How Women, Booze, And Money Made Spotify's CEO 'Completely Depressed'
According to a recent story in The New Yorker, Ek decided to retire in 2006 after selling his online advertising company, Advertigo, for about $1.25 million. He was just 23 years old.
As many young men his age might have done given the same privilege, Ek bought himself a Ferrari and hung out in Stockholm nightclubs, where, The New Yorker reports, he got his friends expensive tables and wooed lots of attractive women with fancy champagne.
But a year of this lavish lifestyle wound up making Ek "completely depressed." He tells The New Yorker that many of the women he spent time with were not very nice and his friends were only using him for his money.
Here's how Ek describes his realization that being rich wouldn't necessarily make him happy:
"They were people who were there for the good times, but if it ever turned ugly they'd leave me in a heartbeat. I had always wanted to belong and I had been thinking that this was going to get solved when I had money, and instead I had no idea how I wanted to live my life."
He decided to move to a cabin near the Stockholm suburb of Ragsved, where his parents lived, to think about what he wanted to do with his life. There, he had conversations with the Swedish businessman Martin Lorentzon about creating a product that would allow people to have seamless access to all of the world's music.
So far, things seem to be going pretty well.
- Saudi Arabia wants China to help fund its struggling $500 billion Neom megaproject. Investors may not be too excited.
- I spent $2,000 for 7 nights in a 179-square-foot room on one of the world's largest cruise ships. Take a look inside my cabin.
- One of the world's only 5-star airlines seems to be considering asking business-class passengers to bring their own cutlery
- GIGABYTE AORUS CO49DQ 49-inch QD-OLED 144Hz curved gaming monitor launched in India
- Things to do in Goa in monsoon to make the most out of your trip
- Healthy choices for summer: 7 soups to support your weight loss goals
- India's pharma exports rise 10% to $27.9 bn in FY24
- Indian IT sector staring at 2nd straight year of muted revenue growth: Crisil