Inventor of the Audio Cassette Tape Lou Ottens Dies at Age 94 By Arnesia Young on March 11, 2021 Dutch engineer Lou Ottens, the man who invented the first cassette tape, has died at the age of 94. Ottens was one of the leading engineers at Philips in the 1960s, when he spearheaded the company’s quest to make music more accessible and portable. His invention would revolutionize the industry—changing the way the world listened to and recorded music and becoming at once “a sensation,” as the engineer told TIME on the 50th anniversary of the audio cassette tape’s introduction to the market.