Daniel Ek, Spotify | David Senra

1. 0:00 – 1:17

   Reflecting on a Life-Changing Conversation

   1. DSDavid Senra0:00

      [upbeat music] So I wanna consider this conversation like a continuation of the conversation we had last year-

   2. DEDaniel Ek0:08

      Right

   3. DSDavid Senra0:08

      ... in New York. It was by far the most impactful conversation I had the entire year.

   4. DEDaniel Ek0:13

      Wow.

   5. DSDavid Senra0:13

      It is, in large part, the reason we're sitting down and actually recording this conversation. And what I loved was, I was th- I thought about how the advice you gave and the stories you told, uh, really fundamentally changed my approach to my work, and then also, like, my philosophy of how I'm living my life.

   6. DEDaniel Ek0:31

      Wow.

   7. DSDavid Senra0:31

      And because you- it's, it's very rare, like, this year I'm gonna hit over four hundred biographies, uh, read for the podcast, right? And somebody asked me recently, he's like: "Do you ever u- uncover new ideas?"

   8. DEDaniel Ek0:40

      Mm.

   9. DSDavid Senra0:40

      It's like, no, I feel like I'm telling the same story, the same personality type over, and over, and over again.

   10. DEDaniel Ek0:44

       Mm.

   11. DSDavid Senra0:44

       And you'll get a, a new idea or a novel idea, you know, every once in a while, but certainly not-

   12. DEDaniel Ek0:48

       Right

   13. DSDavid Senra0:48

       ... all the time.

   14. DEDaniel Ek0:49

       Yeah.

   15. DSDavid Senra0:49

       But you shared something at the dinner-

   16. DEDaniel Ek0:51

       Mm

   17. DSDavid Senra0:51

       ... that was a truly novel idea. And then a few months later, I read this interview, and I was like, "Oh, I'm not the only one-

   18. DEDaniel Ek0:58

       Mm

   19. DSDavid Senra0:58

       ... that Daniel's advice changed their career." So I'm gonna read something. There was an interview given by the CEO of Uber-

   20. DEDaniel Ek1:05

       Mm

   21. DSDavid Senra1:05

       ... who's a friend of yours, Dara.

   22. DEDaniel Ek1:06

       Yeah.

   23. DSDavid Senra1:06

       And I'm gonna read this excerpt, which was absolutely perfect, and he was talking about, uh, contemplating, "Should I take this job or not?"

   24. DEDaniel Ek1:14

       Mm.

   25. DSDavid Senra1:14

       Like, this is a huge opportunity, but also, like, kinda

2. 1:17 – 4:08

   Optimizing for Impact Over Happiness

   1. DSDavid Senra1:17

      scary. And this is tied to your idea that you should optimize for impact over happiness.

   2. DEDaniel Ek1:22

      Mm.

   3. DSDavid Senra1:22

      Which is very- I haven't heard anybody else, uh, articulate that. And so Dara says, "I was reading about all the issues happening in- with Uber in the news, the various challenges that were coming up there. So when I first got the call to be the CEO, I said, 'Heck, no! I'm not crazy. I'm not up for this.'"

   4. DEDaniel Ek1:35

      Mm.

   5. DSDavid Senra1:35

      "But I had one particular conversation that really shifted me, which was with Daniel Ek, who's a good friend. And I still remember, I was talking to him about my career at Expedia and how happy I was, and he looks at me..." And he did this to me, too. "And he looks at me, and he goes, 'Since when is life about happiness? It's about impact. You can have an impact on Uber, which is a really important company in the world that's shaping the future of cities.' And I thought, thought to myself, 'My God, this is so obvious. I've got to take a shot.' I knew it was going to be uncomfortable." Can you just explain how you think about optimizing for impact over happiness, and why?

   6. DEDaniel Ek2:12

      Well, [chuckles] it, it- first off, it's, it's incredibly kind of Dara to say that. Um, you know, I, I, I think about this: I think happiness is a trailing indicator of impact.

   7. DSDavid Senra2:23

      Mm-hmm.

   8. DEDaniel Ek2:24

      And, uh, I think it can be, you know, you can feel happiness in small bursts, in small moments, uh, and you can have a lot of variance in your life. So you can choose to have that part, which is the ups, the downs of life, et cetera. So I'm not saying you can't have happiness, but I think truly sustained happiness comes from, uh, impact. And impact is something that's deeply personal to you. Uh, only you can define what impact means for you. Um, so I think it means different things for different people, but I do think it's a trailing, um, indicator. So the way I, I, you know, I, I would put it in this case is, you know, what was obvious for me, uh, with someone like a Dara, uh, was he was content, he wasn't happy. And, um, you know, he had gone through a phase, uh, knowing him for a while, where, uh, he had a lot of ups and downs with Expedia and all that stuff, and, and he'd kind of mostly figured it out, and so he was content. And I think that in his case, you know, where he was at in his life, um, it was such an obvious thing that he didn't even realize that he'd just grown content. And so, for me, um, you know, Uber is a very special company, and to be- even be asked to be the CEO of that, and the impact I knew he could have on that company, just felt to me like an obvious thing.

   9. DSDavid Senra3:50

      Mm-hmm.

   10. DEDaniel Ek3:51

       And so, um, I, I, I sort of advised him to, "Hey, you should go, go for this." Um, uh, "And, and that's a far greater thing, and that's gonna be f- far- will lead to more, much more happiness, not just for you, but also for other people."

3. 4:08 – 8:58

   The Journey of Self-Motivation

   1. DSDavid Senra4:08

      Did somebody do that for you? Did somebody tell you to optimize for impact over happiness, or is this just you, the way you, you work?

   2. DEDaniel Ek4:15

      I think I self-motivate myself that way-

   3. DSDavid Senra4:17

      Okay

   4. DEDaniel Ek4:18

      ... to do the hard things. Um, you know, like many other people, I'm, I'm quite lazy by nature. Uh, I try to take the simple road out, uh, often enough. Um, but what I've learned, um, that has given me the greatest joy is, is overcoming the biggest adversities. And overcoming the biggest adversities usually has been solving, um, a problem of some kind, uh, for someone or something that no one else had been able to figure out. And for me, that's my definition of impact. And, uh, it's not right there at the moment that I feel that. Uh, actually, many cases, I feel it much longer, but it's when I go back and I reflect, um, on accomplishments, uh, or moments of impact, then I feel true happiness. And so, um, I've, I've, I've just grown to kind of like self, uh, motivate myself constantly. And I, I think this, by the way, kind of comes from, like, a much deeper thing, right? Like, I, I came from, like, pretty much what was The Project in Sweden, and I, I was not the normal kid. Um, you know, I was kind of probably a middle-of-the-pack kind of kid, but I certainly stood out. I didn't belong to any social group. There was no social cohesion, et cetera.

   5. DSDavid Senra5:40

      So wait, you felt like an outsider, even at that age?

   6. DEDaniel Ek5:42

      Oh, yeah.

   7. DSDavid Senra5:42

      Do you still today?

   8. DEDaniel Ek5:43

      Yeah. E- e- every moment of my life, uh, even among other fellow entrepreneurs, I sometimes feel like an outsider because, like, right now, for instance, you and I, we're in Silicon Valley.

   9. DSDavid Senra5:54

      Yeah.

   10. DEDaniel Ek5:54

       I'm not American. Um, so there's, um, a, an element of myself where I don't belong to the club.

   11. DSDavid Senra6:00

       Mm-hmm.

   12. DEDaniel Ek6:00

       And I've always felt that way.... and because I've always felt that way, I've had to- I, I, I can't take lessons from other people 100%, because some of my story, some of my conditions, some of the waves, the structures, even how to structure a company, you have to structure differently if you're a European company versus an American company. So you have to go back to sort of first principles and kind of find the sort of principled answer to, to anything, and what works for you. And so I've had to kind of self-motivate myself for most of my life. Um, and, and only I would say in the last maybe five years, I've come to realize that, um, you know, in a way, um, I may be a better coach than I am a player. And so I've kind of understood more and more that actually, that sort of drive, that intensity, um, is, is actually something that can be taught. It's not entirely innate, and it's about almost letting people know that that's okay. Um, and, and so much of that comes from those types of conversations. It's about almost reflecting back. It's not about sort of me projecting onto other people what I think they should do, but in, in listening to Dara, it was just so obvious to me when he kind of explained, because, you know, the conversation started with us talking about Uber, and I said, "I recommended you, uh, to the job." [laughing] And he said, uh, "Oh, really? Yeah, I just didn't take the, the call even."

   13. DSDavid Senra7:25

       Mm.

   14. DEDaniel Ek7:25

       And I was like: "Well, why not?" Uh, and he was like: "Well, I'm really happy about this thing," and, and I was, like, listening, and I actually just let him keep talking. And the more he, he, he spoke, the more obvious it became. He, he was content. He, he lived in- he, he was, he was running on the- d- downshifted down to the easy gear. Life was good-

   15. DSDavid Senra7:45

       Yeah

   16. DEDaniel Ek7:45

       ... it was really easy. But there was an element of him, and you could hear it in his voice, uh, where he's sort of like: "Okay, well, you know, you've always been running on a higher gear. Do you wanna, you know, gear up even more to an extreme level? Why aren't you gonna go for greatness? Why aren't you gonna test yourself? Because if you succeed, this could be huge, and you really don't get many of these chances in your life." And so much of the conversation was really around, around that, but with another person, I might have given a totally different piece of advice. So I don't think it's a universal truth, but I do think the universal truth is that happiness trails impact. But impact is something that's highly unique. It could be something innate in you, it could be having impact on other people, it could be, uh, you know, having impact by being a great father around your kids. I, I don't pretend to know that I think that there's one game to play or one universal truth to life, but I certainly believe from entrepreneurial types that, um, probably more to myself, that, uh, more like myself, that, you know, this is sort of a, one of those sort of key things, is really consider impact.

4. 8:58 – 14:24

   The Importance of Trust and Relationships

   1. DSDavid Senra8:58

      One of the things I admire most about Daniel Ek is his relentless dedication to improving his craft and to improving his product. It's a mission that he's still on nearly two decades later. It'd be impossible to argue that Spotify isn't one of the most well-crafted products ever created, and Daniel and his team's dedication to constantly improving their product reminds me a lot of my friend Kareem, who's the co-founder and CTO of Ramp. Kareem is one of the greatest technical minds working in finance. I spent a lot of time talking to Kareem, and every single conversation centers around his obsession with crafting a high-quality product and using the latest technology to constantly create better experiences for his customers. Kareem and Daniel both believe that nothing is ever good enough and that everything can always be improved. Kareem is running one of the most talented technical teams in finance, and they use rapid, relentless iteration to make their product better every day. So far this year, Ramp has shipped over three hundred new features. Ramp is completely committed to using AI to make a better experience for their customers and automate as much of your business's finances as possible. In fact, Kareem just wrote this: "AI is all I think about these days. It is our duty to be first movers and push limits so we can make the greatest possible product experience for our customers." Ramp uses a combination of craftsmanship and rapid iteration to invent new products for their customers. Many of the fastest-growing and most innovative companies in the world are running their business on Ramp. Make sure you go to ramp.com to learn how they can help your business save time and money. Let AI chase your receipts and close your books, so you can use your time and energy building great things for your customers, because at the end of the day, that is what this is all about, building a product or service that makes someone else's life better. That is what I'm trying to do, that is what Daniel Ek has dedicated his life to doing, and that is what Ramp has done, too. Get started today by going to ramp.com. You mentioned you thought some people don't go for impact because they're content. When was the last time-- Like, you're definitely not content now, right? So I've gotten to know you once. We've talked for hours and hours and hours, and this is why I wanted you to be the first person I had this conversation with. And, uh, and, like, and I was curious if you could say that. It's like, no, no, I know you have this, like, inner burning desire and fire inside of you-

   2. DEDaniel Ek11:10

      Mm-hmm

   3. DSDavid Senra11:10

      ... which is, to me, your outside i- is like, you're very calm, you're very articulate, and you're very polite-

   4. DEDaniel Ek11:15

      Yeah

   5. DSDavid Senra11:15

      ... but you have that, like-- You, the same thing I read in these books all the time. It's just like, this person was, had a burning desire to achieve mission success [chuckles] -

   6. DEDaniel Ek11:22

      Yeah, yeah

   7. DSDavid Senra11:23

      ... is the way, yeah, is the way I think about it.

   8. DEDaniel Ek11:24

      Yeah.

   9. DSDavid Senra11:25

      Were you content after you sold your first company? You were, like, twenty-two, twenty-three.

   10. DEDaniel Ek11:28

       Well, uh, content is the right word. I wasn't happy. Uh-

   11. DSDavid Senra11:31

       Yeah

   12. DEDaniel Ek11:31

       ... so I was content for a moment of time. I was twenty-two. Um, I never had much, much success with, with women, uh, because I was a computer geek, and back then, uh, computers was not the coolest thing, uh, in the world. And, um, you know, so I, I was like: "Okay, well, now I've got all this money," and, uh, you know, this, this was my worldview. "I, I can go out in nightclubs, and I'm gonna be the cool guy." [laughing] Um, and I had fun for a while-

   13. DSDavid Senra11:56

       Yeah

   14. DEDaniel Ek11:56

       ... I'll tell you that. But, um, it also was incredibly, um, hollowing because, uh, you know, I realized that these girls, uh, weren't with me because of me. Uh, they were with me because, you know, I had status, and I was able to, uh, use money to buy status, uh, and be a cool guy, and for a small, uh, moment of time. And so, um,... that taught me a lot, right? And, and actually, you know, I kind of walked away for over a year not doing anything at all, um, and just sort of deeply reflecting on life, uh, what I wanted to do, because for me, you know, I had a magic, um, number, which was 10 million. If I got that number, I would retire. That was the goal, and I was thinking to myself-

   15. DSDavid Senra12:42

       How old were you when you came up with that number?

   16. DEDaniel Ek12:44

       Probably 15.

   17. DSDavid Senra12:45

       Okay.

   18. DEDaniel Ek12:45

       Um, you know, someone gave me, like, this book, uh, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I think. [laughing]

   19. DSDavid Senra12:51

       [laughing]

   20. DEDaniel Ek12:51

       Uh, I read it-

   21. DSDavid Senra12:52

       I think everybody gets it at the same age.

   22. DEDaniel Ek12:53

       Yeah.

   23. DSDavid Senra12:54

       [laughing]

   24. DEDaniel Ek12:54

       I read it. It was, like, really seminal, uh, for me.

   25. DSDavid Senra12:57

       Yeah.

   26. DEDaniel Ek12:57

       So, so I kind of made that number. Um, I figured to myself, if I worked really hard, I could get there when I was 40. Uh-

   27. DSDavid Senra13:04

       [laughing]

   28. DEDaniel Ek13:04

       ... I was 22 when I-

   29. DSDavid Senra13:06

       Yeah

   30. DEDaniel Ek13:06

       ... got there. Um, and so that wasn't really part of the plan, right? And, and so I, I, um, I kind of like, "Okay, well, what's next? What am I gonna do?" Um, because I didn't have to work for money.
5. 14:24 – 16:24

   The Role of Criticism and Self-Reflection

   1. DSDavid Senra14:24

      kind of consuming.

   2. DEDaniel Ek14:24

      Yep.

   3. DSDavid Senra14:24

      Like, would you consider yourself depressed, or would you consider yourself-

   4. DEDaniel Ek14:27

      Yeah, I w- it's probably the most depressed I've been in my life, to be honest, because, you know, I, I, I knew from a very young age, uh, what I wanted to do, and it was unlike most other people that I grew up with. Uh, I just knew I wanted to build things. Um-

   5. DSDavid Senra14:41

      You were doing that when you were, like, 14, right?

   6. DEDaniel Ek14:43

      Yeah, but it started, like, even earlier than that. I just didn't know it was called a company.

   7. DSDavid Senra14:47

      Yeah.

   8. DEDaniel Ek14:47

      I had no idea what finances were or VC or any of these things, but I was just building things, and I knew I loved computers, and I knew I wanted to do that, and I, I knew I would make a living, uh, doing that somehow.

   9. DSDavid Senra14:59

      This is another thing that, like, drives me insane 'cause I, I hear, like, other people's, um, like, advice to entrepreneurs, which I, I hate.

   10. DEDaniel Ek15:07

       Yeah.

   11. DSDavid Senra15:07

       I think it's, like, terrible.

   12. DEDaniel Ek15:08

       Yeah.

   13. DSDavid Senra15:08

       Like, we shouldn't have an entrepreneurial ecosystem, especially 'cause most of the media that entrepreneurs are consuming are actually from investors, and you have wildly different incentive structure-

   14. DEDaniel Ek15:14

       Yeah

   15. DSDavid Senra15:14

       ... and everything else, and it just conflicts with a lot of stuff that's in the biographies, and I'll just go with those guys-

   16. DEDaniel Ek15:18

       Yeah

   17. DSDavid Senra15:18

       ... over anybody else, right? And they're always just like, yeah, you know, uh, my, my belief is something that I repeat on Murder, and this maxim, that belief comes before ability.

   18. DEDaniel Ek15:25

       Mm-hmm.

   19. DSDavid Senra15:25

       It's in these stories every single time you have somebody... Like, I, I just re- reread the, the biography, the autobiography of the founder of Sony.

   20. DEDaniel Ek15:32

       Mm.

   21. DSDavid Senra15:33

       Akio at the time was, "We're gonna start this company-

   22. DEDaniel Ek15:35

       Yeah

   23. DSDavid Senra15:36

       ... in 1946."

   24. DEDaniel Ek15:37

       Yeah.

   25. DSDavid Senra15:38

       "In Tokyo-

   26. DEDaniel Ek15:39

       Yeah

   27. DSDavid Senra15:39

       ... that's occupied by the Americans, that is completely, has been firebombed."

   28. DEDaniel Ek15:44

       Yep.

   29. DSDavid Senra15:44

       Right? He's passing, he's going to work, and he's passing just burnt-out rubble, millions of homes of Japanese.

   30. DEDaniel Ek15:50

       Yeah.
6. 16:24 – 22:14

   The Evolution of an Entrepreneur

   1. DSDavid Senra16:24

      this is the question I have for you: When did you know you were good?

   2. DEDaniel Ek16:28

      Uh, [exhales] I, uh, I don't know that I'm good. I know I'm different, and, um, the... um, but I have this sort of insane belief that I can get good i- if I try hard enough.

   3. DSDavid Senra16:44

      Mm-hmm.

   4. DEDaniel Ek16:45

      Um, and I still feel that way, by the way, like, uh, because the, the comparative sets has changed, right? Like, you know, uh, it, it was from everyone in my school, maybe in the early days, to everyone in Stockholm, um, some- somewhat la- uh, later, to everyone in Europe at some point, and now it's like the most brilliant entrepreneurs of our time, uh, that I'm constantly comparing myself to, and obviously I don't believe that I'm as good as them. Um, but I believe I am slightly different than them in some ways, and, um, I believe that, um, if I work really, really hard on something, I can make something really great, and that's the sort of bar that I keep for myself. And, um, uh, for me, it, it really stems also from sort of this notion back to what you were talking about, about, um, sort of the realization that, uh, through computers, right? Steve Jobs has, has the saying, uh, "It's the bicycle of our mind," which was really how I felt about computers, like, growing up. It's just this magic tool that allows me to solve so many other things and create things.

   5. DSDavid Senra17:54

      That's how I feel about podcasts. [chuckles]

   6. DEDaniel Ek17:57

      Yeah. And, um, and, and, and so, you know, I knew I wanted to do that, and I also knew that, um, you know, my co-founder, Martin, he, he has this, uh, thing he keeps saying, "The, the value of a company is the sum of all problems solved." And so wh- what I keep doing is essentially, I've got this toolbox called a computer, um, and I got all these problems around the world. Which problems am, am I passionate about solving?... and which problems can I spend the next decade of my life, um, fixing? Because if, if I'm not interested enough in it to spend a decade fixing it, it's probably not worth pursuing.

   7. DSDavid Senra18:35

      This is, like, something I'm super passionate about, because, you know, if you really think about it, like, they don't write biographies about people that, like, start, scale, sell a company, and do it for, like, five years.

   8. DEDaniel Ek18:44

      Yeah.

   9. DSDavid Senra18:44

      I'm not interested in that.

   10. DEDaniel Ek18:45

       Yeah.

   11. DSDavid Senra18:45

       I, I don't- like, I'm, I'm not interested in your startup-

   12. DEDaniel Ek18:47

       Yeah

   13. DSDavid Senra18:47

       ... I'm interested in your last company.

   14. DEDaniel Ek18:48

       Yeah.

   15. DSDavid Senra18:48

       I'm interested in something you're gonna do for the rest of your life.

   16. DEDaniel Ek18:51

       Yeah.

   17. DSDavid Senra18:52

       And this is what I draw inspiration off of, is just, like, going back to what you said earlier about, uh, impact and, and contentment, and how, like, you're willing to go into an area where it's like you know it's difficult.

   18. DEDaniel Ek19:02

       Mm.

   19. DSDavid Senra19:03

       I love what Jeff Bezos said about this. He's just like, he was... He tells the pe- he used to tell people in Amazon at the very beginning, he's like, "We're trying to build something that we can be proud of, something that we can tell our grandkids about."

   20. DEDaniel Ek19:14

       Mm.

   21. DSDavid Senra19:15

       Anything that you're gonna be proud to tell your grandkids about is not going to be easy.

   22. DEDaniel Ek19:18

       Right.

   23. DSDavid Senra19:18

       So we're going into this with, you know, he gave himself, like, a 30% chance-

   24. DEDaniel Ek19:22

       Yeah

   25. DSDavid Senra19:22

       ... of success.

   26. DEDaniel Ek19:22

       Yeah.

   27. DSDavid Senra19:23

       I think at the beginning of Spotify, you know, you guys are like, "Hey, we're gonna- I might have to get a job after this-

   28. DEDaniel Ek19:27

       Yeah

   29. DSDavid Senra19:27

       ... but I have to do this."

   30. DEDaniel Ek19:28

       Yeah.
7. 22:14 – 33:43

   Building a Company True to Yourself

   1. DSDavid Senra22:14

      W- we were texting back and forth about this, so we should just talk about this now-

   2. DEDaniel Ek22:18

      Yeah

   3. DSDavid Senra22:18

      ... so we don't forget. We were talking about, like, maybe we should talk about, like, the archetypes, uh, different archetypes of entrepreneurs-

   4. DEDaniel Ek22:24

      Yeah

   5. DSDavid Senra22:24

      ... because, like, there could be, you know, there could be somebody, like a young- there's undoubtedly a young Daniel Ek out there, right? We just know that that's gonna happen. There's this great thing. I'm, I'm slightly obsessed with Michael Jordan. Uh, he's the [chuckles] he's the, the lock screen on my phone. He's my contact card, so when people, like, they start texting me, it's, like, Michael Jordan with his eyes like this.

   6. DEDaniel Ek22:41

      [laughs] Yeah.

   7. DSDavid Senra22:42

      Like, I'm kind of setting the tone.

   8. DEDaniel Ek22:43

      Yeah, yeah.

   9. DSDavid Senra22:43

      And he said this great thing because, you know, at the end of his career is the rise of Kobe Bryant-

   10. DEDaniel Ek22:47

       Yeah

   11. DSDavid Senra22:48

       ... and everybody's at-- towards the end of his career, they were, like, obsessed.

   12. DEDaniel Ek22:51

       Yeah.

   13. DSDavid Senra22:51

       Like, "Oh, Tracy McGrady is gonna be the next Michael Jordan, and this guy's gonna be the next Michael Jordan, this guy's the next Michael Jordan." And he's like, "First..." He's like, "Uh, you don't have to worry about finding the next Michael Jordan." He goes, "First of all, you didn't find me."

   14. DEDaniel Ek23:02

       Mm.

   15. DSDavid Senra23:02

       "I just happened to come along."

   16. DEDaniel Ek23:03

       Yeah.

   17. DSDavid Senra23:03

       "And that will happen again. You don't have to find the next person-

   18. DEDaniel Ek23:06

       Yeah

   19. DSDavid Senra23:06

       ... they will come along."

   20. DEDaniel Ek23:07

       Yeah.

   21. DSDavid Senra23:07

       And I always say, "They will reveal themselves."

   22. DEDaniel Ek23:09

       Yep.

   23. DSDavid Senra23:09

       So I, I do think this is fascinating, and no one else talks about this. Again, the weird thing about talking to you, and I, I don't mean that in a pejorative, it's like you just say stuff that no one else says.

   24. DEDaniel Ek23:19

       Mm.

   25. DSDavid Senra23:19

       And then I'm like, why isn't, why don't more people understand, like, know about Daniel's very unique ideas?

   26. DEDaniel Ek23:24

       Mm.

   27. DSDavid Senra23:24

       Like, no one's concerned [chuckles] about the archetypes. Everybody's like, "Oh, you just have to be like Steve Jobs. You just have to be like Elon."

   28. DEDaniel Ek23:29

       Yeah.

   29. DSDavid Senra23:30

       And your point is, like, no, there's, like, multiple different archetypes. Obviously, like, I've studied this maybe more than anybody else in the world-

   30. DEDaniel Ek23:34

       Yeah, yeah
8. 33:43 – 41:12

   The Power of Trust in Business

   1. DEDaniel Ek33:43

      time. Um, and I, I think that's, um, um... You know, I, I, I really believe trust is one of the most, um, under-talked-about things, um, you know, because it's not easy to scale, and it's incredibly hard. It's the number one thing why most organizations break down and why you need processes and all the other bu- bureaucracies, ultimately, because there's no trust. If you had 100% trust, you wouldn't need any of this stuff, and you would move much faster.

   2. DSDavid Senra34:14

      It's crazy. Munger, again, like... I, I could literally get emails every week. They're like: "Why do you mention Charlie Munger on every episode?"

   3. DEDaniel Ek34:21

      Mm.

   4. DSDavid Senra34:21

      I'm like, " 'Cause he's the wisest person I've ever come across.

   5. DEDaniel Ek34:23

      Yeah.

   6. DSDavid Senra34:23

      What do you want me to do?"

   7. DEDaniel Ek34:24

      Yeah.

   8. DSDavid Senra34:24

      Like, I'm sorry he has so many good ideas. [laughs]

   9. DEDaniel Ek34:27

      Yes.

   10. DSDavid Senra34:27

       But he said something again, and he's another person where he, like, points things out, that once he says it, it's obvious, but no one else says it.

   11. DEDaniel Ek34:32

       Yeah.

   12. DSDavid Senra34:32

       And he goes, "Trust is one of the greatest economic, uh, forces in the world." And he talked about that, like, your job... When I actually got to have dinner with him, he's like, "Your job is to build a seamless web of deserved trust with great people."

   13. DEDaniel Ek34:44

       Hundred percent.

   14. DSDavid Senra34:45

       And he's like, "That's not..." And he, he, he was telling stories. Like, "Everybody knows that, you know, I met Buffett when I was, when he was 28, and I was 35.

   15. DEDaniel Ek34:52

       Mm.

   16. DSDavid Senra34:52

       They don't understand there was all these other guys around us-

   17. DEDaniel Ek34:54

       Yep

   18. DSDavid Senra34:54

       ... and we built friendships and did deals forever.

   19. DEDaniel Ek34:57

       Yep.

   20. DSDavid Senra34:57

       Most of them had passed away by the time I met him."

   21. DEDaniel Ek34:59

       Yeah.

   22. DSDavid Senra35:00

       But that idea, it's like trust is one of the greatest economic forces in the world.

   23. DEDaniel Ek35:03

       It truly is, and if you think about it, why is, why is that so rare? It's, it's because it doesn't scale, right? So trust is the, the, this notion that you'll keep doing, um, actions that will ladder up over time. It really compounds. But, um, you're gonna add maybe 1% of trust for each positive interaction you're gonna do, but it takes one interaction that's bad to ruin all of it. The moment where you, where you even start doubting whether you can trust someone or not, you have no trust.

   24. DSDavid Senra35:33

       Mm, good point.

   25. DEDaniel Ek35:33

       So the, the point being is, it's, it's like absolute trust. If you really think about it, there's this sort of final gradient. Most people define it as this binary thing, but it really isn't. It, it's, it's really kind of like, you know, what most people will say is, "Either I trust someone or I don't." But even let's say you do trust someone, there's degrees of trusting someone. Um, how many people do you trust with your life? How many people do you trust with your bank account, just handing it over?

   26. DSDavid Senra36:00

       Are you a trusting person, though?

   27. DEDaniel Ek36:03

       To a certain degree.

   28. DSDavid Senra36:05

       I think that's one that, like, from what... People that know me-- So I have, I, I actually had breakfast with a, a good friend of mine, and, you know, he, he's slightly older, but he tell, he tells me the truth, and he is very nice, but he'll point out the problems that, like, are going to stop me from going to where I want to go.

   29. DEDaniel Ek36:21

       Mm-hmm.

   30. DSDavid Senra36:21

       And one of his points, 'cause I would answer, like, if I asked that question myself, I was like: I don't trust anybody.
9. 41:12 – 41:36

   Intellectual Humility and Learning from Others

   1. DSDavid Senra41:12

      And I feel the same people that do that have almost no intellectual humility, right? Where I always say, it's like every single person I read about is smarter and more productive than I am. The way I look at this, the world in general, is very much in the same way, like, Thomas Edison has this great quote. He's like: "We know o- we don't know one one-thousandth of percent of anything."

   2. DEDaniel Ek41:31

      Yeah.

   3. DSDavid Senra41:31

      And that's the way I feel. It's 'cause every day I learn something new, I'm like-

   4. DEDaniel Ek41:33

      Yeah

   5. DSDavid Senra41:34

      ... I'm gonna be, I was so stupid back then.

   6. DEDaniel Ek41:35

      Yeah.

10. 41:36 – 43:48

    Shadowing Leaders for Growth

    1. DSDavid Senra41:36

       You have in- extreme levels of intellectual humility. I don't even know if many people know this, but, like, you would like, go and shadow and spend time... I don't know if you have a term for this. You just, like, call up somebody that's running a company-

    2. DEDaniel Ek41:49

       Mm

    3. DSDavid Senra41:49

       ... and say, "What? I'm gonna come and sit on every single one of your meetings?"

    4. DEDaniel Ek41:54

       Yeah, pretty much. [chuckles] Uh, like, that, that, that's how it goes. Um, and, and, and look, it comes back to this. I mean, I, I don't believe that I know, um, much.

    5. DSDavid Senra42:03

       Let me, let me just set the table for this real quick. The way you put it to me, like, "I'll go get them their coffee."

    6. DEDaniel Ek42:08

       Yep.

    7. DSDavid Senra42:09

       "I don't care."

    8. DEDaniel Ek42:10

       Yep.

    9. DSDavid Senra42:10

       "I'm there to learn from them."

    10. DEDaniel Ek42:12

        Yep.

    11. DSDavid Senra42:12

        "If I need to go get their coffee, I'll go get their coffee."

    12. DEDaniel Ek42:14

        Yep.

    13. DSDavid Senra42:14

        Do you understand? That's insane. [chuckles] Like, I think that's the right, like, f- mindset.

    14. DEDaniel Ek42:20

        Yeah.

    15. DSDavid Senra42:20

        But I don't think anybody would believe, somebody running, you know, a hundred billion dollar company and has d- done the things that you've done, be like, "Yeah, no, I, I'm fine. Like, I'll shadow this guy, and, like, I'll do whatever I need to do."

    16. DEDaniel Ek42:31

        Yeah. Well, I mean, look, um, I, I just realized, it, it, it sort of started from this thing, right, where, um, you and I have both read all the books, and actually, many of the entrepreneurs have read, um, not as many [chuckles] books about as, as you have-

    17. DSDavid Senra42:45

        Yeah

    18. DEDaniel Ek42:46

        ... uh, around all, all the greatest entrepreneurs, but they've read the big ones-

    19. DSDavid Senra42:49

        Yeah

    20. DEDaniel Ek42:50

        ... certainly of their time, the basisists, the, the, the Steve Jobs, the, the Elon Musks biographies and all that kind of stuff. But, but the-... there's a certain thing around reading it and internalizing it, and seeing the culture up front. And what I realized was building Spotify, obviously, it's the biggest company I've ever built, so I'm learning on the job. And I don't know what I don't know, because I don't- I've never really worked at a company, right? And so in a way, what I realized as we hired people from, um, these other companies is that there were all these things that they were doing, um, that they kept telling us about, and I didn't really understand, like, how it worked. Um, so, um, I'll, I'll mention, like, one. For instance, I do really well in these, like, one-on-one situations. I might even do well in, like, three or four-person groups and maybe six. But, um, 10-person group, like, I don't have the personality where I command the room. Uh, it just

11. 43:48 – 47:02

    Learning from Mark Zuckerberg

    1. DEDaniel Ek43:48

       doesn't work. And then you have someone like a Mark Zuckerberg, who literally has this, this thing called Large Group, where he has twenty to twenty-five people that he runs every week. Uh, and for me, it sounded absolutely awful. Like-

    2. DSDavid Senra44:00

       [chuckles]

    3. DEDaniel Ek44:00

       ... how does he get anything done, um, in, in that meeting?

    4. DSDavid Senra44:03

       Yeah.

    5. DEDaniel Ek44:04

       And so lo and behold, I asked him, "Hey, uh, can I come and learn from you?" And, uh, he was incredibly, uh, gracious, uh, and we've obviously been friends for a long time, and, and he said sure. Um, and so I spent, uh, the better part of, what, I believe the first time was, like, a week, um, literally in, uh, pretty much all of his meetings, uh, from start to finish. And the, the big question obviously for me is, like, okay, well, what does he get out of it? And can I make myself useful, uh, while doing it? So hence, I took meeting notes, uh, you know, uh, if I could get him coffee, I would. Um, you know, it, it was literally these types of things. Um, but at the end of it, um, um, it- the most interesting thing was obviously trying to distill down what surprised me about the culture. It wasn't really around, like, Meta, uh, and what was then Facebook, is a world-class company. It wasn't like, you know, I, uh, miraculously thought I could do a lot of things different or better, but, um, there were things that surprised me, uh, around how he managed the company. And, and seeing that and hearing that from another founder, um, hopefully one that he respects too, uh, may, um, sort of lead to insights and breakthroughs. And, um, during that week, it's not just that I, uh, follow people around, I actually meet with their entire executive team, and I interview them, too. Um, so sit down and try to learn from them, to really, truly internalize the culture and try to understand it. And, um, so all of the sudden, you do realize, for instance, how you can make a large group team meeting work. Um, and there were lots of other things, uh, which I shamelessly copied from, for instance, that experience. Um, and, uh, uh, it just turned out for me to be an amazing way to learn, um, by seeing the culture upfront that enables the certain, um, practices to work. It almost comes back to kind of this two things we talked about already, which is this mirror, um, of reflecting it back, and then, um, the, the, the sort of second notion, I think, which is it's gotta be true to you. So, um, you know, there are many things where you can copy a specific, uh, way. For instance, Elon does things, but if it's not truly innate to you and your personality, I promise you, it will not have the same impact as when Elon does this.

    6. DSDavid Senra46:32

       I think you're dead right about this. Uh, the thing- the way I would think about, like, your archetype is, I think you nailed it with, like, uh, coach, and then, uh, you'll hear people inside Spotify say it's, like, very c- you have a very collaborative, like, management style, where I don't think anybody is going to describe Steve Jobs as collaborative. [chuckles]

    7. DEDaniel Ek46:51

       Yeah.

    8. DSDavid Senra46:51

       Now, he was able to collaborate-

    9. DEDaniel Ek46:53

       Yeah

    10. DSDavid Senra46:54

        ... but at the end, like, he was, it was kind of like I'm making all the decisions. There's actually, actually interesting story. I'm curious how you think about this.

12. 47:02 – 52:22

    Balancing Personal Taste and Metrics in Product Decisions

    1. DSDavid Senra47:02

       Like-

    2. DEDaniel Ek47:02

       Mm.

    3. DSDavid Senra47:02

       ... how do you balance, like, the decisions you make, specifically on, like, product, right, um, with, like, your own personal taste and intuition-

    4. DEDaniel Ek47:10

       Mm-hmm

    5. DSDavid Senra47:11

       ... versus, like, being metrics-driven?

    6. DEDaniel Ek47:13

       Mm-hmm.

    7. DSDavid Senra47:14

       Um, there's this hilarious story. It's in two different books. One's in this book called Creative Selection, which is excellent. It's, uh, I've read three times. It's about this guy- from this guy named Ken Kosenda, who was a programmer. He demoed to Steve many, many times in, like, when they were building their best products, right? And then there's another one story in, uh, Jony Ive's, uh, biography, and they, they talked about, they were comparing and contrasting the way, like, Google would make products versus how Apple did when Steve Jobs-

    8. DEDaniel Ek47:38

       Yep

    9. DSDavid Senra47:38

       ... was in charge. And, you know, the guy's like: "Hey, you know, at Google, we have to decide between, like, blue and light blue-

    10. DEDaniel Ek47:45

        Mm-hmm

    11. DSDavid Senra47:45

        ... and we run, like, two hundred tests of, like-

    12. DEDaniel Ek47:46

        Right

    13. DSDavid Senra47:46

        ... all the different shades in between that."

    14. DEDaniel Ek47:48

        Yep, yep.

    15. DSDavid Senra47:49

        And Jony's like: "We would never, ever do that."

    16. DEDaniel Ek47:52

        Yep, yep.

    17. DSDavid Senra47:52

        Do you remember, you, you were old enough to remember this, they create the, the, the, the iMac, but, like, the big, fat, bubble one?

    18. DEDaniel Ek47:58

        Yep, sure.

    19. DSDavid Senra47:59

        You know?

    20. DEDaniel Ek47:59

        Yeah.

    21. DSDavid Senra47:59

        Probably like late '90s.

    22. DEDaniel Ek48:00

        Yeah, yeah.

    23. DSDavid Senra48:00

        And it was the first time there was gonna be all these, like, crazy colors and-

    24. DEDaniel Ek48:03

        Yeah

    25. DSDavid Senra48:03

        ... everything else. Like, and Jony tells a story. He's like: "You know how we chose the colors?" He's like: "Me and Steve went to the design-

    26. DEDaniel Ek48:09

        Yep

    27. DSDavid Senra48:09

        ... like, where the Apple Design Center-

    28. DEDaniel Ek48:11

        Yep

    29. DSDavid Senra48:11

        ... and we talked about it.

    30. DEDaniel Ek48:12

        Yep.
13. 52:22 – 58:00

    The Evolution of Leadership at Spotify

    1. DEDaniel Ek52:22

       plenty, and, and, and this may be a little bit unique, but, you know, uh, coming back to it, so, you know, I, I ended up, um, having, you know... Uh, so, so the typical thing is that the founder needs to be the product person, right? Um, by the way, it's a hundred percent true. I, I totally believe that. I think it's the most important thing in the zero to one stage. But what a lot of people don't talk about is the fact that th- there isn't one stage of this journey. It's like you're oscillating between zero to one, one to a hundred, and then, you know, th- the last stage, which is more like optimization stage. And you have to, like, constantly do that, and you're gonna need different skills at different places. And this, this is why, by the way, I believe it's so important for entrepreneurs to realize when to apply what tools, um, in this journey. So what happened with Spotify i- is sort of against all the common wisdom and wealth, which is, I don't really run product, um, anymore. Um, because what happened was I got this guy called Gustav that you've now met, and he runs product, and he's actually way better than me, uh, at doing it. And so, um, speaking about sort of being truthful, what ended up happening, uh, many years ago was, uh, I was running these product meetings. Um, he was sort of running it, but I, I wanted to run it, so I kind of- [chuckles] ... interjected myself over him. Um, but I didn't have the time to, like, really spend all this time, so he was sort of, like, running it, um, for me, but I still insisted on having product reviews. And, and, um, sort of talking again about the importance of having people who, um, give you candid feedback, um, he took me aside after one of these, um, product sessions, and he's like: "You know, you're not really that good, uh- [laughing] ... uh, in doing these things, and you're not really that helpful. So most of the time, me and the team, we're kind of like looking, and we're trying to basically, you know, appease you in the meeting, but you're not really adding as much value as you think." And, and not surprisingly, my, my first instinct was to be really pissed off. Uh, I sort of went home. I was like: "Man, I'm gonna have to fire this guy. "

    2. DSDavid Senra54:28

       [laughing]

    3. DEDaniel Ek54:28

       "It's, like, horrible. Like, how could he say that, this?" But I also realized that that was an emotional response. So, uh, again, I wasn't fully convinced that this was true, but I sort of went back and said: "Okay, well, you know what? I'm, I'm gonna give you three months, uh, where I don't do the product reviews, and then we evaluate how this worked." And lo and behold, he actually did a great job. [chuckles]

    4. DSDavid Senra54:50

       Yeah. [chuckles]

    5. DEDaniel Ek54:50

       And so the product, uh, p- the team was much happier. Um, you know, he was making more of the decisions without me. I wasn't meddling in. There wasn't two different people deciding what worked, but it was really him. And, and ever since that moment, um, you know-... I don't really run product anymore, uh, in nutrition. I'm involved in the product, and he solicits feedback from me all the time, but I don't run the product meetings. And I say that because what happened for me was a real setback, um, not just in sort of that moment, but it also sort of like, oh, wait a minute, so what am I, I really, you know, what's my value add then in this company? And it took me a while, and I realized that all of a sudden, hmm, actually, you know what? Um, that won't be it, but maybe I can add value in this place. And I, I sort of oscillated to this different place in the company, which was much closer to understanding the creator and spending more time with, with the content, uh, people, et cetera. And so my product feedback ended up being, um, you know, and this is the dynamic s- that's quite unique to Spotify, in that we have these two stakeholders. We have, uh, consumers on the one hand, and we have creators. And so I just, uh, made it my effort to understand and know the creator way better than anyone else in the company, and so my product feedback to them comes from that lens.

    6. DSDavid Senra56:13

       Mm.

    7. DEDaniel Ek56:14

       Um, and that became value add, because again, that's a very different thing. That's an outward-facing thing. You actually have to sit down and meet with creators. It is so much more about innately understanding their needs, um, and talking to them and understanding not just how they use the product, but their business. What problems are they facing that's not just sort of how they leverage the product, but actually holistically around them? And, and so that was just one of those things, and then subsequently, what ended up happening is I got this guy called Alex, and he's now doing that part better than me too. Um, and so I was like: Okay, well, now I need to find a different way to add value. And now it turns out that my value add is the sort of in-between between the two, uh, where, you know, business or creators meets consumers, and where, um, you know, there's maybe a third stakeholder we have to consider, uh, in all of this. Um, and so my whole sort of experience in all of this has really been around kind of figuring out who I am and what, what I'm innately good at, and this has been a learning journey for twenty years.

    8. DSDavid Senra57:20

       What you're just describing right now, h- h- this unfolded over how many years?

    9. DEDaniel Ek57:24

       I would say the first ten years was the zero to one journey.

    10. DSDavid Senra57:29

        Mm-hmm.

    11. DEDaniel Ek57:30

        And the last ten has been that journey, where, uh, we're not zero to one anymore, um, uh, as a company holistically, but there are elements of the company where we're zero to one, where I'm absolutely, a hundred percent involved.

    12. DSDavid Senra57:47

        I think this is a good, uh, like, opportunity to talk about another one of your very unique ideas that I also, um, I-- there was this excellent... I just did this episode on Jeff Bezos, 'cause he doesn't give that many interviews, and so I would take a transcript of his interviews, and you treat it like a book and just go through it.

14. 58:00 – 1:14:12

    Building a Company That Outlasts the Founder

    1. DSDavid Senra58:00

       And he said something like, from day one, he knew, like, he wanted to build a company that could outlast him.

    2. DEDaniel Ek58:05

       Yeah.

    3. DSDavid Senra58:06

       Right? And he still loves it. He'll love it forever, and it was very reminiscent of, like, what we're trying to do as parents, where it's like you're shaping your kid, but you're only successful if they can survive without you.

    4. DEDaniel Ek58:17

       Yeah.

    5. DSDavid Senra58:17

       And when I heard him say that, it was a few months after you had beautifully, like, articulated this idea. It's just like, well, I think there's a lot of... You, you're gonna say it better than I did, but essentially, like, there is a very rather clear analogy between the way your child, when they're first born, is essentially like a, a product of you. They're going to mimic their parents, their environment that they're in, but as they grow older and older, I just went through this, and I have a thirteen-year-old. You know, when she was much smaller, she's much like me and her mom.

    6. DEDaniel Ek58:49

       Yep.

    7. DSDavid Senra58:49

       Right? And then now, she's like, she's got traits that I don't even have. [chuckles]

    8. DEDaniel Ek58:53

       Yep, a hundred percent.

    9. DSDavid Senra58:54

       And her own decisions-

    10. DEDaniel Ek58:55

        Yeah

    11. DSDavid Senra58:55

        ... and, like, m- doing things maybe I would do-

    12. DEDaniel Ek58:57

        Yep

    13. DSDavid Senra58:57

        ... or I would not do, and you're like, it's kind of the same for the company.

    14. DEDaniel Ek59:00

        Yep.

    15. DSDavid Senra59:00

        And you had this idea where, like, I think at the time, Spotify was nineteen years old-

    16. DEDaniel Ek59:03

        Yep

    17. DSDavid Senra59:03

        ... or it's nineteen or twenty years old.

    18. DEDaniel Ek59:04

        Yep.

    19. DSDavid Senra59:05

        And it's just like, well, you know, year one or two, it is me.

    20. DEDaniel Ek59:08

        Yep.

    21. DSDavid Senra59:08

        It's like the same way you have a two-year-old.

    22. DEDaniel Ek59:09

        Yep.

    23. DSDavid Senra59:09

        Anybody who knows this.

    24. DEDaniel Ek59:10

        Yep.

    25. DSDavid Senra59:10

        But now it, there's characteristics that emerge from within the company-

    26. DEDaniel Ek59:14

        Yep

    27. DSDavid Senra59:14

        ... that are separate from the founder.

    28. DEDaniel Ek59:16

        Yep, yep, yep.

    29. DSDavid Senra59:17

        That's, like, a fascinating, uh, insight.

    30. DEDaniel Ek59:19

        Yeah, I mean, look, um, th- there's clearly kind of like three distinct stages of parenthood, right? And, um, the first one is, you're literally the person that keeps them alive, right? Um, and you're a hundred percent there, and every, you pretty much make every decision for them because they can't make it themselves. And then gradually, the next stage is, um, you're there. You're quite involved. You probably step in when they're doing something which, um, uh, would be terrible and would create bad long-term consequences. And then, like, the last stage, you're not even-- you can't even do that. Um, so the job is much more subtly to just be there, um, when they need you. And, um, I'm somewhat simplifying it, um, but, um, I think that the, as, as with everything, don't take it literally, but, but sort of the, the core of the, the gist of the idea is certainly a, a larger company becomes more and more, and an older company becomes more and more of that. And so much of what I do, uh, today is literally that. Um, I, I try to be there for people when they need me, um, in various fields, um, which happens, but it's not as often as every day, all the time. Um, and, um, what I deeply care about, uh, today, and I do spend a lot of my time on, is this notion around, um, this first seed of a n- a new idea and protecting that idea. And, um, I think it's, it's probably the most underreported, talked about, um, uh, way, is how do you do that? Like, how do you consistently find lighting in a bottle? Like, you know, and it's all so theoretical, um, at the point of any strategy book talking about how you do it or even when you go behind, um... I was, um, the other day, I was with, um, uh, the, the, um, uh, guy Hamilton Helmer, who wrote Seven Powers-
15. 1:14:12 – 1:24:18

    Managing Energy Over Time

    1. DEDaniel Ek1:14:12

       Yeah, the, uh... Yeah, I would, I would say, uh, you know, I'm not prou- [chuckles] proud of sneaking out, um, sometimes on that. But, but look, I mean, at, at, at, at the end of the day, um, I, I think that, uh, th- that's less about sort of being, um, protecting my time, um, and more sort of about protecting, um, unique and novel ideas and how rare they are. Um, and, and, and, and by the way, we'll, we'll hopefully get into that, but I, I, uh, I think less about sort of... A l- a lot of entrepreneurs seem to be, um, obsessed about time. I'm, I'm really not. I'm, I'm, I'm more obsessed about energy management.

    2. DSDavid Senra1:14:49

       Wait, wait, let, let... Yeah, let's get into it now. What do you mean?

    3. DEDaniel Ek1:14:53

       Well, I, I mean, y- you know, you, you, you constantly hear this thing about all these, um, you know, you're supposed to wake up at 4:00 a.m. in the morning, and you're supposed to do [chuckles] all-

    4. DSDavid Senra1:15:01

       Yeah

    5. DEDaniel Ek1:15:01

       ... these things, et cetera. It's like, first and foremost, there's no rule. Like, um, I know a lot of successful people, and as I'm sure you do, too, it's like some of them wake up at, you know, noon, some of them wake up at 4:00 a.m.

    6. DSDavid Senra1:15:12

       Yeah.

    7. DEDaniel Ek1:15:12

       It's like, you, you can do a lot of different things.

    8. DSDavid Senra1:15:14

       The obsession with morning rituals is stupid.

    9. DEDaniel Ek1:15:16

       Yeah. But the other thing is about s- sort of you're supposed to pack every, like, uh, you're supposed to have meetings every 15 minutes, and, like, 15-minute increments is better than a 30-minute increment, so on and so forth. Look, it might work for you, um, and, and for some people, it might be, like, the absolute best thing. Um, I, I've become more obsessed about sort of managing my energy, um, because, like, if you have time but you have no energy, you're not gonna accomplish anything anyway.

    10. DSDavid Senra1:15:44

        So how do you manage your energy, then?

    11. DEDaniel Ek1:15:46

        Well, it's about finding out, um, what gives you energy, right, to begin with, uh, and what drains energy. And, um, it's about finding out which time during the day, um, you're most productive. Um, and it's, again, innately about understanding yourself. Um, and what the whole world tries to do is get you to conform to their schedule. "Oh, we have an 8:00 a.m. morning meeting because that's when you get into the office," or, "You're supposed to do this and that," and all these other things, again, in a big corporations. Uh, and it's about conformity to, like, the average or to, to an okay standard instead of going for excellence and what truly, truly is unique. And I think the truly, truly unique thi- thing is you've got to just figure out what works for you, and you've got to do more of that. And that's, um, more about energy management, I believe, and it's so much more about... Like, e- even before this thing, uh, I think both you and I, we went and worked out, right?

    12. DSDavid Senra1:16:41

        Yeah.

    13. DEDaniel Ek1:16:41

        You know, that, that gives me energy.

    14. DSDavid Senra1:16:43

        Yeah.

    15. DEDaniel Ek1:16:43

        It's what's gonna sustain the rest of my day. I used to not do workouts at all because I thought, "Uh, I don't have time. Uh, there's no productivity." I used to go for... Uh, the, the worst, uh, productivity thing I did was I was at one point doing these 15-minute naps. I don't know if you've heard about this exercise.

    16. DSDavid Senra1:17:01

        No. [chuckles]

    17. DEDaniel Ek1:17:01

        It's a really bad idea, by the way-

    18. DSDavid Senra1:17:03

        [chuckles]

    19. DEDaniel Ek1:17:03

        ... so don't, don't try this. But I, I, I sort of learned that you can, you can, like, daisy chain sleep together by doing, like, these 15-

    20. DSDavid Senra1:17:10

        Oh, it's like polyphasic.

    21. DEDaniel Ek1:17:12

        Yeah.

    22. DSDavid Senra1:17:12

        Yeah, okay.

    23. DEDaniel Ek1:17:13

        So the basic gist is you're supposed to be able to last, like, on four hours of sleep.

    24. DSDavid Senra1:17:18

        Wow.

    25. DEDaniel Ek1:17:18

        And I was like, "Oh, this is great." So I did that, and actually, the interesting side part is it worked for about three weeks, um, and then I missed one of these-

    26. DSDavid Senra1:17:27

        Uh-oh

    27. DEDaniel Ek1:17:27

        ... uh, 15-minute increments, and holy shit, I was, like, completely suicidal for, like, weeks afterwards.

    28. DSDavid Senra1:17:33

        [chuckles]

    29. DEDaniel Ek1:17:33

        It was, like, not a great thing at all. But the point being is, um, you know, it's about s- sort of finding that energy management, uh, for yourself. I, I think certainly there's common wisdom, uh, around sort of what an average good sleep should look like, et cetera, but the reality is there are some people that will work on six hours of sleep, and they'll do just fine and may even be more productive that way.

    30. DSDavid Senra1:17:57

        I wish I was like that.
16. 1:24:18 – 1:24:41

    The Never-Ending Game of Life

    1. DSDavid Senra1:24:18

       [chuckles]

    2. DEDaniel Ek1:24:18

       Yeah.

    3. DSDavid Senra1:24:18

       This is the best game in the world.

    4. DEDaniel Ek1:24:20

       Yeah.

    5. DSDavid Senra1:24:20

       It's never ending.

    6. DEDaniel Ek1:24:21

       Yeah.

    7. DSDavid Senra1:24:21

       It's not like sports, where like-

    8. DEDaniel Ek1:24:22

       No

    9. DSDavid Senra1:24:23

       ... you, you can get better with time.

    10. DEDaniel Ek1:24:25

        Yeah.

    11. DSDavid Senra1:24:25

        You can solve problems.

    12. DEDaniel Ek1:24:26

        Yeah.

    13. DSDavid Senra1:24:26

        You can build your own world. If you think about what we were doing on the computer with SimCity, it's like, "Oh, look, I'll put a highway there."

    14. DEDaniel Ek1:24:31

        Yeah.

    15. DSDavid Senra1:24:31

        "That's... " Like, I'm, I'm- we're world builders.

    16. DEDaniel Ek1:24:34

        Yeah.

    17. DSDavid Senra1:24:34

        You get to control, like, who's around you, what your, what, uh, like, what are the rules in the world that happens?

    18. DEDaniel Ek1:24:39

        Yeah.

    19. DSDavid Senra1:24:39

        What's the outcome of the people

17. 1:24:41 – 1:25:55

    Lessons from Henry Ford

    1. DSDavid Senra1:24:41

       in the world?

    2. DEDaniel Ek1:24:41

       Yeah.

    3. DSDavid Senra1:24:41

       And you get to make- and hopefully, you're doing it for, like, benevolent and, and good reasons, where I do think, like, uh, one of my favourite, um, quotes from, or maxims from the history of entrepreneurship comes from Henry Ford, where he's like, "Money comes naturally as a result of service."

    4. DEDaniel Ek1:24:53

       Yeah.

    5. DSDavid Senra1:24:53

       And the crazy thing about Henry Ford is by 1919, he owned 100%, 'cause he bought out his investors, of one of the most valuable companies in the world, and he didn't do it to start a company. He had one idea. I've read 10 books on this guy, and people knew him forever. He's like, he had one idea, it's kind of weird, that we're putting together cars. They're really expensive. He was obsessed with machinery and essentially outsourcing human labour to machines.

    6. DEDaniel Ek1:25:14

       Mm-hmm.

    7. DSDavid Senra1:25:15

       Started on the farm.

    8. DEDaniel Ek1:25:16

       Yep.

    9. DSDavid Senra1:25:16

       Right? And he's just like: "I want to build a car for the everyman."

    10. DEDaniel Ek1:25:20

        Yep.

    11. DSDavid Senra1:25:20

        Y- you said something very ear- in the early days of Spotify, was like, "I have this goal of, you know, this celestial jukebox," or whatever the case is.

    12. DEDaniel Ek1:25:27

        Yeah.

    13. DSDavid Senra1:25:27

        And you said at the very, "I don't know how I'm gonna do it." He said the same thing.

    14. DEDaniel Ek1:25:29

        Yeah.

    15. DSDavid Senra1:25:30

        "But I learned how to do it."

    16. DEDaniel Ek1:25:31

        Yep.

    17. DSDavid Senra1:25:31

        He's like: "Oh, well, how can I make a car cheaper? Sure as hell can't put it-

    18. DEDaniel Ek1:25:35

        Yeah

    19. DSDavid Senra1:25:35

        ... by hand, so we've got to learn how to mass produce something we don't know how to do yet."

    20. DEDaniel Ek1:25:38

        Yeah.

    21. DSDavid Senra1:25:38

        And that took him, you know, a decade and a half of failure or whatever.

    22. DEDaniel Ek1:25:40

        Yeah.

    23. DSDavid Senra1:25:40

        And then what happens is, he didn't start the company to make money, but he made millions of people's lives better. He changed the geography of-

    24. DEDaniel Ek1:25:46

        Yeah

    25. DSDavid Senra1:25:46

        ... you know, the world, for God's sake.

    26. DEDaniel Ek1:25:48

        Yeah. Yeah.

    27. DSDavid Senra1:25:48

        And as a result, money came naturally as a result of service.

    28. DEDaniel Ek1:25:51

        That's, that's 100% how I think about it, and I think this is the beauty of capitalism,

18. 1:25:55 – 1:30:29

    The Value of Solving Problems

    1. DEDaniel Ek1:25:55

       right? Um, because ultimately, uh, at the end, there has to be someone willing to pay for what you're doing, and the, the reason for them to pay is obviously you're solving a problem for them. And the better you're solving that problem or the bigger the problem is that you're solving for people, the more valuable it becomes.

    2. DSDavid Senra1:26:11

       ... What, what did you say earlier, too? You're like, I forgot how to- you, y- how you phrased it, but in my mind, when I interpreted what you said, it, uh, it's this idea of not being a go-getter, but being a go-giver.

    3. DEDaniel Ek1:26:21

       Mm.

    4. DSDavid Senra1:26:21

       You said something like, "The more problems you solve-

    5. DEDaniel Ek1:26:23

       Yep.

    6. DSDavid Senra1:26:24

       -the more comes back to you?" Was that the-

    7. DEDaniel Ek1:26:25

       Well, uh, the, so these are two different ideas-

    8. DSDavid Senra1:26:28

       Okay.

    9. DEDaniel Ek1:26:28

       -but sort of closely related. So, uh, it was actually my co-founder who sort of said, "The value of a company is the sum of all problems solved." And if you really think about it, it is exactly what it is. Um, so, like, I tell this to the team, because when we face very difficult problems, uh, it is great, because, again, if we solve these problems, we will create a lot of value.

    10. DSDavid Senra1:26:51

        I keep saying you think like Bezos. So there's a great line, uh, same thing, where, um, he says-- I'm reading, reading his shareholder letters for the fourth time, and it's like, these are so good and so clear and concise, I should read them every year. And I was like: I feel like I just read them. And I w- looked it up. I hadn't read them since end of 2022. But there's all these stories in Bezos's early career where people in Amazon would come to him with a huge problem.

    11. DEDaniel Ek1:27:13

        Mm.

    12. DSDavid Senra1:27:13

        They thought maybe they'd get fired, and they-

    13. DEDaniel Ek1:27:14

        Yeah

    14. DSDavid Senra1:27:15

        ... he got excited.

    15. DEDaniel Ek1:27:15

        Yeah, yeah.

    16. DSDavid Senra1:27:17

        'Cause he's like: Oh, great, like, we had a problem we didn't even know. If we solve this-

    17. DEDaniel Ek1:27:20

        Yeah

    18. DSDavid Senra1:27:20

        ... our company gets even more valuable.

    19. DEDaniel Ek1:27:21

        Yeah, exactly right.

    20. DSDavid Senra1:27:22

        There's this guy named Henry Kaiser, who was as famous in his day as maybe like an Elon is today, and he built a hundred companies. One of them still exists, Kaiser Permanente. He built the Hoover Dam. He built the Liberty Ships in World War II, and he has this great maxim that, like, people would come to him, and they'd be all depressed, and he'd be excited. And they're like: "What the hell's going on here, uh, Henry?"

    21. DEDaniel Ek1:27:41

        Mm.

    22. DSDavid Senra1:27:41

        And he goes: "Problems are just opportunities in work clothes."

    23. DEDaniel Ek1:27:44

        Right.

    24. DSDavid Senra1:27:45

        That's a great way to think about it.

    25. DEDaniel Ek1:27:45

        Yeah, yeah.

    26. DSDavid Senra1:27:45

        It's like y- if I can solve this problem for other people-

    27. DEDaniel Ek1:27:48

        Yep

    28. DSDavid Senra1:27:48

        ... I make other people's lives better.

    29. DEDaniel Ek1:27:49

        Yep.

    30. DSDavid Senra1:27:49

        I make the company more valuable-
19. 1:30:29 – 1:36:07

    The Importance of Quality

    1. DEDaniel Ek1:30:29

       Um, but, but even today, you know, I'm thinking about this, and I said, "If, even if you remove all the money, even from the beginning, uh, even in the middle and even now, uh, there's no way I wouldn't do this, uh, and spend mu- much of my awakened time thinking about this tha- stuff." Um, just sort of like, for me, this is impact, and this is what leads to happiness, uh, in my life story.

    2. DSDavid Senra1:30:55

       I read something Jeff Bezos said that changed my perspective on the importance of high-quality sleep. He said that he makes sure he gets eight hours of sleep a night, and as a result, his mood, his energy, and his decision-making is improved. His point was that you get paid to make high-quality decisions, and you can't do that if you're sleeping terribly. And the product that has made the biggest impact on my quality of sleep for years is Eight Sleep. I'm lucky enough to be friends with the founder of Eight Sleep, Matteo, and we live in the same city. A few months after I started using Eight Sleep, I randomly ran into Matteo at a restaurant, and I was with some friends, so I go over and say hi. When I got back to my table, my friend asked me who was I talking to, and I said, "That's Matteo, the founder of Eight Sleep." And my friend replied, [chuckles] "He looks like he gets good sleep." Matteo is living and breathing his product. I had never had the ability to change the temperature of my bed before I had an Eight Sleep. I had no idea how much that would improve the quality of my sleep. I keep my Eight Sleep ice-cold. It's cold-

    3. DEDaniel Ek1:31:51

       ... before I get into bed, so I fall asleep faster and wake up less during the night. That feature alone is worth ten times the price. There are very few no-brainer investments in life, and I believe Eight Sleep is one of them. That is why elite founders like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have all said publicly that they use Eight Sleep. I would recommend getting the Pod 5, which is the newest generation of their signature product. It is a smart mattress cover that you place on top of your existing mattress, and it is next-level sleep tech. It automatically regulates your body temperature throughout the night, independently for each side of the bed. The result is you get up to a full hour of additional quality sleep per night. Make the no-brainer investment in your sleep by going to EightSleep.com/senra, and use the code Senra to get three hundred and fifty dollars off. You can try it for thirty days at home and return it if you don't like it, but I'm confident you will love it. I will never let anyone take my Eight Sleep from me. Make sure you get yours at EightSleep.com/senra.

    4. DSDavid Senra1:32:50

       You said something in the early days of Spotify that was very fascinating. You, you wanted to build, like, an enduring and impactful company that did something that no one else did, right?

    5. DEDaniel Ek1:32:57

       Mm-hmm.

    6. DSDavid Senra1:32:58

       It's remarkable also, like, when I'm listening to the series that was, uh, created in two thousand and twenty-one, how much you guys are talking about AI and how early you were, and you understood the impact, which is like you kind of saw clearly, like, where we're going. Uh, but you said something that I didn't actually understand, because the way I think about technology is, like, technology is just a better way to do something, right?

    7. DEDaniel Ek1:33:17

       Mm-hmm.

    8. DSDavid Senra1:33:18

       And you're like, at Spotify, though, like, at the very beginning, it's like, yeah, I think you nailed it. You're like: "The decisions that were made have to do with the DNA of the founder, 'cause we're the only ones there." [chuckles]

    9. DEDaniel Ek1:33:27

       Yep.

    10. DSDavid Senra1:33:28

        But you said, "I like technology for technology's sake."

    11. DEDaniel Ek1:33:31

        Yeah.

    12. DSDavid Senra1:33:32

        What does that mean?

    13. DEDaniel Ek1:33:33

        Um, I, I like the process of science. I like the process of discovery. I like the process of understanding the-- how things work. Um, you know, I've been wired this way all, all my life. I've been pulling apart computers. I've been trying to understand why a semiconductor works the way it works, all these things. Um, and I'm intrigued about that, y- just this, this thing about understanding everything, understanding life, understand where we come from, understanding all these different things. Uh, but I'm equally interested in solving problems, and when, when you're curious about both of those two angles, you try-- y- you, you can end up finding these sort of, um, sort of, um, connection points where those two things meet, where it's obvious that there is something over there, um, that no one's really kind of applied in this way before. Um, and maybe there's not one idea, but two ideas over there. It's quite interesting. Um, and, and I think you have to love technology in order to go to the depth of understanding what's possible, and, and because it's oft- oftentimes, like, the greatest ideas is truly, innately understanding something and truly, innately breaking constraints around that something, um, by understanding the rules and knowing when, when you can-

    14. DSDavid Senra1:34:52

        Yeah, to break them.

    15. DEDaniel Ek1:34:54

        Yeah. And so, like, what are the greatest entrepreneurs, really? Well, the greatest founders are the people that kind of have this one idea of what, like, what the... They can almost internalize the consumer, uh, right? Like, what is someone willing-- what, what do they need, even if they can't articulate it themselves? And then have this entire field of amazing, brilliant engineers and scientists and mathematicians and all these groups of people that are doing various things, and then sort of figure out the intersection, and then you actually have to make it viable, too, which is you have to have some sort of business model, because if you don't have that, eventually t- this thing won't be sustainable. So, you know, it, it's sort of the trifecta of those three things, and that makes it even more interesting, because now we're talking about, uh, you know, uh, a, a really complex equation, trying to get these things together with multiple unknowns, and you're trying to configure these things by locking down constraints on one side, and then you're trying another side. And the amazing thing about early-stage entrepreneurship is, uh, you know, we, we talked about this Google example of trying two hundred different colors. You can't do that early on.

20. 1:36:07 – 1:53:19

    The Power of Focus and Patience

    1. DEDaniel Ek1:36:07

       That is the amazing thing. Every decision you make is life or death, and that makes sort of the stakes even higher because you may literally try one thing, and then you run out of money, and so you gotta make sure that is the right thing. Um, and, um, it, it's just such a fascinating process, but it comes back. It's a process of creativity. It's a process of trying things out, and I'm more and more enamored and more and more, um, in love with this idea that, um, creativity itself, uh, is this really, really powerful thing, maybe the thing that's makes us unique as humans relative to everything else that exists in this world, and kind of going deeper and deeper into creativity, um, itself. And, um, a- and it doesn't conform, and it doesn't scale, and it doesn't behave in any of these other things. And then you have this other side, which is all about scale, which is all about conforming, and, and sort of navigat- gating that sort of, um, dynamism between these two things and polarities between these two things is, is, you know, very few people that I think, uh, can do, and it's really, really world-class at doing it.

    2. DSDavid Senra1:37:24

       I think most of us, you can't even describe why you're doing what you're doing at the time. And what I mean by that is, like, you, you hinted on this earlier, it's like it's so easy to kill new ideas, right? Uh, the error on the side of, "No, we can't do this," it's, it's amazing to me how many times this comes up in all these biographies, where it's just like: This is a skill you have to learn, and a lot of it is, like, being comfortable with the, the, the messiness of the creative product, process. But it's also, entrepreneurs by definition, impatient-... patient.

    3. DEDaniel Ek1:37:53

       Yeah.

    4. DSDavid Senra1:37:54

       Like they have this, this what looks like a paradox-

    5. DEDaniel Ek1:37:56

       Yeah

    6. DSDavid Senra1:37:56

       - where, like, they want shit done now.

    7. DEDaniel Ek1:37:58

       Yep.

    8. DSDavid Senra1:37:58

       I love-

    9. DEDaniel Ek1:37:59

       Yep

    10. DSDavid Senra1:37:59

        - so, uh, Jeff Bezos says about this, "Step by step, ferociously."

    11. DEDaniel Ek1:38:01

        Yep.

    12. DSDavid Senra1:38:02

        Um, w- like, you know, that's the, "I'm willing to, to plan, you know, to, to if take two decades or three decades to solve the problem that I'm trying to go after."

    13. DEDaniel Ek1:38:09

        Yep.

    14. DSDavid Senra1:38:09

        Maybe in some cases, the stuff that he's working on might even outlive his-

    15. DEDaniel Ek1:38:12

        Yeah

    16. DSDavid Senra1:38:12

        - his lifetime. But it doesn't mean I'm, like, dilly-dallying on a day-to-day basis. I heard you say something one time. You were like: "I, I promise you, I don't think I'm the smartest. I don't think I'm the most talented. If I have one superpower, it's, like, I just have super-- like, I have super patience."

    17. DEDaniel Ek1:38:25

        Yeah.

    18. DSDavid Senra1:38:26

        Um, I think Neko is, like, an example of this.

    19. DEDaniel Ek1:38:29

        Yeah.

    20. DSDavid Senra1:38:29

        I met your co-founder on it-

    21. DEDaniel Ek1:38:30

        Yep

    22. DSDavid Senra1:38:31

        ... and I got to, to see this too, and I was like: "Oh, like, this is cool. Like, who made the machines?"

    23. DEDaniel Ek1:38:36

        Yeah.

    24. DSDavid Senra1:38:37

        He's just like: "We did." [chuckles]

    25. DEDaniel Ek1:38:38

        Yeah.

    26. DSDavid Senra1:38:39

        And then, and then I didn't know it was like... I don't know if stealth is the right word, but-

    27. DEDaniel Ek1:38:43

        Yeah

    28. DSDavid Senra1:38:43

        ... from the idea to the first-

    29. DEDaniel Ek1:38:44

        Yeah

    30. DSDavid Senra1:38:45

        ... time the customer happened, it was what?
21. 1:53:19 – 1:59:12

    Balancing Work and Life

    1. DSDavid Senra1:53:19

       The issue that I'm having now, and in general, is that I feel a lot of pressure, 'cause, like, I'm trying to change not just my life, but, like, the trajectory of, like, my entire family.

    2. DEDaniel Ek1:53:29

       Mm.

    3. DSDavid Senra1:53:29

       And I feel very guilty when I don't work-

    4. DEDaniel Ek1:53:31

       Mm-hmm

    5. DSDavid Senra1:53:31

       ... to the point where, like, you know, I just got back from a, a, a crazy trip that people would love to go on, and like-

    6. DEDaniel Ek1:53:36

       Yeah

    7. DSDavid Senra1:53:37

       ... I just felt guilty for not- for, like, taking time out and off-

    8. DEDaniel Ek1:53:41

       Yeah

    9. DSDavid Senra1:53:41

       ... and not working.

    10. DEDaniel Ek1:53:42

        Yeah.

    11. DSDavid Senra1:53:43

        And I feel like this is, like, almost like a compulsion, like I don't have control over it.

    12. DEDaniel Ek1:53:46

        Yeah.

    13. DSDavid Senra1:53:47

        Do you have anything like that?

    14. DEDaniel Ek1:53:48

        Sure. Um, I do feel the same thing, of course. Um, but I'm, I'm back to sort of time versus energy, uh, management.

    15. DSDavid Senra1:53:57

        Mm-hmm.

    16. DEDaniel Ek1:53:57

        And, um, I don't know about you, but I feel like the greatest ideas I've had, uh, comes from the most weird and wonderful places where I expected nothing out of it. So quite often, when I do take some time off, I come back with, like, two or three and, um, some entirely new insights that just wouldn't have come if I just kept grinding at that thing. By just changing a scenery, uh, being in a different frame of mind, uh, pausing, giving, um... You know, it's, it, it's in the creative process. You know, um, the greatest artists talk about some of the greatest songs literally take five minutes to write-

    17. DSDavid Senra1:54:35

        Yeah

    18. DEDaniel Ek1:54:36

        ... which is amazing, right? But some songs are the ones you, like, work on it, um, you put it in a drawer, and six months later, totally unbeknownst to you, it clicks. You're not even working on that thing. It just sort of like, "Oh, that's it," and they go back, and they do the song, and it's, like, the greatest song ever. Um, there's not one path to greatness. Um, there's many. Um, and I feel like the- that's, that's why I'm so obsessively focused on energy.

    19. DSDavid Senra1:55:07

        So you mean energy as, like, you just let that guide you?

    20. DEDaniel Ek1:55:09

        Yeah.

    21. DSDavid Senra1:55:10

        It's like, "Hey, if I need a break right now, if I need to go for a walk, or if I need to go spend time with my wife and kids," or, like-

    22. DEDaniel Ek1:55:16

        Yeah.

    23. DSDavid Senra1:55:17

        Is that what you mean?

    24. DEDaniel Ek1:55:17

        Um, yeah, 100%. Um, and, and I try to, uh, feel that. I feel like so much of our, our, um, life just rips us apart from this thing and tries to get us on a schedule, per se. Um, and it's not like I don't have a schedule. Of course I-

    25. DSDavid Senra1:55:35

        Yeah

    26. DEDaniel Ek1:55:35

        ... do have one, and, um, but, but I feel so much of it should be more guided by trying to understand ourselves more, um, intimately, right? So I, I don't know if you've, you've heard of this, but, um, so going back to sleep, there, there's been this kind of thing around, um, more recently, which I was surprised. One of my- my 10-year-old daughter told me about this, is around, um, um, that, um, actually, you know, um, she, she sort of said, like, we have this idea that, o- of eight hours, and, and she actually mentioned instead that, um, i-... uh, the real notion is, um, that it- we kind of did it almost like fasting. Um, like Ramadan is, you know, how it's based on the sun. Sometimes it could be six hours, or sometimes it could be 12 hours. So it used to be that sleep was actually, uh, in two periods. Uh, so you didn't sleep one consecutive thing. You sort of had a, um, three, four-hour sleep, uh, and then, you know, you woke up, and then you had another three, four-hour sleep again. And so much of that was based on light. Um, and, you know, maybe it was driven by other things that were happening in our life, too. And for Nordic people, what it actually meant, uh, going back as, as late as the, you know, 18th century, before we started having electric lights and candles and all these things-

    27. DSDavid Senra1:56:52

        Yeah

    28. DEDaniel Ek1:56:53

        ... is we actually slept a lot, ah, less on the summers, and we slept a lot more in the winters, guided by light. So we keep thinking it's this static thing, but it's actually, again, driven by the environment around us. And so much, um, of this sort of innate knowledge about listening to ourselves, understanding, um, our, um, innate personality, understanding hunger. Like, I, I can tell you, as someone, I've, I've gained, in periods of my life, like, um, 40 pounds, um, in my worst negotiations, et cetera. And, and one of the problems I have now is that I literally don't know when I'm hungry because I ruined that sort of natural feeling in my body of, of understanding when I'm hungry and when I'm not hungry. Um, so, um, you know, a huge part of losing weight for me over the past few years was just really kind of innately starting to listening to my body again and, like, starting to figure out what satiation means. Because for me, for instance, I don't feel it until 20 minutes after. So, like, i- if, if I didn't, like, sort of eye what I should eat, I would just keep eating way more than I should. Um, and so much of me has just been portion sizing, of, like, understanding, "Okay, well, that's probably gonna be enough." And it doesn't feel like enough at that moment because I ruined my body, but 20 minutes later, I understand it. And so I'm just trying to sort of, again, convey this sort of thing about understanding who you are, choosing the game you're playing, and realizing that there's... Life is not one game, but it's a thousand games. And there's this brilliant quote, um, by this guy called Kwame Appiah, that there's another one of those things, this sort of guy-

    29. DSDavid Senra1:58:35

        I just circled it. [chuckles]

    30. DEDaniel Ek1:58:36

        All right.
22. 1:59:12 – 2:07:30

    The Journey of Self-Discovery

    1. DEDaniel Ek1:59:12

       game. They're playing someone else's game. Uh, they're certainly not playing the game they want to be playing. But they somehow think that life is just one game, where actually so much is about choosing the right, the right game for you. Um, and so, um, yeah, I keep coming back to that. Like, energy management is the same thing. You've got to, like, uh, create the environment around you that you want to do. You have to choose your game. Um, and when you do that, and you start understanding that, you start becoming superhuman in your ability to get things done.

    2. DSDavid Senra1:59:45

       Do you have more or less negative self-talk today than you did 20 years ago?

    3. DEDaniel Ek1:59:53

       [inhales] I, I was... I'm more comfortable with who I am, um, than I was 20 years ago. I was still very much- my whole life, I've been a searcher. I've been, um, you know, uh, when I was really young, in my teens, I went to every possible religious meetup you could be. Uh, I went to everything. Uh, I went to Hare Krishna centers [chuckles] I went to, to, um, you know, um, uh, Jewish centers, um, you know, mosques. I went to everything, and I tried to learn as much as possible because I, I truly believe not enough people are, are like- I've, I've always been surprised why more people aren't interested in where we come from and what the purpose is of life. For me, those are sort of some of the greatest questions-

    4. DSDavid Senra2:00:42

       Mm-hmm

    5. DEDaniel Ek2:00:43

       ... that I, like many others, don't have any idea, [chuckles] obviously, what, what will happen, but I think they're, they're really important. So I've always been a searcher, and I think that naturally sort of, like, led me to sort of also be a searcher about myself, too, um, and, and trying to find sort of who I am. But the older I've gotten, and the more and more things have started clicking about myself, and the more unapologetic I am about, uh-

    6. DSDavid Senra2:01:08

       And so your inner monologue gets less harsh?

    7. DEDaniel Ek2:01:11

       Yeah, because, like, you know, not only do you stand out quite a lot, um, as an entrepreneur, um, and my interests were wildly different than my social circle growing up and all these things, but the second thing is I'm an introvert. Um, so, um, you know, that doesn't help. Um, so most people like being around a lot of people, and they get energy from it, and I didn't. So that obviously naturally, um, gets you to question yourself. And, you know, against, um, many others, as an entrepreneur, I'm not the most eloquent person. I'm not the smartest.

    8. DSDavid Senra2:01:42

       You're pretty damn eloquent. [chuckles]

    9. DEDaniel Ek2:01:44

       Well, I, I, I had to work on it.

    10. DSDavid Senra2:01:46

        Yeah.

    11. DEDaniel Ek2:01:47

        That's still, like, the hard thing. I've, I've really, really, um, um-

    12. DSDavid Senra2:01:49

        Listen, I've listened to all your episode, or all your interviews, and I did this before we were friends, and I- every time something comes out, I was like, "Oh, I gotta watch that." You're, you're very, you're not giving yourself enough credit. Like, you are a very clear communicator. Like-

    13. DEDaniel Ek2:02:01

        Thank you.

    14. DSDavid Senra2:02:01

        Yeah.

    15. DEDaniel Ek2:02:02

        Um, but, but it's really a work product.

    16. DSDavid Senra2:02:04

        Yeah.

    17. DEDaniel Ek2:02:04

        Like, I, I wish there was more recorded stuff on my- myself when I was, like, um-... 20 and 21, [chuckles] because I tell you-

    18. DSDavid Senra2:02:12

        [chuckles] Not me.

    19. DEDaniel Ek2:02:12

        Uh, I, I was, I was not great. Uh, I was quite terrible. Um, and, and so I've just learned that it's a superpower, uh, and something I have to work on, is getting my message across to other people to believe what I'm believing and see what I'm seeing in order to get them to wanna come and join, uh, whatever thing we- we're trying to will into this world.

    20. DSDavid Senra2:02:34

        I have two more questions, uh, that I'm personally curious about. One is gonna be a very weird question, but the first one is, do you feel different? Okay, so, like, most of the people watching this or listening to this, like, so few people are going to be born in the projects in s- a tiny, little... We didn't even- w- we'll have to do, like, s- this every year, if you're fine with it. Uh, because, like, the idea that you even, like, come from this tiny, little island, which I was like, uh, you know, uh, like, got to visit, and then you, like, competing with the biggest companies in the world and you win, it's just doesn't- like, we, we didn't even get there.

    21. DEDaniel Ek2:03:09

        Yeah.

    22. DSDavid Senra2:03:10

        But, like, you grow up, you have a great mom, y- you know, you're single family, not a lot of money, but... And then now, what I'm curious about is, like, your lived experience is so- there's so few people alive that can actually empathize with that as- because they also had it. So I'm very curious, do you feel different?

    23. DEDaniel Ek2:03:34

        Um-

    24. DSDavid Senra2:03:35

        And what I mean by that is, like, as y- you've grown from, you know, a kid in the projects-

    25. DEDaniel Ek2:03:39

        Yeah

    26. DSDavid Senra2:03:40

        ... even if you had early success, to now being, you know, one of the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet, which I know, don't do the face. [chuckles]

    27. DEDaniel Ek2:03:46

        Yeah.

    28. DSDavid Senra2:03:47

        But it's an undeniable fact. Like, do you feel different?

    29. DEDaniel Ek2:03:52

        I think yes and no. Um, so I, I feel different in, in the same way a 40-year-old would feel different than a 10-year-old would do.

    30. DSDavid Senra2:04:00

        Yeah.
23. 2:07:30 – 2:09:11

    Final Reflections and Gratitude

    1. DEDaniel Ek2:07:30

       Yep.

    2. DSDavid Senra2:07:30

       He wind up dying in the war that he didn't want to-

    3. DEDaniel Ek2:07:33

       Yep

    4. DSDavid Senra2:07:33

       ... to fight in the first place.

    5. DEDaniel Ek2:07:35

       Yep.

    6. DSDavid Senra2:07:35

       And his brother, that survived, got his remains, buried him, and then put him in a grave with only one word on his tombstone, and that one word was "loyal."

    7. DEDaniel Ek2:07:46

       Mm.

    8. DSDavid Senra2:07:47

       So hopefully, you don't- you, a hundred years from now, when you do have a tombstone, if there was only going to be one word on that tombstone, what would you want it to be?

    9. DEDaniel Ek2:07:58

       [inhales] Um, I, I don't think too much anymore. I used to think a lot about how other people saw me or see me. Um, I don't do that anymore. Um, so I would, I would choose more of a self-reflective, uh, one. Um, um, and I wish, um, only one thing, um, on my tombstone, future one, it feels absurd talking about it, but, [chuckles] uh, would be that, um, "He lived."

    10. DSDavid Senra2:08:38

        That's a great one. That's a great way to end it. Daniel, I'm thankful for your time, thankful for your friendship. You're one of the people who I most admire, and, uh, I really appreciate you doing this.

    11. DEDaniel Ek2:08:45

        Well, well, thank you so much, and it's such a huge honor to be your first guest in this series.

    12. DSDavid Senra2:08:50

        Of course.

    13. DEDaniel Ek2:08:50

        Thank you so much.

    14. DSDavid Senra2:08:51

        Wouldn't have it any other way. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and leave a review, and make sure you listen to my other podcast, Founders. For almost a decade, I've obsessively read over 400 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs, searching for ideas that you can use in your work. Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through Founders.

Episode duration: 2:09:11