of you know growing up wanting you know scarce information for scarce goods
08:10that like sort of puts you in a position to understand um you know first a revolution of information
08:19which ultimately leads to 6.5 billion smartphones on the planet right so you have 6.5 billion people
08:26who have you know powerful computers with high-speed internet connections in their pockets and that
08:31creates like this you know this network of connectivity where information can travel but also
08:38value can travel right and and i think that's that's where we've landed you know we're now and i i
08:45you
08:45know a couple years ago you know certainly during the pandemic but but even a bit before i started to
08:49realize that we were spending a lot of our time and attention in these borderless online worlds
08:55yet we are you know voting for our governments in these you know sort of fundamentally geographic
09:03um you know political regimes right so the idea of democracy is you draw a line around some people on
09:09the earth and then you get the people you know inside of that circle uh or whatever shape it is
09:15to
09:15elect somebody who represents their ideals and you know i started to realize that you know a that was
09:21increasingly difficult um you know go back to elkhart county indiana which is you know as richer rich
09:29and poorer poor and and more diversity ethnically than it did when i was growing up um but also you
09:35we live we spend our time and attention in these parallel universes in this in this borderless world
09:41the one you and i are in right now the one we're talking in right now we're not in the
09:44same
09:45physical location yet we are collaborating um and you know of course those worlds are going to have
09:51their own economies right so we'll have not only the ability to you know to interact in the way that
09:57we're doing right now um you know over tcpip but we're also going to have the ability to transfer value
10:03uh over this and and that that will be outside of um you know kind of the government system it'll
10:11be
10:11it'll be a digital a digital system i think you're hitting on a really important point there
10:16because the revolution of information came about and before that everything that you learned that
10:21you knew is true that you discovered was completely told to you right experimentation and exploration was
10:27a small fracture of what you could actually expect from life and then when you actually got the
10:32internet we had to adapt to it and therefore hardware had to adapt to it which meant that the utility
10:38adapted around it as well and suddenly individuals had the ability to have a different form of
10:43information than someone sitting next to you right you could look at your feed and see a completely
10:47different world around you than i could in mine and so we have this fracture which you've talked a lot
10:52about insert and sort of how we see ourselves as tribes and i think it's important to explain that a
10:57little bit because it's also important to explain well like what could value mean like to your point
11:02in a borderless world it could mean that you know we are interested in a dow or an nft project
11:08that
11:09gives us value over something that we find interesting but it could also mean in the future that the way
11:14that we tie the value of our identity and our history is also separate from that physical place because
11:21now we've revolutionized information and so therefore in this next phase like how should how should
11:26someone listening actually contextualize that today i see an evolution that starts with bitcoin
11:34and and digital money and evolves to digital collectibles and then i would say digital utilities
11:41such as tickets and memberships and then i would say digital products like that digital replacement for
11:46the wristwatch and then ultimately we have digital passports right i mean ultimately your government
11:52document document is a um it's a it's a digital document and the way that you move borders is you
11:59prove that you are the owner of the wallet that contains that document and and not only that um but
12:06you know you you can kind of federate um the access to the information that's within that document
12:11right if you are you know 22 years old and you go to a bar in los angeles they take
12:17your driver's license
12:18from you and they run it through a little machine um you know which which pulls way too much
12:24information about you personally more information than it needs to the only thing you need to do is
12:29prove that you are of age to get into that club they don't need your personal information and that's the
12:35kind of thing you'll be able to do with digital identity in the future um and i think these things
12:39are
12:39are inevitable um but if we live in a world where digital assets are an important
12:47part of our life then we must have digital security right because if if if my if if my wealth
12:55if my
12:56individuality if my belongings and ultimately my identity are represented by scarce digital goods right
13:04if the future of identity is ownership then i must have security around that ownership and i can't
13:11have hacks at scale by the way the the present of identity is ownership you know i during during
13:17covid i could go to the u.s and i could come back to paris unlike many many many people
13:21because i owned
13:23two pieces of identification i had a u.s passport and i had a friend a french work permit right
13:29and
13:30those two the ownership of those two documents allowed me to move those borders now you know the
13:35technology behind those two documents was not great on a relative basis um then in the future will be
13:42better and i think you just very clearly described the different types of value that we should be
13:48looking at as we think about this mind shift right because it's not actually behavior shift the behavior
13:53shift is already there it's the technology catching up and so before we kind of go into this next piece
13:59i think you bring back the really important aspect of why hardware matters in this and why hardware
14:05matters around the security of these types of value so as we start to go into ledger stacks and what
14:11this
14:11brings to this revolution of value can you describe stacks a little bit for those who are listening
14:16and don't know about it yet sure and actually let me let me just um pause on like why hardware
14:21matters
14:22you know in in technology there's no such thing as software without hardware right so you know i think
14:28in oftentimes in in um in crypto we we talk about like hardware wallets versus software wallets
14:33but the fact is is software wallets run on hardware so we should really like just focus on the hardware
14:38the software wallets run on and and the reality is is that if you don't have a secure element
14:44and you don't have a secure display then you don't have security period so it's not about software
14:50wallet versus hardware wallet it's about the it's about the you know i mean look your phone is running
14:55an operating system and your ledger is running an operating system you know the question is you know
14:59do you have security within all of these elements within you know the the within the chip within you
15:05know the path from the chip to the to the inputs and outputs and then inside of the operating system
15:10um that this is running on do you have security um that's really the the question to be asked
15:16um so you know for for ledger the the focus has always been security and self-custody and and security
15:24has always been by design right the assumption is is that um everything that can be hacked will be
15:30hacked um and that that you know reward um dictates how much someone is willing to spend on an attack
15:36right so if you have a centralized resource that's that's hosting you know billions in assets then you
15:43can afford to spend a lot to exploit that resource right so you're always looking for by design and and
15:50you're looking so you're looking for um you know ways that that um you know that you can first of
15:55all
15:55decentralize so that if if one node in the network is attacked it doesn't you know attack everyone uh
16:01in the network and also you're you're looking for that resiliency um to be you know to be part to
16:08be
16:08anticipated you know up front right assume that the attack is coming you know you can't put a door
16:13behind a door behind a door behind a door behind a door behind a door behind a door and just
16:16say that's
16:16secure because it's going to be very hard to get through because if there's enough if the prize behind
16:21all of those doors is big enough someone will get through all the doors so you have to ask you
16:26know
16:26what are the other ways that you can mitigate an attack and in the case of crypto it's actually
16:31beautiful because your value is secured by the network right and and that's that is the beauty of
16:39the blockchain so you know you go okay well great i don't have to protect my value i do have
16:45to protect
16:46um you know my key which shows i am the owner of that value okay well we've already massively simplified
16:54the you know the challenge right because i don't have to protect all the gold bars i just have to
17:00protect the proof that that those gold bars are mine i can assume the gold bars are safe but i
17:04have
17:04to i have to protect the proof that i am the owner of of many of those gold bars so
17:09you know the design
17:10of ledger has always been in this way right how can you um do two main and and incredibly crucial
17:17things um one protect your private keys from from being exposed or or stolen and two how do i know
17:29that when i'm signing a transaction i know what it is i'm signing knowing that to do that you must
17:35have
17:35a secure display a secure display that your computer and your phone don't have so again this isn't about
17:41hardware versus software because your computer and your phone are hardware right this is about you
17:46know about doing crucial things um you know with a secure display and about keeping crucial assets
17:55namely your private keys offline so this is what ledger's been doing for seven years and it started
18:01with the with the nano s um nano x which added bluetooth um now nano s plus which is you
18:10know
18:10basically uh the x minus the bluetooth so we we um basically took the same architecture as the x
18:17the same chip as the x with one added benefit um that it's that it's got a developer uh a
18:24better
18:24more developer friendly features the same screen as the x so the s plus is really this you know fantastic
18:29device which for 80 gives you the world's best security but i would say that the x and the s
18:35have
18:36one big shortfall and and that is you know the screen is small and and there's another which is
18:42you know not fatal but maybe unfortunate i would say and that is that they have the the form factor
18:48of a
18:49usb stick which is quite convenient i am known for wearing mine around my neck and it you know works
18:55it works very well but the problem is is that there's this mental hurdle that people have to get
19:00get over with crypto which is and what they think is oh usb stick i know what that is you
19:06put stuff in
19:07it so that must be the place where i put my digital value then it sort of becomes this blocker
19:12for people
19:12understanding how crypto works because they think oh my crypto lives in that device and then they think
19:18oh my god if i lose that device i'm screwed and now they've got just got the wrong mental model
19:22for the
19:23whole thing which is you know no your your crypto is not in that device this is a device which
19:30keeps
19:31your private keys offline and shows you what you see is what you sign at the moment of signing but
19:37actually your value is safe on the blockchain but you know so you know i think that you know the
19:42form
19:42factor of the s and the x are great i love them i wear again i wear them around my
19:47neck i loved seeing
19:48it around gunna's neck on the met ball all all credit to ari on that one it's another story we
19:52can tell another time um but you know the really like that people want a bigger screen and a better
20:00form factor right but you hit on an important note that i think before we move on we should just
20:05re-emphasize for people which is that the network itself is secure the hardware is not and to your
20:11point software is built on hardware so if you have hardware that is inherently insecure you moving to this
20:17new space all of your value it will never be okay unless you actually choose secure hardware and
20:23because we come from an era where infrastructure was built on top of banking systems which were
20:29centralized most people have never had to think about that before so in order to engage in the
20:34distributed network where your digital life has value and you deserve to own that value you have to
20:41understand hardware and this is the first time i would say ledgers had i mean that the ledger
20:45devices are beautiful but now we have a sexy device that's exactly right i mean the the revelation
20:51that i had that led me to be here at um ledger today was back in 2018 and i was
20:58lucky that i was
20:59personal friends with pascal gotier so that i was able to sort of think hard enough about this to have
21:05this revelation because what we're talking about right now is the thing that hit me like a ton of bricks
21:10in 2018 when i went oh my god like this company actually could be one of the big important
21:20companies of the next 20 years and and my my thinking was wow digital assets are going to be
21:27this revolution and it's a revolution that's akin to the internet and it's actually separate from the
21:32internet you know so i i really don't like the term web 3 because it makes it makes it seem
21:37like it's
21:38incremental to web 2 but it's not you know it's like if you think about the technological revolutions
21:43of the last couple hundred years you know from industrialization to automotive to the silicon chip
21:48certainly the internet and i believe that you know digital assets are are a revolution that is on par
21:55with each of those it's not a part of the internet revolution it's actually its own separate revolution
22:01um okay so and i think that the net result of that as we as we just talked about is
22:05is that you
22:06know we the digital assets play an important and kind of inextricable role in our lives i mean
22:12i think this is another thing that people really have a hard time with you know we like to think
22:15that we're these sovereign creatures and technology is this thing and we're in control of it it's not
22:21true right the fact that your water treatment your local water treatment facility probably runs on
22:26windows 95 puts you and your family at risk right you know like we we can't separate ourselves
22:32from technology you know and you experience that all the time just by the the hassle of like dealing
22:38with you know your phone company or whatever it is you you have to deal with and and you know
22:43you
22:43realize that actually unplugging you know is incredibly difficult and i think that this also just defies
22:50people's logic in so many ways i mean i think i remember in 2000 when people thought
22:54uh the dot-com thing is over you know and and the internet's for geeks and this is never going
23:00to be a big
23:01part of life like but now like you know it's it's almost like the the people who are hustling are
23:07the people who use the internet the most right i mean if you are you know if you're riding a
23:12bike
23:12for deliveroo here in paris you know you're not a wealthy person um and you you need your cell phone
23:19more than almost anyone else in the city right um so this isn't that you know technology isn't
23:25something that is just a luxury right it's not it is it is a necessity for um you know for
23:32for
23:32existing in a in in the society that that we've built now i'm not saying that's good or bad but
23:38you
23:39know but but i don't think you can deny it and i think people really try to they have a
23:43discomfort
23:43with it they um they reject it and they deny it and it keeps them from seeing how new technologies
23:50will also become this inextricable part of of our lives i mean you know i i suppose you could file
23:58your taxes in the u.s if you didn't have an internet connection but i i think that it would
24:02be a lot harder than you know if you did i you know i think that you know the technology
24:08becomes you
24:09know the way you make an appointment at the doctor the way you make an appointment at the
24:13department of motor vehicles like this isn't like some fringe uh you know um thing i i think i think
24:21so so you know now when you think about okay digital assets are going to become that embedded in our
24:28lives right they're going to become that important to us okay that was where i went hold on a second
24:34if that's the case then the devices that we are using today are not the devices of the future period
24:42period right and now like look back again people think like oh you know i by the way i remember
24:49people thinking oh no one will ever unseat myspace right or you know and and oh facebook is unassailable
24:57right now kids will tell you facebook is for grandparents they've never heard of myspace right
25:02these things have a way of going away so if you know in 2002 i would have told you that
25:10you know
25:11the future kind of mobile revolution was going to be driven by the people who just made this mp3 player
25:18that came on the market you would have laughed at me and you would have said come on ian like
25:23microsoft obviously has this on lock or maybe nokia right um you know you never would have you know you
25:30you people forget like you know memory is fiction right so there are very few people who either
25:37remember or would admit that um they that they doubted apple in 2002 but it was a ten dollar stock
25:44they had less than two dollars less than two percent market share um you know but there was this path
25:50from the ipod to the iphone that was revolutionary and microsoft trying to condense a personal computer
25:57and windows into a phone was a massive failure and i i you know i think you would have been
26:02hard
26:03pressed to find the people that would have picked the right horse in that race so so this is the
26:08context for me when i go wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute i think digital assets are
26:13a huge part
26:13of the future of humanity um i think that it's not even a an opinion it's a fact the the
26:21devices that we
26:22have on our desks and in our pockets cannot protect digital assets period right so okay now which horse
26:31are you going to bet on are you going to bet on you know a a secure device that has
26:36to become more
26:38full-featured um to become that secure digital asset device of the future or are you going to bet on
26:45you know the the the massive um it does absolutely everything device somehow becoming more secure you
26:53know i mean so that's you know that that's that's i think you know the the importance right i still
26:59haven't gotten to stacks or the beauty of it i'm sorry no that's okay i think it's important to
27:03double click on that fact that you know if if memory is sort of this failure the reality too is
27:08humans don't like to go backwards and so to your point like ledger isn't here to decide what's good
27:13or bad there's just an undeniable reality of what's coming and what exists around us and as secure
27:19hardware with this uncompromising security you actually made the bet to focus on ease of use right
27:25more people will do this and so therefore how do we make it easier because to your point prohibitive
27:30language a tough device something that looks weird something that makes you feel like it intuitively
27:35isn't doing what the device actually serves the purpose of that's hard for people to absorb so i think
27:41that is a really good way to think about like okay but what does stacks change in this process
27:46yeah that that's a that's a great a great transition um so again 2018 was when i had that realization
27:53but i didn't come to to ledger until 2021 um and when i did come to ledger pascal gave me
27:59the title
28:00of chief experience officer his idea not mine by the way um and and so when he said it i
28:05had to go oh
28:06okay wait is that is that really a title what does that mean um but it was it's it was
28:12such a a brilliant
28:14premonition in in my view and a real challenge for me by the way it's not a title i've i've
28:18had in the
28:19past um but you know basically what he was saying was in when you buy a piece of apple hardware
28:26you're
28:27not buying a piece of apple hardware you're buying the apple experience you're buying into the apple
28:32experience you're buying into the apple ecosystem is what you're doing you know you're buying into a
28:37world of blue bubbles not green bubbles right that's what you're doing when you when you um are
28:41by that piece of apple hardware and you know pascal recognized that you know he has you know the
28:48right direction in terms of you know the north star for the company security self-custody digital
28:52assets these you know that this is a gigantic opportunity but if we're going to be the ones
28:58you know who build this if we're going to be the apple of this space and not the blackberry or
29:01nokia of this space it has to be an experience and not just a piece of hardware not just a
29:06piece
29:06of technology um and so then you go okay well you know how do we do that where are where
29:12are the you
29:12know where are the real the real challenges here um and and also what are the ones that you you
29:18break
29:18off first right because you can't solve everything uh at once from a from a challenge perspective okay
29:25so with uh from from our perspective um you know we're looking at okay where are the experience
29:31challenges i think you know and many people will tell you like oh web 3 is hard to use but
29:36you know
29:36i always say wait stop what do you mean specifically right because oftentimes people just don't know
29:42they're just repeating what someone else said um but really i think there are two very key
29:48challenges in in kind of usability for the a new person coming into the space one is onboarding and
29:56onboarding is a challenge not only because you've got a set if you really want to do it right you
30:00have
30:00to set up a device um and you have to write down these 24 words um you know and that
30:07takes time so
30:08there's a user experience issue there but there's also just a conceptual and mental load
30:12issue there i mean if if if writing down and securely storing your 24 words doesn't freak you
30:18out you don't understand it right and so getting people over that initial mental hurdle of what
30:24self-custody is and means is is i think step one and that's something we're working on every day
30:30so with stacks we've massively improved the onboarding um user interface itself i've done it with stacks
30:37um many many many many times now both a new device and a restored device and i i'm i love
30:44how much
30:44easier it is than what we've experienced in the past you know i can get through the the initial
30:49onboarding in 60 seconds and i think you know two minutes to do to do a restore um which is
30:55you know
30:56which is a huge step up it doesn't solve the mental hurdle necessarily right or the cognitive load
31:01but you know ease of use wise that's much better and we have much more coming on that it's a
31:05big
31:05focus for us for for 2023 the second um you know real usability challenge is the connectivity to web
31:13three and that's what we're trying to attack with ledger connect but also with our partnerships with
31:17many people whether that's you know coinbase wallet metamask temple um uh and you know or uh trust
31:25wallet etc you know like all of that really matters like making making connectivity to web
31:31three um super easy to use and that's why again we're trying to set the standard for both security
31:36and ease of use with ledger connect at the same time partnering uh with other wallets um on on getting
31:43that right now from a you know from a look and feel perspective um with the device itself you you
31:50ultimately want to get something that you know is something that that people want and people
31:54understand um in the podcast with tony fidel which i which i really encourage people to to listen to
32:00because he does a much better job explaining why he was thinking about the form factor um but i i
32:07love
32:07i mean i i mean i've learned so so much from from tony just generally in life in in work
32:13everything else
32:14um but what's amazing to hear him talk about the design of this device is that he was looking for
32:20you know analogies he's like okay this thing can't look like a usb stick it also can't look and feel
32:28like a phone but we know we like kind of phone screen form factors and um you know we know
32:36that
32:36when we're thinking about value credit cards make sense to us there's you know there's a space in our
32:42brain for these little cards of value um and you know he he went all the way to the analogy
32:48of this
32:49kind of like stack of cash with the you know with the band around it right and and and for
32:54i it's so
32:55amazing to hear him say it because you can just see he put all this stuff in the hopper and
32:59out came
33:00you know ledger stacks which is i would have never got there like that's why it's so amazing to me
33:05you
33:05know just so if you see i can understand the inputs and my output would not have been the same
33:11but you know his his brain went there like you know kind of automatically but i think that that in
33:16doing so you know what what he's done with ledger stacks is he's he's created something that that
33:21does represent exactly what it is we're we're trying um to be which is it's this secure companion
33:29to your you know existing device right so you know on one hand you go oh my god we're we're
33:35headed
33:35toward a future where digital assets are valuable and the devices that we have don't handle digital
33:39assets this must this is going to be a disaster and then you go oh wait a minute well for
33:43you know
33:44anyone can walk into a best buy and for 80 bucks you know make the their 1200 phone secure okay
33:50well
33:51who wouldn't do that right so i think you know with with ledger stacks what you're doing is you're you're
33:56adding just this like this form factor that makes a lot of sense to people that's easy to onboard
34:03that's easy to personalize that makes it something that i want to have in my life that doesn't feel
34:09overly geeky that actually feels like it does what i need it to do which it is it adds security
34:15to my already digital life well to your exact point about pascal sort of giving you this mantle and
34:22saying okay what are the first pieces of experience that i'm going to go after you actually said with
34:27tony i'm going to go after the experience itself i'm going to give a reason if i can make this
34:33url
34:33experience irl to make it sexy and fun and compatible and actually something that you know
34:39respects this world that only as your point from earlier you are the only person that knows your
34:45own algorithm and so now you have this new way to actually show your world to others that nothing
34:50else nothing else describes or displays other than stacks and that's why i think the the e-ink is so
34:56important as well for for ledger stacks because it lets you get to use it not just something that you
35:01have to charge every day but it's actually meant to serve a real purpose with longevity in your life
35:06so with ledger we're trying to build this experience and the experience includes the the hardware but
35:13then it comes all the way through to the way that you use the hardware so um you know first
35:18of all i'd
35:19like to reiterate what tony said in in the podcast that you know ledger stacks is is a v1 right
35:25and
35:26you know i remember that that there were you know eight eight versions of the of the ipod and we're
35:32on to iphone 14 or wherever we are right now right so you know with with ledger stacks like let's
35:37let's
35:37imagine that there's a long um roadmap and a long future here and there'll be many evolutions also
35:43remember that when the ipod came out um you know there was no itunes for windows and windows was 98
35:49percent of the market there was no um there was no itunes store there was no itunes video there was
35:55you
35:55know there was so much yet to come and i think again our memories um you know forget that and
36:00we
36:00we we imagine you know sort of the ipod as it was five years in as opposed to the way
36:05it was day one
36:06so again let's make that leap and say that ledger stacks is is that v1 and there's and there's a
36:11lot of
36:12of evolution to come and imagine what that is this is also why you know the operating system is so
36:18important right because you know i think what you do in hardware is you make hardware um you
36:24you make uh an operating system so that people can build on it that builds an ecosystem so that
36:29builds an ecosystem of services and applications that grows the market and now you've got a now
36:35you've got a bigger audience and you've got to rev the hardware you have to have that that um
36:40operating system that built you know where so people can build on top of it that grows um you
36:45know applications and services that grows the market and now you do it all again so that's sort of
36:50you know i see it as not not just a flywheel and not just a circle but really a spiral
36:55because you
36:56know it's getting bigger and bigger um you know as it as it grows but you do keep needing to
37:03refresh
37:03the hardware um continue to to um to develop the operating system continue to develop the ecosystem
37:10of you know of people that are developing on that including yourselves so you know we're not the only
37:14ones developing uh on that it's you know it takes it takes a village uh you know and and much
37:20more
37:20than that and then that's what grows and then and then that's what and then you then you keep going
37:25um you know from that point so i think that that's the important thing to consider here is that
37:31um you know there is this sort of um this ecosystem around the hardware uh that that's that's
37:38incredibly important so from our perspective you know when when we're looking at it um you know again
37:44think about itunes relative to the ipod think about the nest app relative to the nest device you know
37:50without the without the software component of it the device can't succeed and that and that's the part
37:56that i really want want um to emphasize because we spend a lot of time talking about ledger stacks we
38:02talk about this beautiful screen we talk about the e-ink incredible right now ledger live ledger
38:09connect these are incredibly important the fact that you can um buy crypto you know and have it go
38:15you know straight to your ledger stacks uh or you know straight into uh you know you know self-custody
38:21protected by levered ledger stacks um is incredibly important the fact that i can swap from you know a
38:29stable coin to ethereum or bitcoin etc and back again all from self-custody super important the fact that i
38:36can stake and earn yield all from self-custody very important the fact that we're trying to build um
38:43you know an ecosystem where you can securely uh you know mint uh sell trade nfts you know incredibly
38:52important right we've got where we've had you know huge amounts of transaction volume on sites like
38:57openc thus far and really no one's ever done it securely meaning with hardware with clear signing
39:03you know that that's a that's a huge opportunity you know yet to come and then there are services
39:08that we you know we need to build on top of this such as seed phrase backup and recovery to
39:13make
39:13onboarding you know much simpler for people so you know again yes ledger stacks is is is a beautiful
39:22device and i think i hope that it that it is the ipod of this space that's my sincere um
39:28hope but i think
39:29for it to be it has to have itunes right there has to be ledger live ledger connect there also
39:36has to
39:37be a developer platform you know with with an active um you know developer audience and then you have to
39:43have this array of services around it um like what's possible uh with with ledger live buy sell swap stake
39:50lend credit card um you know you have to have this nft ecosystem around that is secured by ledger
39:57connect that is um has best practices driven by things like ledger market etc and then you have
40:02to have you know services for the customer that don't yet exist you know that we that we need to
40:07build um so i think that that really to understand you know fully what it is you know not just
40:14that
40:14we're trying to do but what really needs to be done for um for the space to be successful you
40:19have to
40:19look at that i also think that leads you to sort of why ledger stacks right versus something else
40:24because you go okay well look first of all if you don't have a secure display forget it i don't
40:31care
40:31if it's your phone it's your device anything if there's not a secure display it's not secure just
40:36like stop there's no that's not a that's not a objective argument that i'm willing to have with
40:42anybody um you know and second you know you have to have a secure element in certain terms of the
40:47chip inside the device um and third there better be an operating system right because if there's not an
40:52operating system then there's not an array of services that's going to grow with us and it's
40:56going to end up in a place that we couldn't even predict right and this is not just about crypto
41:01this is about security and this is about you know secure applications um you know i i can't wait to
41:07use
41:08my ledger stacks for fido2 to have truly secure login um you know to sites across the internet as an
41:15example of something that has zero crypto um you know relationship to it but it is secure and i do
41:22need um security which is beyond what my phone provides you know to log into you know the most
41:28secure pieces of my digital life right so um so yeah i think that that we we need to be
41:34thinking about
41:35what is that you know entire secure ecosystem around the ledger stacks yeah i mean i really want to
41:41double click on that fact that we truly do just live a life of one of one and actually having
41:47your ledger stacks like you can fully actualize that in a way where you can live a one of one
41:51and
41:51you could have 10 different ones a day right like we were joking at the office for for programming for
41:56ledger open which will have just happened when this comes out and someone wrote on their spine for
42:01their stacks you know their kid's name and put like college fund you know like that's what that
42:05stacks for and it's it's really this this playful element and if you know if in the 2000s if in
42:11this
42:12previous world that already feels so far away the internet brought us this revolution of information
42:17which changed how we connect it brought us to this place of one of one right like we individually are
42:22the scarcity and our experience is that scarcity and so now it changes how we trade and measure that
42:28value forever and so you know if it's happening right now you know what what should people be aware of
42:34as they step into this world as their experience like how how would you if they've just gotten a
42:38ledger stacks you know what what do you recommend for them to immerse themselves if they're new
42:43so just somebody who's a newcomer to crypto generally yeah i mean i think it's important to remind you know
42:48when you said earlier like we already have over five million people who use ledger devices as they
42:53currently stand and so we're about to have millions more come on board for for ledger stacks which is
42:59creating this new experience so how does the ledger experience overall help them as they
43:04come into this world well i think i mean what we're trying to do is to create um you know
43:09a place
43:10for them to connect with whichever services are useful and interesting to them i think for anyone
43:15coming into the space the first thing i'd recommend they do is is participate in ledger quest in some
43:19way and familiarize themselves with ledger academy um you know in this space you know knowledge is power
43:26period um and and the um you know it's it's also um you know it protects you right i would
43:35actually
43:36recommend people spend time on education before they come into the space you know i mean even if
43:42before you bought a ledger you spent six months learning i think you're you're in a in a great you
43:49know in a
43:50better place you know you're you want to you know i've known people that you know that that's actually
43:55their first step is i'm not going to do anything i'm not going to buy anything i'm going to spend
44:00zero
44:00money but i'm i'm going to deep dive on on the learning and you know so i'd say that's you
44:05know
44:05that that's actually a great idea so you know i would first start with learning that's why we have
44:11ledger academy that's why we have ledger ledger quest the other thing i would say is join communities of
44:17like-minded people whatever that is for you um you know i'm i'm a member of you know 90s kids
44:24which
44:24is a bunch of skateboarders you know um and shit i'm more of an 80s kid than a 90s kid
44:30but you know
44:31at least um you know it's a community of like-minded people that one may or it's probably not for
44:37you
44:37but find one that is for you um or i always recommend that that people you know if you're
44:43interested in kind of the cultural or the artistic side of this you know look at you know collecting
44:48on a chain like tezos so you know join the discord of object.com um join the discord of fx
44:55hash
44:56and just lurk you know see what people are doing see what people are talking about see what people
45:01are buying see what you know um sparks your interest i mean you could you could you know put
45:07fifty dollars worth of tezos to work over six months and you know actually you know not not
45:14win or lose too much but become a member of a community become you know familiar with with
45:20artists and and kind of get to know this world i think that's you know a much better way to
45:26enter
45:26than you know taking a lot of risk taking a lot of um you know doing something that is uh
45:32you know
45:33maybe maybe doesn't maybe not smart but i think if you're if you're in if you're in the space um
45:38and you're you're watching what's going on then you'll you'll start to get a feel for it and you'll
45:44make friends you'll you'll be you'll you'll be a part of communities and you'll and i think in that way
45:48you're you're more a part of the future um than somebody who is you know reading about bored apes in
45:53in you know the wall street journal and then thinking they know what's going on i promise you those
45:57people absolutely do not um you know you you you just you know you're you're just sort of a part
46:03of this like uh you know surface level zeitgeist as opposed to being a part of a of a community
46:11which
46:11is um you know which is really focused on something um that that you know that that's deep niche moving
46:18active liquid etc yeah i mean it's funny because sometimes it sounds so corny but actually one of the
46:25takeaways from from all of this is actually that you have to lean into like embracing yourself
46:30and having fun with it around it and you know as we kind of get closer to to closing this
46:36out i
46:37think it's really important like remind people who are listening like why actually is ownership
46:42uh and its relation to crypto so revolutionary right now what we're always doing is you're always
46:48building on the past right so we've we've been we've just been through a revolution of information
46:54which has onboarded um billions of people into networked lives we layered on top of that this
47:02pandemic you know which not only um you know had kind of these these unprecedented economic
47:09stimuluses in in the you know in the traditional world but also pushed us into spending more and
47:16more time in digital worlds working um and and learning etc you know our kids went to
47:24went to school on zoom our our meetings you know became much more comfortable uh you know everyone
47:31of every age became much more comfortable uh working with people who were not in the same physical
47:36space with them i mean even when i started work at apple they had almost zero culture the people who
47:43invented facetime had zero culture of um of remote meetings right and now they've they've spent years
47:50with not being you know in the in their in their new offices um so you know we have as
47:56humanity
47:57learned um to collaborate with people we are not in the same physical space with which is you know for
48:02me the actual definition of the word metaverse the definition of the word metaverse does not contain
48:07the word 3d um but it it is about people who are not in the same physical space together collaborating
48:13with with with one another okay so that to me is why you know digital value is is so important
48:19it's
48:19not because digital value alone is um is important it's because you're you're putting this this
48:25technological revolution of digital value on top of a networked society right and and you know and
48:33therefore you know you'll you'll get that build over the next 15 years just like we had you know with
48:39the internet um where things went from being you know um exciting and overblown and dot-com bubble
48:47to um more practical and realistic and you know built kind of one foot in front of the other
48:54uh and then you know you get very real use cases again for me i think the best thing to
48:59do is to assume
49:00that 15 years from now your your government document is a digital document and the and the way that
49:07you move borders is to prove you're the owner of the wallet that contains that document if you just
49:10take that as um as as an assumption and now work backward from there you see all kinds of of
49:18things
49:18that happen you know i love the and if you want to take a less serious example i love the
49:23example of
49:23concert tickets which you know when i was a kid uh you know if my mom took me to see
49:28you know kiss or
49:29acdc which she did thank you mom you know i would take those those tickets and um you know put
49:35them
49:36on my cork board because like that was a big deal in my life you know to do that now
49:41you know through
49:42the internet what did the internet give us a shit ton of advertising that's what and so what have our
49:48concert tickets become another form of advertising so you print out this this concert ticket you and i
49:53went with tony last night to see the cure and what did we have we had printed tickets um that
49:59the top
50:00half was a ticket the bottom half is an advertisement um and you know and then i don't know about
50:06you but
50:07i saved my backstage pass and i threw my ticket i threw my ticket in the garbage right 100 and
50:13and
50:13but in the future you know that ticket will be collectible again and there will be this you know
50:19and 20 years from now you know we will be like yeah remember that night we went with tony to
50:24see the
50:24cure and here's the proof you know i you know and and so i think that i think these things
50:29are are are
50:30very um you know it's it's like this is you know as clayton christensen says or said there are no
50:38new
50:39human problems we just hire new technologies to solve old problems so you know that putting my ticket
50:45on my cork board you know it had a had meaning for me as a kid imagine you know if
50:50today i had an nft
50:51for every concert t-shirt i've ever owned imagine if i had an nft for every skateboard i've ever owned
50:57you know they wouldn't all have the same value but certainly that one that was the one that i got
51:04for christmas at that age that changed my life like that would have special meaning for me and it's
51:09not even that it would have special value this isn't about you know a board ape going from you know
51:14from zero to 250 000 in value that's not what this is about that concert ticket on my cork board
51:20did
51:20not have resale value but it had a lot of value to me personally because it's proof of life it's
51:27proof that i existed it's proof that i experienced um and and so i think that you know in these
51:34digital
51:34lives that that we live um we of course we will have our they'll have their own economies of course
51:41they'll have their own collectibles of course they'll have their own products of course they'll have
51:45their own identification ways of of showing that we're individuals ways of sharing right ways of
51:51of you know combining one thing into another like what moonbirds is doing right now you know saying
51:57that if in addition to a moonbird you have these other things in your wallet you know moonbird can
52:01now become something else you know these are these are like you know very very cool things and like
52:07they fit a lot of you know things that we've done you know previous in life i mean the way
52:12that
52:13that that you know kids alter clothes and sell them on depop like this is you know this is this
52:18is not you know um it might be fringe behavior but to the point from our very first part of
52:23our
52:24conversation like all behavior is fringe behavior right there is no such thing as everybody there never
52:30was you know mass media made us believe that there was a left and a right you know um for
52:38so long
52:38and really what you had was a left and a right and a lot of unrepresented voices um and and
52:45so you
52:46know so now you know discord in so many ways represents humanity um you know way better than
52:51you know you know nbc abc and cbs ever did yeah i mean you're you're hitting on this exact piece
53:00which
53:00is that emotions don't change boundaries change and in the mass scale of humanization where we are these
53:07one of one your individualism and actually having ownership over that is the most important choice
53:12you could make today and so it's essential that as you do that you educate yourself you understand the
53:18change that's coming you tell your friends around you and you hopefully use ledger stacks as your
53:24gateway for this next era because there is no going backwards and what is coming is actually incredibly
53:30exciting and actually validating for more human behavior as it is today versus the human behavior
53:36we project through through outdated societal norms ian thank you i am so excited at everything
53:44we've been working on you know it's been going on much longer than i've been here but today is a
53:49really special day with the launch of stacks with ledger stacks and um thank you for telling your story
53:54and why it matters thank you very much for giving me the opportunity um and really all right thank you
53:59for everything that you do we got to do one of these with uh with you and i want to
54:02talk about
54:03like uh you know how somebody who has you know no no background in not no background but is not
54:09a
54:09former cmo yeah to be the head of communications and marketing at at ledger and how we do what we
54:16do because i think honestly i think um i think we're building something new new and different here
54:21um you know we're not we're not building uh we're not like like you and i always say i don't
54:27want
54:27to build the future with the past so you know but that's hard to do we're trying to build something
54:32new well until next time ian um thank you yeah i'll talk to you later all right talk to you
54:38in a bit
54:42this content is provided for informational purposes only and is the sole expression of our opinion
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