AI Video Is Eating The World — Olivia and Justine Moore, a16z

[Music] Hey everyone, welcome to the latest in space podcast. This is Allesio, partner

space podcast. This is Allesio, partner and CTO at Desible, and I'm joined by my co-host Wix, founder of Small AI.

Hello. Hello. We have a very special double guest episode uh with Justine and Olivia Moa. Welcome.

Olivia Moa. Welcome.

Hi. Thanks for having us. We're excited

to be here.

I think you're the first twins on the pod.

We're honored. We love that.

Olivia, are you are you wearing glasses so it's easier to differentiate? Is that

like a thing or No, we have opposite. Even though we're identical twins, we have opposite vision problems. So, I actually need glasses and Justine doesn't. Um, but it would be nice. Yeah, sometimes we think we should

nice. Yeah, sometimes we think we should do like name tags on our foreheads or something, but I think the glasses work just as well.

So, both of you are partners at Andre and Horowits, but also I think uh we're actually inviting talking to you in a in a capacity of you're just very involved in generative media. We don't cover

enough and I like I can see a change.

Latin space itself was started because of stable diffusion and then there was like yeah improvements in in image generators for a while. You could see like recraft is better than blah and

then black forest labs comes out then blah but like they're all just image generators. I think videogen and then

generators. I think videogen and then obviously there was music gen for a while. Video genen I think is like the

while. Video genen I think is like the current thing and we really wanted to do an episode on that. I I guess uh and then also I think the the last piece that I will preview is that we really wanted to start using it for lane space

itself. So we could use some help we

itself. So we could use some help we could use some overview of like what people are doing. Um we can sort of take it from there. I I you know I have some like some of your tweets pulled up but I

don't know how you want to start.

It's really funny actually. I got into generative media too with stable diffusion in I think it was like September 2022ish and it's grown so quickly since then.

And Olivia and I talk about this all the time cuz it used to be um that our friends in creative fields would look at like the AI image and video generation and be like I'm not worried about that

or I can't use it in my job like this is kind of just a silly side thing. And

then I think starting earlier this year, we started getting a few of them being like maybe I should maybe I should learn a little bit more about how these work and how to use them. And now we'll literally have people coming over to our

house on the weekend so we can like give tutorials and walkthroughs of like here's here's the tools, here's how you use them, that sort of thing. I would

say we've seen the same thing happen on I mean if you've been on Tik Tok or reals or uh YouTube shorts recently in the past week probably 90% of your feed

is AI generated video like even 2 months ago it was like that little orange cat animation that was super popular and then it was the Italian brain rock characters but it was just a few people

making AI video and now there's like I would guess hundreds of thousands of people making and publishing AI video which is just awesome. Sorry, I just want to clarify. Are the Italian bearing

rod made by Italians or is the descent like are the names? I haven't quite figured that out. I haven't been able to trace it down to the origins of the Italian brain rod.

It's complicated cuz it's a decentralized meme that people are taking and remixing. I actually looked into this question as well. Um, and I think the answer is no. It did not come

from Italians, but someone early on thought the name sounded vaguely Italian and so they called it Italian brain rot.

We're innocent. That's all I wanted to know. As long as we're not uh it's not

know. As long as we're not uh it's not our fault.

So, I didn't even know about the Italian brain rot, but I wanted to like kind of show and tell a little bit as well um so that our viewers can watch along. So,

this is it apparently.

Exactly. So this is essentially it was kind of a universe of characters started decentralized like one person made a few characters and then a couple other people on Tik Tok added their own

characters to the universe and the best ones became kind of like canon and they started as images is probably important to clarify and then they people started animating them into video.

Yes. And then some people, as you can see in this kind of music video, did like compilations of all the characters together or videos where the characters were interacting with each other and whole story lines were forming. And so

it became this whole giant entertainment thing. I saw last night actually there

thing. I saw last night actually there the IP has evolved to the point where people are now selling like toy sets and t-shirts and plushies. And the crazy thing about this first video to me is

it's like a real kid who is treating these charact like knows them by heart and is treating them like they're Nickelodeon characters.

Why not?

It's absolutely wild. But I get it because he's he's able to watch like dozens if not you know hundreds of videos of these characters every day on TikTok whereas Nickelodeon might put out like one episode of your show every

week. So you get attached fast I think.

week. So you get attached fast I think.

So this is I mean this is actually for kids. It's not for adults. I I don't

kids. It's not for adults. I I don't know.

Adults love it though. They're making

like musicals. They're making Yeah.

movies. They're making uh more I would say adultoriented storylines of like the characters cheating on each other. Uh so

I would say it's for both.

It can be too fun to to scroll brain rock characters. Um I was wondering like

rock characters. Um I was wondering like how do you keep track? What is your process? Uh how do you organize the

process? Uh how do you organize the universe apart from just mindless mindlessly scrolling? You know, I think

mindlessly scrolling? You know, I think that's the hard part about covering something like this.

Keeping track of trends or models or both? trends first. Uh I think models

both? trends first. Uh I think models models will come and go like the current thing is V3 but like there will be a next thing you know I think first of all you have to know where the trends are are originating at

that point in time. Initially with AI video it was actually Reddit like the early days of AI video you had a ton of people making and posting stuff in those in those forums.

And which ones?

um AI video, chatbt, singularity, like basically all of the AI oriented. Um the

AI video one was like the one for a while and then people like me would take the best content from there and bring it to Twitter and then like the very best

would sort of make its way eventually to Tik Tok or Instagram, but that happened pretty rarely. Now, especially after VO3

pretty rarely. Now, especially after VO3 and like Miniax 2 and like with the animals diving and that sort of thing, we've actually seen like a flip where

most of the viral content is now originating on the true consumer like everyday consumer platforms which I would say are like Tik Tok and Instagram. And so because people more

Instagram. And so because people more like everyday people who are not technical can make quality interesting content and they can remix content than other people have created. These

characters like the Italian brainwash characters are like a million times bigger on Instagram and Tik Tok than they are on X. Um, and so nowadays I'd say we spend more time on those other

platforms and then sort of watching what starts getting momentum in the community like what are other people remixing and iterating on what are people making accounts for like the vlogs and then

eventually like what what starts making its way to X and Reddit.

Do you have kind of like an contaminated account that you use for like max brain rot algorithm and then once you log off it's like you post that you post that in a safe and I look at it. No, I like to

live in the brain rot all the time. So,

I purposely do not have a separate account. I actually do. I even made my

account. I actually do. I even made my own account. I can share my screen.

own account. I can share my screen.

Yeah, Olivia's become like a Tik Tok creator for these videos. So, once BO3 came out and now I've like maxed out all of my my credit, so I need to use Justine's special account. But, um I was

like, "Okay, I'm curious like how lowhanging is the fruit here? Like, how

easy is it to actually kind of make money on this?"

Oh, you made your own? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I made my own and then I was experimenting with all the prompts and trying the videos myself. Okay, let's

see. So, I started, you can see I'm exposing myself here, but I started when the fruit slicing ASMR videos emerged and I was like, "Okay, let me get creative and try my own formats like

opening dragon eggs or cracking eggs or something." It didn't really work. So, I

something." It didn't really work. So, I

did the fruit trend myself and you can see that did the best. I think the trend that always works like in any format is lava. Like people love like eating lava,

lava. Like people love like eating lava, squishing lava, like peeling the crust out of lava. Like you can see in the comments like people are just completely

obsessed with it. And then I evolved into the interesting thing about V3 is there's no IP restrictions. At least on cartoon characters. Yeah. On real people

cartoon characters. Yeah. On real people there are. On cartoon characters there

there are. On cartoon characters there are not. So you can make like Stitch

are not. So you can make like Stitch from Lilo and Stitch doing his own ASMR videos which was super fun. And then I just kind of honestly was like following the trends of of like what was popular

like gold bar squishing became a thing for a while. I would say the thing I'm most ashamed of that I eventually ended up falling for is the tide pod

consumption. This is a very popular

consumption. This is a very popular genre of videos and as you can see uh people are admitting that this is their live stream to be able to eat a tide pod

and the AI characters can do it completely safely. So, these were super

completely safely. So, these were super fun to make and I would I would cross-publish them on like YouTube and Instagram and it was fascinating to see like what what worked differently on what platforms.

Were all of these text to video directly? Do you ever do frame to video

directly? Do you ever do frame to video to maybe steer it a little more?

Yeah, almost all of them were V3 just directly text to video. I did a couple on the Miniax model, especially the new trend of like animals diving off the

diving board at the Olympics, which went mega viral. I did that with the Star

mega viral. I did that with the Star Wars characters. And I just wanted to

Wars characters. And I just wanted to get the sound effects like super dialed.

So, I actually did that with the Miniax model and then use the new 11 Labs sound effects models to hand generate the sound effects, which took a very long time to kind of generate them and then

line them up at the right spot in the video. But it was very satisfying when I

video. But it was very satisfying when I was done. Cuz the thing to know about V3

was done. Cuz the thing to know about V3 that I think a lot of people don't know until you use it is you actually can't do image to video with audio. Google

hasn't released that yet. I would assume for trust and safety reasons. In the

interface, you can start with a frame, but once you do that, if you're doing it on the V3 text to video model, it will switch you back to V2 and will tell you, hey, we're switching you to a model

that's compatible to starting with an image. which means that it makes it

image. which means that it makes it super hard for like character consistency, right? If you're not able

consistency, right? If you're not able to start with an image of the same character over and over again, which is part of why you're seeing so many of these viral trends using things like a

Stormtrooper or like Jesus, where there's like a known identity that the model already understands and can recreate without a starting frame. A lot

of the Yeti and Bigfoot videos have gone super viral. Like they have their own

super viral. Like they have their own channels where they're making daily vlogs and they're getting like millions of followers and hundreds of thousands of likes and they're genuinely really entertaining and you start to feel an affinity with the characters which is

super fun. Th

super fun. Th this is the one that I uh somebody somebody posted about and I've actually unsubscribed. I'm watching it.

unsubscribed. I'm watching it.

They're so good and they're like real story lines especially. I think there's a lot of people who are like not happy with the way the official IP has been going and so they prefer to w they're

like I can control the story myself now.

Also, I mean obviously it's nice that they you don't see their mouse so it's they can they can without it.

Yeah. So, how come you haven't done a vlog?

You're just focused on ASMR. Exactly. Those are easier to generate

Exactly. Those are easier to generate for sure. I've been shocked by like how

for sure. I've been shocked by like how smart V3 is. is and Justine, you probably know more about this, but like from a pretty underoptimized prompt for something like an ASMR video because I

don't know, I have to imagine it's at least somewhat trained on on YouTube data. So, anything that already exists

data. So, anything that already exists on on YouTube, like any genre of video that already exists, it does a really good job of taking like a oneline prompt and like turning into something that you would see like a professional creator

publish. But the vlogs, the narrative

publish. But the vlogs, the narrative character-driven vlogs are a little bit more complicated outside of my skill set right now. I would say though we t like

right now. I would say though we t like I generate dozens of VO3 videos every day and just don't post most of them on like Tik Tok or Instagram. So I've

definitely experimented with the vlog format and it's like pretty easy to do.

How much of a part do you think the character familiarity plays into it? You

know, maybe the Stormtrooper content is actually not that good, but there's so many Star Wars fans, including, you know, I mean, you can see I have a Vader helmet right there. Do you think there's kind of like an initial slope of like,

hey, let's remix all known IPs in like this new format and you get a lot of attention, then do you kind of see that peter off or we're not consumer experts, so I'm curious to hear uh your thoughts?

It's such a good question. We and our a lot of our portfolio companies ask us this cuz obviously they're all trying to figure out how do they make their content stand out or how do they help

people make more interesting and viral stuff using their platforms. So, we've thought about this and studied this and AB tested different video formats. I

think there are like a couple things that benefit new formats like AI video in general. One is having some element

in general. One is having some element of familiarity, but then having an interesting twist on it. I think it like hits multiple of the like good sectors of people's brains when you're like,

"Oh, it's a Stormtrooper. I know this.

I'm going to like keep watching because I'm like already bought into the story line of of Star Wars and I want to see what happens next. But then like you get this other weird happiness in your brain

when the Stormtrooper does something in the AI vlog that they would like never do in the real cinematic universe. I

mean like 2% of like the Star Wars hardcore fans will like leave an angry comment like this isn't realistic, but like a ton of them are like, "Oh, this is super cool. Like I always wondered

about this and like now it can happen."

One of the benefits of starting with established IP is like you're already tapping into a known association in people's brains that makes them stop scrolling and be interested. The second

thing we've seen work though honestly is like just super weird stuff. Like this

is why the Italian brain rock characters like they're not based on any existing IP, right? They're just completely new,

IP, right? They're just completely new, but they're just strange and interesting enough that you're continuing to watch just to see like what the heck is this?

It's like, am I hallucinating? Are they

speaking a different language? Or is

this English and I just don't understand it? And so, I think over time we'll see

it? And so, I think over time we'll see more AI like IP like that. One of my favorite examples, and I'll screen share again, is Kim the Gorilla, which is

another Tik Tok character. And this is a a new character, a I I actually don't even know who makes it, but it's a gorilla in a zoo um named Kim who's has a real attitude. And the storyline over

time is just her constant conflict with a zookeeper named Becky who she's fighting with and trying to escape from.

And you can see like all of her videos get hundreds of thousands of likes. She

already has like 300,000 followers in like a really short period of time.

Yeah, that's Becky that she's kind of fighting with in most of these story lines. She already has her own website,

lines. She already has her own website, her own freaking merch as she tries to escape from the zoo. And so it's this kind of thing where it's like who knows if this person would have been able to

make this content before like I'm guessing they're not a professional filmmaker but like or had access to a gorilla like who Yeah.

And a great gorilla actress as well. Not

just a gorilla but a gorilla who can act on camera. It's not also like anyone

on camera. It's not also like anyone with V3 is going to come up with a really fun great narrative idea like this and keep it going over time. So, in

my mind, it's still a mix of like we need great creatives, but now they just have like a different tool set.

Yeah, they're just going to be a lot more creatives. Uh, yeah, I would just

more creatives. Uh, yeah, I would just appreciate we're more face blind to gorillas, so that that solves the consistency problem. And then you add

consistency problem. And then you add the the pink bow that makes it more recognizable, even if it's like misplaced. It's so smart. It's just like

misplaced. It's so smart. It's just like I feel just dumb when I look at these people and like how they solve AI problems, you know?

I think the really interesting thing, too, is people remix each other's work.

Like someone does a yeti and then other people realize like, "Oh, I can get around the 8-second limit by having a yeti be look consistent across four different clips." And then someone's

different clips." And then someone's like, "Oh, I'll do that as a stormtrooper." Someone else is like,

stormtrooper." Someone else is like, "I'll do it as a gorilla." And then someone else sees the gorilla clip and is like, "I'll make it a female gorilla, like feuding with a zookeeper in a zoo."

And when when I talk to AI creators, like a lot of the some of them have just completely new original ideas, especially established creatives who have been doing it for a long time and

storyboard and come up with these whole story lines, but many are just literally remixing other people's work like this and then the universe evolves from that.

For people who are kind of newish to this whole field, it is actually very valuable to have your own IP that uh you entirely control. So effectively, I

entirely control. So effectively, I actually tried to get an interview with Lil Michaela.

Ah yes, this can be cynically taken or whatever, but like the cynical version is you have an influencer that will always obey you, right? Um so they it'll never speak out

right? Um so they it'll never speak out about like political stuff. it will just just do what you ask it to do and it behave and and like you know that's rough for the AI model but you know hopefully they're not sentient yet but

in the meantime you have like a property you completely control and like you can pose them and then put them in all sorts of situations.

That part is so interesting. I I have like a very hot and controversial take on this which some people hate which is like before honestly to be like an Instagram or YouTube influencer most of

them are hot people and now it's like anyone can be a popular influencer and you don't have to be a hot person. Like

how many friends do you have that have like are like really funny and have like great personalities and are super creative but they like don't fit the exact beauty standard of like what an Instagram influencer is. And now it's

like anyone can create a character who like an AI character who meets the beauty standard and then it can be their brain behind the content. We already saw this with whole startups or stacks of

products and Justine looked at a bunch of these where it was like basically make money by building your own Instagram influencer off of AI images and a lot of people were making yeah tens of thousands of dollars through

that. They would even have sometimes

that. They would even have sometimes like a subscription that you could sign up for to get extra content for them that would make like a ton more money than they could make on Instagram ads or something like that. But I feel like

with AI video, it's just going to explode 10x.

How do you see the monetization kind of landscape? So there's the I use AI to

landscape? So there's the I use AI to make a fake person that then sells some product. I make the Italian brain rod

product. I make the Italian brain rod things and then I sell the toys or I just get a lot of views. I just spam videos on socials and I get views and kind of get the the views per per

million. Do you see a future in which

million. Do you see a future in which maybe like Patreon or like some of these other monetization things end up being KI slop feeds or I'm curious your predictions?

Okay. Yeah, I think there's a mix of ways that people are monetizing. I think

the number one way is what you mentioned which is the like you get paid by a social platform for like driving eyeballs and engagement to your videos.

Another way is yeah, we've seen people use them for like ads or driving traffic to an actual business. We've also seen people who are like really skilled

prompters, people like a Nick St. Pierre

who sell online courses or do a lot of consulting. Like a lot of actually the

consulting. Like a lot of actually the best AI creators do a lot of consulting work behind the scenes, whether it's with companies or with brands. and the

viral content they create is like generating leads for these people to reach out to them and be like, "Hey, I want to learn how to do this." And then they either like sell a course or they

sell their consulting services.

What I'm waiting for is like what is the first AI native IP or AI videos that get packaged and bought by like a Netflix or

like a Hulu? And then like from there, how do you even determine like who gets paid in that scenario when like this gets bought because it's the brainchild of like a thousand different characters?

But like I'm sure given the popularity of Italian brain rod on on Instagram and Tik Tok, like you can totally imagine someone like Netflix wanting to buy and

reuse or license those characters for their own content. My learning of making a bunch of these videos and trying to post them on social feeds is it's actually like very expensive still to

produce just because B3 is so expensive and especially if you're making more complex content than like someone slicing a glass route and even that in itself like I would have to do you know

eight generations of was cutting the fruit in the right way that I could you post it and people would be happy. Um,

but especially if you're doing something more complex like and you're using something like V3, it's it's really expensive to run to run these cuz you get a certain amount of generations on kind of the core plan, but then you have

to pay for extra credits. Exactly. This

is the fruit example. Like lots of times when I tried to generate it, it would like, you know, cut it horizontally instead of vertically or the layers would look weird once you cut them through. And so, uh, you would end up

through. And so, uh, you would end up having to do a bunch of generations to get one that works. Um, but yeah, my learning is that the generation is still expensive enough that it's like you have to kind of be smart about how you're

going to make money from it. Um,

otherwise I think a lot of people are going to find that the ROI isn't really worth it.

And the roughly the payouts on the social medias are like 20 bucks per million views, something in in that range.

That sounds high. you have to go vi well it depends on the platform but it's like you have to go viral enough or get enough views to even qualify for like a creator program where you can then make money like with my videos I posted on

Tik Tok I'm not part of the creator program so I'm not making money from those. Um so it's first like you have to

those. Um so it's first like you have to have one or two videos that ideally go hyper viral and qualify you and then after that it's like yeah you have to get enough views on each incremental

video that you're actually making money from them. So, it's not uh like cash

from them. So, it's not uh like cash sitting on the ground, I would say, on on these platforms quite yet.

I was going to correct myself. 20 20 per million is is actually low, I think. Oh,

maybe that's Tik Tok level. I was

thinking 20 per meal, which is thousand, but yeah, I think it also depends on like the engagement and stuff like that too. But

like um the other really interesting thing is a lot of people are so some people are motivated by I make these viral videos and then I use it to sell something whether it's like my time or a

course or whatever. A lot of people just finally have the opportunity to grow a big account online and like the dopamine hit of getting like tens of thousands of

likes and like thousands of followers on an account doing like AI gorilla vlogs when you were never able to like grow a big social media account before. I think

that is motivating a bunch of people too, which is fascinating. Like these

people are all experiencing what it's like to be early adopters who are like pioneering a new form of content and people are going crazy for it. That

feels sort of really rewarding and fun.

Yeah, I I agree. I had a cheap joke that I was going to throw in there, which is like, you know, people who are not hard enough for Instagram or Tik Tok, you know, to go to Twitter. Um

anyway um Exactly.

I think this, you know, links very closely with the creator economy stuff.

Creator economy, you know, I think people were very excited maybe like 5 years ago and then it kind of diedish.

Uh I don't know if you would agree or you would vehemently object, but like maybe this is like the return of the creator economy. There's another way to

creator economy. There's another way to slice the monetization stuff, you know, just to put like VC head on a little bit, which is like there's the creators and you know, I think they're we talked about them, but then there's like sort

of the creator enabler platforms. let's let's call it like a Korea or a comfy UI or whoever. Um and then there's the

or whoever. Um and then there's the direct model layer itself. And I think like right now especially with VO uh just like directly offering a platform like it's going to be the model layer that's like gets all the money unless

it's an open model where then it then it goes to the model enabler the model workflow platforms. Is that accurate?

Would you change that mental model of how money flows?

I would say it's somewhat accurate. I I

agree with kind of the distinction between the we call it sort of like the interface layer or the application layer. Companies that aren't training

layer. Companies that aren't training their own foundation models but are making it really easy to use other people's models and then the like core model layer itself like a V3 or like a

miniax or like a cling or all those or all those folks. Some of the model providers are better than others at building the consumer interfaces. So

like Cling for example, um which is one of the really good Chinese imagetovideo models has like a pretty good interface to be able to upload an image, make it a video, add sound effects in their

platform, that sort of thing. I think

like V3 is in my mind actually like a counter example where it's super hard to figure out where to access V3 within all of the Google products. like you have to sign up for the separate product called

Flow which requires like a subscription to one one of two like very expensive Google plans and then from that subscription like you have to make sure you're logged into the correct Google account when you try to access the

subscription because we all have like three Gmail accounts and so honestly what we see is like a ton of creators are just going to the model enablement layer whether it's a consumerf facing

interface like Crea or more of a developerfacing interface like a fall or a replicate where you can generate like videos on a one-off basis in like a pay

as you go model because it's easier than trying to navigate like the behemoth that is the Google product infrastructure and then you don't have

to commit to the like $125 a month Google plan to use the model. Another

example on on Flow and VO, it's like V2 is actually the default and you have to like navigate a bunch of like little hidden buttons to change it to V3. So

there's like YouTube videos with like millions of hits of just like how do I find V3 within like the Google subscription? Yes. You can't It doesn't

subscription? Yes. You can't It doesn't work on mobile, which is crazy given so many of these videos are being posted on mobile apps. Like

mobile apps. Like Yeah. And and like maybe Google will

Yeah. And and like maybe Google will release a video generation mobile app, but I would guess it it's going to take a really long time and you the website isn't even usable on mobile. So

they might fix some of these things. But

I think even in the V3 example, it is API available already. And so like a lot of the model enablement companies, I think, are making a bunch of money from it. And Google, I'm sure, is making a

it. And Google, I'm sure, is making a ton of money from it, too.

Yeah. I was looking for one of your market maps. It looks like the these are

market maps. It looks like the these are just model companies. They don't have the enablement ones.

Oh, the multimodal model apps are the enablement ones. Okay. Right there.

enablement ones. Okay. Right there.

Hedra had his own models.

They do. Yeah. So, they're in the talking avatars category for the model layer. So their model is like a talking

layer. So their model is like a talking avatar model and then they also host a bunch of the image and video models so that you can generate other stuff on their platform too.

Flora raised a big round recently.

Visual electric I have learned these two I've heard less of.

Yeah. And then even I mean if you guys even follow the stuff Adobe's doing like forever Adobe was like we're only having our own models and they're the the clean models that are only the only trained on

licensed data. And then I think they

licensed data. And then I think they realized that like no one was using those models, either the image ones or the video ones. And so now Adobe Firefly hosts like all of the other models.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

Uh we did a state of AI engineering survey and and uh we asked people what models they were using and they and um Adobe did surprisingly well like because like everything

everyone everyone who's paying attention thinks about them as like oh they're clean, therefore boring. Um, but

actually um they they showed up like here.

Interesting.

Weird. They're like they're beating Ideal Crime and Recraft. Maybe because

it's Adobe. I don't know.

I think it depends too cuz like Okay, if I think about it, there are definitely things I use Adobe for. Like for

example, I think their generative fill within Photoshop or even within Firefly or Express is like really really good for in painting and images. And so I would say I still use

images. And so I would say I still use like an Adobe model, but I use it for in painting versus like pure generation.

I think there's another thing about like the depth of workflows. How do you feel about like something like a comfy UI where it's like literally the uh it's always sunny in Philadelphia like crazy.

Yes.

Uh link maps. Um like you need that to have complex workflows, but then also maybe you know the the next model will destroy it. I love that meme and I have

destroy it. I love that meme and I have so much respect for the comfy community because like they have truly been in the trenches like having an open- source project like that where you have all of

these interconnected nodes that are dependent on each other to run all of these mini apps that like thousands probably millions of people around the world are using and not paying for but loudly complaining about is like that is

like doing the Lord's work to maintain that. I have never been a deep comfy UI

that. I have never been a deep comfy UI user because I am at my heart as you can probably tell by the fact that my feed is all brain rot a a true consumer. Like

I I actually try not to get too deep in the technical stuff because I want to h technical stuff in terms of actually using the the products and like running the really complex local workflows

because I want to understand like is this too hard for an everyday person to do. I think Comfy UI is really great for

do. I think Comfy UI is really great for people who want a ton of control. And so

for people who have more professional use cases, that's awesome. For people

who just like want to make a meme or like a fun video to share with their friends or with their Instagram audience, you probably don't need Comfy UI. I would agree that more of the

UI. I would agree that more of the company UI use cases are starting to be eaten away by kind of the core foundation model companies, but especially with things like V3 not

offering image to video, they're still definitely lacking a level of control that you can get from a platform like that. And I would say Comfy UI is still

that. And I would say Comfy UI is still awesome for a lot of things like video style transformation. people who want to

style transformation. people who want to turn a a photo realalistic video into an anime video or something like that. Like

that is not something you can do on a platform like VO3 today.

Yeah. Style transformation, consistency, and an upscaling or fixing hands. I

don't know if that's a that's a thing that people still do.

Or like character swapping. I don't know if you guys follow AI Warper on Twitter, but he does some really cool stuff with a lot of the open source tools and sort of interfaces like Comfy UI and kind of

shows like this is to me at least a lot of his stuff is like this is the forefront of what what I could do if I was like better at navigating these interfaces, but like the average person there's just no way.

So I I guess like part of this discussion we wanted to have also was just like how we might put you know just like use us as a case study. I think

you're relatively familiar with us.

If we were to start like a latent space like sort of somewhat educational channel or subbrand uh that was like entirely driven by by these things like where do we start?

Okay. Have you guys seen the brain rot education videos? Like the I had like a

education videos? Like the I had like a super Let me try to bring it up. Okay.

Very out of everything is brain rot now.

Well, I mean like this is the most uncool I've ever felt. Um because I know like like I I clearly don't scroll Tik Tok and Instagram, but like you have to pay a really high price to

be this informed about brain. I think

this is an interesting place for you guys to start. Hear me out. I know this looks crazy. So I found these like

looks crazy. So I found these like channels on Instagram. I think this one is called Unlock Learning that were getting like mil consistently millions

of views on these sorts of like AI celebrity interviews teaching education.

And so basically what they This is embarrassing. You can see that I like my

embarrassing. You can see that I like my own tweets, but we're gonna we're gonna keep moving. Um you can see that they

keep moving. Um you can see that they use like a deep fake tool like I don't know if they use Yapper or if they use something else to like take an image of a celebrity and have them sort of say the the words and their voice of the

script and then they overlay it with some sort of diagram at the top that's actually showing what's going on. You

could probably just generate a script.

Maybe what I would do is you would take links to like YouTube videos or transcripts of the podcast. You could

put them in Gemini 2.5. I actually did this recently for someone else's videos.

You could ask for an entertaining brain rot style clip summarizing XYZ topic based on your content. Then you, you know, play around with it, edit it a

little bit, wait until it's perfect.

Then you have to decide are you guys the brain rock characters or are you going to use a celebrity brain rock character to tap into the familiarity which we discussed earlier which I think like

pros and cons like I think maybe for your audience they would like seeing you guys better if you want to go viral on like Instagram and Tik Tok and reach new people like maybe Sydney Sweeney is a

good face for it. I don't know just just something to think about. We have an AI host. Actually, we've used uh an 11 Labs

host. Actually, we've used uh an 11 Labs voice called Charlie for a while.

Okay. Incredible.

And we could we could give him a a body, you know. Right now, he's just a voice.

you know. Right now, he's just a voice.

Okay. So, you could animate on on Hedra then. Uh you could take the audio clip,

then. Uh you could take the audio clip, you could take the image, you could make him talking. And then the the really

him talking. And then the the really interesting part to me is like what plays at the top, right? Like where it was showing the diagrams. Historically, I think people still put that stuff together themselves. like the

one I was just showing of Sydney Sweeney. It's actually an education

Sweeney. It's actually an education company who makes those videos. So

yeah, I just found their website and so they can reuse content they've already made. Yeah, it's giving brain

already made. Yeah, it's giving brain rot. Um

rot. Um Oh fine.

I know. like people are and so yeah then the question is like do you guys want to make the diagrams at the top or there's also um if you search like AI B-roll

generator now there's a variety of tools that will basically take your script or your audio track and sort of extract the keywords and then either search the

internet to pull together B-roll and images for you or they will sort of generate net new images or videos um which is which could potentially uh be be an interesting way to pull it

together. I would say the other

together. I would say the other recommendation that we would have for you guys to go viral with AI video stuff is there's this whole ecosystem, you've probably seen their content, but there are people called clippers that just

take existing long- form videos like podcast interviews or even TV shows and extract the most interesting and viral clips and then post them on their own platforms as like 1second videos. And

there's products like Overlap right now where if you upload, say, a new YouTube video to your channel, you can link your channel to Overlap and it'll

automatically review it, clips the best ones, and then publish those clips for you across like Twitter or Instagram or other products.

Can you guys see it? And it predicts the virality score, which I find is crazy.

So, this runs all the time. It's linked

to the A16Z YouTube.

Oh, you guys are just using it for your channel. Holy crap.

channel. Holy crap.

I mean, I I am like, for example, okay, this one, like you can go into the video and then you can see what they picked and then you can go in and edit. And so

you can say like, hey, I want to remove the caption on this word or I want to cut this word from the video completely or like I want to extend the clip and make it start longer or shorter. Like I

want to remove curse words. I want to remove filler words. I want to remove stutter. I want to change the subtitles

stutter. I want to change the subtitles so that they're like look more brain rot. Like that sort of thing. And then

rot. Like that sort of thing. And then

you can generate the social post and download. And you can set this up on

download. And you can set this up on overlap so that it'll automatically publish the short form clips as soon as you publish the long form video and it'll like write the tweets for you or write the Tik Tok caption for you.

Yeah.

Which is very cool.

This is exactly what I've been looking for. I I just didn't know it existed.

for. I I just didn't know it existed.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

Uh so you guys can become your own uh your own fanboy clippers and make money off of Yeah. the the long form show itself

of Yeah. the the long form show itself and the short form viral clips.

Yeah. So there's all sorts of clipping agents where so it's actually a comfy UI type interface which is really cool. So this is basically this is what it looks the clipping agent looks like. It is

watching for any new YouTube video that is uploaded to the A16Z channel. It is

automatically finding interesting clips that are between 30 seconds and 140 seconds in length and the criteria is like topics that would be interesting to

like the tech audience. It is adding subtitles. You can then add more

subtitles. You can then add more actions. For example, you can say

actions. For example, you can say convert it take all of the 16x9 clips and convert them to 9 by6 or add smart zoom so it zooms in on the person's face

when they're doing something interesting. This is not a company we're

interesting. This is not a company we're invested in. We just like recently

invested in. We just like recently discovered it and we were like this is the dream.

It is the dream.

Yeah. We have um I built um small podcaster thing for us that automates a lot of things and it picks the clips but doesn't do any the the hard part is actually how do you go from picking the

timestamps to actually making it get a lot of views on on YouTube. So we'll

we'll try it out.

You know the I I think I think there's a art in picking the the the clips because I think that you know maybe they're optimized for brain rot uh and we're a technical podcast like they they wouldn't pick the same clips that we would pick.

So this is the interesting thing too.

It's like if you guys want to be across multiple platforms maybe you have an agent set up that purposely generates different clips for different audiences.

Like maybe you have it clip like educational, informative, like technical stuff for YouTube and then you you experiment with what if we gave it a

prompt to pick like brain rot funny controversial stuff for like young people and then turn it into a Tik Tok the Tik Tok aspect ratio and then post those like what would happen to a Tik

Tok account?

Yeah. Yeah. Um I I think it's worth experimenting with with a bunch of those. Um, yeah, my my hypothesis is

those. Um, yeah, my my hypothesis is that usually sort of repurposed content doesn't do as well as native content.

That's the general rule, which in other words, like we recorded this as a long form podcast. If you clip it out, sure,

form podcast. If you clip it out, sure, like, you know, you might get a little more juice out of it, but it's never going to go great because it's never made to made for the short form. Um,

like we've actually, you know, so little behind the scenes, we've actually explored like what if we change the way we record podcasts and we only optimize for clips.

Okay. But have you So I used to agree with you, but have you seen the Vitrupo account?

Yeah, that that guy's pretty prolific, but I don't know what you're referring to.

So just his he has clips that go viral all like he clips long form interviews and they go viral all the time. Like I

also used to think that clips would never do well, but I feel like especially in the X algorithm right now, it's like a clipping era. everyone for

some reason video is like doing super well in the algorithm and especially if you're it's a video of like a character that people know which is like Sam Alman or like Gary Tan or like whoever you can

get in a crazy amount of juice out of these clips.

I think part of it is also we as a brand like this is seriously like we're we're considering doing this right so we have to think through everything. We as a brand have to resist clickbait somewhat, right? Yes. You know, we can't just keep

right? Yes. You know, we can't just keep saying like Sam Alman says the world's going to end in two years and like no, he didn't say that. But like you could misconrue

that. But like you could misconrue something he said to say that. You know,

we have this struggle which is and Olivia and I were fighting about this last night. We fight in a good

last night. We fight in a good naturatured way about a lot of things.

It's not really, it's just like we're twins. Like we like, you know, have back

twins. Like we like, you know, have back and forth about things, but we will help each other write tweets sometimes. And

she wrote a tweet intro to me that just like sounded like one of those spammy like AI is blowing up. Like everything

has changed accounts. And I had to be like, Olivia, this is not us. Like we

need to like stay on the course. It's

the YouTube thumbnail economy now. Yeah.

For content, right? Right. I mean, but like you know,

right? Right. I mean, but like you know, we could create a subbrand that is like affiliated but not us that like we could just kind of throw throw that on there.

And I think like look like there are some people who are just literally their best served like that. They don't have the cog is what I call it or like they

don't have the pride or taste or whatever, right? whatever you call

whatever, right? whatever you call yourself, but like if you want your content to spread to the widest known people, you have to sort of adapt it to the way that they like to receive information whether or not they know it.

[Laughter] I think it's going to be really interesting too to see different ages of people because at least from what I've seen the like already the kids like the Gen Alpha, the kids who like grew up

fully in the internet era, fully in the smartphone era consume content and create content much differently than like Gen Z and millennials. And I hope that doesn't mean that everything has to

be brain rot for people to understand it. Like I really want there to still be

it. Like I really want there to still be space for like these long form intellectual deep dives as like a habitual blog post writer, but I'm like a little bit scared of that.

No, I think I think there's always room for like long form good writing, good good discussions. I almost think like

good discussions. I almost think like sometimes it's just ironic and funny that that's why it's viral. Like people

you're not even like actually learning anything from those like educational Sydney Sweeney channels. You're just

like, "Oh, it's funny that you can do this now." Like this is what humanity

this now." Like this is what humanity has come to. Yes.

Anything else in terms of like creative trends? Like we we've talked a lot about

trends? Like we we've talked a lot about video. Oh, um I was going to bring up

video. Oh, um I was going to bring up prompt theory. Maybe this is like a nice

prompt theory. Maybe this is like a nice thing to talk about. I don't know if it's too woo woo or philosophical for you, but you brought it up. So, could

you explain what prompt theory is?

Okay. So, it sort of evolved. So, at

first it started with people when people realized they could make these V3 characters talk in videos. It started

with like what if these characters either realized they were AI generated or refused to accept that they were AI generated and controlled by a prompt.

It's kind of like an existential crisis for AI characters. Like that video that went viral of the Notebook LM uh hosts back last September realizing that like

they could be shut down and they weren't real and he tried to call his wife and then he realized he doesn't actually have a wife and he's just an AI generated voice.

Oh no. It's kind of like that but for V3 characters and it's a lot more striking because they look so real. And then the evolution of prompt theory more recently and I think I tweeted a video about this

that I can I don't know if I can pull it up or send it to you guys but now people are like okay what if we're actually prompted like what if real humans like what if we are the AI characters in someone else's universe? Like would we

know it? And like are we all controlled

know it? And like are we all controlled by prompts? Like one of the big trends

by prompts? Like one of the big trends for VO3 on Tik Tok right now is AI clapbacks. So it's often like the format

clapbacks. So it's often like the format is like a young person and an old person and like the young person is like oh like my hair looks amazing and the old person is like that's not natural hair

whatever but it started evolving to like well you know your hair is just prompted. You didn't do anything to get

prompted. You didn't do anything to get that good hair and then like the young person will be like well like you're on your way to the cemetery. Like it

quickly devolves. It quickly devolves into like chaos. people in this in this situation real?

No, they're both generated.

Okay. Okay.

Yes. Yes. But it's like you're you're seeing all of these like brain rot accounts of like teenagers with anime profile pictures who live in the Midwest who you would like never expect to be

thinking about like the meta layer of AI and prompt theory are including the concept of prompt theory in their like AI clapback videos. So, it's really

gotten kind of very very broad. So, I

think about that a ton because sites like Reddit have existed like that for a while where you actually you have no context on the other person. Like it's

an anonymous username. Almost no one is like doxed on Reddit. And so on Reddit, it's like everyone could be bots and like what do you know? Now that LLMs are like getting so good at sounding natural and like pretending like they have

interests and like pretending like they have lives in which things are going on.

I spend so much time thinking like would it actually be sad if I was talking with a ton of LLMs on Reddit or if there was just a ton of people who are always available to talk about my interests who had interesting things to say like is

that the good side of the world like I don't know made your own fro yo brand right yes you just brainstorm for prompting yeah prompting yeah uh you can pose it you

can create artist I was going to say it's exactly that or bread climp yes bread climp is another great Have you guys followed Breadclimp.

No. What is that?

So Breadclamp, yeah, it was early AI.

Then they started creating videos and stuff like that of him. He got super popular. I tweeted one of the early AI

popular. I tweeted one of the early AI videos of Brett Climpmp and people loved it. All right, here is BadClimp.

it. All right, here is BadClimp.

Oh, it's a possome.

He's very cute and he has this whole universe of characters that he interacts with. Let me see if I can find

with. Let me see if I can find Isn't that Ian Mckllen? but the AI version.

So, a lot of people liked this and then like a bunch of people started commented and said that they wanted breadclimp sweatshirts that I actually made breadclimp sweatshirts and so I we we

like took a bread slump design. We like

removed the background. We like overlaid it on um a sweatshirt that we had like a screen printing company do and then we probably ordered like 30 of them and we distributed them to like friends and

family and other people in like the AI video community. But like the Bread Club

video community. But like the Bread Club sweatshirts could have been like a real sweatshirt brand.

Oh my god.

There they are. Wait, can you zoom in on them Olivia?

Yeah. So that's us and that's a niche on our consumer team um wearing our breadc sweatshirt. Well, the AI like furniture.

sweatshirt. Well, the AI like furniture.

I don't know if you guys have seen especially on Facebook actually. AI

furniture like totally blows up. So,

like it's a l like it's a couch but it's like shaped like a giant cat and like the eyes glow when you like sit on it or things like that. Like these accounts,

the AI furniture and the AI home design accounts are huge. And I actually saw I'll try to see if I can find it later, but I actually saw one example of

someone made this like gorilla chair basically that then actually got like manufactured and you can buy it. There's

a lot of differences between platforms of the type of content that's going viral and the types of people that are making them. So my biggest piece of

making them. So my biggest piece of advice is actually just to like yeah set up a separate account on YouTube, on Instagram, on Tik Tok, on X and kind of take a look at what people are posting

there and just follow a bunch of AI accounts and then the feed will give you more. There's almost this like content

more. There's almost this like content arbitrage thing that happens right now where something will go viral on one platform and then there's like a one or two day window to be like the person to post it on the next platform, but it's

kind of fascinating to watch like what blows up where, which I think is reflective of like who's spending their time on which platforms. Um, it's just amazing to watch. Like the AI ASMR stuff

on TikTok was huge and then kind of slowly made its way elsewhere. I think

the animals diving was huge on on threads and all the Facebook products first because of the maybe age demo of those users and then slowly made their

way to like X and other places. Um

Justine, what do you think? I think if you want less of the brain rot, less of the brand new people to this and more like how are people professionally using

AI video? Um, there's this guy called PJ

AI video? Um, there's this guy called PJ Ace on Twitter who he had like the viral Khi ad that aired during the NBA finals.

He's done like a bunch of really cool more commercial work whether it's for individual musicians or brands. Um, and

he shows like how how would a true professional use AI to make stuff. And

he also shares his workflows which is great.

True professional stuff.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, he's a real He has like decades of experience in kind of film production. I think he made his own TV

production. I think he made his own TV show before this. Non AI like he knows what he knows what he's doing.

To me, the the biggest thing in my mind is are people going to be bottlenecked by how many sweatshirts they can produce basically to make money. It feels like it's much easier to make the the content and get the audience than actually get

good good merch. So, I'm curious to see if we get a the overclip thing that generates the clip. You have something that just generates merch based on latest videos with like quotes and like images of it.

Yeah. I'm curious to see where where that goes.

That would be so cool. I love that.

Actually, someone should totally do that.

Yeah. Request for startup. Yeah. Yeah.

If anybody's listening, please go build it for us.

Yeah. Thanks for for your time. This was

great. And uh we'll keep following the Brain Rod closely on social medias.

We will too. And thanks for having us.

and we're looking forward to seeing what content you guys make.

Thank you all. Thanks, guys.

Awesome. Thanks, guys.

[Music]