The Secret Behind a Black Sabbath Q&A: Ripple CTO Opens Up

Ripple’s chief technology officer, David Schwartz, recently shared a surprising revelation: he once staged fan questions for Black Sabbath and sanitized the responses of the legendary Ozzy Osbourne during what was speculated to be an authentic fan Q&A session. He now looks back on this with regret.

A Confession of Deception

“I cheated,” Schwartz openly admitted in a post on X this past Thursday.

Reflecting on his past role at WebMaster, he described how he was tasked with handling fan inquiries directed at Osbourne, who recently passed away on the age of 76, and the remainder of Black Sabbath. Using the corporate’s ConferenceRoom software, Schwartz was answerable for typing out the band’s answers. While the experience was seen as a hit by many, Schwartz personally viewed it as a failure.

Osbourne within the Spotlight

As a self-declared fast typist, Schwartz shared how he was instructed to speak with the band via phone, relay fan questions, and sort out their responses on the spot. However, he quickly realized fans were solely fascinated with Osbourne. “I specifically asked the moderators to give me questions that weren’t for Ozzy. There just weren’t any,” he explained.

Source: GENX

To make sure the other band members weren’t missed, Schwartz had a set of pre-written “canned questions” ready to be used. “I passed a canned question to each of the other band members in rotation. And I mixed what I could make out of what they said with the canned answer from their manager,” he recalled.

Despite his efforts, only “two or three” real fan questions made it through to the band, leaving Schwartz disenchanted with the shortage of real interaction.

Filtering Ozzy’s Colorful Language

Schwartz also revealed he had to scrub up Osbourne’s language throughout the Q&A. “Ozzy’s answer featured the C-word a lot. The bad C-word. The one that Americans really don’t like to say. It was pretty close to the only word I could hear clearly,” he said.

He admitted to editing out the profanities, attempting to convey Osbourne’s responses as accurately as possible despite poor connection quality.

Osbourne’s Legacy Lives On

Meanwhile, within the wake of Osbourne’s passing, Cointelegraph reported a major surge in memecoins inspired by the icon. One such coin, The Mad Man (OZZY), saw a staggering increase of over 16,800%, trading at $0.003851 and reaching a market cap of $3.85 million.