Spotify CTO Gustav Söderström: TikTok's Music; How Olivia Rodrigo Gamed the Algo | 20VC #936

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

October 13, 2022

Duration

1h 27m

Channel

The Twenty Minute VC

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Gustav Söderström is Spotify’s Chief Research & Development Officer. He has the CPO & CTO responsibility, overseeing the product, design, data, and engineering teams at Spotify and is responsible for Spotify’s product strategy. Gustav is also an entrepreneur and investor who has founded and sold startups that he co-founded to Meta’s Oculus in 2014 and then also his first startup which he co-founded and led as CEO, up until their acquisition by Yahoo! Gustav is also the host of the podcast mini-series — Spotify: A product story — which offers a glimpse into the decisions that have guided Spotify’s product evolution. ----------------------------------- Timestamps: 0:00 Gustav’s Background 3:25 How does being a previous founder make you a better product leader? 4:15 Why Gustav Joined Spotify 6:24 What are “Macro Winds”? 9:35 Fear of Cannibalizing a Business Model that Works 11:10 Sustainable vs. Unsustainable Consumer Behaviors 15:36 Why is the button for Spotify Radio so buried in the app? 19:18 How do you determine which customer feedback to listen to? 20:48 Why it’s Better to do the Opposite of your Competition 23:00 When Spotify did the Opposite of YouTube 25:10 Spotify Video 27:23 Was there a time when you wished you’d copied the competition? 29:30 How TikTok Reinvented Music 30:59 Better Lower on a Taller Mountain 33:07 The Introduction of Podcasts to Spotify 34:18 Where has Spotify lost altitude? 37:30 Talk is Cheap 42:18 How to Structure Debate in the Workplace 48:45 Synchronizing Leadership 50:53 How to Reinvent Yourself in a Scaling Business 55:05 Going Back to School for Machine Learning 55:46 How to Communicate the Value of your Work to your Family 58:05 Relationship Advice 1:00:10 Where Gustav Could Improve as a Product Leader 1:01:54 Spotify’s Near Death Experience 1:06:14 What would you do if Spotify controlled the record labels? 1:07:43 Did Olivia Rodrigo change her music to adapt to the Spotify algorithm? 1:09:25 What is the future of podcasts in audio? 1:10:12 Social Graphs vs. Recommendation Engines 1:11:40 Which competitor do you most respect? 1:14:42 Which product leader outside Spotify do you most respect? 1:17:10 Great Products Don’t Always Make Great Investments 1:19:28 Do you think there is a business model innovation with Web3? 1:21:02 What would you most like to change about the world of Product? 1:25:06 Favourite Memory from Working with Shakil Khan ----------------------------------- Subscribe to the Podcast: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/gustav-soderstrom/ Follow Harry Stebbings on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Gustav Söderström on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gustavs ----------------------------------- #GustavSöderström #Spotify #HarryStebbings #20VC

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Harry Stebbings

  host

• Gustav Söderström

  guest

• Narrator

  other

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of The Twenty Minute VC, featuring Harry Stebbings and Gustav Söderström, Spotify CTO Gustav Söderström: TikTok's Music; How Olivia Rodrigo Gamed the Algo | 20VC #936 explores spotify CTO on macro winds, product bets, and music’s evolving future Spotify CTO/CPO Gustav Söderström recounts his path from failed job seeker to founder to leading Spotify’s product and technology, and how an ownership mindset shapes his leadership. He explains core strategic ideas like never fighting macro winds, deliberately doing the opposite of big competitors, and jumping from well‑optimized but limited "mountains" to taller ones with more upside. The conversation digs into concrete Spotify decisions—mobile freemium, background vs foreground listening, podcasts and video, recommendation over curation, and negotiations with labels—including a near‑death standoff that almost saw a major catalog pulled. Gustav also shares his views on talk-heavy Socratic product culture, synchronizing large organizations, evolving as a leader, and how technology and incentives are reshaping music creation and discovery.

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