This is definitely not a David and Goliath story, yet it reminds me of the evolution of Stripe (fintech), upon which we are highly dependent, at least for those running online business and selling something...
A negative experience with existing platforms can lead one to consider developing a new one. Just like the founders of Stripe, the Collison Brothers, who dropped out of school, so did the founders of Pika. They spent their winter break attempting to make a movie using generative AI.
Runway, a buzzy AI video editor startup that had recently reached a $500 million valuation, offered a $10,000 grand prize for the best submission to its inaugural “AI Film Festival,” and the Pika founders were confident they had a shot.
A detailed story of the team and how it all began can be found here. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2023/11/27/pika-ai-video-generator-editor-series-a/?sh=47e457e1421b
The painful experience in the AI film festival a resemblance with a creation of Airbnb, when future founders had hard time finding hotels to stay and the idea of Airbnb evolved thru discussion and experimentation.
Demi Guo and Chenlin Meng, both Ph.D. students, dropped out of Stanford to launch Pika to build an easier-to-use AI video generator.
Both of their profiles on linkedin indicate they were students in one of the best IVY League schools that has powerful alumni network, student clubs, entrepreneurial spirit and mindset.
Even though both of founders don`t have startup experience, traction and number of interested and supporting investors is simply phenomenal.
The age of AI has disrupted many industries, and this is just a beginning. Show Less
