Jad Abumrad, creator of Radiolab and host of Dolly Parton’s America, has spent his career shaping how audio stories are told. In a weekend questionnaire from The Verge, he offered a window into his personal workflow: fewer interruptions, tactile satisfaction, and software that makes tedious tasks feel fun. His most indispensable tool, he says, is a flat, springy travel pillow—not because it is digital, but because a bad night’s sleep derails everything.
His digital stack is deliberately lean. Abumrad says he truly loves the calendar app Fantastical because it makes scheduling meetings with busy people actually fun. On a new computer, his first install is Alfred, a lightweight Spotlight replacement that he prefers to AI-infused alternatives. For audio work, he still relies on Granite, a 15-year-old granular synthesis plugin he used to score dozens of early Radiolab pieces. He also says he wishes his smartphone had a button that would turn it into a very dumb phone, since he only needs it to be smart a few minutes a day.
Those choices fit a broader attention-management strategy. Abumrad keeps 14 tabs open on a research-heavy day, anchored by NYT, Ground.News, the Vanderbilt library page, and ESPN. He left Twitter after being locked out of his account and now uses Instagram only sometimes; his online happy places are Bandcamp and Andrew Huang’s YouTube channel. The most telling principle may be the advice he credits to his longtime coach Richard Nodell: 'Your job is not to know where you’re going but to lead the search.' For knowledge workers, that may be the most business-relevant lesson in the interview.