Daniel Ek is the CEO and Co-Founder of Spotify and an overall legendary entrepreneur. Daniel grew up in Sweden and after selling a few businesses went on to found Spotify and disrupt the music industry against all odds. On this episode Daniel shares his entrepreneurial journey, stories from the earliest days of founding Spotify, his beef with Apple's app store policies, his views on enabling free speech, and more.

(0:00) Intro

(0:50) Welcome Daniel Ek

(4:05) The Entrepreneurial Journey to Spotify

(10:05) Making millions but feeling aimless

(19:12) The roots of Spotify

(21:17) Constraints as a benefit

(25:34) Defining your market narrowly

(27:33) Sleeping outside record label offices

(35:39) Being Vilified in the music industry

(45:16) Taking elements from iconic CEOs to mode

(50:59) Natural Biases

(55:35) Reevaluating what you need for your mission

(1:02:14) Being outspoken against Apple

(1:07:10) Responsibility as a platform in free speech and censorship

Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky

Produced: Rashad Assir

Executive Producer: Josh Machiz

Music: Griff Lawson

🎙 Listen to the show

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/three-cartoon-avatars/id1606770839

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5WqBqDb4br3LlyVrdqOYYb?si=3076e6c1b5c94d63&nd=1

Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9zb0hJZkhWbg

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About the Show

Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.

Executive Producer: Rashad Assir

Producer: Leah Clapper

Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky

Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA

🎙 Listen to the show

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-logan-bartlett-show/id1606770839

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5WqBqDb4br3LlyVrdqOYYb?si=3076e6c1b5c94d63&nd=1

Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9zb0hJZkhWbg

🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1

Follow on Socials

📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow

🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/loganbartshow

🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow

About the Show

Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.

EP 67: Daniel Ek (CEO, Spotify) on the Creation of Wrapped, How Apple Blocks Innovation & Growing Up in the Projects

The Logan Bartlett Show