Épisodes

  • Episode #3 - From $2.6B Venture Bet to $60B Streaming Empire: The Spotify Story

    Episode #3 - From $2.6B Venture Bet to $60B Streaming Empire: The Spotify Story
    Feb 17 2026
    Stockholm, 2006. Music piracy was killing the industry. Two Swedish entrepreneurs pitched investors an impossible idea: charge for streaming when piracy was free. Investors said yes – and poured $2.6 billion into it over 12 years. Here's why. This is the Spotify story – from a radical bet against piracy to a $60 billion music streaming empire that saved the recording industry. You'll discover: Why venture capitalists invested $2.6B despite billions in losses The freemium strategy that converted 40% of free users to paying subscribers How Spotify burned €25-30M monthly for a decade – and why investors kept funding it The 5 strategic moves that built market dominance (geographic expansion, freemium execution, technology, label partnerships, strategic burn rate) Why early investors earned 8-10x returns by 2018's IPO. This is Ask Carlo™ | Private Equity, Simplified. Real deals. Real strategies. Real billions. No jargon, just compelling stories from 30 years inside European private markets. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 - Cold Open: The Impossible Pitch 1:30 - Introduction & Disclaimer 3:15 - The Setup: Music Industry Crisis 2006 6:00 - Strategy #1: Geographic Expansion 7:45 - Strategy #2: The Freemium Model 9:30 - Strategy #3: Technology Investment 11:00 - Strategy #4: Artist & Label Relationships 12:15 - Strategy #5: Burn Rate vs Growth 14:00 - The Outcome: $60B Empire 15:30 - Jargon Buster: What is Burn Rate? 16:15 - Quick Answer: Can Ordinary People Access VC? 17:00 - The Numbers: Conversion Rate Explained 17:45 - Closing & Next Week Preview ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔔 SUBSCRIBE for weekly episodes every Tuesday. 🎙️ LISTEN ON PODCAST: Spotify: https://tr.ee/DtWvws Amazon Music: https://tr.ee/2AMNOS Apple Podcasts: coming soon 📬 CONNECT: Instagram: @travel.renaissance.man 💬 SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ NEXT WEEK: Real estate private equity—how investors transformed distressed London office buildings into luxury residential conversions worth hundreds of millions. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT ASK CARLO™: I have spent 30+ years co-managing billions across European private markets—buyouts, venture capital, growth equity, real estate, infrastructure. Every Tuesday, I share one real deal to help you understand how sophisticated capital actually works. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ DISCLAIMER: This content is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice, financial advice, or any other type of professional advice. Always consult qualified professionals before making investment decisions. Educational only. Not investment advice. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #PrivateEquity #Spotify #VentureCapital #Startups #BusinessStrategy #TechInvesting #Finance #AskCarlo #InvestmentStrategy #europeanperspective © 2026 Carlo Schneider. All rights reserved.
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    18 min
  • Episode #2: The power - and controversy - of leveraged buyouts.

    Episode #2: The power - and controversy - of leveraged buyouts.
    Feb 10 2026
    In 2006, a London private equity firm walked into Bernie Ecclestone's office and said, "We'll buy Formula 1 for $2 billion." The twist? They only had $500 million in cash. The rest - $1.5 billion - they borrowed. Eleven years later: 8x returns. This is the Formula 1 story - how borrowed money amplifies returns in private equity, and why sports media became the perfect asset for leveraged buyouts.
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    19 min
  • Episode #1: From €45M Ski Jackets to a €15B Luxury Empire: The Moncler Story

    Episode #1: From €45M Ski Jackets to a €15B Luxury Empire: The Moncler Story
    Feb 9 2026
    In 2003, investors paid €150 million for a struggling ski jacket company. Ten years later: €2 billion IPO. Here's how. This is the Moncler story—from technical mountaineering gear to a luxury fashion empire worth over €12 billion today.
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    15 min