Topic
43 facts from 9 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
1980s
Adobe began in the early 1980s by developing PostScript, which became the first industry standard for connecting computers to printers.
“developing something called PostScript that became the first industry standard for connecting computers to printers”
1998
Shantanu Narayen joined Adobe in 1998, when desktop software was sold in boxed copies.
“Shantanu joined the company in 1998, when desktop software was a thing you sold in boxed copies on a shelf”
2007
Shantanu Narayen became Adobe's CEO in 2007 after joining the company in 1998.
“You have been there since 1998. You became CEO in 2007.”
2012
Shantanu Narayen led Adobe's pivot to subscription software with Creative Cloud in 2012.
“he was the CEO who led the company's pivot to subscription software with Creative Cloud in 2012”
2022
A speaker says Adobe paid about 20 billion dollars for Figma and included a large retention bonus for founder Dylan Field.
“that's why they paid 20 billion dollars for it and have a gigantic bonus for dylan to stay on board”
2022
Adobe agreed to buy Figma for about $20 billion and the deal then went through a long regulatory review in Europe and the United States.
“Adobe decides to buy Figma for 20 billion. There is a lengthy review process, both in Europe.”
2023
In late 2023 Adobe's Lightroom added a machine-learning denoise feature that a host praised for cleaning up grainy photos.
“And so Lightroom shipped this unbelievable ML-powered denoise feature. I found out about it because Nilay Patel was just on the talk show with John Gruber”
2023
Adobe launched its Firefly foundation model for text-to-image generation in March of the year before this interview.
“last March, we launched our foundation model Adobe Firefly, you know, which is helps uh people do text to image generation.”
2023
Rao said his organization at Adobe has about 700 people, split roughly between about 350 in security and about 325 in legal and public policy.
“My whole org is 700, so it's about fifty fifty between legal slash public policy and then security, so security is about 350, and legal is probably about 325”
2023
Adobe was founded by Chuck Geschke and John Warnock, and Rao said Warnock had died a couple of months before the interview.
“we had two amazing founders, um, Chuck Geschke and John Warnock. John just passed away a couple months ago”
2023
Rao said the Adobe-Figma deal entered the in-depth phase two review with both the UK and the European Commission in June and July.
“as soon as you go into phase two, which we went into in July, June and July, with both the UK and the European Commission.”
2023
Adobe trained its Firefly image model on Adobe Stock content and other licensed work instead of scraping the web.
“we decided to train Firefly on our own Adobe Stock content and other licensed work from the rights holders to build our model.”
2023
Adobe launched the second version of its Firefly model at its Adobe Max conference, about a month before the interview.
“we were even more excited about the 2nd version of the model, which we launched at Adobe Max.”
2023
Adobe offered to cover the legal bills of Firefly users who are sued for copyright infringement over its output.
“In June, Adobe offered to cover the legal bills of anyone who gets sued for copyright infringement if they use Firefly.”
2023
Adobe wrote a draft federal anti-impersonation bill and gave it to the Senate Judiciary Committee for review.
“we wrote a draft bill, we gave it to the Senate Judiciary Committee. They're reviewing it.”
2023
Adobe's Content Authenticity effort offers a verify site where users can upload an image with Content Credentials and use a slider to compare it with the original.
“we have a site called verify dot org, and on that site, if you bring your content credentialed image, you can just use a slider.”
2023
Rao said every Adobe engineer who creates an AI feature must fill out an AI impact assessment, with higher-risk features sent to an AI ethics review board.
“So everybody who creates an AI feature at Adobe has to fill out an AI impact assessment, every engineer”
2024
Rao said the UK and European Commission decisions on the Adobe-Figma deal were due on February 5 and February 25.
“And in our case, the decisions were February fifth, February twenty fifth.”
2024
Narayen said roughly half of the world's population would vote in elections over a twelve-month period, which raises concerns about AI misinformation.
“I think it's something like 50% of the world's population over a twelve-month period is going to the polls”
2024
Garman says Adobe built its Firefly models on top of AWS.
“we see folks like Adobe building Firefly as a all built on top of AWS, purpose built for their own thing”
Undated
Martin-Flickinger spent about ten years at Adobe as CIO, helping move its products to a cloud subscription business.
“became the CIO for Adobe and was at Adobe for about ten years. And part of the team who migrated their product offerings into the cloud”
Undated
Rao said Adobe XD, Adobe's earlier product design tool, made only about $15 million in standalone revenue before being put in maintenance mode.
“It was only making $15 million of standalone revenue.”
Undated
Rao said Adobe built a security sandbox around Acrobat so that even a discovered vulnerability would be hard to exploit.
“acrobat is a great example of a place where we dedicated security resources to making sure there's a sandbox essentially around Acrobat.”
Undated
Rao said Adobe runs an anti-piracy effort because pirated copies of its software are widespread and often outdated and insecure.
“Because there's a lot, as you know, a lot of pirated Adobe software out there.”
Undated
Rao said Adobe's AI scientists found that deepfake detection reached only about 60% accuracy, which was not good enough for consumers.
“And the answer came back, it's like, probably like 60% accuracy, so not consumer grade.”
Undated
Adobe groups Creative Cloud and Document Cloud as its digital media business and its marketing business as the digital experience business.
“We call the first two Creative Cloud and Document Cloud as our digital media business, and we call the marketing business the digital experience business.”
Undated
Narayen said Adobe Experience Platform holds tens of billions of profiles and has crossed $750 million in its book of business.
“We have tens of billions of profiles, you know, the business is crossed $750 million in the book of business.”
Undated
Adobe calls its framework combining creation, asset management, distribution and analytics for marketers GenStudio.
“So this entire framework is called the Gen Studio, and it's actually the bringing together of, you know, the cloud businesses.”
Undated
Adobe released Liquid Mode, a feature that makes PDFs responsive on mobile devices.
“we had liquid mode, which allowed you to make all your PDFs responsive on a mobile device”
Undated
Narayen said adoption of Photoshop's Generative Fill has been dramatically higher than any other feature Adobe has introduced in Photoshop.
“the adoption of that feature has been dramatically higher than any other feature that we've introduced in Photoshop”
Undated
Nilay Patel noted that Adobe has a partnership with OpenAI to use Sora in Premiere.
“And then you have a partnership with OpenAI to use Sora and Premiere, and that might be cheaper than developing on your own.”
Undated
Narayen described Adobe Express as an AI-first product in which users converse with the computer instead of knowing exactly what to do.
“Express is a AI-first new product that's designed to really be this paradigm change where instead of knowing exactly what you want to do, you have a conversation with the computer.”
Undated
Narayen said that for most companies the cost of training AI models is currently higher than the cost of running them (inference).
“for the most part, most companies, the training cost is probably higher right now than the inference cost”
Undated
Adobe owns a large analytics suite that it acquired through its purchase of Omniture.
“You own a big analytics suite that you acquired with Omniture back in the day.”
Undated
Narayen said that for Photoshop's Structure Match and Style Match, users take responsibility for having rights to any image they upload.
“when you upload a picture for which you want to do a structure match or style match, you bear the responsibility of saying you have access to that IP”
Undated
At the NAB show, Adobe demonstrated that its products can support third-party AI models.
“at the NAB show, we showed how we can support other third parties”
Undated
Narayen said Adobe did not train its Firefly image models on Behance content because that was not the agreement with Behance users.
“While that's owned by Adobe, we did not train our Firefly image models based on that because that was not the agreement that we had with people who do it.”
Undated
Adobe's Content Credentials let creators attach a digital signature recording the provenance of a piece of content.
“put their digital signature on what the provenance of that content was, where did it get created, where did it get consumed”
Undated
Narayen said Photoshop has drawn content lines before, including blocking the creation of currency and pornography.
“Photoshop has actually done a couple of things in the past, you know, with creating currency, if you remember, that was a place.”
Undated
Narayen said a model with around a billion parameters could already be downloaded to a phone or PC to run AI locally.
“I think even today, you know, with a billion parameters, there's no reason why, you know, that just doesn't get downloaded to your phone or downloaded to your PC.”
Undated
Liu says he sees upside in Adobe because Scott Belsky is working on its AI capabilities.
“I'm pricing a lot of, like, upside into Adobe, right?”
Undated
Nilay Patel said Adobe's CEO had announced his departure and that a successor had not been named.
“Jonathan Ryan is leaving Adobe. He announced he's going. We don't know who the new C E O is gonna be.”
Undated
Ashley Padilla says her mother rose at Adobe to become an executive producer of live events.
“working her way up at that company, you know, she, she became an executive producer of Like the Live events.”
Episodes