Spotify CEO Daniel Ek: From failed musician to creator of music streaming giant

Newsroom 29/08/2018 | 16:12

Daniel Ek, the CEO of music streaming giant Spotify, says he wanted to be a musician but ended up as the founder of the most popular streaming platform for musicians.

Spotify is one of the favorite music streaming sites. People like this platform as they can enjoy Spotify plays anytime and from anywhere around the world. Ek says in an interview that he really tried to become a musician but eventually gave up although he comes from a family of musicians.

“I went to [free] music school starting at about four. I learned how to play [the guitar]. Then shortly thereafter I got a computer, and those two things were always competing for my attention. I could never pick. As I got older, I was never an outcast, but I never felt like I was in a circle of people either. I was playing a lot of sports, but I wasn’t a jock. The musician crowd, none of them were really into computers. I could hang with them, I could speak their language, I could play with them, but I wasn’t really part of their crew. And then I had the other group, people who were really into computers. They accepted me, but I didn’t have time to hang out with all of them. So I kind of moved around to these various groups.

When I was 18 or 19 I actually tried to be a musician for a full year. I spent some time in a tour bus. I realized that music wasn’t the thing I wanted to do six hours every day. At a certain point you have to level up to yourself a couple of degrees and I just never made that commitment. You know, you were the second guitar one day or lead guitarist another. Then all of a sudden, there was another guitarist that came along that played better than you. So they stopped calling. That’s how it works,” he said.