Daniel Ek

“It disturbed me that the music industry had gone down the drain, even though people were listening to more music than ever and from a greater diversity of artists.”

“It's hard to criticize someone who's hugely successful.”

“Put your consumers in focus, and listen to what they're actually saying, not what they tell you.”

“I had two passions growing up - one was music, one was technology. I tried to play in a band for a while, but I was never talented enough to make it. And I started companies. One day came along and I decided to combine the two - and there was Spotify.”

“For me, as someone growing up in a working-class suburb in Stockholm, I couldn't afford all the music. So back in '98, '99, I was really thinking about how I could get all the music and do it in a legal way while at the same time compensating the artist.”

“I was deeply uncertain of who I was and who I wanted to be. I really thought I wanted to be a much cooler guy than what I was.”

“I was the first real generation to have their teens on the Internet.”

“Buying sports cars, going to expensive nightclubs, spraying people with champagne and things like that - what I learnt is that it wasn't for me, and, in fact, I feel pretty empty after doing that.”

“What we do is wake up every morning and think about how we get more music out to people; how do we get better music? We breathe, eat, and sleep music.”

“With Spotify, people don't get it until they try it. Then they tell their friends.”

“If you look at Adele, the reason she did so well was she created great music. It wasn't about a clever marketing trick.”

“We are passionate about making it so that users enjoy the music that they want to enjoy but at the same time fairly compensates artists. That's not the same as saving the music industry.”

“I'm just interested in building a company that doesn't necessarily change lives but adapts people's behaviour.”

“We kind of look at music as something very natural in people's lives. I mean, most of us can relate to music in some sort of shape and form, and if you think about it, most of us remember the first time we kissed someone, what kind of music was playing or the song that was playing on our friend's birthday.”

“With Twitter and other social networking tools, you can get a lot of advice from great people. I learn more from Twitter than any survey or discussion with a big company.”

“I was born in Sweden, and in Sweden we are known for the piracy services.”

“We're focused on growing the pie so the artists can go back to making a meaningful amount of money.”

“There are millions of people who consume music illegally every month. Just getting them into a legal service will make the music industry way bigger than it's ever been before.”

“We really do believe that we can improve the world, one song at a time.”

“Music isn't like news, where it's what happened five minutes ago or even 10 seconds ago that matters. With music, a song from the 1960s could be as relevant to someone today as the latest Ke$ha song.”