--- description: Find out why Cristóbal Valenzuela was selected for the list title: TIME100 AI 2023: Cristóbal Valenzuela image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1187c5c5fe1c2d07/698a401b47ca381ffa3bb1ca/ValenzuelaUSE-THIS-ONE.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Sep 07, 2023 # Cristóbal Valenzuela CEO and Co-Founder, Runway by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Illustration by TIME; reference image courtesy of Cristóbal Valenzuela To the actors in Hollywood, [striking](https://time.com/6294212/sag-aftra-actors-strike/ "undefined") in part over [concerns](https://time.com/6277158/writers-strike-ai-wga-screenwriting/ "undefined") that AI will increasingly be used to generate movie scenes, Cristóbal Valenzuela might be public enemy No. 1. Valenzuela is co-founder and CEO of Runway, one of the most prominent AI-video-generation companies. Since its founding in Brooklyn in 2018, Runway has raised over $200 million, and its technology has been used by editors working on the Oscar-winning 2022 movie [_Everything Everywhere All at Once_](https://runwayml.com/customers/how-director-and-editor-evan-halleck-uses-runway-for-films-music-videos-and-commercials/ "undefined"), and by Stephen Colbert’s [_The Late Show_](https://runwayml.com/customers/late-night-show-cbs-uses-Runway/ "undefined"). Valenzuela thinks “we’re heading towards a world where all the media and content entertainment you consume will be \[AI\] generated.” (Investors in Runway include Salesforce, where TIME co-chair and owner Marc Benioff is CEO.) --- ### More from TIME --- But Valenzuela, 33, doesn’t see Runway’s mission as being in conflict with the creation of cultural value. “I started Runway after going to art school and the three founders met in art school,” he says. “We’ve always thought about the company as a company that’s driven to help serve artists, because that’s where we’re coming from.” Still, Valenzuela concedes that, if the technology progresses as he imagines that it will, many jobs in the creative industry will cease to exist. That’s not exactly new, he points out. “We used to have orchestras in theaters,” he says. “There’s no orchestra playing music for silent movies, because we’ve assumed collectively having talkies, or movies with sound, is better than having an orchestra.” Valenzuela hopes that AI tools will allow more people to share their stories. “I actually truly believe the best era of cinema is to come, the best movies are yet to be made. We haven’t seen stories from around the world from people that we might have never heard before, because the craft of filmmaking used to be and it still is extremely expensive and difficult to understand and work with. The moment you start making that technology more accessible, more people will be able to become and consider themselves filmmakers. And I think that’s what really matters.” Cristóbal Valenzuela: The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2023 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai/6308278/cristobal-valenzuela-2/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai/6308278/cristobal-valenzuela-2/"},"headline":"Cristóbal Valenzuela","datePublished":"2023-09-07T11:00:22.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:17:45.782Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai/6308278/cristobal-valenzuela-2/","keywords":["sponsorshipblock","TIME100 AI","AI-Innovators2023"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1187c5c5fe1c2d07/698a401b47ca381ffa3bb1ca/ValenzuelaUSE-THIS-ONE.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1187c5c5fe1c2d07/698a401b47ca381ffa3bb1ca/ValenzuelaUSE-THIS-ONE.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai/6308278/cristobal-valenzuela-2/","name":"Cristóbal Valenzuela"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"See Everyone on the TIME100 AI List","description":"The TIME 2023 Time 100 AI list features innovators, thinkers, shapers and leaders who are making the future of AI.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/QiijrnNF/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2023-09-07T10:45:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/QiijrnNF.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai/6308278/cristobal-valenzuela-2/","duration":"PT1M48S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai/6308278/cristobal-valenzuela-2/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```