Or more specifically, someone-anyone-who could build something (a) more enticing to consumers than piracy while (b) providing a sustainable revenue model. The music industry has been waiting more than a decade for Ek. “Both my (maternal) grandparents were in the music industry,” shrugs Ek, “so I’m fairly grounded about the whole thing.” Superstar bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers-formed the year Ek was born-now trek to Sweden to kiss the ring he sits shotgun in vintage cars with Neil Young (his iPhone boasts a picture of them cruising in a white 1959 Lincoln Continental) he texts breezily with Bono. or Nashville, this rented office space along Stockholm’s Birger Jarlsgatan has become the most important place in music, with Ek now standing as the industry’s most important player. Around him, a dozen engineers from nearly as many countries, united by their geek-chic uniforms-skinny jeans, printed T-shirts and cardigans-frantically bang out code on their silver MacBooks.Īll this frenetic energy reflects the strange new reality of the music business. Forgoing his large office, which he mostly uses as a meeting room, Ek plops himself down at an open desk. The pool table has been traded for more IKEA desks, and gray daybeds offer a place to nap between all-nighters. “I should be home in bed,” sighs Ek, his voice weak and scratchy, “but we need to get this thing perfect.” So the bald, barrel-chested Ek zips his white hoodie to his chin, swaps tea for his morning cup of coffee-the first of six he throws down in a typical day-and heads into an office that resembles a university library during finals. Next week he’s scheduled to return to New York to unveil Spotify’s new platform in front of his first-ever press conference-a platform that he admits still isn’t ready for a public debut. Over the past month the 28-year-old chief executive of Spotify has worn himself down jetting from his Swedish base to San Francisco, New York, Denmark, the Netherlands and France to visit his expanding sales force and launch his music service in one or another of the dozen countries it now operates in.īut there’s no rest for the weary. It’s a typically damp, dark November afternoon in Stockholm, and Daniel Ek is ill.
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