PanamaPlaylists – Leaked Tech CEOs Spotify Profiles
54 comments
·July 30, 2025addandsubtract
diggan
> No wonder the Spotify algorithm is so shit.
I guess you get what you play, none of those songs are recommended to me, and my Discover Weekly has maybe ~75% of music I like which is high enough to be useful for finding new stuff. But then I have been using Spotify for almost 20 years, might be why they're a bit better at recommending me music.
But then you also consider other people's music taste "basic" so we already know you're a bit of a elitist music snob, no wonder recommendations don't work for you :)
yamazakiwi
Well they probably consider many people's music taste basic because a lot of music consumers aren't actually "in to" music. They just want pop with catchy cycles, memorable lyrics, and na na na's. Anything that falls outside of that is too much exploration for them.
Most of these playlists are uninspired, but I never took CEO's to be big music heads anyway. Most CEO's are into basic entertainment because they deprioritize exploring it.
fkyoureadthedoc
Better than Apple Music, at least in my memory, I haven't had Spotify for years.
I have a suspicion that Apple Music just decides the next song based on the previous one that played, not your whole playlist or even the last n songs played.
beAbU
Spotify does the same thing, resulting in a "radio station" playing the same fucking 10 songs over and over.
yellow_lead
At least there's some aphex twin near the bottom
HeckFeck
So the lesson is that one must become ultra-normie in music taste before one becomes a founder? I'm waiting for the PG essay to explain this.
joshdavham
Not to be too sarcastic, but it always kills me when people who pride themselves as being original and contrarian turn out to be total conformists. This seems to be very common among founders/vc’s as of late.
Permit
On the other hand, it kills me when people think having a unique taste in music is representative of anything other than having a unique taste in music (i.e. that one's taste in music has anything to do with being original or contrarian).
It seems sensible to me that the people who spend a lot of time doing something like creating a successful business do not spend much of their time curating a unique taste in music.
codethief
Exactly. You can be unique and non-conformist in some ways, but not in all of them at the same time.
rachofsunshine
Everyone's just playing a bunch of investor signaling games, because founders/VCs by nature are living in the world of finance, not the world of decision-making (at least in their public personas). It's part of why I opted out of that whole world when founding my own company. Not literally so that I can listen to my angsty 13-year-old Christian rock without answering to anyone (although I certainly do do that), but because I feel like that fear colors a whole lot of what gets done in tech these days.
Engineers very often tell me something like "well I have this idea but I don't think anyone will fund it" and - well, just build it, man! Your idea takes like two grand of startup capital, and I know for a fact you made 240k last year. There's this whole mythologized idea of founders as a separate breed, encouraged in no small amount by founders themselves, but...founding a company is literally just building a thing people want and selling it to them. You can wear clown shoes and do that.
windows_hater_7
How does liking music make someone a “conformist”? I don’t know anyone who thinks, “I need to make sure my music taste conforms to societal norms.” People add songs to their playlists because they like them.
red-iron-pine
always have been, mate.
the nonconformist iconoclast disruptor meme is because that's what the market wanted to see, and most founders wanted that money.
now the luster is gone, and there is no need to put on a black turtleneck and pretend you're revolutionizing the world. now you need to hype your AI strategy and sound confident that you have some idea how that will play out.
heavensteeth
Mass appeal has mass appeal, apparently.
CSMastermind
I mean lots of what they highlight is pretty cherry-picked.
nerdix
Ben Horowitz "Good times" playlist is exactly what the name implies. Definitely a sex playlist.
tptacek
I love that sama had to Shazam Missy Elliot's "Get Ur Freak On", one of the three most recognizable hip-hop tracks of all time. :)
joshdavham
How can we verify that these playlists are legit? I love the idea that JD Vance is listening to Justin Bieber and One Direction, but I’d like some more proof.
jdross
He has children, and this is what children listen to
adamwk
That’s what children listened to 15 years ago. I doubt that’s what they listen to now
esalman
This. My top YouTube music track is crab rave phonk. Because apparently toddlers love it on repeat.
tptacek
Nobody under 40 listens to this much Death Cab.
diggan
> How can we verify that these playlists are legit?
Even if they are "legit", we don't know it's actually them who listened to it. I'm in the car with other people plenty of times, and listen to music I'm not a huge fan of but others are. I'm sure I'm not alone in not being 100% exclusive listener to the music my Spotify account ends up playing.
azinman2
Mildly interesting of course, but all we’ve learned is that regardless of how high profile you are, you’re still a human embedded within a common taste space… one that was mostly formed in your teenage-to-20s years.
dijksterhuis
kudos to Kashmir Hill for aphex twin and nils frahm.
walthamstow
Palmer Luckey, I did not expect that. The guy is designing autonomous warfare stuff while listening to Vanessa Carlton.
lordnacho
Looks like any old radio station. Is that down to Spotify suggesting whatever is popular, or people having ordinary tastes?
I read an article claiming that repetition causes popularity, not the other way round. Can't for the life of me find the link, maybe someone knows what I mean.
diggan
> Is that down to Spotify suggesting whatever is popular, or people having ordinary tastes?
I think it's the typical "average stuff for the average person", people generally don't care that much about what music is playing, as long as it's within the range of "average" and it's catchy enough. Basically open up the player, play the first thing that looks good enough and then leave it there.
Then it's called "mainstream" music for a reason, most people are OK with listening to it in the first place :)
gishglish
> Then it's called "mainstream" music for a reason, most people are OK with listening to it in the first place :)
I think there’s bewilderment is mostly from these not being “mainstream” people.
diggan
> not being “mainstream” people
They're politicians, CEOs and "celebrities" (in one way or another), it doesn't get more mainstream than that, does it?
groundcontr01
Mark Benioff, "Let's Get Retarded" is a gem
angryGhost
https://open.spotify.com/user/1225726127
That is not Vitalik...
nkotov
Interesting that there's not a lot of metal / rock.
Fokamul
Yes, or real rap or something. HC metal or something.
Weird, or maybe website author sorted it by song's popularity?
gishglish
Interesting how much of it is just radio schlock. I guess I underestimate how much people really listen to that stuff.
These are the most basic bitch playlists I've seen in my life. No wonder the Spotify algorithm is so shit.