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In 2005 Daniel Ek retreated to a cabin outside Stockholm. Like a character from an Ingmar Bergman film, he was grappling with an existential crisis. A teenage coding prodigy, Ek had, by the age of 22, made enough money to last a lifetime. After selling his advertising technology start-up, he was bored, and threw himself into a life of hedonism. Ek bought a red Ferrari and became a fixture at Stockholm’s top nightclubs, where he imbibed expensive champagne with a new-found entourage.

Daniel Ek: yet to turn plays into profit VESA MOILANEN/REX

But he soon came to realise that “the girls I was with weren’t very nice people [and] that my friends weren’t real friends”. So Ek sold his sports car, gave up his bachelor pad and moved away from the city.

If the lifestyle