Spotify's former podcast boss calls out the company for setting 'money on fire' with costly celeb deals

• Spotify 'lit money on fire' with celeb podcasting deals, says the former boss of its podcast studio.
• Lydia Polgreen, formerly managing director of Gimlet Media, criticized Spotify's decision to cancel two hit podcasts.

Spotify "lit money on fire" with celebrity podcast deals, says a former exec at Spotify's podcast studio Gimlet Media.

Lydia Polgreen, a New York Times columnist and former managing director of Gimlet Media, criticized the company's decision to cancel its "Heavyweight" and "Stolen" podcasts.

"If you can't make a go of it with these incredible shows you are simply bad at podcasting," she wrote in a now-deleted Threads post.

"There were a million ways a company with Spotify's resources could have figured out to make this kind of work sustainable and it did not do that," she added. "Instead it lit money on fire by handing it to the Sussexes and other celebrities with nothing to say."

Polgreen did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for additional comment, and Spotify declined to comment.

The cancelation of the critically acclaimed "Heavyweight" and "Stolen" podcasts, first reported by Bloomberg's Ashley Carman, follows Spotify's recent layoffs. The company announced Monday that it's laying off roughly 1,500 employees, or about 17% of its workforce.

"Economic growth has slowed dramatically and capital has become more expensive," CEO Daniel Ek wrote in a blog post announcing the layoffs. "Spotify is not an exception to these realities."

The company also slashed about 200 roles from its podcasting division in June.

The company has spent more than $1 billion on its podcasting ambitions, making deals with high-profile names like Kim Kardashian, Emma Chamberlain, Barack and Michelle Obama, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.