Spotify founder Daniel Ek details how he organized classmates in Stockholm to help him build websites during the late 1990s.
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“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 art. I taught how to run Photoshop and do webpages”
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Opinion
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AssertionContradicted
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Insight
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PredictionDidn’t hold up
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Disclosure
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Insight
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…”
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