Insight certainty 3/5 debate potential 3/5

Shulman: Hit songs succeed via algorithms and promotion, not quality alone

Mikey Shulman · Mikey Shulman, CEO @Suno: The Future of Music, What is Gonna Happen? | E1244 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Jan 10, 2025 · at 34:00

Mikey Shulman, CEO of Suno, discusses how music discovery operates across platforms like TikTok and Spotify, arguing that algorithmic promotion drives virality.

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“I think that they probably reverse the causality. Things break on TikTok, and then they become famous on Spotify, but that is a function of both algorithms and people pushing music, and not necessarily only a function of the quality of the music.”

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