DAVID BECOMES GOLIATH

SPOTIFY HAD a plan to rule the world — before Rishi Malhotra messed it up. As head of the streaming service Saavn, in India, Malhotra preempted the streaming boom in the country by inking a $1 billion merger with telco giant JioMobile, creating JioSaavn in 2018, a year before Spotify planned to debut there. JioSaavn quickly became a formidable incumbent, outmaneuvering others in a market that many believe will be the commercial bedrock of the global music business in the near future. (For context, Spotify currently has 356 million users worldwide;

India, however, has more than 1.3 billion people within its borders, and the vast majority aren’t signed up for streaming yet, making the market a target of every tech firm’s interest.) Unlike the more industry-entangled Spotify, JioSaavn also started running its own record label, signing indie Indian artists to 50-50 deals and pairing them with Western stars like U2, Pink Sweat$, and Marshmello for smash collabs. His strategy is also hyper-tailored to the habits of Indian listeners, which helps the company stay focused on good products and not “vanity metrics.”

“Everything is morphing — management companies are becoming labels, streaming services are becoming labels,” says Malhotra, who grew up in the U.S. as a Led Zeppelin and Van Halen devotee and who has made a point to fill JioSaavn’s exec ranks with other South Asians from North America. Music “has never been more exciting than it is now; over the last 25 years there’s been this moment where everything’s coming together,” says Malhotra.