{"id":15761,"date":"2026-04-16T18:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T18:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itp.nyu.edu\/itp\/news-itp-alum-cristobal-valenzuela-ceo-of-runway-featured-in-post-n\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T18:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T18:50:09","slug":"news-itp-alum-cristobal-valenzuela-ceo-of-runway-featured-in-post-n","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itp.nyu.edu\/itp\/news-itp-alum-cristobal-valenzuela-ceo-of-runway-featured-in-post-n\/","title":{"rendered":"ITP Alum Crist\u00f3bal Valenzuela, CEO of Runway, Featured in Post Next 50"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Runway CEO and ITP alum\u00a0Crist\u00f3bal Valenzuela<\/b> was recently featured on The Washington Post’s Post Next 50<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence has created a firestorm in Hollywood, and Crist\u00f3bal Valenzuela is at the center of it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Depending on whom you ask, the AI video-generation company he leads, Runway AI, is either a dangerous force undermining the filmmaking profession, or the provider of tools that will unlock a new era of creativity and allow anyone with a computer to make feature-length films.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But Valenzuela\u2019s goals are even more ambitious. He sees AI as ushering in a completely new art form, one that we are only beginning to imagine. \u201cFilmmaking and photography wasn\u2019t a better version of doing oil and painting. It was a totally different medium of understanding the world,\u201d he said. \u201cAI is on a similar level. It\u2019s a new medium that requires a new sort of artist.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Valenzuela grew up in Santiago, Chile, where he started making home videos with his friends as a teenager. He paid his way through college building websites and shooting promo videos for businesses, devouring films he borrowed from the library in his free time. After graduation, he taught design at a university in Chile and started researching how AI algorithms could be used in art. In 2016, he moved to the United States to study at New York University\u2019s Tisch School of the Arts. He founded Runway with two classmates in 2018.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Runway was building AI video and image tools well before OpenAI launched ChatGPT and kicked off the AI boom in 2022. But the company has benefited from the massive wave of interest and funding in the technology. It has raised more than $540 million, inked deals with most of the major film studios and runs its own AI-focused film\u00a0festival.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, Valenzuela is pushing the company to go beyond the film industry. The AI world is obsessing over \u201cworld models\u201d \u2014 AI systems that can simulate sections of reality like an extremely detailed video game might. Beyond opening up new possibilities for entertainment, world models could lead to breakthroughs in robotics and make it possible to create training simulations that feel real for high-stakes professions like medicine or firefighting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Runway isn\u2019t alone. The industry\u2019s biggest players, including Google and OpenAI, are working on world models of their own. \u201cAI is basically eating Hollywood, and it will continue to eat video and entertainment really fast,\u201d Valenzuela said. \u201cBut video models are more than just technologies to make stories. They\u2019re becoming the next frontier of intelligence.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n