Spotify went public in 2018, and Ek-who in 2012 had a paper fortune of $300 million-is now worth $4.4 billion. Today, Ek’s superstreamer plays in 184 countries, has 7,400 employees and $9.7 billion in annual sales. The service had been available in America for only six months. Back then, in January 2012, Spotify had just 500 employees, $300 million in sales and a valuation of $2 billion. Daniel has also founded Advertigo, the advertising company acquired by TradeDoubler, as well as been a part of the nordic auction company Tradera (acquired by Ebay).The company has come a long way since Ek reluctantly threw on a suit and tie-and threw back a few whiskies-to pose for the cover of the first Forbes 30 Under 30 issue ten years ago. He was also the CEO of Torrent, the worlds most popular BitTorrent client with more than 100 million downloads. Prior to Spotify, Daniel was the initial CTO of Stardoll, the fashion & entertainment community for tweens. Spotify facilitates that by offering a service in the cloud. The underlying business has changed from being about ownership to an access model. People listen to more music than ever, from a bigger diversity of artists. Spotify was founded as a reaction to the decline of the music industry. Currently he is the CEO and founder of Spotify, a legal music service that helps people discover, browse and play music. It’s that he is doing what he loves, doing it well and giving away all the credit.Įk is a technologist who started his first company 1997 at the age of 14. And it’s not just that he managed to build one of the most prolific teams in tech, in Stockholm, by age 29. It’s not just that his platform is changing the way people discover, listen to and share music.

Spotify founder