Obama gets a job offer, from Spotify

If President Barack Obama is still wondering what to do when he leaves office next week, he has a ready job offer — from Spotify. The world’s leading streaming service on Monday advertised an opening for “President of Playlists” — and said it was looking for someone with “at least eight years experience running a highly regarded nation”.

‘Someone with a Nobel’

If it wasn’t any more obvious whom Spotify was seeking for the New York-based position, it asked for an applicant with “good team spirit, excellent work ethic, a friendly and warm attitude and a Nobel Peace Prize”. The company said the President of Playlists would come up with songs to suit occasions from “shooting hoops with your friends” to warming up for an address on “health care legislation that bears your name”. The Swedish company’s CEO Daniel Ek revealed the tongue-in-cheek offer over Twitter after Mr. Obama was quoted as joking about a job at Spotify. Natalia Brzezinski, the wife of former U.S. Ambassador to Sweden Mark Brzezinski, wrote on Instagram that Mr. Obama told her at a White House reception last week that his 2013 visit to Stockholm was his “favourite trip.”. Mr. Obama was to close the book on his presidency on Tuesday, with a farewell speech in Chicago that was to try lift supporters felled by Donald Trump’s shock victory. Mr. Obama’s last trip on Air Force One was a pilgrimage to his adoptive hometown, where he was to address a sell-out crowd not far from where he accepted the presidency eight years ago. ‘Vision for country’

Lead speechwriter Cody Keenan said the address was to be about Mr. Obama’s vision for where the country should still go. “It’s not going to be like an anti-Trump speech, it’s not going to be a red meat, rabble rousing thing, it will be statesman-like but it will also be true to him,” Mr. Keenan told AFP. “It will tell a story.” — AFP