Meet Daniel Ek (@eldsjal), the Swedish no-nonsense founder who built Spotify into a creative empire.

Here's how he did it:

👇👇👇
In 2006, he was asking himself this seemingly impossible question: "What is better than free?"

At the time, online music piracy was thriving in Sweden.

The country had one of the fastest internet speeds in the world, which allowed people to download music in seconds.
The second that Ek tried Napster, he was hooked. The world's music was suddenly at his fingertips — for free.

Napster eventually got shut down, but Ek knew that it would be impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.

Something needed to exist that could be legal AND free.
“I had this idea of the kind of product I wanted to see in the world: What if we can build something that makes it feel like you had all the world’s music on your hard drive? If we can create that feeling, we’ll have built something much better than piracy," he says.
He began thinking.

In Sweden, internet was fast, but in the rest of the world, downloading illegal music could take sometimes up to an hour.

What if he could offer something fast?

He wanted the user to be able to press play and access the song immediately.
It needed to be fast, and it needed to be reliable.

Ek knew he had to simultaneously earn the trust of listeners, musicians, & the entire embattled record industry.

"At the end of the day, if you say what you’re going to do and then keep on doing that, you will do pretty well."
Over the last 14 years, Ek has built Spotify into the world's leading audio platform.

Here's a glimpse into the mind of a founder who built a tiny startup into a music streaming behemoth with 320 million users across 92 markets.
This @ProfileRead Dossier is jam-packed with lessons around harnessing your creativity, managing your schedule, becoming a better leader, and solving impossible problems.

theprofile.substack.com/p/the-profile-…

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More from @polina_marinova

15 Dec
Here's why lowering your bar for victory can make you happier, according to astronaut Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield)

👇 👇 👇
Hadfield was an astronaut for 21 years, but he only spent 6 months in space.

You have to find a way to maintain a sense of purpose for a long period of time. How?
“I don’t wait until the end to feel successful,” Hadfield says. “I don’t say, ‘The only time I’m going to be happy is when I walk on the moon. If you wait until you walk on the moon, it still won’t be fun because it won’t turn out the way you envisioned.”
Read 5 tweets
14 Dec
In Sunday's @ProfileRead: An interview with @Noah_Galloway, a veteran whose vehicle ran over a tripwire that detonated a roadside bomb.

He lost his left arm, left leg, & entire military career.

Here's how Galloway turned his life around.

theprofile.substack.com/p/the-profile-…
The man who builds impossible things: Mark Ellison is a carpenter savant, a welder, a sculptor, a contractor, a cabinetmaker, an inventor, and an industrial designer. He is the person billionaires hire to build impossible things (@NewYorker)

newyorker.com/magazine/2020/…
The athlete-turned-activist: LeBron James has embraced that his talent on the court is a means to achieving something greater. This year, he got deep-pocketed owners, fellow athletes & fans around the world engaged directly with democracy (@seanmgregory)

time.com/athlete-of-the…
Read 9 tweets
3 Nov
On Election Eve, here are the top 10 lessons on leadership I've learned from the world's most interesting & successful people:

Shockingly (or not), none of them are politicians.

🧵 below:
1. Know the edge of your own competence.

When Charlie Munger was younger, he struggled to overcome his own arrogance.

Over the years, he’s learned a valuable lesson: No one is infallible, and you need to operate within the subject areas you know best.

theprofile.substack.com/p/the-profile-…
2. Let people be their true selves.

As a leader, Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya believes you have a responsibility to create an environment where people don’t feel like they have to pretend in order to fit in.

“Normalize the phrase, ‘I don’t know,’” he says

theprofile.substack.com/p/the-profile-…
Read 12 tweets
2 Nov
ICYMI yesterday's @ProfileRead: We talk about the importance of learning paired with swift action

theprofile.substack.com/p/the-profile-…
The investors betting big on crypto: Fred Ehrsam & Matt Huang convinced top institutions to give them $750 million to invest in a market they were too blue-blooded to touch directly. Take a look inside cryptocurrency VC firm Paradigm. (@alexrkonrad)

forbes.com/sites/alexkonr…
The world's best bureaucrat: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's propensity for action has kept the economy relatively stable in the face of the unprecedented crisis that was COVID-19. Meet one of the most powerful figures in Washington. (@jbarro)

nymag.com/intelligencer/…
Read 10 tweets
1 Nov
Time is our most precious resource.

I started thinking about this when I published a deep-dive on Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the popular musical "Hamilton."

"Hamilton" focuses on the life of Alexander Hamilton, one of the nation's most prominent Founding Fathers.

👇
Born out of wedlock, raised in poverty in St. Croix, abandoned by his father, and orphaned by his mother as a child, Hamilton moved to New York City as a teen.
Determined to make the most of his life, he authored two-thirds of the Federalist Papers, served as George Washington’s aide during the Revolutionary War, and became America’s first Treasury Secretary.
Read 11 tweets
19 Aug
I've read thousands of long-form profiles since launching @ProfileRead 3 years ago.

I want to introduce you to 10 of the world's most interesting people that you've probably never heard of.

Meet them below 👇
Richard Montañez was a janitor w/ a 4th-grade level education who couldn’t read or write.

But he was a janitor with an idea — one that would make Frito-Lay billions of dollars and become one of history’s most iconic snack foods: Flamin’ Hot Cheetos

thehustle.co/hot-cheetos-in…
Jennifer Wynn's job is to compile the life story of a defendant, so the information can be used to convince a jury to deliver a sentence other than death.

Wynn has worked on 30 murder cases (25 of which were death penalty-eligible) & won them all.

melmagazine.com/en-us/story/me…
Read 12 tweets

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