DLD Video
The Future of Spoken Audio
The popularity of spoken audio, particularly in the form of podcasts, has skyrocketed over the past few years. To explore the phenomenon further, this DLD20 panel brought together June Cohen, CEO and co-founder of WaitWhat; Matt Cooper, CEO of Skillshare; Marcus Stahl, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Boxine GmbH. It was moderated by Christian Teichmann of Burda Principal Investments.
“The U.S. in particular is in the middle of the Renaissance of podcasts”, Cohen observed, adding that exciting and original content was the priority of WaitWhat. Listeners are typically tuning in during commutes, workouts or while doing household chores via their smartphones, the panelists agreed.
German entrepreneur Marcus Stahl explained how he is creating educational and entertaining audio content specifically for children. His company’s Toniebox has 250 different toy characters, which are placed on the speaker and provide hours of storytelling.
Matt Cooper expressed his wish to further spoken audio in the field of educational content and create educational podcasts. Currently he works largely with video, but like all panelists, he sees great potential in the future of spoken audio.
Marcus Stahl
Boxine GmbH
Marcus Stahl is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Boxine, inventor of the toniebox, an award-winning audio system with a unique, intuitive operating concept. Tonies are tailor-made audio figurines for children between 3 and 10 years of age. Previously Marcus Stahl spent 15 years with Nokia in various positions.
Matt Cooper
Skillshare
Matt Cooper is CEO of Skillshare, an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people and millions of members worldwide. Prior to Skillshare, Matt was the CEO of Visually, a freelancer-driven platform that developed visual content. He was also an early executive at Upwork, the world's largest freelance marketplace, where he ran the operations, enterprise and international teams.
June Cohen
WaitWhat
June is co-founder of WaitWhat, a US-based media invention company that creates and owns premium content. WaitWhat’s properties include the Webby Award-winning Masters of Scale (hosted by LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock partner Reid Hoffman), the genre-defining hit Meditative Story (in partnership with Arianna Huffington’s Thrive), and the provocative and timely Should This Exist (hosted by Silicon Valley Internet pioneer Caterina Fake).
Christian Teichmann
Burda Principal Investments
Christian Teichmann joined Burda in 2015 and is CEO and Managing Director of Burda Principal Investments. Previously he was a Partner at Solon Management Consulting. He holds degrees in economics from Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid and ESB Reutlingen and is a Harvard Business School alumn.