hanks to Audible’s Donald Katz, the general population now has more time than ever to consume and enjoy books by creating a digital library on their mobile devices. A membership allows users access to more than 325,000 downloadable audiobooks, audio editions of periodicals and other programs. New members are also given complimentary subscriptions to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, making the inevitable commute or time spent at the gym, not only easier, but that much more enlightening. Below, Mr. Katz discusses his pre-Audible career as a journalist, love for Newark, and the company’s growing a-list collection of inspiring celebrity performances.
Tell us about your career as an author and journalist before founding Audible. I was a professional writer for 20 years. At 23, I was writing from London for Rolling Stone and The New Republic—a precocious start to the writing life that included close interactions with prime ministers, soldiers and revolutionaries. I traveled from Northern Ireland during the Troubles to Ethiopia during the Red Terror, and in pursuit of narrative non-fiction’s ambition to transcend pyramidal newspaper reportage, I was able to ask people what it’s like to be willing to kill or to die for a cause. I turned to book writing after several years writing long-form articles, and wrote books that explored the sociological, psychological and organizational complexities of the human enclosures that were some of the most successful corporations of the 20th century. My books on Sears and Nike were the result of a collective nine years of reporting inside the companies. The book I’m most proud of, Home Fires, is the story of a real middle-class American family whose members’ lives touched on every major social, political and cultural movement and trend between the 40s and early 90s. Home Fires was recently republished and also came out for the first time on Audible. I was working on another book, about emergent technologies that would change the world of media, when I had what my wife calls a “nontoxic midlife crisis” and changed gears to pursue the idea that become Audible.com. Many elements that make Audible a distinctive company that in many ways has a higher purpose draw upon the many things I learned and experienced as a writer. At its best, Audible is imbued with the élan I experienced during Rolling Stone’s first decade, a sensibility derived from the act of imprinting the culture with a new level of truth-telling and literary style. Audible moved to Newark and services customers in pursuit of defining ourselves based on what a company can mean versus what it does alone, and this I also took away from my years studying organizations and their larger purposes.
PM_Audible Feb2017.indd 3
2/10/17 10:04:21 AM