Daniel Ek was born in Stockholm in 1983 and co-founded Spotify in 2006 with Martin Lorentzon, with the explicit ambition of providing a legal alternative to music piracy. Spotify launched commercially in 2008 and has since become the world's largest music-streaming platform, with users in nearly every country and a major restructuring effect on the global recorded-music industry.
Under his leadership the company has expanded aggressively into podcasts and audiobooks, built one of the largest creator-economy platforms on the internet and become a significant patron of European technology.
Ek has also led ambitious personal investments in European defence and deep technology through his vehicle Prima Materia, and has been an active voice on the conditions required for European technology to scale.