He’s shaping Spotify into the go-to destination for all digital sound: not just music but news, storytelling, live talk, audiobooks and education. “That’s a massive amount of revenue that needs to shift online.” alone, two thirds of all audio ad spending still goes to terrestrial radio,” Ek says. Each day the old-school medium reaches an estimated 3 billion people, and each year it pulls in ad revenue topping $30 billion, according to advertising research firm WARC. Radio, a 135-year-old technology, has proven more resilient than Keith Richards. Much of the audio world remains fragmented and shockingly analog. It should be a multi-hundred-billion-dollar industry,” Ek says.

Let other media behemoths battle for eyeballs Spotify is going after the world’s eardrums. “I had no idea Spotify’s cultural and monetary impact would ever be this big.” Last year, Spotify paid out $5 billion to rights holders, mostly the big labels, which passed along an estimated $500 million of that to recording artists. In 2020, streaming services delivered $13.4 billion in sales, representing 62% of industry revenue. in 2011, streaming was a $600 million business, accounting for 4% of the recording industry’s annual global revenue. “It’s no exaggeration to say that Daniel saved the music industry.” “Spotify was the force that transitioned hundreds of millions of users from piracy to paying customers,” says Sean Parker, who, as cofounder of Napster, was considered the Blackbeard of the music business before becoming Facebook’s first president and a Spotify investor. Spotify went public in 2018, and Ek-who in 2012 had a paper fortune of $300 million-is now worth $4.4 billion. Today, Ek’s superstreamer plays in 184 countries, has 7,400 employees and $9.7 billion in annual sales. The service had been available in America for only six months. Back then, in January 2012, Spotify had just 500 employees, $300 million in sales and a valuation of $2 billion.

The company has come a long way since Ek reluctantly threw on a suit and tie-and threw back a few whiskies-to pose for the cover of the first Forbes 30 Under 30 issue ten years ago.

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