Siqi Chen is the founder and CEO of Runway, an a16z and Initialized funded startup enabling operators to know their enterprise without 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 Critical Enterprise (funded by Lightspeed, acquired by Zynga).
Along with his operational roles, Siqi is an investor in almost 100 corporations, 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 expertise 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 a must to speak to. These are the default experiences, however there’s one other method to do it: by making the AI invisible.
In case you have a look at how folks really use AI at work, GitHub Copilot might be probably the most broadly used software. 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 quicker and extra environment friendly. With the present capabilities of AI fashions, that sort 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 simply constructed AI into their workflows, so it will probably remedy math equations as you sort them or summarize textual content in real-time.
That’s how AI ought to be expressed: as a software 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 mentioned: “Google uses Bayesian filtering the way Microsoft uses the IF statement.” That’s how deeply ingrained expertise ought to be in a workflow.
It’s the identical with AI. 4 years in the past, we thought of calling ourselves “CFO.ai.” We had been suggested in opposition to 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 expertise finally turns into outdated, so the main focus ought to be on enhancing person expertise as a substitute.
In Runway, AI is deeply embedded in workflows and doesn’t must be prompted. It routinely 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 things you do and makes you go quicker.
What impressed you to create Runway, and what key challenges in monetary planning are you aiming to deal with with this platform?
In 2020, after I was the CEO of Sandbox VR, our income dropped to zero after the COVID-19 pandemic hit. No person knew how lengthy the pandemic would final, so we would have liked to create a number of contingency plans for emergency funding—starting from 3 months to 2 years.
We needed to create these eventualities 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 software for this activity. He mentioned: “No, this is it.” I couldn’t consider 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 really works? That’s why I began Runway.
Our purpose is to make enterprise accessible and comprehensible to everybody. Runway exhibits how all capabilities, from gross sales and advertising and marketing to product and engineering, match collectively. It provides groups a transparent, shared understanding of the enterprise, to allow them to align on strategic selections 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 quicker. It routinely provides useful context, and surfaces deep insights that will help you make higher selections effortlessly.
How does Runway’s Ambient Intelligence proactively help finance groups with out being intrusive?
The brief reply: by not turning AI right into a separate creature—like an agent or a chatbot—that it’s a must 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 will probably anticipate intent and show you how to with out being prompted. In the identical means the GitHub Copilot autocompletes your code, or Apple Intelligence solves formulation as you write them, Runway’s Ambient Intelligence makes your work clearer, quicker, and extra environment friendly.
What meaning is you don’t must hint a driver by your complete mannequin to know the way it connects with all the things else—we simply inform you that, in plain English. You don’t must examine in case your actuals match your forecast—we spotlight deviations and show you how to perceive what occurred. All of that occurs routinely—Ambient Intelligence doesn’t make any adjustments to your mannequin or eventualities, and doesn’t must be advised which context or perception is most related to you within the second. It simply does the job.
Might 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 folks do this at present is by digging by spreadsheets and tracing all the things manually. Understanding a single method will not be sufficient; it’s a must to know the way one driver impacts others, and the way the complete community is structured. That’s the way you construct deep instinct in regards to the enterprise and establish the levers you’ll be able to pull.
Runway makes that simpler. While 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 routinely, 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 one in every of our clients Andrew Maher, Head of Finance at Superhuman. Learn the complete story right here.
“With Runway, we saw our efficiency skyrocket with a 50X to 100X improvement, turning hours-long tasks into seconds,” mentioned 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 methods improve its performance?
We offer you a holistic understanding of your enterprise by pulling in each information and context.
Runway integrates with over 650 of the most typical instruments, and we transcend common integrations like common ledgers and HR methods. We join with CRMs, databases, spreadsheets, and even mission administration software program like Jira.
We consider that finance is not nearly finance; it is about understanding how all the things within the firm suits and works collectively. By integrating with mission administration instruments and databases, for instance, we join vital context to your enterprise mannequin. This manner, completely different departments work with a single supply of reality, and get a shared understanding of your enterprise.
How does Runway place itself in opposition to opponents like conventional monetary planning instruments and different fashionable AI-driven platforms?
Our core perception locations us in a wholly completely different class from different monetary options.
The primary problem of recent finance is collaboration. However the concept that finance ought to be collaborative isn’t new; it’s been round endlessly. And but, nobody has really constructed a product that allows actual collaboration. Why is that?
As a result of conventional instruments solely show you how to save time or offer you extra management. That’s the place they cease. Our core perception is that this stuff are desk stakes. What fashionable 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 group.
To make enterprise comprehensible, we begin by connecting your information to vital enterprise context and your roadmap. We use abstractions that truly map to how folks suppose. And other people don’t consider plans when it comes to numbers on a spreadsheet—they consider selections and timelines. So we present plans in a means that’s intuitive, and that everybody can simply play with. Anybody in your group can modify these plans, and see how completely different selections would influence your mannequin. That’s how we ship a shared understanding of how your enterprise works.
Our deep concentrate on creating readability units us aside. Our clients, like Superhuman, AngelList and ConvertKit (quickly to be Equipment), are already seeing the distinction with Runway.
What methods are you using to take care of 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’ve got clients in finance, however the core worth we ship is that this: actual collaboration throughout the complete group, pushed by true understanding.
We’re uniquely targeted on creating deep, intuitive understanding. Our design and engineering efforts are targeted on this single purpose. Nobody else available in the market shares our degree of concentrate on fixing this particular drawback.
I don’t suppose we now have any competitors in any respect. We’re taking part in a wholly completely different sport.
How do you envision the position 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 improve within the quantity of leverage folks have—one particular person will do the work of ten, 100, or perhaps a thousand folks.
Enterprises will leverage AI to get extra output with the identical headcount, and planning will change into exponentially extra complicated. However folks will nonetheless have to make strategic selections and perceive how the enterprise works—solely a lot quicker, 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 way in which.
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 thought of technological singularity for a second—as a result of in that world, the place AI does all the things and we’re all lounging by a pool, it’s a totally completely different story.
Earlier than we attain that time, although, I feel we’ll see an exponential increase in human functionality—the place one particular person can do the work of tons of. Human output will attain unprecedented ranges, making companies and methods way more complicated. We’ll want AI to assist us perceive what’s taking place and to make smarter selections.
It’ll all go hand-in-hand—AI will drive elevated leverage, which in flip will add to the complexity of methods. To handle elevated complexity, we’ll want much more superior instruments to additional improve human functionality.
Thanks for the nice interview, readers who want to be taught extra ought to go to Runway.