Daniel Ek
36 statements across 10 episodes · 14 bullish · 2 bearish · 10 people on the record · first statement Oct 8, 2018 by Woody Marshall · said 174 times in 48 episodes since 2016 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Daniel Ek's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Mentions by year
brought up most by Harry Stebbings (107), Barry McCarthy (12), Scooter Braun (8), Torsten Reil (5), Max Junestrand (4), Larry Aschebrook (4), Chris Sacca (4), Woody Marshall (3)
tap a year for its mentions
2026 13 mentions in 8 episodes 2 per episode
- Legora CEO, Max Junestrand: $7M ARR in a Day | Harvey vs Legora: Is a Legal AI Winner Takes All? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Demis Hassabis: Why AGI is Bigger than the Industrial Revolution & Where Are The Bottlenecks in AI · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Klarna CEO: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Uber President on Travis, China & Self-Driving | Why Autonomy Is Existential | How to Beat DoorDash
- Will Open-Source Threaten Anthropic's Business & Do Margins Matter in a World of AI | Matt Murphy
- Coinbase Cuts AI Spend by 50% | Kalshi's $40B Valuation & Impending IPO | The Year for SaaS Roll-Ups · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Cliff Weitzman: What I Learned from 100 of the World’s Top CEOs & Why Tokens Will Outspend Salaries · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Marc Andreessen: Will a16z Go Public & Why Labour Displacement with AI is Wrong? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2026, scene by scene →
2025 22 mentions in 11 episodes 2 per episode
- Larry Aschebrook, Founder & MP @GSquared: How We Lost Money on Uber and Made Millions on Lyft · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Index Ventures Partner, Martin Mignot: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index’s Decacorn Factory · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Robinhood Founder & CEO, Vlad Tenev: Robinhood’s $85BN Resurgence & Tokenizing SpaceX & OpenAI · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Why VC Today is Worse than 2021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- KKR's Head of European PE, Philipp Freise: Do Andreessen & General Catalyst Scare KKR? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Atlassian CEO, Mike Cannon-Brookes on Why Everything is Overvalued & Are We in an AI Bubble · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- GetYourGuide CEO & Founder, Johannes Reck: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 3 more episodes that year, every mention in 2025 →
2024 35 mentions in 8 episodes 4 per episode
- Klaus Hommels: Why "Portfolios are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy"? | E1231 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Danny Rimer: The Biggest Lessons from Missing Snap, Airbnb, Spotify and Facebook | E1166 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Torsten Reil, Helsing Founder: Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | E1237 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Pat Grady: Sequoia Partner on Investing Lessons from Doug Leone, Roelof Botha and Alfred Lin | E1174 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Kevin Hartz: "How I Lost Airbnb at Seed Because of an Exploding Term Sheet" | E1180 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Pedro Franceschi: What Brex Needs to do to be a Public Company | E1178 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Dan Siroker: Second-Time Founders Are More Investable & Why Not To Hire People Out of College |E1153 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Nicolai Tangen: Managing the Largest Sovereign Wealth Fund in the World | E1122 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2024, scene by scene →
2023 20 mentions in 5 episodes 4 per episode
- Scooter Braun on Being Enough, Insecurity, Wealth, Investing, Fame, Marriage and Much More | E1002 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Dara Khosrowshahi: How I Became CEO of Uber; Uber Eats vs DoorDash; The Postmates Acquisition | E994 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Ed Sim: Why Seed Has Never Been More Competitive & Why Pricing Has Never Been Higher | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Rob Lacher: How I Scaled to $600M AUM; Hiring Tips for VCs; Venture Capital in Europe vs USA | E999 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
2022 59 mentions in 7 episodes 8 per episode
- Barry McCarthy: From Netflix CFO to Peloton CEO; How Netflix Beat Blockbuster | 20VC #962 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Spotify CTO Gustav Söderström: TikTok's Music; How Olivia Rodrigo Gamed the Algo | 20VC #936 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Sonali De Rycker | How I Became a Partner at Accel; Type 1 vs. Type 2 Mistakes | 20VC #902 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Chris Sacca's True Unfiltered Opinion on Facebook and Softbank | Full Interview · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Hugo Barra: How I Built Hardware for Android, Xiaomi, and Oculus | 20VC #947 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Matt Mullenweg: How I Founded WordPress; Storytelling Tips; How to Give Feedback | 20VC #905 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
2021 4 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC: Chris Sacca on Coming Out of Retirement To Unf**k The Planet with Lowercarbon, How Chris Evaluates His Relationship To Money Today, Why We Have Bred a Generation of Ass**** Kids, Do VCs Provide Any Real Value and The True Unfiltered Opinion on Faceb
- 20VC: NEA's Scott Sandell on SPACS and Why Liquidity is One of the Challenges of our Time, Why We Are At An Inflection Point For Secondaries & Why There Is Nothing To Suggest The Boom Will Not Continue
- 20VC: Robinhood Founder Vlad Tenev on His Biggest Lessons Managing Through A Crisis, The Events of The Congressional Committee, Raising $2.4Bn Fast and Why It Was Necessary & Why It Is Ludicrous To Suggest Robinhood Put The Business Ahead of it's Customer
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 16 mentions in 3 episodes 5 per episode
- 20VC: 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy: Deconstructing Economies of Scale, How To Assess True Market Size, Assessing Risk vs Uncertainty, What "Brand As Power" Really Means with Hamilton Helmer, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Offi
- 20VC: Ashton Kutcher on Early Lessons From Investing in Airbnb and Spotify, Why VC Ownership Requirements Are Becoming More and More Egregious & What Being Good At Product Truly Means
- 20VC: The 4 Phases of Effective Decision-Making, The No 1 Quality of Good Decisions, How To Approach Effective OKR Setting, & How To Optimise and Improve Your Operating Cadence with Shishir Mehrotra, Founder & CEO @ Coda
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
2018 3 mentions in 1 episode
2017 1 mention in 1 episode
Everything said about Daniel Ek, oldest first
Oct 8, 2018 positive
Marshall praises Spotify CEO Daniel Ek for vision and long-term focus
“You know, I'll mention Daniel Ek just because it's one that's top of mind for me, but, you know, his clarity of vision, the long game focus, I think is impressive, and we don't spend time talking about, you know, just the here and now. It's where are we going.”
Mar 8, 2021
Daniel Ek Recruited Classmates to Scale Early Web Design Operation
“I learned more than the basics in HTML and, like, how to do this, and kind of built it from there, and fast forward, I had, like, basically an illegal sweatshop in school with all the kids who were good at math. I taught HTML and all the kids that were good at…”
Mar 8, 2021
Mar 8, 2021
Ek: Employee capability is not static and should be measured by growth rate
“And my experience is that's not the case. And so someone that used to be a talent may not be a talent today. And someone who, for whatever reason, wasn't acing their previous job may be acing that job today too. And so in my point of view, it's the rate of gro…”
Mar 8, 2021
Ek: Prima Materia is a holding company, not a venture fund
“Technically it's a holding company, not a fund, and what we're trying to do is we're trying to really find some of the hardest and most difficult problems that society is facing today, and find technical solutions that we can hopefully accelerate those technic…”
Mar 8, 2021 bullish
Mar 8, 2021
Mar 8, 2021 positive
Mar 8, 2021
Mar 8, 2021
Daniel Ek: Spotify tolerates mistakes, but fails without warning are intolerable
“In Spotify's case, I like to believe that smart people will make mistakes, and if you're pushing the envelope, that's going to happen, and I will tolerate that. What I don't tolerate, however, and that's very clear from everyone who works with me, are two thin…”
Mar 8, 2021 positive
Ek: Venture capital timeline constraints prevent endless startup pivoting
“I would say generally speaking, I think where the industry has netted out has been good, right? Because if you had unlimited amounts of funding in a limited amount of timeline, it's very likely that you would just pivot, pivot, pivot, and actually never ship a…”
Mar 8, 2021 positive
Mar 8, 2021
Ek: Evaluate decision-making process rather than judging outcomes
“Rather than looking at outputs, which a lot of people end up doing, like if something went wrong or didn't go wrong, It's way better to think about the input and the process of how that person made the decision, and then kind of do post mortems if the process …”
Mar 8, 2021
Ek: A CEO's goal is to continuously put themselves out of a job
“Most things, it's really about finding leverage in the organization at the most amount of points, and my job is to try to go in, figure out what needs to get done, and have a good grasp of that, and then the second that's can I move away and actually put mysel…”
Mar 8, 2021 positive
Mar 8, 2021 negative
Ek: Silicon Valley dogma that founders should always stay CEO is wrong
“I think that the common belief at the moment in, especially Silicon Valley lore, is that the founder should always be the CEO. And I don't agree with that at all. I don't think that that should be the case. When it works, it's incredibly powerful, for sure. So…”
Mar 8, 2021
Ek spent six years trying to recruit Shakil Khan back to Spotify
“I've been trying to convince him to come out of retirement for about five or six years, and I've been trying various different constellations of trying to get him to do it. Everything from rejoining me at Spotify to doing all of those things.”
Mar 8, 2021 positive
Mar 8, 2021
Daniel Ek: Define success multi-year out before setting hiring skills
“Founders need to think more about what success looks like for the candidate after a year or two, and be able to articulate that, and then learn, go backwards to then saying, okay, well, what kind of skills does that mean that person needs to have?”
Mar 8, 2021
Ek: Decisive executive actions rarely produce fallback or regret
“Because I've noticed every single time when I've done that, you know, I've never actually encountered any fallback. I've never once regretted it because So you're usually at the point where you've already kind of made up your mind, but you're just dragging it …”
Mar 8, 2021
Daniel Ek Charged $5,000 for His First Website Before Knowing HTML
“I kind of said, hey, 5000 dollars, and the other person said, done, and I was like, oh, shit, now I gotta learn how to actually do this. So I taught myself Photoshop, I learned more than the basics in HTML and, like, how to do this, and kind of built it from t…”
Mar 8, 2021 positive
Mar 8, 2021
Ek: Decentralized decision-making requires radical organizational transparency
“If you want to be a delegating CEO, you have to have, in my opinion, a very trusting culture like you talk about, but also a culture of transparency, because ultimately, if you're moving more and more of your decisions to the edges, having the edges know as mu…”
Mar 8, 2021
Ek: Categorize problems as high or low variance to guide delegation
“My way of approaching a problem is to try to understand if we're dealing with a high variance or a low variance problem. A high variance problem is a problem where it has both lots of upside and lots of downside, and a low variance problem is one in which you …”
Dec 20, 2022 positive
Exceptional tech executives process data rapidly and pivot based on harsh realities
“One is that they deal with the world as it is, not as they want it to be. And they process data at a bit rate that, you know, humbles most of us. And they have the capacity to pivot based on the data that they ingest.”
Dec 20, 2022 neutral
Daniel Ek intentionally delays decisions to allow Swedish culture to build consensus
“The decision-making process in a Swedish culture and at Spotify can at times to an American feel a little bit like watching them paint dry. I mean, the amount of time that Daniel invests in allowing the organization to work its way through the decision-making …”
Dec 20, 2022 positive
Dec 20, 2022
Barry McCarthy initially negotiated for Peloton's COO role before pursuing CEO
“It was Daniel and a very successful venture capitalist who'd been on the Netflix board for a long time named Tim Haley. Both of us counsel I had sought and my wife together got me thinking about the CEO role because initially I was talking to Peloton about a C…”
Apr 17, 2023 positive
Oct 27, 2023 negative
Jun 17, 2024
Nov 27, 2024 positive
Hommels: Spotify's Daniel Ek Thinks Deeper Than Others and Holds Uncompromising Ethics
“Crazy persistence and patience. Things at least two levels more profound than others. It's very logical and it's always a very friendly and well-rounded character. Yeah. And he has uncompromising ethics in everything he does.”
Nov 27, 2024
Dec 11, 2024
Jun 30, 2025 positive
Freise: Founders must pick long-term backers over quick-profit VCs
“As a founder, the Investors you choose are so important. So of course it makes a huge difference. You know, if you're the founder of Helsing and you choose Daniel Eck, because Daniel Eck understands what long-term business building means, you know, and you don…”