The NYU Entrepreneurial Institute has announced alumnus and Founding CTO of Audible, Guy Story, as its third and final keynote speaker for next week’s Entrepreneurs Festival.

As founding CTO of the internet’s leading provider of digital spoken audio information and entertainment, Story led Audible’s mobile audio and commerce technologies. In addition, Story is responsible for creating Whispersync for Voice, a feature that allows users to listen to any Audible Audiobook across multiple devices and switch between listening to Audiobooks and reading their companion on Kindle eBooks.

Story now works as general manager for Automotive for Amazon’s Alexa product. He is responsible for bringing Alexa, the voice service that powers Amazon Echo and other devices, to the automotive sector.

Prior to entering the workforce, Story received his M.S. in Computer Science from NYU. Since then, Story has had extensive experience working in research and technology development holding positions at companies like AT&T Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies.

Story said the key to being an entrepreneur in this day and age is being passionate, committed and willing to do what it takes to succeed. In addition, Story came up with a few rules to live by, based on his personal experience during his early years at Audible:

1. “Until you’re dead, you’re alive”   
2. “Unless it’s ALL right, it’s WRONG”
3. “Don’t solve problems you can’t solve”
4. “If you MUST do something, and you CAN, do it NOW”

Story advises companies to keep producing innovative ideas and engaging their customers in face of the growing availability of technology startups.

Story said one event that changed his outlook on entrepreneurship was transitioning from Bell Labs to Audible and now Amazon. In particular, Story said it was rare that his proof of concepts at Bell Labs would make it out into the real world, while Audible’s survival was dependent on his team’s ability to create innovative technology that customers would use.    

“You can innovate all day long, but creating a new business is a much bigger problem to solve,” Story said. “Entrepreneurs are those who want to create new opportunities and are willing to take risks and to keep at it to make it happen.”
In the end, Story attributes Audible’s success to the people and investors who shared this creative streak, hammering away at the problem until the team made it happen.

Email Lexi Faunce at [email protected].