Just after last week’s edition of this newsletter went out, Spotify bought two small technology companies. Chartable and Podsights, both founded and headquartered in New York, are hardly household names: with around 50 employees between them, according to estimates from analysts Crunchbase, they’re the sort of acquisitions that large companies make on a regular basis, and often go unnoticed by anyone but industry watchers. But the purchases, both made for undisclosed sums, help explain why the company is so eager to stand firm in the face of criticism from the likes of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell over its broader podcasting strategy – and, specifically, its spending of an estimated $200m on acquiring exclusive rights to the Joe Rogan podcast.
First, the acquisitions themselves. The Verge’s Ashley Carman reports:
