A Diary of a CEO moments clip with Spotify founder Daniel Ek on how deep immersion in a problem produces breakthrough ideas. He covers Spotify's long fight with the record labels, the Apple Music launch, his criticism of Apple, and how his views on culture have changed.
Ek spent about 500 hours on music's problem before committing, and a decade pondering healthcare before founding a company in 2018. He and his co-founder put in roughly $10 million of their own money. Spotify nearly died four times while labels said no. Ek says Apple Music's edge was distribution, not product, and he calls Apple a Goliath that thinks it's David. He now sees culture as the most scalable lever.