FL Studio CEO on AI, creativity, and why the old internet still matters

Constantin Koehncke sits at the helm of Image Line, the company behind FL Studio, a digital audio workstation that went from pirated bedroom staple to legitimate creative powerhouse. Before taking the CEO role in 2022, he ran Native Instruments and spent five years as a freelance music journalist. These days, he’s shepherding FL Studio through the AI era while staying grounded in forum threads and Reddit threads.

What makes Koehncke unusual for a tech executive is his refusal to pretend the internet has evolved in all the right ways. “Reddit is the only place I still happily scroll,” he says. “It’s imperfect, but it still feels like the old internet: people arguing about incredibly niche topics because they genuinely care, mixed with genuinely funny nonsense.” LinkedIn, by contrast, gets the obligatory CEO treatment. “You learn to mentally filter out the AI-generated thought leadership about what fatherhood taught someone about B2B enterprise sales.”

The case against replacing creativity

When asked about AI’s role in music creation, Koehncke draws a sharp line. “Just because something’s possible doesn’t mean it’s a good idea,” he says. “The idea that replacing human creativity is somehow a noble pursuit misses the point entirely. Writing, painting, and making music are some of the most fundamentally human things we do. Technology should give people more ways to express themselves and unlock their creativity, not replace the very act of creating.”

Image Line has rolled out AI features like stem separation and its Gopher chatbot, but the philosophy remains clear: augmentation, not replacement. This stance separates thoughtful tech leadership from the hype machine.

His media diet tells you something about how he thinks. Koehncke gravitates toward long-form journalism. “The New Yorker. FT Weekend. The Economist. Anything that still believes a complicated topic deserves more than a hot take and a thumbnail.” In an era of hot takes, this preference for depth feels almost radical.

Tools and habits

His most indispensable tool? AirPods Pro. “They’re the only piece of technology that’s with me pretty much all day. If I lose them, my productivity drops by about 40 percent.” He opens 34 tabs across two browser windows, organized by purpose: one for work, one for everything else. “No day ends with open tabs. Tab Zero means I can finally go to sleep.”

Every morning, Koehncke follows a ritual of checking internal dashboards, product docs, analytics, the FL Studio forums, and Reddit. It’s muscle memory at this point, the kind of habit that keeps a CEO connected to what users actually care about rather than what boardroom metrics suggest.

When it comes to problem-solving, his approach is refreshingly analog. “Go for a walk, then sit down with a blank sheet of paper and write down the problem. Breaking it down to first principles works surprisingly often. The rest usually resolves itself after coffee.” This philosophy echoes across most of his thinking: acknowledge complexity, resist oversimplification, take time to think.

The designer’s eye

His recent purchase? A Teenage Engineering OB-4 speaker, a device inspired by Dieter Rams’ “weniger, aber besser” (less, but better) philosophy. “The built-in handle means I can carry it from room to room, which has recently made it the soundtrack device to getting my daughter to sleep.” That choice speaks volumes about someone who values function wedded to elegant design.

Koehncke describes himself simply: “Failed DJ turns helping other people make music into a career.” It’s a humble framing for someone shepherding one of music production’s most influential tools. FL Studio owes its existence to Didier Dambrin’s vision, but Koehncke’s stewardship during the AI moment will determine whether it remains a creator’s tool or becomes a shortcut for the creatively indifferent.

The stakes in music production software aren’t just technical or business-driven. They’re philosophical. A CEO who still visits forums daily, who reads Reddit instead of algorithmic feeds, who publishes in The New Yorker rather than LinkedIn, is making a statement about what matters. Maybe that’s the real innovation here: leadership that refuses to optimize away the human elements.

Source: Infeeds.com