The Twenty Minute VCMikey Shulman, CEO @Suno: The Future of Music, What is Gonna Happen? | E1244
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
125 min read · 25,272 words- 0:00 – 0:42
Intro
- MSMikey Shulman
OpenAI is amazing. They did every AI company a huge disservice because everybody thinks that just, like, empty textbox is now the right interface. And it is for ChatGPT and it is incorrect for basically everything else. At some point, I don't know if it's version four or version five, there will be a last model release that is released as a model, and everything else is just product releases.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Ready to go? (upbeat music plays) Mikey, I am, like, the biggest fanboy of Suno, and I have created like 25 songs in the last few days. So, I'm so excited for this. Thank you for joining me.
- MSMikey Shulman
So good to
- 0:42 – 3:06
What is Suno?
- MSMikey Shulman
be here. Thank you for having me.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Now, I would love to just start with, for those that don't know what Suno is, what is Suno and what is Suno not?
- MSMikey Shulman
Uh, yeah, Suno is a way, um, for everybody to experience, uh, all of the joys of music, meaning not just background listening to music, but, uh, losing yourself in the process of making music, sharing music, of editing music, um, of being a much more active participant in music. You know, I like to think we're not making music, we're making musicians.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I love that as, like, a tagline. But I actually spoke to, uh, Minjano before the show, and he was like, "Dude, you gotta ask him about the origin." Because it was an enterprise AI audio tool and it wasn't what you see today. Can you talk to me about that pivot?
- MSMikey Shulman
I think... I- I wouldn't call it a pivot. You know, we always knew that, um, audio is really far behind the world of text. You know, that's wh- where we came from. Uh, our backgrounds are all NLP. And we thought it would actually be a lot harder to do good generative stuff, and so we thought the first product would be, um, more sense-making. You know, try to, try to scratch your head and think back to, like, GPT-2. Um, no one was really making interesting text with GPT-2, but GPT-2 was, like, this interesting tool for understanding text. And that's where we thought we would be stuck, uh, for a couple of years until we learned to scale these things up, and it turned out we were wrong, and that good generative capabilities came out much, much sooner. And so, um, we- we- we... The- the interesting thing here is the ability to generate stuff, and so we- we kind of very quickly threw out the sense-making tool.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Dude, I- I already just love chatting to you 'cause, uh, we just go off in many different directions. Do you think scaling laws will continue? You said there about the generative improvements.
- MSMikey Shulman
For music, it's very different from text, and I think people will very sloppily look at the world of OpenAI and Anthropic and the hyperscalers and say, um, "Audio is just a couple years behind," which it is, but that scale is gonna solve all these things. But unlike those domains where you're trying to just get more and more answers to objective problems, like I wanna get a better SAT score, I wanna do better on this benchmark, music is totally subjective. And, uh, so scale is not the answer to all the problems. So, the models stay relatively small, um, and there are other techniques that you have to use to actually have these things have good taste.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So, we live in a world of many small models in music?
- MSMikey Shulman
I don't know about many, but scale is not, I think, um, as- as much of a panacea as
- 3:06 – 4:10
Why Should Music Resemble Video Games?
- MSMikey Shulman
it is in text.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So, if we think about, like, insight developments, you said to me before, "Music should more closely resemble a video game in the future." I thought this was a fascinating analogy or comparison. Why should it resemble a video game?
- MSMikey Shulman
The thing about video games is that they're interactive, uh, they're engaging, they're rich experiences, they're- they're fun by yourself, they're more fun with your friends. And when I think about what music should be for me, uh, it should be all of those things. Um, and then, uh, so, in that sense, I want to make m- music more like a video game. Nobody half plays video games the same way people kind of put on music in the background and half pay attention to it. Um, and then the other way is I think if you accomplish all those things, and if you make music interactive and you make music engaging, um, people will pay for it like they pay for video games. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the video game industry is so much bigger than the music industry, and- and most other industries, and it's because people have no problem parting with their hard-earned money, um, to experience those things. And to me, it seems, like, just crazy that music should not be as engaging as Fortnite.
- 4:10 – 6:24
Are Higher Prices for Better Models Just Temporary?
- MSMikey Shulman
- HSHarry Stebbings
I- I agree with you, people will pay for it. I think I- I did the $300 option as fast as I could.
- MSMikey Shulman
Oh. Thank you for your support.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Um, by the way, I don't... I tweeted this yesterday, actually, because of this, sorry. Um, but I don't think in the future we will pay more for access to newer models. I think that is just a stage of the development cycle that we're in. In five years' time, we won't pay more for a better model. You'll just get the Suno product.
- MSMikey Shulman
I agree with that very strongly. I'm not even sure you'll know what model there is. Uh, you know, I think, um, a- at some point, I don't know if it's version four or version five, there will be a last model release that is released as a model, and everything else is just product releases. Because i- in the end, you know, it's not today, but in the end, I think people aren't gonna care what powered the thing. Um, you're just gonna care that the music made you feel a certain way, and there's gonna be lots of things that go into that.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I ask, what powers Suno?
- MSMikey Shulman
Uh, you mean the model?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah, uh, it's a transformer model. Uh, we- we've not been shy about that. It's, um... Our- our competitive edge here has not been to innovate on the architecture and has been to innovate on the audio representation. So, if you like, you can think it's not obvious how to tokenize audio.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- MSMikey Shulman
Um, but if you spend night and day doing that and basically take everything from the open source text community for how to make and scale models, uh, that's a pretty good recipe.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So, I do just wanna go back to something you said there, which is, "We're not cheapening music, we're making it more valuable." With total respect as an economist, which I'm not, uh, but as a venture investor I proclaim to be something I'm not as a, you know, frequent job, um, when you increase supply, it reduces the price. You are making supply infinite, relatively, um, practically. Um, does that not reduce the price?
- MSMikey Shulman
I think it reduces, uh, the average value of any given piece of content, but I think it greatly increases the value of music to society or to any given person.... um, and, uh, I think that's what we want, right? Like, we want a bigger, more vibrant music industry that has way more participants in it, that has way more engagement, and not this more precious thing where very few people have access to actually doing it, um, to making it, and, and, um, the range of experiences that the average person has is kind of limited and therefore not valuable.
- 6:24 – 8:31
Why Is Quantum Computing Amazing but Not Worth Pursuing?
- MSMikey Shulman
- HSHarry Stebbings
I wanna start, before we, like, really dive into the company, there were elements that we were talking about before where you were like, "I'd like to touch on these," and they were not in my purview of, like, "Okay, these are logical ones to go with." You said to me, "Quantum computing will be amazing, but you still should not do it."
- MSMikey Shulman
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Well, I, I... It was like... (laughs) Why will it be amazing, but why shouldn't we do it?
- MSMikey Shulman
I think the, the promises are, are, are incredible. Uh, you know, there's a big part of me that wishes that we knew more things to do with these quantum computers. But I just see a, a rush of, um, commercial dollars into the space, um, where far more research was necessary, and people are so short-sighted, including, if I may, in your business, VCs are so s- short-sighted. You expect returns over a certain time horizon. And at least from my vantage point, the, the challenges are not... Um, they're still physics challenges. They're still, like, basic research challenges that have to happen here, and so it's not something where you can kinda just turn the crank and make companies out of it. And, and to my knowledge, all of the companies that sprang up around this are not doing all that well. And to my knowledge, the best stuff that happens, happens in this weird public-private partnership, uh, type of situation.
- HSHarry Stebbings
But if you agree it's amazing, should we not pursue it, go through that trough of disillusionment, that pain, to get to the amazing outcome?
- MSMikey Shulman
Uh, we should. You should not. You know, c- career advice, not, not... It's, it's a very risky career 'cause it may not work. You know, we, we... So, so, uh, and people should not... I... Just to be spicy, people should not join companies doing it just yet.
- HSHarry Stebbings
But if that's the case, we will never get to that end outcome.
- MSMikey Shulman
I, I, I agree with you. It's like a tragedy of the commons, but like, it's an irrational decision right now, right? 'Cause it's like, um... Yeah, it's, it's gonna need some, some massive government intervention, I think in a good way, to make it happen, and, and we should do that, but, um-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Should the government fund it?
- MSMikey Shulman
I think so.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Not venture investors?
- MSMikey Shulman
I don't think so. I don't think you're gonna get your money back in a reasonable time.
- HSHarry Stebbings
It's called enterprise SaaS investing, my friend, um. (laughs)
- MSMikey Shulman
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you know how long it takes? Years, years.
- MSMikey Shulman
No, but this is decades. Uh, this is my point.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah, fuck that. Uh, I'm, I'm, I'm young, but not that young.
- 8:31 – 9:40
Why Do Physicists and Economists Excel in Machine Learning?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Um, why do physicists and economists make the, make the best machine learning engineers?
- MSMikey Shulman
Uh, great question. Two, two completely different reasons, I think. Um, you know, and I'll preface this with, like, uh, you know, building an AI company, uh, you are in the business of trying to find talent and trying to find underappreciated talent. Let's be honest. I will pay you less than o- OpenAI will pay you, and I need to find a, a reason to convince you to come join us. And I think, um, for economists, economists are... And I am not an economist, but are great at thinking about natural experiments. They're great about doing kind of first principles reasoning in a way that isn't just like, turn the tank, turn the crank, get better at this benchmark. But it's much better at thinking about what do these benchmarks really mean? Are there natural experiments that I can pursue there? Because, um, lots of, um, economics research happens in, in kind of data-poor environments, and I think those are really interesting perspectives. Um, physics, I'm maybe a little bit closer to. Experimental physicists just get good at running high-quality experiments really quickly, and, um, AI is an empirical discipline. And so whoever can run more high-quality experiments quickly
- 9:40 – 13:32
How Do You Compete for Talent Against AI Giants?
- MSMikey Shulman
will win.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How do you compete in a war for talent with OpenAI, with Anthropic, with the massive, uh, incumbents that we have in this space who are paying millions of dollars?
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah, we don't pay millions of dollars. Uh, so how do we compete? Um, there's a couple things. You know, one is, uh, we're not in Silicon Valley. Um, and, and for a variety of reasons, but, um, if you wanna be in one of the cities where we are, we're headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Um, we're kind of the, the coolest AI company, certainly in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Um, there's something else that goes back to what we were talking about before, which is that, um, if you're interested in a different AI problem, in the problem of how do I align models not to objective truth but to human taste, I think there's nowhere else to do it.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How do you align models to human taste when human taste is so subjective?
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah, it's really hard. Uh, you know, and I think, um, we have the advantage of having a lot of usage, and so we can run... Um, we have a lot of data. We can collect a lot of data. We can run a lot of A-B tests on things. Um, in the future, there's probably a lot more personalization that happens in this domain. But in the meantime, uh, it's similar techniques that align models to, uh, human preferences for like RLHF or for, um, ChatGPT, et cetera. Um, but it's totally not obvious that that is what the future should be. You know, it's totally not obvious that the same techniques that are used to align, um, LLMs to weird human taste should be the same techniques that we use to align music models.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How far will large model providers go into the application layer? I'm really just throwing you off on this.
- MSMikey Shulman
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
But I'm just... I'm... Listen, like, there's nothing to say OpenAI doesn't move into customer support or music creation.
- MSMikey Shulman
Totally. Uh, you know, I, I... We, we think about this a lot, and then on the other hand, we kind of have to ignore it 'cause we're, we're, we're just doing this. I think they will try. I don't know if it will be music. You know, customer support seems, honestly, bigger. You know, the thing that OpenAI is going after is, let's be honest, "I hope to build a giant company." But, you know, general intelligence and customer support are both much bigger than music. And so-
- HSHarry Stebbings
No, customer support's not. Come on, Zendesk is like a $10 billion company at bat-
- MSMikey Shulman
The-
- HSHarry Stebbings
... and overbid by PE providers.
- MSMikey Shulman
The, the future of customer support might be m- much, much bigger than Zendesk, right? If, if, if everything can be automated. You have all these BPOs. You have all these... I, I... It's not obvious to me. You know, I, I-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Maybe, maybe.
- MSMikey Shulman
I, I, I am, I'm quite certain that the future of music is also much bigger than it is today. But maybe that's not dawned on, on the folks at OpenAI. What I will say is that, um...This isn't just, uh... It's the same thing about things being tastes. This is a product game. At the end of the day, uh, people will use Suno because it's a better product, not because there's a bigger, better, bigger model under the hood. Uh, this is just, like, we are in the business of selling pleasurable musical experiences to people, plain and simple. And so a chat interface is not the be all and end all that people wanna do for that.
- HSHarry Stebbings
You know what's amazing about your product, is your time to wow, which is like five seconds. I typed in, like, you know, a slow inspirational song to run to male guitar vocals, and it came out with, like, unbelievable in five seconds.
- MSMikey Shulman
I think, um, yeah, I mean, uh, I'm, I'm very happy we use transformers because it lets us kind of, uh, get that to you quicker. Um, we can actually measure... It's super important what you said, and we, we keep a very close eye on making sure we deliver an amazing experience for your first song because it, it matters a ton. And I can tell you, for example, we can introduce a little bit of artificial latency into the product, and we can see people like it less. Like so this, you know, it's probably eight seconds-
- HSHarry Stebbings
That's interesting because sometimes you see, like, the working in the background, loading some magic, and people feel like more value's being created with that psychological experiment of it takes a little bit more time.
- MSMikey Shulman
I, I think, you know-
- HSHarry Stebbings
So fascinating.
- MSMikey Shulman
... it, it, it... Yeah, but 10 seconds is worse than eight.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MSMikey Shulman
Um, and so I don't see us getting to one second anytime soon. But I think the, the, the, the crossover that you're talk- talking about, we're still kind of far away
- 13:32 – 19:45
What Defines a Successful User in Suno?
- MSMikey Shulman
from.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What is the metric for a successful user? Is it three songs created, one song shared? How do you think about that?
- MSMikey Shulman
There's a few things we look at there. I think, um, the, the most salient one is actually just like, did you hit the paywall your first day? Um, because even if you didn't go through it for whatever reason, if you hit the paywall, you just enjoyed the last 10 or 12 minutes of your life. And I know I did something good there. And if you made one song and threw it away and never came back to it, we didn't wow you, you didn't have that magical experience, and we missed our mark. So I think that's, like, kind of the most important one. And it's, it's fairly high how, how... the, the fraction of people that hit the paywall their first day.
- HSHarry Stebbings
This may be completely crap user feedback, but I found actually the numbers jarring because you price it annually.
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
It's like bigger numbers. And so like when you see 300 bucks, you're like, "Wow, it's a lot." But if you showed me like 29.99, I'd be like, "Mm, fair enough."
- MSMikey Shulman
Mm. We do want you to do an annual subscription though. In some sense, not, not the most deliberate decision, but we made a decision to start charging from day one, which is like a little bit against the traditional wisdom of Silicon Valley of just like give the product away for free, scale, scale, scale.
- HSHarry Stebbings
And why did you?
- MSMikey Shulman
And honestly, it was, you know, we, we didn't want to be a novelty item. We wanted to be giving people something that they enjoyed enough to pay for. And so I remembered, like we, we... When we launched this thing, it was a Discord bot. We started collecting... You know, we always had this free tier, same free tier as it is today. Um, and if you wanted to do more, you had to pay, and we were... And a surprising number of people subscribed in that first month. Uh, and it was a sign that like, "Hey, this is a real thing." Um, but even, even without the revenues, which are fantastic to, to have, and they offset, you know, they offset, uh, uh, a lot of GPU burn, um, knowing what gets people to subscribe is such valuable data that I don't know, like, how we would do this without it.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What do you mean by that? Uh, um, what did you learn from that valuable data?
- MSMikey Shulman
So, uh, imagine it were just, uh, only the free tier or everything were totally free. Um, when you hit that paywall... Sorry, when you hit the end of your free tier, um, I don't know why, I don't know if you wanted to continue or didn't wanna continue, um, I don't know how to pick out the users that I wanna interview that found this really valuable or not really valuable. Like, I'm kind of lost in the desert a little bit. And if you have it and you can say, "Okay, these are the people who subscribed. These are the people who subscribed before they even hit the paywall. Let's go talk to them, and let's figure out, like, what was that magical moment they had." Or, "These were the people that hit the paywall and didn't subscribe. Let's go talk to them. Let's figure out why we didn't wow them." These are the... You know, and sure, maybe we would be a little bit bigger, but we would also have, I think, a worse product if we hadn't had that data at our hands.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I ask you, you mentioned GPU burn there-
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... and revenue offsetting that. What percentage of your spend today is GPU burn?
- MSMikey Shulman
Uh-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Off the top of your head.
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah. Uh, it's, it's, it's the biggest thing by far. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a few times payroll.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Really?
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Wow.
- MSMikey Shulman
We have a lot... Uh, no. Um, uh, we also have a big research cluster, um, that, you know... These technologies doesn't, didn't exist when we started the company, you know, and, and research is still a huge part of what we do.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How do you anticipate that changing moving forwards?
- MSMikey Shulman
I don't. Uh, I hope GPU prices come down, but we'll probably just get more. Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So you just get more and the product gets better and better and better?
- MSMikey Shulman
No. You know, you need to run high quality experiments. And so, um, I think, um, the machine learning team, uh, at Suno will, will almost certainly not scale as quickly as a software team. Or said differently, I think research is not something that you can solve with scale. You can just throw more bodies and you'll get, you know, comparatively more results. It, um, it will be sublinear returns there. And so it's very important to, to really understand like, okay, I have like really talented researchers doing the problems that are going to be really important for the future of music.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I wanna discuss the future of music, and I wanna kind of go to the product itself. Um, I love the output, by the way, that we have.
- MSMikey Shulman
Thank you.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Um, (laughs) now I'm just starting with blunt question. There is lawsuit from RIAA in June 2024, um, whatever stuff. Was there any basis to this lawsuit? The, but the lawsuit is basically saying that you use their media to train your models.
- MSMikey Shulman
I have to be very careful what I say and don't say a- a- about a lawsuit. So, um, I think I'll tell you, yeah, we know that there are some copyrighted works in our training data. Um, that's not illegal. Um, it's stock standard for the industry. It's what every AI company does. Um, you know, I think...In some sense, the lawsuit w- wasn't totally shocking. You know, it's, um, most AI companies get sued. Everybody in music gets sued. It's a highly litigious industry. I, I think it's, it's a little bit, um, it's a little bit depressing in some- in, in some way because I think there is a much bigger and brighter future of music to build together with the existing industry instead of, uh, kind of fighting it out and having the potential for this thing to, um, just be net smaller. You know, I'll, I'll tell you, um, I'll say something ill of, of, of lawyers for a minute. Uh, but we were talking about economists and, um, uh, there's this famous, um, econ paper from like, the '80s, uh, looking at what- why do c- why do some countries grow and some countries don't grow? And, and, um, by this guy, Andrei Shleifer, and, um, one of the conclusions is basically like, they're looking at the ratio of, like, how many engineers are in a country and how many lawyers are in a country. And the, the conclusion is like, more engineers equals more growth, more lawyers equals less growth. And, uh, you know, o- obviously, that's, that's like, a, a, a little bit reductive, but I think that instead of fighting it out, if we were talking, which we were before this lawsuit happened, at least to some of the players in, in that lawsuit, if we were working together toward building a bigger future of music, everybody would just be happier. And the music business is one that has such an embedded fixed pie mentality. There's a fixed pie of money out there and we are all just, you know, trying to, to divide it unfairly for ourselves. And if we were focused on growing that pie, I think, like, just everything gets easier.
- 19:45 – 22:37
How Will AI Startups and Incumbents Resolve Conflicts?
- MSMikey Shulman
- HSHarry Stebbings
You mention that it's very na- natural for AI companies, whether it's OpenAI or any of the others, to have, uh, lawsuits and be under the same pressures. When you think about how that naturally gets resolved between new AI players and traditional incumbents in any industry, so not specific to this lawsuit, how do you think that plays out? Is it just settlements with new AI companies bluntly using venture dollars to pay off large incumbents? Is it equity distributions to larger incumbents to feel like they have a part of the companies? How does this play out?
- MSMikey Shulman
I don't know. There's like, the traditional Silicon Valley, um, mentality of like, "Screw you, existing industry, I will disrupt you. There's nothing that you can do about it." And then there's like, the existing, uh, incumbent approach which is like, "I will sue you, you know, until you go away." And like, both of these are obviously wrong. People will ding us for building a, a tech company in, in, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but like, it's actually nice not to have that embe- embedded Silicon Valley mentality of like, "Screw you, existing industry, I'm gonna disrupt you and there's nothing you can do about it." Um, e- every single person at Suno has like, an incredible deep love and respect for music, uh, which culturally is, is amazing, but also just keeps people, like, out of that mentality and much more focused on building a bigger, brighter future, hopefully with, uh, the incumbents in the industry. And by the way, there are plenty of incumbents in the industry who do work with us.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How would you like the incumbents to have behaved, who are suing you?
- MSMikey Shulman
Uh, talk to us first probably.
- HSHarry Stebbings
And they don't?
- MSMikey Shulman
Um, some did, some didn't. On paper, I would say it just seems silly to, to throw a bunch of venture dollars at lawyers instead of sitting down and talking about how you could work together. You know, like, like, deciding to, uh, sue first and then ask questions later seems to me to be inefficient. But, but what do I know?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Does it worry- like, a- as a founder, like, when you get a lawsuit, how do you respond?
- MSMikey Shulman
Of course it's w- I mean, I would obviously rather not get sued, right?
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- MSMikey Shulman
Like, I think, you know, I think I would be bullshitting you-
- HSHarry Stebbings
No, but I know some, I know some genuinely, you know, bloody psychotic founders who are like, "Yeah, fuck you." Right? "Feed off the pain. This means I'm winning." Like, "You, you notice me 'cause I'm- you're suing me."
- MSMikey Shulman
I, I mean, there's certainly an element of that. But those people, I think, are lying if they tell you, like, um, "This is a good thing." You know? It's like, maybe it's a sign of a good thing, but it itself is not a good thing. If nothing else, it's gonna cost money and time.
- HSHarry Stebbings
If they win, what happens?
- MSMikey Shulman
If this lawsuit, um, goes to trial and we lose, it's obviously not good for us. The company- the company's not dead, but it's obviously not good for us. Um, I, I don't think that's likely. I would just be thinking about A, the game theory of what all players want here, and B, what is the best for- future of music for everyone? Even if you could make Suno or Suno-like companies or AI companies go away, do you really want that? Like, what if the music industry can be as big as the gaming industry? There's gonna be a lot of happy
- 22:37 – 26:49
How the Future of Music Looks Like?
- MSMikey Shulman
people.
- HSHarry Stebbings
When we think about the future of music then, how does that look? 'Cause you have existing players today, your Spotify's, most namely of the world. How does that look in your ideal world?
- MSMikey Shulman
There's a few different ways. I'll tell you what I hope it is, which is that, um, there are a lot more people participating, and there are a lot more experiences on tap. And so what does that mean? That means, um, we didn't just wanna build, let's say, a company that makes, uh, the current crop of creators 10% faster or makes it 10% easier to make music. Um, if you want to impact the way a billion people experience music, you have to build something for a billion people. And so, um, that is first and foremost giving everybody the joys of creating music, and this is a huge departure from how it is now. It's not really enjoyable to make music now. People enjoy Suno-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Why do you say that?
- MSMikey Shulman
It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of practice. You need to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece of production software. I think the majority of people don't enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you not think that's like running? It is hard to run, it is painful to run, you don't particularly enjoy it, but you love running.
- MSMikey Shulman
Uh-
- HSHarry Stebbings
And you get good at it, and you get better at it, and you speak to the runners, and they love running.
- MSMikey Shulman
Most people drop out of that pursuit, um, because it was hard. And so I think that, uh, the, the people that you know that run, uh, this is a, a highly, uh, biased selection of the population that fell in love with it.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I'm jumping back and forth, but you know, we, we talked about kind of the training, and y- and you said training on copyrighted music. At what point can you train on Suno music? 'Cause you have such a library now. When can AI train on AI?
- MSMikey Shulman
... a huge open, open, uh, question for how do you do this in a way that doesn't impart just massive bias into models? Um, you know, we, we work on it a little bit. Um, I think the, the bigger players, um, are hitting data walls and are more actively working on it. And like everything else, it's really nice to have the big players, uh, solve a lot of the really thorny problems for you, and you can kind of focus on your competitive advantage. So I'm hoping somebody solves that problem and it's not us.
- HSHarry Stebbings
When we spoke before, you said that it's not good to have two worlds, like AI music and, like, normal music. So what does that look like, and what does that look like from a customer experience? I, I said to you before, like, "Why isn't Spotify just blended into the app?" And then you have both in one home.
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah. I think it would just... From a customer perspective, at the very least, it would just be a bummer if I had to go to two different places. You know, I don't know if there's any content, um... I, I... You use Spotify. I don't know if there's any content that you know about that doesn't exist on Spotify that you're looking for. But it's a huge pain in the butt to go to another app to go find it. So if I-
- HSHarry Stebbings
I don't.
- MSMikey Shulman
Okay.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I go for some audiobooks which aren't there yet. I just go, "Fuck it. I'll wait till they're there."
- MSMikey Shulman
Wow. Okay. Uh, so that just shows you that there is a lot of friction. And if there were two worlds of music, I think that would, A, be friction for, for the average consumer. But I actually hope it's much more than just consumption. I hope that, like, there shouldn't be, like, a set of fun experiences around making and sharing music, and that is somehow disjoint from all of the other music that you listen to at a party, while you work out, while you're in your car commuting, whatever it is. Like, uh, it, it... That... I think together these things are much bigger than if you just separate them.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I totally agree with that separation and the friction that comes with that chasm, but then that means you either need to move into Spotify or Spotify need to move into you.
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah, or, or, or both, or neither. You know, I think, I think there's lots of different worlds that are possible here. Um, and, uh, I think time will tell which of these things is, is, is correct.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How do you think artists feel about Suno?
- MSMikey Shulman
You know, that's a great question. Uh, I will tell you that obviously the-
- HSHarry Stebbings
They love it. (laughs)
- MSMikey Shulman
Well, uh, actually, yes. So, you know, it's a biased sample of artists that I speak to, but the vast, vast majority of artists that I speak to, behind closed doors, admit that they use and love Suno. And there's only, you know, a couple that I've ever met that are not so into it. And this makes me extremely optimistic about the,
- 26:49 – 33:24
Can Artists Have Personalized AI Models for Their Music?
- MSMikey Shulman
the future.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Is there a way to create, like, personalized models for different creators? And what I mean by that is that Ariana Grande comes to you and says, "Hey, I wanna do a deal with you where I give you exclusive access to my content, then I'm able to train on my content, and I can leverage my brand, but effect- effectively have full control, but unlimited supply of future Ariana Grande songs in seconds."
- MSMikey Shulman
The answer is yes, and I would love to do that. Um, I confess, depending on what her contracts look like, she might not even be allowed to do that, which would be kind of crazy.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Why would you not be able to? Just-
- MSMikey Shulman
She doesn't own all of her music. Um, but she owns her name and likeness. And so I think that, um, I would love to get to a world where she can have models that make Ariana Grande songs. You know, you've noticed in our product you can't make Ariana Grande songs. If you put her name in, we're gonna wave our finger at you and you're gonna say like, "That's not what the future of music is. That's not original music. Suno is for original music, it's not for impersonating people." But if she uses it, it's not impersonating, right? And so this is an immensely powerful tool for her to make music, for people writing, writing songs for her to hear it how she would do it, um, or maybe even she's forward-leaning enough to wanna give this over to her superfans. And her superfans can make I, I... what I can only describe as the equivalent of fan fiction if she wants that. And that would be an im- immensely engaging activity, in my mind, way more valuable and way more engaging than, like, having an AMA with her, if you're a huge fan.
- HSHarry Stebbings
If I listen to... I love Dean Lewis, this kind of male guitarist who sings sad songs. Clearly, I need a therapist. Um, but I click Go To Radio on Spotify, and I hear other songs like his. He does not get paid for other songs like his. Sh- what is the difference between me going to Suno and saying, "Give me some songs like Dean Lewis, but actually focused on an Australian man and a Australian woman, uh, sadly sung with guitars," and he gets a cut for that because Dean Lewis is in the prompt?
- MSMikey Shulman
Right now, you can't do that. I would love to see a future where you can with him opting into that as an example.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How does that completely change what you can do?
- MSMikey Shulman
The thing that people don't realize is that right now we've made something where people enjoy making music so much they are paying to create the music. This has nothing to do with listening. And I think that a big part of the future of music is rethinking a lot of these business models, where, um, right now it's set up in this kind of capped stream share. The stream share is a certain size, and everybody is kind of fighting over it, and artists don't make a ton of money from that. And there are hopefully new business models that you can figure out that are much more tied to, uh, the enjoyment that people get, that are way more tied to artists if people want to actually, you know, be, be interacting with the artists themselves. Like-
- HSHarry Stebbings
What, what are some of those business models then?
- MSMikey Shulman
Uh, imagine you found some creator that you really love, uh, who is a teenager in Saskatchewan, and you just love this guy's music. And, um, you could have a Patreon thing where you can pay him directly. You could have, uh, your own, um, kind of fork of his model if, uh, if he were cool with that and you were cool with that and you're paying him for that, and now you're making songs that are, you know, your riffs on what he does. I think... Let me give you an example. Um, we had this remix contest with Timbaland. And, um, a tremendous number of people, uh, submitted remix songs. And to me, getting to remix the music of your musical idol is like the ultimate form of...... um, of engagement with them. It is so much cooler than, like, honestly even meeting them backstage after a concert, right? Like, the old model of stream share does not r- properly account for an interaction like that.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Talk to me about that partnership. Uh, uh, Timbaland is obviously a huge industry figure.
- MSMikey Shulman
(inhales deeply)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Like, how does that even come about?
- MSMikey Shulman
If you talk to anyone in the business, they will tell you, like, he is the cutting edge of technology in music and has always been. Um, uh, he was fan of the product actually before we met him, um, which is amazing, and I think you can't fake this stuff. You really can't, right? And so, um, it's, it's, it's a, it's really an amazing partnership for, for a variety of reasons. Um, uh, one is we learn a ton working with him. We do a lot of product development with him.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MSMikey Shulman
You know, so he has access to stuff before anyone else does. The next thing is that, um, obviously this provides some amount of, um, recognition for us.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you think it legitimizes the traditional music industry?
- MSMikey Shulman
Uh, yes, I do. Um, but I think that the real thing that this does is that you have someone who has made it, who does not need to do this, um, publicly saying, "Yeah, I use Suno and it's awesome." This kinda gives cover to up-and-comers to be more open and vocal about using it.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I be blunt?
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you like pay him for that partnership, like?
- MSMikey Shulman
Uh, no, we don't pay him in cash. Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Okay, so they get back equity. It's like-
- MSMikey Shulman
He's, yeah, he's, he's an advisor to the company.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah, yeah.
- MSMikey Shulman
So, yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
No, fantastic. Well, uh, Calm I think did this very well. I don't know if you know Calm, the medical brand.
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah, yeah, of course.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah, they did it phenomenally well and with some incredible people. Would you guys do more of these partnerships? And when you think forward about the go-forward, like, distribution and legitimacy, like, do you think that's important?
- 33:24 – 34:12
How Will Music Discovery Evolve with Infinite Supply?
- HSHarry Stebbings
discovery when there is an infinite supply of music?
- MSMikey Shulman
In some sense, it gets harder. In some sense, it gets easier. People don't realize the extent to which discovery is already extremely algorithmic now and that you are not always being fed, uh, as much of the long tail as maybe you want, or maybe, or maybe, uh, it is exactly what you want. So-
- HSHarry Stebbings
What, what do people think about music discovery that they get wrong?
- MSMikey Shulman
I think people don't realize the extent to which, uh, the music that is popular, um, is a product of recommendation algorithms. You should ask somebody at Spotify or at TikTok, and not me. I think that they probably reverse the causality. Things break on TikTok and then they become famous on Spotify, but that is a function of both algorithms and people pushing music, and not necessarily only a function of the quality
- 34:12 – 36:26
Spotify, TikTok & YouTube Music
- MSMikey Shulman
of the music.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How do you think about the battle between Spotify and TikTok for music discovery?
- MSMikey Shulman
I think they're both really important, uh, bits of that ecosystem.
- HSHarry Stebbings
But, like, I think TikTok win on the short form video discovery and I think that Spotify win on the algorithmic Discover Weekly playlist, which is much less visual and much more traditional list-based recommendation engine.
- MSMikey Shulman
I think, I think that's right, but a lot of what becomes popular is also found on TikTok first.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How do you think about YouTube versus Spotify? 'Cause that's the other big battle. There's the, like, long form video and the short form video battle-
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... and Spotify are trying to take on both at the same time.
- MSMikey Shulman
Look, I think, um, in some sense, I hope, I hope that Spotify, um, wins, uh, that because it would mean that pe- people are finding music more engaging. Like, YouTube is more engaging than Spotify as measured by the amount of, you know, the, the, the ARPU for ads, for example, right?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Why do you think that is?
- MSMikey Shulman
Uh, video is engaging. Um, there's a ton of just background listening to music, which on its face is not bad. I'm not anti-background listening to music. Um, but there's so much more that is possible. You know, I'll point this out to people. Like, I, I interview a lot of engineers, um, and maybe 100%, I'm not sure I've, I've interviewed an engineer in the last two years that does not listen to music while they code. And, um, which is great, but the whole point of that is not to pay attention to that music, right? Like, so much more is possible with music than, like, something you put on in the background to deliberately not pay attention to it.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Spotify are doing Spotify Video and the big push in. How do you think that plays out?
- MSMikey Shulman
It g- like I said, I, I, I hope people find it more engaging. You know, um, m- let me, let me, let me answer the video question more tangentially like this. Uh, the vast majority of gen AI video companies have asked us for an API so that they can have, you know, Suno music behind their, their AI videos, and the answer's always no.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Why?
- MSMikey Shulman
There's a bunch of answers, but I think the reason is we are trying to make music more valuable for people, and being the background music for your video is not making music more valuable. Like, i- uh, this isn't a cost thing. You can go get Epidemic Sounds music for very, very cheap and that can be the background for, for your video.
- 36:26 – 37:59
What Does Mikey Regret Not Doing?
- MSMikey Shulman
- HSHarry Stebbings
What with Suno did you not do that you wish you'd done?
- MSMikey Shulman
A very, a very obvious one for me is actually getting off of Discord. Um, uh, so we released our first product in...... uh, August of, uh, of last year. Um, and in November, we put up a very thin web app. And I got this totally wrong. I said, "We're gonna be on Discord forever. I look at Midjourney, they're printing money. It's just a Discord bot." N- now it's not, but at the time, it was. And I did not appreciate just how much a good UI will totally change the experience for people. Discord is not the best UI for what it is that we do. It's better for Midjourney than it is for, than it is for music. But, like, so much more is possible. And so we released this app, we released this web app, which is not even the full functionality of the Discord bot, in November. And it takes five days for 90% of the traffic to move over to the web. Five days. It's, like, there's no world in which you can say that I got that right.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So you wish you'd done the web app and the mobile app sooner?
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Wow. If you'd done them sooner, would you not have cannibalized the Discord audience and there would've been no reason for them to be there? Like, I would argue strategically that you now have 400,000 people still on the Discord-
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... by the way.
- MSMikey Shulman
Well, nobody leaves Discord service. Now Discord serves a completely different purpose, which is, it is a community and it is, um, an amazing resource for us to talk to the community and an amazing resource for us to get feedback from the community. But, um, I think that the product would have reached more people, um, if we had built that web app sooner.
- 37:59 – 38:44
What is Great UI for Mikey?
- MSMikey Shulman
- HSHarry Stebbings
You said about, kind of, the importance and the, the significance of truly great UI. What is great UI for you at Sooner?
- MSMikey Shulman
I'm always thinking about, like, the UI should just, in no way resemble what it does today. But I think good UI is just, like, what did you enable that is, like, completely not doable in the old pattern? And so, in, in, in thinking like that, this would be, um, "What could I not do in a digital audio workstation?" Um, it wouldn't be really easy for me to, like, take a whole song and cover it in a different genre. But, like, if I think about, like, "Oh, that is actually something somebody might wanna do. Let me think about that as a first-class citizen workflow and let me build that." And that could be a really simple UI or a really beautiful UI, really intuitive UI, but it's also just totally
- 38:44 – 42:43
How Important Are Prompt Guides for AI?
- MSMikey Shulman
different.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How do you think about prompt guides? And what I mean by that is, you have the... It almost reminds me of knowledge management systems, which, you know, like, the screen of death.
- MSMikey Shulman
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Suddenly prompting, you see the box of death. And for someone who's used to prompting, you're kind of like, "Okay, I know to be specific, to include, like, very pointed directions." For other people it may be less important. How do you think about the importance of prompt guides?
- MSMikey Shulman
Let me preface it with OpenAI, ChatGPT is amazing. They did every AI company a huge disservice because everybody thinks that just, like, empty text box is now the right interface. And it is for ChatGPT and it is incorrect for basically everything else. Um, uh, I, I, I, I hate to be this guy, I'm gonna reject the premise. I hope that, you know, in six months from now or 12 months from now, we're not using the word prompt. There are just far more intuitive ways to, to interact with the music and we shouldn't be guiding you. Uh, we should be listening to you, uh, if, if that makes sense.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I, I... You know, I had Belsky and Gustav on the show and they said that we all kind of measure the quality of a candidate by the quality of their prompts. Do you think that is not true?
- MSMikey Shulman
I really hope that's not true. Uh, um, I might, I might be wrong but, um, somehow this would be a huge missed opportunity if, um, we are caring about the inputs and not the outputs, right? Like, shouldn't you measure it by the quality of the music or the quality of whatever it is that they're doing, right? And I... Maybe, maybe if, um, if it took a really complicated prompt, um, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, if it took a really complicated prompt and 1,600 iterations, that's a failure of my product, not a failure of the candidate.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I asked you, you know, what did you not do that you wish you had done? What did you do that you wish you hadn't done?
- MSMikey Shulman
There's a part of me that wants to say, uh, allow remote work. Um, that's, like, a spicy one. Uh-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Thing is, it's not spi- I mean this in the nicest way.
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Every single CEO... I was walking in the park with a CEO this morning, an enterprise SaaS company. She was like, "I know remote work is killing my company. I just can't get people back."
- MSMikey Shulman
We never... You know, we built the company in person and we make exceptions for people to be remote. And it is generally worth it. It's just-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Is that not very hard, respectfully?
- MSMikey Shulman
Um, no, it is very hard. You know-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Making exceptions?
- MSMikey Shulman
Some people, some people are worth it. But I think, uh, as you scale, you know, exceptions are, are a sign of judgment. I think judgment, you can call it taste, you can call it judgment, is, like, so underrated on how important it is. It's like, compared to people's skills. And as you scale, um, the judgments required to make these exceptions, I think it's very, very hard. You know, we are much bigger than we were a year ago, and I think this is already beginning to get... Um, I can see it from my seat. This is already beginning to get difficult on, like, is that person an exception, is that person an exception, et cetera.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I ask you, on the funding side, you've raised now how much?
- MSMikey Shulman
Uh, a little over 125.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Little over 125.
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Last round came quite quickly, I think.
- MSMikey Shulman
Mm-hmm.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah. So it came quite quickly. How did you think about that? Like, was it important to cement your position in the space as the market leader? Was it needed for GPU spend? What was the rationale behind that?
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah, I think about, uh, capital as a, as a weapon. And, you know, you can go and deploy it. And if you have... There are step changes where more capital lets you do something differently from, you know, if you just added 10% more capital to, to, to your balance sheet.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you think founders and VCs are aligned?
- MSMikey Shulman
99% of the time, yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Interesting.
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah. I do. Uh, there's, like, lots that I wish I knew before starting this company. But, uh... (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
What do you know that you wish you'd known?
- 42:43 – 45:40
Scaling Revenue Beyond Other Generative AI Models
- MSMikey Shulman
it's actually the opposite.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How have you scaled revenue in a way that other...... generative AI, image generation, you name it, your other forms have not.
- MSMikey Shulman
Care about it, I think is the answer. You know, like, there's no secrets here. It's like, we started charging from day one, maybe that was a bit of a happy accident. And, uh, we always looked at it. And, you know, I care a lot more about building a giant platform right now than I do about revenues. But I, I need to make sure that these things are somewhat commensurate. You know? Like, um, uh, uh, sure, you can come up with edge cases where, like, I have to sacrifice, you know, I have to do the, the, the Intel thing. I have to sacrifice all my revenues for, for this next opportunity. But absent that, um, the revenues growing is a sign that people are experiencing something that they wanna pay for, and that is a good thing, and we shouldn't be, we shouldn't be ignoring that.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Has there ever been a time where revenue focus has led to deprioritization of growth?
- MSMikey Shulman
No, 'cause we've always prioritized growth on top of revenues. You know, this is like, um... I, I, I, I think pe- I think, I think good people have the capacity to keep both things in their head. It's like, yes, we wanna grow, but we also don't wanna sacrifice revenues. And if you, like, you know, hold my feet to the fire, maybe I can give you a, a, a quantitative number of, like, I care about growth twice as much as I care about revenues. But, like, where we are now in our journey, uh, we are not really making trade-offs yet. You know, we've reached a tiny fraction of the addressable audience for the product as it is today. We are building much more product with way more valuable and fun experiences that will reach an even bigger audience. So, like, if I am making trade-offs now, I'm doing something wrong.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How do you think about Suno being a social network? And what I mean by that is, it's quite easy to see it go down the SoundCloud route, where you have kind of profiles and fo- which we have today in Suno. But, like, the followers, the likes, and it's much more socially interactive, and there's real social capital tied to status and profiles.
- MSMikey Shulman
Um, I think there's a, there's a bit of that. I think w- where SoundCloud goes wrong, I mean, there's two things. Like, one is, by no fault of SoundCloud's, like, it's still hard to make music. Um, and so, so you're, you're kind of limited there, and it's still kind of there's the creators and there's the consumers. And, um, they don't really mix, and so that's a bit unfortunate. Like, music by itself is social. And is it social like Facebook social? Is it social where you have, like, lots of peer-to-peer stuff, or, or the long tail of Instagram? Is it social like the top end of Instagram, where you have people who look like they spend mid-six figures on every post and make their livelihoods doing it and have 100 million followers? The answer is it's both of those and it's everything in between. And so, um, it's kinda crazy. Like, Instagram is a good example here. It's kinda crazy that the same platform lets me DM you something silly and lets me consume content from, uh, a true professional, you know, who, who spends all day, you know, agonizing over this post. Um, why can't music be the same way, right? Like, music shouldn't be special like that.
- 45:40 – 51:18
Should We Embrace or Fear Rapid Change?
- MSMikey Shulman
- HSHarry Stebbings
I feel quite unnerved today.
- MSMikey Shulman
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
And I feel quite unnerved today, like, in this time, because I've never known the world in such a state of flux. I mean, obviously, there's g- global conflicts and everything in between and, uh, elections just changing kind of the structure of countries so quickly. But also just, like, I really cannot predict the future of labor, the future of content creation, the future of content distribution, the future of information. E- e- everything is up for grabs. And you can say what you want, that I, I mean, in a nice way, like, you know, we've been creating music since, you know, before time. And Suno is able to do that in seconds beautifully. Amazing. I just feel uneasy that there is so much change so fast. What would you say to me? Be excited? B- be nervous? How do you feel?
- MSMikey Shulman
I feel very optimistic. But, uh, let me, let me say it like this. Um, I assume you're talking specifically about music.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- MSMikey Shulman
I, I think some of this applies outside of music, but I think, to whatever extent, there are two sides of this thing. There's, like, the old industry, and then, you know, there are the disruptors. And, um, both sides will end up... Th- there's one thing that both sides will agree on, and everyone on both sides will say, "Well, we know it's coming. We know it's inevitable," meaning AI, you know? And I think, um, people in the existing industry will say, like, "We know it's coming," and they say this, I think, because they don't wanna sound like decels. They don't wanna sound like hermits, right? They wanna... And, and people in the AI community will say it, um, and because it's like a security blanket. It's like, "Oh, don't worry. I'm not coming to disrupt you, but we know it's coming anyway," you know? And I think in both cases, this is a really bad thing to say, because in both cases, on both sides, this is basically just putting your hands up and being like, "It's coming. I don't even have to do anything about it." And the future is ours to build, right? We can build a good future of music with AI, and we can build a bad future of music with AI, or we can sit back and let someone else do it. And, um, I'm quite energized by the fact that, like, I think we have a-
- HSHarry Stebbings
How can you, as a public company CEO, say, of a UMG, how can you say, "We know it's coming," and not address the core of creation?
- MSMikey Shulman
Uh, I mean, I think what that person would do in that case is say, "Yes, AI is an important part of the creation stack right now," um, and not try to address the, like, "Well, what about all the other people who, who wanna create with these new tools also?" Um, I think, I think. But, um, I, I think it, it applies just as much, uh, to me as it does to the, to the CEO of, of the Universal Music Group of, like, we can actively build a bigger, better future of music with AI, or we can just wait and someone else in another country, not bound by US laws, not with the same intentions, um, will build a worse future of music with AI. And I can think of lots of dystopia futures.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What is the worst future of music with AI?
- MSMikey Shulman
Uh, just to name, like, two particularly bad ones, one would be, like, a group, uh, in another country that doesn't wanna follow the laws will make it so that you can, without permission, just impersonate your favorite artist and just make endless copies, you know, e- endless Ariana Grande songs, like you said, um, without giving a cent to Ariana Grande. Like, that would not be great. And there are-
- HSHarry Stebbings
That is musically possible today, right?
- MSMikey Shulman
Totally.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- MSMikey Shulman
Totally.Yeah. You, you saw this with the, with the, um, with the Drake ghostwriter, the Drake Weeknd ghostwriter thing. It's like, and it'll be good, and it'll just get better and easier, right? Um, and so that's not a good future. There's another bad future I think though, which is like, um, music is meant to be social, but there's like a local optimum, I think, where music gets less social and it gets way too hyper-personalized. And so I would hate for the future of music to be, you open your phone, you open an app, you hit play, and it knows everything about you. It knows what you did this morning, it knows who you texted yesterday, and it knows your mood. It, it like has your Apple Watch, you know, it has your heart rate, and it just streams you endless music that only you're gonna like, that is just hitting that nerve in your brain. It's like a drug. And this is extremely antisocial. Um, and somebody might do that also. And, uh, I think that would also be a shame because it misses out on a lot more that's fun.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah. You remove all human connectivity.
- MSMikey Shulman
Yeah. There is an inherent tension between, um, social stuff and personalization, right? And I don't wanna make the hyper niche ge- uh, genre-
- HSHarry Stebbings
How do you think about that?
- MSMikey Shulman
... for only you.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Because I, I, as I said, I created, you know, uh, a song for, uh, you know, uh, my girlfriend before. Um, is that good? Like, do you want it, that type of personalized-
- MSMikey Shulman
That's fantastic. No, that's, uh, at least that's two. You made it for somebody.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- MSMikey Shulman
Like, that is not something, that is, that is so much more social than what exists now, where you listen to music from artists and you, you, you love the music and you see a piece of yourself in the artist, but you don't actually interact with them. You making a song for your girlfriend is amazing. And, you know, you might say, "Well, I really wish you had spent 10,000 hours playing guitar, and then you, you know, you could have done that, um, without the help of Suno." But short of that, like is it bad that you did that? No, I think it's actually great that you did that. I don't want it to be only that, right? Like, there is something, you know, um, music is social, but there's something about art that's all about the artist, right? So it's like, and, um, uh, you know, I think a lot of artists won't even care what other people think of the music, right? Or this is like, you know, oat art, so to speak. But, uh, I think, um, it's just a world where that type of stream is just so pleasurable that you forget about everything else. I think is not as big or good or valuable as what could
- 51:18 – 53:12
The Balance Knowing When to Start and When to Stop?
- MSMikey Shulman
be.
- HSHarry Stebbings
You said the word "art" there before we do a quick fire. I, I can't believe I'm quoting Ben Affleck-
- MSMikey Shulman
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
... uh, but he said, I'm sure you maybe saw this in a panel. He said, "Art is," um, I'm bastardizing it, "knowing what to do. Craft is knowing when to stop." How do you think about that?
- MSMikey Shulman
It almost reminds me of the like, um, uh, what does Hemingway said? Um, write drunk, edit sober? Something, some- something like that. Um, I think where this all goes is that, and this is a very natural progression that's, that's already happening. Where does this all go? It's increasingly taste is the only thing that matters in, in, in art, and skill is going to matter a lot less because you're gonna be able to make a lot of stuff. And the people who are going to be recognized are people who are able to pick from the vast quantity of stuff, and use, in the case of music, their ears to say that was good and that was bad. And I think that that is, that is accelerating a trend that already exists. Think about it like 30 years ago, you wanted to be a rock star. You wanted to be an amazing guitarist who could shred, you know? And 15 years ago, you wanted to be a DJ where y- you know, you had to learn, um, these pieces of software, but maybe it wasn't quite as virtuosic as it was if you had to, you know, spend 100,000 hours playing your instrument. Um, and now people wanna be influencers. "I wanna be famous for the sake of being famous." And, um, I think that in music, it's not really influencers like that, but, um, we will increasingly... Look, you see this even with playlists. Like, there was a crop of people who made playlists. This is compilations of other people's music, and it's just like, "I have good taste, and you are going to care to listen to my playlist." And I think this is where it goes. It's like, "I have good taste. I make good Suno music. Yeah, I can't play the piano, I can't play the guitar, but I am very good at picking through the Suno music and finding the way to make it sound like you wanted it to hear, and that makes me a,
- 53:12 – 1:00:26
Quick-Fire Round
- MSMikey Shulman
a creator."
- HSHarry Stebbings
Uh, listen, I wanna do a quick fire with you.
- MSMikey Shulman
Let's do it.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So I, I say a short statement, you give me your immediate thoughts.
- MSMikey Shulman
Okay.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Okay? So what do you believe that most around you disbelieve?
- MSMikey Shulman
That AI is inevitable, what I said before, that like, it's coming no matter what.
- HSHarry Stebbings
You think people disbelieve that? No. Every per-
- MSMikey Shulman
Sorry. I don't bel- I think everybody believes it's inevitable, and I don't think it is.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Why is it not inevitable?
- MSMikey Shulman
We need to d- We, we need to do it. If we, if we just say it's inevitable, it's not gonna come and happen. We need to go and do it.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you agree we're gonna go through a trough of disillusionment? Everyone is kind of expecting AI now and next year. And I, you know, I, I went to an event very recently with one of the biggest banks in the world and some of the biggest CEOs. And it's like, the ROI is not here. We thought it was here, and it really felt like we were going on the, the downward in terms of, like, an AI winter.
- MSMikey Shulman
I, I, I don't know. I think, like, is that what, is that... I, I live in a bubble in Cambridge, Massachusetts. You live in a finance bubble in London. It, the, those people are gonna potentially have a, a, a disillusionment. But like, are, are, i- is the whole world gonna be like that? I don't know.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- MSMikey Shulman
I, I, I'm not sure. I'm, because I think most people are still not, not expecting anything.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Should TikTok be banned?
- MSMikey Shulman
My gut is no, but, but I'm the wrong person to ask.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Why does your gut know?
- MSMikey Shulman
Just about most, most banning things, like, we should be, we should have a, we should... I, I have a, a, a visceral no reaction to banning things. Um, you know, apparently, uh, I just learned Australia has banned social media before the age of 16. I don't think that's a good idea either. We should like... These things are, are typically fairly heavy-handed and don't necessarily accomplish what they want. Um, maybe that's a trade n- tactic. I, I, I'd, I, I, I'm, I'm also not sure you want my opinion on that. I'm, I'm like some, some tech guy who does music, you know.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) Uh, tell me, what's the hardest element of being CEO of Suno?
- MSMikey Shulman
I don't know if this is special to us. I think it is, it's, it's focus. I think, at any given time, there are...30 things that we could do that would be very impactful for the company and we have to choose three of them, um, and, uh, we have to choose carefully. Like, there's just so... Like, the future of music is greenfield right now, and, um, we could be tackling a lot of different things and we have to be choosy with which ones we do.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What would you like to do but will not do for the benefit of Focus?
- MSMikey Shulman
I mean, off the top of my head, like, everybody's asking for an API. Do we wanna, do we wanna do that business? I don't know. That doesn't re- really build the future of music that I wanna do. Uh, there's always a tension between, um, how much of the power tools, the old power tools do we wanna build versus figuring out what the new power tools are for creating music. Probably that, that, um, good judgment is more important than good skills.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Okay.
- MSMikey Shulman
And it's because we know how to assess skills and we don't know how to assess judgment, so everybody's teaching for the test here.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How did having children change how you lead?
- MSMikey Shulman
The first order of thing is I have less time, and so you have to just be a little more, uh, ruthless with prioritization. Um, uh, and then the, the, like, the flip side answer is, um, is patience, right? Like, when you see fast learners, you have to be patient with them. Yeah. Like, little kids are incredible learners. They pick up things so much faster than you and I do, and it is incredible to see.
- HSHarry Stebbings
It's pretty special. Um, tell me, what concerns you most in the world today?
- MSMikey Shulman
People are not good at realizing what is the first order effects of, of the issues they deal with or the things that they are doing, and people usually glom onto the second order effects because sometimes they, they, like, feel... I don't know if they feel smarter or it feels closer to home, but, like, people are not good at judging, at judging effect sizes. I'll give you, I'll give you some examples. Like, um, uh, I teach this course at, at, um, at Sloan, at MIT's business school. So, like, you need to have an AI policy, um, 'cause it's a course. Like, are you all going to want- allow students to use ChatGPT? And you get a lot of people saying, like, "GPT is the end of education." You know, and my, my answer to that is like, "No." The first order of effect here is that GPT means that every person in the world has, like, a median competent tutor or sidekick. This is obviously amazing for education, and if you can't recognize that fact, uh, I'm not sure you have such good judgment. Now, let's talk about the second order effect, which is that, like, yeah, all my homeworks just got hackable by, you know, one good prompt. And my response to that is like, "Yeah, okay, so I as the instructor, um, now need to change what I teach people, um, and that's scary and that's a lot of work. But if I don't change what I teach people, I'm not really preparing them for the real world." Right? Like, most companies are gonna let you use GPT when you're, like, doing your day job, and so, uh, I should probably prepare people to do that.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Final- uh, penultimate one, sorry. What's the coolest use case that someone's used for Suno that you didn't expect?
Episode duration: 1:00:26
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