My conversation with Gustav Söderström (@GustavS), Co-CEO of Spotify. 0:00 How Gustav Prepared To Become CEO 2:30 There Is No Right Org 5:06 Synchronized Swimming At Spotify 9:25 You Ship Your Org Chart 10:31 Why Apple's Functional Org Works 11:48 Tenure Is The Key 13:31 Oracle vs. Elon On Churn 16:41 Finding Your North Star 18:24 Choosing Pain For Distribution 19:21 Prioritize The User Over Yourself 23:05 The No Regrets Strategy 25:21 Building A Running Playlist With AI 27:35 Figuring Out What To Spend Your Life On 30:01 Being Honest About Doing Good 32:25 The Anti-Engagement Decision 34:50 Giving Users Control Of The Algorithm 37:57 The 1-9-90 Power Law 40:23 Getting Into AI Early 43:55 You Are Your Thoughts 48:22 Building Tools That Enhance Humanity 49:45 The Genius Of The Kindle 51:57 When Steve Jobs Came To Kill Spotify 54:24 Three Bets Against Apple 57:07 Building A Personal AI Agent 1:00:55 Premeditated Media 1:02:27 Who Tells You The Truth 1:05:16 The Vulcan Mind Meld Of Tenure 1:07:28 Hiring For Spikes And Fresh Blood 1:10:14 What Keeps Him Up At Night Includes paid partnerships.

Each circle has a different story

Pick an industry where you can play long term games with long term people.

I was once pitching in a board room at a top 3 VC firm for a $15M Series A. 12 people in the meeting. One of the GPs fully fell asleep. Out cold for 30 minutes. Nobody acknowledged it. Everyone just kept going. I kept presenting my Series A slides to an unconscious man in a Herman Miller chair and somehow that was considered normal. That's venture capital. You might fly across the country to perform for people who may or may not be conscious. It's a dance. And sometimes you lead and sometimes you follow and sometimes your partner is unconscious. If you're raising right now, just know: every founder has a story like this. The process is weird. The power dynamic is weird. You're not crazy for thinking it's weird. No one talks about it because they want to continue raising. But I'm happy to stick my neck out there. It is weird.

The founders of over 100 European startups have come together to get more people to build and join startups in Europe. The campaign, named "Built in Europe", is an out-of-home and digital advertising campaign across five European cities. It features: > @mati of @ElevenLabs > @NStoronsky of @Revolut > @antonosika of @Lovable > @HBO_Sweden of @lassie_co > @vriparbelli of @synthesiaIO > @FredrikHjelm4 of @voitechnology & @Pitdotcom > @Barney_H_Y of @meetcleo And many other great European founders and CEOs. It's been organised by @balderton but features companies and founders from all over Europe. The VC firm has built a website bringing together jobs from 1,000 leading tech startups on a single platform using direct data feeds and API integrations. The overall aim is to get more people building and founding companies here which is AMAZING to see. NICE @surangac, @Jameswise, @robmoff