Audible founder Don Katz discusses the cultural friction of acquiring digital rights from traditional book publishers in the early 2000s.
Insight
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.”
Insight
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.”
Opinion
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.”
Insight
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…”
Insight
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…”
Assertion Partly supported
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…”