Who is the CEO of Spotify?

SPOTIFY is a streaming platform for music, podcasts and more. 

The company was founded by Swedish billionaire and current CEO Daniel Ek and his business partner Martin Lorentzon.

Ek was born in Stockholm, Sweden and lives there to this dayReuters

Who owns Spotify?

Spotify offers a series of premium membership packages that come with an ad-free experience and access to its full music and podcast library. 

Users that are enrolled in a university are offered a considerable discount.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Spotify has about 180million paying subscribers. 

Every year, many Spotify users post their Spotify Wrapped playlist to social media.

Co-founders Ek and Lorentzon split duties as CEO for a time, but Lorentzon has relinquished the title and taken a more rigid responsibility structure focused on financial analysis. 

According to Forbes, Lorentzon owns 12% of the company.

Meanwhile, Ek, as CEO and 9% shareholder, has become the public face of Spotify and was named the most powerful man in music by Billboard in 2017. 

As a competitor to Apple’s iTunes and later Apple Music, Spotify has faced a long and contentious battle to get platformed on the App Store or add features to the Apple Watch. 

A timeline of their business rivalry is available on a Spotify-sponsored site.  

Spotify went public in 2018, thereby diversifying ownership and allowing venture firms like Baillie Gifford, Morgan Stanley, and T. Rowe Price to purchase a stake in the music streamer. 

According to Rolling Stone, Ek and Lorentzon have retained 77% of the voting power despite owning just a collective 21% of Spotify’s shares. 

According to Yahoo Finance, Spotify’s stock is trading at approximately $172 per share and has a market capitalization of just over $33billion.

Is Daniel Ek married? 

Ek married longtime girlfriend Sofia Levander in 2016 in a wedding attended by A-list celebrities and musicians. 

At their wedding, Ek was photographed getting chummy with Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

Ek and Levander have two daughters and share a $50million dollar home in Stockholm, Sweden.

In September 2021, Ek made a bid of just over $2billion to Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke to purchase the soccer club.

Spotify’s logo is a very recognizable sound meter printed in an eye-catching bright greenAP:Associated Press

How was Spotify created? 

Spotify was founded in 2006 and made available in the United States in 2011.

The company’s name is a portmanteau of “spot“ and “identify”. 

Ek had successful ventures prior to founding Spotify, establishing multiple businesses by the age of 16.

He was once rejected for a job at Google.

Ek is not as visible as super-CEO Elon Musk on social media, but Spotify’s Instagram page has 7.5million followers and an aesthetic that joins high-resolution portraits with vibrant colors and digital graphics.