We are not ready for better deepfakes
This is Alex Heath, your Thursday episode guest host. Today I'm talking with Gaurav Misra, the CEO of Captions. You may not have heard of Captions yet, but by now, you’ve probably seen a video that was generated using its AI models. The company’s Mirage Studio platform lets anyone generate AI versions of real people, and the results are alarmingly realistic.
Captions just put out a blog post titled, “We Build Synthetic Humans. Here’s What’s Keeping Us Up at Night.” It’s a good overview of the state of deepfakes and where they’re headed. So Gauraav and I sat down to discuss the trajectory of deepfake technology and what might be done to prevent it from being misused.
Links:
We build synthetic humans. Here’s what’s keeping us up at night | Captions
Google’s Veo 3 AI video generator is a slop monger’s dream | Verge
Gemini AI can now turn photos into videos | Verge
Trump just unveiled his plan to put AI in everything | Verge
Racist videos made with AI are going viral on TikTok | Verge
Microsoft wants Congress to outlaw AI-generated deepfake fraud | Verge
YouTube is supporting the ‘No Fakes Act’ targeting unauthorized AI replicas | Verge
This Tom Cruise impersonator is using deepfake tech to impressive ends | Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
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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)
Gaurav Misra 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.
What you’ll learn:
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
2. How to balance rapid shipping with maintaining quality by cutting scope rather than compromising on timelines
3. The “secret roadmap” strategy that helps Captions develop breakthrough features competitors never see coming
4. Why taking on strategic technical debt is essential for startups to outpace larger companies
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)
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
7. Why AI video will transform marketing before other industries
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Brought to you by:
• Brex — The banking solution for startups
• Paragon—Ship every SaaS integration your customers want
• Coda—The all-in-one collaborative workspace
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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-win-in-the-ai-era-gaurav-misra
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Where to find Gaurav Misra:
• X: https://x.com/gmharhar
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gamisra1/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Gaurav’s background
(04:47) The exciting era of AI and startups
(09:30) Staying top of mind
(11:26) Tips for staying focused
(13:14) Shipping marketable features weekly
(19:03) Managing technical debt in startups
(25:31) Snap’s unique product development approach
(32:09) Brainstorming with AI
(35:09) What Snap got right
(41:06) Scaling with a small, agile team
(49:33) The shift toward prototyping in product management
(51:47) The product manager role
(55:40) Snap’s mission and product decisions
(01:02:13) The future of AI-generated video
(01:10:20) Leveraging AI for marketing
(01:14:37) Failure corner
(01:20:21) Lightning round and closing thoughts
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Referenced:
• Snap: https://www.snap.com/
• Captions: https://www.captions.ai/
• Iron Man on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/iron-man/6aM2a8mZATiu
• J.A.R.V.I.S.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.A.R.V.I.S.
• Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/
• Devin: https://devin.ai/
• Eye contact: https://www.captions.ai/eye-contact
• Nvidia: https://www.nvidia.com
• Descript: https://www.descript.com
• Evan Spiegel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-spiegel-8ab74034a/
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/
• Spotlight: https://www.snapchat.com/spotlight/
• Building product at Stripe: craft, metrics, and customer obsession | Jeff Weinstein (Product lead): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-product-at-stripe-jeff-weinstein
• Patrick Collison on X: https://x.com/patrickc
• DeepSeek: https://www.deepseek.com/
• ByteDance Goku: New video generation AI model, better than OpenAI Sora: https://medium.com/data-science-in-your-pocket/bytedance-goku-new-video-generation-ai-model-better-than-openai-sora-56c017a320a5
• 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/
• Silo on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/silo/umc.cmc.3yksgc857px0k0rqe5zd4jice
• Severance on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/severance/umc.cmc.1srk2goyh2q2zdxcx605w8vtx
• Linear: https://linear.app/
• Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/
• Notion: https://www.notion.com
• Perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/
• OmniHuman-1 AI Video Generation Looks Too Real: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY0KB516m-E
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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
Gaurav Misra & Dwight Churchill - Building Captions - [Invest Like the Best, EP.405]
My guests today are Dwight Churchill and Gaurav Misra, co-founders of Captions, which uses AI to generate and edit talking videos and has grown to significant scale at remarkable speed. We explore a key distinction in AI: tackling bounded problems like video generation versus unbounded problems like general intelligence and what this means for building sustainable businesses. We also explore their unique data flywheel, why video generation could reach Hollywood quality within 18 months, and why building advanced AI products doesn't require huge teams. Please enjoy this discussion with Dwight and Gaurav.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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This episode is brought to you by Ramp. Ramp’s mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Ramp is the fastest-growing FinTech company in history, and it’s backed by more of my favorite past guests (at least 16 of them!) than probably any other company I’m aware of. Go to Ramp.com/invest to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus.
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This episode is brought to you by Ridgeline. Ridgeline has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and much more through an all-in-one real-time cloud platform. I think this platform will become the standard for investment managers, and if you run an investing firm, I highly recommend you find time to speak with them. Head to ridgelineapps.com to learn more about the platform.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com).
Show Notes:
(00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best
(00:07:49) The Evolution and Impact of AI
(00:09:14) Challenges in Video Data and AI
(00:10:36) AI in Media Generation
(00:12:07) Building a Sustainable AI Business
(00:14:56) The Journey of a Video AI Company
(00:25:41) AI Video Editing and Creation Tools
(00:29:58) Future of AI in Video and Business
(00:37:51) The Future of Likeness in Video
(00:39:25) Training Models on Human Data
(00:41:15) Competitive Landscape and Copycats
(00:44:01) The Role of Research Talent
(00:46:25) Pricing AI Software
(00:51:51) Investor Perspectives on AI
(01:02:44) Lessons from Snap
(01:07:04) The Kindest Thing Anyone Has Done for Dwight & Gaurav
Live at Tech Week: Delivering AI Products to Millions
Less than two years since the breakthrough of text-based AI, we now see incredible developments in multimodal AI models and their impact on millions of users.
As part of New York Tech Week, we brought together a live audience and three leaders from standout companies delivering AI-driven products to millions. Gaurav Misra, Cofounder and CEO of Captions, Carles Reina, Chief Revenue Officer of ElevenLabs, and Laura Burkhauser, VP of Product at Descript discuss the challenges and opportunities of designing AI-driven products, solving real customer problems, and effective marketing.
From the critical need for preventing AI misuse to ensuring international accessibility, they cover essential insights for the future of AI technology.
Resources:
Find Laura on Twitter: https://x.com/burkenstocks
Find Carles on Twitter :https://twitter.com/carles_reina
Find Gaurav of Twitter: https://twitter.com/gmharhar
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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
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