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<description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Gaurav Misra&lt;/strong&gt; is the co-founder and CEO of Captions, an AI-powered video creation company and one of the most successful consumer AI products in the world today. Previously he was a product leader at Snap, where he created the design engineering function and spent years helping develop features used by hundreds of millions of users worldwide. With a background in both engineering and design, Gaurav brings a unique cross-functional perspective to product development.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What you’ll learn:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;1. Why the “ship a marketable feature every week” approach helps his team stay focused and the product stay top of mind for users amid constant AI breakthroughs&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;2. How to balance rapid shipping with maintaining quality by cutting scope rather than compromising on timelines&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;3. The “secret roadmap” strategy that helps Captions develop breakthrough features competitors never see coming&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;4. Why taking on strategic technical debt is essential for startups to outpace larger companies&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;5. How Captions accidentally ignored their most successful product for 1.5 years (and why it still grew to 500K users with no updates or support)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;6. How Snap’s unique product development approach—with designers functioning as PMs—enabled their success as the last major social network to break through&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;7. Why AI video will transform marketing before other industries&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Brought to you by:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.brex.com/product/business-account"&gt;Brex&lt;/a&gt; — The banking solution for startups&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.useparagon.com/lenny"&gt;Paragon&lt;/a&gt;—Ship every SaaS integration your customers want&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://coda.io/lenny"&gt;Coda&lt;/a&gt;—The all-in-one collaborative workspace&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Find the transcript at: &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-win-in-the-ai-era-gaurav-misra"&gt;https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-win-in-the-ai-era-gaurav-misra&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Where to find Gaurav Misra:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• X: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/gmharhar"&gt;https://x.com/gmharhar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• LinkedIn: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/gamisra1/"&gt;https://www.linkedin.com/in/gamisra1/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Where to find Lenny:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Newsletter: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com"&gt;https://www.lennysnewsletter.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• X: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/lennysan"&gt;https://twitter.com/lennysan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• LinkedIn: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/"&gt;https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;In this episode, we cover:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(00:00) Gaurav’s background&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(04:47) The exciting era of AI and startups&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(09:30) Staying top of mind&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(11:26) Tips for staying focused&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(13:14) Shipping marketable features weekly&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(19:03) Managing technical debt in startups&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(25:31) Snap’s unique product development approach&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(32:09) Brainstorming with AI&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(35:09) What Snap got right&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(41:06) Scaling with a small, agile team&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(49:33) The shift toward prototyping in product management&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(51:47) The product manager role&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(55:40) Snap’s mission and product decisions&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(01:02:13) The future of AI-generated video&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(01:10:20) Leveraging AI for marketing&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(01:14:37) Failure corner&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;(01:20:21) Lightning round and closing thoughts&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Referenced:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Snap: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.snap.com/"&gt;https://www.snap.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Captions: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.captions.ai/"&gt;https://www.captions.ai/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• &lt;em&gt;Iron Man&lt;/em&gt; on Disney+: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/iron-man/6aM2a8mZATiu"&gt;https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/iron-man/6aM2a8mZATiu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• J.A.R.V.I.S.: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.A.R.V.I.S"&gt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.A.R.V.I.S&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Cursor: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.cursor.com/"&gt;https://www.cursor.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Devin: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://devin.ai/"&gt;https://devin.ai/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Eye contact: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.captions.ai/eye-contact"&gt;https://www.captions.ai/eye-contact&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Nvidia: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.nvidia.com"&gt;https://www.nvidia.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Descript: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.descript.com"&gt;https://www.descript.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Evan Spiegel on LinkedIn: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-spiegel-8ab74034a/"&gt;https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-spiegel-8ab74034a/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• TikTok: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/"&gt;https://www.tiktok.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Spotlight: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.snapchat.com/spotlight/"&gt;https://www.snapchat.com/spotlight/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Building product at Stripe: craft, metrics, and customer obsession | Jeff Weinstein (Product lead): &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-product-at-stripe-jeff-weinstein"&gt;https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-product-at-stripe-jeff-weinstein&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Patrick Collison on X: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/patrickc"&gt;https://x.com/patrickc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• DeepSeek: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.deepseek.com/"&gt;https://www.deepseek.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• ByteDance Goku: New video generation AI model, better than OpenAI Sora: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://medium.com/data-science-in-your-pocket/bytedance-goku-new-video-generation-ai-model-better-than-openai-sora-56c017a320a5"&gt;https://medium.com/data-science-in-your-pocket/bytedance-goku-new-video-generation-ai-model-better-than-openai-sora-56c017a320a5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Will Smith eating spaghetti and other weird AI benchmarks that took off in 2024: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/31/will-smith-eating-spaghetti-and-other-weird-ai-benchmarks-that-took-off-in-2024/"&gt;https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/31/will-smith-eating-spaghetti-and-other-weird-ai-benchmarks-that-took-off-in-2024/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• &lt;em&gt;Silo&lt;/em&gt; on AppleTV+: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://tv.apple.com/us/show/silo/umc.cmc.3yksgc857px0k0rqe5zd4jice"&gt;https://tv.apple.com/us/show/silo/umc.cmc.3yksgc857px0k0rqe5zd4jice&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• &lt;em&gt;Severance&lt;/em&gt; on AppleTV+: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://tv.apple.com/us/show/severance/umc.cmc.1srk2goyh2q2zdxcx605w8vtx"&gt;https://tv.apple.com/us/show/severance/umc.cmc.1srk2goyh2q2zdxcx605w8vtx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Linear: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://linear.app/"&gt;https://linear.app/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Superhuman: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://superhuman.com/"&gt;https://superhuman.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Notion: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.notion.com"&gt;https://www.notion.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• Perplexity: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.perplexity.ai/"&gt;https://www.perplexity.ai/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;• OmniHuman-1 AI Video Generation Looks &lt;em&gt;Too&lt;/em&gt; Real: &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY0KB516m-E"&gt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY0KB516m-E&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Production and marketing by &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://penname.co/"&gt;https://penname.co/&lt;/a&gt;. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email &lt;a target="_blank" href="mailto:podcast@lennyrachitsky.com"&gt;podcast@lennyrachitsky.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;—&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at &lt;a href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&amp;#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4"&gt;www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe&lt;/a&gt;</description>

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Lenny Rachitsky

How to win in the AI era: Ship a feature every week, embrace technical debt, ruthlessly cut scope, and create magic your competitors can't copy | Gaurav Misra (CEO and co-founder of Captions)

MAR 27, 202585 MIN
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

How to win in the AI era: Ship a feature every week, embrace technical debt, ruthlessly cut scope, and create magic your competitors can't copy | Gaurav Misra (CEO and co-founder of Captions)

MAR 27, 202585 MIN

Description

<p><strong>Gaurav Misra</strong> is the co-founder and CEO of Captions, an AI-powered video creation company and one of the most successful consumer AI products in the world today. Previously he was a product leader at Snap, where he created the design engineering function and spent years helping develop features used by hundreds of millions of users worldwide. With a background in both engineering and design, Gaurav brings a unique cross-functional perspective to product development.</p><p></p><p><strong>What you’ll learn:</strong></p><p>1. Why the “ship a marketable feature every week” approach helps his team stay focused and the product stay top of mind for users amid constant AI breakthroughs</p><p>2. How to balance rapid shipping with maintaining quality by cutting scope rather than compromising on timelines</p><p>3. The “secret roadmap” strategy that helps Captions develop breakthrough features competitors never see coming</p><p>4. Why taking on strategic technical debt is essential for startups to outpace larger companies</p><p>5. How Captions accidentally ignored their most successful product for 1.5 years (and why it still grew to 500K users with no updates or support)</p><p>6. How Snap’s unique product development approach—with designers functioning as PMs—enabled their success as the last major social network to break through</p><p>7. Why AI video will transform marketing before other industries</p><p>—</p><p><strong>Brought to you by:</strong></p><p>• <a target="_blank" href="https://www.brex.com/product/business-account">Brex</a> — The banking solution for startups</p><p>• <a target="_blank" href="https://www.useparagon.com/lenny">Paragon</a>—Ship every SaaS integration your customers want</p><p>• <a target="_blank" href="https://coda.io/lenny">Coda</a>—The all-in-one collaborative workspace</p><p>—</p><p><strong>Find the transcript at: </strong><a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-win-in-the-ai-era-gaurav-misra">https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-win-in-the-ai-era-gaurav-misra</a></p><p>—</p><p><strong>Where to find Gaurav Misra:</strong></p><p>• X: <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/gmharhar">https://x.com/gmharhar</a></p><p>• LinkedIn: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/gamisra1/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/gamisra1/</a></p><p>—</p><p><strong>Where to find Lenny:</strong></p><p>• Newsletter: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com">https://www.lennysnewsletter.com</a></p><p>• X: <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/lennysan">https://twitter.com/lennysan</a></p><p>• LinkedIn: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/</a></p><p>—</p><p><strong>In this episode, we cover:</strong></p><p>(00:00) Gaurav’s background</p><p>(04:47) The exciting era of AI and startups</p><p>(09:30) Staying top of mind</p><p>(11:26) Tips for staying focused</p><p>(13:14) Shipping marketable features weekly</p><p>(19:03) Managing technical debt in startups</p><p>(25:31) Snap’s unique product development approach</p><p>(32:09) Brainstorming with AI</p><p>(35:09) What Snap got right</p><p>(41:06) Scaling with a small, agile team</p><p>(49:33) The shift toward prototyping in product management</p><p>(51:47) The product manager role</p><p>(55:40) Snap’s mission and product decisions</p><p>(01:02:13) The future of AI-generated video</p><p>(01:10:20) Leveraging AI for marketing</p><p>(01:14:37) Failure corner</p><p>(01:20:21) Lightning round and closing thoughts</p><p>—</p><p><strong>Referenced:</strong></p><p>• Snap: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.snap.com/">https://www.snap.com/</a></p><p>• Captions: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.captions.ai/">https://www.captions.ai/</a></p><p>• <em>Iron Man</em> on Disney+: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/iron-man/6aM2a8mZATiu">https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/iron-man/6aM2a8mZATiu</a></p><p>• J.A.R.V.I.S.: <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.A.R.V.I.S">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.A.R.V.I.S</a>.</p><p>• Cursor: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cursor.com/">https://www.cursor.com/</a></p><p>• Devin: <a target="_blank" href="https://devin.ai/">https://devin.ai/</a></p><p>• Eye contact: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.captions.ai/eye-contact">https://www.captions.ai/eye-contact</a></p><p>• Nvidia: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nvidia.com">https://www.nvidia.com</a></p><p>• Descript: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.descript.com">https://www.descript.com</a></p><p>• Evan Spiegel on LinkedIn: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-spiegel-8ab74034a/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-spiegel-8ab74034a/</a></p><p>• TikTok: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/">https://www.tiktok.com/</a></p><p>• Spotlight: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.snapchat.com/spotlight/">https://www.snapchat.com/spotlight/</a></p><p>• Building product at Stripe: craft, metrics, and customer obsession | Jeff Weinstein (Product lead): <a target="_blank" href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-product-at-stripe-jeff-weinstein">https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-product-at-stripe-jeff-weinstein</a></p><p>• Patrick Collison on X: <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/patrickc">https://x.com/patrickc</a></p><p>• DeepSeek: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.deepseek.com/">https://www.deepseek.com/</a></p><p>• ByteDance Goku: New video generation AI model, better than OpenAI Sora: <a target="_blank" href="https://medium.com/data-science-in-your-pocket/bytedance-goku-new-video-generation-ai-model-better-than-openai-sora-56c017a320a5">https://medium.com/data-science-in-your-pocket/bytedance-goku-new-video-generation-ai-model-better-than-openai-sora-56c017a320a5</a></p><p>• Will Smith eating spaghetti and other weird AI benchmarks that took off in 2024: <a target="_blank" href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/31/will-smith-eating-spaghetti-and-other-weird-ai-benchmarks-that-took-off-in-2024/">https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/31/will-smith-eating-spaghetti-and-other-weird-ai-benchmarks-that-took-off-in-2024/</a></p><p>• <em>Silo</em> on AppleTV+: <a target="_blank" href="https://tv.apple.com/us/show/silo/umc.cmc.3yksgc857px0k0rqe5zd4jice">https://tv.apple.com/us/show/silo/umc.cmc.3yksgc857px0k0rqe5zd4jice</a></p><p>• <em>Severance</em> on AppleTV+: <a target="_blank" href="https://tv.apple.com/us/show/severance/umc.cmc.1srk2goyh2q2zdxcx605w8vtx">https://tv.apple.com/us/show/severance/umc.cmc.1srk2goyh2q2zdxcx605w8vtx</a></p><p>• Linear: <a target="_blank" href="https://linear.app/">https://linear.app/</a></p><p>• Superhuman: <a target="_blank" href="https://superhuman.com/">https://superhuman.com/</a></p><p>• Notion: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.notion.com">https://www.notion.com</a></p><p>• Perplexity: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.perplexity.ai/">https://www.perplexity.ai/</a></p><p>• OmniHuman-1 AI Video Generation Looks <em>Too</em> Real: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY0KB516m-E">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY0KB516m-E</a></p><p>—</p><p>Production and marketing by <a target="_blank" href="https://penname.co/">https://penname.co/</a>. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email <a target="_blank" href="mailto:podcast@lennyrachitsky.com">podcast@lennyrachitsky.com</a>.</p><p>—</p><p><em>Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.</em></p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at <a href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe</a>