Runway’s Cris Valenzuela: Building The Video AI That OpenAI Couldn’t
Runway builds video models for Hollywood, amateur filmmakers and corporate types. Its Brooklyn-based CEO joins The Upstarts Podcast to share how he stands up to the big AI labs.
The ChatGPT craze was still years away when Chilean-born Cristóbal Valenzuela started tinkering on visual AI models with two classmates at an NYU lab in 2018.
Back then, investors weren’t sold — not just on their new video AI startup, Runway, but on generative AI altogether.
“There’s always doubt when you get 50 rejections,” Valenzuela says. “I’ve realized that building something special, you have to be able and willing to be non-consensus driven.”
Fast forward, and Runway works not just with many film studios and Hollywood, but creative teams and engineers at corporations like Allstate, Siemens and Robinhood. It’s had no recent trouble fundraising, reaching a $5.3 billion valuation. And it’s outlasted gen AI’s heavyweight, OpenAI, which recently shuttered its Sora app.
On our final episode of Season 1 of The Upstarts Podcast, we circle back with Cris — whom some Upstarts readers may recall spoke at our launch party in New York a year ago — for a special interview at the New York Stock Exchange. We’re both proud to building in the city (and Cris is the only guest we’ve run into on the street, totally by chance, in the days before filming).
On the show, he talks about his origins working with artists at NYU’s program; what the big AI labs missed in video; how Runway works with expert and amateur filmmakers alike; and why he believes creators should look past the field’s controversy to embrace technology in their work.
Plus, he shares his Upstart Moment: collecting those rejection emails from top VCs and sharing them with the whole company to motivate his team..
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This season of The Upstarts Podcast is presented by Mercury: banking, redesigned from the ground up.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:32 Why world models matter
03:57 What OpenAI got wrong
06:32 Runway’s NYU origins
13:10 Like going to the gym
16:06 A fan at ‘The Late Show’
20:36 Cris’s Upstart Moment: VC doubts
25:30 Building at the speed of AI
30:28 Darren Aronofsky and amateur users
33:12 A new normal in filmmaking
39:05 Up next: Characters, robots and games
Just looking for the highlights? As always, we break down three startup lessons from the episode for paid subscribers below.
That’s a wrap on Season 1! If you want to unlock all of our past episode show notes and lessons, you can take 15% off an annual subscription here.
We have big plans for Season 2, and we want to hear from you! Please send us show ideas, including killer founder guest subjects, by responding to this email or pinging Alex directly. Thanks for watching and listening!
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