Elon Musk’s Outer Space, Scott-Free August Preview, and Guest Ian Rogers

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24:01Scott, we're back. This is your last episode before Scott Free August. Well, it's mostly Scott Free August. You'll pop in for two episodes we previously taped with listeners and some questions and answers. So you're not going to be gone. You're like a ghost in the machine. We have a lot of fascinating guest hosts coming on to co-host with me while you're gone. I'm going to announce some of them. And for each, you tell me what question you'd ask if you were here, some of the stuff that you would ask, okay? Okay, first one, Savannah Guthrie, the co-host of the Today Show. I love Savannah. I think she's an amazing interviewer.

24:31We're gonna talk a lot about media and interviewing and styles and stuff like that. What do you think we should talk about? Keep in mind, she cannot make penis jokes, nor can she call Ilana Chode. So go ahead, Mo. Well, I would describe Savannah Guthrie as like the world's greatest pilot of the 747, but it's the 1970s and it's Pan Am. But I think it's really interesting when you speak to a super successful in a medium that's dying. What are her thoughts around TV as a medium? I think the two of you should ask each other what have been your most interesting interviews over the last 24 months. Yeah, I think we're going to do that.

25:05I find Savannah is someone who doesn't get as much attention for interviews as she should. I think she's great. I think she does really strong interviews. You know, there's lots of good interviewers. Christiana Momofor is good. A whole bunch of people. Obviously, Chris Wallace is very good. in TV, especially. John Swan is quite good. But Savannah, always, Gayle King is quite good. There's a lot, actually, in TV. And I think she really does cut to the chase. Three women. I feel triggered. I feel triggered. All right, good questions for Savannah. Good questions for Savannah. We are going to talk about interviewing and media.

25:40Joanna Stern, the senior personal technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, an old friend of mine, someone I think does beautiful, talk about someone leaping into the future, does all kinds of videos, been very heavy on TikTok and other places for a long time now, obviously working for an older institution. What do you think we should talk about besides Apple Vision Pro? Okay, mixed reality headset is, how fucking stupid is this? I would ask her what does. Okay, is that how I should put it? How fucking stupid is this? On a list of one to 10, something like that. That's what I should do.

26:12Okay, all right, okay. All right, all right. Will Hurd, who's running to be the GOP candidate for president, he got booed over the weekend for saying Trump was only running to stay out of prison. I thought he handled that beautifully with those crazy screaming memes. Very classy guy, Republican, again, from Texas. What should I ask him about? Well, look, I feel like the most significant thing that happened that just sort of reflects just how numb we've become in our nation, outrageous and unacceptable behavior, is that the person who is polling at number two for the Republican nomination has passed legislation that forces schools in Florida to whitewash slavery and talk about the benefits of slavery.

26:59You'd like to think of it as a society, we become more evolved and we try and bring people together. The fact that we're now in 2023, have a candidate for president who decides that the way to become president is to inflame Democrats. We no longer vote for people based on how they bring us together. We vote for people who do the best job of tearing us apart because we're so angry at the other side. And it's just such an affront to not only non-whites. It's such an affront to those of us in Florida that would like to think we live in a modern society. And that's the racist issues. Then there's Disney, and then there's the abortion stuff that he passed under the cloak of darkness.

27:41He's just a terrible candidate. And they had more laughing videos. He's a – Will Hurt is black, right? He's the guy from Texas. Will Hurt is, yes. Yeah. I just – I don't – I guess my question is, you know, I don't want to know. What's his vision for the Republican Party when that shit is happening in the Republican Party? And they can't get any traction beyond – I mean, DeSantis is dying, obviously. But Trump is surging. Yeah, but you never know. You never know. He's got a lot of money and he's got a lot of - But Trump is surging in polls. There was just another time Siena poll was crazy. Dominating.

28:16I would also, quite frankly, I don't want to say get in his face, but you're a Republican. You're trying to unseat the current president. And in his term so far, Biden has created more jobs than any president in history. So what exactly is not champagne and cocaine about this economy? Who's doing better than us? Like, what's your vision for how the economy could be doing better than it is right now? Great question. Yeah. He, of course, left Congress, as you know. It was very up and coming. But the new GOP is a very different animal right now. I don't know what it's a beast, really, to Donald Trump.

28:49If he was a Democrat, he'd be polling at like 15 % right now. That will hurt. Yeah, that's a really good point. He'd be polling at 15%. Okay, good. I like those. Okay. Don Lemon. Lemon Limon. De Lemon. De Lemon. Formerly of CNN, you might have heard. Yes. What should we talk to Don Lemon about? So many things. He's a lot of fun. Inside baseball. Like, what do you think the future of CNN is? And then I'd go personal. I would say, look, boss, the history of big, iconic anchors, and he's one of them, who lead platforms usually fade to black. What are you going to do to stay relevant? Like, what's your personal plan for your career?

29:31because all of these guys and gals leave with a lot of confidence. And what they find is that the platform was - Well, he was fired. He was fired. So same with Tucker. You're right. But what's his plan? He was making several million dollars a year and was a household name. Assuming he wants to maintain that type of relevance and income earning power, what's his strategy? What's his plan? Does he go to another network? Does he start his own thing? Megyn Kelly, I'm obsessed with metrics and desperate for other people's affirmation. And I looked at news commentary at the time. We're like number, we kind of hover between number like two and eight in news commentary.

30:06And we're surrounded. By right wing. We're surrounded. We're at a Trump rally. Yeah. Literally. We're at the, what's it called? CPAC? We are surrounded by right wingers. It's crazy. We're sitting there holding the fort down. Yeah. And then turn on an episode of Knight Rider. And then we have some real fun. We pull out the saran wrap. Okay. The starch. I don't want to hear. I don't want to hear. What is your point about Megan Kelly? Because I'd really like to stop talking about her. Well, no. So we're literally, if you look at the top 10 news commentary podcasts, we're progressive, right? You're literally the fire chief and the deputy mayor and the mayor of Pakistan.

30:41I'm kind of along for the ride. I knew that was coming. And everyone else around us is like crazy, crazier, and craziest. It's like Mark Levin and then Matt Walsh. And then it's like Megan comes across as the sanest one. Oh, no. No, no, no. Oh, compared to these folks? Have you seen who we're next to? Who we're next to? I know that. They're all crazy. They're all crazy. Megan Kelly's taking a left. I actually like Megan. I like Megan. Go listen. I will send you some choices. I've been on Megan's show. Okay. I like her. She's become terrible. But okay. Anyway, nonetheless, Don Lemon. Those are the good questions.

31:17Those are good for him. Oh, DeLamond. Yeah, DeLamond. Anything else? I like the personal stuff. How old is Don? Is he 50? No idea. I suppose. I don't know. He's like one of those guys, you can't tell if he's 25 or 85. I don't know. He looks very good. Don Lemon. I'm going to look it up. Someone asked me how old you were. They thought you were 45. I said, no, no. He's 57. My kids don't know how old I am. I lie every day. They have no idea how old I am. That's around your age. Well, look, I would ask Don. You're 58, right? No, no, no. I'm 49. No, you're not. No, you're not. I'm 49. And naked, I look 48 and seven eights.

31:48No, you're not 49. You sound like my kids now. want to know I'm lying about my age. 58. You're 58. I am not. The internet is wrong. The internet is wrong. Ask chat GPT several times and we'll get to 48. I would ask Don. I like the personal stuff. And that is, I know, given that I'm younger than Don, but can relate to his generation. Not much. No, he's 57. You're 58. But go ahead. I think there's been such a really positive evolution around the way the world and people, the general public views gay people. Yeah. That's the good news. The bad news is I remember when I was in college and starting work, the workplace was a very homophobic place.

32:27Yeah. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you this. No. But I would just like to know what was it like starting out as a gay black man in the media world in the 80s? Good one. That's good. What was that like? We'll gay it up. We'll gay it up for sure. Yeah. While you're gone. We'll have a little gay party. There you go. Good. All right. Speaking of gay, George Hahn, who literally vacationed with you when he fills it. He'll be in your house in Aspen or wherever. He's coming to Nantucket. White on white. I don't remember where you are. I don't know what ridiculous vacation spot you're at at any time.

32:59Anyway, Jihan. What should we talk about with Jihan? Again, I like the personal stuff. George Han is my Twitter friend. He's the first person I've ever reached out to on Twitter and said, let's meet. And now he's vacationing with you. And let's meet offline. And I'm very fond of George. But I think George is a really soulful, interesting guy. And I like the personal stuff. One, you know, George is a successful actor, but he hasn't like broken out. And I think, you know, I would talk to him about his career in Hollywood. I'd also, you know, he's single. I'd ask him about relationships and what it's like to be single in New York.

33:31I like the personal stuff. Yep. And I think George just brings kind of a humanity and a turn of phrase. And he just kind of, he's one of those blue flame thinkers who can kind of summarize stuff well. But I like – one of the reasons I love talking about George is we talk about faith and our moms. You know, I like the personal stuff from George. He's going to be on when we have the Republicans on, which are the group that does all those fantastic drag queen depictions of Republicans, which are my favorite thing. Jesus Christ, we've totally gone fucking woke. Well, you're gone. You're gone. They're really funny.

34:06Can we have any more woke? Barbie is a billion dollars. Taylor Swift, a billion and a half. We're all woke and somehow we're kicking ass financially. Did you see that someone did a map of the U.S. based on whether Barbie was doing better at the box office or Oppenheimer? And it was fascinating. It was literally exactly the political map. Every state that Barbie's leading in was a Trump state in 2020. and every state that was Oppenheimer was a Biden state. And the five states, this is all true. Oppenheimer is kind of woke. Agreed. But the five states where there was even are all the swing states.

34:49It's just amazing that these two movies are totally correlated with political values. I mean, it's fascinating. Someone did this map. But again, I would say Oppenheimer is quite a liberal movie. Both of them are. I think that's right. I think that's right. I think they both are. Yeah. I think there's a lot, there's a real groundswell of tired of this book banning. I've heard from lots of people in Florida. They're tired of book banning. They're tired of the abortion thing. They're like, what the hell? Like, we care about economics, jobs, and what are we going to do about AI? Like, things, real things, real.

35:20And then you have this group of crazies who love Trump. That's it. That's really pretty much the electorate right now. Anyway, any topics we should not forget that we want to keep the light on, keep warm for you? Any topics? I'm fascinated by what is going to happen with AI. I mean, this is what's happened. Technology has built a thin layer on top of a lot of thick investment by middle-class investors, whether it's GPS or DARPA or even space technology. And then these people come in and they put in a kind of a thick layer of innovation and they make billions. Every company, I don't care if it's Alphabet or Apple, can reverse engineer it to hundreds of billions of investments by the middle class.

35:58And what a lot of these companies done, especially Meta and Alphabet, is they wedge themselves, they take other people's content, and they wedge themselves between that content and the consumer and find a low-cost, user-generated way of creating their content such that they don't have to pay for it, whether it's TikTok. And AI appears to be kind of going the same way. And I'm just very interested in what should the regulation be as it relates to 230? What are the business models? Who are the winners? What are the potential threats? I see a huge threat around AI-tested misinformation coming up in quarters one and two of next year around the election.

36:34But I do think, you know, from what I'll call a strategic standpoint, I do think that Pivot has to be a place where people come and get some sense of perspective and explainers around AI. So I think as a tech journalist, I think we should go a little bit deeper around AI and what's happening there. Great. Okay. Anything else? Obviously, Trump indictments will be happening while you're gone, I think. You know, the reality is both of us really, really like politics. Politics is so saturated and it's so emotional and it triggers so many people. I'm trying to figure out topics that bring people together as opposed to divide them because politics is just so polarizing.

37:11The other thing I would like us to do or like you to do, and I will start with the first entry. We need to crowdsource. We need to change our theme music. Our theme music feels like you're on trial in the future. It just, I don't like our theme music. It needs to be updated. So we're going to get new music. And I want to propose the one to beat is this song. Go ahead. Cue it, Taylor.

37:37That's right, Cara. All right. Wow. I'm your man. Oh, my God. I'm back in gay bars. That's wham. That's wham. That's right. That's right. George Michael, one of the great artists. By the way, all of my artists are dying of opioid overdoses. There's a great Wham! documentary. Did you see it? It's fantastic. Not, but I will now. You must. You must. Unless you put workplace pressure on me to see it. You need to see it. The matriarchy. That's great. But literally, Prince, George Michael, and Tom Petty, my three favorite artists, all died of opioid overdoses. And, of course, the media decided to cover it up and say it was something else.

38:16Michael Stipe and R.E.M. should not leave the house. Everyone I listened to in the 80s. And also, I don't know where the guys from the English Beat are, but they should stay at home. I thought you'd go for The Cure over Wham. I like The Cure. It's a little bit dark, although The Head on the Door is an amazing album. Anyways. God, Scott, you are so gay. It's crazy. Gay by day, straight by night. I swear. I literally just had a memory of like a gay bar. Like, oh my God. I've been to almost every gay bar. And just a little pro tip to my straight brothers out there. Go with your gay friends to the gay bar because there's always sisters there and they think you're really evolved and are just more inclined to give oral sex to a guy who seems progressive.

38:57Anyways. Okay, wham. All right, everybody, he wants wham. I want, I would say, Taylor. No, I'm not doing Taylor. What about Beyonce? How perfect is I'm your man? One, because I'm self-absorbed. And two, you're a lesbian. Get it? You're a lesbian. I'm your man. I got it. I think when people hear us come on, they're like, oh, I'm happy. I want to dance. Yes, you're right. Okay. I feel good. I feel nice. Everyone send in emails about what you want or text us or on threads. You're obviously not on Twitter because Scott is once again banned. We have to bring in a friend of Pivot.

39:38Ian Rogers worked for many years in digital music. He contributed to the launch of Apple Music, in fact. Then he became chief digital officer of the French luxury company LVMH. Big deal, which includes brands like Louis Vuitton and Sephora. Now he's the chief experience officer at Ledger, which makes hardware crypto wallets, which look like USB drives, but for crypto, full disclosure, Scott is an investor. I'm also on the board, so I have to be especially careful. Oh, even more. Especially careful. Yeah. All right. Hi, Ian. I was just, we were just having a gay disco moment, and so I'm glad you're here.

40:10I'm glad you're here. Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here. I wondered where the party was. I found it. There it is. So first question, is it more fun working with the Beastie Boys or cryptocurrency? Oh, that's a good question. They actually have something in common for me. I mean, I always like to be at the front of where things are. And with the Beastie Boys, we did the very first time anybody recorded from the soundboard and turned them into MP3s and pissed off their record label. That was us. The first time that a record label did a radio station was with the Beastie Boys record label.

40:40Also, I like to be there at the beginning of these things. Yeah. Your career has kind of an unusual line where you've gone from, you know, to music, to luxury, to this. How did you get to crypto? Well, what happened, you know, as you said, I spent 20 years in digital music from Winamp and Yahoo Music to Beat Music and Apple Music, and then did five years as the chief digital officer at LVMH. And when I did, I moved to Paris and I met the then first seed investor in this little crypto company called Ledger. That was eight years ago. So it was smaller at the time, Pascal Gauthier, and we became friends.

41:14Two things happened. One, I got to meet the incredible team at Ledger and the really, you know, the technical team at the company is second to none when it comes to digital security. And then also during the pandemic, Tony Fidel and I were sort of pod families and we really wound ourselves up just with the timing, realizing that the technology is here. We're leading increasingly digital lives, as we saw during the pandemic, we will certainly have digital value in our digital lives. And that will be not only digital cash, but also ultimately our identity. I mean, ultimately, your passport will be a digital document.

41:49And so if that's the case... So you thought it was critically important to have a hardware crypto wallet. I think there's something because, you know, I think that, I mean, you and I have been on the internet for a similar amount of time, unlike many others. Oh, no, she's been on much longer. Much, much longer. We're talking vacuum tubes here. Yeah, okay, all right. Move along. But I had this memory. He was there at WinApp. If he was at WinApp, it was early. Exactly. So I had this memory, 2002. I had a cell phone in my pocket. I knew the internet was a big part of the future lives of humans, but the cell phone I had in my pocket was terrible at the internet.

42:26You know, in 2002, I had a computer on my desk. I had an iPod and I had a cell phone that folded in half and made phone calls. Right. And that was my my similar revelation is that we will have digital value in our lives from digital cash to digital identity. And our phones are fundamentally bad at protecting that value. You know, so from my perspective, and again, to draw an analogy that I know means something to you and I, I the revelation I had was that a company like Ledger is akin to Cisco. because in the late 90s when AOL and Netscape and Microsoft were duking it out, Cisco was sitting on the sidelines saying, we don't care who wins.

43:02Guess what? Human beings are going to use the internet and we'll be fine. Right. That's where I feel. Explain the device because it's a device that I famously have a hard drive, a little thumb drive with Bitcoin on it that I haven't been able to find that I had in very early days of the internet. I bought it for$50 each, I think, each Bitcoin. I have 10 of them. I can't find them. Okay. So talk about this. I know, I'll find them someday. Talk about these devices, because this is, let me just quote something else. The Pew Research Center found 75 % of Americans, and I'm staying away from Sam Beckman, Fried, and others, but I'll ask you about that in a minute.

43:44But heard of crypto, heard of crypto are not confident in its safety or reliability. This government is obviously cracking down. SEC sued the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. Those are the exchanges. Elizabeth Warren, this is sort of a long-winded question, but crypto has become the payment method choice of rogue nations, drug lords, ransomware gangs, and fraudsters to launder billions of dollars in stolen funds, evade sanctions, fund illegal weapons programs, and profit off devastating cyber attacks. I'd like you to answer for all that. Both the reliability, safety, and it's you and the drug lords, essentially.

44:18Yeah, where was your board when all this was going down? Sorry, go ahead. Yeah. So, so, I mean, that is a lot. I think, you know, really the fundamentals of crypto from my perspective are, you know, again, we lead, we lead digital lives. We will have digital value. Right. And, you know, all technological innovations, you know, in all in, all in history have created a gold rush, the bubble bursts, and then you've get 30 years of sustained growth. And, you know, what's more high stakes, what's more high stakes than digital value, right? So digital value is going to bring in the snake oil salesman, even more than a revolution of information did.

44:51And I think that that's very clearly what we've seen. Really, I say this not with a lot of joy because it's been so hard for the industry, but what's happened over the last year has been great for Ledger because Ledger is about these fundamentals of security and self custody. When you have Ledger, a run on the bank is not possible because you actually have custody of your own funds and you have them securely. So a lot of what we've seen in quote unquote crypto is really about, you know, giving your value to someone else and then crossing your fingers and hoping they give it back to you when you ask for it.

45:25Right, to these exchanges, right. And so that's, you know, fundamentally, you know, not crypto. You know, so I think that, you know, when you look at the fundamentals, you have, you know, you have security and decentralization. And I think that, you know, the thing that people should ask themselves is, you know, how do you have security without decentralization? In other words, which centralized database would you like all of humanity's information to live in? You know, Google, iCloud, you know, Facebook, U.S. government, Chinese government, like which one do you want? So actually, I think the fundamentals are very sound.

46:01And, you know, these are all very unfortunate growing pains of a gold rush. How do you assure people even just a little device? Now, I'm kind of a weird case because Wenceslas Casares just I did an interview with him and I just bought some just to try it. Right. He said, just try it. And that was that. But at the time, it wasn't going anywhere, really. And the reason I did it so early was because I thought, we're not going to have currency. Why are we carrying a dollar around? I kept saying that to people. They're dirty and they're ridiculous and they're subject to drug lords and ransomware gangs, et cetera, and kidnappers.

46:33So how do you reassure people when I ask people, where do you think your money is? And they're like, in the bank. I said, there's no money in the bank. There's no actual physical. It's not like Gringotts and Harry Potter, right? It's not sitting there in a pile of gold. How do you convince people that this is the system, I guess? Well, I think that there are two separate questions in this. One is about how do you bring people into crypto? And the other is how do you tell them that Ledger does what it says it does, which is secures in your hands your digital value? I think that first one is quite hard.

47:04And it's not really the job of Ledger to convince people that crypto has value. It was not the job of Cisco to convince people that the internet was where they were going to spend a lot of their time. You needed an ecosystem of applications that people really found valuable to grow up on top of that. So I think that our assumption is that there are many, many, many people out there doing that. We just had ECC in Paris, and there are so many applications that are being built on top of this technology. But then the question is, what do you need in terms of security, and why can't your phone do it?

47:38And it's because your phone is being asked to do so many things that you can't trust what you see on it. It's like if I asked you to protect a billion dollars in gold bars in a building, and then I said, oh, and by the way, I'm going to put a nightclub and a kindergarten and a shopping mall. It sounds like Mar-a-Lago.

47:56So, Ledger devices are purpose-built for security, and there's security all the way to the screen. Unless you have a secure screen, you don't have security. Unless you have a secure element, you don't have security. How is it going to change rather than just the device? Is it that the only way to do it is an actual physical device or is there something coming? You know, I mean, I think, as you know, in every industrial transformation, there's an unbundling and a rebundling, right? We unbundled compact disks into digital downloads and then we rebundled them into a subscription service. So in our case, you know, the unbundling is, you know, your phone and your ledger.

48:31And then ultimately, they will be rebundled into a secure device. And I think we'll kind of look back at the time when we did all of our work business and all of our banking and everything on the same device that our kids played Candy Crush on as one of those like, oh, my God, can you believe that people did that sort of things? Because, I mean, we know how insecure things are. We know about data leaks. We know about, you know, we know that we don't really own our own data. I mean, I just went through a move from an iPhone, you know, back to an Android phone. And you really feel how little you own of your own digital life.

49:04I think ultimately we do reach a different place where we have much more digital sovereignty, but we need a secure device to get there. But talk about the controversy around the optional recovery service, because I would want an optional recovery service. Well, I wish you had the recovery service. Your example is actually a great one. You know, one where, you know, you. Well, this was like whatever it was. But still conceptually, I mean, you know, I got the call from a friend, you know, just a couple of weeks after we had the controversy around Recover, which I'll talk about in a second. And he had a friend who had lost his device and his seed phrase.

49:36And I said, you know, the sad thing is, is if he had Ledger Recover, which I am kind of taking arrows for right now, he would have his value. And today he doesn't. So Ledger Recover is a seed phrase backup and recovery service. When you set up a hardware wallet, such as a Ledger, you get 24 words, which are your way to cryptographically recover your accounts and your value. So if you had those 20 words, 24 words or whatever, however many there were in the case of the wallet that you set up, then you would be able to recover your wallet today on any wallet, on a ledger very easily. But obviously, now you've got to think about, well, geez, what do I do with these?

50:14And it's a big mental hurdle for people, right? They're used to forgot password, click here, right? They're not used to, you know, lost my recovery phrase, oh, you're screwed, right? Which is the way it works. So we've built a service which encrypts shards into three, your secret recovery phrase, puts it with three different custodians in three different jurisdictions. And using your government ID, you can recover your wallets in case you lost them. Now, for the hardcore crypto community, which is very much opposed to any kind of custodian, that goes counter to what they believe like you should do.

50:57But there are roughly 400 million people who own crypto today. And we believe the next bull run will bring in half a billion more. And we need to build the products that those people need. So we aim at security. Right. It's not going to be the same. Early internet people were also irritating in that regard, you know, how they wanted it to evolve. And it's going to evolve into a commercial activity. I'm looking at the story I wrote of Wences. It was actually 2014, early. And he had just sold this Lemon digital wallet platform to LifeLock. And then he got$20 million in funding for Zappo, which was a cold storage vault and wallet, fully insured by Meridian Insurance.

51:34And he compared it to a safety deposit box at your bank, which is interesting, which is not much different from what you're saying right now, correct? Correct. By the way, Wenceslas was the person that turned Pascal Gauthier on to Bitcoin as well to tie our stories together. And yes, Pascal and I were just in Washington. And the description that really resonated with people on the Hill was that Ledger is a digital safe. And I didn't encounter anyone in Washington that doesn't think American citizens should own their own value in their own safe, their own assets in their own safe. But then the next step is to say it's a connected safe.

52:08And right now my passport is in my backpack in my hotel room, which is a pretty insecure place for it to be. But if my digital identity was in my wallet protected by cryptography, not only could I produce it anywhere and carry it with me really without worrying about losing it, because I can always kind of reinstate it if I did lose it, but I can also federate what's in it. You know, when I check into the hotel here in Europe and they ask for my passport, there's a lot of data in there they absolutely do not need. You know, you think about it from a privacy perspective. Oh, 100%. So for my, you know, all they really need to know is, you know, the information they need to have legally, you know.

52:44And if it's, you know, if you're trying to get into a bar, they don't need to know your name and your address, which you give them when you give them your driver's license. They simply need to know, are you provably over the age of 21? And this is what the concept of a connected digital safe gives us. It's so funny. I'm reading this story from two days. As it evolved, we recognize two key themes people continually ask about Bitcoin industry to address trust and accessibility. And then I say, you can say Mt. Gox again. I mean, it's so funny that it's still the same thing. Yeah, I was going to say, you say Mt.

53:15Gox. And that was actually, a ledger came kind of right then or in the ashes of Mt. Gox. But, you know, last year when Celsius went illiquid 5X day over day sales for us, Solana got hacked last August, right around this time. I remember I was on vacation last August. Solana gets hacked. That's a 6X day over day for us. And when FTX, you know, imploded, that was, we had our biggest sales day followed by our biggest sales day followed by our biggest Black Friday. And November turned out to be the biggest sales month in the history of the company. And then what we definitely didn't have on our bingo card when my daughter was getting married that weekend, SVB imploded.

53:50And that was not only a gigantic day for us, but a gigantic trading day for us too, because we have a companion app that allows you to buy, swap, and earn yield on crypto. And the trading on Circle that weekend. Circle, or also an early one. Exactly. That guy's a video company. Was huge because Circle de-pegged. And so it is – we are sort of – when people flee, they flee to us. So right now the concentration for us is – You know, we've sold more than 6 million hardware wallets, but there are 400 million people in crypto. So that means the vast majority of people are insecure or centralized. And so, you know, right now when the market, they're not in a lot of new entrance into the market, as you know, that's our market.

54:36But ultimately, there will be another cycle. Last week, two crypto bills made out of the House Financial Services Committee. Obviously, government has to play a key role here, but it's been back and forth. You've got Gary Gensler, he just lost the case around Ripple. I just interviewed Chris Larson around Ripple, which is another company. And whether it's a commodity or an asset or a security, what do you need from government from your perspective? Look, I think what the industry really needs is we do need clarity and we need to protect customers and innovation. And that's very doable. I think if you look at what came out of the house last week, I mean, I think the crypto community doesn't think that those bills are perfect, but they believe that they're necessary.

55:18I think that, you know, Patrick McHenry and Whip Tom Emmer, they do know what they're talking about. Like we've sat with them individually. He's the chair of the House Financial Services Committee. Exactly. And they are very well informed on what's going on and they understand the shape of what's to come. And they would actually like America to be a place where companies like Coinbase can be successful and thrive. So I think we need to protect customers, but we also need to protect innovation. That's what we need. Okay. And so even, and I think Warren is correct in that we have to make sure it doesn't become just an, every currency becomes traffickers.

55:57Listen, if cash was invented today, it would be illegal. Yeah. You have a history of a luxury brand space, which LVMH, most important luxury company in history, probably. Ledger has collaborated with Fendi. Why? What? Huh? Well, digital assets or specifically NFTs, digital art, occupies a similar place in Maslow's hierarchy of needs as luxury goods. Severely declining prices, but go ahead. Why does someone buy a luxury watch? They don't buy it to tell the time. They buy it because they like the craft, they like the brand, they like the aesthetics, they want to be a part of that community of people who appreciates that object.

56:39That's the exact same reason that I buy art from Artblocks or CryptoPunks or Bright Moments. I like the aesthetics, I appreciate the craft, and I want to be a part of those communities. So I think there actually is a big crossover. And I think luxury brands are the ones who are doing it well. If you look at what Louis Vuitton just did with their Via case, if you look at what Dior just did with their sneaker, these are commercially successful in what is considered to be a very bad crypto market. And that's because they're talking to their customers and giving their customers what they want. That's what luxury brands have always done.

57:11Luxury goods have never been for, quote unquote, everybody. They're for a particular group. And I think that this is why I went to LVMH to begin with, because the internet moves us from mass market to massive niche, as Jeff Jarvis said. And we are collections of communities. And these communities have digital access and digital value. So I think there's actually quite obvious crossover. My personal belief is if we fast forward 20 years, fully 50 % of all luxury goods purchases will be pure digital. And probably 100 % of them will come with a digital component. I think it really makes sense as we live increasingly digital lives.

57:51That was the dream. It hasn't quite – it's still stumbling away. That's why I said 20 years. Look, I mean, in 1998, we all thought that the internet was happening tomorrow. But people told us it will never scale and everyone will never have broadband. In 2008, they told us everyone will never have a smartphone. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and when Uber came out, they said, oh, nice service for rich people. Right. So this is all the same. We recognize these dynamics. Fair point. Fair point. I had my first story for The Wall Street Journal was me surrounded in wires with a big scissors and saying, you're not going to have a phone.

58:23You're going to have a mobile phone. It was 1997, something like that. And it got a ton of attack. It was attacked a lot. Anyway, Scott, you may ask a question now. You are out of your disclosure hole. Okay. This has been great so far, but I think it's important we bring this all back to me. Okay, good. Yeah, as always. I first met Ian. So I ran analytics company called LT, the focus on luxury brand. Meet Ian, chief digital officer at LVMH. We walk in. Here's this good-looking guy with tats. Yeah. And I'm going to tell you a little bit about Ian's background. Well, let's be clear. He's much better looking than you, but go ahead.

58:58Well, I'll get a little while. I don't see how that's – Anyways, all right. I know. He's a very, very sexy man. We objectify everybody, Ian, so you must accept this. Sexy because I'm rich and that's about it. Anyway, so we walk in. He's got these tats. Ian was a professional skateboarder, had a kid at the age of 17. Is that right, Ian? Correct. Your single parent. Turns 33 next week. Wow. Okay, hold on. Homeschooled her. Is that correct? Also correct. And now she's a PhD in physics? She has a PhD in genetics from Stanford. Genetics. Undergrad from MIT. We literally walked out of this meeting. Homeschool people.

59:35We're like, this is the most interesting man on the planet. Yeah. Wait, can I tell you, Carol, what Scott said to me when I met him? First words out of his mouth. So I come in. What do you think of me? I think I'm meeting an analytics company. I have no idea. It's Scott Galloway. We know Scott Galloway to be today. I think I'm just meeting the CEO of an analytics company. I don't know the background. All right. I walk in, sit down. Scott walks, sits on the other side of the table. He goes, chief digital officer at LVMH. is that like being chief electricity officer? Oh, wow. Anyways, I think it is.

1:00:08Actually, you nailed it. Look, I think, you know, I'm the skeptic on the board and Ian and Pascal, by the way, the company just raised $100 million,$1.1 billion, 90 days ago. So there's clearly still a market for these kind of companies. But the question I have for Ian, I think, you know, his career speaks for himself, but the thing I'm most fascinated about is we ask people a lot of questions about parenting. I'm fascinated by it. But we usually ask people who have the luxury of bringing a kid in under what I'll call kind of controlled environments. They're in a relationship. They all have college degrees.

1:00:43They're making money. I would just love to know, in as authentic a way as you can, what it's like to have a kid at 17 and what advice you would have for people who find themselves at a very young age being a single parent. I was raised by a single mother. But what are your reflections? Everything's worked out. But I would imagine that must have been a scary moment. Anyways, having a kid as a single parent at the age of 17. So, yeah, I mean, it's one of those things, too. You're also too young to really be scared, right? So I wasn't old enough to have a life to disrupt yet. And, you know, thankfully also, I knocked up the valedictorian.

1:01:24Zoe's mom is brilliant. and we were together for the first two and a half years of Zoe's life. And then the only thing I can say is you literally just put one foot in front of the other. I think I was too young to know to do any different, but we also had a great group of people around us. Zoe was kind of raised by wolves. She was raised by dirty skateboarders, first in Indiana and then in LA. But I always mention And the community of skateboarding is super important to me. And it was really important in Zoe's life as well. I mean, really, the Beastie Boys had a lot to do with that too. But I think kids need only one thing, which is unconditional love.

1:02:08And plenty of that to go around for her. I think if you talk to Zoe, I mean, look, we all screw up our kids in our own special way, right? So she's had incredible academic success and continues to have success in her professional and personal life. You know, at the same time, you know, growing up with parents that are, you know, growing up on their own, you know, has its own set of downsides as well. I'm sure that Zoe would tell you that. I think, you know, look, Scott, at this point, I've had the chance. I've done parenting in sort of three different ways. I have, you know, an older daughter that I raised primarily by myself.

1:02:48I have a daughter where who, you know, I've lived in Paris for seven years without her now. She lives on the West Coast with her mom. And in Paris, I'm a stepdad. And you know what you do in every single situation? You do your best. And it's never good enough. Very nice way to put it. But you do your very best in all three of those situations. So I think I'm kind of lucky to have had these three different parenting experiences. One where I felt like super dad, one where I feel like absentee dad, and one where, you know, stepdad, you're never quite dad. And, you know, it keeps you humble and really just like trying to give that love any moment you can.

1:03:30Very nice. What a good question. Ian, thank you so much. I've wanted to talk to you for a while. Thank you so much. And I appreciate it. Again, Ian is the chief experience officer at Ledger. You should really check out. It's very interesting. It's easy to write off crypto. I literally have just been thinking of getting back into it because I was like, it seems opportunistic in my case to really be thinking about it because the currency is going to change so drastically despite all these stumbles. And you're absolutely right. From a historical perspective, all these things happen that way. Anyway, thank you so much, Ian.

1:04:01Thanks, Anne. Thank you both. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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1:06:21Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Do you have any, Kara? I, I, well, Taylor Swift. I'm sorry. That's your win. And Barbie. Barbie and Taylor Swift. Oh, God, Barbie again. Jesus Christ. Young girls. It was such a delight. You are not like this fucking world sucks a lot of time, but I felt so good in that environment. I'm glad. And people felt hopeful. And like, and someone tweeted something that I thought was absolutely true. I think it was Aaron Levy, who I love, who I think is really funny. And he did it on threads, actually. And he said, people worried about AI. He had gone to the concert, obviously.

1:06:56He said, you cannot replace this. And it felt so human. 100%. Even in this giant friggin stadium. the they have everyone had little and technology was used well they had these lights on you that they have at concerts now and it was beautiful and you saw and I kept looking up at the lights or people putting up their phones which sometimes used to annoy me and I thought every one of those is a person and it's cool that we're all in the same place and it was I felt really good about people like you know I don't know how to explain it it was such a commercial event there was t-shirts everywhere. But it was really nice to be in a massive group of people and recognize people with creativity, someone who's super creative.

1:07:37That was my, when my fail continues to be this thing over the slavery thing, like honestly, what is wrong with you people? I'm so glad Ron DeSantis is tripping, falling, and I can't stand Trump and I cannot wait till he gets indicted again. But honestly, this is just, and to defend it and continue to defend it, what is wrong with you? What is wrong with you? That's it. All right. So, given that I'm leaving for a month, my fail is the dividers in the best example. And there's a lot of them. There's so many things that Florida could be doing right now. I mean, a lot of things. And the governor running for president decides to inflame the left and non-whites such that people on the far right who are so angry at the left can just be – You think, wow, this guy hates the left.

1:08:27I like him. And it also happens on the left, people demonizing billionaires and saying there is no billionaire that didn't crawl over people. It's like, well, okay, what can we agree on? And so instead of demonizing trans people, I think we can all agree that if one in five LGBT youth are going to try and kill themselves, that we need services to intervene and we need more support for LGBT youth. I think most Republicans would agree with that. If you think that billionaires are evil, well, that's not going to get anywhere. Let's talk about a progressive tax structure that most people agree on.

1:09:04Instead of fighting over race-based affirmative action, most people agree that there should be some sort of affirmative action. It just politics used to be about where is the Venn overlap? And the overlaps are actually greater in America than people think. The majority of people think that we should have some sort of sensible or reasonable gun control, whether it's registration or some sort of mandatory training, whatever it might be, right? Assault weapons probably need greater regulation. And instead, our politics are now, well, what will piss off the other side most? So my loss is the dividers on both sides that are raising more money by just showing how much they can piss off the other side and just turn it to really self-fulfilling memes or tropes around.

1:09:47I'm not here to do anything for the country. I'm just here to make us angry at each other. And then my win is more of a challenge. I love taking August off. I feel very fortunate that everyone around me at Prop G and at Pivot is going to support me in this. And I'm going to try and I want to challenge the audience. I'm going to try and work out every day. I'm going to try and get as strong as I can be at the age of 48. But I invite everyone. I'll be talking about my workouts, although I'm thinking about taking a break from social. But also, I'm going to try and something I really struggle with is I'm going to try and be more present.

1:10:21And that is I've been thinking a lot about how this notion that the past is the most immutable thing in the world. I'm too much in the past, Kara. I think too much about my mistakes. I hold grudges. I beat myself up too much about the past. And the past is the most immutable thing in the world. There's literally nothing you can do about it. And then I think too much about the future because I'm successful and I'm constantly planning, but I'm never here. So my 30 days in August are going to be about trying to just slow down. I'm going to take a break from social. I'm going to take a break from my phone.

1:10:49I like it. I like it. I'm going to do a silent retreat, which won't be easy for me. Oh, my God. Really? Yeah. Right. Actually, it sounds kind of nice to me. Anyway, my win is not a win. It's a challenge to everyone. I'm challenging myself because I struggle with all these things. You know, this is it. This is all we have. And it's such a, the country's doing well right now, I think, for all our problems. Actually, you know, if you look at most things, we're making progress. We've got the country's doing well. We're pushing back on a murderous autocrat. August is a beautiful month. So I'm going to try desperately.

1:11:19And I want to invite other people to, you know, I do have a few tricks for being in the moment. The dogs put me in the moment. working out puts me in the moment, being with my boys puts me in the moment. And the thing that kills my in the moment is my phone. So I'm going to try and turn it off for full days at a time. Good idea. And I'm going to challenge everyone else to do it, to say, okay, let's embrace the only thing we really have, and that is the here and the now. And I will see you in September, Cara. Yes, I know. I know, Scott. And to say, you know, there's an expression, a real present is your presence.

1:11:51Get it? Presence, present. I get it. Get it. I think that's great. We will miss you a great deal, Scott. I have a little song for you before we go, but I just want to say, just for our listeners, we do have some listener mail stuff coming up. We want to hear from you all the time. We love your emails. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind, including Scott's silent retreat. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. That is the show. Taylor, can we play? We'll be back on Friday for more, by the way, and the official start of Scott for you, August, a month with no episodes with 58-year-old Scott Galloway.

1:12:27Taylor, please play the Taylor Swift song for me right now before Scott reads us out finally. Go ahead, Taylor. Stay, stay, stay. I've been loving you for quite some time, time, time. That literally sounded like, it sounded like the jingle to a breakfast cereal. It's like, we live in the suburbs and we're white. Oh, my. Let me just tell you, for 75 ,000. I thought we were white. Listen, 75 ,000 teenage girls are headed to where you are. I've given your address and they're going to have to kill you. What dude didn't text her back that inspired that little jingle? Scott, stay, stay, stay. But actually, how can we miss you if you won't go away?

1:13:04Read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Travis Larchark, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Entretot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mils of Ariel, and Gaddy McBain. Make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. us. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. All we have, all we have is the here and the now. And Taylor Swift. There you go.

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