Cristóbal Valenzuela
Background
Cristóbal Valenzuela is a Chilean technologist, artist, and software developer. He earned a Bachelor's degree and Master's in Economics from Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile before moving to New York City to complete a Master's degree at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), where he served as a researcher exploring machine learning in artistic practices.
Role at Runway
Cristóbal Valenzuela is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Runway. A passionate advocate for the democratization of creative technology, Valenzuela recognized early that artificial intelligence would fundamentally reshape cinema, animation, and visual storytelling.
Under Valenzuela's leadership, Runway pioneered the generative video sector, co-authored the research paper on Latent Diffusion Models, secured over $237 million in funding from Google and NVIDIA, and negotiated groundbreaking studio partnerships with Lionsgate, cementing Runway's position as the creative industry's preeminent AI platform.