Spotify Founder: “Spotify Was A Stupid Idea!” How A 23 Year Old Shy, Underdog, Introvert, Built A $31 Billion Business! - Daniel Ek

The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

FlightStory

Society & Culture, Business, Education

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 September 2023

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

How to go from the Swedish housing projects to billionaire CEO of Spotify. In this new episode Steven sits down with the co-founder and CEO of Spotify, Daniel Ek. Daniel Ek is a Swedish entrepreneur who started his first company in 1997 at just 14 years old. He eventually dropped out of college and founded the online marketing firm, Advertigo, which he sold in 2006 to the Swedish company Tradedoubler at 23 years old. Coming out of early retirement, Daniel founded Spotify alongside Martin Lorentzon in 2006. In this conversation Daniel and Steven discuss topics, such as: His childhood in a single parent household The importance of his mother in his success Growing up in the Swedish projects Coming from a musical family Overcoming being an introvert His ability to adapt to changing situations Not fitting in when he was growing up How his difference helped in his later success Starting his first company while at school How people worry more about failing then succeeding Why effort can’t always beat talent People not understanding what it’s actually like to be a billionaire How spare time is now his most important currency Why the idea of success through University is outdated What football taught him about business Retiring at 23 years old Why he found being rich and successful depressing How the idea of ‘why-not’ helped to create Spotify Realising that he had approached his career in the wrong way How Spotify nearly collapsed 4 times The importance of culture in organisations Why you should take the risk of betting on yourself Follow Daniel: Twitter: https://bit.ly/465g8WM Watch the episodes on Youtube - https://g2ul0.app.link/3kxINCANKsb My new book! 'The 33 Laws Of Business & Life' is out now: https://smarturl.it/DOACbook Follow me: Instagram: http://bit.ly/3nIkGAZ Twitter:http://bit.ly/3ztHuHm Linkedin: https://bit.ly/41Fl95Q Telegram: http://bit.ly/3nJYxST Sponsors: Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/doac Huel: https://g2ul0.app.link/G4RjcdKNKsb Shopify: https://shopify.com/bartlett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I'm an introvert, not amazing academically, didn't feel like a belong anywhere.
0:04.9	Average, at best.
0:06.0	And yeah, you created Spotify.
0:08.0	Yeah.
0:09.0	Daniel.
0:10.0	Act.
0:11.0	Spotify founder and CEO.
0:12.0	He's not only saved the music industry, he's created a $50 billion company, and he himself
0:17.0	is worth more than $4 billion.
0:19.0	I flunked high school to the start of my first company, and that later got acquired.
0:23.0	And you retired at 20th century.
0:25.0	Yeah.
0:26.0	The first month was fun, night clubs, sports car, 20 or 30 girls throwing around money
0:31.0	six months in.
0:32.0	Realized that this thing I thought I wanted, I just didn't want it all.
0:36.0	I was just empty.
0:37.0	Just thinking, am I ever going to get out of this depression?
0:40.0	And what to do in life?
0:41.0	What if you can work on something you actually care about?
0:44.0	What would you pick?
0:45.0	Music.
0:46.0	But the industry's going down the drain.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from FlightStory, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of FlightStory and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.