Siqi Chen is the founder and CEO of Runway, an a16z and Initialized funded startup enabling operators to grasp their enterprise while not having a level in finance. As an operator and founder, he served because the CEO of Sandbox VR (a16z), VP of Product and Progress at Postmates (later acquired by Uber), CEO of Hey, Inc (Google-funded, acquired by Postmates), Head of Product at Zynga (IPO 2011) and CEO of Severe Enterprise (funded by Lightspeed, acquired by Zynga).
Along with his operational roles, Siqi is an investor in almost 100 firms, together with notable names like ElevenLabs, Amplitude, Pipe, and Proprietor.com. Previous to his entrepreneurial ventures, Siqi made vital contributions at NASA JPL, the place he achieved the excellence of being the only recipient of a Congressional Area Act award whereas nonetheless at school. This recognition was a results of his contributions to machine imaginative and prescient know-how on the Mars Exploration Rovers.
Are you able to clarify the idea of ‘ambient intelligence’ and how it differentiates Runway from other AI-driven financial platforms?
Ambient Intelligence is a completely new expression of how AI can be used in products.
Most products treat AI as a separate creature right now—it’s both an agent working by itself, or a chat interface it’s important to discuss to. These are the default experiences, however there’s one other option to do it: by making the AI invisible.
In case you take a look at how individuals truly use AI at work, GitHub Copilot might be probably the most extensively used instrument. It isn’t a separate chatbot or agent. It’s extra delicate, and so deeply embedded in GitHub’s platform that it simply makes what you’re doing sooner and extra environment friendly. With the present capabilities of AI fashions, that type of seamless integration is a significantly better expression of AI.
Apple did the identical factor with its newest iOS announcement at WWDC. They didn’t add separate brokers or chatbots. They only constructed AI into their workflows, so it may resolve math equations as you sort them or summarize textual content in real-time.
That’s how AI must be expressed: as a instrument for thought, working quietly within the background. At Runway, we name it Ambient Intelligence.
We agree with Joel Spolsky, who labored on Microsoft Excel, and as soon as stated: “Google uses Bayesian filtering the way Microsoft uses the IF statement.” That’s how deeply ingrained know-how must be in a workflow.
It’s the identical with AI. 4 years in the past, we thought of calling ourselves “CFO.ai.” We have been suggested towards it as a result of calling our product “AI-powered” would quickly sound as dated as labeling it “powered by AJAX” or “powered by AWS.” All know-how ultimately turns into outdated, so the main focus must be on enhancing consumer expertise as a substitute.
In Runway, AI is deeply embedded in workflows and doesn’t must be prompted. It mechanically explains what your mannequin does or why your actuals are completely different out of your forecast. That’s what we imply by Ambient Intelligence—an expression of AI that’s a local a part of your workflow, so it enhances all the pieces you do and makes you go sooner.
What impressed you to create Runway, and what key challenges in monetary planning are you aiming to handle with this platform?
In 2020, once I was the CEO of Sandbox VR, our income dropped to zero after the COVID-19 pandemic hit. No one knew how lengthy the pandemic would final, so we wanted to create a number of contingency plans for emergency funding—starting from 3 months to 2 years.
We needed to create these situations manually in Google Sheets, utilizing e-mail and Slack to collaborate. It was such a clunky and error-prone course of, that I requested my CFO if there was a greater instrument for this activity. He stated: “No, this is it.” I couldn’t imagine it. We had instruments like Notion, Figma, and Airtable, however nothing constructed particularly for finance.
Everybody discovered finance—and by extension, enterprise—obscure. However nobody had solved that drawback. So I requested myself a easy query: what if everybody may perceive how their enterprise truly works? That’s why I began Runway.
Our objective is to make enterprise accessible and comprehensible to everybody. Runway reveals how all features, from gross sales and advertising and marketing to product and engineering, match collectively. It offers groups a transparent, shared understanding of the enterprise, to allow them to align on strategic choices and create extra influence.
Ambient Intelligence goes additional. As a result of it’s deeply embedded in Runway, it makes your work clearer, higher, and sooner. It mechanically offers useful context, and surfaces deep insights that can assist you make higher choices effortlessly.
How does Runway’s Ambient Intelligence proactively assist finance groups with out being intrusive?
The quick reply: by not turning AI right into a separate creature—like an agent or a chatbot—that it’s important to work together with.
Ambient Intelligence is invisible; it’s a part of your on a regular basis expertise with Runway. It really works quietly within the background, with out interrupting. It’s constructed into the platform, so it may anticipate intent and assist you with out being prompted. In the identical method the GitHub Copilot autocompletes your code, or Apple Intelligence solves formulation as you write them, Runway’s Ambient Intelligence makes your work clearer, sooner, and extra environment friendly.
What which means is you don’t must hint a driver by means of your complete mannequin to grasp the way it connects with all the pieces else—we simply let you know that, in plain English. You don’t must examine in case your actuals match your forecast—we spotlight deviations and assist you perceive what occurred. All of that occurs mechanically—Ambient Intelligence doesn’t make any modifications to your mannequin or situations, and doesn’t must be informed which context or perception is most related to you within the second. It simply does the job.
May you elaborate on the ‘Driver Explanations’ feature and how it enhances understanding across the organization?
In any business model, the drivers are interconnected and form a complex network. That means you have to trace a driver through the entire model to understand how it’s calculated and what it impacts.
The way in which individuals do this at present is by digging by means of spreadsheets and tracing all the pieces manually. Understanding a single components is just not sufficient; it’s important to understand how one driver impacts others, and the way your entire community is structured. That’s the way you construct deep instinct concerning the enterprise and determine the levers you may pull.
Runway makes that simpler. Once you hover over a driver, we present you a transparent, concise, automatically-generated clarification that helps you perceive the way it works. You don’t must ask a chatbot what ‘Gross Margin’ is and how it fits into your model—we explain everything in plain English. That’s how ‘Driver Explanations’ work—seamlessly, invisibly, and mechanically, so everybody at your organization can perceive your mannequin.
Runway claims to show hours-long duties into seconds. Are you able to share particular examples or metrics that spotlight this enchancment
This was a quote from certainly one of our clients Andrew Maher, Head of Finance at Superhuman. Learn the total story right here.
“With Runway, we saw our efficiency skyrocket with a 50X to 100X improvement, turning hours-long tasks into seconds,” stated Andrew Maher, Head of Finance, Superhuman. “Complex financial models were distilled into clear, actionable insights, making it easier to respond quickly to key executives. Runway was like adding a touch of magic to our financial strategy, turning data into actionable intelligence—imagine having a co-pilot in finance that brings critical insights alongside number crunching.”
How does Runway’s integration with present enterprise instruments like accounting software program and CRM techniques improve its performance?
We provide you with a holistic understanding of your online business by pulling in each information and context.
Runway integrates with over 650 of the commonest instruments, and we transcend traditional integrations like common ledgers and HR techniques. We join with CRMs, databases, spreadsheets, and even challenge administration software program like Jira.
We imagine that finance is not nearly finance; it is about understanding how all the pieces within the firm matches and works collectively. By integrating with challenge administration instruments and databases, for instance, we join necessary context to your online business mannequin. This fashion, completely different departments work with a single supply of fact, and get a shared understanding of your online business.
How does Runway place itself towards rivals like conventional monetary planning instruments and different trendy AI-driven platforms?
Our core perception locations us in a completely completely different class from different monetary options.
The principle problem of contemporary finance is collaboration. However the concept finance must be collaborative isn’t new; it’s been round perpetually. And but, nobody has truly constructed a product that permits actual collaboration. Why is that?
As a result of conventional instruments solely assist you save time or provide you with extra management. That’s the place they cease. Our core perception is that this stuff are desk stakes. What trendy finance wants is one thing that helps everybody instantly and intuitively perceive how the enterprise works. Actual collaboration can solely occur as soon as everybody has that shared context.
It’s understanding that lies on the heart of this drawback. That’s what Runway solves for finance, product, gross sales, advertising and marketing, and each different crew.
To make enterprise comprehensible, we begin by connecting your information to necessary enterprise context and your roadmap. We use abstractions that really map to how individuals suppose. And folks don’t consider plans when it comes to numbers on a spreadsheet—they consider choices and timelines. So we present plans in a method that’s intuitive, and that everybody can simply play with. Anybody in your crew can modify these plans, and see how completely different choices would influence your mannequin. That’s how we ship a shared understanding of how your online business works.
Our deep deal with creating readability units us aside. Our clients, like Superhuman, AngelList and ConvertKit (quickly to be Package), are already seeing the distinction with Runway.
What methods are you using to keep up Runway’s aggressive edge and proceed its fast development available in the market?
We don’t compete with those that construct monetary merchandise for finance groups.
We have now clients in finance, however the core worth we ship is that this: actual collaboration throughout your entire group, pushed by true understanding.
We’re uniquely centered on creating deep, intuitive understanding. Our design and engineering efforts are centered on this single objective. Nobody else available in the market shares our stage of deal with fixing this particular drawback.
I don’t suppose we’ve any competitors in any respect. We’re enjoying a completely completely different recreation.
How do you envision the function of AI and ambient intelligence evolving within the finance business over the following 5 years?
As AI capabilities evolve, I feel we’ll see a significant shift in how work essentially will get carried out. Whereas I don’t suppose fashions are fairly there but, it’ll occur in a short time. When it does, we’ll see a major enhance within the quantity of leverage individuals have—one individual will do the work of ten, 100, or perhaps a thousand individuals.
Enterprises will leverage AI to get extra output with the identical headcount, and planning will turn out to be exponentially extra complicated. However individuals will nonetheless have to make strategic choices and perceive how the enterprise works—solely a lot sooner, and far more effectively than ever earlier than.
We’ll want radically higher instruments for thought simply to maintain up. Ambient Intelligence can allow that by enhancing human functionality effortlessly, with out getting in the best way.
As a CEO and AI influencer, what are your ideas on the broader implications of AI in enterprise planning and decision-making?
Let’s put aside AGI, ASI, and the concept of technological singularity for a second—as a result of in that world, the place AI does all the pieces and we’re all lounging by a pool, it’s a very completely different story.
Earlier than we attain that time, although, I feel we’ll see an exponential increase in human functionality—the place one individual can do the work of a whole bunch. Human output will attain unprecedented ranges, making companies and techniques rather more complicated. We’ll want AI to assist us perceive what’s taking place and to make smarter choices.
It’ll all go hand-in-hand—AI will drive elevated leverage, which in flip will add to the complexity of techniques. To handle elevated complexity, we’ll want much more superior instruments to additional improve human functionality.
Thanks for the good interview, readers who want to be taught extra ought to go to Runway.