About Mati Staniszewski
Mati Staniszewski is the co-founder and CEO of ElevenLabs, the voice AI company that reached $300M ARR in just 3 years. He's building the voice interface for AI - from dubbing and narration to conversational agents.
Career Highlights
- ElevenLabs (2022-present): Co-founder and CEO
- $300M ARR: Reached in under 3 years, 50/50 self-serve and enterprise
- 350 employees: Remote-first with hubs globally
- 5M+ monthly actives: On creative platform
- Palantir (previous): Forward deployed engineering background
Notable Positions
On ElevenLabs' Scale
The growth trajectory:
"We are at $300 million ARR, roughly 50/50 between self-serve creators using our creative platform and enterprise using our agents platform. We serve more than 5 million monthly actives and have customers from Fortune 500s to the fastest growing AI startups."
On the Origin Story
Why voice matters - from Poland:
"If you watch a foreign movie in Polish, all voices - male or female - are narrated by one single character with flat delivery. It's a terrible experience. As soon as you learn English, you switch out. That was the original insight - could you have the original voice, original emotions, original intonation carried across languages?"
On Proactive Agents
The shift from reactive to proactive:
"Customer support is shifting from reactive - I have a problem, I reach out - to proactive, part of the experience. We work with Misho, the biggest e-commerce shop in India, where the agent is now the front of the experience - helping navigate, explain items, go through checkout."
On Interactive Entertainment
New ways to experience content:
"We worked with Epic Games bringing Darth Vader into Fortnite where millions of players could interact with him live in the game. Chess.com lets you learn from Hikaru Nakamura or Magnus Carlsen as your personal tutor. MasterClass lets you practice negotiation with Chris Voss, the FBI negotiator."
On Agent Government
Ukraine's digital transformation:
"I went to Ukraine where they're creating the first agent government. They want to change how all ministries run - customer support for government benefits, employment processes, proactive citizen information, education through personal tutoring. Despite everything happening, they're so ahead."
Key Quotes
- "$300M ARR in 3 years."
- "Voice is the interface of the future."
- "First agent government in Ukraine."
Related Reading
- Enterprise AI - Where ElevenLabs is scaling
- Knowledge Work Disruption - Voice transformation of work
Video Appearances
ElevenLabs scale
We are at $300 million ARR, roughly 50/50 between self-serve creators using our platform and enterprise using our agents platform. We serve more than 5 million monthly actives and have Fortune 500s to the fastest growing AI startups.
at 00:03:00
Origin story
If you watch a foreign movie in Polish, all voices - male or female - are narrated by one single character with flat delivery. As soon as you learn English, you switch out. That was the original insight - could you have the original voice, emotions, intonation carried across languages?
at 00:08:00
Proactive agents
Customer support is shifting from reactive to proactive. We work with Misho, the biggest e-commerce shop in India, where the agent is now the front of the experience - helping you navigate, explain items, go through checkout.
at 00:18:00
Interactive entertainment and education
We worked with Epic Games bringing Darth Vader into Fortnite where millions of players could interact with him live. Chess.com lets you learn from Hikaru Nakamura or Magnus Carlsen. MasterClass lets you practice negotiation with Chris Voss, the FBI negotiator.
at 00:22:00
Agent government
I went to Ukraine where they're creating the first agent government. They want to change how all ministries run - customer support for benefits, employment, proactive citizen information, education through personal tutoring. They're so ahead.
at 00:28:00
Small team structure
We have over 300 people but inside the company it's effectively 30 teams of five to 10 people. We try to bring engineers across - even in a traditional growth team we have growth engineers. The ops team has operations engineering to help automate process.
at 00:18:00
Research nimbleness
We do research initiatives, we don't give timelines. The moment something comes out either internally from our research team or from other teams, you have 24 hours to start integrating that into your product. That's the most important time to really be ahead.
at 00:25:00