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Co-founder & Executive Chairman · Spotify
Daniel Ek
Beat piracy by making legal music faster than free.
- Founded
- 2006
- HQ
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Sector
- Media
- Company
- Spotify
The story in brief
Ek and Martin Lorentzon founded Spotify in 2006 when piracy was gutting the music industry.
Spotify went public through a 2018 direct listing. Ek became executive chairman at the start of 2026.
Read the full story · 5 min readBeating Piracy by Being Better Than Free: Daniel Ek's Spotify Story→Lessons for founders
01
Compete with the real alternative
02
Speed is a feature
03
Question default playbooks
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