Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:16:01 · Mikey Shulman, Alexa von Tobel
[00:16:01] S0: Honestly, I think it's just because we liked it. We, like... We were doing a little bit. Maybe 10 of what we were doing at S and P was audio related around earnings call transcription. And we just realized, like, this is messy and annoying, but we freaking love it. And so it was... It wasn't... I don't know if there was, like, a first principles thing. It was, like, just this realization that, like, we will keep doing this, and we like it, and no one else likes doing it, and this can be very, very big, and everybody's just, you know, overlooking this maybe because it's less sexy somehow than than text. And I think that proved true in the long run. [00:16:37] S1: Got it. Let's quickly talk. So for those who are not part of the now 100,000,000 plus users of Suno, which is incredible growth by the way. I you've gone from zero in revenue when we invested to 200,000,000 plus and and I'm sure that number is already changed. A few quick stats because this is crazy. Suno was founded. I really call it 2022 released to the public in 2023, and in less than three years, 7,000,000 tracks are generated a day. And, obviously, you just raised it almost a $2,500,000,000 valuation. What's happening, Mikey? Like, let's just start. What is happening?
00:17:20 · Mikey Shulman
[00:17:20] S0: A lot is happening. I think slowly people are realizing that music is special and can be a bigger part of their lives. And I think that... I see a lot of AI products that present themselves as party tricks. It's like I can do this thing and it looks really cool, and maybe I'll try it three times and I'll never do it again. And what has happened in the last two years is we've slowly graduated, I would say, from a party trick where you can type a few words into a text box and out comes a song that is like, okay, to backing that up with this incredible experience that you wanna keep doing and doing. And so what happens is people experience that party trick, they realize there's a lot more. They start writing their own lyrics. They start humming their own melodies. They start playing with their music the way it was kind of intended to be played with. And then they start sharing these songs that they've made for people in this super high intent way, and that, like, really deepens human connection. And so it is, like, one of the best feelings when you send somebody a piece of art, a song, and and I say, hey, Alexa, I I really think you're gonna like this song. And you listen to it, and you're like, yeah, I like that song. And now when you've... I feel really good when I, you know, kinda feel like a taste maker. When I've made the song and I send it to you, that feeling is amplified by 10 or a 100 times. So it is only natural, I think, that once you develop these technologies and you put them in people's hands, that they love using them. You know? It's like, it shouldn't actually be all that surprising. Maybe it is, you know, like, a little bit crazy, but, like, this is what music was invented for. And so, like, in hindsight, we're actually not all that surprised by this.
00:19:03 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:19:03] S1: I wanna just, like, share something that I thought was pretty cool. So right now, you have artists like Xania Monet who became the first AI supported song act to debut on a Billboard radio chart and has over a 100,000,000 global streams since her debut in July. I mean, it's not just that you're creating music that people are enjoying and having fun with. Like, it's winning awards. What are you observing right now? I mean, this is... We're breaking some boundaries here, Mikey, that are pretty interesting.
00:19:40 · Mikey Shulman
[00:19:40] S0: This is definitely a new era. It is an exciting one. It is a very dynamic one. Things change very quickly. I think this is an incredible story of Nikki, who is the the lady behind Xania Monet, who is an incredible poet, who has now found a new way to share her work with the world by turning her amazing poetry into songs that really touch people in a significant way, and you see that in in how popular her music has become. But in some sense, it's not all that new. And if you rewind, let's say, thirty years and digital production of music started to come out. And so before, you could only make music in a studio on a giant console, and it was really hard and cost a lot of money. And then a lot of money. Yeah. And now you can make music on your laptop. And everybody said, this isn't real music. And everybody said, like, what's going on here? And then you start to discover 13 year olds making amazing music in their bedrooms, and new genres of music like EDM get invented or created, whatever you wanna say. New stars get found who are... Would never have been found before because they were too young or they were in their parents' basements or whatever it was. Right? Like, they weren't in the mainstream. And I think this is very similar. New people have access to making music. New types of music will get made. New genres will get created. You will find music that you would never have otherwise found before, and that's actually amazing for the entire ecosystem. And then I think the thing that's important is that we keep an open mind here because if you rewind thirty years ago when EDM started to to be a thing or when electronic music and electronic production started to be a thing, at the time everybody said, okay. Okay. Fine. Maybe it's music. But who in their right mind is gonna go to a concert just to see someone click play on their laptop? Like, that sounds really stupid. And fast forward to today, the biggest concerts in the world are these giant electronic music festivals where you're more or less watching somebody click play on their laptop. And I I think we have to be, like, a little bit open minded and humble about, like, what can become here because it's, like, largely counterintuitive how all of these things play out. And just to realize that people thought it would cheapen music by being able to make it on your laptop.
00:21:53 · Mikey Shulman, Alexa von Tobel
And actually, the result is hundreds of thousands of people at a time connect with one another in real life through that music. And so the... I'm very excited for what is going to happen. I don't think I know what is gonna happen, but I'm very excited. [00:22:08] S1: Mikey, just because music is obviously something I think we all love. Right? It is it is very, very innate to to to us as a species. We we love music. It lifts us. It's emotional. It's surprising. As somebody who's music obsessed, which I would say most people on the planet probably describe themselves as being pretty music obsessed. What are some of the stories that you have seen that have just... And and I know what a sincere human you are personally. What are the stories that have sort of motivated you guys as a team? Give us some of the few... Give give us a few nuggets of things that you've just been really impressed or surprised by.
00:22:48 · Mikey Shulman
[00:22:48] S0: Yeah. Look. I wish I could open my inbox for you and just show you all of them. Some of them are, like, honestly, like, too deep and touching to talk about in public. But things like we've partnered with a charity who was already using Suno, and, basically, we're just giving them a lot of free credits now. But amazing work of connecting volunteers to make personalized songs for sick kids. Like, this is amazing, and this is something that will brighten the day of a child with a serious illness. Or tons and tons of people who are re picking up their instruments that they put down twenty years ago because they found Suno, and they were reminded how much they love to make music, and maybe they played at a really high level, and they put it down when they got to college, and now they're picking it back up. Something like that. Or somebody taking the poetry of, you know, an aging relative and turning that into a song and having their whole family connect through it. And these are incredible moments. They are what get us out of bed. They are what motivate us to keep doing what we're doing. And then again, I think in some sense, surprising. In another sense, almost obvious. Like, this is what music was... I don't want to say invented for, but this is sort of what music was invented for. It's like, it's part of every culture. It is meant to tell stories. It is meant to bring people together, and it is meant to be for everybody. And so when you factually finally put it in the hands of everybody, it's almost not surprising that there are so many surprising use cases. And, yes, it's also incredible when we find out that our favorite artists and producers are using it.