Daniel Ek

For me, as someone growing up in a working-class suburb in Stockholm, I couldn't afford all the music. So back in '98, '99, I was really thinking about how I could get all the music and do it in a legal way while at the same time compensating the artist. ”

I had two passions growing up - one was music, one was technology. I tried to play in a band for a while, but I was never talented enough to make it. And I started companies. One day came along and I decided to combine the two - and there was Spotify. ”

I'm just interested in building a company that doesn't necessarily change lives but adapts people's behaviour. ”

My ambition is we want artists to be able to afford to create the music they want to create, and if it takes them five years to sit down and make the album they want to make, they should be able to afford that. That's my goal. ”

We're focused on growing the pie so the artists can go back to making a meaningful amount of money. ”

If you write to me and it takes a day for me to write back, don't take it personally. ”

There are millions of people who consume music illegally every month. Just getting them into a legal service will make the music industry way bigger than it's ever been before. ”

I was born in Sweden, and in Sweden we are known for the piracy services. ”

It disturbed me that the music industry had gone down the drain, even though people were listening to more music than ever and from a greater diversity of artists. ”

I had always wanted to belong, and I had been thinking that this was going to get solved when I had money, and instead, I had no idea how I wanted to live my life. And no one teaches you what to do after you achieve financial independence. So I had to confront that. ”