A "rebellious" Danish coder turned entrepreneur, Synthesia CEO Victor Riparbelli reveals however curiosity, risk‑taking and a breakthrough successful AI probe propelled him from teenage tinkerer to starring a multi‑billion‑dollar tech company.
Victor Riparbelli, co-founder and CEO of Synthesia, has go 1 of Europe's leading voices connected AI — despite starting acold from the accepted tech path.
Growing up successful Denmark, Riparbelli often felt retired of measurement with its consensus-driven culture.
"It's an astonishing place, but it's really not a spot that inspires ambition and drive and innovation," he told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick connected the "Executive Decisions" podcast.
He immersed himself successful books and computers, processing what helium calls a "rebellious" mindset and a knack for spotting trends early.
Riparbelli's ambitions took him overseas for a semester astatine Stanford University and yet London's startup scene, wherever he came crossed the groundbreaking research paper, "Face-to-Face."
"This is 1 of the archetypal papers [on artificial intelligence] that utilized the neural web to actually generate new data, and successful this case, video of radical talking, which looked pretty realistic," Riparbelli said.
Describing it arsenic a infinitesimal of epiphany, the idea sparked the institution that would become Synthesia. But convincing investors was pugnacious astatine first.
"We tried a batch of people, much than 100 people. We got turned down by astir of them," Riparbelli said.
The turning constituent came from a acold email to billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who invested $1 cardinal aft a 14‑hour exchange. Riparbelli says the acquisition underscored conscionable however captious buy‑in is when you're pitching an unconventional idea.
"If you have to both person them on the imaginativeness and that you're the close idiosyncratic to tackle it, it's very difficult," he said.
With Synthesia astir precocious valued at $4 billion, Riparbelli has large decisions up as the institution prepares for its adjacent chapter.
"Our aspirations are very, precise big. Getting to a cardinal dollars successful revenue… probably requires us to spell multi-product," helium said.
Watch Victor Riparbelli's interview with Steve Sedgwick by clicking the video above, and subscribe to Executive Decisions wherever you get your podcasts.
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