Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
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?
00:21:25 · Alexa von Tobel, Cristóbal Valenzuela
[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? [00:21:35] S0: Oh, there there are many. I think, I recently crossed a threshold where, I I have three brothers, and the three of them have been using Runway every day since the last... For the last couple of weeks. And that was, like, a nice surprising moment because they're not... I'm... One of my brothers... My brother works in, like, media and advertising, so I felt more of a natural fit for him to use it. But my two sisters are like an architect and like a teacher, and so I was never expecting them to use Runway, and now they use it every day. Which is, which is great. Like my sister is using it to like teach classes and help their students like engage with content. My sister is like visualizing like the designs she's been doing for her clients. [00:22:14] S1: Wow.
00:22:14 · Alexa von Tobel, Cristóbal Valenzuela
[00:22:14] S1: Wow. [00:22:14] S0: And you have like hundreds, if not thousands, probably like millions of use cases that are similar to that, which are things you've, you might not even like consider are useful because they're different from your day to day like world. But they're very useful for many people. I mean, have use cases of Runway for for music videos, for like learning, for medical teaching. There's like people using it for architecture, for design, for filmmaking, for for many other things that I think we never thought of when we started, but that's kind of the point. It means that these general purpose systems are becoming more usable as the models have progressed. And so probably there's still a long way to go. [00:22:54] S1: As these tools that you're building continue to improve, and obviously, there's sort of a asymmetric curve in terms of just the power and the potential. It's gonna continue to get better faster. But what performs best today in the Runway algorithms? Like, what... What's working extremely well? [00:23:17] S0: What do you mean in terms of products. [00:23:19] S1: What type of video creation? Like, give us some of the examples of things that are just kind of stunningly beautiful and powerful.
00:23:19 · Alexa von Tobel, Cristóbal Valenzuela
[00:23:19] S1: What type of video creation? Like, give us some of the examples of things that are just kind of stunningly beautiful and powerful. [00:23:27] S0: Well, I mean, it's hard. I mean, it's... The models are very flexible. They can do a lot of different things and different art styles. I think long form content is becoming more feasible. Like, we used to create, like, again, like, single images and, like, shorter videos and then longer form content. Now I think artistically it's less of a problem. I think the con the pro the, the biggest challenges you can think of like consistent forms and styles, not being solved, but being very close to solve. What's the hardest days is motion and physics and consistency in like long form content. That's, I would say that where we need to put perhaps the most research on time to make sure it works as, as it should. [00:24:06] S1: Can you imagine a future where someone sitting on Runway, like, wins a solo Oscar? Like, is that Yeah. [00:24:14] S0: Absolutely. That's, like, hopefully a couple years away from now, hopefully less. [00:24:20] S1: I were that early small investor in Suno AI, and they... You know, people started creating literally award winning content and music. So I imagine the analogies here are very similar. Are we there? Like, could that happen right now almost?