The music industry is healthier than it's ever been before, but certainly when you think about it from a singular artist point of view, there was a point in time where the majority of the revenue could be more than a hundred percent. This is true at scale now too. I mean, Taylor Swift monetizes through everything you're talking about the same way a mom and pop coffee shop does. She just doesn't at scale. And so the question is what's the analogy? Was it that like that's the right model or was it actually that having multiple revenue models was always the answer?
We sit down with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek live in Stockholm at Spotify’s amazing HQ studio (check out the video version of this episode — which plays natively on Spotify!). This was an incredibly special and timely conversation: for those who haven’t been paying attention over the past few years, after revolutionizing music Spotify has now ALSO completely transformed our own industry in podcasting. Starting from way behind with ~zero market share in 2018, Spotify has now aggregated the listener market and amazingly surpassed Apple as the world’s largest podcast platform — including close to home with the Acquired audience, where it has 60%+ market share among you all!
We discuss the origins of this “second act” strategy with Daniel, the vision to move from a music company to an audio company, and what’s coming next with Spotify’s entry into Audiobooks. And of course we relive some key moments from the Acquired canon that Daniel was involved in, including his pivotal conversations with Taylor Swift and her team convincing her to come back to streaming following the release of 1984. Tune in!
ACQ2 Show:
Links
Sponsors:
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsn
Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
Modern Treasury: https://bit.ly/acqtransfer
Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.