Spotify CEO Daniel Ek surprised by how much laying off 1,500 employees negatively affected the streaming giant’s operations

When Spotify announced its largest-ever round of layoffs in December, CEO Daniel Ek hailed a new age of efficiency at the streaming giant. But four months on, it seems he and his executives weren’t prepared for how tough filling in for 1,500 axed workers would be.

The music streamer enjoyed record quarterly profits of €168 million ($179 million) in the first three months of 2024, enjoying double-digit revenue growth to €3.6 billion ($3.8 billion) in the process.

However, the company failed to hit its guidance on profitability and monthly active user growth.

Edit: Thanks to @Zerlyna for the paywall-free link: archive.ph/wdyDS

Blackmist,

Wow, who knew they were all people doing something, rather than suckling on your precious Wealth Creator teat?

Here’s another money saving suggestion, go without fire extinguishers and alarms. They’re sitting around doing nothing all day!

FontMasterFlex,

I’ve been a spotify premium user for a long time. still pay $11/mo and it comes with Hulu for that price. i don’t like all the added bullshit they’ve put in like the ai dj or whatever, and i don’t like the “stations” but i don’t like those on ANY service as they all pretty much don’t play what i want them to, so i just make my own playlists and shuffle through those. don’t really give a fuck that they paid Joe Rogan, and i think it’s silly if you do. Like Apple doesn’t do shady shit with your money too? or youtube? or tidal? come on. gtfoh with that ignorant shit.

pseudo,
@pseudo@jlai.lu avatar

Were is the button refuse cookies ? I can’t find the button refuse cookies.

Grinning,

Ctrl-W

exanime,

Evidence that these CEOs are more figure heads and actual strategist and absolutely do not deserve the multi-million dollar packages they constantly give themselves

LemmyKnowsBest,

That title 😂 would make a good cross post for NotTheOnion

nytrixus,

Meanwhile, same CEO goes and renews Joe Rogan’s contract for like $250 Million.

Solved the problem for you, Daniel.

EatATaco,

Not really because it’s not like they are handing that contract to him out of charity, they know he is a huge draw and so if they don’t keep him on, they lose subscribers (and not growing enough was the reason they gave for the layoffs, so losing subscribers because they lose Joe rogan would only exacerbate the reasons for the layoffs).

But I understand that this is about virtual signalling the safe opinion that you hate Joe rogan, and has nothing to do with critically thinking about this.

intensely_human,

Virtue signaling is so lame. I wonder if people even realize the cost they’re incurring to themselves when they always say the safe thing.

nytrixus,

Nothing about virtue signaling, you rogan dick sucking fanboy.

How would you feel if you worked for Spotify and your job got axed because some dude your company decided to pay loads to, got more money and suddenly there had to be cutbacks? I bet you’d love that. I bet you’d love the idea of being homeless, no food on the table because you feel that guy “earned it” when you know they probably didn’t in any way. That’s how much of a cuck that you are.

I haven’t listened to a minute or second of Joe Rogan in my life. What I see on the table here and what I’ve read in this article, tells me it’s wrong just by default. Must be nice living such a delusional life like yours over there. I bet you’re the kind of person that voted Trump “CUZ DUH POPULAR VOTE SAID MORE THAN ELECTORAL HUHUHUHU!”

EatATaco,

Nothing about virtue signaling, you rogan dick sucking fanboy.

You’re level of critical thought is so low that you think recognizing that he is popular is the same as liking him. You can’t possibly imagine a non black and white world where someone would disagree with your mindless position, but at the same time not be a fan of rogan. I personally think the guy is a dope.

But, of course, your position is indefendible, so all you have is childish personal attacks…so.you took a shot in the dark as to what type of person I am…and missed embarrassingly.

Suavevillain,
@Suavevillain@lemmy.world avatar

People keep trying to paint every CEO as this smart and hardworking class of people. We continue to see it isn’t true.

echodot,

Who’s doing that? The only people doing that to the CEOs everyone else knows they’re useless.

nytrixus,

The CEO is just a position that tells everyone that you’ve lied to people, deceived your close ones, pulled off underhanded tactics and more to get to where you are. Now you’re the top of the level shithead who makes money doing fuck all except write or say things for PR clout.

axus,

Daniel Ek founded the company. He got to where he’s at by having lots of money. He got that money to found Spotify by being hired into other companies which were acquired. You’re describing “Executive Vice Presidents” that were promoted from within.

linearchaos,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

There are a lot of smart hardworking CEOs. But none of them ever seem to get to this level. At some line in the sand CEOs just become idiots playing chess (poorly) from their yachts.

Good leaders that care about their company seem to universally get pushed out at IPO.

orrk,

well ya, the very nature of the shareholder system demands short term profits, the rug pull has become the industry norm, dismantle the company to make your numbers seem better, inflating value, and sell before it collapses, find your next victim “investment opportunity” and repeat

zaphod,

Good CEOs are bad for short term profits because they’re more interested in keeping their company alive longterm.

echodot,

Or they often leave on their own accord. Eg Steve Wozniak

jorp,

Once a company is publicly traded it can easily pervert the incentives so that the goal of the CEO becomes to enrich the investors as quickly as possible even at the expense of long term benefit, because stock price and investor satisfaction become the factors contributing most to executive compensation. A CEO who doesn’t care about maximizing their own compensation in favor of employee welfare or company long term success doesn’t keep the support of investors for very long either.

SolarPunker,

At that level of wealth, concepts such as meritocracy (if ever it’s a positive term) are meaningless; let us still tell the fairy tale that capitalism rewards the best of us and not the recommended.

TankovayaDiviziya,

People tend to hero worship others who don’t deserve to be.

fidodo,

You do have to be hard working to be CEO, there’s just a ton of stuff that needs to be handled around a company at all times. But they are not uniquely smarter or have better decision making skills than other people. A good CEO will understand that they don’t know everything and surround themselves with experts to help them with decision making instead of thinking they know better.

That’s not to say that workers aren’t necessarily equally as hard working, especially when your asshole CEO fires a ton of your coworkers and expects you to pick up the slack.

noxy,
@noxy@yiffit.net avatar

gonna just go ahead and guess the shithead didn’t start carrying the pager after the layoffs.

Smoogs,

HAHAHA I’m so glad I was one of them customers that stopped subscribing right at that parabolic curve. Eat it you nasty Joe rogan loving Covid denying fucking dirtbags. you fucking deserve it.

T00l_shed,

Yup I canceled my sub when they went exclusive with Joe Rogan. I’m not spending a penny to support that douche canoe.

Emerald,

Stop being so canoe-phobic. Canoe’s make for a great outdoor activity

T00l_shed,

No fuck canoes! Kayak superiority!

exanime,

Same… not super proud of switching over to YTM but definitely better than throwing money at Joe Rogan through Spotify.

As with video streaming services, after a couple of great years during which I practically gave up self-hosted pirated content now I find myself going back to it as the servers enshitified beyond my tolerance… YTM is my last ditch attempt

T00l_shed,

We ended up buying a bluray player and buy movies from thrift stores because fuck the noise that is streaming services now.

intensely_human,

Why don’t you like Joe Rogan?

T00l_shed,

Well he is a vaccine skeptic for one. And perhaps I don’t hate Joe himself but his platform is full of misinformation that is taken at face value. He has guests on the show that people take as experts when they aren’t. His dude-bro audience takes what he says as gospel and just makes things worse.

intensely_human,

What specific misinformation are you referring to?

T00l_shed,

Covid misinformation for example.

intensely_human,

That’s an entire category, not what I meant by specific. What specific claims about covid were made on his show that you believe are false?

T00l_shed,

He took horse de-wormer.

westyvw,

I am somewhat happy I never joined spotify.

Seems like a monopoly that everyone belongs too. Yet they never really had the music I was after anyways.

TIMMAY,

Anyone know a good service I can switch to instead? (Besides fkn youtube services?)

dutchkimble,

I’m pretty happy with Tidal

explodicle,

I still download MP3s

noxy,
@noxy@yiffit.net avatar

you monster! how dare you!

…download flac files instead!

TIMMAY,

what are flac files?

noxy,
@noxy@yiffit.net avatar

lossless audio - higher quality than mp3, though it’s arguable that few if any people could actually tell a difference between a high quality mp3 and a good flac version of the same audio

zaphod,

Wouldn’t call them a monopoly, at least not for music as there are alternatives.

FontMasterFlex,

what music don’t they have that you’re after??? i dont think i’ve ever NOT found something i was looking for on Spotify.

westyvw,

A lot of live music, a lot of indie music, and in some cases a lot of surprisingly popular music.

In the end, I never bought into any service. I am willing to donate to Soma FM for my work day music streaming, and for everything else I simply host it myself.

intensely_human,

Anything specific?

FontMasterFlex,

I doubt they will return with anything specific or it will be something EXTREMELY niche, local band type stuff. Spotify has an extremely broad range of music. There are a few notable exceptions are Garth Brooks (where are the bodies Garth?!) and Neil Young.

redlue,

Yeah. I noticed all my [REALLY SMART] friends were shilling spotify and amazon prime like crazy back in the day. Meanwhile I’ve just been using Pandora for over a decade without spending any money. If I want to stream a specific song, there’s youtube. Otherwise, I just download music for free using my brain.

I really think it’s the result of viral marketing more than anyone else.

PalmTreeIsBestTree,

It’s why I sub to YouTube premium. I can get any song to ever exist on there.

Zink,

Yeah, as shitty as YouTube has been to their free users, YouTube music has had every song we’ve ever looked for.

Dkarma,

Pandora usually plays the song I want anyway

Caitlyynn,
@Caitlyynn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

They actually offer an inferior platform compared to other music streaming services. You can get way more stuff on SoundCloud for a similar price, or way better audio quality on Deezer or Amazon/Apple music, for a mark up. It’s honesty kindaastonishing just his popular Spotify is compared to what they offer…

snek,
@snek@lemmy.world avatar

December 2023:

“Economic growth has slowed dramatically and capital has become more expensive. Spotify is not an exception to these realities,” Ek wrote in a letter to staff posted to the company’s website.

CNN article: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/04/tech/spotify-layoffs-third-round/index.html

Today

The music streamer enjoyed record quarterly profits of €168 million ($179 million) in the first three months of 2024, enjoying double-digit revenue growth to €3.6 billion ($3.8 billion) in the process.

Link to the same article posted by OP

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8ca70e20-a054-48b6-b6fa-07e1622ce680.mp4

OneOfTheMicahs, (edited )

What do 10,000 workers do at a company that’s primarily focused on a music streaming app?? I guess it just adds up, but I cannot wrap my head around that many people working on mainly 1 project. Are there just a bunch of behind the scenes projectswI don’t know about? Like what are they all doing 😂

Edit: I think my comment was taken as agreeing with laying off workers. I completely disagree with that! I’m genuinely just curious what they are all doing.

explodicle,

Hey at least this guy is asking, make him the CEO

Nomecks,

It takes a village to run a global highly available service for hundreds of millions of users.

vin,

WhatsApp was able to build this in a cave! With a box of scraps!

KillingTimeItself,

yeah maybe if this dumbass ran his own publishing house he would be making some fucking money.

Shitposting aside, publishing industries pull in literally billions a year. They’re the ones pushing music to spotify. Spotify makes almost no money, ever. Artists barely make money.

Spotify, if you’re reading this, god i hope not, let artists self publish.

nomous,

Spotify made almost 4 billion dollars last year. I wouldn’t call that no money. I agree with everything else though.

KillingTimeItself,

have you checked their historical profits? They’ve lost money on almost every year of their business operation. I don’t think they’ve made net money since being founded. Maybe recently.

nomous,

Spotify’s revenues for 2023 grew 16% year over year, reaching 3.67 billion euros ($4.05 billion), as a surge in both monthly active users (up 23% to 602 million) and premium subscribers (up 15% to 236 million) beat expectations.

After a third quarter in which the streaming company turned a profit for the first time in a year, however, its operating loss was again in the red, at 75 million euros ($82.7 million), albeit better than its guidance; Spotify says that excluding one-time charges its operating profit would have been 68 million euros ($75 million), more than double the 32 million euros ($34 million) in profit it generated in the third quarter of 2023.

So 4 billion in revenue, only $75 million in profit.

These corpos love to pretend they’re not profitable to attract dumb money and VC fucks. Reddit somehow wasn’t profitable but managed to pay their C-suite to the tune of millions.

KillingTimeItself,

yeah and spotify isn’t profitable because of music publishers. Literally all they would have to do is start publishing in house. And they would pull in way more money.

VC does nothing but enshittify your platform, and fuck over creators/consumers.

redlue,

Spotify makes almost no money, ever.

Lol, what? What about the engineers getting 6-figure salaries?

What about everyone else who makes $50k/year?

That’s not making any money? Or are you talking about profit, which is excess?

TheCoralReefsAreDying69,

What an incredible website. Use of page you go to read their privacy policy is blocked by the popup that requires you to accept their privacy policy before continuing to use their site.

Zink,

I feel for whatever engineer exactly followed management/legal orders to create that.

Sam_Bass,

Even if he can see it, hes not likely gonna fix it

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