The Rise Of Spotify

These days it’s hard to think back to a time when music was only available on cassettes, CDs or vinyl records. Days when you had to physically go to a record store, browse through aisles and aisles of stacked CDs, searching for your favorite artist or relying on a store clerk to recommend that new artist no one has ever heard about. So it’s even harder to believe that those days were only 14 years ago, yet with the rise of the internet and the sharp increase of new technology, the physical music days feels like decades ago. Yet how did we get to this point where music streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal have become the norm for every music fan out there? Well, it all started in Sweden, born from depression and passion for music, dreamt up by Swedish tech wunderkind Daniel Ek, a self-made millionaire at the tender age of only 23. This is the story of Ek and the rise of the world’s most popular music streaming service.

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VINTAGE GUITARS AND VIDEO GAMES

Born in February 1983 in Stockholm, Sweden, Daniel Ek grew up in the middle-class Rågsved district. Ek showed an interest in technology from an early age, reading up as much as he could about the latest tech and trying his hand at coding. At the tender age of 13, that passion for technology saw him start his own side business, as he started making websites for companies from his bedroom. Initially, he charged his clients $100 per website, but as demand for his services grew he quickly charged $200. Eventually, his services were in such demand that he was starting to charge over $5000 a website, an amount companies were gladly paying. To help his fledgling business grow, Ek recruited fellow students to work on the websites from the school computer lab and paid them in video games. By the age of 18, Ek was earning $50 000 a month and managing a team of 25 students.