Don Katz
Founder, Audible. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveauthorjournalistinvestor@don_katz ↗donald-katz.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Don Katz founded Audible in 1995, pioneering commercial downloadable audiobooks and portable digital audio players before Amazon acquired the company in 2008. Prior to entering technology, he spent two decades as an investigative journalist and author of books including The Big Store, Home Fires, and Just Do It.
1shows
1appearances
20statements
6resolved
1supported
1contradicted
17%fully supported
2said about them ↓ Everything Don Katz said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Katz: High entrepreneurship often correlates with patterns of fatherlessness
“I, I've heard, and you probably have heard this too, that, ah, there's a lot of patterns of fatherlessness in highly entrepreneurial people.”
Katz: Single patents are worthless without an entire patent portfolio
“Now I know, of course, you know, without a portfolio patents are worthless, but, you know, at that point I didn't.”
Katz: In the 1990s, Microsoft targeted any startup building a platform
“If anyone said they were building a platform, Microsoft would make it their business to destroy your company.”
Katz: The book publishing industry inherently resists technological change
“Book publishing is a, is, is people who love books, meaning that they're willing to get paid less, or they have the wherewithal to not get paid a lot, and you know, and they go into a world, and usually, they stand for the status quo and they usually resist, y…”
Katz: Entrepreneurial success is roughly 51% grit and 49% luck
“I think it's something on the order of 50.5 to 51% purposeful good calls and brave moments, and times when you just didn't give up, the rest of it is definitely luck, because otherwise, how could I have made so many stupid, boneheaded decisions along the way t…”
Katz: Building Sears Tower shattered company's friendly image and sparked decline
“They made this genius conception of every customer thought Sears was the friendly guy down the street, the member of the Kiwanis Club, and that Sears was this localized reality. And once they built that tower and said that they're one of the most powerful comp…”
Katz: First Audible download occurred on October 31, 1997
“The first download when it finally happened was in, I remember October 31st of 97, it was Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus, the self-help book, and I remember it was to a customer in Cave Creek, Arizona, and that was, and it was done at that then pre…”
Katz: Audible's first player cost $208 to manufacture and sold for $215
“But it cost us 208 dollars to make that little device, and we tried to sell it for 215 dollars.”
Katz: When capital costs almost nothing, businesses should take it
“When capital costs almost nothing, you probably should take it.”
Katz: Robin Williams bought ~500k Audible shares before IPO
“Robin Williams had come in and bought, like, 500,000 shares of common stock before it went public.”
Katz: Audible raised ~$40M at IPO with 5,700 customers
“We walked away with almost forty million dollars. We had 5700 customers.”
Katz: Audible stock collapsed from ~$29 to four cents in 2000
“The stock price, you know, which was once 29 dollars or something, it went down to four cents at the end of 2000.”
Katz: Steve Jobs pledged $15M to market the original iPod
“Steve said he's going to spend fifteen million dollars marketing their audio player.”
Katz: Audible became the largest employer of actors in New York
“We were becoming at that point the largest employer of actors in the New York area, which we've been for a while.”
Katz: Zero employees quit when Audible relocated to downtown Newark
“We moved in with a 120 people and nobody left.”
Katz: Anyone pursuing bold ideas experiences imposter syndrome
“The attack that actually, I think, attacks all people who go way out with crazy ideas whatever they are, which is that, oh my god, I'm a fraud, and they're about to find it out.”
Katz: Funded Audible's original downloadable audio patent with $14k on credit card
“And we got a patent together on a downloadable system Of, for media that would be captured by a solid state device, and I remember it was 14,000 dollars that I put on my credit card.”
Katz: Took an 85% pay cut at 43 to found Audible
“I was 43 years old, and I took an 85% year-over-year pay cut to start Audible.”
Katz: Audible cut audiobook production costs by 90% using technology
“We also figured out how to make an audiobook for about a 10th of the cost. That the, just using technology, you know so we just started making a lot of audiobooks”
The other half of the tape: Don Katz's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 2 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
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How I Built This 2
2023 1 mention in 1 episode
2022 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Don's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Founder, Audible | 1 | 20 | 17% 1/6 | full record on How I Built This → |