# A founder must change roles as the company grows

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/a-founder-must-change-roles-as-the-company-grows/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Daniel Ek](https://realalpha.app/people/daniel-ek/) · Daniel Ek is co-founder and CEO of Spotify. · Co-founded Spotify in 2006 and now guides its long-term strategy as executive chairman.
- Host: [David Senra](https://realalpha.app/people/david-senra/) · Host, Founders · Has read an entrepreneur's biography every week for Founders since 2016.
- Show: Founders
- Episode: [Daniel Ek, Spotify | David Senra](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/), Sep 28, 2025
- Moment: 52:18 to 57:22 of the episode (5 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/a-founder-must-change-roles-as-the-company-grows/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=3138

## Quote

> “I'm going to **give you three months** where I don't do the product reviews. And then we evaluate how this worked.”
> — [Daniel Ek](https://realalpha.app/people/daniel-ek/) at [54:36](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=3276) · Founders

## Takeaways

1. The founder’s best role can change over time.
2. Test uncomfortable feedback instead of reacting to it.
3. Find a new way to add value as the company grows.

## About this segment

Daniel Ek recounts how a product leader told him his reviews were unhelpful, and how he stepped back to test that feedback. He found a new role focused on creators and the connections between stakeholders.

From “Daniel Ek, Spotify | David Senra”, Sep 28, 2025. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[52:22](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=3142) And this may be a little bit unique, but, you know, coming back to it. So, you know, I ended up having, you know, so the typical thing is that the founder needs to be the product person, right? By the way, it's 100% true. I totally believe that. I think it's the most important thing in the zero to one stage. But what a lot of people don't talk about is the fact that there isn't one stage of this journey.

[52:50](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=3170) It's like you're oscillating between 0 to 1, 1 to 100, and then, you know, the last stage was more like optimization stage. And you have to, like, constantly do that. And you're going to need different skills at different places. And this is why, by the way, I believe it's so important for entrepreneurs to realize when to apply what tools in this journey. So what happened with Spotify is sort of against all the common wisdom and wealth, which is I don't really run product anymore.

[53:19](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=3199) because what happened was I got this guy called Gustav that you now met and he runs product and he's actually way better than me at doing it and so speaking about sort of being truthful what ended up happening many years ago was I was running these product meetings he was sort of running it but I wanted to run it so I kind of interjected myself over him but I didn't have the time to like really spend all this time so he was sort of like running it um for me but i still insisted on having product reviews and and um sort of talking again about the importance of having people who um give you candid feedback um he took me aside after one of these um product sessions and he's like you know you're not really that good uh in doing these things and you're not really that helpful so most of the time me and the team we're kind of like looking and we're trying to

[54:14](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=3254) basically, you know, appease you in the meeting, but you're not really adding as much value as you think. And, and not surprisingly, my, my first instinct was to be really pissed off. Uh, I sort of went home. I was like, man, I'm going to have to fire this guy. It's like horrible. Like, how could he say that this, but I also realized that that was an emotional response. So, uh, again, I wasn't fully convinced that this was true, but I sort of went back and said, okay, well, you know what?

[54:41](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=3281) I'm going to give you three months where I don't do the product reviews. And then we evaluate how this worked. And lo and behold, he actually did a great job. And so the team was much happier. He was making more of the decisions without me. I wasn't meddling in. There wasn't two different people deciding what worked, but it was really him. And ever since that moment, I don't really run product anymore in the traditional.

[55:09](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=3309) I'm involved in the product and he solicits feedback from me all the time, but I don't run the product meetings. And I say that because what happened for me was a real setback, not just in sort of that moment, but it also sort of like, oh, wait a minute. So what am I really, you know, what's my value add then in this company? And it took me a while and I realized that all of a sudden, hmm, actually, you know what, that won't be it, but maybe I can add value in this place.

[55:39](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=3339) And I sort of oscillated to this different place in the company, which was much closer to understanding the creator and spending more time with the content people, et cetera. And so my product feedback ended up being, you know, and this is the dynamic that's quite unique to Spotify in that we have these two stakeholders. we have Consumers on the one end, and we have creators. And so I just made it my effort to understand and know the creator way better than anyone else in the company. And so my product feedback to them comes from that lens. And that became value-add because, again, that's a very different thing. That's an outward-facing thing. You actually have to sit down and meet with creators.

[56:21](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=3381) it is so much more about innately understanding their needs and talking to them and understanding not just how they use the product, but their business. What problems are they facing? That's not just sort of how they leverage the product, but actually holistically around them. And so that was just one of those things. And then subsequently what ended up happening is I got this guy called Alex and he's now doing that part better than me too. And so I was like, okay, well now I need to find a different way to add value. And now it turns out that my value add is the sort of in between between the two where, you know, business or creators meets consumers and where, you know, there's maybe a third stakeholder we have to consider in all of this. And so my whole sort of experience in all of this has really been around kind of figuring out who I am and what

[57:15](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=3435) what I'm innately good at. And this has been a learning journey for 20 years.