---
title: 'We Interviewed the CEO of Spotify'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=yZIDW9mT_HU'
video_id: 'yZIDW9mT_HU'
date: 2026-07-28
duration_sec: 3441
---

# We Interviewed the CEO of Spotify

> Source: [We Interviewed the CEO of Spotify](https://youtube.com/watch?v=yZIDW9mT_HU)

## Summary

In this interview, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek discusses the platform's evolution into a video hub with a unique monetization model—sharing premium subscription revenue with creators. He explains how Spotify differentiates from YouTube through its blend of algorithmic and editorial discovery, and reflects on the impact of major podcast deals that revitalized the industry.

### Key Points

- **Spotify's Shift to Video** [00:02] — Spotify is moving beyond music and podcasts to become a full video platform, announcing premium subscription revenue sharing for creators.
- **250 Million Premium Subscribers** [00:17] — Spotify has over 250 million paying subscribers, a base comparable to Netflix, which creators can now tap into for monetization.
- **YouTube vs. Spotify Model** [01:01] — YouTube is ad-supported, while Spotify is subscription-based. Spotify's new revenue share aligns creator success with premium subscription growth.
- **Podcasting Boom in 2020** [01:46] — 900,000 podcasts launched in 2020, partly due to pandemic and big deals like Joe Rogan and Call Her Daddy, which energized the space.
- **Video Podcasting Rush to YouTube** [02:13] — Because YouTube has an algorithmic feed and AdSense revenue share, video podcasters naturally migrated there for discovery and monetization.
- **Big Deals as Energy Injection** [03:41] — Ek explains the expensive exclusive deals were not purely economic; they aimed to inject energy into a declining podcasting industry.
- **Discovery on Spotify: Algorithmic + Editorial** [07:29] — Spotify uses a hybrid 'algoritmi' approach—combining algorithms and human curation—to balance discovery and dependability.
- **Monetization via Premium Revenue Sharing** [12:54] — Spotify's new program lets creators earn from the $250M subscriber base, moving away from ad dependency. Mechanics are based on consumption hours.
- **Ad Load Increasing** [17:02] — Podcast ad load rose from 8% to 11% on average, and up to 15-20% in some cases, hurting user experience and pushing Spotify toward subscription model.
- **Model Creator: Multihomed and Multiformat** [24:41] — Spotify envisions creators as 'creative entrepreneurs' who produce multiple formats—music, podcasts, books, courses—across platforms.

### Conclusion

Spotify is betting on premium subscription revenue sharing to create a more stable and creator-friendly ecosystem, distinct from YouTube's ad-driven model. Success will depend on transparency, discovery tools, and nurturing a new generation of multiformat creators.

## Transcript

platform how is Spotify differentiating itself from how YouTube works we tweeted two biggest questions were Discovery and revenue we're one of the world's largest subscription Services we're almost the size of Netflix we're more than 250
million paying subscribers so now creators get the size of a Netflix subscription base to tap into this is going to be a game changer in how people miror show we're joined by the founder and CEO of Spotify Daniel e we got to
sit down with Daniel after Spotify made some pretty major announcements at an think something that was really surprising about the event was that there was a lot of creators there not just video podcasters but YouTube
creators who make all types of different videos and I think it signifies that Spotify is now moving in the direction of becoming a video platform but with a totally different monetization model and an entire L different method of
down with Daniel is that these two platforms could not be more different YouTube is primarily an ADB backed platform Spotify is primarily a push and their announcement is they're now going to share premium subscription
Revenue with creators so I'm not sure if this is widely known by creators that you can upload your content to Spotify using Spotify for creators and then program where you have to post at least at least 12 episodes and I think you
have to hit 10,000 consumption hours in 30 days but let's talk about what podcasting means on YouTube because to be honest it feels like video podcasting on YouTube has become incredibly significant there's this incredible stat
that 900,000 podcasts were launched in 2020 and I believe that podcasting took over for the daily Vlog on YouTube in terms of the daily Vlog letting you
really get to know some in Daily Vlog ended up feeling too edited and a long podcast became the best way to truly get to know someone and it was the easiest most repeatable format for creators people were running out of content ideas
that many ideas to do and that's when we saw this Rush of video podcasting on YouTube now the result of that is because YouTube is a algorithmic feed and has a revenue share already set up from AdSense we saw video podcasters
rush to YouTube there's also no other place really to post your video podcast watch time the better so I mean ourselves included when we're uploading really long episodes and people are watching for upwards of an hour that's
YouTube algorithm all right we're going to come back here and debrief on our approaching video creators after the conversation with Daniel but while goal is for you to understand how your content can get discovered on Spotify
platform if you're watching or listening Spotify is coming for you and if you're watching on Spotify Spotify also has if you're watching on Spotify that's true that's true I don't mean for this
on YouTube then there's a link to watch this on Spotify and Spotify is coming for you you're making it sound scary yeah all right here's our conversation yeah all right here's our conversation with Spotify CEO Daniel
e all right Daniel welcome to the show well thank you guys for having me you announcements and there's a lot of discussion about kind of opening the aperture for what it means to be a Creator on
Spotify I think that the majority of of our audience and listeners when they think about Spotify and podcasting very familiar with the the the big deals that you guys did right the Joe roogan the the call her daddies um the Dax Shepard
creator and it kind opened and it kind opened Up's itans and how influential podcas is how did how did those deals and those relationships how have those
informed what this chapter of Spotify looks like and opening up to a wider looks like and opening up to a wider group of of creators well I mean um yeah it there there's so much to impact there um and but I I feel like even from the
beginning like um we have always thought thought about how we can um grow the on Spotify and it really started with
music in itself U like how can we democratize listening and how can we listening experience they want but at the same time fairly compensating the artists that are on the platform um and in doing so we wanted obviously a
platform that didn't just tailor to the top 100 uh or top 40 at the time but really for anyone who wanted to have their music um creating their music and
broadening it so that's very much been the ethos of the company but as you said um you know when we got into podcasting we had to take a very different approach if you think about the landscape and podcasting it's really interesting for
me to just see how much it's evolved but it was um something where there was an industry giant at a time that pretty much been dominating the industry for much been dominating the industry for about 17 years but it was tapering off
uh podcast wasn't growing to the same extent um as it had been prior we had obviously sort of big moments every few years where a podcast s broke out and
sort of made a story but it really felt to me that um you know we need to in order to have a chance of succeeding in podcast but also for the medium itself we just needed to get a lot of energy in in a very short period of time and that
sort of led to that sort of idea of um you know going all in in a very big way uh just showing that we're serious about podcasting we mean it and we want to learn and Evol but the strategy was always to go from that and then go
pretty broad very quickly um and that's also by the way how you should think people are like oh they're going to go exclusive and so they're going to play the Netflix game um and actually we we always thought
about ourselves more as a platform because that's where we came from um but Spotify in the first place we kind of felt like okay we're going to have to do something big for in order to allow people to take the leap and even try to
people to take the leap and even try to do this new thing uh that just um you that been existing for the better part of 15 years you know we've been on YouTube for a long time and it feels like YouTube
accidentally became a podcast platform right it was a place for shorter videos into the world of podcasting and they took off there it's heavily algorithmic discovered over there I feel like a lot of our audience wants to know how do you
actually get discovered on Spotify and how is Spotify differentiating itself from how YouTube works when it comes to Discovery for a new podcast yeah um so
Discovery for a new podcast yeah um so um I I I so much think so many of the developments of a platform really kind of comes from the beginning of where you started and so I think when you think about uh our history and Heritage it
really comes from music right and um uh we have always sort of played that um game which has been very important for us which is the primary thing that we're
trying to do is is play that balance of of sort of allowing artists to be discovered but at the same time truly uh thinking about how you can build a career uh on Spotify so you know that is a balance by the way where you're
constantly going to have to sort of experiment and sometimes you're going to gear more towards Discovery sometimes you're going to gear more towards dependability um but the the good thing is we're not a new platform we've been
doing this for many many years and already in the beginning of podcasting it was sort of the same story and for us it's um we we we call it alator which is our strategy which is kind of The Best of Both Worlds we do
kind of The Best of Both Worlds we do have the algorithmic approach uh of the you know the the other platforms um we also have the editorial approach of some also have the editorial approach of some of the early say apple podcasts and so
on as well and we think that sort of balance between the human part and the algorithmic part uh is and always have been uh Spotify sort of Special Sauce been uh Spotify sort of Special Sauce and um you can see it uh already in a
pretty big way uh in just how we approach um you know uh books as just one example or even how we approach courses which is educational content
that's just right now live in the UK just to name a few examples that we're kind of always meshing between editorial and algorithmic content that's really interesting because that's essentially the ethos of you know curation is the
when I was a kid and I would listen to the radio here in La like somebody's curating the music for you right and I think right now the user across most platforms is the curator in a sense right is playing with an algorithm to
curate their own feed um but human curation is uh is an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to long form content primarily because you said these two words you said Discovery discoverability and dependability it the
suggestion there that like dependability is loyalty meaning like if I have a favorite show that it's Dependable that it's there next week absolutely yeah because like for me to discover a new podcast and decide to jump into it is a
podcast and decide to jump into it is a pretty big ask right um whereas with music like you guys have innovated quite a bit in Discovery discover weekly is discovered a ton of artists but that feels harder in the
world of podcasting how have you found that users take to some of that editorial curation and like how do they jump into you know the stat that always amazes me is that in 2020 there was 900,000 podcasts launch worldwide yeah
that's a crazy stat and you'd have to imagine that more and more podcasts will continue to get launched yeah well you're you're right uh these are two very different types of of formats right and um the uh I I think the the
investment that you're asking a user to do in music is obviously far less than uh on a podcast because you just think about it music is like three minutes and you can figure out whether you want to spend the rest of three minutes
listening to this uh in a podcast you kind of have to give it in many cases 5 10 15 20 maybe even 30 minutes before you know if it's any good so you tend to go towards dependability no matter how the platform itself looks like so do you
know uh The Host or do you know any of the guests that's on the show then perhaps you'll give it a chance and if you like it and seen it two or three times then maybe you'll you'll give it a go um but with that said I think that
the most important thing that we're trying to do uh when you talk about curation um is you know there's there's one thing actually giving you context context why am I seeing this and why is this relevant to me and so you mentioned
discover weekly a huge part of what we do as a platform is we play on dependability to build trust with the user so that by the time um we want to uh introduce you to something new uh you actually feel like this is probably very
high likelihood because Spotify has proven that it knows me so well by giving me so many things that I already like that is probably a high degree of likelihood that I'll enjoy this too and then of course with video it allows us a
very different way that allows us to much more in the feed uh kind of um obviously with audio off you can still read the the um subtitles and kind of get a feel for is this something I want to do but even where we place this
clip matters because if we know in the segment of two hours that um okay you've been interested of these types of things in the past to get you right in that moment where we're supercharging you and and showing you that will probably
merchandise this content in a very different way so that you get more interested in what a dive deeper so I think about you know when we on to our podcast because for a while it was an audio only show and when we put
video on you know YouTube was obviously the first place to to upload and I think largely with podcasts um that's because of uh Discovery right if the reality is thumbnails you can get your show discovered um and it's also Revenue MH
and you know we've been uploading to Spotify since the beginning and that is is because of loyalty like our audience doesn't miss on on on Spotify right but on YouTube it can have variability yep um now you know the question is revenue
has traditionally been through bakedin ads uh running our own you know dynamically inserted ads but that's changing now and I'm curious if we could Revenue sharing because you know we tweeted out that we were sitting down
with you yeah the the two biggest questions were Discovery and revenue yep the good good news is obviously those are exactly the things we're talking about here today um and and I guess the third one being data just being
transparent about what's going on in the platform so you as a Creator can make better informed decisions yeah so so let's dive into monetization uh at the let's dive into monetization uh at the very core uh we um as a platform started
with this mission right where we uh wanted to um really kind of build a better product music by creating something that was better than piracy that's where we came from and also at the same time solving um the piracy
problem was which was that uh all the musicians and songwriters weren't compan is really solving those two things how do we build something that's they want by allowing them to discover but then at the same time solve the
but then at the same time solve the monetization aspect and so um in podcast um you know the whole industry is evolved quite a lot um from uh sort of download to streaming from all of these measurement tools all of these things
and obviously in video it's totally different type of stacks and we see that and we see that being a huge barrier um U why people aren't posting more video on Spotify 2o um but our real superpower is of course we're one of the world's
largest subscription Services um in fact if you really think about it we're almost the size of Netflix in terms of paying subscribers I I think from what I read it was 250 million premium subscribers yeah so we
announced yesterday that uh we're more than 250 million paying subscribers yeah so what we're announcing today is we're basically opening that up so now basically opening that up so now creators get uh the size of a Netflix
subscription base to tap into where we're helping you solve monetization by allowing you to participate with our premium revenue and at the same time solving a consumer problem which is um you know ads are becoming more and more
prevalent in the user experience and we see very clearly that consumers are actually tired of it they're tuning out of it and so we wanted to see you know how can we create a win-win between creators and consumers and in this case
the obvious superpower we bring to be is the 250 million subscribers so we're early days uh you know we um are innovating on this as we go which is kind of why um you know we're starting in a few markets and then we'll expand
um but I'm really excited about it because I I truly believe this is going to be a GameChanger uh in how people monetize their content uh on Spotify but also Beyond I appreciate you guys as a brand
point of view being that you know the better your content does actually the more ads end up playing dynamically a lot of times so you could be at odds with the success yeah of your own episodes yeah I think you guys said 11%
of a podcast is ads and that was up from like three months ago which 8% 8% that's of a piece of content to be advertising and our audience has called that out too there's so many ads how can I enjoy this yeah the question I have for splitting
up uh and doing a revenue share based off subscription is do subscriptions have to rise at a higher rate than the over all success of viewership and
listenership because if subscriptions stay at a stable rate of course you want them to go up but if views go up as well and people start doing better and better there's less money from the subscriptions to Dole out to all of the
users yeah you know I I I can certainly see that Fe fear but I think the amazing see that Fe fear but I think the amazing thing what we've seen with Spotify um you know one of the big things that we realized is we call it the value as a
price ratio for cons consumers and the most important thing to take care of in that equation is value the more value you give it actually turns out and the big sort of insight in Spotify price eventually takes care of itself so if we
can offer something that's a magical experience where you feel like you're being entertained you're being informed and you're being educated people are willing to pay uh for that experience and we see it very very clearly uh with
Spotify today like you know when we started paying for music uh was not something people were willing to do at all um so you know waking up in the morning and paying 10 bucks a month for Spotify felt like a pretty crazy thing
and now um in in many cases we see people paying far more uh than that for Spotify uh but they still feel like it's the greatest deal um ever because we kept adding more and more and more value so my
concern isn't really that it it's really around sort of more around how how do we create something that's just a magical experience because I feel right now um you know we're putting the consumer and the Creator at odds with each other with
the current model um on the advertising side because you know um what gust I've talked about on stage the 8% going to 11% that's like the average but uh in a downturn economy we certainly see examples right now where it's like 15
examples right now where it's like 15 and 20% and now you are as a crater in this very difficult situation where where you may actually you know have a terrible experience for the consumer you're shuring them out in order to meet
the numbers but if that keeps going up if if people are shuring out and you do worse then you have to fill out even more ads in order to get the experience that's not a great way to manage a
business and so what I feel with this is uh we're giving crators another Avenue it's by far not the only way by the way and it's it's great for a crator and we certainly would recommend it that you should be on every platform uh that you
know aligns with your interest can how can how does the mechanics of the revenue Share work like you know obviously those 11% of ads like that is the majority of how most creators make money is through brand deals advertising
right and in podcasting it's through Dai and baked in ads obviously the bakedin ads will remain the same um but the mechanics of sponsorship to in sponsorship yeah so our the mechanics of how we make money from premium
subcribers is that based on time spent or consumption hours yeah and what can we expect from a revenue perspective there I I can't really get into specifics Unfortunately today but what I can say is that we have a history of
doing this and the same thing has been true in pretty much every vertical we've been so we started in music we grew music we then added podcasts to it the number one fear um from podcasters at that moment was like is this going to be
influential are is is there going to be cannibalization against um you know the existing RSS feeds that I'm doing today Etc uh and from the music side the big fear was like okay well you're doing this podcasting thing now is this going
to mean less payouts uh to music and then we were got into books both of the other categories were worried about it and the book guys were is this going to be big compared to all the other digital platforms that we're currently on and
the end results has been sort of the same all over which is the reality is by offing a better consumer experience uh the payouts in each of these verticals keeps growing and I think this is what's going to happen on the video side too so
um I can't give specifics on exactly how it's going to work and the truth is it's going to work and the truth is we're also learning and iterating um uh as we're going to this but what I can say is uh I think by now it should be
say is uh I think by now it should be very clear that we take monetization very seriously across the verticals and um in each uh vertical we've been in and our goal here is to grow the pie we're not going to do something here which
ultimately ends up with the crater in a worse position because um ultimately that's not going to be a long-term sustainable position for us to be in or the craters be to My Hope and my desire is that the revenue will be perhaps more
stable because it's based off of subscription right because advertising video creators specifically know that January is an incredibly different month than December right and for any number of economic reasons uh advertising rates
our Collective hope and desire is that we will see as payouts payouts start to come and roll out that it is perhaps a more stable source of Revenue yeah I I think you're bringing up a great point which which I I certainly would expect
the same um to be true uh but also if you think about Spotify and we talked about this just a a moment ago uh we're certainly in the sort of if you think about all platforms on this Continuum between uh Discovery and dependability
um like we're definitely on the dependability side yeah uh we're definitely improving our Discovery ability but um perhaps more so than many other platforms were really on the dependability side and then you may say
okay well why are you that and the reason why is because of where we started this conversation which is why did we start the company is we're one solve these two things we want to solve how to create an amazing user experience
but at the same time making sure that you can have a livelihood as a crater um and that then implies um really dependability at the very core where um
some other platforms May uh put the user a lot more in the center and and that that point it may be Discovery is the primary reason the platform exists which is cool in itself but it's very different reason why we exist
I think platforms always need you know some level of model citizen right like whether it's YouTube Instagram Spotify like there's always some version of a know what you were discussing earlier is like you do these these um big deals
with creators and not only does it showcase the emphasis on podcasting it also shows what a podcaster on Spotify looks like which is really important Y in this next chapter can you describe what you think
the kind of model creator for Spotify looks like because there's also a pretty significant Rebrand that is just a word but I think is actually a significant signal to go from Spotify for podcasters to Spotify
for creators and that makes me think we're podcasters we've also been video creators in the past is there other types of video that we imagine in this environment what does the the model Creator look like for Spotify in the
future yeah um yeah we think a lot about this um and and I think that there's kind of two things that we're very passionate about um one is that we think creators are multihomed um so um a lot
of platforms are trying to win the business by being the only platform for business by being the only platform for them and um we actually want um crators to be multi-home because that's the Heritage we come from with music too
music for copyright reasons actually um you know it allows a radio station for instance to put music on without having to have a direct deal with the record company Etc so we've always lived with
that reality and we find that that's what most creators want now obviously in that what we want to be is to be the best partner but not the only partner that a creator has and so we feel like we got to earn our spot in being that
we got to earn our spot in being that now the the the important part about the future of that uh I think is I so many of the creators I speak to today are multi-talented and don't want to of confine themsel to being a certain
type of Creator and even if they start out in one way um they are are much more akin to entrepreneurs um in how you build your business right so you may
start with something and you build it for a number of years and then you see an opportunity in in the corner somewhere or you have a creative itch and you want to pursue something in a related field uh that's still creative
um but it's different and so what we really see and you could see that with the Megan Trainer session that we had here uh too she's an artist but she's also an author she's also a podcaster right and so um I believe that the
future of um these creative entrepreneurs is really that they're to do a lot of different things and if you think about that experience today on um the other platforms that exist today it's typically one format in how that
shows up there's lots of type of content you can put in that we talked about sort of podcasting actually working in a video format similar to um other videos um more native to say a YouTube or something right um but it's still the
same format but actually at Spotify we clearly distinguish the different formats and the experience is very different so a music piece of music content is different to a piece of of podcast that's also different to a book
uh that's also different to a course and and that's really different from just normal video that you will upload and the the benefit you get is imagine you know me being here on the show um let's say I was an author we could have
directly linked um in the show notes or even as we're speaking here now on the visual side to the book um that I'm sitting here talking about and because you can consume this book straight away on Spotify there's a direct conversion
um to um that experience and similarly you know you could be a music um you know person and then also um be on a podcast and vice versa and I think that is the interplay uh I was just shown by the way um a
piece of software here by another Creator was showing um this sort of Creator was showing um this sort of research tool on on U on um on uh how to find great guests and like typing sort of a topic and you can see who's
overperforming or underperforming and and it's pretty it was pretty wide it was way more sort of scientific than I would have imagined uh getting guests on but the the the interesting part for us though is is more around okay well what
happens when you have that guest um and how do we how do we sort of take this relationship uh forward where if you wanted to know more about me you could also see all the other things that I've been part of whether that is thing I
published myself or whether that's where I've been a guest um you know myself too so that's kind of that is the future I think it's really interesting our our actually with musician named Jacob Collier oh yeah and I think largely
because Jacob is like so you know abundant in the Spotify environment uh but that that's really interesting one thing that kind of surprised me um from you know the earnings call uh was that I think around like 84% of spotify's
Revenue is from premium subscribers and 11% was ad supported that that was surprising to me but it also makes sense um and actually you know you mentioned like as creators we are entrepreneurs yeah and I think about you know we've
subscription right podcasting has done really well with these deep relation Intimate Relationships you have with audiences um the the big change that's happening and correct me if I'm wrong
but like we do run and sell our own da campaigns and run them through megaphone yep so those won't play for premium subscribers anymore correct correct if you opt into this program right which which you know for me the ideal scenario
actually is that we move in a direction where the subscription can support it and and a lot of that is because in podcasting when you do that you do get to have a more direct value relationship with your audience we just had a guest
on named Peter AA uh he's a doctor he does not do any advertising it's fully subscription based and that changes his decision making on episodes yep because when you're were so you know deeply performance- backed with advertising yep
but that is a significant shift y in the industry right that you guys are pushing yeah for sure but but um you know just to take a step back I think it was a few years back if you look at something like um in in Tech there's this guy called
Thompson um so the way he shows up on the platform for him um you know um he has a subscription to himself um through straty that you subscribe to and
dithering this other podcast that he does as well and um um you know um again this this kind of plays into us trying to be the best partner to creators irregardless of the situation you're in so if you look at how he shows up is you
so if you look at how he shows up is you have to be a subscriber um so he solves his own monetization by me subscribing on his website to Strater and that unlocks his content on Spotify spy so for the average person who's not a
subscriber if if you type in for techy you'll find it and it has like a lock on it and it says that you have to be a paying subscriber in order to listen to his content and is that done via Spotify or is that like a RSS key with um so so
or is that like a RSS key with um so so that is um a something we call SOA um so that unlocks uh The Experience on Spotify um and so but but all of the payment mechanism and the membership and all that stuff that's on his service and
Premium well that's obviously sort of a natural question now that we're in uh the subscription um but but you know for me the most important thing that I'm trying to convey here is we are actually very
to convey here is we are actually very flexible on how creators monetize um their work uh and we want to offer as many options as possible all the way to you having your own subscription and actually you're like look I can take a
care of monetization myself I just need this to be in the Spotify experience um because that's where my users are for that's the future I believe in too where creators um you know should come to us and we will have all of these different
tools depends depending on the different circumstances of what you may need help with some may want us to help with monetization some may not and that could actually be true like in Ben Thompson's case of subscription too some may want
us to do more on the Discovery and promotion fronts so on the music side we we actually help artists and label teams and managers promote their music in a pretty big way um you know what's the
equivalent for that in podcasting or in books uh that's a big thing um to contemplate and then all the way to of course you know the formats of like what course you know the formats of like what kind of ways Clips uh videos not videos
audio uh books uh courses all of these different things that is sort of part of the pallette of what this sort of next creative entrepreneur is doing and I think this is sort of the key for me because you know as we spoke about it
it's not a one-size fits all and I I realize why we on the internet this is how the internet works we had to start with the one siiz fits all to get the consumers but we're ready for this next generation of platform and I think this
next Generation platform is going to give the Creator a lot more control and the consumer a lot more control too of how they want to interact and how they want to monetize that relationship and how the Creator wants to grow and we're
how the Creator wants to grow and we're just trying to build the best um basically be the R&D department for the creative entrepreneur of of tomorrow my creative entrepreneur of of tomorrow my my last question for you is about tools
for creators on Spotify and specifically AI Samir showed me notebook LM a couple weeks ago and my mind was blown that you could you know we input our newsletter and it gave us back like a pretty entertaining 15minute podcast from two
AI hosts and we see like the AI playlist or the DJ that uh Spotify is adopting AI in certain ways how how do you see AI playing a role in the Next Generation oh it's gon to be huge and by way I'm a huge fan of the notebook LM uh thing too
and um you know uh I was speaking to the team who built it and it's so amazing just uh so much of this is just Serendipity uh theyve sort of had this Engineers kind of liked and put it out in the world and it sort of took off and
it's now one of the more popular AI products out there um and that that's a crazy thing because you can't really predict it um the way I would put it is you know what happens with technology we get this sort of breakthrough um you
know once a decade or so and then all the rules change overnight and the whole trying to figure out what are the new best practices in this world and then eventually kind of settles we had it with um you know mobile um you know when
when the App Store came around we all all the best practice I don't know if kind of unique and novel and these days it's more like best practices of how you build a a sort of app um I think we're we're we're entering the same era for
for AI too um but our goal is pretty simple we um want to utilize AI to allow creators to express themselves in new ways and in much more lower the barrier and lower the friction of creating amazing
things basically and then for consumers it is really about tailoring um Spotify to be more personalized towards you and having an a more personal relationship to Spotify uh you can certainly imagine you know um being able to converse a lot
more you can see it already with the um with the um AI uh playlists we're doing where you can in a more natural language way Express sort of what you want to listen to and Spotify responding to it by creating something that's tailor made
by creating something that's tailor made for exactly that and so imagine now what that takes us in five or 10 or 15 years and it's going to be a very different Spotify than the one you're seeing now yeah I appreciate that I mean I think I
notebook LM to listen to it as a podcast great and I think that's the that's the bizarre like question for me in the future is you know if I'm interested in the Spotify earnings call plus the NBA scores from the night before plus uh
stocks can I just input a bunch of Articles and then produce my own podcast and say my commute is 25 minutes yeah probably um you should be able to do that but um you know the more amazing things is also um we can do that of
things is also um we can do that of course across music um and uh talk and books and whatever based on on that experience rather than you know necessarily changing how um the creative work was done we can sort of augment it
to fit that Journey we think a lot in sessions uh by the way like how what what is the session we're filling here and like what is the user intend and podcasting because we realized in the car one of the key reasons why people
weren't listening to Spotify in the car was because we didn't have talk and talk was a part of the listening they still listen to 80% even on radio music but they wanted the Talk part uh to informed them about news about weather about all
these other things so it certainly I think kind of tailor out yeah well cool thank you so much Daniel us apprciate excited to see uh this next chapter yeah I am too well thanks for having me all right welcome to the debrief that last
could have had a long conversation with Daniel about AI but he did have to leave a bunch of stuff that I was like wait what does that mean yeah you never know interesting and different from some of the other platform CEOs that we've
talked to is that he's a Founder CEO and when you talk to a Founder CEO they are in the weeds of building so he gets excited about looking at the future 5 10 15 years and he's working on stuff that's like not at all what's happening
today it's what's going to happen what the world could look like in 15 years yeah and with most of the tech CEOs and platform CEOs that we've sat with you get this underlying feeling that they've just seen more than anybody else like
just want to know everything uh but obviously they're keeping it to thing that I want to say about meeting Daniel is like I really just wanted to conversation just what's it like to be the founder of spotify's that like
that's crazy you made one of the most influential apps of Our Generation Netflix about you yeah what's how does that feel but I I think in zooming out at the world of um you know what this could mean and what this does mean for
about our own experience with Spotify and posting content in Spotify but first interview some things that really stuck out for me the first thing that really you know the Joe Rogan deals the callard daddy deals and the reason that he gave
for those massive deals in the millions which were like NBA contract style deals was not necessarily that they made sense economically although I'm I'm sure they may have right the reason that he gave was that like the podcast space was
declining and we felt that it needed some energy and excitement right that like if almost as if we were going to save podcasting we needed to do something big that's amazing yeah like that was reason number
one again that's some like that's that's some founder Visionary stuff where you're like hey if podcasting is going to be a big part of our platform we need to re-energize the podcast world yeah and I actually do think that that stat
about 900,000 podcasts being launched in 2020 yes it has has to do with the fact pandemic but I also think it has a lot to do with the deals that were announced like the same reason people get excited to become an NBA
player it was a new American Dream It's a new it's a new American Dream for for creators podcasting is also very different from filmmaking you can do it it is an it is a thing that a lot of people can do and seeing a headline like
Joe Rogan ink deal for $100 million call her daddy for $60 million your mind goes wait I got to pick up a mic you know if you're a creative person if you're you're you're that's just open people's eyes to like wait I didn't realize that
could happen I didn't realize these were so valuable yeah yeah and again when you look at the the ease of production it's like okay I can give it a shot um so that that these massive deals which they don't do as much anymore uh we're really
there to like provide energy to the space and I think they did like if you look at what podcasting is in 2024 it is without a doubt one of the biggest culture drivers in the US totally for sure right I I don't know
internationally how much it has impacted other uh countries but I think in the US podcasting is one of the one of the drivers of of culture of decision-making um it's a really interesting medium that's that's that's
more you think about it obviously they're not just making that move so that's way too much money to do out so there are economic reasons for it and if you think about it with music both YouTube and Spotify have to pay the
record labels and they pay the record labels a lot they're not getting as much money from premium subscriptions from someone makes a podcast right because you're not paying any any royalties yeah for that
good economic incentive because the creat are paying for the cost of from those if if it provides value to users and they sign up right yeah the the reality is again the difference between the two platforms is that
subscription so it's can I keep my members happy and can I get new members that's what's important on YouTube it's it's different from that it's like can I bring people to the platform and
increase their session time but this now comes to the the second thing that I pulled from the interview which is Daniel describing Spotify as algori from a discovery perspective meaning it's not algorithmic it's not editorial it's it's
a mix of the two and that is tangibly different from YouTube which is algorithmic yeah editorial means you make a decision of what you think is good right so it's a bit it can feel like it's a bit out of your hands as a
Creator I think on YouTube views are incredibly available if you study yeah if you study the works uh you can find viewership and that is obviously different what was interesting to me in talking to Daniel was he said look like
we have algorithms as well but we rank things on a spectrum of Discovery versus towards dependability which means that as a
Creator what is important on Spotify is are you consistent are you are you there there are a lot of creators on YouTube who like you don't even know their upload Cadence it's just about making a good video you might not know that can
be watched for all of time you might not know if a Creator like a Ryan tryan takes six weeks between uploads you might not even like think about it but he'll still get 20 million views on his next upload or 10 million views I'll
speak to my own user Behavior on YouTube I'm looking for the best possible video when I open up YouTube and I don't care if it's from four days ago or if it's from two years ago necessarily but when I open up Spotify I'm not looking for an
episode from years ago for the most part no right I think that's why it is more about dependability are you there every single week and you're looking for something on Spotify that's very familiar to you like to find a new show
is really hard um because you don't want it when you open that environment but I think Spotify is just more like Netflix than it is like YouTube right it's more editorial it's more editorial like Netflix when we open up Netflix Netflix
tells us what shows matter and I think Spotify is the same when you open up Spotify it tells you what shows matter yeah and I think that is the only difference though is that anyone can upload to Spotify right not everybody
can upload to Netflix this the third thing from the interview that was the General State of advertising the Creator economy bottom line is built on the foundation of advertising that is why the Creator economy exists but he
brings up some interesting points of that consumers are tuning out of ads and it is a question that as the Creator economy has emerged consumers are hearing more ads than ever before right I want to take this moment to thank the
sponsor of this episode samir's haircut yeah it's new it's fresh I'm sure you noticed it it's different than the episode when we sat down with Daniel thanks to samir's haircut back to the episode yeah I thought maybe you had
a sponsor and maybe you booked a deal without me great look man you're on the I'm not booking us I'm not booking sponsors but yeah it's it's an future of just the Creator economy in general um you know his suggestion is
kind of like are ads as effective are they effective enough now of course for a platform that is a membership club you don't really want ads there if 84% of your your revenue is coming from subscription do you need the the 11%
advertising like how important is that to you obviously in a $4.1 billion do to you obviously in a $4.1 billion do quarter it's not insignificant but um he can say that from the context of like advertising is not as important as
Spotify so you know I I think you have to take it with a grain of salt that but it is it's it's interesting of the overload of ads the other thing was in their presentation they said that podcast episodes are now like on average
point that was made during the announcements that your episodes the better they are and the longer they are the more ads will play and the worse the experience will be yeah so you're kind of like at odds right the experience is
at odds with making money right now we do receive premium subscription revenue do receive premium subscription revenue from YouTube yeah and during the don't know how much revenue that is or how that or what the split is what the
split is on premium Revenue I I still don't know that answer we don't know we don't know what the split is or how the mechanics work and I think that's going to be really important actually that it gets more defined in the future
of how as a Creator do I look at my analytics and know what matters when it comes to the money I will get from premium subscriptions right because on YouTube it's super straightforward it's like 5545 we get it right so I I don't
know that answer but we've done 140 million views on long form episodes on YouTube what percentage do you think our premium revenue premium revenue is 2.5 10% oh yeah that's more than I
thought it's way more than I thought too so 10% of our lifetime revenue from which is near a million dollars 100,000 of that comes from YouTube premium $100,000 from YouTube premium yeah whoa wow yeah it's more
than I thought and so then you look at it and you go what if that environment is just like more The Lion Share of the revenue is coming from premium subscriptions and we do 140 million downloads on
yeah I time will tell I think uh what these payouts look like because if there's one thing that certain creators will absolutely share their back-end mics right and that's one of the biggest educational moments and it will be one
all of us to see okay that's how many streams that's how many watch hours this Creator got and that's how much they got paid on YouTube if two creators have the same amount of like views and and watch time they could have drastically
different payouts sure depending on their cpms and what industry they're in and what advertising is like in their industry whereas on Spotify I think technically like a stream is a stream a watch hour is a watch hour that's true
see when creators start sharing their revenue are there two creators with essentially the exact same uh viewership and watch hours do they have the exact same payout so one thing that interests me quite a bit about this is if this
works does this open the doors for other subscription platforms like a Netflix to like if this model works could there be a world where you're like an approved Netflix partner program and you get to upload content to Netflix because there
every platform is free ad supported and then subscription based it could and if you're somewhat editorial you don't have to surface any of the content no so it could be laying the foundation
for what the future of the creater economy could look like I'd be fascinated if a company like Netflix said hey here's our brand guidelines for here's the quality of the camera here's the type of Stories We Tell put it
out out there for all of us and be like if you do these things you can upload to Netflix and here will be this is the way that we will compensate you I mean it's doing yeah it's not so if it works it could be something that we see yeah down
the road are we going to see YouTube Spotify and Netflix basically converging into yeah a very similar platform so I want to talk about the four things in my opinion that Spotify needs to do to win video
creators or to make it a good experience for video creators hit me the first is establish Revenue transparency and Milestones so meaning how does this aligned incentive structure work because again we know that with YouTube If We
grow because we know the split we know how we get paid I think we have to know the transparency into how we get paid is it watch hours is it whatever it is and then Milestones meaning like what is the YouTube play button for Spotify if
to get to what am I trying to get to am I trying to get to a million downloads hours am I trying to get to a million followers like what am I trying to get to so I need that the second thing is they have to support Discovery and
curation in the Spotify way and they've done Discovery and curation for music better than I think anyone else in my opinion um one of the greatest tools is Blends I don't know how many people use that but that's like if you and I
created a blended playlist that's like your top artist my top artist and it's updated on a weekly basis so you pull the thread of of podcasting and Word of Mouth that's how podcasts get discovered is if I told you hey you gotta listen to
this podcast can they do blends or some sort of like friends discover of what listening to and mix them together I think YouTube should do that too and Instagram yeah and Tik Tok if you were like hey this is I want to look at a for
like hey this is I want to look at a for you page that is strictly what myself and my buddy are into like can I borrow colins's algorithm yeah yeah like yeah second yeah it' be super it'd be super interesting but it's like playlisting
but you could do that with with podcasting and you can mix users you can podcasting and you can mix users you can also show me celebrities um algorithms when it comes to podcasting word of mouth is how podcasts get discovered how
do you scale that in the platform that's interesting I would also love to know podcast what's your most listened to artist yeah we'll find out in wrapped Sabrina Carpenter actually yeah you've said that many times I'm pretty
confident carry on but like outside of the hits you're listening to that too yeah like deep Cuts yeah slim Pickins is great never heard you don't even know what that means nope all right number three and I'm pretty adamant about this
viewership private whoa so on Spotify one of the extreme differences between Spotify and YouTube is that you cannot see how many
views a video does on Spotify I think they will naturally be tempted to have public viewership but that goes against the aligatori method in my opinion you the aligatori method in my opinion you cannot have editorial consideration of
what makes good content on your platform and show me what a model citizen looks viewership because public viewership means too much in the world of video if there's a video with 20,000 views and a video with with a million views but the
one with 20,000 is more representative of where you want the platform to go the behavior of thousands of creat and that's a great thing that like content has become Democratic in that way and uh the audience tells you what's good
content but you know we don't know we don't I guess sometimes we do Netflix is numbers but largely we don't know how things are are doing and like I think numbers have we have too much of a
subscription environment I I don't want numbers I don't want to know I agree with that and I as a Creator I I don't I I want that that I want to keep that probably have if you're Spotify you'll
have a better uh experience bringing video creators over to the platform if viewership numbers are private what i m okay with are uh rankings right this is the number three podcast in business this week you were the number five I
direction totally um and that's my number four is establish model citizens if you are going to roll out video and video creators and that means not just video creators and that means not just video podcasting then push to the front
of the line show us who are the model citizens uh tell us what makes good in the interview of like what is the next Spotify model Citizen and it was kind of interesting it was actually more his answer was more of like a Creator
who's made multiple formats the multi-home multi modal he called it yeah so a Creator who uh for example if we had a book yeah audio book and you can reach it from this episode just made me laugh thinking
about how Jake Shane has an album podcaster and and Tik Tok Creator he has an album now out which is like a comedy album but that's like a funny thought to yeah I think I know we haven't had a gripe in a while I think I have a gripe
okay hit me when someone goes uh just made me laugh and then they say something why you didn't laugh no but I did I not laugh no you didn't laugh go laugh I was laughing in my head you're laughing in your head W laughing out
loud wow you know I typically disagree with your gripes but I I think I agree with that yeah I apologize for saying that yeah I accept your apology it made that yeah I accept your apology it made me think in a comedic way sure a
lighthearted way in a lighthearted way my in my own mind I appreciate the change um but yeah it it does form you it's like oh maybe I yeah releasing an audio book here is interesting alongside a podcast or a course or like what what
does that mix look like so continuing to push forward those case studies of like what does a model citizen look like overall exciting that Spotify is getting into the space like this and that there is competition for YouTube in a very
different way a different model yeah I think largely also because Spotify is a serious home of Music which makes it culturally just hold a different space in the world and I think Spotify uh be being a big show on Spotify also holds a
different cultural space so I I think the platform's really interesting I and if this subscription model works I think it's going to open up a whole new right so thanks so much to Daniel for coming on the show and if you guys have
them in the comments here either on YouTube or the comments on Spotify because this show's on both I'll be honest I don't really check the comments on Spotify but on this episode I do and they're hilarious they're great
something to say even if you're watching on YouTube just click on head over to SP a comment yeah leave a comment all right see you