James Daunt, the British bookseller known for revitalizing Waterstones and Barnes & Noble, discusses his transformative leadership during a turbulent time. The conversation highlights how the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the closure of numerous stores, pushing Daunt to accelerate a redesign and shift the business model. He also shares insights on converting Amazon's former locations into community-focused Barnes & Noble stores, emphasizing the importance of balancing corporate strategy with local engagement in the evolving bookselling landscape.

In this installment of our Centennial Series on companies that are over 100 years old, we are talking to Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt. The last few decades have thrown some hurdles in Barnes & Noble’s way, however. Far from being the monster that inspired the plot of the movie You’ve Got Mail, it’s had to face down a new Goliath called Amazon and the general decline of big-box retail stores. After years of closures and declining revenues, Barnes & Noble was bought out by activist investors in 2019, who installed Daunt as CEO, and he’s managed to turn things around by doing two main things. First, he has decentralized operations of the stores, letting each store act like a local bookshop and giving his booksellers more control over what titles they sell and display. He immediately ended a system that allowed publishers to pay for special placement in bookstores, which he said corrupted the entire system in service of short-term profits. Second, he’s using Barnes & Noble’s scale to build a purchasing and distribution pipeline that serves as the rest of the book industry’s competitor to Amazon. We get into all of it — the culture wars, J.K. Rowling, book ban bills in states across the country, and how Barnes & Noble went from being the bully on the block to competing with Amazon.LinksHedge Fund Buys Barnes & NobleCan Britain’s Top Bookseller Save Barnes & Noble? - The New York TimesHow Barnes & Noble transformed its brand from corporate bully to lovable neighborhood bookstoreBarnes & Noble to expand, marking a new chapter for private equity#BookTok: Is TikTok changing the publishing industry? How book lovers on TikTok are changing the publishing industryBarnes & Noble HistoryTranscript:https://www.theverge.com/e/23406145Credits:Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.It was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Hadley Robinson and it was edited by Jackson Bierfeldt. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Director is Eleanor Donovan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices