How a dream at night got me a job at Spotify

I wasn't qualified. They told me no. But something changed.

I was 20 years old, I had no degree and hadn’t had a real job before. While I had started a company of my own in my teens, I hadn’t yet sold it, and it hadn’t made much money, either.

I was pondering what to do next when, one day, my brother called me and told me about Spotify. “You can search for any song or artist… and they have it! It’s wild! Try ‘Metallica’”.

I was in love. We both were.

Turns out they were hiring for lots of jobs. All in 🇸🇪 Stockholm, where I lived. The problem was — I didn’t know what to apply for! Founding my own company, I had done pretty much any and every role needed, from finance to sales, hiring and programming, but never just one thing.

Still, I had to apply. So I just picked a role.

Backend Engineer. “I’ve done some coding,” I said to myself. “I’ve built for scale. I can do this.”

I was wrong.

I applied and got an interview with two senior engineers at the company. Both CS majors. Very, very talented. Their questions were so hard, I barely made it through the interview in one piece.

They said no.

Delivered via email, just a few hours later.

Oh well. That’s that. I thought.

But not so fast. The night after, I had a dream. A real dream at night. I remember it vividly to this day. It really impacted me!

In the dream, I am meeting with Spotify’s CEO in his office. For some reason, I’m on my knees, begging for a job, any job. 

“Can I at least please have a cleaner’s job? Please?”

Suddenly, a young woman steps into his office. I recognize her as one of the many people who worked for me in my own company. She looks at me, incredulous, and asks: why are you on your knees, begging? You’re a CEO, too!

Then, I’m outdoors, seeing a boy tossing newspapers from a car, like in American movies. The dream zooms in on one of the them just as it’s being flung. And I just know that whatever the headline of that newspaper is, it’ll say whether I get the job or not.

It keeps zooming in. I’m just close enough to read what it says…

And that’s when I wake up.

∞

Whoa.

I wake up with this very strong intuitive feeling: the headline of that paper isn’t written yet. I get to complete the story.

I quickly call my uncle, who’s been a big spiritual advisor all my life. He says that this is a clear sign and that I should find other ways to get the job. Says it’s important to my future.

I realize I’d undersold myself while applying. My mistake was simple: by trying to fit into their mold, I had cut out all that made me, me. I am not just good at one thing, and that’s okay. I should tell them who I am.

So I email them again, saying I’m only 20, just had a kid, had never done an interview before, and told them about the website I started that had millions of visitors every month. I might not be a backend genius but was there any chance I could have another interview?

They agreed. A few days later, the CTO and VP of Product personally interviewed me.

At the end of the interview, they asked me how soon I could start.

Tomorrow, I said. I’ll come in tomorrow.

And so it was that I joined Spotify in 2009, as the first dedicated Web Developer. The company was still only in a few markets (Sweden and a few others), but was already growing rapidly and full of incredibly talented people. I felt completely unqualified to be there, like a total fraud, but also like I was exactly where I was meant to be.

It was, in short, a dream come true.

It’s now 15 years later, I’ve started two more startups, sold my first one, and live in the US. None of which may have happened without that dream. It’s crazy how pivotal it was for me.

So I hope you see now why I’m into dreams, and inner guidance.

For some reason, they seem to arrive at just the right time.

All we have to do is decide to listen.

Hope this helps,

Jon 🙏

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