Solving Dyslexia ft. Cliff Weitzman, founder and CEO of Speechify

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In our second interview with Cliff Weitzman, he tells us about the history of Speechify (https://speechify.com/), the current state of the product, the state of technology and AI in general as it applies to learning disabilities, and how his dyslexia helps make him a successful entrepreneur.

You can find our first interview with Cliff here: https://dyslexiajourney.buzzsprout.com/2077817/14386818-learn-to-love-listening-ft-cliff-weitzman-dyslexic-founder-and-ceo-of-speechify

Cliff Weitzman is super dyslexic and couldn't figure out how to read in 1st to 4th grade. He learned English by listening to Harry Potter audiobooks when he was 13 and fell in love with listening. He listens to 2 audiobooks a week and has done so for more than 15 years. When he studied renewable energy engineering at Brown University he found his books didn't have audiobooks so he built a text to speech system that could read out anything to him. 

Today SpeechifyAI is the largest  speech AI platform in the world over 25 million users and over 100  engineers. Speechify has been the #1 app in its Apple and Google AppStore categories for 4 years. and has the largest collection of dyslexic users using it for dyslexia of any product in the world.  What OpenAI does for text Speechify does for speech. The team started developing AI models in 2016 for speech synthesis, NLP, & computer vision. Today, they make the most realistic human sounding AI voices in the world. 

We're Sonja and Nick — parents of a dyslexic kid and your guides on this journey. We created Dyslexia Journey because we know how isolating it can feel when your child struggles with reading and school isn't helping. Every episode brings practical strategies, expert interviews with psychologists, educators, and reading specialists, plus real stories from dyslexic adults who've thrived. Whether you're a parent navigating diagnosis, IEPs, and accommodations, or a dyslexic adult looking for community — this show is for you. Got a question or a guest idea? Reach out at parentingdyslexiajourney@gmail.com. 

Also check out our YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/@ParentingDyslexiaJourney