Aakash Gupta Profile picture
May 2, 2023 14 tweets 7 min read Read on X
The fastest moving part of AI?

Generative video.

How RunwayML ushered in the era of generative video (genius):
Chapter 1: Beginnings in NYC

The story begins at NYU, where 3 grad students in a tech art program met up.

They were each building tools for designers - and surprised how enthusiastic the response was.

@agermanidis left, @matamalaortiz middle, and @c_valenzuelab right. Image
Chapter 2: Challenger

But Runway almost never even began.

Each of the the trio received fancy job offers. Cristobal, eg, had an offer on Adobe's AI team.

To test the market for Runway, the team sent a tweet looking for beta testers. The response was huge: 570 likes 👇
Chapter 3: The NYC Shoebox

The response gave them conviction to say no to the big companies.

The trio accepted jobs making $2k/month as researchers at NYU.

In NYC, that's pennies. So, they built fast. Cool things like this plugin for Photoshop:

Chapter 4: Rave Reviews

And, of course, they continued work on their own software. It was in private beta.

Designers loved it - calling it "a new Photoshop."

VCs agreed. Runway raised a $2M seed round just a few months after the trio went full-time.
Chapter 5: Tools for Creative Workflows

This allowed the team to move out of their shoeboxes.

They then built Runway entirely on the web & built easy-to-use apps on top.

A particularly epic one is Green Screen - which can generate a mask & propagate through.
Chapter 6: Going All In On Models

After raising a $8.5M series A at the end of 2020, the team went all in on models:

Latent Diffusion in 2021
Stable Diffusion in 2022

This helped the team raise series B and C rounds, setting them up for their next masterful launch... Image
Chapter 7: Gen-1

The company dropped Gen-1 on February 6 - and got massive reception on Twitter.

User uptake was enormous.

Because the company opened it up for human reinforcement learning, Week 1 to Week 6 Gen-1 improved crazily fast.
Chapter 8: #Gen2

This set them up to launch Gen-2 a mere 6 weeks later!

It has been producing absolutely stunning videos every single day.

It's not even public yet. Runway has masterfully rolled out access to active Twitter artists like @icreatelife

As it stands, Runway is the clear leader in the text-to-video AI landscape.

It's been genius execution of a genius strategy. Image
How Has @runwayml Had Such Success?

1. Master audience targeting:
Runway identified a key persona of techie creatives

2. Leverage a powerful go-to-market:
Runway cleverly designed Twitter-friendly features

3. Build a self-sustaining flywheel
Runway's growth feeds on itself Image
Want the full deep-dive of Runway's genius?

Check out my 3,300 word deep dive.

I read every Tweet, watched every YouTube video, & applied my 15 years in tech to bring you the best breakdown on the web:

🔗 tinyurl.com/3uw9tx3e Image
If you have any doubts about the company's just watch this video:

The multi-billion dollar advertising and trailer industries are being disrupted in front of our eyes:

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More from @aakashg0

Sep 16
16 awesome resources that will get you hired as a Product Manager 👇 Image
Whether you're interviewing at Big Tech or a startup, this list covers what you actually need to stand out - from writing a resume to tackling product strategy questions and behavioral interviews.

1. PM interview preparation tips from Amazon:
🔗 amazon.jobs/content/en/how…
2. Guide to mastering product sense interviews:
🔗 news.aakashg.com/p/master-the-p…
Read 17 tweets
Sep 14
This guy literally shared a step-by-step roadmap to build your first AI agent - and it’s gold. Image
No hype. No jargon. Just a practical, battle-tested path to get from 0 → 1.

👇 Here’s the exact recipe I follow:
1) Pick a tiny problem

❌ Don’t build a “general agent.”
✅ Start with something specific: book a doctor’s appointment, monitor job boards, summarize unread emails. Small + clear = fast wins.
Read 11 tweets
Sep 7
CPO at Microsoft says Prompt Sets are the new PRDs.

Here's what you need to know: Image
Microsoft has a $3.68T market cap. So when their CPO @aparnacd is talking about PRDs, a lot of folks listen. In fact, many of you asked me about it.

So, let's talk about it:

1. What Prompt Sets Are
2. How They Fit In
3. My Thoughts
4. Next Steps
1. What Prompt Sets Are

Prompt Sets are collections of specific examples showing how an AI system should behave.

Instead of writing "the system should be helpful," you write 15-25 actual examples:

• Edge case A → Handle like B
• Bad input C → Reject with message D
Read 11 tweets
Aug 25
Even Apple is hiring for AI PMs.

Don't let anyone tell you it's a made up role.

Here's a free roadmap to become one: Image
1. Learn the foundations of AI:

news.aakashg.com/p/ai-foundatio…
2. Learn how to AI prototype:

news.aakashg.com/p/ai-prototypi…
Read 14 tweets
Aug 18
AI killed the 10 page PRD. But the PRD isn't dead.

Here's how to write PRDs in the AI age: Image
Companies like Google are shifting to a build-first culture. And it's good. AI prototyping tools have completely changed the game, blurring role lines. Image
But that doesn't mean the PRD has no purpose!

The modern PRD is lighter, sharper, and example heavy. Image
Read 11 tweets
Aug 15
Netflix is paying $900K for AI PMs. Meta is paying $1M+.

Here's how to become one: Image
𝟭. 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗲 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗗𝗶𝗲𝘁

Follow the right voices:

YouTube: Jeff Su, Matt Wolfe, Dwarkesh Patel
Newsletters: Product Growth, Nate Jones, DeepLearning
Twitter: Santiago (svpino), Min (minchoi), Paul (itsPaulAI)
LinkedIn: Zain Kahn, Allie K. Miller, Ruben Hassid
𝟮. 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝘀

Start foundational:

AI for Everyone by Andrew Ng
Elements of AI by University of Helsinki
Machine Learning Crash Course by Google
Read 12 tweets

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