Spotify loses a top Echo Nest data scientist

brian-whitmanBrian Whitman has departed Spotify. He joined the streaming company as a co-founder and CTO of The Echo Nest, which Spotify acquired in 2014. In a blog post announcing the change, Whitman said he was leaving to work on new projects.

The Echo Nest is a music data company started in 2005. After joining forces with Spotify, it helped supply recommendation tools for some of the service’s most popular features, including the Fresh Finds, Discover Weekly, Release Radar, and Daily Mix playlists.

“We’ve heavily invested in the future of discovery through research, machine learning, curation and data engineering, and there’s so many amazing things yet to come,” Whitman said. “We’ve made great strides increasing the diversity of styles and the musicians themselves that people are listening to through careful editorial & algorithmic approaches.”

Anna Washenko