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This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
Spotify is looming large in Amazon’s Audible CEO’s mind after the music streaming app made a big leap into the growing audiobook space.
During an all-hands meeting earlier this week, an employee asked Audible CEO Bob Carrigan why Audible had recently been “fearful of the competition” when it should be paying more attention to its customers, according to a recording. He asked her if she was spending a lot of time on it. A video of the meeting obtained by Business Insider.
“It’s hard to ignore what Spotify is doing,” Carrigan said, noting that the music streaming app recently launched free audiobooks for premium members.
He said Spotify is “a little bit extra conscious” of that because it takes a “classic tech company freemium approach” to the audiobook space. Carrigan reiterated Amazon’s famous motto of “customer-focused, competitor-focused” but said Spotify’s entry into Audible’s core market creates an entirely different dynamic.
“A year ago, we didn’t have a fully inclusive subscription-based competitor with hundreds of millions of customers,” Carrigan said. “It’s irresponsible of a company to say that’s not something we should be paying close attention to.”
Carrigan’s response was part of a tense all-hands meeting just two weeks after Audible laid off 5% of its workforce. As BI previously reported, employee questions covered everything from layoffs and low morale to the impact of artificial intelligence on work.
“It’s kind of unprecedented.”
During the meeting, Carrigan insisted that Audible had not significantly increased prices, even though it had significantly increased the value of its products. This puts Audible in a good position to capture both casual listeners and avid audiobook customers, he said. However, he added that Spotify’s move into this space is still “somewhat unprecedented” given the company’s size and scale.
Carrigan also said he still spends 90 percent of his day thinking about Audible customers and creators. He says great companies care about both their customers and their competitors.
In an email to BI, an Audible spokesperson acknowledged the meeting and broader discussion points.
“Earlier this week, we gathered company-wide for our quarterly global meeting. As part of that discussion, we discussed the difficult moments that the elimination of roles poses for all employees,” a spokesperson said in a statement. Stated. “We also discussed how we are customer-focused and competitor-aware, confirming that Audible remains well-positioned for future growth and continued innovation. ”
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