Daniel Ek

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Daniel Ek
Ek in 2011
Born (1983-02-21) 21 February 1983 (age 41)[1]
Stockholm, Sweden
Occupation(s)CEO and co-founder of Spotify
Spouse
Sofia Levander
​
(m. 2016)​
Children2

Daniel Ek (born 21 February 1983) is a Swedish billionaire entrepreneur and technologist, and the co-founder and CEO of music streaming service Spotify.[2] As of January 2024, his net worth was estimated at $3.6 billion by Forbes.[3]

Early life

Ek grew up in the

KTH Royal Institute of Technology, before dropping out to focus on his IT career.[5][6]

Career

Early career

Ek had a senior role at Nordic auction company

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 his 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

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.

Political positions

In 2016, Ek and fellow Spotify co-founder Martin Lorentzon wrote an open letter on the blogging platform

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.[20]

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.[21] Ek and his wife have two children 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.[22] In May 2021, Ek made an offer to buy the club for approximately £1.8 billion, which was rejected by the owners.[23][24]

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. 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. 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. ^ 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.
  20. ^ "DANIEL EK". POLITICO. 7 December 2016. Archived from the original on 13 August 2020. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
  21. ^ "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.
  22. ^ @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.
  23. ^ "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.
  24. ^ "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.
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