Spotify's direct listing breaks the mould – unlike its governance

Music app copies Silicon Valley’s obsession with control through unequal voting rights

Spotify’s arrival on the New York Stock Exchange is revolutionary only in one way. The music streaming service refused the usual public offering of stock and chose a “direct listing”, in which the price of the shares is set by buyers and sellers in the market without the help of investment bankers’ expensive underwriting and “stabilisation” services. Smart move: Spotify will have saved itself a few tens of millions of dollars in fees.

But, in another respect, Spotify has become a public company in a depressingly familiar fashion. Its founders are wedded to keeping vice-like control via a share structure with unequal voting rights. For unequal, read unfair: Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzen own 38.9% of the ordinary shares but they have created “beneficiary certificates” with super-charged voting rights that only they can own. Include those holdings and Ek and Lorentzen have 80.4% of the votes.