Daniel Ek

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. As of May 2024, his net worth was estimated at $4.8 billion by Forbes.
Ek grew up in the Rågsved district of Stockholm, Sweden. 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.
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, after which Ek briefly became the CEO of μTorrent, working with μTorrent founder Ludvig Strigeus until μTorrent was sold to BitTorrent in December 2006. Strigeus would later join Ek as a Spotify developer.
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. 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."
Ek incorporated Spotify AB with Martin Lorentzon in Stockholm, Sweden in 2006. Lorentzon had previously worked at and co-founded TradeDoubler, which acquired Ek's previous company Advertigo. 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. In October 2016, Spotify co-founder Martin Lorentzon announced he would be stepping down as chairman and Ek would be taking over alongside his role as CEO. As of April 2019, Spotify has 217 million active users and as of June 2017 had raised over $2.5 billion in venture funding.
In 2017, Ek was named the most powerful person in the music industry by Billboard.
In May 2022, Ek invested an additional $50 million to acquire more Spotify shares, citing an optimistic future outlook for the streaming giant. Spotify at that time had 182 million paying subscribers and was growing at 15% year on year.
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.
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. 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.
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. Ek and his wife have two daughters together.
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. In May 2021, Ek made an offer to buy the club for approximately £1.8 billion, which was rejected by the owners.
In the 2022 Netflix miniseries The Playlist, Ek is portrayed by Edvin Endre.
In an interview with Music Ally in 2020, Ek said: “...There is a narrative fallacy here, combined with the fact that, obviously, some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this future landscape, where you can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough,” said Ek
“The artists today that are making it realise that it’s about creating a continuous engagement with their fans. It is about putting the work in, about the storytelling around the album, and about keeping a continuous dialogue with your fans.”
His response was not well received from the music industry with artists and producers replying robustly to his comments. Dee Snider of Twister Sister said: "While you (the listener) benefit & enjoy spotify, it's part of what's killing a major income stream for artist/creators. The amount of artists "rich enough" to withstand this loss are about .0001%. Daniel Ek's solution is for us to write & record more on our dime?! Fuck him!" to R.E.M.'s Mike Mills' said: "Music=product, and must be churned out regularly, says billionaire Daniel Ek. Go fuck yourself." to Producer, Jackknife Lee: "They need content, and it needs to be cheap so therefore it needs to be mass produced. Quality doesn’t matter really, it’s reliability they’re looking for" to the co-founder of the End of The Road Festival, Sofia Genders: "Unbelievable! Han vet helt enkelt inte vad det är att vara musiker! Så lessen och trött man blir! Let's fix this broken system! #BrokenRecord
In a separate tweet in May 2024, Ek said: "Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content. This has sparked my curiosity about the concept of long shelf life versus short shelf life. While much of what we see and hear quickly becomes obsolete, there are timeless ideas or even pieces of music that can remain relevant for decades or even centuries.
For example, we’re witnessing a resurgence of Stoicism, with many of Marcus Aurelius’s insights still resonating thousands of years later. This makes me wonder: what are the most unintuitive, yet enduring ideas that aren’t frequently discussed today but might have a long shelf life? Also, what are we creating now that will still be valued and discussed hundreds or thousands of years from today?"
As with his previous intervention, it was not received well by musicians in the music industry. Matt Tong, the former Bloc Party swore in response to his tweet. The guitarist of Jamiroquai, Rob K Harris replied wryly: "Close to zero is what you guys and the labels seem to pay as a royalty. Funny that isn’t it." Tom Warren, journalist for tech website, the Verge, wrote: "“the cost of creating content being close to zero” ?!? just because Spotify pays artists fuck all, doesn’t mean the cost of being an artist or creator is nothing"
The pointed reception had Ek reply in June 2024: "Obviously seeing the feedback to this one and wanted to respond. It’s clear I was far too vague in the post, including with my clumsy definition of content. I understand how it came across as very reductive and that wasn’t my intent. Just to clarify - my original point was not to devalue the time, effort, or resources involved in creating meaningful works, whether it’s music, literature, or other forms of creative expression.
What I was most interested in exploring was how, in this environment of constant creation, we can identify and ensure that the bold, exciting, world-changing ideas and pieces of art don’t get lost in the noise. The significant drop in the cost of creation tools (microphones, laptops, cameras) has led to an unprecedented explosion in the volume of what people are able to produce. Creation is only part of the equation. My focus was on exploring the staying power of the most creative, most thought-provoking ideas. That didn’t come across, and that’s on me."
In the years since Ek and Spotify began releasing annual artist remuneration reports as part of the Loud & Clear initiative.