Reggie James (Substack, X) is a designer, writer, and entrepreneur. Reggie previously founded Eternal and recently edited and published Hardware 2024, a book highlighting recent attempts at creating a different hardware future. This conversation happened live on stage at FWB Fest 2025 in Idyllwild, CA.

We explored Reggie's frame of technology as a mirror and the Kevin Kelly-inspired notion that technology has an agenda of its own. Reggie has a fresh perspective on brand and "feel" as they relate to technology products, why friction can create meaning, and a Naoto Fukasawa-influenced view that design is about communicating values. The latter, for Reggie, originates with writing.

We dipped into a discussion about how hardware and how it shapes our software cultures, and what a world with more basic luxuries like the iPhone might look like. We also discussed "loaded" technologies and the current narratives that are working in crypto vs. what might be idealized.

The conversation concludes with a zoomed out meditation on myth, American western idealism, personal history, and what type of vision is required to create something radically new. This episode is shorter than usual given the live nature, but it's jam packed and I'm thrilled that we were able to cover a lot of ground across many of the ideas that are representative of Reggie.

Full transcript and all links: https://dialectic.fm/reggie-james

Video version from FWB livestream available here.

Timestamps

• 3:05: Technology as Mirror
• 8:04: De-fanging Loaded Technologies
• 12:43: Writing's Role in the Design Process
• 16:13: Affordances, Software, Hardware, and Values
• 22:53: Universal Luxuries
• 25:46: Friction and How Technology Can Make us Feel
• 30:16: The Role Brand Plays in Technology Today
• 34:30: Successful Narratives in Crypto
• 41:30: Crypto as a Mirror
• 44:39: American Myth & West
• 47:56: Personal Myth
• 54:16: Vision

References

• What Technology Wants - Kevin Kelly
• Crying in the Garden ~ Closing Eternal - Reggie James
• Joan Didion on writing to think
• Universals & Luxuries - Reggie James
• Naoto Fukasawa: Embodiment - Naoto Fukasawa
• THE TOKYO TOILET
• ‎Perfect Days (2023)
• The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at M.I.T. - Stewart Brand
• The Near Collapse of the American Myth - Reggie James
• The Timeless Way of Building - Christopher W. Alexander
• ROLE: CREATIVE DIRECTOR || COMPANY: USA - Reggie James