# Shadow leaders to learn how their culture works

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/shadow-leaders-to-learn-how-their-culture-works/ 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: 41:33 to 46:38 of the episode (5 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/shadow-leaders-to-learn-how-their-culture-works/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=2493

## Quote

> “And so, I spent the better part of what I believe the first time was like a week, literally in pretty much **all of his meetings** from start to finish.”
> — [Daniel Ek](https://realalpha.app/people/daniel-ek/) at [44:11](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=2651) · Founders

## Takeaways

1. Observe leaders in their actual meetings, not just through interviews.
2. Take notes and find ways to be useful while you learn.
3. Adapt practices to your own personality and company culture.

## About this segment

Daniel Ek spent a week following Mark Zuckerberg through meetings and spoke with Meta’s executives. He learned to study the culture behind a practice before deciding what might work at Spotify.

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.

[41:38](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=2498) extreme levels of intellectual humility. I don't even know if many people know this, but like you would like go in shadow and spend time i don't know if you have a term for this you just like call up somebody that's running a company and say what i'm gonna come and sit on every single one of your meetings yeah pretty much uh like that that's how it goes um and and look it comes back to this i mean i i don't believe that i know um much let me let me just set the table for this real quick the way you put it to me like i'll go get them their coffee yep i don't care yep i'm there to learn from them yep i need to go get their coffee i'll go get their coffee yep do you understand that's insane like i think that's the right like mindset yeah but i don't think anybody would believe somebody running you know a hundred billion dollar company

[42:24](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=2544) and has done the things that you've done like yeah no i'm fine like i'll shout out this guy and like i'll do whatever i need to do yeah well i mean look um i i just realized it sort of started from this thing right where um you and i have both read all the books and actually many of the entrepreneurs have read um not as many books about as you have around all the greatest entrepreneurs but they've read the big ones yeah certainly of their time the basis is the the the steve jobs the the elon musk's biographies and all that kind of stuff but but the there's a certain thing around reading it and internalizing it and seeing the culture up front and what i realized was building spotify obviously it's the biggest company i've ever built so i'm learning on the job and i don't know what i don't know because i don't i've never really worked at a company

[43:17](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=2597) right and it's in a way what i realized as we hired people from these other companies is that there were all these things that they were doing um that they kept telling us about and I didn't really understand like how it worked. So I'll mention like one, for instance, I do really well in these like one-on-one situations. I might even do well in like three or four person groups and maybe six, but 10 person group, like I don't have the personality where I command the room, it just doesn't work.

[43:48](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=2628) And then you have someone like a Mark Zuckerberg who literally has this thing called large group where he has 20 to 25 people that he runs every week. And for me, it sounded absolutely awful. Like, how did he get anything done in that meeting? And so, lo and behold, I asked him, hey, can I come and learn from you? And he was incredibly gracious, and we've obviously been friends for a long time, and he said, sure.

[44:16](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=2656) And so, I spent the better part of what I believe the first time was like a week, literally in pretty much all of his meetings from start to finish. And the big question, obviously, for me is like, okay, well, what does he get out of it? And can I make myself useful while doing it? So hence, I took meeting notes. You know, if I could get him coffee, I would. You know, it was literally these types of things.

[44:45](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=2685) But at the end of it, the most interesting thing was obviously trying to distill down what surprised me about the culture. It wasn't really around like Meta and what was then Facebook is a world-class company. It wasn't like, you know, I miraculously thought I could do a lot of things different or better. But there were things that surprised me around how he managed the company. And seeing that and hearing that from another founder, hopefully one that he respects too, may sort of lead to insights and breakthroughs.

[45:22](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=2722) And during that week, it's not just that I follow people around. I actually meet with their entire executive team and interview them too. So sit down and try to learn from them to really, truly internalize the culture and try to understand it. And so all of a sudden, you do realize, for instance, how you can make a large group team meeting work. And there were lots of other things which I shamelessly copied from, for instance, that experience.

[45:49](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=2749) and it just turned out for me to be an amazing way to learn by seeing the culture up front that enables the certain practices to work. It almost comes back to kind of this two things we talked about already which is this mirror of reflecting it back and then the sort of second notion I think which is it's got to be true to you. So, you know, there are many things where you can copy a specific way.

[46:21](https://realalpha.app/v/qiXH0y2V3_8/?t=2781) For instance, Elon does things. But if it's not truly innate to you and your personality, I promise you it will not have the same impact as when Elon does things. I think you're dead right about this. The way I would think about like your archetype