Riding an AI Rocketship with Mikey Shulman, CEO of Suno

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Mikey Shulman is having a great time.

He’s running a rocket ship of a company, has $100M+ in funding from some of the top VCs, and is working on an opportunity that he’s passionate about.

Mikey hit my radar because of a text from my friend TJ. His firm was an early backer of Suno, and he said that if any company they work with was going to hit our “4 Min Mile” challenge of $100M in revenue with fewer than 10 employees, it'd be Suno.

That was the conversation I was planning to have with Mikey when we stepped into the studio at Suno HQ in Cambridge. What unfolded was a conversation with much more nuance and range than I’d originally anticipated.

Some takeaways:

Mikey emphasizes the importance of fun in AI development, contrasting with the industry’s focus on productivity gains. He sees AI as a tool for enhancing human creativity in music, potentially leading to new heights in artistic expression.
Shulman sees AI as a tool that, like humans, learns from past data to create new expressions. He disagrees with the notion that AI can only look backward, arguing that it can be a powerful instrument for innovation in music when guided by human creativity.
The company’s rapid growth was aided by staying somewhat removed from the AI hype cycle, allowing them to focus on building value and iterating quickly based on user feedback.
Despite raising significant capital, Shulman actively tries to avoid fixating on the company’s war chest. He believes constantly thinking about available funds can distort decision-making and lead to inefficient resource allocation.
Shulman credits much of Suno’s success to his talent for hiring and building a strong team, rather than his own ideas. He stresses the value of finding people who are passionate and committed to the company’s mission.

As Suno approaches the $100M mark with a much bigger team than 10, I can’t help but wonder if there’s more indie can be doing to encourage and support founders who are thinking similarly about small teams with ambitions for massive scale.

We’re doing that already through our direct investing, but I wonder if there’s a program we could put together that would involve investment and shared learnings from a group of like-minded founders working towards a similar goal that could help the whole get there that much quicker.

If you have thoughts on this, please share. It’s something we’re actively thinking through, and I would value additional ideas and points of view.

As always, we hope you enjoy watching this one as much as we enjoyed recording it. If you’re working on something with a similar ethos to Suno and looking for investment, don’t hesitate to reach out.

— Bryce

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