How Bose compete with AirPods — and why it’s in more cars than ever, with CEO Lila Snyder

Episode • Nov 29, 2022 • 1h 16m

Bose is one of the most recognizable audio brands in the world: it was famous for the Wave radio in the 80s, it invented noise cancellation, you can see its logo on NFL sidelines every Sunday, and of course there are the popular consumer products like the QuietComfort headphones that reviewers like Chris Welch here at The Verge rate as some of the best in the game. Bose is in tons of cars as well: audio systems in GM, Honda, Hyundai, Porsche, and more are developed and tuned by Bose.

Bose was founded in 1964 by Dr. Amar Bose, who donated a majority of the shares of the company to MIT, where he was a professor. That means to this day, Bose is a private company with no pressure to go public. However, Bose still has to compete against big tech in talent, products, and compatibility.

So today I’m talking to Bose CEO Lila Snyder about Bose’s dependence on platform vendors like Apple and Google, how she thinks about standards like Bluetooth, and where she thinks she can compete and win against AirPods and other products that get preferential treatment on phones.

Links:

Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II review: noise cancellation domination

How Amar Bose used research to build better speakers

List of Bose shelf stereos

Hearing Aids | FDA

Digital signal processor

Functional organization

Bose names its first female CEO as wait continues for new products

Amar Bose ’51 makes stock donation to MIT

Meta announces huge job cuts affecting 11,000 employees

Amazon mass layoffs will reportedly ax 10,000 people this week

Elon Musk demands Twitter employees commit to ‘extremely hardcore’ culture or leave