My conversation with Daniel Ek: Founder of Spotify

**David Senra** (0:00)
I'm starting a new show where I have conversations with the greatest living founders. The show is called David Senra. It will be on a separate podcast feed from Founders. The first episode is with Daniel Ek, who's one of the wisest people I know, and I've learned a lot from Daniel in private conversations. It was actually from one of our conversations that I decided I should start recording these so other people can learn from them too. You are about to hear the very first episode in full, but make sure you follow David Senra on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you're listening to this so you don't miss future episodes. I've already recorded a bunch with some of the best founders on the planet. Nothing is changing with Founders Podcasts. I'm still making new episodes of Founders, and will do so for the rest of my life. I hope you enjoy this conversation, and don't forget to follow the new show David Senra now.
So I want to consider this conversation like a continuation of the conversation we had last year in New York. It was by far the most impactful conversation I had the entire year. It is in large part the reason we're sitting down and actually recording this conversation. And what I loved was I thought about how the advice you gave and the stories you told really fundamentally changed my approach to my work, and then also like my philosophy of how I'm living my life. And because you, it's very rare, like this year I'm going to hit over 400 biographies read for the podcast, right? And somebody asked me recently, it's like, do you ever uncover new ideas? It's like, no, I feel like I'm telling the same story, the same personality type over and over and over again. And you'll get a new idea or a novel idea every once in a while, but certainly not all the time. But you shared something at the dinner that was a truly novel idea. And then a few months later, I read this interview, and I was like, oh, I'm not the only one that Daniel's advice changed the career. So I'm going to read something. There was an interview given by the CEO of Uber, who's in front of yours, Dara. And I'm going to read this excerpt, which was absolutely perfect. And he was talking about contemplating, should I take this job or not? Like, this is a huge opportunity, but also like kind of scary. And this is tied to your idea that you should optimize for impact over happiness. I haven't heard anybody else articulate that. And so Dara says, I was reading about all the issues happening with Uber in the news, the various challenges that were coming up there. So when I first got the call to be the CEO, I said, heck no, I'm not crazy. I'm not up for this. But I had one particular conversation that really shifted me, which was with Daniel Ek, who's a good friend. And I still remember, I was talking to him about my career at Expedia and how happy I was. And he looks at me, and he did this to me too. And he looks at me, and he goes, since when is life about happiness? It's about impact. You can have an impact on Uber, which is a really important company in the world that's shaping the future of cities. And I thought to myself, my God, this is so obvious, I've got to take a shot. I knew it was going to be uncomfortable. Can you just explain how you think about optimizing for impact or happiness and why?

**Daniel Ek** (3:00)
Well, first off, it's incredibly kind of Dara to say that. You know, I think about this. I think happiness is a trailing indicator of impact. And I think you can be, you know, you can feel happiness in small bursts, in small moments, and you can have a lot of variance in your life.
So, you can choose to have that part, which is the ups, the downs of life, et cetera. So, I'm not saying you can have happiness, but I think truly sustained happiness comes from impact. And impact is something that's deeply personal to you. Only you can define what impact means for you. So, I think it means different things for different people. But I do think it's a trailing indicator. So, the way, you know, I would put it in this case is, you know, what was obvious for me, with someone like Adara was he was content, he wasn't happy. And, you know, he had gone through a phase, knowing him for a while, where he had a lot of ups and downs with Expedia and all that stuff, and he kind of mostly figured it out. And so he was content. And I think that in his case, you know, where he was at his life, it was such an obvious thing that he didn't even realize that he had just grown content. And so for me, you know, Uber is a very special company, and to even be asked to be the CEO of that and the impact I knew he could have on that company just felt to me like an obvious thing. And so I sort of advised him to, hey, you should go for this. And that's a far greater thing, and that's going to be far, will lead to much more happiness, not just for you, but also for other people.