Born Sweden on February 23rd 1983, Daniel Ek grew up in a relatively poor household. Influenced by his Grandparents, who were involved in various classical music, Daniel found his passion in music.

Daniel’s entrepreneurship journey started in high school (IT Gymnasiet i Sundbyberg) where he freelanced creating websites. His business was so successful, he started hiring is classmates and ended up profiting tens of thousands of dollars each month! Despite Daniel’s clear drive in the technological field, his true passions lay with music. After he graduated high school he went to KTH Royal Institute of Technolog, dropping out after eight weeks since it didn’t focus on Computer Science, and picked up a job at an international advisement company.

Even though Daniel was successful by many modern standards, something was still missing from his life. He ended up founding Advertigo, worked at Tradera, and served as CEO of uTorrent until 2006. During some time in a solitude in a cabin in the woods, Daniel thought up the idea of an app that could play any music for the world. In 2006 he started and created Spotify.

So how exactly has Daniel changed to the music industry? Why does it even matter? Just four years after the creation of Spotify, it influenced about 7% of the music industry. Ten years later, in 2020, Spotify jumped to 83%! As one can easily assume, Spotify was the creation of a multi-billion dollar idea. This is truly an inspiration to all entrepreneurs; the way Daniel mixed his skills and passion into a service/product that is now worth billions.

He didn’t just dream about small change. No no. Daniel wanted to create a product for the world. He saw the need for a new platform of music. He sacrificed the security of his other successful careers and jobs for a dream.