WEBVTT 1 00:00:04.135 --> 00:00:05.336 Welcome to another moments episode. 2 00:00:05.456 --> 00:00:14.003 In this clip, Daniel Ek shares some invaluable business wisdom and reminds us that you have to find out what the real problem is before you try to innovate your way out of it. 3 00:00:14.523 --> 00:00:18.246 When Spotify took on Apple, they didn't just copy what was already out there. 4 00:00:18.766 --> 00:00:23.290 They interrogated what was actually broken in the user experience and built a fundamentally better way. 5 00:00:23.770 --> 00:00:27.033 Our sponsors T-Mobile are fixing business internet in a similar way. 6 00:00:27.433 --> 00:00:28.694 Internet outages are so 7 00:00:30.375 --> 00:00:36.816 And many businesses like mine have to rely on a patchwork of internet providers, backup partners and coverage workarounds. 8 00:00:36.876 --> 00:00:40.817 Team Mobile saw an opportunity and built super broadband. 9 00:00:41.197 --> 00:00:46.918 It pairs 5G with Starlink satellites to give you virtually unbreakable internet across every US zip code. 10 00:00:47.038 --> 00:00:49.139 Here's Daniel on what it takes to innovate like this. 11 00:00:50.219 --> 00:00:55.420 When I heard the Spotify story, I really wanted to meet you because 12 00:00:57.297 --> 00:01:01.642 I consider myself to be ambitious, but there are some challenges that I would just view as impossible. 13 00:01:02.603 --> 00:01:15.416 And at the time when you consider how the music industry was, that it's ran by these big record labels predominantly and they own the music, to be a young kid from Sweden 14 00:01:17.078 --> 00:01:21.483 And believe that you could change that, for me, is a special type of delusion. 15 00:01:21.884 --> 00:01:24.767 Like, it's just an impossible task. 16 00:01:24.807 --> 00:01:25.848 It's what I just would have thought. 17 00:01:25.868 --> 00:01:27.150 Okay, some things are the way they are. 18 00:01:27.170 --> 00:01:28.111 They're removable objects. 19 00:01:28.291 --> 00:01:28.992 That is one of them. 20 00:01:29.112 --> 00:01:29.292 Yeah. 21 00:01:29.853 --> 00:01:32.716 Why didn't you think that was a impossible task? 22 00:01:35.455 --> 00:01:43.081 Well, I think for several reasons, but I think that is the beautiful naivety of an entrepreneur as well, right? 23 00:01:44.242 --> 00:01:45.363 We move mountains. 24 00:01:45.743 --> 00:02:00.016 I'm sure Elon was, you know, even more insurmountable thing, electric cars, and there hadn't been a successful car companies for, I think, a century or something, or at least, you know, many, many decades in the US. 25 00:02:00.716 --> 00:02:01.957 And he managed to do that. 26 00:02:01.977 --> 00:02:04.399 So I think it's part delusion. 27 00:02:07.501 --> 00:02:22.471 But the other part I think also is that what I realized is before even committing to this idea, the why not part, I probably spent 500 hours learning about this problem. 28 00:02:23.492 --> 00:02:29.894 And the scarcest resource we have in the world today by far is time. 29 00:02:31.174 --> 00:02:38.257 And when you have high quality people that spend thousands of hours on a problem, you find new solutions. 30 00:02:40.317 --> 00:02:44.218 And so the biggest thing for humanity, I believe, is simply that. 31 00:02:44.939 --> 00:02:48.060 I believe we're capable of doing practically anything. 32 00:02:48.780 --> 00:02:49.040 But... 33 00:02:50.216 --> 00:02:58.979 There aren't that many people that can see these multidimensional things with that right experience that happens to come in at that right time. 34 00:02:59.039 --> 00:03:06.482 They're spending thousands of hours of trying to needle in a haystack, see that opportunity through that very, very tiny prism. 35 00:03:07.342 --> 00:03:15.025 And even today, when I think about some of my other businesses, it kind of worked the same way. 36 00:03:15.105 --> 00:03:17.926 So I started a healthcare business about five years ago. 37 00:03:18.646 --> 00:03:26.155 But I was spending, I think the first interview when I mentioned it was in 2009. 38 00:03:26.956 --> 00:03:31.642 And I started the company five years ago, 2018. 39 00:03:31.742 --> 00:03:35.487 So I probably spent a decade thinking about this problem. 40 00:03:36.827 --> 00:03:38.568 and I couldn't figure out a solution. 41 00:03:38.588 --> 00:03:39.208 2008? 42 00:03:39.228 --> 00:03:40.588 Yeah, yeah. 43 00:03:41.408 --> 00:03:46.330 You started the company in 2008, but you started- No, no, no, I started the company, the healthcare company in 2018. 44 00:03:46.350 --> 00:03:47.070 18, right. 45 00:03:47.410 --> 00:03:48.790 But I started thinking about it 2008. 46 00:03:48.890 --> 00:03:53.312 Oh, okay, so- So I have a notebook with all my crazy ideas. 47 00:03:53.372 --> 00:03:54.772 Most of them amount to nothing. 48 00:03:55.673 --> 00:04:00.738 Quite often someone else comes along and does them and I'm happy and it's amazing. 49 00:04:01.879 --> 00:04:10.168 But every now and then nothing happens for a great period of time and I kind of feel that itch to maybe make a difference myself. 50 00:04:10.969 --> 00:04:31.710 And I say that because, like, the realization there was I had spent up until that point thousands of hours understanding the healthcare system, why it is, or the way it is, the incentive schemes and what the NHS is doing and what someone else is doing and the public healthcare system insurance business direct-to-consumer things, the... 51 00:04:32.090 --> 00:04:41.213 the longevity curves of human beings, the disease groups, the costs, curves, like all of those aspects about it, similar to how you're describing looking at rockets. 52 00:04:42.373 --> 00:04:47.835 But, you know, imagine you spending a thousand hours a rocket, not just kind of casually researching it. 53 00:04:48.255 --> 00:04:52.716 I am sure you will find novel ways of how to attack the problem. 54 00:04:53.096 --> 00:04:59.858 It may not be because, you know, if you're not a physicist, you may not come up with the next rocket engine. 55 00:05:00.839 --> 00:05:05.483 But you may find another twist, too, on how to attack this problem. 56 00:05:05.503 --> 00:05:08.266 And I don't really think it comes down to that. 57 00:05:08.807 --> 00:05:13.852 And so in the space of music, I don't know anything about the music industry going into it. 58 00:05:15.333 --> 00:05:21.179 But I would argue a few years into it, I was probably one of the most foremost experts on copywriting. 59 00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:45.610 in the world around like the DMCA and what the US copyright regime look like and what other regimes look like and how, you know, performance rights, societies, label rights and what kind of rights, mechanical rights, performing rights, all of those different aspects, all the different code ISRC numbers, ISBN numbers and how they relate it and so on and so forth. 60 00:05:46.290 --> 00:05:57.920 And, you know, I find like people either get too modeled in on the details and don't see the bigger picture or they stay too top level picture to really see the new ones. 61 00:05:58.481 --> 00:06:05.587 And the question is, how do you dive deep enough where you see it and figure out which problems to solve in what order? 62 00:06:06.968 --> 00:06:32.485 and I was at that point by probably 2007 having spent a year on Spotify, but the team was super small, so it really wasn't a big commit at that time, and I wasn't sure at that time, but then I realized that, hey, this is actually possible because we'd built the product that showcased the technology of what we were doing, and it felt like if you had all the world's music on your hard drive, 63 00:06:33.525 --> 00:06:38.393 So then the real problem ended up being, can we get the music industry to accept this? 64 00:06:38.953 --> 00:06:40.235 And to that, I had no idea. 65 00:06:40.856 --> 00:06:47.786 But I felt like this is so obviously, if this came out in the marketplace, what consumers would ask for it. 66 00:06:48.287 --> 00:06:52.148 Now the only question is, is the music industry going to allow this? 67 00:06:52.668 --> 00:06:57.490 And that took me another year and a half, 18 months to learn the answer. 68 00:06:57.510 --> 00:06:59.431 And it was completely binary. 69 00:06:59.451 --> 00:07:12.855 We almost died probably four times in that process and ran out of money and record companies saying, no, this is never going to happen until eventually one day the stars aligned and we were able to launch 70 00:07:13.916 --> 00:07:21.604 But that was not a given, but it felt like the right bet to make because, you know, it was a binary outcome. 71 00:07:21.724 --> 00:07:24.467 Either we would fail, the price wasn't all too bad. 72 00:07:25.207 --> 00:07:30.553 If we would succeed, it was clearly so that at least this would resonate very well with consumers. 73 00:07:31.693 --> 00:07:35.295 Was there any moments where you thought that it wasn't going to happen, i.e. 74 00:07:35.335 --> 00:07:38.877 conversations you had with record labels where someone very high up says absolutely no way? 75 00:07:39.837 --> 00:07:40.358 Many times. 76 00:07:40.938 --> 00:07:49.042 I would say probably once every month or two over a two-year period, I thought that this probably won't pan out. 77 00:07:50.083 --> 00:07:51.985 And it was incredibly demoralizing. 78 00:07:52.105 --> 00:07:58.091 I usually joke, but like in the beginning of that process, I had hair and then in the end of it, I lost all of the hair. 79 00:07:58.692 --> 00:08:03.297 I probably gained 30 pounds in weight during that period of time. 80 00:08:05.143 --> 00:08:05.844 It was awful. 81 00:08:06.565 --> 00:08:24.263 But throughout, my co-founder, Martin, probably a factor of just who he is as an individual, but also probably because he didn't participate in these meetings, kept being really upbeat, kept being, you know, amazing support and said, don't worry about it. 82 00:08:24.463 --> 00:08:25.444 You're going to figure it out. 83 00:08:25.464 --> 00:08:27.367 And he just kept believing in me. 84 00:08:27.788 --> 00:08:31.693 And then he also said a few times, you know, when that wasn't enough, he said, don't worry about it. 85 00:08:31.713 --> 00:08:32.774 We'll figure out something else. 86 00:08:32.794 --> 00:08:36.479 If this doesn't work out, it felt to me like I always had that safety net. 87 00:08:37.080 --> 00:08:40.444 And it was just the amount, the push that I needed to do this. 88 00:08:41.645 --> 00:08:47.771 And again, talking about not giving advice, but the advice that I do give to other people is to share the burden with someone. 89 00:08:48.592 --> 00:08:49.713 It is so important. 90 00:08:50.414 --> 00:08:59.323 And I know I get most of the credits for Spotify, but it is really a team effort from the Gustavs and Alex and all those people. 91 00:08:59.743 --> 00:09:04.308 But then also in the early days from Martin in believing in me. 92 00:09:05.248 --> 00:09:11.691 uh, and, and knowing, uh, this kind of supernatural ability that I'm going to pull it off somehow. 93 00:09:12.611 --> 00:09:18.413 I must've told you a story, which I guess has stayed with you about perseverance and the power of perseverance. 94 00:09:18.693 --> 00:09:22.775 The double-edged sword to that is sometimes it's right to quit as well. 95 00:09:22.915 --> 00:09:23.115 Yeah. 96 00:09:23.755 --> 00:09:28.717 And knowing when to persevere and knowing when you're just wasting your time, which is, as you said, the most important currency of all. 97 00:09:28.977 --> 00:09:30.198 Yeah. 98 00:09:30.238 --> 00:09:30.598 You know, yeah. 99 00:09:32.069 --> 00:09:34.710 That's where art meets science. 100 00:09:35.170 --> 00:09:37.831 There is no scientific answer because it depends. 101 00:09:38.071 --> 00:09:44.073 It's an art to know when something is futile and when something is worth doing. 102 00:09:44.113 --> 00:09:50.095 But I call it that sort of binary outcome, but with uneven distribution, right? 103 00:09:50.515 --> 00:09:58.518 So if you think about it as a curve, even if it's 50-50, whether you succeed, but on the upside, you can win a lot more than you can lose. 104 00:09:58.738 --> 00:10:02.019 And all you can really lose is one time and the upside may be a hundred. 105 00:10:03.120 --> 00:10:05.961 It's probably worth persuading. 106 00:10:06.001 --> 00:10:07.881 Obviously it's, that's the science part. 107 00:10:07.901 --> 00:10:10.942 The art thing is, okay, well, is it really a hundred times? 108 00:10:11.023 --> 00:10:11.923 Is it 10 times? 109 00:10:12.003 --> 00:10:12.063 And 110 00:10:12.683 --> 00:10:15.946 And have I already lost, but I'm just not aware of it. 111 00:10:16.487 --> 00:10:17.047 That's the art. 112 00:10:17.688 --> 00:10:20.230 And also in that I hear an optimism bias from two co-founders. 113 00:10:21.231 --> 00:10:22.312 The constant, oh, we'll figure it out. 114 00:10:22.332 --> 00:10:22.832 We'll figure it out. 115 00:10:22.852 --> 00:10:23.813 We'll figure it out. 116 00:10:24.313 --> 00:10:26.335 How important do you think that is? 117 00:10:26.415 --> 00:10:27.936 Especially, you know, you hire a lot of people. 118 00:10:27.977 --> 00:10:31.159 Is that something you're like looking for in the people that you work with that bias towards? 119 00:10:31.179 --> 00:10:31.840 We'll figure it out. 120 00:10:33.281 --> 00:10:52.412 I think again it depends on the role you're hiring for you need a team I think it's really important that you just don't surround yourself with just yes people or optimists you need the naysayer in the room as well you need the people who will balance it out and be the one who says I'm not sure this is going to work out 121 00:10:52.912 --> 00:10:57.899 And so often I think that's the important part. 122 00:10:57.939 --> 00:11:07.112 We keep talking about the CFO or sales people but again you can have a deal making CFO and a sales person that's happy go lucky. 123 00:11:08.194 --> 00:11:10.136 It may not be a great combo. 124 00:11:10.596 --> 00:11:17.964 You may want the CFO to be skeptical about the sales pipeline and a happy-go-lucky salesperson or the inverse. 125 00:11:18.425 --> 00:11:24.572 Maybe a really diligent that and a CFO that may be sort of like, don't worry about it, we will sort it out. 126 00:11:25.712 --> 00:11:28.813 But I think so much about that is the subtleties. 127 00:11:28.914 --> 00:11:30.954 We don't have a perfect model of the world. 128 00:11:32.895 --> 00:11:39.117 And the more experience I have, it's a cheesy thing to say, but the less I realize that I actually know. 129 00:11:40.038 --> 00:11:51.582 And so much of these are actually down in the nuances and most people are above the nuances, don't really understand the issues well enough or too bogged down in the details to understand the bigger picture. 130 00:11:52.283 --> 00:12:08.684 And going that sort of up and down that's sort of super detail-oriented, but also being able to go up and see the big pictures, that is, and simplifying very complex concepts, I think some of the most amazing entrepreneurs in the world are experts at. 131 00:12:09.725 --> 00:12:10.966 And that is a superpower. 132 00:12:10.986 --> 00:12:16.528 And that is certainly one that I'm trying to hone and work on. 133 00:12:17.329 --> 00:12:26.133 But when you see it like Steve Jobs, when you think very complex things and people say he didn't understand engineering and technical problems, it's not true. 134 00:12:26.753 --> 00:12:42.716 Yes, he may not have been an engineer, he may not have known how to write code, but he certainly can empathize with what made an amazing engineer tick, empathize with different technical solutions, what have different inputs and outputs, and he understood it. 135 00:12:43.076 --> 00:12:51.138 And he was brilliant in taking very complex ideas and understanding how to make that resonate for the everyday person. 136 00:12:51.918 --> 00:13:04.406 These tales I hear of you sort of being outside record labels and waiting for the CEO to come out so that you could catch them or trying to accost the assistant outside and asking when the CEO was coming outside so that you could get a meeting with them. 137 00:13:04.506 --> 00:13:04.706 Yeah. 138 00:13:04.866 --> 00:13:05.707 Are these tales true? 139 00:13:07.428 --> 00:13:10.129 As with many, they're probably exaggerated a little bit. 140 00:13:10.270 --> 00:13:10.930 Where is the truth? 141 00:13:11.370 --> 00:13:21.655 Well, the truth is that certainly happened, but it wasn't, you know, I've heard people recounted us that I slept outside of the record labels kind of in a sleeping bag. 142 00:13:22.296 --> 00:13:23.136 That didn't happen. 143 00:13:23.156 --> 00:13:25.938 That happened another time in my career, but it wasn't... 144 00:13:27.439 --> 00:13:45.996 It didn't happen there, but it certainly happened that I'd book a week, fly to New York with no meeting booked, with basically an open calendar and about 20 phone calls a day just trying to figure out a time to get on the schedule of a senior VP or a CEO, etc., 145 00:13:47.077 --> 00:13:47.998 That certainly happened. 146 00:13:48.518 --> 00:13:55.343 And that taught me another thing too, which is that these assistants, like you better befriend them because they are the keys to the kingdom. 147 00:13:56.204 --> 00:13:58.225 And most people don't care about them at all. 148 00:13:58.986 --> 00:14:00.887 But they're very influential. 149 00:14:00.927 --> 00:14:01.868 They're very powerful. 150 00:14:02.368 --> 00:14:07.311 And, you know, that was hard in the beginning. 151 00:14:07.352 --> 00:14:11.094 But then I realized that they got to see me as an individual. 152 00:14:11.214 --> 00:14:12.595 I saw them as an individual. 153 00:14:12.715 --> 00:14:13.396 And eventually... 154 00:14:14.136 --> 00:14:20.800 You know, this is not, we tend to believe the world is more logical than what it is, but a lot of it is based on relationships. 155 00:14:20.840 --> 00:14:24.082 So eventually some of them started taking a liking to me. 156 00:14:24.182 --> 00:14:39.952 And so when there was the opportunity and they could prioritize 10 other things for that CEO to do, but I was there, I was friendly and easy to work with, show up at no moment's notice, even if it was 20 minutes before finding out about it, I would show up. 157 00:14:41.073 --> 00:14:43.555 And so I was easy to deal with. 158 00:14:43.755 --> 00:14:48.059 So take away all that complexity in order to achieve the outcome that I wanted to do. 159 00:14:48.520 --> 00:14:50.322 And sometimes that is as simple as it is. 160 00:14:50.422 --> 00:14:56.488 Just be consistent, be the easiest person to deal with, and you'd be surprised how many problems it solves. 161 00:14:57.448 --> 00:14:59.990 Did you invest your personal capital into starting Spotify? 162 00:15:00.030 --> 00:15:04.553 Because I read again that you'd spent pretty much all of your personal wealth to start the company. 163 00:15:05.093 --> 00:15:05.714 Yeah, I did. 164 00:15:06.154 --> 00:15:09.396 So I invested not all of it, but quite substantial amounts of it. 165 00:15:10.377 --> 00:15:17.181 And my co-founder invested even more, but he obviously had a much larger sum of money from the beginning. 166 00:15:18.302 --> 00:15:22.885 Yeah, so all in all, I think we invested about $10 million into this company. 167 00:15:24.206 --> 00:15:33.769 by ourselves, which was also crazy because, you know, back then, today, 10 million into a startup just wasn't, isn't a big number. 168 00:15:34.289 --> 00:15:42.571 Many startups that have done that before, but doing that on a seed stage back in 2007, that just was unheard of. 169 00:15:42.851 --> 00:15:46.372 It was usually 500k seed check sums, etc. 170 00:15:46.872 --> 00:15:47.912 What if it hadn't worked out? 171 00:15:47.932 --> 00:15:50.153 What would have been the personal implications for you financially? 172 00:15:51.093 --> 00:15:58.116 The personal implications, I went from not having to have a job to then probably having to go back to having a job. 173 00:15:58.196 --> 00:16:07.679 So I basically took that security that I'd built up, that 22 set for life, and I gave that up in a moment's notice. 174 00:16:08.139 --> 00:16:08.839 And... 175 00:16:11.200 --> 00:16:14.081 Yeah, I mean, I don't know what to say. 176 00:16:14.121 --> 00:16:19.142 I think from a purely logical point of view, it was probably a terrible decision. 177 00:16:20.202 --> 00:16:38.065 But betting on myself and betting on yourself would probably be, again, I say I shouldn't give advice, but it is probably the best advice I could give many people is, you know, because especially those that want to invest in various startups, et cetera, but they may not have a lot of money, 178 00:16:38.505 --> 00:16:41.648 And then I always say, well, why don't you just bet on yourself instead? 179 00:16:41.668 --> 00:16:52.077 Why don't you just try to work for one of these startups, like you said, and maybe take a little bit more equity and a little bit less pay and take out of your cash instead? 180 00:16:52.097 --> 00:16:56.581 Because that way you increase the likelihood, hopefully if you know you're good, of investing 181 00:16:57.542 --> 00:17:02.444 the company being a success, and it just feels like the more prudent thing to do. 182 00:17:02.525 --> 00:17:09.108 And so I had a sneaky feeling that that was the right thing to do, but investing as much probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. 183 00:17:09.128 --> 00:17:14.532 Spotify goes on to be, I mean, success is probably an understatement. 184 00:17:14.732 --> 00:17:19.775 I know the journey to that success had multiple near-death experiences to get there. 185 00:17:20.075 --> 00:17:23.257 One of the key things, key moments I reflect on as a Spotify customer is, 186 00:17:24.338 --> 00:17:30.522 is when Apple launched their competing product, Apple Music, in 2015, I believe it was. 187 00:17:30.842 --> 00:17:33.984 And there was lots of articles saying that this would be the death of Spotify. 188 00:17:34.284 --> 00:17:35.345 I think I was even concerned. 189 00:17:35.525 --> 00:17:39.348 As a very loyal Spotify user, I thought, you know, they have all the phones. 190 00:17:39.808 --> 00:17:41.149 They're kind of like the mafia. 191 00:17:41.549 --> 00:17:42.590 They could just squash you. 192 00:17:43.531 --> 00:17:47.714 Most companies, when Apple comes into their territory, shake in their boots. 193 00:17:48.574 --> 00:17:52.557 What was it like in your office that day when Apple Music launched a competing product? 194 00:17:53.166 --> 00:17:58.667 You know, when you live in the thick of the fire, you're not concerned about the things that everyone else is concerned about. 195 00:17:58.687 --> 00:18:04.188 I usually say public perception lacks about six to 12 months what's actually going on. 196 00:18:05.088 --> 00:18:17.451 And so in our case, we'd known that Apple was going to launch something for probably the better part of a year because they had the Beats acquisition beforehand, and we were hearing all sorts of rumors, et cetera, about what it was. 197 00:18:17.491 --> 00:18:17.591 So 198 00:18:18.331 --> 00:18:23.215 And absolutely, you have to be worried when one of the greatest companies on earth decides to compete with you. 199 00:18:23.695 --> 00:18:25.056 So we were concerned about it. 200 00:18:26.658 --> 00:18:30.560 And we were kind of doubling down on what our positioning was going to be. 201 00:18:30.580 --> 00:18:36.505 So you kind of like double and triple check whether or not, you know, you were deluding yourself into believing things to be true. 202 00:18:37.185 --> 00:18:44.789 And so, for instance, in our case, one of the big things, we had some strategic pillars that we were focusing on. 203 00:18:45.290 --> 00:18:49.672 One of them we call ubiquity because we always knew this would eventually be the case. 204 00:18:50.252 --> 00:18:56.596 We thought that consumers would value the ability to work across all devices and all ecosystem. 205 00:18:56.836 --> 00:18:58.757 And our bet would be that... 206 00:19:00.418 --> 00:19:08.186 Any competitor we might have had would actually focus on reinforcing their own ecosystem and not care about all the other stuff. 207 00:19:08.346 --> 00:19:17.816 So the primary reason they were into a music service would be to make their own devices better, not to make the world's best music service. 208 00:19:18.737 --> 00:19:29.571 And so, you know, that's why we made such an effort of integrating into cars, integrating into all sorts of weird devices, smart fridges, whatever you might think. 209 00:19:30.132 --> 00:19:36.040 And so it was kind of like reiterating that, but I felt pretty good about that position and going back. 210 00:19:37.080 --> 00:19:43.582 And then there's always this sort of like, what if they figured out something that we just wouldn't have thought about? 211 00:19:43.602 --> 00:19:48.043 And I remember we were constantly talking to the product teams about this. 212 00:19:49.123 --> 00:19:51.324 And like, what if they come up with this? 213 00:19:51.364 --> 00:19:56.025 And we're literally trying this, game theorizing every possible angle on it. 214 00:19:58.485 --> 00:20:02.847 But I think at the end of the day, we kind of went through the thousand scenarios kind of thing. 215 00:20:02.887 --> 00:20:04.768 We knew we had prepared as well as we could. 216 00:20:04.788 --> 00:20:10.570 We anticipated a certain type of product. 217 00:20:11.071 --> 00:20:21.015 There was this kind of 1% or 10% chance, whatever you want to quantify it as, where we would just be wrong and they'd come up with something that widely superseded any of our expectations. 218 00:20:21.975 --> 00:20:46.642 but that very day remember we'd been preparing for that day for so long so the first reaction was kind of them announcing it which we expected them to do and then seeing the walkthrough of the product and realizing that okay well we prepared for this we thought about this etc and so weirdly enough as the rest of the world kind of like gasped for air we were thinking about it 219 00:20:47.142 --> 00:20:49.966 okay, well, this was what we expected. 220 00:20:50.927 --> 00:20:53.891 And back to that point, distribution was the amazing thing. 221 00:20:53.911 --> 00:20:57.556 They hadn't come up with something on the product side that we just didn't anticipate. 222 00:20:58.497 --> 00:21:00.700 But it was really just about distribution. 223 00:21:00.741 --> 00:21:03.104 And there was nothing we could do to guard ourselves against it. 224 00:21:03.984 --> 00:21:10.747 But we felt like we had a superior experience on the personalization side. 225 00:21:10.767 --> 00:21:20.871 The fact that if you have a Windows machine and an iPhone, Spotify would work, but Apple Music wouldn't at that time. 226 00:21:20.891 --> 00:21:26.454 So there were many of those things that I thought had a better positioning than they had. 227 00:21:26.954 --> 00:21:27.875 I've long thought that. 228 00:21:27.895 --> 00:21:28.455 I've tried both. 229 00:21:28.655 --> 00:21:31.197 I mean, I tried it when it came out and I couldn't stick to it. 230 00:21:31.377 --> 00:21:39.221 And I think me and my friends who are in my music group, we all concluded that the personalization, how Spotify understands me is really the thing. 231 00:21:39.241 --> 00:21:41.143 It's hard to know why you do what you do as a consumer. 232 00:21:41.743 --> 00:21:48.447 But from analyzing it a bit more deeply, it just felt like I'd built, there was a lot of investment I'd done to my playlists and all those things. 233 00:21:48.487 --> 00:21:49.848 But Spotify just knew me better. 234 00:21:49.868 --> 00:21:51.549 It seems to have much more data than... 235 00:21:52.250 --> 00:22:04.023 um data on me and understands me and is more of a bespoke solution to me than apple was and also the the user experience is not great and i just can't get past that i just so i tried it and i 236 00:22:08.428 --> 00:22:10.749 Apple are, I used the word Matthew earlier on. 237 00:22:10.769 --> 00:22:15.992 A lot of people don't know this, but they take 30% revenues on pretty much every new app in the store. 238 00:22:16.473 --> 00:22:19.875 They've rejected your audiobook app multiple times. 239 00:22:20.195 --> 00:22:28.460 There's a rumor going around that they even delay how quickly you can release new updates of your app and delay how that reaches phones. 240 00:22:28.780 --> 00:22:32.002 What's your opinion on Apple and what they do and how they conduct themselves? 241 00:22:32.682 --> 00:22:40.987 Well, as a consumer, let's start off with Apple is a fantastic company and they make amazing products. 242 00:22:41.968 --> 00:22:42.929 I really do believe that. 243 00:22:43.729 --> 00:22:51.334 I've been a Mac user since I can't even remember, probably late 90s when I could first afford one. 244 00:22:52.675 --> 00:22:56.737 all the way to now and obviously use the iPhone and Apple watches and all that. 245 00:22:56.757 --> 00:22:57.597 So let's start with that. 246 00:22:57.978 --> 00:23:12.946 And I think that's hard to square then that there's this other company that's fiercely focused on just itself and constantly trying to do things by itself and not working well with others. 247 00:23:14.687 --> 00:23:34.868 and those are perhaps two different sides of the same coin but the way that manifests itself I think that it's a company in many cases that still sees itself as an underdog but don't realize that they become Goliath 248 00:23:35.548 --> 00:23:44.112 And so many of the tactics that made it the rebel kind of thing are now stifling innovation, and it's really hurting consumers to a great extent. 249 00:23:44.472 --> 00:23:54.997 With the 30% you talked about, with the fact that, you know, Spotify can't, or any developer, if you don't pay the 30%, you can't even speak to your consumers. 250 00:23:55.617 --> 00:23:56.599 It's kind of absurd. 251 00:23:57.600 --> 00:24:02.485 So, you know, there's a ruthlessness on the business side of Apple. 252 00:24:04.728 --> 00:24:06.210 And perhaps it's always been so. 253 00:24:06.290 --> 00:24:06.811 I don't know. 254 00:24:07.251 --> 00:24:09.714 I never got the opportunity to meet Steve Jobs. 255 00:24:09.774 --> 00:24:09.994 But... 256 00:24:13.473 --> 00:24:17.258 where just from an ethos point of view, it's just not me. 257 00:24:17.699 --> 00:24:24.008 And I have a hard time squaring that with me as the consumer and me as the business leader. 258 00:24:25.310 --> 00:24:28.394 And needless to say, I do believe that Apple... 259 00:24:29.215 --> 00:24:46.354 can and should play fair and I think it would be way better for the world if they did um and I think um that it would actually help them in many regards to switch their tactics and realize that they are the Goliath at this point and not David um and so yeah 260 00:24:47.335 --> 00:24:50.859 One of the things I want to close on is your philosophy. 261 00:24:50.979 --> 00:25:03.995 So I guess it's the same answer because Spotify's philosophy towards what's made it successful will probably be in many respects a reflection of your philosophies towards business and more broadly towards life. 262 00:25:04.475 --> 00:25:20.244 But when I sit here, and I think a lot of people will sit here and say, there's clearly something unique about you, about the way you approach problem solving, problems, life, business, all of those things that has been, that has defined you and set you apart. 263 00:25:20.805 --> 00:25:24.607 Are you aware of what that is, what those principles are? 264 00:25:27.206 --> 00:25:28.507 No, I don't think so. 265 00:25:28.567 --> 00:25:45.814 But I think you're right in that, you know, the way I would describe Spotify to people, you're right that it is scary sometimes watching Spotify, trying to watch it from a distance and not just be in it because sometimes it's doing things where I'm like... 266 00:25:46.615 --> 00:25:49.798 how did people know that we were supposed to do it this way? 267 00:25:50.498 --> 00:25:52.961 And it would be how I would approach solving a problem. 268 00:25:53.001 --> 00:25:57.205 And it's kind of how we've internalized certain things. 269 00:25:57.786 --> 00:26:00.228 But the best way is it's 17 years old now. 270 00:26:00.709 --> 00:26:04.112 And it is a teenager that's liberating itself from 271 00:26:04.612 --> 00:26:05.712 So it's not 100% me. 272 00:26:06.593 --> 00:26:10.114 In fact, it is this much broader, different being. 273 00:26:10.754 --> 00:26:15.756 There are aspects of it that hasn't taken after me at all. 274 00:26:16.116 --> 00:26:23.718 In product development, you know, Gustav is a formidable product leader, as an example, and Alex is a formidable business leader. 275 00:26:23.778 --> 00:26:33.561 And the two of them are now leading more of the day-to-day, and they're certainly instilling their personal values and their personal perspective of the company, too. 276 00:26:34.021 --> 00:26:39.102 which I think they're totally entitled to doing, having been with the company for 12 plus years, both of them. 277 00:26:40.142 --> 00:26:45.644 But it is interesting seeing it because we're approaching things now in a way I wouldn't always do. 278 00:26:45.724 --> 00:26:51.425 It's not inconsistent with important principles of mine, but it's certainly not directed. 279 00:26:51.505 --> 00:26:54.446 And the other part is I started as a 23-year-old. 280 00:26:55.126 --> 00:26:59.107 And the 23-year-old Daniel, while many parts are the same, 281 00:27:04.588 --> 00:27:07.570 having seen that, have changed perspectives as well. 282 00:27:07.590 --> 00:27:13.133 I have a different feeling about work and the importance of that in my life. 283 00:27:13.593 --> 00:27:19.175 Still very important, but may not be the sole most important thing that I do, just to mention one. 284 00:27:19.376 --> 00:27:25.699 And so it has similarities, but there's differences to me as an individual too. 285 00:27:26.139 --> 00:27:30.441 But I think if you compare me to 23-year-old Daniel, to 30-year-old Daniel, to 40-year-old Daniel, 286 00:27:33.182 --> 00:27:34.463 And I've evolved too. 287 00:27:34.603 --> 00:27:44.206 And candidly, I'm in that period at the moment where I'm perhaps trying to figure out who the 40-year-old Daniel really is. 288 00:27:44.947 --> 00:27:47.448 Because it's a different one than the 30-year-old one. 289 00:27:48.568 --> 00:27:49.949 Maybe it's subtleties. 290 00:27:50.689 --> 00:28:01.453 But I think in quite a big way also, just thinking about something like culture, the 23-year-old Daniel culture was having a ping pong table. 291 00:28:02.293 --> 00:28:07.135 A 30-year-old Daniel would have said, yeah, culture is important, but didn't really understand why. 292 00:28:07.155 --> 00:28:14.517 And the 40-year-old Daniel would be, you know, the 30-year-old Daniel would be more strategy than culture, actually. 293 00:28:15.037 --> 00:28:23.900 And the 40-year-old Daniel is all about culture, almost to the point where strategy is secondary, if not even tertiary to that. 294 00:28:23.920 --> 00:28:26.421 40-year-old Daniel is all about culture? 295 00:28:26.861 --> 00:28:28.662 Yeah, way more so. 296 00:28:29.182 --> 00:28:29.902 What is the culture? 297 00:28:29.922 --> 00:28:30.042 Yeah. 298 00:28:30.693 --> 00:28:37.137 Well, that's the amazing thing because it is the most scalable thing done right of a company. 299 00:28:37.517 --> 00:28:38.898 And it's the hardest thing, right? 300 00:28:38.938 --> 00:28:40.399 Because it is everything and nothing. 301 00:28:40.759 --> 00:28:48.865 It is every positive action that's happening in the companies, every negative action of company, every person that's joining, every person that's leaving is impacting culture. 302 00:28:49.965 --> 00:28:59.728 And so in its essence, I believe culture is about rewarding the positive behaviors you want to see in the company and obviously dissuade the negative. 303 00:28:59.748 --> 00:29:01.709 What are the positive behaviors you want to see? 304 00:29:02.489 --> 00:29:05.410 Well, one of them is taking risks, failing. 305 00:29:05.510 --> 00:29:10.931 And how do you do that when you have 8,000 or 9,000 people inside of a company responsibly? 306 00:29:11.031 --> 00:29:16.853 How do you, when the common status quo is we don't like failure, right? 307 00:29:17.233 --> 00:29:20.637 Um, you don't get promoted based on failure. 308 00:29:20.657 --> 00:29:22.800 You get promoted based on being successful. 309 00:29:23.500 --> 00:29:25.783 Um, Annie Duke has this thinking in bets. 310 00:29:26.023 --> 00:29:29.547 She talks about, I love that is thinking about poker ships on the table. 311 00:29:30.208 --> 00:29:36.895 And, and she said one time when, when we spoke, she said to me is like, um, a company is like, um, you know, it's like, um, you know, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's 312 00:29:37.295 --> 00:29:38.596 Everyone has chips at the table. 313 00:29:38.616 --> 00:29:40.097 We just don't know how many we have. 314 00:29:40.537 --> 00:29:42.899 And so the people that have been successful have way more. 315 00:29:43.039 --> 00:29:52.906 So they have leniency and allowancy in the culture of any organizations to do more than someone who just started and perhaps have lesser ones. 316 00:29:53.066 --> 00:30:01.492 And if you failed enough times, what's naturally going to happen is that you won't have the same agency in a large organization to impact things too. 317 00:30:01.512 --> 00:30:01.612 Yeah. 318 00:30:02.252 --> 00:30:18.883 So then the counterpoint to that would be, well, how do you then create an environment where people are allowed to take risks and then balance that with, say, Spotify at this point where we have a huge amount of responsibility too. 319 00:30:19.043 --> 00:30:22.765 We have tens of millions of creators that have their livelihood on the platform. 320 00:30:23.045 --> 00:30:26.768 So we can't just experiment with how we're paying out and so on and so forth, right? 321 00:30:27.248 --> 00:30:28.869 And 550 million consumers are, 322 00:30:31.030 --> 00:30:32.991 We have to be responsible with their data. 323 00:30:33.031 --> 00:30:38.354 We can't, you know, put new things in front of them without testing them and so on and so forth. 324 00:30:38.994 --> 00:30:52.121 And so there's this constant tension between being innovative, taking risks, and, you know, at the same time, obviously being responsible. 325 00:30:52.281 --> 00:30:52.922 And that's hard. 326 00:30:54.162 --> 00:30:55.343 But that's all about culture. 327 00:30:57.364 --> 00:31:01.085 When you're trying to scale a business, you can't afford to waste time patching up broken systems. 328 00:31:01.265 --> 00:31:07.967 So if internet outages or juggling multiple contracts are slowing your team down, check out Super Broadband from T-Mobile. 329 00:31:08.287 --> 00:31:14.629 It pairs 5G on the ground with Starlink satellites in space, giving you the ultimate resilient connection. 330 00:31:15.129 --> 00:31:16.650 so you can keep your business moving. 331 00:31:16.810 --> 00:31:19.272 Discover more at superbroadband.com. 332 00:31:19.392 --> 00:31:22.334 Speeds may vary due to local network characteristics and management. 333 00:31:22.594 --> 00:31:28.599 Satellite connectivity requires hardware installation and clear view of the sky with a 36-month commitment.