This is an as-told essay based on a conversation with Victor Riparbelli., CEO of AI video platform Synthesia. On Monday, the company announced a $200 million Series E funding round led by Google Ventures. This story has been edited for length and clarity.
I founded Synthesia in 2017 and it’s now a $4 billion unicorn company.
The platform allows companies to leverage generative AI to create videos for a variety of corporate use cases, including reimagining training videos, generating AI avatars of company executives to deliver internal or external messages, and dubbing webinars into dozens of languages.
To stay energized throughout the day, I rely on small daily luxuries and productivity hacks.
First of all, my bike. I bike to work most days, unless the weather is bad. That is my most important ritual.
Also a coffee break. When I’m tired or in a bad mood, I walk 15 minutes to Blank Street for a nice cup of coffee.
My greatest non-negotiable pleasure is music. I love underground music and listen to it whenever I’m not in a meeting.
I usually wake up between 8am and 8:30am
I also wake up at 5am, take a shower, and go straight to the office.
I try not to check my phone before leaving my apartment, and it’s successful about 75% of the time.
I don’t eat breakfast.
I always arrive at the office around 9:30 a.m.
When I get to work, I go through my phone for messages, emails, and anything else that came in during the night. I try not to have early morning meetings to give myself time to process things. That’s when I feel most creative and when I like to do deep work. Since we work across time zones in the US, we usually try to stick to that time, although it’s not always possible. Those deep work hours typically start around 9:30 a.m. and last until lunch at noon.
In the meantime, I’m doing a mix of things: interviews, a lot of product work, and some internal thinking. It gets harder as the company grows, but I still like to be very involved in the product and pay close attention to detail. I try to focus on specific areas where I think my opinion is most valuable and dig deep into them.
A large portion of that time is also spent reading Slack. I try to read almost everything every day. I skim through most of it and don’t react to everything, but taking 30 minutes to look at Slack is one of the best ways to understand what’s really going on across the company.
All internal communication takes place on Slack. This is not a policy, it’s just how the company operates. No one sends emails within the company. When it comes to external communication, you probably split your time between email and WhatsApp, with a strong preference for WhatsApp and instant messaging. It really depends on the relationship.
Lunch is at noon.
I usually have a Joe & the Juice sandwich, especially a club sandwich, or a salad. Actually, I also worked at Joe & the Juice in the early days, so I’ve been eating it for a long time and still love it.
Lunch doesn’t take long. I usually eat on the go or at my desk and am usually finished by around 12:30pm.
It’s pretty stable in the afternoon.
I split my time between New York and London, and when I’m based in London, my calendar is filled with international conferences as the US starts to wake up later in the day.
The work itself is pretty consistent. A lot of product, recruiting, and external facing work that I’m very involved with.
Steffen Tjerrild, my co-founder and now chief operating officer, and I split the business in half. I’m in charge of product, technology, and marketing, and he oversees finance, operations, and sales. In these areas, I typically only get involved at the VP level, depending on the situation. On the business side, I’m involved at a director level and above, but I can get more involved if needed.
I have an assistant who helps me manage my schedule, even when it overlaps with my personal life. I also try to talk to at least one user or customer every week because it’s important to me to know how people actually use the product. Combined with company meetings, that takes up most of the rest of my day. I still often meet with people who are not my direct reports and have skip-level conversations.
For example, we talk to video teams and sales development people who use our products for marketing to understand what’s working and what isn’t. For me, this is one of the best ways to stay connected to what’s actually happening across the company.
I usually leave the office around 7 or 8 p.m.
I usually leave the office around 7 or 8 p.m. I go to the gym three to four nights a week and then go home and relax. About half the time, I work an extra hour or two later in the evening.
Dinner is usually quick. I live alone and mostly order in, but sometimes I cook eggs with bacon and avocado. When I order food, it’s usually something simple like chicken or fries. I try to eat pretty healthy and avoid eating too late in the day as it really affects my energy, especially since I’m a light sleeper.
At night, if I’m not working, I like to read or make music. I don’t watch much TV, but I love serious sci-fi movies like “Interstellar” and “Arrival,” as well as Stanley Kubrick movies like “A Clockwork Orange.”
I used to read a lot of business books. Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters and Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb were particularly influential. Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time reading a combination of books and online content, and watching videos about technology, psychology, philosophy, and politics.
I usually go to bed around 1 or 2 a.m.
I’m a terrible sleeper. The only hack I’ve found is to fall asleep while listening to podcasts or YouTube videos.
I like to find something interesting enough to grab my attention, like physics or philosophy, but not important enough that I actually want to hear about it.
Then set your sleep timer for 30 minutes. When I do that, I usually pass out.
