Why ElevenLabs Added 'Ums' and 'Uhs' to Fix Voice AI
Mati Staniszewski reveals why perfect speech failed in voice AI, and how speech imperfections and voice restoration built ElevenLabs.
Building One of AI’s Fastest-Growing Companies | Mati Staniszewski, ElevenLabs
With David Senra, Mati Staniszewski · Sunday, September 13, 2026
ElevenLabs co-founder Mati Staniszewski discusses the founding and rapid growth of ElevenLabs, detailing how childhood frustration with Polish movie dubbing inspired the creation of frontier speech AI. He shares how his experience at Palantir shaped ElevenLabs' flat, small-team organizational structure and forward deployed engineering model. Staniszewski also explains why the company remains strictly focused on voice and audio research, the mission to preserve human voices, and why he has consistently rejected acquisition offers to build an enduring, independent AI company.
Key takeaways
- Early ElevenLabs conversational agents flopped because their speech was unnaturally articulate; adding human disfluencies like pauses, "ums," and "uhs" caused user performance and acceptance to skyrocket. Read more →
- Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski started ElevenLabs in 2021 to fix foreign movie dubbing, motivated by Poland's single-voice narration style. Read more →
- ElevenLabs restricts pure research strictly to audio architecture, relying on outside LLMs and third-party tools for intelligence and knowledge retrieval. Read more →
- Spotify CEO Daniel Ek warned David Senra to "stay away from the circus" of industry conferences, but ElevenLabs co-founder Mati Staniszewski turned them into a core enterprise pipeline. Read more →
- Mati Staniszewski organized ElevenLabs without executive titles, running autonomous units of fewer than 10 people who make direct decisions for the customer. Read more →
- ElevenLabs co-founders Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski rejected multiple buyout offers early, choosing long-term independence over immediate financial security. Read more →
- For decades, humans bent their behavior around machines by learning keyboards, screen layouts, and programming languages. Voice models reverse that relationship. Read more →
7 articles from this episode
How ElevenLabs Pivoted from Dubbing to Win Text-to-Speech
ElevenLabs co-founder Mati Staniszewski explains why solving one core research step beat building an entire dubbing pipeline.
Why ElevenLabs Refuses to Build Text or Video Models
ElevenLabs co-founder Mati Staniszewski explains why the voice AI leader rejects building LLMs or video to dominate audio architecture.
Turn Tech Conferences Into an Enterprise Sales Engine
ElevenLabs co-founder Mati Staniszewski shares how to turn two to three conferences per quarter into high-value enterprise sales pipelines.
Why ElevenLabs Puts Forward Deployed Engineers in Product
Mati Staniszewski explains how ElevenLabs uses Palantir-style forward deployed engineers inside product teams to build enterprise AI.
Why Mati Staniszewski Refuses to Sell ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs co-founder Mati Staniszewski explains why rejecting acquisition offers is the only rational move during an AI platform shift.
Why ElevenLabs Bets Against New AI Hardware
ElevenLabs co-founder Mati Staniszewski explains why voice, not new hardware, will replace screens and connect AI directly to human conversation.
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