Since the launch of Spotify, the exec’s mantra has been one of growth at (literally) all costs. “Eventually we will get to more of a point of maturity where we’ll focus more on profit over growth, but for the next few years it’s going to be predominantly growth for us.”ĭaniel Ek, Spotify (speaking in May 2020) In 2020, Spotify posted an annual €709 million ($810 million) pre-tax loss – equivalent to losing $2.2 million every day of the year. Since then, over the course of 14+ years of existence, Spotify hasn’t turned an annual profit at any stage in its history. In morning trading, shares of Spotify added 3.5% to $101.32.Can Daniel Ek ever make Spotify a profitable company? Swedish billionaire Ek co-founded Spotify alongside Martin Lorentzon in 2006, launching the streaming platform as a fully-licensed service in October 2008 in Europe. Spotify had 4,405 employees in 2019, before the pandemic began, according to that year’s annual report. Just last week, Google announced it was slashing 12,000 jobs while Microsoft said it would cull 10,000 workers, bringing to at least 48,000 the number of cuts that Big Tech companies announced in January alone.Įven with all of the recent layoffs, most tech companies are still vastly larger than they were three years ago. “I take full accountability for the moves that got us here today,” Ek said.Īfter years of heady growth, analysts say tech companies are being forced to cut jobs in preparation for an economic dowturn that’s likely to cut demand for their software, products and services and reduce digital ad spending.

Ek didn’t give an actual number of job losses but a company spokesman said it’s 600, based on 9,808 employees listed in its latest quarterly report. He said that’s why the company is cutting its global workforce by about 6%.

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