#188 CEO and Co-Founder Synthesia, Victor Riparbelli w/ Josh Coyne: Gorilla in the Room

Grit

Guests: Victor Riparbelli, CEO and co-founder of Synthesia; and Josh Coyne, partner at Kleiner Perkins

When Victor Riparbelli wants to learn something, he’ll start with a YouTube video or a podcast: “I maybe buy the book on Amazon as like the fifth step,” the Synthesia CEO says. His company is trying to change the text-first (or text-only) way information is conveyed at work, making AI avatar-narrated videos to replace documents like customer profiles and HR manuals. Victor says that as the technology improves over many years, it could replace text entirely. “I think for most people, if they had a choice, they would probably prefer to watch video and listen to audio.”

In this episode, Victor, Josh, and Joubin discuss Seedcamp, Annie Case, Rubik’s Cubes, AI video dubbing, Instagram filters, emotive avatars, Ilya Fushman, Atlassian, Grammarly, the Gutenberg Parenthesis, European startups, email responsiveness, acqui-hires, and being “lonely at the top.”

Chapters:

• (01:33) - Loose screws
• (02:45) - How Victor and Josh met
• (04:35) - AI hype cycles
• (06:57) - What Synthesia does
• (08:22) - Copycats and competition
• (14:34) - Winner take all
• (16:38) - Synthesia’s origin story
• (21:36) - Category creation
• (23:41) - The next era of AI video
• (28:51) - The uncanny valley
• (30:07) - Watching videos at work
• (33:17) - Scaling video and audio content
• (37:45) - Emailing with Mark Cuban
• (45:15) - Battle scars
• (48:47) - Customer obsession
• (50:54) - Pressure to succeed
• (54:41) - Deep passion
• (57:16) - Who Synthesia is hiring

Links:

• Connect with Victor
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
• Connect with Josh
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [e-mail]
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
• This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm