{"id":36378,"date":"2023-09-05T15:51:31","date_gmt":"2023-09-05T15:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/05\/spotify-founder-daniel-ek-admits-he-initially-didnt-get-the-appeal-of-the-flagship-feature-discover-weekly-techcrunch\/"},"modified":"2023-09-05T15:51:31","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T15:51:31","slug":"spotify-founder-daniel-ek-admits-he-initially-didnt-get-the-appeal-of-the-flagship-feature-discover-weekly-techcrunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/05\/spotify-founder-daniel-ek-admits-he-initially-didnt-get-the-appeal-of-the-flagship-feature-discover-weekly-techcrunch\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotify founder Daniel Ek admits he initially ‘didn’t get’ the appeal of the flagship feature, Discover Weekly | TechCrunch"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek made a surprising confession<\/a> in a recent post to X (formerly Twitter), where he admits not only that he didn\u2019t come up with the idea for Spotify\u2019s flagship feature, the streamer\u2019s \u201cDiscover Weekly\u201d playlist, he didn\u2019t even understand the appeal at first when it was presented.<\/p>\n

Instead, he says that when the team pitched the idea for \u201cDiscover Weekly,\u201d he \u201cwasn\u2019t sure about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t really get why it was special,\u201d Ek wrote on X. \u201cBut the team kept building on it and more and more people internally got excited. When we launched it, I was surprised. Turns out, our users really loved it, and today it\u2019s one of the top features on Spotify,\u201d Ek said.<\/p>\n

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I’m really glad when my team at Spotify proves me wrong, like they did with “Discover Weekly.”<\/p>\n

People often think founders have everything planned out from the start, but that’s at least not true for me. A lot of times, I rely on feedback from our team, customers, and partners.\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) September 4, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Launched in 2015<\/a>, \u201cDiscover Weekly\u201d was an immediate success as well as a significant innovation in the use of algorithmic personalization to change the way users came across new music and artists they\u2019d enjoy while using Spotify\u2019s service. At the time of its arrival, Spotify\u2019s service had only 75 million active users in total and, within less than a year, 40 million of them had engaged<\/a> with the new playlist. In addition to serving as a popular discovery tool, the playlist also helped lure new users to streaming at a time when many were still purchasing their music from iTunes.<\/p>\n

In fact, \u201cDiscover Weekly\u201d grew so popular that it led Spotify to develop a range of personalized playlists over the years that followed, including Release Radar<\/a>, Daily Mixes<\/a>, and others<\/a> meant to showcase the tunes you\u2019ve loved in the past,<\/a> those designed for special situations like workouts<\/a> or commutes<\/a>, and more<\/a>, including its popular year-end retrospective Wrapped.<\/a><\/p>\n

This trend toward personalizing the music experience has even influenced Spotify\u2019s more recent developments like its AI DJ feature<\/a> and its redesigned home feed<\/a>. It\u2019s also driven rivals like Apple Music and YouTube Music to copy from Spotify with personalized playlists of their own.<\/p>\n

EK had shared this surprising anecdote about how he didn\u2019t immediately understand the appeal of what later became Spotify\u2019s flagship feature in the hopes of passing on advice to other founders about the power of listening.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople often think founders have everything planned out from the start, but that\u2019s at least not true for me. A lot of times, I rely on feedback from our team, customers, and partners. And I change my mind often. My job is a bit of that of a curator or producer \u2013 I\u2019m putting together pieces of a puzzle,\u201d Ek wrote, as part of his admission. \u201cOne of the most underrated skills we have in our society is listening. So I\u2019m sending this tweet out in the world as a reminder to myself to work on becoming an ever better listener,\u201d he concluded.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ek has been posting to X in recent days to share his insights about being a founder, choices he made at Spotify in the early days, and other words he lives by.<\/a> For instance, he\u2019s shared how Spotify landed on green for its brand identity<\/a>, how he carves out screen-free time<\/a> for his thoughts, and more.<\/p>\n

In one post, he also revealed his fears about being an \u201cunreasonable\u201d boss<\/a>, battling with his need to be liked. In the post, Ek referenced a George Bernard Shaw quote that says, \u201cThe reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post received feedback from Mark Cuban<\/a>, Alexis Ohanian<\/a>, and Elon Musk<\/a>, the latter who joked he\u2019s \u201covercome the desire to be liked.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n