Zaid

Welcome back to the Rundown, interview edition.

Today, we are talking to Roman Wassermuller, the global head of podcasts at Spotify.

I sat down with Roman following Spotify's investor day in New York City, and we covered a lot in this conversation, including the growing role that podcasts are playing in Spotify's business, whether Spotify is low key a

video company now and how Spotify is thinking about AI.

This was a really, really fun conversation.

We actually recorded it in person at Spotify's headquarters at the World Trade Center in New York City, which was incredible.

Shout out to Spotify again for the invite.

All right, let's get into it.

Roman Vazenmuller, welcome to The Rundown.

Thanks for having me, Zaid.

I'm so excited for today's conversation.

Big day for Spotify, right?

You guys have your Investor Day presentation, a lot of big announcements.

And I just kind of want to rewind the clocks a little bit, though, because you've been at Spotify for a decade plus now, right?

And so you've kind of seen the evolution of Spotify, but also the podcasting industry.

So I just want to get your take, like,

When did you think that or when did you see podcasts become like a serious part of Spotify's business?

What year was that?

But then, obviously, like, I think the big splashy moves was, like, at the turn of the decade, 2020, 2021, acquisition of The Ringer.

Correct.