2025 has been a breakthrough year for AI video. In this episode of the MAD Podcast, Matt Turck sits down with Cristóbal Valenzuela, CEO & Co-Founder of Runway, to explore how AI is reshaping the future of filmmaking, advertising, and storytelling - faster, cheaper, and in ways that were unimaginable even a year ago.

Cris and Matt discuss:

* How AI went from memes and spaghetti clips to IMAX film festivals.

* Why Gen-4 and Aleph are game-changing models for professionals.

* How Hollywood, advertisers, and creators are adopting AI video at scale.

* The future of storytelling: what happens to human taste, craft, and creativity when anyone can conjure movies on demand?

* Runway’s journey from 2018 skeptics to today’s cutting-edge research lab.

If you want to understand the future of filmmaking, media, and creativity in the AI age, this is the episode.

Runway

Website - https://runwayml.com

X/Twitter - https://x.com/runwayml

Cristóbal Valenzuela

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cvalenzuelab

X/Twitter - https://x.com/c_valenzuelab

FIRSTMARK

Website - https://firstmark.com

X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap

Matt Turck (Managing Director)

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/

X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck

(00:00) Intro

(01:51) AI Film Festival Growth: 300 to 6,000 Submissions

(03:17) Selling Out Lincoln Center & IMAX Screenings

(04:04) Hollywood's Evolution: From ignoring AI to adopting it at scale

(08:29) Beyond Filmmaking: The Camera Analogy

(11:43) How Professionals Adapt to the New Creative Process

(13:21) Breaking Old Workflows: Generate 10,000 Videos at Once

(14:23) What Makes Someone Great at AI Video Creation

(15:38) Early Days: Building with Conviction When Everyone Said No

(17:59) First Product: Photoshop Plugins and Sketch Integrations

(19:16) From GANs to Transformers: The Technology Evolution

(20:28) Stable Diffusion Drama and Moving Forward

(20:35) Product-Market Fit Moment: Gen-2 Launch

(22:00) Building Research Team fromthe Ground Up

(23:30) Making Researchers and Product People Work Together

(24:31) Gen-4 & Aleph: Same Model, Different Applications

(26:03) In-Context Learning: Models Teaching Themselves

(27:17) Specialized Models: Act-1 for Character Performance

(28:04) One UI for All Verticals: No Customization Needed

(29:06) Principles Over Verticals: The New Software Paradigm

(30:40) Input Modalities: Beyond Text Prompts

(32:32) Annotating Videos: Professional Workflow Integration

(33:12) Quality Control: Creative Teams Working with Research

(34:01) Managing Expectations: The Camera vs Nolan Comparison

(36:42) Current State of AI Video: What Works vs What Doesn't

(38:24) Rendering vs Control: The Two-Phase Problem

(38:42) From Will Smith Spaghetti to Professional Quality

(40:15) No Single Breakthrough: Just Time and Persistence

(40:33) Gen-4 Architecture: Art vs Science of Model Building

(41:36) Training Timeline: Couple Months for New Models

(43:19) Infrastructure Edge: Building Everything from Scratch

(44:56) Data Strategy: Partnerships and Quality Curation

(46:07) Synthetic Data: Emerging but Challenging

(46:36) Open Source Strategy: Staying Focused for Now

(47:25) Real-Time 3D Worlds: Already Here, Unit Economics Matter

(50:09) New Medium: Beyond Linear Films and Structured Games

(50:52) Hyper-Personalization: Different Experience, Not Replacement

(52:14) Business Model: 99% Inbound Growth Strategy

(54:24) Customs Officer Knows Runway: Brand Recognition Growth

(55:12) Pricing Strategy: $79 Unlimited vs Enterprise API

(56:30) Full-Stack Advantage: 40–70% Margins vs Negative

(57:35) Google Veo Competition: Validation, Not Fear

(59:22) Speed and Obsession Beat Resources and PhDs

(01:00:00) Be Open-Minded: Technology Changes Everything

(01:01:21) Organizations as AI Models: Constant Learning

(01:03:13) Success Through Caring: Five Years of Fun

AI Video’s Wild Year – Runway CEO on What’s Next

The MAD Podcast with Matt Turck