Daniel Ek

Daniel Ek
Ek in 2011
Born
Daniel Georg Ek

(1983-02-21) 21 February 1983 (age 41)[1]
Stockholm, Sweden
OccupationBusinessman
Years active2006–present
TitleCEO and co-founder of Spotify
Spouse
Sofia Levander
​
(m. 2016)​
Children2
Websiteopen.spotify.com
Signature

Daniel Georg Ek (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈdɑ̂ːnɪɛl ˈjěːɔrj ěːk]; born 21 February 1983) is a Swedish businessman and technologist. He is the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of music streaming service Spotify.[2] As of May 2024, his net worth was estimated at $4.8 billion by Forbes.[3]

Early life and education

Ek grew up in the Rågsved district of Stockholm, Sweden.[4] He graduated from high school in IT-Gymnasiet in Sundbyberg Municipality in 2002 and then studied engineering at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology for 8 weeks before dropping out to focus on his IT career.[5][6]

Career

Early career

Ek had a senior role at Nordic auction company Tradera, which was acquired by eBay in 2006. He was also the CTO of the browser-based game and fashion community Stardoll and later started Advertigo, an online advertising company. Advertigo was sold to TradeDoubler in 2006,[7] after which Ek briefly became the CEO of μTorrent, working with μTorrent founder Ludvig Strigeus. He also hacked Google’s search algorithm in 2007 when he was working in Tradera, in order to force the Tradera site to show at the top of the Google search. He did this because he got rejected by Google. This ended when μTorrent was sold to BitTorrent on 7 December 2006. Strigeus would later join Ek as a Spotify developer.[8]

Spotify

The sale of Advertigo as well as his previous work made Ek wealthy enough that he decided to retire. However, after a few months, he realized he wanted a new project, leading to him founding Spotify.[9] Ek first had the idea for Spotify in 2002 when peer-to-peer music service Napster shut down and another illegal site Kazaa took over. Ek said he "realized that you can never legislate away from piracy. Laws can definitely help, but it doesn't take away the problem. The only way to solve the problem was to create a service that was better than piracy and at the same time compensates the music industry – that gave us Spotify."[7]

Ek incorporated Spotify AB with Martin Lorentzon in Stockholm, Sweden in 2006.[10][6] Lorentzon had previously worked at and co-founded TradeDoubler, which acquired Ek's previous company Advertigo.[11] In October 2008, the company launched its legal music streaming service Spotify. Initially, Spotify ran on a peer-to-peer distribution model, similar to μTorrent, but switched to a server-client model in 2014.[12] In October 2015, Spotify co-founder Martin Lorentzon announced he would be stepping down as chairman and Ek would be taking over alongside his role as CEO.[13][6] As of April 2019, Spotify has 217 million active users[14] and as of June 2017 had raised over $2.5 billion in venture funding.[15]

In 2017, Ek was named the most powerful person in the music industry by Billboard.[16]

In May 2022, Ek invested an additional $50 million to acquire more Spotify shares, citing an optimistic future outlook for the streaming giant.[17][18] Spotify at that time had 182 million paying subscribers and was growing at 15% year on year.

Neko Health

Ek co-founded the medical technology company Neko Health in 2018, along with engineer Hjalmar Nilsonne. The company emerged from stealth mode in 2023 showcasing its non-invasive full-body scanning technology, which uses sensors and artificial intelligence to collect and analyze health data. Initially self-funded with €30 million from Ek through his investment vehicle, the company has since received backing from outside investors. The company operates in Stockholm and London as of 2024.[19][20][21]

Political positions

In 2016, Ek and fellow Spotify co-founder Martin Lorentzon wrote an open letter on the blogging platform Medium to the Swedish government saying that if certain changes to Swedish law regarding housing, taxation, and education are not made, Spotify will be forced to relocate from the country.[22] More specifically, Ek claims that the high taxes in Sweden on stock options makes it difficult to incentivize programmers to work at startups when startups have trouble competing with larger companies on salary. Moreover, Ek claims the Swedish permitting policy is overly restrictive, limiting the supply of affordable housing.[23]

Personal life

In 2016, Ek married Sofia Levander, his longtime partner, at Lake Como. At Ek's wedding, Bruno Mars performed and Chris Rock officiated; he invited numerous guests, including Mark Zuckerberg.[24] Ek and his wife have two daughters together.[21]

Ek is a lifelong supporter of Premier League club Arsenal, and, in April 2021, expressed an interest in purchasing the football club if it were put up for sale.[25] In May 2021, Ek made an offer to buy the club for approximately £1.8 billion, which was rejected by the owners.[26][27]

References

  1. ^ Will Schmidt (21 February 2014). "Happy Birthday Daniel Ek!". Tech.Co. Archived from the original on 20 June 2018. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  2. ^ Brendan Greeley (14 July 2011). "Spotify's Ek Wins Over Music Pirates With Labels' Approval". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 24 February 2017. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  3. ^ "Daniel Ek". Forbes. Archived from the original on 27 January 2022. Retrieved 12 December 2023.
  4. ^ "Is Daniel Ek, Spotify founder, going to save the music industry … or destroy it?". the Guardian. 10 November 2013. Archived from the original on 10 March 2022. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  5. ^ "Spotify's Daniel Ek: The Most Important Man In Music". Forbes. Archived from the original on 30 May 2019. Retrieved 12 December 2017..
  6. ^ a b c "Daniel Ek". Music Business Worldwide. 5 February 2021. Archived from the original on 17 July 2023. Retrieved 17 July 2023.
  7. ^ a b Neate, Rupert (17 February 2010). "Daniel Ek profile: 'Spotify will be worth tens of billions'". Archived from the original on 4 June 2020. Retrieved 6 December 2017..
  8. ^ Andy (12 November 2014). "Spotify Reminded of uTorrent Past After Branding Grooveshark 'Pirates'". Torrent Freak. Archived from the original on 21 November 2020. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  9. ^ "Daniel Ek's "impossible thinking" started at age 13 with a Web development mini-empire". 9 November 2012. Archived from the original on 5 November 2020. Retrieved 6 December 2017..
  10. ^ "Spotify Subscriptions Boost Revenue But Operating Loss Widens". Fortune. Reuters. 24 May 2016. Archived from the original on 13 April 2019. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  11. ^ Robert Levine (5 June 2015). "Billboard Cover: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek on Taylor Swift, His 'Freemium' Business Model and Why He's Saving the Music Industry". Billboard. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  12. ^ Janko Roettgers (16 April 2014). "Spotify gives up on P2P technology for music streaming". GigaOm. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  13. ^ Lunden, Ingrid (14 October 2016). "Spotify co-founder Martin Lorentzon steps down as chairman, CEO Daniel Ek steps up". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 30 October 2020. Retrieved 14 October 2016.
  14. ^ "Spotify Reports First Quarter 2019 Earnings". Spotify. 29 April 2019. Archived from the original on 12 November 2020. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  15. ^ Micah Singleton (15 June 2017). "Spotify now has 140 million active users". Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 27 September 2017.
  16. ^ music, Guardian (10 February 2017). "Spotify's Daniel Ek named most powerful person in the music business". the Guardian. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  17. ^ "Daniel Ek pumps $50 million into Spotify: 'I believe our best days are ahead'". Daniel Ek pumps $50 million into Spotify: ‘I believe our best days are ahead’ | TechCrunch News @ SendStory. Archived from the original on 18 November 2022. Retrieved 7 May 2022.
  18. ^ Today, Telangana (7 May 2022). "Spotify CEO Daniel Ek pumps $50 mn into his music streaming platform". Telangana Today. Archived from the original on 7 May 2022. Retrieved 7 May 2022.
  19. ^ Billing, Mimi (29 April 2024). "Daniel Ek's body scanning healthtech Neko Health is expanding to the UK". Sifted. Archived from the original on 5 August 2024. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
  20. ^ Warner, Bernhard (27 April 2024). "Daniel Ek's Next Act: Full-Body Scans for the People". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 26 August 2024.
  21. ^ a b Shah, Oliver (5 September 2024). "Daniel Ek: my health check-up with Doctor Spotify". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 5 September 2024.
  22. ^ Wong, Joon Ian (14 April 2016). ""Sweden must change quickly": Spotify threatens to leave the country". Quartz. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
  23. ^ "DANIEL EK". POLITICO. 7 December 2016. Archived from the original on 13 August 2020. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
  24. ^ "Billboard Power 100's New No. 1: Spotify Streaming Pioneer Daniel Ek". Billboard. Archived from the original on 31 October 2019. Retrieved 27 May 2017.
  25. ^ @eldsjal (23 April 2021). "As a kid growing up, I've cheered for @Arsenal as long as I can remember. If KSE would like to sell Arsenal I'd be happy to throw my hat in the ring" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  26. ^ "Daniel Ek claims his £1.8bn bid to buy Arsenal was rejected by owners Kroenke Sports & Entertainment". Sky Sports. Archived from the original on 6 April 2022. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
  27. ^ "Daniel Ek reveals Kroenke family have rejected his bid to buy Arsenal". the Guardian. 15 May 2021. Archived from the original on 16 March 2022. Retrieved 15 May 2021.