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# We Are Hunted’s Stephen Phillips On The Limits Of Music Discovery [INTERVIEW]
- URL: https://www.hypebot.com/founder-stephen-phillips-on-the-limits-of-music-discovery-the-future-of-we-are-hunted/
- Published: 2013-02-14T11:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2013-02-14T11:30:00.000Z
- Description: By freelance writer Tyler Hayes of Liisten.com (@thealbumproject). Is 2013 the year when Music Discovery breaks into the mainstream? It seems like services are finally realizing they need a good. Continue reading [https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2013/02/founder-stephen-phillips-on-the-limits-of-musi
- Author: admin
- Tags: DIY Advice & Tips, Music Business, Music Tech, Startups & Funding, Founder, Stephen Phillips, We Are Hunted, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-01-21 10:49

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By freelance writer [Tyler Hayes](http://liisten.com/?ref=hypebot.com) of [Liisten.com](http://liisten.com/?ref=hypebot.com) ([@thealbumproject](https://twitter.com/thealbumproject?ref=hypebot.com)).

**Is 2013 the year when Music Discovery breaks into the mainstream? It seems like services are finally realizing they need a good discovery aspect to**  
**their music offering. Is that your sense or have you been seeing**  
**something else?**  

> I am not sure what music discovery ‘going mainstream’ would look like.  
> If it means people start using a dedicated app to find new music,  
> separate from their music player, maybe that will happen. It would  
> have to be a very special app!  
>  
> People who care about music enough to consider discovery a real  
> problem, are a very small niche. Maybe 10M fans worldwide. They are a  
> small segment of a larger group of people, you could consider serious  
> music fans. People who use products like Spotify. People who attend  
> live shows. People who care enough about music to have particular  
> tastes, or demand choice in what they listen to. The truth is that the  
> great majority of music listeners simply do not care. They listen to  
> what they are told to listen to.  
>  
> This may be Spotify’s big problem. They might become the player of  
> choice for serious music fans, and still be many millions of customers  
> short of what they need to justify their valuation. Their current  
> redesign might be seen as a pivot to become a broader social network.  
> I sure they have a grand plan in play. You have to be impressed by  
> their team, who continue to ship great products. It is my favorite  
> music service right now.  
>  
> Consider the three biggest music services in the world right now,  
> YouTube, iTunes and Pandora. They are so big, nothing else really  
> matters. Their discovery is driven by editorial. Youtube might look  
> algorithmic, but I suspect Vevo editorial has a big say on what people  
> listen to next. And there is nothing wrong with that at all. People  
> need someone to point the way forward. Music journalism has always  
> been one of the coolest things in the business. People with great  
> taste in music, and the passion to express themselves, are becoming  
> more and more important.

**Does music discovery have to have a human component to be really**  
**good or can raw data provide the same level of recommendation?**

> Music discovery is all about harvesting human taste. Software cannot  
> analyze a song and accurately predict whether you will like it. That  
> type of sophistication is many generations into the future. Music  
> taste is too subtle and intangible. We work on simpler problems than  
> that.  
>  
> Consider a music discovery service, that can provide every customer  
> with 24/7 access to a real live music expert. This person knows  
> exactly what type of music you like. She has the job of keeping up  
> with all the cool new music, and providing perfect, personalized  
> recommendations to you, on demand. How would you build such as a  
> service?  
>  
> To me the answer to this problem, is not an algorithm or smart AI that  
> simulates a music expert. The solution is more achievable than that.  
> How do I write software that scours the web to find music experts? How  
> do I classify their tastes? How do I scale their recommendations? How  
> do I match these experts to customers?  
>  
> These are problems that are solvable with today’s tech. And there are  
> a lot of different approaches. Pandora’s genome is one way. Napster  
> had a cool friend feature that people loved. Rdio is building social  
> elements into their service. At We Are Hunted, we think we have  
> discovered a unique way of doing things. A method that is especially  
> good at doing one particular type of recommendation, that happens to  
> be the most valuable.  
>  
> I think it’s cool that no one really knows what we do at We Are  
> Hunted. We have been criticized for not being transparent, but I don’t  
> care. We change and adapt our approach so often, that any explanation  
> would be wrong very quickly. Some people think we are simply a group  
> of music nerds who read all the blogs and pick our favorite tunes each  
> day. Others think we have some magical math that can predict the  
> future. The truth is that we combine both technology and editorial, in  
> a simple, practical way.  
>  
> We have a lone music editor, who works with artists, to make sure we  
> are representing them correctly. He also provides a common sense check  
> on our data. At it’s core, We Are Hunted is a software company. Every  
> day we work to improve the software that powers our service. Every day  
> we strive to improve the recommendations we make.

**What voices online are shaping your musical opinions?**

> The Lefsetz Letter is really cool. I am a big fan. I had the pleasure  
> of an email engage with him when we launched a few years ago, but he  
> would not remember that. I really enjoy reading his perspective on  
> music and tech. To me, he speaks for a whole generation of traditional  
> music fans and industry insiders, adjusting to the new way of doing  
> business. The industry they know and love has changed forever. He  
> seems to appreciate that this is nothing new. Music is reborn through  
> revolution and reinvention. Everyone I know is working hard to help  
> the industry grow and prosper, to be a place where creativity is  
> honored, and talent is justly rewarded.

**What are your feelings on piracy? Has it been talked to death and over exaggerated?**

> I think the issue gets much more air time that it deserves. Extreme  
> points of view on both sides make it difficult. It doesn’t seem right  
> for someone to profit from the talents of others, without contributing  
> some significant value themselves. Yet it also doesn’t seem right to  
> punish music fans for doing what we all want them to do; share the  
> music they love. I am no expert at all on piracy, but it feels like  
> we are moving in the right direction. Give the fans great music and  
> easy to use services at a reasonable price. If we make it easy to  
> consume, people will buy it. Convenience will win the day.

**What’s coming up for We Are Hunted? Any peek into the next big thing**  
**the company is up to? Anything you can share?**

> 2013 will be a huge year for Hunted. We will either become one of the  
> world’s most important music services, or we will disappear as a  
> footnote in the long history of music startups. We are working on the  
> next version of Hunted right now, and we are swinging for the fences.  
> I think we are doing things no one has ever done. I see the data we  
> are collecting, and I know we are going to give fans a view of music  
> world no one has ever seen before. We really hope people love it.

[We Are Hunted](http://wearehunted.com/?ref=hypebot.com)

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