Lessons from Spotify Founder & CEO Daniel Ek

The internet economy is fracturing into a small number of massive platforms and a long-tail of niche businesses. Spotify sits somewhere in the middle, an increasingly lonely position. The company successfully competes with Amazon, Apple, and Google, three of the world’s largest companies. Founded in Stockholm, it’s one of the only European tech firms to become a household name. Below are a few lessons from Daniel Ek, Spotify’s founder and CEO.

Big Rocks

Ek doesn’t spend much time thinking about quarterly goals. Instead, he concentrates on Spotify’s long-term outlook and strategic bets, or “big rocks.” Transitioning Spotify from a music company to an audio company, for instance. This means adding new forms of content to shift from entertaining users to educating and informing them as well. Podcasting is central to this strategy, and Spotify has invested hundreds of millions of dollars acquiring podcast producers and publishers and signing creators like Joe Rogan and Michelle Obama to exclusive deals.

Ek is currently immersing himself in Spotify’s 2025 plans. This focus on the company’s medium- and long-term outlook requires heavy delegation. Ek trusts his team to manage day-to-day operations. This practice is consistent with William Thorndike’s findings in The Outsiders that successful CEOs focus on long-term strategic and capital allocation decisions, while delegating or decentralizing daily operations.