Cliff Weitzman, Founder and CEO of Speechify, was recently a guest on The Pomp Podcast. The show, hosted by Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano, is ranked in the top 0.05% of podcasts in the world according to Listen Notes and has over 50 million downloads. With over 1,200 episodes, The Pomp Podcast covers a wide range of topics from business to finance, featuring industry leaders and cultural icons and their stories of success to help listeners get smarter every day.
In this episode, Cliff and Pomp take a deep dive into the rise of audio, artificial intelligence (AI), the power of language, and more. They also cover the past, present, and future of Speechify.
Starting with the rise of audio, Cliff notes how reading and writing are relatively new skills to humanity compared to speaking and listening. Reading takes up much more brain power for decoding and understanding compared to listening, but text is a much easier format to store compared to audio. He explains how the rise of the Internet, mobile phones, and podcast streaming paved the way for audio-focused content in our world today. The access to audio content is even more enhanced with the ability to listen at double speeds and higher, allowing people to better multitask and absorb more information than ever before.
AI is understandably the highlight of the conversation. First, Cliff and Pomp get into how Speechify uses AI to create accurate text to speech. Cliff also shares that while Speechify’s first customers were in the B2C space, it has quickly expanded to an even split of B2B and B2C as more businesses see the benefits of TTS and AI-based tools. Yet, while AI has its benefits, it also needs to be handled responsibly. Cliff emphasizes Speechify’s commitment to AI safety in its extensive testing and development, as well as the need for other companies to take that same level of responsibility and care with the AI tools they create.
When it comes to work and creativity, Cliff and Pomp touch on a few different angles. The first question is whether AI will create or displace workers, which Cliff believes the answer is both. He explains how humans have always developed new technology to advance, and the people who choose not to learn how to use new tools will get left behind by the people who did learn who to use the tools. The same is true for AI in his opinion. This also applies to creative processes like celebrities or musicians using AI tools to recreate their own voice or likeness for projects, where the AI can help make the process more efficient without replacing the need for human creativity.
Finally, they get into the history of Speechify and what’s on the horizon for the company. Cliff shares a bit about his own background with dyslexia and his mission to be the person for others that he needed when he was young. He tells Pomp how Speechify started out as a text to speech tool to help people with dyslexia, ADHD, vision problems, and language learners has now become a popular platform for just about anyone. Cliff says the goal is to reach 2.5 billion people with Speechify’s AI tools, as well as to develop an auditory operating system.
Check out the episode to hear the full conversation.
