Code. It can be beautiful.
When I learned to program, I saw that it was... pure.
No ambiguities. Nothing to interpret, nothing to convey.
It just is.
And for me, it's part of my DNA.
In the binary world, there are only ones and zeros.
That's perfection.
And then slowly, one command at a time,
Something pure and... true that,
didn't exist before.
Something that never lies or pretends to be something it isn't.
A universe out of nothing.
You take the ugly chaotic world we live in
Andreas?
You were going to show us the latest updates.
Anyone could have answered their questions. In their sleep.
No one is interested in my ideas.
We are interested in your ideas.
But we're also interested in making a profit.
Yeah, I know. Check this out.
What is this?
I've started constructing a more immersive open-world experience.
This can give our users something to aspire to, to dream about, to create...
Well, our users are 12 and 13 year old girls. Get it?
All they have to do is play with dolls and buy our * add-ons.
Fame, fashion and friends, Andreas.
Don't forget that.
Sorry... This is Daniel.
Daniel's going to be a consultant here.
Daniel gets business. Listen to him, okay?
I like what you said, it was nice.
Yeah, but who cares?
- He just wants to sell add-ons. - Can I see?
I just thought a tech start-up would be different.
That they would be interested in some new ideas. Take some risks.
This is awesome. How did you get the dolls to react so quickly?
I've built a new layer, so now there's a feedback loop
to anticipate what users want before they want it.
Okay.
Yeah well, don't worry. The boss hates it, so I'll just delete it.
Why? It's brilliant. If Mattias doesn't appreciate it, that's his problem.
- Except that he's the boss. - So? Then why are you still here?
If you want to be creative, quit this damn job, do your own thing. Be your own boss.
People like me just don't run businesses. We consult, advise, maybe are CTOs.
Says who? I just did it.
Started a tech company with only coders, sold it for ten million.
Just think about it.
This is nice.
What are you reading?
The Gutenberg Galaxy. Marshall McLuhan. What's it about?
It's about...
how technology made it possible for knowledge to spread in new ways.
You know before, there was no point in learning to read as there were no books.
That's true.
But then a whole new wave of information came along and so...
Well, everyone can have access to it if they wanted to.
So access made people consume more?
Exactly. People like Mattias will never get it.
They just think they get it, but we've grown up with technology.
It's been a part of us since we were kids, before we could even speak.
We can't let them decide what we should do with it.
Check this out.
This is a streaming system for free music. This is exactly what you're talking about.
A way to listen to every song released,
so that everyone in the world can have access to all music.
Nice. But you know there's already Pirate Bay?
Sure, but give me a step by step guide on how to download a song from Pirate Bay.
It's easy.
You just go to the website...
search for the torrent you want, download it, open it in a client...
There's different files, right? So first, you have to go through them one by one,
see which one you want...
Yes. True. So then you sort out what you don't want, it downloads...
Then you have to decide which folder it goes into, what to name it,
how to list the songs so they play in the right order,
according to an artist or an album...
and all of these you have to store on your own hard drive.
This is what I'm talking about. All this enthusiasm,
everything Pirate Bay built, we're going to take to a whole new level.
The world needs freedom from record companies.
and something way better than Pirate Bay.
At first, it was just an idea...
It's a beautiful thought, but won't work. Investors will force you to compromise
until it's no longer beautiful...
Good thing I'm the investor then. I'll put everything I earn into this.
Every day... Every day that we stand up to them,
the authorities begin to understand that we are unstoppable.
Yes!
You know what we're doing here? We're writing history.
- This is yours? - Uhn uhn.
Welcome to Spotify headquarters!
This is where we'll build the world's most beautiful music site.
- And you want me? - I want you to help me.
I need you to help me build the kind of company that can create brilliance.
Okay.
That's Martin. Martin!
Don't worry, he... He looks like one of them, but he's one of us.
Andreas, nice to meet you! My name is Martin Lorentzon.
Andreas.
I know your boss.
He says you're incredibly good, but annoying as hell.
We need annoying as hell. I want people who think in new ways,
who understand that the whole new era requires whole new approaches.
Welcome aboard.
Welcome aboard?
You are our first employee, CTO.
You'll own more of the company than anyone except me and Martin.
So how should we design it? What do you need?
Okay. The coders will sit in the middle.
Everything flows from here, all the ideas, all the creativity.
We're going to need more ethernet cables, and ceiling electrical outlets.
And everyone on the team will be equal. No hierarchy, no cliques and no titles.
If two people think differently, then it shouldn't matter who has the highest rank.
Best idea wins, no matter what.
So who's going to be on the team?
You have to let me handpick them. We can't use regular coders.
To make the best site in the world, we need the elite.
People who would have never joined a regular start-up.
We need Gunnar Kreitz. I met him at college, computer science.
He's the best programmer in the world.
And Fredrik Niemelä, a prodigy.
The only one with a team that could challenge Gunnar's.
Jon Åslund, Mattias Arrelid, Andreas Mattsson.
We need a great designer, too...
Rasmus Andersson would be perfect.
We can create the world's best coding team.
Like the seven samurai, but coders.
That looks nice!
God, you look so handsome.
Brilliant! Okay, shall we?
There it is! The money shot! The best.
Spotify is about one thing.
Access.
Access gives freedom.
Access makes users independent from the music industry...
And speed. If there's one thing users hate
about Pandora or Last FM, it's buffering.
You don't use Google because it's the best,
it's because it's the fastest.
If Spotify is gonna succeed, speed is key.
Don't forget that!
- Okay, access and speed. - Mhm. Let's do this!
Yes!
When you start programming, you'll merely notice there's no shortcuts.
You have to dare to get your hands dirty.
A little code under your fingernails.
A computer is like a child who doesn't know anything yet.
I have to teach them, and that means everything.
If my instructions are illogical,
incomplete or inadequate, you will get a bug.
Okay. So, what are his eyes saying right now?
Here's my card, order whatever you want.
Hi...
He is... Um...
Yeah...
So...?
Have you looked at any congestion control algorithms?
- No. - No.
And that has to be the worst pick-up line in entire world.
What... What are you interested in? Beer?
Medical science. I'm a student.
I only work here on the weekends.
So... tell me about cell biology.
The cell is the most remarkable of all organisms in biology.
It's like a little factory that produces whatever is needed to keep running,
and it renews parts that need to be replaced, but it kind of services itself.
And if needed, the production can be changed in an instant.
All the recipes needed to produce what the factory creates
are sort of encoded in the cell's genome.
And the cool thing about it all is that,
Well, it doesn't need any... blueprints, anything like that.
It just regulates itself and it
takes command of itself.
It's fascinating really, how it all just continues to work all on its own...
That was beautiful.
What would you say if I asked you out sometime?
It's done.
Test it.
Now, try something else.
Yeah
Unbelievable!
With help from the whole team, we've made a smoother, faster system.
It's actually a lot faster now and we've reduced the delay. So now the searches...
It's still too slow.
This is basically a masterpiece.
Why should I care about that?
500 milliseconds is too slow.
Why would I bother clicking on a song if I have to wait 500 milliseconds for it?
- How long is acceptable? - Zero!
Zero? That's impossible and Daniel knew it.
The delay between when you click on a link on the internet
and when content is sent from a server, is affected by several factors.
Suddenly, it depends on the amount of content but also on the
type of internet connection, the workload on the network not to mention distribution
which is the distance a cable has to carry data,
I could streamline by adapting the the structure and finding some shortcuts
but really it's just the amount of content that you have control over.
Daniel! Look at this, only 12 month's warranty and it's at 75,000.
That's a colossal amount.
- Andreas! - Yes?
Okay, here's the deal. We can't afford to do this on servers.
I built the entire system on servers.
Okay, but we can't afford the amount of servers we would need to scale up.
You're going to have to build this as a P2P network.
So... Why am I totally speechless right now?
Okay, to explain that, I need to get a bit technical. Try to keep up now.
If you wanted to build a streaming service like Spotify in
2006, you really only had two options.
Number one, to use servers. Okay, I'm server. This is me,
here. I have access to a database.
You can think of it as a big pile of CDs.
My only job is basically to serve you the songs from these CDs. This is you.
When you ask me to, I'll go and pick a CD out of the pile,
I'll read the song you want from here, send it to you, from beginning to the end,
a little at a time
just like how you usually listen to music, it's lightening fast.
The problem is that it's expensive.
Servers are expensive to buy, but they're mainly expensive to run.
They use a lot of electricity, and when they use it, they get
hot, so you need more electricity to run the fans that cool the servers. Okay.
That's why Daniel asked me a moment ago to use option number two,
building a peer-to-peer network.
I'll explain that, too.
Okay, so peer-to-peer was the invention
that laid the foundation for all the services
like Kazaa, Napster, Limewire and of course Pirate Bay.
Now we don't have a server anymore, just a bunch of confused users out there
who are somehow connected to each other via the internet.
All the internet-connected computers on this network
are each other's equals. They are peers.
Okay. The problem is that when we lost the server,
we lost contact with the database.
So the whole world's music is no longer available.
But the users have a few different records each,
and as long as they're willing to share with each other,
we have a nice little communist society on the internet,
but unlike communism, this idea really works.
Now, when you want to listen a specific song, you first ask your neighbors,
"Please, do any of you have the song?"
Since there are billions of songs and only a few neighbors, they'll probably say no.
But they can ask their neighbors, who ask their neighbors,
until you finally find someone who has the song and starts sending it to you.
This way, Spotify doesn't have to buy lots of expensive servers,
but, there is a big disadvantage. See, it takes an agonizingly long time.
It's a cheap solution, and definitely a bad one.
Had Daniel been a real coder, he'd have known that,
and he'd have know that he was asking me to do the impossible.
He has a tendency to do that.
I'll give it a try.
What the hell is wrong with your generation?
Music can never be free.
If I get another one of these * pitches,
I'm gonna make it my personal mission to crush your little shitty company.
You got that?
I hope I've been very, very, very clear with you.
Just make it fast, Andreas.
Did he really throw it on the ground?
Yeah.
Why?
He is... a little unstable right now.
He wants it to be faster.
I don't even know if it's theoretically possible.
The arteries sort of reshape themselves to create the pressure
that the circulatory system needs.
So I don't know, but maybe you can come up with something new?
The battle between the record companies and Pirate Bay
has now entered a new stage.
It was at five o'clock this morning, the police led by prosecutor Pontén
stormed the underground bunker where Pirate Bay had its servers.
Mr Sundin, what do you think about the Pirate Bay raid?
It's welcome but a little late.
It's nice that the Swedish Government has realized they're not freedom fighters,
but ordinary criminals.
So now, I hope they get the punishment they deserve.
We continue with more headlines.
Hurricane Katrina has brought, Louisiana to a complete standstill,
Katrina rolled from the gulf of Mexico and hit Louisiana at
5am local time. It moves about about 105 miles per hour,
...Pirate Bay had everything in one place.
- A lawsuit against Pirate Bay... - Daniel...
The record companies pushed for this.
Yeah, and?
People like Sundin won't stop and now we have to negotiate with them.
Yeah, we'll have to talk to them.
No! They're the bad guys here, not Pirate Bay.
We've all used that website since we were kids.
We know the people who created them, we respect them.
Yes.
The people who create the technology that you need, care about things like this.
They care about who's gonna control it.
I chose to come to Spotify because I thought it was going to be free.
Andreas, Spotify is a business.
A business?
I don't want to be part of a business that compromises with record companies.
If we make a deal with them, we do it on our terms, not theirs. Or not at all.
I think it was right at this moment,
when I confronted Daniel, that the whole dynamic at Spotify started to change.
What did I tell you? A company needs one leader.
It's alright, Andreas just needs to let it out.
Hey, I met a friend from Gothenburg,
who said he worked with a completely insane coder, like you and Andreas.
Who?
Ludvig Strigeus.
Maybe we can work on that.
Or even working on this peer-search might be something, an option that we...
Hey, Ludvig.
- Hi. - Hey.
I heard about what you're up to, sounds pretty cool.
Okay guys, please welcome Ludvig to the team.
He's just agreed to join Spotify as a consultant.
And we are very grateful and happy about that!
- Great! - Welcome!
This is interesting.
Can we talk for a second?
Ludvig Strigeus?
Without saying anything, not asking, consulting?
If anything, you should be thanking me.
No one knows peer-to-peer better than Ludvig.
Okay. Fine, but... Is this because I expressed my opinion?
No, Andreas. We just bought uTorrent from Ludvig. We'll be able to use his code.
Listen, he's still part of your team. You're the CTO.
Why didn't you ask me?
The best idea wins, your policy, right? He'll run the front end, you the back end.
So we've built a hybrid system.
Okay...
Essentially, it's still peer-to-peer.
It's convenient and easy to scale up.
Ten percent of the time, only when needed, we have the option to switch to a server,
load the first few seconds from there and switch back to P2P when it catches up.
Even unexpected searches respond and the system will keep improving.
It's fantastic.
This is the most sophisticated music player ever built.
It's smart, it's smooth, it's fast.
Nah, it's too slow. On random searches, there is a slight delay.
Now we're at 250 milliseconds.
The human ear perceives anything under 200 milliseconds as instantaneous.
- That's 0.05 seconds... - And that's not good enough.
So this is because of the TCP/IP.
I don't know if you know how it works, but basically it's internet architecture.
We have to wait for the ACK from the client,
otherwise we get packet loss. That's a hard red light.
And it's your job to find a way around it.
But that's how the whole * internet works!
You're asking for something that's impossible!
If we design a car, we can make the engine bigger
we can make the wheels spin faster,
but we can't build a new road,
just because you don't understand the technology!
Here's the thing Andreas,
I gave you this opportunity.
And I backed you up to.
So either you build the player that I want
or you can go.
You doing okay?
Daniel is the boss, Andreas. Everyone knows that.
The boss...
Andreas...
I know.
When I was a kid...
I was always the nerd.
And... I tried, I...
In school, I was too much and I was too little,
and I had to learn to accept that people like me, we don't have friends.
But I just you know, fantasized that...
I would... I would find my gang. That I'd find...
my avengers.
People who were on the same wavelength as me.
Yeah. Maybe I'm just too...
Can I have that.
Okay.
We know that when our server starts sending data to the client,
it's kind of like when a car pulls up to an intersection and gets a red light.
But what do you do when you see the light about to turn red?
You accelerate.
The idea is to slow down, but everyone speeds up, that's what you do.
- But we can't really... - Yes, we can.
We clone the TCP/IP,
then we do our own implementation of both flow and congestion control.
A big * congestion window and no slow start at all.
That's right.
Our only problem is that the timeout is too strict for our purpose.
It prevents us from sending data faster than the network can actually handle.
Yeah sure, we'd get some packet loss, but nobody needs to know about that.
Yeah, okay. But what does that mean in plain language?
Alright, here's the deal. The internet is basically built to be perfect.
No data should be lost.
And for the vast majority of purposes, that's absolutely fine.
After all, the defense industry built it. They have to stop at the red light.
Because if they accidentally crash, all the data is lost.
But * that. * the Pentagon.
We're Spotify, if we crash a little bit, it doesn't matter.
The tiny part of the song that gets lost, no one will notice it even existed.
It is simply not audible.
We will build the first protocol that breaks the rules.
The world's first system to be imperfect on purpose.
When we see the red light, we won't slow down.
We will accelerate.
Even if we lose a minuscule part of the song, who cares?
Let's do it!
This is a brand new protocol.
Gunnar and Fredrik applied for a patent this morning.
Whatever happens from here, we've created a nice little piece of computer history.
A unique network protocol that's never been seen before.
The best-designed, most user-friendly,
the most complete music player that ever existed.
It's goddamn perfect!
Yes!
Nice work.
Shit, you guys should be proud! Wow.
We got it!
Daniel.
We have this new functionality that I think you'll want to see.
On the left,
the artist page as it was, and on the right, as it is now.
Our beta testers have given us user data
that allows us to customize the whole experience for them.
It finally gives us a real edge over the record companies.
- I'm not giving this to them. - No.
- Why not? These offer the prospects for... - We'd be playing into their hands.
The whole point of Spotify was to share power more equally in the market.
OK, here's the deal. We'll have to pay those record companies a one-off fee.
So we need to discuss whether we can keep Spotify free or not.
What? You're not suggesting a paywall are you?
We're discussing whether we can keep any part of Spotify free at all, yes.
The music is already free, it's already up on Pirate Bay, so...
Okay, Andreas, can we talk...
No, wait a minute.
When we started this, we agreed it had to be free.
The younger generation expects it to be free.
Okay, you've started this as a teenage dream, I get it.
You want to do it your way, the easy way.
But it's not a sustainable business model.
That's why we're fumbling around trying to find one now.
We started this with an idea, a principle. I don't know if you understand that.
- Good luck getting the bank to understand. - The bank? The bank?
Why do you let the bank run your life? Who cares what they think?
Okay, listen to me.
Either you accept that you have to make major concessions and
fast or we're done working together.
Okay. Then I guess we're done.
- Thank you for your time. - Petra, what are you doing?
It's been great, but I can't work like this.
Petra!
Good.
Daniel, we have the technology now.
We've built something beautiful that everyone would want to use.
We're almost out of money.
- We'll go bankrupt. - No, not bankrupt.
It's gonna be a bit tough, but if we launch now, even without rights,
we'll crush all the other streaming services within weeks.
While the record companies are suing our * off.
They need us. We will be too big to fail.
I want Petra to come back.
What?
I want Petra to come back.
This is the final call to flight SA7062 to Singapore.
That's not what really happened.