Technology Pioneer 2011 - and Daniel - Spotify

So what makes Spotify so special is the fact that this – first and foremost a great atmosphere. and the second thing and this is sort of a big general thing is the fact that we try take people from piracy and move them into a legal environment. There are lots of people today outside of the sort of legal parameters. We got almost 200 million people in China for instance where the number one thing they do in the internet is music. and we’re turning them into legal music users. I think that there’s a few different countries that I have had experience in… if you take Sweden for instance, it’s actually a great environment for starting companies, there’s a lot of great access to technology… people… engineers… product people… and just a great environment because it’s a small country and you need to expand globally very quickly. The UK on the other hand is a big market, sort of a good stepping stone if you want to expand to the US or Australia and other markets. and I think in general, sort of, very similar market to Sweden in many respect culturally and then of course we got the US where you got Silicon Valley and even Silicon Alley now on the east coast who are both great places in starting companies where there is great entrepreneurs. There is great eco-system of venture capitalist and angels who’ve done it before that can get that kind of mentorship which is different from Europe where most of the entrepreneurs are sort of still working with their companies. The first thing that we need to think about and a lot of people get wrong is that – they think about the idea, the idea actually represents only 5% the rest is execution. I think what differs in a true innovator is the fact that you’re working against the tide. You’re constantly being met by skepticism and the only thing that’s gonna matter between success and failure is the fact that you just keep going and believing in yourself and believing in your ability to execute. So I must say persistence is definitely one of them. and the fact that being challenged, but be challenged in a positive way. Trying to get feedback from everyone, but don’t give up, I mean, constantly refine and improve your idea. That’s how a true innovator works. Music – if you take music as such, it’s probably the most social thing there is. I think it really sort of bridges cultures, bridges people’s… it bridges languages and barriers that most other forms of culture does not. So, I think what Spotify does is it makes music more available and it makes it easier for people to share music. So hopefully if there’s anything we can do is to get people feel a little bit more happy with a happy song or you feel a little bit more sad when they get a sad song. But generally, just get people to feel more. That’s how I want Spotify to help the world.