Spotify CEO Daniel Ek

Acquired

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Venturecapital, Ma, Investing, Acquisitions, Startups, Vc, Investment, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 18 May 2023

⏱️ 98 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We sit down with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek live in Stockholm at Spotify’s amazing HQ studio (check out the video version of this episode — which plays natively on Spotify!). This was an incredibly special and timely conversation: for those who haven’t been paying attention over the past few years, after revolutionizing music Spotify has now ALSO completely transformed our own industry in podcasting. Starting from way behind with ~zero market share in 2018, Spotify has now aggregated the listener market and amazingly surpassed Apple as the world’s largest podcast platform — including close to home with the Acquired audience, where it has 60%+ market share among you all!

We discuss the origins of this “second act” strategy with Daniel, the vision to move from a music company to an audio company, and what’s coming next with Spotify’s entry into Audiobooks. And of course we relive some key moments from the Acquired canon that Daniel was involved in, including his pivotal conversations with Taylor Swift and her team convincing her to come back to streaming following the release of 1984. Tune in!

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Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It is impossible to flawlessly execute a podcast of this style, and that's the beauty
0:06.0	of it.
0:07.0	You come up with a bunch of stuff you want to talk about, and then you end up having
0:10.8	a real organic conversation, and then it turns into a product, and that product is totally
0:14.6	different than what you envisioned in your head, but can still be great.
0:17.7	But I think the amazing thing is, unlike you talk into a journalist, et cetera, it's
0:23.2	truly a conversation one, and the second part is there's enough time to actually elaborate
0:29.0	on the thought and the idea, whereas you have to be so succinct in how you express your
0:35.2	idea, and truly get it across in 30 seconds, or like you lose the moment and journalists
0:40.0	want to move on, Brian Chesky is an example, he's like the master on it, and he just switches
0:44.6	it on, and he's like so good.
0:47.1	For some reason, he and I always ends up getting on the same panel, so I'm like, it's
0:50.8	game over even before it started, you're going to have all the great stuff.
0:53.8	Welcome to this episode of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and
1:14.8	the stories and playbooks behind them.
1:16.7	I'm Ben Gilbert.
1:17.7	I'm David Rosenthal, and we are your hosts.
1:21.0	In this episode, we sit down with Daniel Eck, the man who saved the music industry after
1:25.8	Napster and the piracy era, killed the CD business.
1:30.0	Some of the stats are mind-boggling, Spotify has paid $40 billion to artists over their
1:35.3	lifetime.
1:36.3	They're now the single largest source of revenue for the entire music industry.
	...

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