Fast Company - Sep 2018

he’s reached. “You’re not supposed to be a billionaire in your thirties,” he tells me. (“In Sweden, there’s an inherent tension for anyone who is ambitious,” explains Wallach, who calls Ek a good friend. “How do you do great things without sticking your head up too high?”)

As the dark deepens and the snow swirls on Skeppsholmen, I ask Ek about his wedding, on Lake Como in northern Italy, two summers ago, which was officiated by the comedian Chris Rock. It seems incongruous that someone who has avoided the limelight would want a superstar at the center of his private celebration. “My wife and I were discussing what kind of wedding we wanted,” he explains, “and we said, ‘The whole ceremony part, it’s kinda boring.’” They’d heard about another wedding where the priest inadvertently misspoke a line, which got everyone laughing. “I was like, ‘That’s what a wedding should be,’ ” Ek goes on, “and we said, ‘Okay, what would our dream be?’ ” They were both fans of Rock, who happened to be friends with Spotify investor and talent manager Guy Oseary. (When I ask Rock about the experience, he says, “Well, I got to meet Mark Zuckerberg, so that was cool.”)

As for the wedding band, Ek explains, “I think the greatest entertainer right now is Bruno Mars, and I’m like, ‘ Well, why don’t we ask him?’ ” So the most important person in music did, and the industry’s biggest showman, with tens of millions of monthly listeners on Spotify, was, for one day, the most famous wedding singer in the world. Ek still sounds surprised that he pulled it off.

Ek pauses momentarily during our walk and looks out over the water.

“You can hear a little bit of the city,” he says, the vague echo of Stockholm’s traffic in the distance. “But it’s a totally different atmosphere here”—only 20 minutes or so from the office—“and you can sit for hours and just think.” Ek walks this path often, and if he’s not alone, he says, he’s usually one-on-one with one of his lead reports. “Getting to the right decision is inversely correlated to how many

It’s a typically dark, cold, and snowy February evening in Stockholm, and Ek and I are strolling along a slushy path around Skeppsholmen, one of the city’s islands. He is wearing white sneakers, which he earlier told me were a gift from Nike executive Heidi O’Neill, who joined Spotify’s board a few months ago. (“She said they’re worth $3,000,” he’d mentioned, which I can’t help recalling as we slog through mud and ice.)

On the way, he acts as a tour guide to both the city and his own life. “That boat is like one I used to work on in the summer, helping my uncle as a ticket taker,” Ek says, pointing across the water at a ferry that transports seaside revelers in warmer months but now serves commuters. He explains that he grew up 30 minutes south of here, in a working-class housing project known back then for its vigorous illegal drug trade. He’s the child of a single mother who married his stepfather when he was a toddler. (Ek only engages with his biological father once a year, when he receives a birthday greeting, he says.) He began playing guitar at age 4, as part of a free community instruction program.

He got his first computer not long afterward, and his interests have vacillated between music and technology ever since. He also played on his neighborhood’s club soccer team, but as with music, he ultimately concluded that he had neither the passion nor the skill to distinguish himself on the field. “I wasn’t the best musician, or the best soccer player. For a time, I thought I could be the best programmer, but it turned out that wasn’t true either.” What he had was a gift for entrepreneurship. In high school, Ek began designing websites for businesses, at a fraction of the cost other firms charged.

He recruited friends and classmates to expand his services, ended up launching several other businesses, and eventually sold all of them when he was 22 for enough money to reach the financial goals he’d set for himself by 40. He still seems mystified by the heights (Continued on page 94)

Singer-songwriter James
Bay’s Spotify Session,
the company’s original-
recordings series, is
the most popular one since

2015, topping the likes of Tom Petty, Meghan Trainor, and Alicia Keys.

NICK
HOLMSTÉN

Global head of editorial programming

Employee since 2013

FIRS T ALBUM The Eagles’

Hotel California

FIRS T CONCER T

Peter Gabriel

FIRS T MUSIC BUSINESS JOB S “After a couple of bands, I ended up as a songwriter and producer for 10 years.”

SPO TIF Y CLAIM TO FAME

Holmstén’s startup, Tunigo, introduced the idea of contextual playlists to the service, such as “intense studying” and “confidence boost.” Their popularity inspired Spotify to acquire his company.