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Spotify is adding more subscribers and is losing its chief revenue officer

Spotify has 40 million subscribers, but longtime exec Jeff Levick is leaving.

Spotify Press Announcement
Spotify Press Announcement
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek
| Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Spotify
Peter Kafka
Peter Kafka covered media and technology, and their intersection, at Vox. Many of his stories can be found in his Kafka on Media newsletter, and he also hosts the Recode Media podcast.

Spotify, which is heading toward an IPO, has 40 million paid subscribers, the company announced today. But Spotify’s chief revenue officer, Jeff Levick, is leaving the company, sources confirmed.

Levick joined Spotify five years ago, when the company was just starting to build out an advertising business; he had previously been at AOL and Google.

“Working hard is hard work. And, I truly believe if you want to be on a winning team, you need to be your hardest working self,” Levick wrote in a Medium post announcing his move. “So, in looking at another five years on team Spotify, it started to become clear that maybe a change is in order.”

Levick had previously reported to CEO Daniel Ek. Spotify says the ad sales team that used to report to Levick will now work under chief financial officer Barry McCarthy; the team that manages Spotify’s subscriber business will report to Ek.

Swedish publication Breakit first reported Levick’s departure.

Ek announced the new subscriber numbers via Twitter. Last week Apple said it had 17 million subscribers for its Apple Music service.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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