How Autonomy Saved One of Spotify’s Most Loved Features From Being Killed

16/09/2025 1h 12min
How Autonomy Saved One of Spotify’s Most Loved Features From Being Killed

Listen "How Autonomy Saved One of Spotify’s Most Loved Features From Being Killed"

Episode Synopsis

"I would have killed that if it was just me, 100%,” said Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek about Discover Weekly, a feature that would become one of Spotify’s most loved product features, almost a brand in itself.Designers and senior engineers were equally skeptical, but the team was still able to ship the feature.In this talk, you’ll learn how Spotify’s organisational culture of Agile management and autonomous teams enables innovation, using the Discover Weekly feature as an example.The speakerJoakim Sundén is a founding partner of Better Product Work,where he helps visionary leaders challenge the conventional way ofbuilding products. From 2011 to 2017, he worked as a Senior Agile Coachat Spotify, where he was part of a team collaborating with the CTO todevelop the company’s approach to customer-focused product developmentat scale. This model would later become world-famous as ‘the SpotifyModel’ of Tribes, Squads, Chapters, and Guilds. He now assists leadersin transforming and improving their organizations into models whereemployees are empowered to create innovative solutions that not onlycustomers love but also drive business success.