Adi Sideman - How AI Video will take over Hollywood (and YouTube!) - ep 178

Speaker A: This is insane. Like, it's insane. Not because it's so complicated. It wasn't that complicated. It's insane about how powerful it is and how many people are going to want to use it.

Speaker B: This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not investment, legal or financial advice. Opinions are those of the host and guests and do not reflect any affiliated entities. In. Investing involves risk, and past performance is not indicative of future results. The host and guests may hold positions in discussed securities. Now. Please enjoy the show. Adi, uh, thank you so much for joining me. Super excited to chat with you. All right, Adi, you're the founder and CEO of Popcorn. Popcorn is a consumer social platform for vibe movie making, where people can create movies in minutes. And you're also a true entrepreneur. You previously founded, uh, roughly six companies, one being YouNow, which was the first mobile live streaming app in the US with over a hundred million users. All right, uh, uh, you've, you've been like, in, in the Internet, if, if you will, like, since the inception. Going through your LinkedIn was incredible because, you know, it started off in 1999, where you were working at on something called Oddcast 2003. Uh, K Solo Karaoke 2005, Target Spot 2011 YouNow, which is kind of the mobile revolution 2017, props, which is more crypto. 2022 Revel, more NFT 2025, popcorn, which is more centric, you know, more centered around AI. All right, so take me back. Take me all the. All the way back to 1999. Like, what. Why did you decide to really, you know, dig deep into the Internet? Like, what compelled you to build within that. Within that space?

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, so I was actually a filmmaker. I did a documentary that played in the movie theaters at the time, and I sucked at directing. And this was like, in the mid-90s. Um, and they started a new program at NYU, which was kind of an engineering program inside an art school called Interactive Telecommunication Program. And I was immediately drawn to making movies with the tech as opposed to making movies the old fashioned way. Um, and so this was kind of like, I'm going to date myself. This was like laser discs to make interactive video. You don't want to hear about that. Um, but long story short, um, I started making, ah, ah, games to just pay for grad school. Um, and I did the Matrix game for the movie, you know, for the Warner Brothers movie. And that was a great platform for me because it had, like, tens of millions of downloads at the time. And, um, it allowed me to sort of choose my Projects. And I was very, very drawn to user generated media, allowing people to, you know, create and express themselves, allowing non professionals to express themselves through media. So you know, you mentioned Case Solo Karaoke. Um, before that was like um, you know, make your own MTV music video, make your own Nine Inch Nails, you know, enhanced CD audio track, uh, it was anything that you can create and share. And so um, karaoke was kind of like, you know, know the first, I'd say big project that we turned it into a company. It was called Case Solo Karaoke. Um, and it was sold later to Fox, MySpace became MySpace Karaoke. Um, and um, after that to fast Forward. Um, you know, we were already experts at building consumer networks and this was early on so there was not a lot of experts. And when the mobile devices were strong, strong enough to do, you know, live streaming, um, it became very clear that this is a place to focus on and that it simplifies user expression because all they needed to do is just press a button and boom. Now they are expressing themselves and communicating and people can react and whatnot. And so we were very fortunate to be there, uh, very early on and grew, uh, you now um, to over 120 million user sessions a month. At one point it was like the third app in the social category in the store. It was very heady. And part of what was so special is we were the first to introduce microtransactions in the um, creator economy. So before that there was maybe in China they were doing similar stuff with girls singing karaoke and stuff like that. Um, but that kind of gamification of the monetization, the gifts, the tipping, etc, it didn't really exist. Uh, and I remember some of my investors at the time were like, you know, why are you introducing monetization so early? And I was like, no, no, it's not, you know, for us to make money, it's for the creators to make money. And you know, as soon as we introduced that it like it was a hockey stick. Because all the creators saw that as a platform to you know, monetize their audience in a new way and so, uh, and communicate with it, interact with it in new way, et cetera. So um, that was uh, you now. And um, after that to fast forward to get to popcorn, you know, here we are with effectively nuclear power. Like this is what this, you know, AI and gen AI is. Um, and if we're talking about consumers expressing themselves and making it easy for them, it doesn't get any easier than talking to the machine and then the value on the other side the output is just like better than anything in the history. And so it's kind of like a perfect storm for UGC and um, for self expression. And that's what we're doing in popcorn we call it, it's a consumer social platform as you mentioned, um, for vibe movie making that means you talk to the machine and um, it makes the movie for you. You can think about it as a co director or co producer, um, and you start with an idea. Um, hopefully we'll get a chance to show it. Um, and um, it creates the movie and then after that you can start directing it. You're like actually let's move that scene from the penthouse in Shanghai to the meat market. Um, and uh, change her call up hair color to blonde or click on a character, tell it to be funnier. Um, the sky is the limit. And um, we build it in a way that is social and that's like a really important sort of guide for us. It's not only that we come from that and we're passionate about building the consumer social. It's also that we believe there's going to be a lot of tools out there. And you know, we don't want to be a tool. We want to be a network, uh, and benefit from the network effects and um, from the gamification and um, that's the short of it.

Speaker B: Amazing. Okay, so throughout your career you've been able to identify these different, I don't know, technological ways if you will. How are, how are you able to do this? Because you know, mobile and crypto and AI and et cetera, et cetera. Like, and even going way back, I don't even know what you'd call like Oddcast or Case Solo. Like I don't even know what type of technology it was. You mentioned like laserdisc and stuff. But like how are you able to identify this is you just are in the know and you know the right people or like what is that thing?

Speaker A: It's interesting. So I think that when you're really passionate about something and you become a little bit of an expert in something, then the world brings to you aspects, technological aspects, social aspects, cultural aspects that touch that thing. And you know in my case it was user generated media. Um, I even had a fantasy that I coined user generated media very early on in the 90s and then people started using UGC and I'm like fine, like I'll never get that coinage. Um, but um, that was um, really, you know and remains the thread between all of the work and then the technologies just came in and out and you're kind of like an animal because you're sort of, you know, in the uh, lookout for what's going to enable it and you know, that's kind of the driver.

Speaker B: Has there been a, like a guiding thesis throughout the products and companies that you started? Is there? I don't know. You know, you talk about gamification, talk about social and, and you know, filmmaking of course has been, you know, your background and whatnot. And a lot of projects that you've involved have involved video in some form. Is there some guiding thesis or principle or you're just like, I'm just building cool stuff that I'm passionate about.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that. How do you um, constraints are good. You can't give people, you know, too many options. And so how do you simplify it, dumb it down, um, in the right way? While more advanced users may be able to dig in and have, you know, more control, more governance, uh, more professional output, but for the regular user they're not confused by all these, you know, options and possibilities and you're sort of making decisions for them for the 90% of the people. So I'd say from a product standpoint, we haven't always been successful. We've created, you know, bad products that didn't work. Um, but um, that's you know, a good sort of guideline.

Speaker B: Interesting. So, so you're targeting mass market and through that you have to simplify in order to obtain the mass market versus like I'm um, using like an analogy of like a video editor, I don't know, like Adobe After Effects. Instead of Adobe After Effects, you're going after like whatever TikTok uses for their video editing. Is that kind of the, the, the

Speaker A: vibe and even more dumbed down because of AI, which is, you know, actually make me a movie about, you know, Andrew Steinwald introducing his uh, agent assistants to his wife. It's like, okay, done like it knows who Andrew is because I actually created you, I uploaded a photo and I connected it to your um, you know, uh, blog and newsletter and um, and information LinkedIn. Um, and then the rest of it is like it's going to make up based on what we just said. It's going to invent your wife because she's not in the system and it's going to invent these agents based on your writings, your speech. So probably you're going to have a shopping agent and maybe a gaming bro agent and whatever it knows about the stuff that you've said because it's going to research it like that, it's going to conceptualize and it's going to put on the screen something that is close enough. So it's almost like writers had word processors and now we have, you know, popcorn, uh, or Jenny I. That, you know, helps simplify it.

Speaker B: What was the kind of, you know, genesis point where you're like, I need to go all in on AI video and I'm going to make this platform popcorn, which is specifically built for the masses, not trying to be do do AI video that's like for the top 0.1% power users.

Speaker A: So, um, my friend, um, this is a couple of years ago, he resampled Ball um of Confusion, this song. And uh, his name is Aviva Ya. And I wanted to make a music video using Gen AI and I was very passionate to learn and I was doing everything myself and the entire workflow and whatnot. And at one point I'm like, somebody should productize this. This is, this is insane. Like, it's insane. Not because it's so complicated. It wasn't that complicated. It's insane about how powerful it is and, and how many people are going to want to use it. Like, I want a commercial for my pizza shop. Okay, talk to it, tell it about your pizza shop, upload some photos and here's a commercial. Everybody needs something. You know, My sister, um, is a couple's therapist. She's like, can I use this? I'm like, what are you going to use this for? She's like, well, you know, Harvard comes out with this research every once in a while. I'd like to put Instagram videos out there. It's like, yeah, just put the Harvard link, you know, and um, you can, you know, your avatar can talk about it and introduce it and you can have an Instagram video. So it's shocking. Um, like the total addressable market here is basically endless because video is the dominant communication method of our time. Yet there's this delta and discrepancy where only 5% of the population can actually make videos that somebody would want to watch. So that delta is the opportunity.

Speaker B: Wow. I mean, that is. Yeah. I mean you just mentioned use case. I never even would. Would think about like a couple therapists making some sort of video for her business and, and even for like her clients to feel closer together. Like, hey guys, this is your future that you should have or whatever. That's, that's super interesting. Uh, yeah, and you're right about the, the amount of people that can produce Content is so small comparative to the amount of people that, that consume it. And you're just closing in. You're. That.

Speaker A: That.

Speaker B: Yeah, that, that. That margin is, is your opportunity essentially of, of the addressable market there, which is crazy. All right, so popcorn, it's a vibe movie making platform. Can you, can you show us some. I don't share screen. Maybe show us some pictures or a video of, like, how this works.

Speaker A: Would love to let me walk you through a couple of slides and then I, uh, will make our own video. Maybe you can give me a prompt and we'll make one live.

Speaker B: Awesome. Great.

Speaker A: So let's just, uh, go through this for a second.

Speaker B: Your attempts at righteousness are as convincing as your head. Fake news.

Speaker A: I'm the best Christian.

Speaker B: The most Christian ever. I love Jesus more than you love yourself. Enough of this farce. I demand the test of truth. Bring forth your light in Emperor.

Speaker A: Okay, so this is the interface to put in the prompt. Why don't we throw one in Andrew and then we'll look at a few more things.

Speaker B: Okay, let's do, um, uh, big Roman fan, Big Julius Caesar fan. Let's do Julius Caesar. Uh, um, Marching on Rome. He's going to go take over Rome.

Speaker A: And can we throw you in there? Maybe you can be one of his generals. And is supported by his favorite general, Andrew.

Speaker B: Perfect. Okay. Do we use my full name, Andrew Steinwald. And will it. Will it know who that is?

Speaker A: So I saved your character earlier.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Um, by his favorite. And basically anyone can create a character and make it available not just consistently in their shots and scenes in this movie, but let's say that, you know, I make a superhero and I want to use it in other movies so I don't have to recreate it. I can just tag it. So, ah, favorite general. Um, and here it should bring up Andrew.

Speaker B: Oh, awesome.

Speaker A: Um, okay, and that's it. That can be the entire prompt. And, um, let's make it maybe 45 seconds. Is that okay?

Speaker B: Great.

Speaker A: Okay. And now, um, what kind of.

Speaker B: Oh, very cool. What style?

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Oh, wow, that's awesome. Let's do, um, let's do anime. I think that'd be pretty cool.

Speaker A: Anime. Excellent. And, um, let's remove. Remove the kids safe for this. Um, and we're going to make it, uh, horizontal. Let's do it. Okay, so this is a live test. Caesar's March. We have it.

Speaker B: Oh, nice. Okay, awesome.

Speaker A: Okay, so we'll pick it up here. Um, so as you can see, it's making the movie, um, right now. And um, uh, what do we know about it? It's historical, it's in English. It has three scenes, it has 11 shots, it has five characters, it has three sets. So let's check into it in, uh, a few minutes and just, uh, look at, uh, a few, uh, other things. Is that okay?

Speaker B: Very cool. It's awesome.

Speaker A: Okay, so once our look behind the scenes at what's going on here, basically we have our agent sitting in the middle and doing the workflow for you. I'm not going to stay on this for very long, but that's the idea. And then once the movie is ready, you can actually direct. The action work was suffocating me. Needed to breathe again. You know, she doesn't see there is a tsunami coming. So that's how easy it is to direct with a vibe agent. And then

Speaker B: zoom in.

Speaker A: Hunter says, is someone out there?

Speaker B: Is someone out there? Make it anime. Is someone out there? Make it 3D. Is someone out there? Make it La Noire. Is someone out there

Speaker A: creating the characters? This is how I created you here. I create Karl Marx.

Speaker B: Greetings, comrades.

Speaker A: What's my favorite movie genre? Class? Uh, action movies. You can then summon your creator characters into any movie. Abraham Lincoln rides into the scene and compose the soundtrack, make the music more intense. And then what's interesting is the dynamic information. So what's happening is it's doing research in real time. In this case, I'm asking Jesus Christ to deliver today's crypto news. What? Let's look at it. Pepe moved 11.75 trillion tokens in early June.

Speaker B: Whales playing with your hopes.

Speaker A: Such greed.

Speaker B: Yet you worship these digital golden calves.

Speaker A: The Trump coin delayed its unlock fearing collapse, then sold exclusive dinners turning fellowship into commerce.

Speaker B: How far you.

Speaker A: And then let's have Karl Marx in the back. Holy shit. Bitcoin just smashed $92,000. We're in uncharted territory.

Speaker B: Bitcoin.

Speaker A: What devilry have the bourgeoisie conjured now? As digital currency soared, Marx found himself thrust into the heart of hyper capitalism. This, this is not the revolution I had in mind. So Karl Marx bring to the table his brain. It's very different when he walks into a barbershop versus me walking into a barbershop. He says different things, the other characters respond to him differently. The plot changes, etc. Etc. Um, and then, you know, as I mentioned earlier, for us the most important dimension is not the technicality of how to make the movies.

Speaker B: You.

Speaker A: It's actually the social aspect here. And so we build it from day one as a social product. And what does it mean? It's not just that you can publish and people can see and comment and leave likes, et cetera, et cetera. But everything is an object. So every shot, every scene, every prop, every character is remixable. So Andrew, if you create, you know, a uh, Julius Caesar superhero that's like super cool and different and now you can tag it. You can also decide to make it available to your friends or make it available to the public. And then every time we use your superhero, you get informed. You actually get some credits as a reward for the fact that people are using your stuff, uh, et cetera, et cetera. So the infrastructure is a remix collaborative, Mad Lib, uh, infrastructure, you know, from the Bottoms Up. So this is just um, you know, a little bit of ah, an introduction.

Speaker B: That's amazing. Okay, so the thought process. So, so I guess like number one, this is the, like what we're seeing now is the worst it's ever going to be. Which is crazy because it's already pretty good and it's, it's the worst it's ever going to be. And that kind of blows my mind because I'm like man, you know, we just had Karl Marx in there and ah, with his kind of thoughts and brain and whatnot. And then we're gonna have, you know, when you want to change your music, you just, you say I want it to be more intense. And then it just automatically does that music for you. The, the, the lip syncing of, of the um, of the conversation, like the character looks like it's talking and then the, the associated imagery, it's just, it's just crazy. It's absolutely insane. So, so, so I guess like the product is, is, you know, this AI uh, vibe video creating creation tool. Why add in the community aspect? Is that more of like you want to build a moat? Because, you know, like. Yeah, yeah. Is that because you want to build a mo.

Speaker A: Um. So this is inside baseball. But you'd appreciate it. When we first showed it to our uh, lead investors at uh, Union Square Ventures, it was actually called Wonder Pro and they liked it. And Fred looked at me and he said, adi, this is not Wonder Pro. This is Wonder Fun. And there was a lot behind that so statement, which is not just that, you know, we are social consumer guys and not tools guys or API guys and whatnot, but that the, the tool business is a very different business than the consumer network business and we know which business we want to be in. And to your point, um, about moat, et cetera, et cetera, we Believe there's going to be a lot of tools, they're going to be very good. Hollywood is going to use them, everybody's going to use them. And we don't want to be in that business business. We want to be in the social business.

Speaker B: And so in order to be in the social business, you need to get the, the creators on board and, and kind of what is the experience for the creator? They uh, like the, the social experience for the creator. Are they going there, meeting other enthusiasts of AI video and sharing tips and ideas or like, what is that? What is that like?

Speaker A: So what's happening right now is that, uh, first of all, we're in beta and so we have a few great creators. It's fascinating to see what they're doing. And the first kind of creators that really, really love it are actually the meme guys. And the meme guys are putting out a lot of content all the time. And it's kind of like text and images and soundtrack and dialogue and it's not even lip sync, it's not even video, it's kind of like flipbook animation, fancy shit. And they get millions and millions of users now for them, this is nuclear power. Because they're not video editors, they're writers, they're concept people, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, with one sentence they can be creating their stuff and they can create a lot more of it and it looks better because it's moving, etc. Etc. It tells the story, uh, in a better way. Um, as a matter of fact, we can watch one if you'd like, just uh, you know, for shits and giggles, um, because it's kind of like inspiring. Um, and then the. So that's what's happening today is this kind of like, okay, it's a productivity tool for me from heaven. That's just one step. The fact that in the future, not very far future, very near future, like as soon as they're ready, their fans can also remix that and make their own versions of that or can tag some of the characters there. And like, let's think about, you know, Italian brain rot. It's like, okay, where do these characters live? I want to do Italian brain rot right now. Can I? I'm a 14 year old going to high school in Brooklyn. It's like, well, maybe you don't have to create the character. Uh, no, you don't have to just tag them, make them, you know, get into the lore, continue the story, be part of a community, et cetera. So there's all that aspect that, you know, we see and then there's like stuff that is less sort of, you know, social superpowers and just like you and me, Andrew, want to, you know, make the story together because we want to roast, you know, Jack and let's roast Jack. And so that's fun and you know, and then Jack's going to want to roast us. And so, you know, that's another, you know, kind of like lower. Uh, uh, and then there's the whole, um, sort of more IP fan fiction that, you know, I can see down the line brands can be interested in. It's like, okay, let's let you know, everybody, you know, make the next episode of, you know, whatever show, um, and use the characters and like that can be on brand is only these characters, you can't change their voices. You know, maybe even the AI knows that, you know, that character can, you know, smoke pot, but can't kill people. It's like, okay, um, they, they I can know. Um, and so, um, there's a lot of dimensions to what the social, you know, how the social can unfold.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's super interesting. You mentioned like the, like, it's almost going to be a new form of communication for maybe, maybe me, but definitely younger people, right? Like I, I could see myself using it every once in a while to, to, to, to roast my friend for sure. And I could see it for many other use cases, but specifically it's like tease my friend and make fun of him, like totally. But for younger folks, I could see it being like, I don't know, there could be a whole bunch of different use cases for them. Like, hey, um, you know, come to my party on Saturday. And instead of the invite being a text message, like a particle link or something like that, it's a short form video of like this crazy party that's happening at my house or whatnot. Um, so it's almost like a new form of, of like memeing m or you know, um, communication for like. Yeah, it's gonna be really interesting to see, see like how it plays out because right now it's probably all. It's. It's right now it's theses. Right? Like you're not certain of how exactly the user, the users are going to use these tools to their fullest extent. Or, or are you very certain of, of how they will.

Speaker A: Not certain at all. The only thing I know is that, um, everybody wants to make fun of Trump. Um, not because they're Republican or Democrat, just because if it was biden Funny guy. Yeah. Like, he's a caricature. Um, and so. And it's like, you know, and when, when Elon was, Was, you know, in the mix, then everybody wanted to, like, bring him into their. Yeah. Stuff. And so there's already like, kind of like elements that people want to share and have access to. And that's kind of like social and, and meme. Um, and so that, that we know and we build this kind of idea of global characters, courtesy characters, public characters, et cetera. And then that lends itself also to, you know, props. Just because technically it's the same. And sets, because technically it's the same. Um, we don't know that people are going to want us, you know, look at your movie and say, oh, I really love those bicycle. Let's make a movie around those bicycles on Mars. We have a hunch that there is a little bit of sort of the blank screen syndrome where, you know, there's the 99. One rule where 1% will be creators, 9% will get involved and 90% will just watch. Like, how do we move these people into more engagement, into becoming creators themselves? And the theory is the remix. It's like, okay, I'm actually inspired by that, you know, flower or by that rocket ship, and I want to tell a story around that. And, you know, every aspect of what you're looking at can be a beginning of a new story or an evolution. Evolution of the existing story.

Speaker B: And are you guys, are you guys plugging in all the different, I don't know, models and whatnot on the back end to enable this or the users themselves deciding, okay, I want, you know, this video model, I want this audio model, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker A: So we, um, are very consciously not burdening the users with a lot of options. It's our responsibility to put out quality stuff. And, you know, we're testing VO3, we're testing CLING 2.1, we're testing open Air for images where we have a whole test process and then we bring in the best of breeds so that the user consumer doesn't need to worry about that. They can worry about the concepts, the story, et cetera.

Speaker B: And how, how do you think about. And this is a, this is a big one. But IP because, I mean, you know, IP is like OpenAI has issues and basically everyone in AI has issues around IP. But how do you stop people from using like Mickey or I guess Mickey Mouse is now public domain, but like, I don't know, um, Superman, which might not be public domain. Um, you Know, and I get it, like, right now it's still extremely early, and, you know, maybe there's. The rules are a bit nebulous on that, but in, uh, the future, do you expect there to be some, like, automated process where it's like, oh, the. This IP is owned by Disney, you need approval or whatever.

Speaker A: So I think there's two topics that are tangential and important as important. One is trust and safety, and the other is ip. The trust and safety is even more important for us because what we don't want is, you know, to upload Betty from the homeroom and, you know, portray her in a bad light because that's like, bullying. So we need to protect that. So if you're creating character, it needs to be you, it needs to detect that it's you, etc. You're adding your voice, you're not adding Betty's voice, etc. So that's one, you know, technological dimension that needs to be adhered to. On the IP side, there are, you know, a few layers. The first one is that the models and services that we are using are doing a fine job in preventing you from creating, creating Taylor Swift right now. Um, and so they return that error and the error goes to the user and the user is blocked. Now, are they perfect? They're not perfect. Our agent also has a set of rules of what it can do and what it can't do. So speaking of Donald Trump, okay, I want to make fun of Donald Trump. That's fine. That's fair use. He's a public figure. He's a politician. Make fun of him all day. It will fall under the artistic self expression parody clause. Okay, I want Donald Trump to sell my used car. Nope, that's illegal. Okay, the agent can know that. The agent can understand the intent from the script, from the dialogue, et cetera, et cetera. And it's like, okay, is this under fair use or is this under, you know, uh, uh, illegal exploitation?

Speaker B: So I think that's great. But I will say, in the age of AI, so. So it's like you're in America and you're building this company in America, and there's a lot of rules pertaining to ip. Some of them make sense, in my opinion, some of them don't. I. I almost feel like IP laws are a bit outdated for our current era. And if you look at, like, a Chinese company, a lot of them won't. They don't really care as much about the IP laws and whatnot. So doesn't that put you at, uh, Just a, uh, and, and again, like you're going to operate by, by the rules that, that are given to you. So like there's no, no that. But just from a personal level, how do you feel about IP laws? And you know, with the era of, of AI, when we know that there's going to be other people in other countries that are not caring about these, these laws, how do you think about competing and just building a product that is, that is, you know, top notch?

Speaker A: Um, Andrew, you got cut off between the era of AI and top notch. I missed the last sentence.

Speaker B: Right. So, you know, how do you feel? I want to talk to you about IP just because IP is, um, you know, there's companies that are abroad, you know, mainly China that don't really care about IP laws and that can kind of take advantage of all IP versus you're in America under US law, you're going to follow those laws. Um, but you know, when you're thinking about how do I create the best product possible with the most customizability, most optionality for users? If you have to, if you have to really pay attention and put a lot of resources in IP and what can and can't characters can and can't do versus another company in China that doesn't have to do that, how do you, I guess this is your personal feeling, but how do you personally feel about, you know, making the best product and competing with someone who doesn't, doesn't, you know, have to care about IP laws?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's a really interesting, you know, big question and maybe there's, there's two ways to answer it. Um, one is, of course we will work with the laws here and respect them and more and you know, account for the uh, Digital Millennium Copyright act and the takedown policies, et cetera, et cetera. Um, I think that working in America and the American environment has a lot of advantages and we benefit from those advantages and it comes with some constraints that hopefully are reasonable for the most part. And the fact that there's aliens who are breaking it is like, you know, it's something to live with and um, um. And I think that we can win regardless because we know the culture, because we are here, because we are, um, uh, experienced in this market. Um, unlike, you know, those guys. And when those guys come in, they're going to need to conform to the rules here. So am I like, is that my number one worry right now? No. Um, but it's kind of fascinating to think about it because it's a real threat.

Speaker B: How Are you staying abreast of all the advancements? Because it's not like you're paying attention to one. You're paying attention to video and images and voice, uh, and, uh, music and all these different kind of subdomains within AI. How are you staying abreast of that? And then how do you think about connecting it in your back end in that kind of. You said to mention, like, the. The kind of, like, testing facility, if you will.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Ah, yeah. It's very easy to keep abreast of it because you're an animal of it. You want the lip sync to be better, you want the dialogue to emote more, you want the character to cry. It's like, you know, okay, why can't she cry? Like, you know, you're like, on. On all the channels that are pushing the envelope in terms of emotion and emotiveness and all of that. Um, we don't get to push all of the fronts with the same vigor. So lip sync is a lot more important, let's say, than the character being able to laugh, um, or having additional dialogue tracks to overlap. So one character speaking at a time. Yeah, we can have that, but there's a list of priorities. So, um, it's not as hard to keep track when you're really passionate, when the team is really passionate, and when you're already in those conversations with those, you know, providers and with those communities.

Speaker B: What are the computer requirements for generating video? Are they significantly higher than generating purely audio or purely imagery and purely text and whatnot?

Speaker A: Um, it's significantly more expensive. Uh, it takes significantly longer time. And, um, those two things are unfortunately not 100% in line with the fact that we're building consumer products, uh, because the consumers don't want to wait and they don't want to pay a lot. Uh, so, um, what we're finding is that the early adopters are actually kind of prosumers, but we are still sort of building it for the consumer. And I think the prosumers appreciate that because they appreciate simplicity, um, and, you know, good UX and whatnot. Um, so that's one thing. The other thing that is, you know, very unique here is that, you know, we are orchestrating all of these things, as you say, the writing, the dialogue, the music, the video, the images, um, and constructing the story, which is really our specialty. So you can think about it as, you know, anybody can take a prompt and turn it into a screenplay. Like, we can do that right now on ChatGPT. Not anybody can take that screenplay and Parse it and produce it onto the screen. Now, traditionally, that's what Tarantino did and, you know, Woody Allen. And now a robot can do that. And so we build the robot that can do that, and we build a robot that gets better and better at directing movies, the more movies it directs. And that's really sort of the technological aspect of what's going on.

Speaker B: Yeah, Okay. I mean, it's just. There's so many. There's so many areas I want to. I want to dig into here because there's. It's just such a, you know. Okay, so talking about the cost and the time, it's like. It's like this is a net new behavior that consumers, like, weren't able to do. So if they're not prepared to, like, spend a little bit of money and wait sometimes, like, that's. That's crazy because this is like. It's like. I remember when, um, when, uh, the Internet just came out for. For airlines, for airplanes, and people would log in and they'd be like, this is so slow. It's bullshit. And I'm like, dude, we have Internet on. On airlines now. This is insane. Like, it was never a thing before. And now we kind. We kind of take it, uh, for, uh, granted now. And now we're getting Starlink, so it's getting extremely fast. But this is, like, totally new. I mean, what you're, you know, you're able to enter in a prompt and create a video. That's insane. So, okay, so. So I want to talk about monetization, talking about cost and, you know, time. Um, do you expect, uh, you know, these. The. The time and compute requirements to go down over time as we get more compute out there and whatnot? But in terms of the cost, how are you thinking about, um, revenue within your business?

Speaker A: Um, so we made a very cognizant decision not to do subscription. We feel like subscription is kind of like an enterprise/b2b/exploitive, you know, because, like, people forget their credit cards and it's like, is this really a consumer behavior? And, you know, it doesn't really jive with this kind of business also. Because really it's about credits. It's about how much usage. It's like, even if I sell you a subscription for 20 bucks, it's like, okay, you need more credits. And so we decided to focus on the credits, which we call popcorn. Um, and, um, the credits. Traditionally, in this sort of pro business, the creators buy the credits. We are building it so that the creators can buy the credits. But Also, the viewers can use the credits as a social currency. It's like, oh, let me throw you some popcorn. I love what you're doing. As a matter of fact, if I throw enough popcorn at you, I'm going to become a producer of this movie and I'm going to show up in the credits. And I like that. Now I'm, I'm really part of creating that, supporting the creation of that. And so this how we're thinking about it, big picture, um, not all the social features are out there on the beta, which I invite you, uh, Andrew, to test. Um, and, um. Um, yeah, so, but that's a big picture. So it's a in app currency effectively for the credits. That is, you know, has also some social aspects to it.

Speaker B: That's really cool. I really like the idea of creating a social aspect of it, you know, that brings in more community and more kind of ownership and connectivity within, uh, that community. So people are supporting each other and whatnot. There's also a lot of gamification you can include in there, whether it be like, hey, you logged in five days in a row. Here's, uh, here's some credits because, you know, you're such a great power user, whatever. So a lot of really cool design space around that. All right, so, I mean, you kind of mentioned right there, but how would you differentiate popcorn versus, like, you know, Runway pika or like Synthesia, uh, which is more of like the talking head. But how do you, how do you differentiate popcorn compared to these other players?

Speaker A: I was just talking about, uh, this with a creator the other day who compared it to one of those exact names. And he needs to do all the work. He needs to do whatever video platform it is. It's going to generate 5 to 10 second shots. Now you need to generate the next shot. Now you need to bring in the music from here. Now you need to bring in the writing from here, et cetera, et cetera. And you know, that's not what we do. We are not a tool to create shots or to create dialogue, et cetera. We are a service that creates stories and that enables people to tell their stories. I met this guy in south by Southwest, and, um, we're still in touch with him. He's one of our testers. Great guy. And he saw me at a party we were talking about, and then on my mobile phone I said, you know, why don't you put in a movie? And he put in, um, I think it was a kid creates a robot to be his friend so he won't be lonely. And he said, make it claymation style. Uh, and we had a beer, and we checked in a few minutes later, and he had his animated story about a boy who builds a robot so that he will have a friend. I think he was crying. I think the guy was crying. And then he told me. I had this story in my head for years, and I was able to bring it to life in a few minutes. And it was so touching. I'm actually like, this is the second time I'm telling a story because I told it to my team at the time because I was so touched. Um, so it's like everybody has stories. I'll tell you another story. Uh, I'm a Jew from Iraqi origins, so my, my mother is from Baghdad. And the family, the grandma tells the story about, you know, when they left Baghdad in the 20s and whatnot. I'm like, make a documentary about a Jewish family leaving Baghdad in 1927. And I shared that with the family. It's like, whoa. It's like you had a camera then. Now I should interview my grandma a lot more to get all the details and put them in there. Um, but, you know, just from research on the Internet, it came up with, you know, a kind of story of what a Jewish family leaving Baghdad at the time would be facing and what would their journey be. Um, I'll give you another example. Um, one of my investors, um, Andy, put up a tweet about, uh, how beautiful these two Cezanne paintings are. Paul Cezanne, the French master. And I responded to Israel, and I said, oh, let's ask Cezanne about the paintings. And you have Cezander explaining what he was feeling and what he was thinking as he was drawing these two paintings. It was kind of like priceless. It's like, you know, and so, um, everybody has things that they want to know that they want to talk to ChatGPT about, that they want to, you know, explore, etc. Now they can actually visualize it and, and, and share stories. So, um, yeah, that's a long ramble.

Speaker B: No, it's incredible. You're. You're talking about multiple use cases and multiple user archetypes right there. And one of the things that popped in my head was like, the, it's like for school, for education, you know, because if you want to, you know, you're talking about the, the Jewish family that was leaving Iraq in the 20s or whatever that, you know, that's just like, piece of information that you can now kind of quasi experience or, you know, this, uh, person's family was doing XYZ or, or hey, take me through when, uh, you know, the, the Native Americans in America were. I'm in Chicago, so like building Coquia, which is like done south of, of, uh, Chicago. It's like this big, this massive settlement that was a Native American settlement. But it's like being able to experience these things or, or you know, see them in a way that, uh, were never really possible except through a textbook. Um, and that's going to increase. It's, it's like the, um. Yeah, I've talked about the senses and how number one is text where like, you're reading information, you're taking in, you're understanding it. Number two is like audio. So like, you know, that's pretty powerful. You can now hear something, but you know, being able to see it, ah, is, is way more powerful. Right? So you can see it, you can hear it, you can read it. It's like, um, that's, you know, the only thing beyond that is kind of like, I go with like brain computer interfaces where you're like experiencing, you know, the coke here or whatever, the Native American settlement. But that, that's kind of 20 years in the future. But yeah, the, the, the use cases for this video, for AI video are essentially like limitless.

Speaker A: They are limitless. They are limitless. And maybe I, we, we can look at an example. Is that. Okay, can I share my screen?

Speaker B: Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker A: So, you know, we just had a war between Israel and Iran. And I don't know, not political or anything, it's just like the news. And um, it was, let's see, I, Somebody asked me like, oh, does Israel have nuclear weapons? And like, we pulled up the Wikipedia and we're like, oh, we don't want to read this right now. Let's just put a prompt, like, explain this Wikipedia article. That's it. That was the prompt. Okay.

Speaker B: It's like, you know, chat gbt. I can, I can take the article, be like, hey, chat GPT. Like, give me the juice of this article. And it can spit out like two sentences. Or you can experience the learning and the article through, through, through, through popcorn, which is just. That's so wild. That is going to. So, okay, so I'm trying to think of like, the second and third order effects of what happens when AI video is ubiquitous. Easy, cheap, high quality, et cetera. Like what? I guess I want to, I want to know what happens near term in your opinion. And then we'll go on to like,

Speaker A: what happens like longer term, it's crazy. Um, so what we have and what other people will eventually have, obviously is we have effectively a story API. So it's like, okay, what's the concept? What's the story? What's the link? It's make it, make it a, make it a story. M. And if you think about that, it's like, okay, what's the social trends? You know, like when they say you're going to be watching whatever you want to watch and whatever it's going to be using an API like that, it's going to be comprising it for you on the fly, based on your preferences, based on your history, based on the algorithm, et cetera, et cetera. So that's how powerful this technology and where it's heading is at. I'm not saying we are doing that tomorrow morning, but I'm sure there will be people who would want to do that. And that's a little bit of a scary world, of course. But if we're talking about the future, the future harbors opportunities and dangers.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it's always so easy to bring up like the kind of the spooky aspects of AI and whatnot, which of course people use it for nefarious reasons, but just like people use the Internet for nefarious reasons and crypto for nefarious reasons and technology for nefarious reasons. But you know, enough people talk about that, I guess I want to focus on like the good that's going to come out of it. One of the things I think about is like how everyone is going to, everyone in the world is going to be able to essentially create like Hollywood level, um, movies and productions and stories. Like because the, the amount of creativity that's locked in. You know, there could be someone in Kenya, someone in Japan, someone in Uruguay or whatever that just like is super creative, doesn't have the budget, doesn't have, is not near Hollywood, doesn't have the context, et cetera. And they can now create a world famous movie series. They can create the next Lord of the Rings or Star wars or whatever. So that to me is, is crazy. And it's going to radically shift how Hollywood is structured and kind of the power dynamics and what I think is going to be a positive way for the end consumer.

Speaker A: I think it will be positive and I think that you're 100% right. Obviously. Um, It's moving so fast that even these Hollywood, these AI studios that are being created right now, it takes them like two, three months to put out a trailer for their movie. Because they're making a Hollywood movie and you look at that trailer from four months ago, the technology four months ago and it looks like, oh, any kid can do that now. When you started working on that project with 16 people to make your feature, you were cutting edge, but you're no longer cutting edge four months later. All of that can be done by two kids know. And so things are moving so fast that you are absolutely right. I think within two years we will have those two kids making the movie and those AI Hollywood studios. I don't know, it's, it's, it may be a tough business actually.

Speaker B: Yeah. So in this world we're uh, already in a world where content's very abundant but we're talking about like a exponential content, you know, supernova if you will. Right. So what happens in that world does, does you know, curation, taste and quality become even, even more important or like what is the, how do you win in that world?

Speaker A: Uh, you think about this stuff much more than I do Andrew. Uh, what do you think? How is, how is it going to play out?

Speaker B: So you know, I think about, I don't think quality matters. You can look at like Roblox or Minecraft is top games and it's considered quote unquote like low quality graphics and people don't care. Storytelling continues to be the thing that dominates. So I'm like man, whoever can tell the best stories is going to be make um, great, great content that people want to consume and that. What's that? I keep going to that and that's why I'm so excited because I'm like man, we're to unlock the world's creativity. It can be a kid or an adult in anywhere in the world that is Internet and thinks a starlink is going to be like everybody soon and they're going to be able to create the next Lord of the Rings, next Star wars and the next you know, big IP all from. And it's gonna be maybe a 14 year old. It's gonna be, people are gonna be mind blown. So um, that's something I'm really really excited about. And then on top of that there's the hyper personalization that you know, we've been talking throughout this call where it's, it's my birthday, I want to send out really inventive ah you know, kind of links uh, for people to sign up for my birthday. I make a little short form video, a two minute clip of all the cool stuff we're gonna do my birthday or paintballing and Go karting or whatever. Right. Um, and yeah, it's gonna be really novel, really interesting, and I think that's going to be a great use case for. There's going to be so many great use cases that we don't even know about yet. Which, that to me is also represents a massive monetization opportunity, which is, which is really exciting as well. So. All right, so that's kind of like near term, you know, Hollywood disrupted creativity, uh, for everybody, uh, personalization, etc, um, you know, thinking longer term, like, one of the things I think about, and this is going a little bit on the negative side by just is shared experiences. Right. I think growing up, like, everyone saw Lord of the Rings, everyone saw Star wars, everyone saw these. These films that everybody saw and could talk about. And now it's like, you know, I talked to a friend, they're like, hey, have you seen this show on Netflix? I'm like, oh, no, I haven't seen it yet because there's so much content out there. Um, and maybe it's really good, but I just haven't. I haven't. I don't have the time. So, like, that, like, cultural fragmentation, if you will. That's something that I think about and I'm like, man, hopefully the cream rises to the top and the top stuff, the top content will still be surfaced. But it does make me nervous where I'm like, man, what if we, you know, what if we're just not watching the same stuff and consuming the same content? It's harder for us to, To. To connect on, On a social level.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's interesting. And, and I agree there's going to be a lot more fragmentation. The, the other thing that may happen is that more people will be involved in the creation because the creation is so simple and the format of the creation may change. It's not just that the two kids are going to make the Hollywood movie, which they will, and that they're going to make the TikTok, which they will, but it's that, you know, a lot of their fans are now going to be not just consuming it, but actually making themselves onto the feed because they had an idea, because they contributed, because. Because they uploaded their photo. And now it's like the participation is just so much easier. And what are these formats going to look like and how that's going to shape the media. And when I'm consuming it, maybe I'm consuming it not just as a, um, uh, viewer, but also as a part creator, because, you know, it's like a Mad lib that I, I contributed to somehow, not just with popcorn credits, but with actual idea, creativity, word, you know, picture.

Speaker B: I'm also thinking about the business opportunities because we're talking about the, the models and the layers on the foundation. Then we're talking about popcorn, which is kind of the integration layer and the production layer. But then will there be, you know, two kids in whatever country that form the next Disney? Like is that kind of the, the third order effect of this or you know, the next business business, uh, opportunity there where, you know, the next Disney is going to come out of, uh, a video using these, these different tools or what. What are the other business opportunities that, that you've thought of?

Speaker A: I'll tell you that I've been approached by a few people who are, want to build businesses on top of this technology. And I'll explain the businesses in really high level because I don't want to give it away for their sake. One was, um, related to art and explaining art because it's endless amount of stuff. So think about it as educational and now you can bring that education into life and make it entertaining. The other one was doing the same thing for, you know, public businesses and making that information entertainment. And so, you know, up until now it was like, you know, you would need to like build a studio in India. You would need to feed them scripts, you would need to have artists drawing it, you would have to have a production line. And it's not realistic to make, you know, little movies about hundreds of thousands of art pieces. Net or public business. Um, now you can, um, have a bot churn out a thousand a day, period, end of story. And you can have another bot QA it to make sure that, you know, it conforms to whatever specification, etc. In terms of length, in terms of, you know, the dialogue not getting cut off, etc. Etc. So I think there's a lot of business opportunities on top of that, you know, in all verticals. Wow.

Speaker B: Uh, that's very cool. Adi. This has been incredible. Is time for the closing questions. Alrighty. If you could instantly master any new skill to help you in business, what would it be?

Speaker A: Um, meditate better. I just started, uh, meditating seriously, uh, in the past year. And uh, it's really, uh. I have a lot of respect for the masters who do it and uh, make the most of it. And it's been a little bit, uh, lifechanging for me. I stopped drinking. I'm concentrating better, uh, focus better. So I see the benefits and uh, I want more.

Speaker B: All right. What is one lesson you learned throughout your journey that you wish you knew at the start?

Speaker A: Don't make it perfect. Just make it work and put it out there.

Speaker B: Interesting. I feel like that specific piece of advice sometimes some people say, they say lean startup is the way you should just go, go, go. Other people say, no, the air, the lean startup is over. You should perfect your product before releasing it.

Speaker A: I understand that too, and I think I'm living that dilemma right now. Um, but, uh, you know, in the end of the day, on balance, and maybe we solved it by having a closed beta, so we shipped to the closed beta, but we still want to be perfect to the open one, and maybe that's the balance.

Speaker B: I like it. All right. What is one unpopular opinion you hold about startups or company building?

Speaker A: I don't know. Uh, I've been a single founder more than I've been a, uh, co founder. And so I think it's more popular to have co founders. And, uh, there's a belief that that's very strong. And I don't know that I disagree with it, but I haven't really acted on.

Speaker B: Oh, I like that one. All right. What is entrepreneurship taught you about people?

Speaker A: I, I, I, I've, I've always respected musicians, I've always admired artists. And I am, over the years, as I mature and become a little wiser, I, I'm starting to have the same feelings and, and respect for entrepreneurs who are, you know, such risk takers, put themselves on the line, go for what they believe in, for their vision, against all odds. Um, and, um, it's, it's, it's extremely admirable and inspiring.

Speaker B: Amazing. All right, last one. Is there some form of content, whether it be like a book, a, uh, TV series, podcast series, etc. That had major impact on you?

Speaker A: The book that I love the most, uh, ever is, um, the Last lion, about the life of, um, Winston Churchill by William Manchester. It's, it's, I think, four different big books. And what's so amazing about it is he was born in the old world. Like, they were literally fighting with swords, and he was like, leading the, the, the, the, the, the modern fight. He was like, you know, inventing the tank for World War I and then like, you know, nuclear weapons in World War II. And so here's like, this one guy who, like, transcended like, the old world into the new world. Not to mention that he ran an empire or mini empire by that time. Um, so it's kind of like a really fascinating story on so many Levels.

Speaker B: That's amazing. Awesome. All right, Adi, where can people find more about yourself and learn more about popcorn?

Speaker A: Let's. First of all, should we watch the popcorn movie?

Speaker B: Yes. Yes. Let's do it.

Speaker A: Let's do it. So this is your movie. Um, let's, uh. Can you remind us of the prompt?

Speaker B: It was, uh, Julius Caesar marches on Rome with his favorite general, Andrew Steinwald.

Speaker A: Amazing. I know Andrew, and I could see why it would be his favorite. So we can see here, the editor, it created different scenes, different shots, different characters. We can see Andrew, we can see Caesar. And let's go ahead and, uh, play, uh, the movie.

Speaker B: In the dying light of empires, men speak of destiny. Caesar's legions move like time itself. Inevitable, unbreakable.

Speaker A: You speak of a man who would be king.

Speaker B: What of the recovery? Caesar builds with vision. The dead cannot hold the living to their dreams. Victory carved from chaos. Caesar, order from the wild margins.

Speaker A: What do you see in tomorrow's light?

Speaker B: We carry the dawn, Caesar. We carry the dawn between what was and what must be. We speak of Rome's destiny. History remembers not the cautious, but the bold. Caesar sees what the Republic cannot. True power serves the future, and the future remembers everything.

Speaker A: It, uh, prioritized the Andrew, um, story because that was baked into your character in terms of your knowledge, um, over Caesar. I think we need to fine tune that.

Speaker B: I think it's insane that, first of all, it sounds like me, which is crazy. Then on top of that, I mean, hopefully that looks a bit like me. I hope I'm that handsome. That'd be awesome. And, uh, I mean, it just. Again, this is the dawn of this technology. It is going to get. It is already good. It is going to get so much better. And that is so cool. So I'm. I'm very excited to come back on again in six months and then do. Do some more video and we can make even more cool stuff.

Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome. And just to challenge ourselves, I ran another version that was photorealistic because you, uh, you asked for the anime, which is what we watch, and I'll send it to you after.

Speaker B: Amazing. All right, Adi, where can people find popcorn and learn more about yourself?

Speaker A: Yeah. So go to Popcorn Co. Um, please join, um, our beta. And, uh, we want to hear from you. And, um, all the social links are right there on the nav of Popcorn Co. That's Popcorn Co. And, um, that's it.

Speaker B: Amazing. Thank you, sir.

Speaker A: Thank you.