I had always wanted to belong, and I had been thinking that this was going to get solved when I had money, and instead, I had no idea how I wanted to live my life. And no one teaches you what to do after you achieve financial independence. So I had to confront that.

Daniel Ek

Categorized in : You My Life Life Money

We led with our conviction rather than rational, because rational... by Daniel Ek

We led with our conviction rather than rational, because rational said it was impossible.

entrepreneur impossible inspiring

There are half a billion people that listen to music online and the vast majority are doing so illegally. But if we bring those people over to the legal side and Spotify, what is going to happen is we are going to double the music industry and that will lead to more artists creating great new music.

creating artist people

Put your consumers in focus, and listen to what they're actually... by Daniel Ek

Put your consumers in focus, and listen to what they're actually saying, not what they tell you.

consumers focus

There are millions of people who consume music illegally every month. Just getting them into a legal service will make the music industry way bigger than it's ever been before.

months people way

The value of a company is the sum of the problems you solve. by Daniel Ek

The value of a company is the sum of the problems you solve.

solve company problem

Ask yourself: given everything you have to do, is there a way tha... by Daniel Ek

Ask yourself: given everything you have to do, is there a way that we can make this better?

I had two passions growing up - one was music, one was technology. I tried to play in a band for a while, but I was never talented enough to make it. And I started companies. One day came along and I decided to combine the two - and there was Spotify.

growing-up passion technology

It disturbed me that the music industry had gone down the drain, even though people were listening to more music than ever and from a greater diversity of artists.

diversity artist people

But right now we have an advantage of being the number one in mus... by Daniel Ek

But right now we have an advantage of being the number one in music.

advantage music numbers

With Twitter and other social networking tools, you can get a lot of advice from great people. I learn more from Twitter than any survey or discussion with a big company.

networking advice people

At the end of the day, I want the music industry to be larger tha... by Daniel Ek

At the end of the day, I want the music industry to be larger than what it is today.

the-end-of-the-day want today

I was deeply uncertain of who I was and who I wanted to be. I really thought I wanted to be a much cooler guy than what I was.

uncertain guy wanted

I'm not an inventor. I just want to make things better. by Daniel Ek

I'm not an inventor. I just want to make things better.

This is a way for artists to communicate directly to their fans. If you think of an artist like Bruno Mars, he's using Spotify, creating playlists and listening to music through it.

creating artist thinking

People just want to have access to all of the world's music. by Daniel Ek

People just want to have access to all of the world's music.

want people world

No one wants to wait for tracks to buffer or spend hours searching through a Web site to find their favorite song.

track waiting song

At Spotify, we really want you to democratically win as a musician. We want you to win because your music is the best music.

musician winning want

I actually bought a travel guitar, and that guitar is really cool. You can actually fold the guitar, and you can plug headphones into it, but it's acoustic, or semi-acoustic.

really-cool acoustics guitar

Spotify has paid more than two billion dollars to labels, publishers and collecting societies for distribution to songwriters and recording artists.

dollars artist two

The main reason people want to pay for Spotify is really portability. People are saying, 'I want to have my music with me.'

want pay people