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The Luba Show · Monday · 1 hr 32 min

Inside Runway's $5.3B Playbook

Today I walk with Anastasis Germanidis, co-founder and co-CEO of Runway (https://runway.com). Anastasis met his co-founders at NYU's ITP art program, built Runway into an AI video company doing over $200M in annual recurring revenue at a $5.3B valuation, and recently acquired the Paris-based Kinetix team into Runway, and now he's pushing Runway's video models into world models for robotics and software. He gets into the hour of existential crisis after OpenAI launched Sora, and how the team shipped a better model within a few months. ​ We get into: - How Runway accidentally built one of the best models for robotics by teaching a video model to predict pixels - Why he defines AGI as something that can never be reached, and why folding clothes is still harder for AI than the tasks people call complex - The 2022 call to drop the entire product and build 30 magic tools in 30 days - OpenAI's Sora launch, the hour the company asked if it could compete, and shipping Gen-3 at CVPR a few months later - Why proof of work beats credentials and big-lab resumes when Runway hires so much more! ​ 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Trailer (01:21) Anastasis Germanidis, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Runway (02:27) Accidentally building one of the best robotics models (03:04) The camera control that led to world models (07:18) How video models train robots and self-driving cars (10:47) What a world model actually is (12:10) Pitching world models to a 30-person team in 2023 (16:19) Why folding clothes is still unsolved for AI (17:37) Why AGI can never be reached (19:13) Learning to code from his sister's professor (22:03) A game built on Nietzsche's eternal recurrence (30:35) Starting an AI company from art school (35:44) The book every Runway hire gets (39:47) Why staying in stealth is counterproductive (42:03) 30 magic tools in 30 days (46:01) Keeping the team smaller than it should be (52:35) Fueled by being underestimated (55:55) Sora's launch and an hour of existential crisis (57:02) Racing to beat Sora in three months (1:01:56) Solaris and software generated in real time (1:05:15) Why AI labs pay for fake versions of Amazon (1:08:27) Video requests cost 100x more tokens than LLMs (1:09:52) Why Sora struggled as a consumer app (1:16:30) Hiring on proof of work (1:19:44) Becoming co-CEO with Cristóbal Valenzuela (1:21:21) The cost of being a full-stack AI company (1:29:39) Would he live the same life again (1:30:56) What he's still becoming (1:32:52) Outro Follow Anastasis LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/agermanidis X: https://x.com/agermanidis Website: https://runway.com Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

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Today I walk with Anastasis Germanidis, co-founder and co-CEO of Runway (https://runway.com). Anastasis met his co-founders at NYU's ITP art program, built Runway into an AI video company doing over $200M in annual recurring revenue at a $5.3B valuation, and recently acquired the Paris-based Kinetix team into Runway, and now he's pushing Runway's video models into world models for robotics and software. He gets into the hour of existential crisis after OpenAI launched Sora, and how the team shipped a better model within a few months.
​
We get into:

- How Runway accidentally built one of the best models for robotics by teaching a video model to predict pixels

- Why he defines AGI as something that can never be reached, and why folding clothes is still harder for AI than the tasks people call complex

- The 2022 call to drop the entire product and build 30 magic tools in 30 days

- OpenAI's Sora launch, the hour the company asked if it could compete, and shipping Gen-3 at CVPR a few months later

- Why proof of work beats credentials and big-lab resumes when Runway hires

so much more!
​
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Trailer
(01:21) Anastasis Germanidis, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Runway
(02:27) Accidentally building one of the best robotics models
(03:04) The camera control that led to world models
(07:18) How video models train robots and self-driving cars
(10:47) What a world model actually is
(12:10) Pitching world models to a 30-person team in 2023
(16:19) Why folding clothes is still unsolved for AI
(17:37) Why AGI can never be reached
(19:13) Learning to code from his sister's professor
(22:03) A game built on Nietzsche's eternal recurrence
(30:35) Starting an AI company from art school
(35:44) The book every Runway hire gets
(39:47) Why staying in stealth is counterproductive
(42:03) 30 magic tools in 30 days
(46:01) Keeping the team smaller than it should be
(52:35) Fueled by being underestimated
(55:55) Sora's launch and an hour of existential crisis
(57:02) Racing to beat Sora in three months
(1:01:56) Solaris and software generated in real time
(1:05:15) Why AI labs pay for fake versions of Amazon
(1:08:27) Video requests cost 100x more tokens than LLMs
(1:09:52) Why Sora struggled as a consumer app
(1:16:30) Hiring on proof of work
(1:19:44) Becoming co-CEO with Cristóbal Valenzuela
(1:21:21) The cost of being a full-stack AI company
(1:29:39) Would he live the same life again
(1:30:56) What he's still becoming
(1:32:52) Outro

Follow Anastasis
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/agermanidis
X: https://x.com/agermanidis
Website: https://runway.com

Follow Luba
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/
X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

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