“This idea is something that Mike and I have been talking about for a long time now, because we have both felt for a while that there is a really big opportunity in the education space — much bigger than I think a lot of people realize,” Zicherman says.

After taking a brief period to recharge after leaving Spotify in October 2023, Zicherman was soon ready to roll up his sleeves and build something new with a small team, he says, similar to Anchor’s early days. He also took inspiration from his work at Spotify, where he had spent the last few years building out its audiobooks business and scaling it to more markets.