Edward Lee

I’m a sucker for great questions, crisp quotes and fresh ideas

[Michelle Kwon @MiSunKw]

We're kicking off our first cohort of Runway Builders with almost 100 startups building at the frontier of real time video with the Runway API – notifications going out to accepted companies today!

If you're interested in being a part of a future cohort, check out at the link below:

[Cristóbal Valenzuela @c_valenzuelab]

Accelerating momentum at Runway: just in the past 6 weeks, we saw 50% growth in token consumption, 140% growth in power users, and an inflection point in enterprise NDR to 300% as Runway becomes more embedded in daily workflows

This is the way

[Edward Lee @theeddylee]

“Let if offend you that someone else can be handed your days and turn them into something greater”

-Seneca

[Runway @runwayml]

Introducing Runway MCP. Now you can connect Runway directly into Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Replit and more.

Generate polished images and videos with state-of-the-art models, like Gen-4.5, Seedance 2.0, GPT Images 2.0, Kling and more. Right from where you're already working.

Connect the MCP to your agent in seconds at the link below.

[Michelle Kwon @MiSunKw]

https://t.co/a2QgtE7d3e

"[Runway] enabled us to get through this scene in a couple weeks, where it would have taken four or five months in a traditional process"

[Anastasis Germanidis @agermanidis]

Less than a year ago, we introduced Aleph 1.0, with the thesis that video models can become as general as language models. It was the first model of its kind, moving beyond rigid tasks like text-to-video or image-to-video, to accept combinations of image, video, and text inputs and generalize to tasks unseen during training.

Today, we're releasing Aleph 2.0, with the goal of making video editing models as powerful as possible for real-world use cases. It generates up to 30 seconds of video at 1080p and propagates edits consistently across shots. It preserves the details of the original video extremely well.

Based on all the learnings from 1.0, we've gotten more opinionated about what the right interface for a video editing model looks like. You can now preview edits on a single frame before generating the entire video, which makes for a much more interactive and controllable editing experience.

Hope you have as much fun with it as we've had these past weeks.

[Cristóbal Valenzuela @c_valenzuelab]

One of our enterprise customers, a large insurance company, told us they achieved a 99% reduction in reshoot costs using Runway ($7 in Runway credits vs. $ 10K+ for a typical reshoot).

They needed to change a single word in a VO to localize a US commercial for Canada, and used Runway for lip sync and audio generation instead of organizing a reshoot. Verbatim feedback:

“You can’t even put a price on the speed to market.”

Expect a lot more 99% cost reduction stories to come up soon.

[Roger Avary @AVARY]

I just finished watching a number of truly excellent short AI films in the @runwayml AI film festival, and I am honestly blown away by the level of quality. If this crop of creative filmmakers is any barometer of where things are going, buckle up because cinema is leaping ahead.

[Runway @runwayml]

Congratulations to the twenty winners of the inaugural Big Pitch Contest for Shows That Don't Exist Yet.

Watch the top five pitches below.

[Anastasis Germanidis @agermanidis]

Runway added more than $40M in net new ARR so far this quarter, and we're less than halfway through. The biggest growth period in the history of the company.

Generative video has hit its inflection point. Enterprises like Amazon and Robinhood are using Runway daily to reshape how they tell stories and reach customers, on our frontier video and world models.

Thank you to our team and our customers. The best is yet to come.

[Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong]

In my teens and 20's I would spend way too much time playing Starcraft and Civilization. Harvesting resources, building things, and expanding was super addictive to my brain - to an almost unhealthy degree.

Later I realized that entrepreneurship and business is the ultimate game. It scratches the same itch for me (resources, building, expanding), but you're actually contributing to humanity at the end of the day, which can be much more fulfilling.

Business is also much more positive sum than video games. In Starcraft, the other player has to lose for you to win. In business, there is competition, but in a growing market there can be multiple winners. And gains compound long term (it's a infinite game) instead of starting over each time.

Now days I prefer to watch pros play video games to unwind, instead of playing video games myself. But a quick game can still be fun here and there to unwind. By contrast, the game of business is played over many decades.

[Runway @runwayml]

Two weeks to pitch a show you wish existed. $100K in cash prizes. Bring your biggest, most ambitious ideas to life with Runway. No studio notes or budget meetings required.

Runway's Big Pitch Contest For Shows That Don't Exist Yet. Learn more at the link below, and use code RUNWAY50 to get 50% off any plan for the next 3 months.

#RunwayBigPitchContest

[Edward Lee @theeddylee]

What have you been most proud of doing in the last 10 years?

Source: Chris (NYC)

[Michelle Kwon @MiSunKw]

After many months away, I'll be back in the Bay. Come hang with a bunch of us on Wednesday at our San Francisco HQ. Hear about how we're thinking about scaling Runway and get a sneak peek at our latest enterprise product offering.

We'd love to meet you if you're interested in helping supercharge Runway's growth; even if you're not looking, come for the conversation.

Spots are limited and approval-based:
https://t.co/7m3Bfri3oB

[Michelle Kwon @MiSunKw]

Earlier this week, we brought nearly 700 leaders together in New York for @runwayml's inaugural AI Summit — and the energy in the room made one thing clear: the creative industry is at an inflection point.

Across media, entertainment, gaming, advertising, and legal, two themes emerged consistently: Taste and transparency matter as much as capability. And the companies that will lead tomorrow are the ones embracing AI today.

-Kathleen Kennedy of @Lucasfilm reminded us that taste is fundamental to the art of filmmaking — and that AI, in the right hands, will help us tell even better stories.
-@HElsakr19489 (@Adobe) and @philwiser (@paramountco) shared how their organizations are navigating AI adoption honestly — leaning into the possibilities while being clear-eyed about the realities.
-Creative principals at UNVEIL Studio and @Silverside_AI pushed this further: for them, AI isn't just a tool. It is the medium.
-Christopher Harrelson of Why Brands shared a striking data point: designers using Runway have seen a 5x efficiency gain — enabling more work, faster iteration, and higher-quality outputs.

Runway's own @theeddylee grounded it all in a sobering reality: only 10% of US businesses use AI in production, and 55% of corporate communications are still text-only, even as video drives 70% of internet traffic. The gap between where most companies are and where they need to be is wide.

Can't wait to see what our next summit (un)covers!

[Cristóbal Valenzuela @c_valenzuelab]

We are running NYC’s biggest AI conference and we just added new tickets.

Excited to be interviewing and hearing from some of the greatest minds in media, technology, and film.

Don’t miss it.

[Edward Lee @theeddylee]

Revolution begins from the inside. An egg broken from the outside is food. An egg broken from the inside is new life.

Source: Translated Chinese Proverb

[Edward Lee @theeddylee]

What was the best part of your day yesterday?

Great question source: Nathan at Cultivate Coffee Project

[Michelle Kwon @MiSunKw]

A little bang bang for folks today -
1. Real real-time video generation (<100 milliseconds to first frame) https://t.co/fm70Rqau5b
2. Big ad contest for big ideas. $100k up for grabs. https://t.co/JxudKZvLmZ

All Runway. All video. A lot more coming to folks soon.

[Cristóbal Valenzuela @c_valenzuelab]

Last week we debuted our new real-time video agents with one of the hardest demos possible: live television. The BBC is now using Runway Characters to augment segments of their programming. Wild to see this live. So excited for all the new possible applications to come.