Axel Sauer
Co-Founder, Black Forest Labs
PhD Student, Autonomous Vision (Andreas Geiger), Tübingen AI Center
What is your connection to Tübingen, Axel?
I was a PhD student with Andreas Geiger in the Autonomous Vision Group from 2020 to 2023. Andreas had already supervised my master's thesis, so Tübingen is really where my research career began. My PhD focused on scaling up generative adversarial networks.
Is there a memory from your time here that had a lasting positive impact on you?
My path into research wasn't smooth. My first PhD attempt, at another institution, was in an environment where I couldn't do my best work. Andreas offered me a fresh start and the freedom to pick my own topic. My time in Tübingen taught me how much the environment matters. I also remember the deadline crunches with my co-authors very fondly.
My time in Tübingen taught me how much the environment matters. I also remember the deadline crunches with my co-authors very fondly.
Axel Sauer
Where has your career taken you since, and did your time in Tübingen play a role? If so, how?
After my PhD I worked at Stability AI on fast image generation, and in 2024 I co-founded Black Forest Labs, where we build the FLUX models. The connection to Tübingen is pretty direct: the GAN expertise from my thesis evolved into the adversarial distillation we use to make our models fast. Also, the freedom during my PhD came with the need to own a direction and actually deliver on it instead of exploring endlessly, exactly what is needed at BFL today.