Victor Riparbelli, CEO of AI video platform Synthesia, has built a $4 billion unicorn that’s reshaping how businesses create video content using generative AI. On Monday, the company announced a massive $200 million Series E funding round led by Google Ventures, cementing its position as a leader in the AI video generation space.
Founded in 2017, Synthesia enables businesses to leverage generative AI to create videos for corporate use cases including training videos, AI avatars of company executives for internal and external messaging, and dubbing webinars into dozens of languages. The platform represents a significant shift in how enterprises approach video production, eliminating the need for cameras, studios, and traditional production crews.
Riparbelli’s daily routine reflects the demanding pace of leading a rapidly scaling AI startup. He typically wakes between 8-8:30 a.m. and bikes to the office by 9:30 a.m., weather permitting. He protects his mornings for deep work and creative thinking, avoiding meetings when possible to focus on product development and strategic planning. Despite the company’s growth, Riparbelli remains deeply involved in product development, believing his input is most valuable in specific areas where he can go deep.
A key part of his management approach involves reading through Slack daily to understand what’s happening across the company. All internal communication happens on Slack rather than email, creating transparency and keeping him connected to operations. He also makes it a priority to speak with at least one user or customer every week, maintaining direct contact with how people actually use the product.
Riparbelli splits business responsibilities with cofounder Steffen Tjerrild (now COO), with Riparbelli overseeing product, technology, and marketing while Tjerrild handles finance, operations, and sales. His afternoons typically fill with international meetings as US teams wake up, and he conducts skip-level conversations with employees beyond his direct reports to stay connected to ground-level operations.
The CEO’s work-life balance includes regular gym sessions 3-4 nights per week, leaving the office around 7-8 p.m., though he often works another 1-2 hours later in the evening. His personal indulgences include underground music, coffee breaks at Blank Street, and making music at night. He’s admittedly a “terrible sleeper,” going to bed around 1-2 a.m. and using podcasts about physics or philosophy with sleep timers to help him fall asleep.
Key Quotes
I’m still very involved in product and like to stay close to the details, even though that gets harder as the company grows. I focus on specific areas where I think my input is most valuable and try to go deep there.
Riparbelli explains his hands-on leadership approach despite Synthesia’s rapid growth to a $4 billion valuation. This reflects how successful AI company leaders maintain product focus even as their organizations scale, ensuring the technology continues to meet market needs.
I try to talk to at least one user or customer every week because staying close to how people actually use the product is important to me.
The Synthesia CEO emphasizes the importance of direct customer contact in understanding product usage. This customer-centric approach is particularly crucial in the AI space, where user feedback directly informs how generative AI models and interfaces evolve to meet enterprise needs.
Spending half an hour going through Slack is one of the best ways for me to understand what’s actually happening across the company.
Riparbelli describes his daily practice of reading company-wide Slack communications to maintain visibility across operations. This management technique helps him stay connected to the ground-level realities of building and scaling an AI platform serving enterprise customers.
Our Take
Riparbelli’s profile reveals how AI unicorn leaders balance deep technical involvement with scaling challenges. His insistence on weekly customer conversations and daily Slack monitoring demonstrates that successful AI companies can’t afford to lose touch with users, especially as generative AI capabilities evolve rapidly. The $200 million Google Ventures-led round validates Synthesia’s approach to democratizing video production through AI, but also raises questions about competitive moats as tech giants develop their own video generation capabilities. What’s particularly notable is Riparbelli’s focus on corporate use cases rather than consumer applications—a strategic choice that’s proven lucrative as enterprises seek to reduce video production costs while scaling content creation. His biking routine and music habits humanize the demanding reality of leading an AI startup, while his poor sleep patterns reflect the 24/7 nature of managing a global AI platform. As AI video generation becomes commoditized, Synthesia’s challenge will be maintaining differentiation through product excellence—hence Riparbelli’s continued deep involvement in product decisions.
Why This Matters
This profile offers rare insight into how leaders at the forefront of the generative AI revolution structure their days and priorities. Synthesia’s $200 million funding round and $4 billion valuation demonstrate the massive market opportunity in AI-generated video content, a sector poised to disrupt traditional video production across enterprises.
Riparbelli’s hands-on approach to product development, despite leading a unicorn company, reflects a critical success factor in the fast-moving AI industry: staying close to the technology and users. His commitment to speaking with customers weekly and reading internal communications daily provides a model for maintaining agility and customer focus as AI companies scale rapidly.
The story also highlights how AI video generation is moving from novelty to enterprise necessity, with use cases spanning training, executive communications, and multilingual content creation. As businesses face pressure to create more video content with limited resources, platforms like Synthesia represent a fundamental shift in content production. The Google Ventures-led funding signals continued confidence in AI video technology’s potential to transform corporate communications and training, with implications for video production professionals, corporate communications teams, and the broader creator economy.
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Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/synthesia-ceo-victor-riparbelli-day-in-the-life-2026-1