The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 10 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Ek: Gustav Söderström runs product at Spotify better than I do
“So what happened with Spotify is sort of against all the common wisdom and wealth, which is I don't really run product anymore. Because what happened was I got this guy called Gustav that you now met and he runs product. And he's actually way better than me at…”
Ek: I recommended Dara Khosrowshahi for the Uber CEO role
“The conversation started with us talking about Uber and I said, I recommended you to the job.”
Ek: Trying to imitate Jobs, Bezos, and Gates failed for me
“I certainly tried to mimic Steve Jobs. I certainly tried to mimic Bezos and Gates, and all of the great ones you know, the very charismatic ones, like Howard Schultz of Starbucks, and, you know, I've learned from all of them, and in a way I've tried to imitate…”
Ek shadowed Mark Zuckerberg for a week, attending all his meetings
“I asked him, hey can I come and learn from you? And he was incredibly gracious and we've obviously been friends for a long time, and he said sure. And so I spent the better part of what I believe the first time was like a week literally in pretty much all of h…”
Ek focuses on energy management rather than time management
“A lot of entrepreneurs seem to be obsessed about time. I'm really not. I'm more obsessed about energy management.”
Selling his first company led to Ek's most depressed period
“It's probably the most depressed I've been in my life, to be honest, because, you know, I knew from a very young age what I wanted to do.”
Ek cared about nothing besides Spotify for its first 15 years
“That's how Spotify came to be. I literally couldn't care about anything else for at the very least the first 15 years.”
Ek: Attempting polyphasic sleep was his worst productivity experiment
“The worst productivity thing I did was I was at one point doing these 15 minute naps. I don't know if you've heard about this exercise. It's a really bad idea by the way. So don't try this, but I sort of learned that you can like Daisy Shane sleep together by …”
Ek gained 40 pounds during Spotify's most stressful negotiations
“I've gained in periods of my life, like 40 pounds in my worst negotiations, et cetera.”
Ek: I Refuse to Downshift Gears Because I Owe My Younger Self
“I actually feel like I owe that guy to keep pushing myself, right? Because there's so many things, there's so many demands of my time, so many things that tells me to sort of downshift gear into an easier gear, because life would be a lot more comfortable that…”