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Global Music Programs, TikTok 

When he got a course survey card on his first day in Laura Kornish’s marketing class, William Gruger was pretty sure no one would read what he wrote. So he described the “soul-crushing internship” he’d just completed that left him unsure of his future plans. Turns out, Professor Kornish reads every card, which is how William found himself in her office later that week. 

“She asked what I wanted to do, and I told her I was interested in the music business,” he said.  “That turned into an introduction to Alex White,” who co-founded Next Big Sound, in Boulder. “Long story short, I asked him if I could work for him—and that internship has opened literally every door I’ve come across since.”

That internship didn’t pay a salary, but it paid big dividends when Next Big Sound became the data provider for the charts at Billboard—which, like other industry players, was growing to adapt to the changes technology introduced to how people find and consume music. 

“I was told early on as a student at CU that the job I would have in the future probably didn’t exist yet—and wow, did that end up being true,” William said. “At Billboard, I found myself at the place—at the source of the data—where the music industry was changing from measuring artists based on radio play and sales to the sum of what people were consuming and participating in via creator platforms on the internet.”  

His work had him documenting trends and writing stories for Billboard that were very different from the magazine’s past work. He wrote about trends like the Harlem Shake or “Gangnam Style,” which were bigger hits on YouTube and streaming platforms than on the radio. 

“It was when people were consuming music on the internet in the first real way, and I was one of the earliest people documenting that change,” he said.

In addition to Billboard, where he was associate director of charts, social and streaming, William’s career has included stops at Twitter-owned Vine, the original short-form video app, and Tidal, the streaming service Jay-Z bought in 2015, before winding up on the music team TikTok. At TikTok, he was promoted to his current role from music editorial lead for the United States; “now, I’m part of a team focused on scaling out editorial operations and music programming functions globally.” 

From that seat, he’s seen huge shifts in the music industry. As more sophisticated creator platforms like YouTube and Instagram became prominent, much about the industry—the ways music is consumed, what it meant to be a musician and how to get discovered—started to change. Ask William who he’s following on TikTok, and he’ll rattle off a list of artists who fit that bill—artists like Lil Yachty, Charli XCX, A$AP Ferg, and Lil Nas X, who’ve built substantial followings that have improved their influence. 

“You can’t just be a good singer,” William said. “The music economy has built itself up around people who can act as creators and build ecosystems around them. You need to be an entertainer as well as a singer.”