Daniel Ek is done being the guy everyone yells at about music streaming. After 17 years of building Spotify and getting shit from artists, labels, and podcasters about everything from payment rates to content moderation, he's stepping back to executive chairman in January.
Two guys are taking over as co-CEOs: Gustav Söderström (the tech guy) and Alex Norström (the business guy). Smart move - split the responsibilities so neither one has to deal with ALL the complaints. Co-CEO structures rarely work, but Spotify's executive team has been stable for years.
Why Co-CEOs Might Not Suck This Time
Most co-CEO arrangements crash harder than a Windows ME update, but this could work. Söderström and Norström already run their respective halves of Spotify without constantly trying to undermine each other.
Söderström built Spotify's recommendation engine - you know, the thing that creepily knows you want aggressive metal during morning workouts and acoustic indie when you're coding at 2am. Norström's job was keeping record labels from suing Spotify into oblivion every time they tweaked royalty payments.
Clear division: one guy handles the tech that makes Spotify work, the other guy handles the humans that make Spotify possible.
They've got until January 2026 to work out the details without accidentally starting a corporate civil war.
Ek's Real Plan: Defense Tech Investment
While the official announcement mentions "focusing on long-term strategy," Ek's actually been getting into European defense tech through his investment firm Neko. Turns out funding military contractors is more interesting than explaining to Taylor Swift why her latest album only made $47 in streaming revenue.
Think about it: would you rather spend your day negotiating with record label executives about fractions of pennies, or fund companies building autonomous drones? The choice seems obvious.
Plus, defense tech doesn't have Twitter accounts where thousands of angry fans can @ you about moral compromises.
The Rogan Headache Continues
The timing here is interesting. Artists are still pissed about the Joe Rogan deal - you know, the $100 million exclusive contract for a podcast that occasionally platforms vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories. That controversy never really went away.
Now they're also mad that Ek's investing in defense tech while paying musicians basically nothing per stream. "You can afford to fund weapons but not fair royalties" is a pretty solid argument, honestly.
Whether that's why Ek's stepping down or he's just burned out from years of this exact type of drama is hard to say. Probably both.
Running a Company This Big Sucks
Spotify has 574 million users spread across 180 countries. That's bigger than most nations. When you have that many people using your platform, every tiny change pisses off millions of users simultaneously.
Change the algorithm slightly? Angry tweets from every continent. Adjust royalty rates? Congressional hearings. Add a new feature? Half your user base wants the old version back.
Ek built this monster, but managing it day-to-day is probably like being a punching bag with a Harvard MBA.
How Not to Screw Up a Handover
At least Ek's doing this right. No board drama, no mystery external hire who's never used the product, no unhinged social media rants about betrayal.
Söderström and Norström have been running their pieces of Spotify for years. They know how everything works and where the problems are buried. Ek's staying as chairman to handle the nuclear-level crises while they deal with the day-to-day firefighting.
Compare this to the Twitter clusterfuck or any number of tech companies where founders got forced out by their own boards. Ek gets to leave on his terms without burning the place down.
Wall Street Doesn't Care
Spotify's stock barely moved when the news dropped. Either investors saw this coming or they're confident the company can function without Ek micromanaging everything.
Which makes sense - at this point Spotify runs itself. The algorithm works, the partnerships are locked in, and the business model prints money even while paying artists almost nothing.
What Happens Next
Expect Spotify to get more boring. The new co-CEOs are operators, not visionaries. They'll focus on making the current system work better rather than launching weird new features that nobody asked for.
Fewer Joe Rogan-sized bets, more tweaking recommendation algorithms and optimizing server costs. Good for the bottom line, probably less exciting for users who liked Spotify's experimental phase.
The Aftermath
Ek gets to escape the daily shitstorm of running a platform where everyone has opinions about everything. Artists hate the royalty rates, podcasters want better discovery, users complain about every interface change, and governments want more content moderation.
Now that's Söderström and Norström's problem. Ek can focus on funding European defense tech and probably sleeping better at night.
Smart move, honestly. Build the thing, hand it off to people who can run it, then go do something more interesting with the money.