Mikey Shulman, co-founder and CEO of the generative AI music platform Suno, is facing backlash after claiming in an interview that most people find the music creation process “not really enjoyable.”
Shulman painted a rather bleak picture of music production speaking on the venture capital industry podcast The Twenty Minute VC (20VC), suggesting that learning an instrument or mastering software is too much of a hassle for the average person.
“It’s not really enjoyable to make music now,” he told host Harry Stebbings. “It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you need to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece of production software.”
“I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music,” Shulman added.
Suno’s AI-powered platform allows users to produce songs simply by entering text prompts. Shulman’s vision of democratizing music creation through artificial intelligence represents a growing tension in the music industry: the struggle between traditional, skill-based artistry and AI-powered instant gratification.
“If you want to impact the way a billion people experience music, you have to build something for a billion people,” he declared, apparently dismissing centuries of human musical tradition as too cumbersome for the masses.
“It’s not really enjoyable to make music now… it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you have to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece of production software. I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of time they spend making… pic.twitter.com/zkv73Bhmi9
— Mike Patti (@mpatti) January 11, 2025
The tech exec’s claims seem perfectly timed to justify the AI-powered framework of Suno amid mounting legal troubles. Suno is currently battling a pair of landmark lawsuits containing explosive copyright infringement allegations from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which claims the company used copyrighted recordings without permission to train its AI models. The trade body is reportedly seeking damages of up to $150,000 for each copyrighted work.
While he defended Suno’s technology as “transformative” on 20VC, many in the music industry are bemoaning his comments for bastardizing the value of musical craftsmanship.
“It’s very revealing,” one X user wrote in response. “The solutionist language just doesn’t make sense for art, or for other things where the work is the enjoyment, but the tech companies seem stuck in their story.”
You can watch the full interview below.
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