Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:14:53 · Alexa von Tobel, Cristóbal Valenzuela
[00:14:53] S1: That's really well said, which is that, the shift from painting to photographs was a different medium, and now AI video generation is a fundamentally different medium. It is not you with your camcorder or you with your iPhone recording video. That's a great analogy of the mental shift that we have to think about. Maybe this is good time to ask this question, which is as... And I saw you once give a talk at a thesis event about the future, which is why I'm so excited to ask you more questions about the future. If the cost of creating content goes to effectively zero, right, it's becoming... And it's not just, you know, text content. It's truly long form, medium form video content can be generated really, you know, to near free almost. What does become scarce, and where does the value actually move? How do you think about that shift in value, Cristobal? [00:15:48] S0: Well, there's an argument to to be said that, like, there's no shift in value. Maybe I'll I'll rephrase the question, but, like... And I'll and I'll ask you. It's like what... When you go and watch a movie and you pay to go to a theater, why are you watching that movie? [00:16:01] S1: Because I wanna see the content. I'm... I wanna... I'm I'm going to see The Devil Wears Prada two in theater.
00:16:01 · Alexa von Tobel, Cristóbal Valenzuela
[00:16:01] S1: Because I wanna see the content. I'm... I wanna... I'm I'm going to see The Devil Wears Prada two in theater. [00:16:07] S0: Why? Why? Do you care which cameras were used in like making the the film with the... That particular like feature? You care about like the software that was used? No. If you go there for one thing and one thing only, which is you wanna be entertained. You wanna you wanna like the story. The value you're paying for that ticket is not rooted on the technicalities or the complexity or the budget the movie was like, the movie had. You just want to go because you feel it could be a good movie to watch and you, you, you like watching good movies. Right? So the value, the value is the story. Right? This doesn't change the equation. If I can have a 100 more people make a 100 more the devil's worst product kind of movies that you like watching, then you will watch them. You will find the time to watch them because that's, that's what you find valuable. I think the dynamics and the formula and the equation that's changing is how many more people can do that and, and, and how many people can tell their stories. The way we value them will still be the same. Like nothing will change, but now way more people are going to be able and are able to have the opportunity to tell you a story you couldn't do before, but you as a viewer are going to judge it with the same values that you had it before, which is, is it a good story or is it not? That I think will not change. And we've proven that history of the history of art that Sealz is the case.
00:17:32 · Alexa von Tobel, Cristóbal Valenzuela
[00:17:32] S1: Basically, I'm I'm gonna jump to a conclusion. We will have an explosion of content creation where... Because you put this incredible power of a... Almost an LA studio into the hands of a normal everyday person. But your point of the quality of what's created the story, the... Whether it's interesting or not, compelling or not, won't change. But when you maybe... And and, again, maybe you have a point of view. When you 10,000 x the volume of content, does that change its value? [00:18:09] S0: No. I don't think so. I think we just figure out ways of navigating and sorting through content better. And again, like you... I'll go to an extreme example, but the first ever storyteller was someone perhaps sitting in a cave telling someone else's story at night with like fingers and maybe drawings on the wall. And then suddenly someone was like, oh, we can actually take the fire and put in like four other caves. That same person will be like, woah, it's too many stories. We have like four people now telling stories. Right? It's like, we need to, there's a massive amount of how many you can be in four places at the same time, like stop this. [00:18:41] S1: Stop the caves.
00:18:41 · Alexa von Tobel, Cristóbal Valenzuela
[00:18:41] S1: Stop the caves. [00:18:42] S0: That, that same story has been told like dozens of times where like when, when publishing and books became like something that you could do at an industrial scale, that same reaction is like, well, how many books are you going to read? We have 4,000 books being published every single year. You... Do we need more books? Like does the value of book publishing will decrease? And I think the world is in a much better place when we're publishing millions of books these days. And of course you don't read them all, but like we, we have libraries and reviews and sorting and, and we have way more ideas coming out of the world because the tools that would enable you to tell those stories have become more accessible to people. And I think this is for me, this kind of the same point, which is it's another explosion of storytelling and the people who can tell stories. I don't think there's an optimal amount of content out there. That, that, that feels like a little bit, for me, like saying like, Hey, you know what? Like, we're gonna stop progress altogether. The amount of movies that we have now and content is the best, is the optimal. We, we can't do anymore else. And I, no, I think there's like way more like the, the demand for stories and, and, and, and sharing ideas of the world and perspectives of world is never ending. And I think hopefully more people will help to do it with technology.
00:19:57 · Alexa von Tobel, Cristóbal Valenzuela
[00:19:57] S1: Crisp, when you think about how you set out in 2018, you know, eight plus years ago now, to build the product and then to build the business model, first, tell us what is the business model of Runway, and how did you prioritize building this truly groundbreaking product, which is anybody can create incredibly high quality generative video? How did you think about balancing a business model and a way to pay the bills versus getting the product right? [00:20:31] S0: Well, I think those two things are... Should be intertwined. If you're building a good product, then, like, people are gonna pay for it, then you can pay the bills. Right? Like those two things should definitely like be connected somehow. The business model for us is very simple. If we help you make something that you think it's worth, you'll pay us and you'll help us pay for the bills for us to give you that. And so we charge for a subscription or for credits, but the value of the product comes from people being able to tell stories with it. And so that's why we host, for example, this film festival in, in, in New York and in LA every year that have highlight some of the best creations people are making with AI these days to showcase, like, the amount of creative explosion happening these days when it comes to, to Runway into AI. And I think we wanna see more of that. The business around it should be like, well, if we're succeeding at helping people be creative, then, there's probably like a nice, and sustainable price we can charge for that.
00:20:31 · Cristóbal Valenzuela, Alexa von Tobel
[00:20:31] S0: Well, I think those two things are... Should be intertwined. If you're building a good product, then, like, people are gonna pay for it, then you can pay the bills. Right? Like those two things should definitely like be connected somehow. The business model for us is very simple. If we help you make something that you think it's worth, you'll pay us and you'll help us pay for the bills for us to give you that. And so we charge for a subscription or for credits, but the value of the product comes from people being able to tell stories with it. And so that's why we host, for example, this film festival in, in, in New York and in LA every year that have highlight some of the best creations people are making with AI these days to showcase, like, the amount of creative explosion happening these days when it comes to, to Runway into AI. And I think we wanna see more of that. The business around it should be like, well, if we're succeeding at helping people be creative, then, there's probably like a nice, and sustainable price we can charge for that. [00:21:25] S1: When you think of some of the more surprising ways that Runway is being used, what are some of the ways that kind of surprised you to see the product in the wild?