Anastasis Germanidis is the Co-Founder & CTO at Runway, an applied AI research company shaping the next era of art, entertainment, and human creativity. Runway has raised $237m and was one of Time Magazine’s “100 most influential companies” in 2023. Runway has been a persistent viral sensation in recent years, and is behind many of the most famous AI demos online.
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In today’s episode we discuss:

The origins of Runway

The limitations of being “customer-driven” when building in AI

How Runway balances research development with product development

How goal-setting and planning is different for AI products

Advice for early-stage AI founders

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Referenced:

Containerization: https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/containerization/


Docker: https://www.docker.com/


Green screen tool by Runway: https://runwayml.com/green-screen/


Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/


Hugging Face Spaces: https://huggingface.co/spaces


Hugging Face Model Hub: https://huggingface.co/docs/hub/models-the-hub


Replicate: https://replicate.com/


Runway Gen-1: https://research.runwayml.com/gen1


Runway Gen-2: https://research.runwayml.com/gen2


Runway’s 30 AI Magic Tools: https://runwayml.com/ai-magic-tools/


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Where to find Anastasis Germanidis:

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/agermanidis


LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/agermanidis


Personal website: https://agermanidis.com/


Personal blog: https://blog.agermanidis.com/


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Where to find Todd Jackson:

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/tjack


LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddj0


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Where to find First Round Capital:

Website: https://firstround.com/


First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/


Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround


Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital


This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast


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Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction
(03:23) The unique story of how Runway's co-founders met
(08:27) The origins of Runway
(09:28) Forming the initial product
(13:55) Turning Runway into a company
(14:41)Approach to initial market segments
(18:53) Early-adopters
(21:20) The limitations of being “customer-driven”
(25:54) Forming a vocal community
(27:08) Fostering community
(29:05) The progression of Runway's tech and use-cases
(33:08) How they picked users for early release
(34:00) Expanding past the first 100 users of Gen-2
(35:33) Runway’s approach to safety and content moderation
(36:44) Balancing product development and research development
(43:51) Runway's org structure
(45:08) Goal-setting amidst constant change in AI
(46:50) Why Runway doesn't plan very far ahead
(50:26) Advice to early-stage AI founders
(53:11) Will AI replace video editors?
(55:04) When Runway had the most momentum
(56:49) Anastasis' #1 piece of advice