Spotify’s Brand Safety Executive (@Spotify) hasn’t Solved the Last Offensive Streamer Job Cuts

Just days after people gleefully posted their Spotify Wrapped, bad news came for the music streaming giant. Spotify announced today that it would cut 17 percent of its workforce, a chunk that equates to an estimated 1,500 people. The world’s largest music streamer has cut jobs three times this year.

A number of tech companies have taken steps to rightsize after overhiring during the epidemic. But Spotify’s high cost to license music adds to its financial strain. Bird says it’s very expensive for streaming companies to do business.

The safety of their community is a top priority, according to a Spotify spokesman. At Spotify, brand safety has always been a team effort and will continue to be overseen by the leaders.

The company doesn’t seem to have a dedicated executive for brand safety. She pointed to the VP of product Per Sandell and the director of monetization product marketing as key executives in this area, when I asked about this.

Is Spotify Stopin’t Going For Pulitzers Anymore? A Comment on Ek’s Comments on Spotify and other Brand Safety Issues

Something that stopped me in Ek’s note was the indication that, after so many mergers that put so many people out of their jobs, the company is still not done with acquisitions.

“Embracing this leaner structure will also allow us to invest our profits more strategically back into the business,” he writes. Every investment and initiative becomes more valuable with a targeted approach.

When I asked Spotify whether “investments” means more M&A, Styles said, “We will continue to allocate capital towards the highest return opportunities for the business, both internally and externally.”

That sounds dull, but it is important! If the industry is going to make money in a serious way, advertisers need to be assured that their ads are reaching the right audiences and aren’t supporting content they consider harmful. In October of this year, Amrita Khalid did an interview about the company’s approach to brand safety.

Source: Spotify’s not going for Pulitzers anymore

Spotify isn’t going for Pulitzers anymore: The case for More Perfect, In the Dark and More from Gimlet and More

Ek told employees that there are too many people dedicated to supporting work and even doing work around the work rather than contributing to opportunities with real impact. The impact in question doesn’t mean audience or anything of the like. It means margin. At WNYC, More Perfect and In the Dark, the show has been decided that it is not worth it because it requires too much time, manpower and money.

The answer, at least within Spotify, is to make a high-margin show — something that is straightforward to make, always on, and has broad appeal. You can see that in the company’s support of interview shows like anything goes with emma chamberlain and Call Her Daddy. To make the Sopranos of podcasting, you need time and resources, neither of which are on offer right now.

If Spotify was ever serious about making in-depth narrative podcasts, it certainly isn’t now. After its current season, the company has decided not to continue with the show. One of Gimlet’s biggest hits is the show and it has a lot of fans. The investigative journalism show Stolen won a Pulitzer Prize in Audio Reporting and a Peabody Award this year for it’s work.

I’m hopeful that this is not the end for any of the shows, as both will be allowed to be shopped elsewhere. These are the kinds of shows every podcast studio wishes they had and the kind of content Spotify wanted when it got into podcasting in the first place. Whatever has been unforgiving, the reaction on the radio and the social media.

Source: Spotify’s not going for Pulitzers anymore

The Ek Project – A Reflection on Employee Choice and the Future of Operating Costs in the Light of Recent Results and Recent Performance

“I realize that for many, a reduction of this size will feel surprisingly large given the recent positive earnings report and our performance. Daniel Ek wrote a letter to employees, saying that they had debated making smaller reductions over the next two decades. “Yet, considering the gap between our financial goal state and our current operational costs, I decided that a substantial action to rightsize our costs was the best option to accomplish our objectives.”