54: Ian Rogers - Never a Spectator

Full transcript and all links and references: ⁠dialectic.fm/ian-rogers⁠.

Ian and I made a playlist with albums/songs mentioned here (Apple, Spotify).

Ian Rogers (X, LinkedIn) is Chief Human Agency Officer of Ledger, the Paris-based security company whose hardware wallets secure much of the world's crypto. He now focuses on how Ledger can enable us to work with AI agents while maintaining our secrets and value.

His career has spanned music, culture, brand, and "the technolog(ies) people are going to hate next." He built and ran the Beastie Boys web presence in the 90s before working on music on the internet for over a decade: file sharing Nullsoft (Gnutella and WinAmp), early streaming at Yahoo!, direct-to-fan commerce at Topspin, Beats Music, and finally Apple, as an abbreviated list. He then joined LVMH as its first Chief Digital Officer, working with Bernard Arnault and its many Maisons to bring them into the internet era. More recently, he joined Ledger to improve its product experience, including collaborating with Tony Fadell to create Ledger's flagship form factor, Ledger Stax.

Ian's roots are skateboarding and music, which formed alongside a punk rock ideology while growing up in Indiana in the 1980s. I am glad to have captured a long conversation that covers the many flavors of Ian, and the threads that have persisted through his many lives. That includes: individuality; being a participant, not a spectator; what makes a scene; building brands; trying to help Kanye; and why new culture is always being made—it's just that you have to find the 1% that's awesome. Also: ushering forward and translating frontier technologies; being pushed by Jimmy Iovine; why security matters in the AI era; why AIs aren't people; what he wants to automate; learning to fail; advice on relationships across work, parenting, and love; and a whole lot of love for music—from his 2026 pick Twisted Teens to his desert island albums to tea with Paul McCartney.

I hope you're inspired to participate in the world and make great things. Thanks to our friends at Ledger for hosting me.

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Timestamps

• (0:00) Opening Highlights
• (1:37) Intro to Ian & Thanks to Notion
• (5:22) Start: Tattoos, Individuality, and Punk Rock: Spectator vs Participant
• (16:44) What Makes a Scene?
• (25:24) New Culture, 99% of Everything is Garbage, Finding the 1%
• (40:09) Niche, Quality, and The Blockbuster vs. The Snowball
• (53:35) Brand, Selling Culture Before Product, and The Age of the Individual
• (1:08:12) Aggression, Patience, and Being Pushed
• (1:16:52) Translating New Technologies, Empowerment, and Agency
• (1:25:19) Interfaces, Ledger, Security, and Ideology
• (1:39:56) Ian's New Role: Chief Human Agency Officer
• (2:06:03) Seeing What is Real, Comfort Being Wrong, Chasing What's Fun and Cool
• (2:13:45) Lessons from Skateboarding and Favorite Albums
• (2:22:56) Working with Your Friends, Parenting, Love, and Remembering to Stay a Participant
• (2:35:47) Thanks Again to Notion