I was late to the Spotify party. Like most
business journalists, I followed the U.S.
launch of the music-streaming service
in 2011, and even secured a coveted invitation to sign up early. But I was happy
to stick to a mix of i Tunes, Pandora, and
even traditional radio for my audio needs.
Amazon, You Tube, Tencent, and
even Facebook to keep Spotify from
concentrating power. “This is why
Spotify is one of the more tenuous
$30 billion success stories you’ll
ever encounter,” Lidsky says. It’s a
fascinating tale, and one you’ll read
only in Fast Company.
This issue features another
unlikely success story. Editor-at-large Burt Helm introduces us to
Deja Baker, a U.S. Navy veteran
who bounced back from a series of
personal and professional setbacks,
scrimped to get herself through
coding boot camp, and landed a
job as a software engineer. Baker
doesn’t have the typical coder
résumé—and that’s the point of
Helm’s story, which is part of Fast
Company’s first-ever talent guide.
The rules for hiring have
changed, and I asked contributing
editor Jay Woodruff to produce a
portfolio of stories and statistics to
help companies understand where
their next great employees might
come from—and to help high-potential workers become superstars. The resulting package is full
of surprises. Who knew that more
newly hired data developers in the
U.S. came from Jawaharlal Nehru
Technological University than UC
New Talent. New Methods. New Rhythms.
It was my kids who encouraged
me to up my Spotify game. They
were spending hours each day on
the service, using the free tier to listen to everything from the Hamilton
soundtrack to Korean pop music to
classic rock. I eventually upgraded
us to a family premium plan so we
could all download and enjoy our
favorites, ad-free, without using up
cellular data or needing to be near a
Wi-Fi hot spot.
Spotify is now such a part of my
routine—it fuels my weekend run,
provides the soundtrack for sing-alongs in the car, and feeds me podcasts for my daily commute—that
I sometimes forget how improbable its rise was. In his revealing
cover story, writer (and former
Fast Company editor) Robert Safian
reminds us of Spotify’s humble
origins, and how, against all odds,
cofounder and CEO Daniel Ek and
his team persuaded record labels
and consumers to embrace the
platform—transforming the music business in the process. But
deputy editor David Lidsky, who
masterfully edited the story, notes
that Spotify’s dominance in no way
assures its future success; in fact,
music labels are eager to support
the streaming ambitions of Apple,
Deja Baker, a navy
veteran turned
software engineer,
proves that skills
can often
transcend résumés.
STEPHANIE MEHTA
editor@fastcompany.com
Berkeley? Or that artificial intelligence enables Unilever to whittle
275,000 job applicants down to 300?
We are in a data-driven new
world of hiring, yet some things
don’t change. What makes someone
like Deja Baker an exceptional hire
isn’t only her aptitude, it is her determination and spirit—and I’m not
sure that’s something an algorithm
can capture.
