Runway aims to unify video workflows
Cristóbal Valenzuela, CEO of Runway, on rethinking the primitives of video
Sketch mattered because it proved that a new medium usually needs a new native tool, not a retrofit of old software. Product designers were using Photoshop and Illustrator to draw app screens in print oriented files, then exporting static mocks for engineers. Sketch rebuilt the workflow around screens, components, and interface states, which opened the door for Figma to turn design from a designer only file into a live shared workspace for product teams.
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Sketch won first by focusing on the actual job. Designing buttons, flows, and app screens. Legacy Adobe tools were built for print and image editing, so digital product teams were forcing interface work into the wrong canvas and file model.
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Figma then changed the center of gravity from better drawing tools to shared workflow. Teams moved from syncing local Sketch files and scattered libraries to browser based files with version history, shared components, comments, and handoff in one place.
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That is the analogy for Runway. Video teams still jump across editing, review, effects, subtitles, asset sharing, and versioning tools. Runway is aiming to do for video what Sketch and then Figma did for interface design, first build for the native job, then collapse collaboration into the product.
The next phase is broader seat expansion. In design, the winning tool stopped being just for specialists and became where product managers, marketers, and engineers could all participate. Video software is heading the same way, toward browser based systems where creation, review, and publishing happen in one shared environment.