Spotify Founder Daniel Ek To Step Down As CEO

After 20 years, Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek has decided to step down into an executive chairman position. In a statement, Ek promises to remain”deeply involved” in the company’s decisions.

Spotify founder Daniel Ek announced today that he will step down as CEO of the company and transition into an executive chairman position, assisting in the music streaming platform’s long-term strategy.

The streaming giant has revealed that Ek will be replaced by his two deputies at the end of the year. In a letter to staff, Ek confirmed that he would remain “deeply involved” in major business decisions involving Spotify.

During his 20-year tenure, Spotify has grown into one of Europe’s most successful tech companies and a leader in the music streaming space. Over the years, the company would branch into the podcast and audiobook space, making the streaming giant one of the leading services in the world.

Spotify would also dominate the cultural conversation with its yearly Spotify Round-Ups. These round-ups would not only become a useful time capsule for listeners to see what some of their most played tracks were of that year, but a viral hit as listeners would share their music habits, and if they were, for example, a ‘pink pilates princess’.

That’s not to say the company wasn’t without its fair share of controversies over the years. Artists have frequently criticised Spotify over how little the company pays artists per stream for years now. Björk famously would go on to say that the company was “the worst thing that has happened to musicians”. 

Spotify would make Ek a billionaire, with a net worth of just under $10 billion USD. The Swedish founder would invest significantly in European venture capital firm Prima Materia, which has backed firms such as Germany’s Helsing, which develops weapons systems powered by artificial intelligence.

News of this investment would spread across social media, prompting musicians such as Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Massive Attack and more to boycott the platform.

In a statement, Massive Attack claimed that Spotify has been an “economic burden” on artists, and was now “compounded by a moral and ethical burden, whereby the hard-earned money of fans and the creative endeavours of musicians ultimately funds lethal, dystopian technologies”.

The platforms flirting with AI technology have also received substantial backlash. Earlier this week, Spotify revealed that it had removed 75 million spam tracks in the past year, as AI has made it easier to create fake songs. Some of these songs, in fact, would make it onto real artists’ pages.

As 404 Media reports, AI-generated music has begun appearing on artists’ pages without their consent. Some of these tracks would be uploaded onto the profiles of deceased artists, despite the label owners being entirely uninformed of the upload.

In a statement, Spotify would blame the company SoundOn, a music distributor owned by TikTok, allowing people to upload music directly to the platform and earn royalties. SoundOn also allows artists to distribute their music to other platforms.

Despite the recent controversies, Spotify claims that Ek’s decision to step down had been in the works before the scandal and was unrelated.

Spotify will promote co-presidents Gustav Söderström and Alex Norström to replace Ek. The pair have each been with the company for more than 15 years and took on enhanced responsibilities two years ago.

Both will still report to Ek, who says he expects to remain deeply involved in the company.