Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has leaned on his friendship with billionaire Mark Zuckerberg from the early days of Spotify and Facebook, taking leadership lessons from the Meta founder as they watched their companies grow into multibillion-dollar tech giants.
But over their 16-year friendship, the Spotify cofounder has drawn at least one red line in his relationship with the billionaire: playing sports.
Zuckerberg has found a second lease on life in recent years through his newfound affinity for mixed martial arts (MMA) and surfing, which has helped him update his style in the process.
However, Ek has not been keen to make these interests a shared hobby, owing to the pairās mutual love of competition and hatred for losing.
āThe rule I have with Mark is I donāt try to go into a competition with him because I know itāll end badly for both of us,ā Ek told the Acquired podcast.
āAs you know Mark likes sports, so one of the things I donāt do with Mark is play sports for exactly this reason.
āThe last time he sort of tore his ACL with someone rather than giving up, so I feel like it would end pretty badly,ā Ek added, referring to an injury Zuckerberg sustained in MMA training last year.
āI like playing when I know Iāll win, so I think itās a pretty good thing not to do that.ā
Ek and Zuckerbergās friendship
Ek said he first met Zuckerberg at a barbecue in 2008 after being introduced by early Facebook and Spotify player Sean Parker, where the pair riffed off ideas to make Spotify more social through Facebookās feed.
At the time, Spotify was still operating an invite-only model to build hype around the streaming serviceās exclusivity, aping Zuckerbergās early Facebook model that required specific college email addresses to sign up.
The pair recently coauthored an open letter calling for more consistent AI regulation in the EU, arguing that failure to do so could cause Europe to fall behind other regions.
The Spotify cofounder has also learned valuable leadership lessons from the Meta founder over their friendship, saying Zuckerberg was the best learner he had ever seen.
āYou can have a conversation with him about a topic, and he may not know very much about it, and then the next time he would know more than I would say most experts about the subject.ā
Ek has also learned from Zuckerbergās meeting style, saying the Facebook cofounder hosts an average of 15 to 20 people in a meeting.
Swedish CEO Ek takes a more Scandinavian approach to running his company. He has leaned on the Scandinavian leadership model and says he is probably the least powerful person at Spotify because of how he delegates responsibility.
Speaking last year, Ek said the world had met three Mark Zuckerbergs during their friendship.
First was the āSocial Networkāera Mark,ā referring to the unfortunate reputation he gained after the release of the Oscar-winning movie starring Jesse Eisenberg.
Then came āCambridge Analytica Markā or āEvil Markā after Facebook shared the data of millions of Americans with the political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, causing huge ramifications for data privacy.
Finally, Ek says, is āMark 3.0,ā someone who has recaptured his ruthless edge with the help of his burgeoning second life as a fighter and a surfer.
āHeās learned a lot over these past few years and he has a new fire in the belly. Heās realized he needs to act responsibly because heās got this enormous platform,ā Ek told Forbes last year.
āBut thereās still some of the old Mark, where he is betting on things even though everyone tells him, āThis is never gonna work.āā
DJ BigkriX ā A Trip to SA (Amapiano Edition) Mp3 | Free Audio Download
Artist
Artist DJ BigkriX
Category DJ Mixtapes
Genre Amapiano
Released 2024
Duration 01:59:35
Renowned and exceptionally talented disk jockey, DJ BigkriX, has once again proven his incredible musical prowess by taking us on an immersive auditory journey deep into the heart of South Africa with his latest captivating mixtape titled āA Trip to SA (Amapiano Edition)ā.
