Today I’m joined by Daniel Ek – a man you might never have heard of but whose business you’ve almost certainly used. Daniel is the co-founder and CEO of Spotify, and he ‘s taken the company from an struggling start-up to industry giant. And, Spotify has just launched a new Audiobook platform – so excited about it. In the episode we talk about Audiobooks on Spotify, and how giving literally hundreds of millions of people one-click free access to basically every audiobook in the world is going to change the industry for authors, publishers and of course, readers and listeners. Daniel’s approach to entrepreneurship and building businesses – Daniel shares his frameworks for how entrepreneurs can think about adding value, the balance between thinking and action, and the 3 different types of advantage that different businesses can have, in terms of informational, analytical and behavioural advantages. And we talk also about Daniel’s personal productivity – as a ridiculously busy CEO of a huge public company worth tens of billions of dollars, how does he think about time management, focus, and work-life balance as it relates to balancing the running of his companies with being a father and a husband. Enjoy!

Intro

What does audiobooks mean for Spotify?

Advice to new entrepreneurs on seeking out opportunities

The 3 types of advantages you can have (behavioural, informational, analytical)

What did the playbook look like when you started Spotify?

Thinking paralysis

Single threaded meetings vs multi meetings (ball pen meetings)

What do high performers look like?

Do you have an executive coach?

Will the way platforms change impact creation and monetisation?

Productivity depends on your own psychology (Daniel’s philosophy to productivity)

How do you think about juggling priorities?

Work life balance is a myth

Your one piece of advice