Apurve Gupta

A book is an introvert’s favorite friend and also the main source of their learning. Here are two of my all time bests: Outsiders ( Will Thorndike) - As they say, the CEO’s main job is to allocate capital (and bandwidth when there is no excess capital). Contrary to popular belief, bombastic and charismatic CEOs like Jack Welch of GE are not history’s best business leaders. Just as in cricket, the quiet champions let their bat (and ball) do the talking, in business, the greatest CEOs let their capital (and resource allocation) do the talking. Will Thorndike (also hosts probably the best podcast on business - 50X) tells us the stories of 8 such incredible CEOs and their exploits in this book. An absolute gold mine. The Hard Thing About Hard Things (Ben Horowitz) - This is probably the exact opposite of the above book in terms of scope and lessons. It talks about what it means to be a founder, when you have no capital, no nothing, and you set out to do something from absolute scratch. Anyone who has founded a company knows that the headlines are misleading. Only they know how close they are to demise all the time in spite of all the blood, sweat, hate, fear, nightmares, turmoil while trying to be upbeat and inspirational (it’s the biggest irony of entrepreneurship).  They don’t count the hours and think about work-life balance ( what would you call taking a shower while constantly thinking about how to make next month’s payroll or some other impossible problem - work? life?). The truth is, if you imagine the worst possible situation a founder goes through, you would still be underestimating the founder's struggle.  This book is for these founders, relatable and inspiring, scary and motivating at the same time. While we are on the subject, let me throw in a couple of terrific podcasts as well, for inspiration, reflection, and connecting the dots: https://lnkd.in/dXjhwm78 https://lnkd.in/dTScMn2k At Rebel, some of us learn through reading, and here is a list of books recommended by Rebels https://lnkd.in/dgbVjaPT

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The role of product managers is evolving fast. I sat down with Saurabh Agarwal (VP Product Management - JioHotstar, ex-Google and LinkedIn) to decode what’s changing and what will not in the field of product management in the next few years. It was exciting to interact about his decade plus learnings on building products for 500 million+ Indians that most of us use daily along with uncovering how they came up with the ideation of the much revered Max-view feature in Hot-star, that went from idea to launch just in 6 weeks, as first ever vertical content consumption for live sports globally! Not just that, we covered the following elements in the conversation ✅ Engineer → PM → org-builder: how the scope and stakes grow ✅ Judgment vs data: when to trust instincts over dashboards ✅ The MaxView story: from insight → prototype → launch in ~6 weeks ✅ Product trade-offs at true billion+ internet scale ✅ Designing for India’s Next Half Billion (NHB) users ✅ Where AI is actually reshaping PM & design ✅ Why simplicity beats cleverness in execution He also dropped a bunch of timeless nuggets on velocity, taste, and building for constraints. Thanks to Rati and team at Product x People for the invite. Link to the full conversation in comments. #productmanagement

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Recently, whenever I ask someone to refine their written piece - generally a document / work message etc - they go to AI to do so. No harm in that, but one thing that gets skipped in this process is the clarity in your own understanding. When you write something down in a structured manner which is clear, concise, it gives clarity not just to the reader, but to you yourself. The more you do it, more deeply you understand what you're writing and can preempt what questions your audience will have. Communication in general is one of the greatest skills successful people have, with AI maybe the written communication skill can be covered, but the clarity that you get with it, is not. So take AI's help to beautify your communication or brainstorm what all to write, but try to do a few revvs of structuring it out yourself, it will deepen your thinking a lot. More coming on structured thinking in next few weeks.

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🚀 Becoming a 100X Product Manager with AI 💡 Skill spotlight: Storytelling — the superpower that transforms good PMs into legendary ones. 🛠️ Tool of the day: Google Storybook — your AI assistant for creating compelling product narratives. I tried creating this for LinkedIn Insighta, a product that would be a career counsellor for fresh college graduates. 📌 Why it matters: Great products don’t just sell on features; they sell on stories. As PMs, the ability to craft and share stories is what gets teams, customers, and investors aligned. 📖 Inspiration: Steve Jobs’ storytelling made Apple more than a tech company — it made Apple a movement. 👉 Try out Google Storybook, experiment with your product pitch, and share in the comments: How was your experience? What did you learn? ✨ Let’s learn together and make each other more productive in this AI-powered PM landscape. #ProductManagement #AI #Storytelling #GoogleStorybook #PMGrowth PS - Let me know how the story was. Will be sharing a detailed prompt that can help you write engaging stories for Google Storybook.

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When the head of Product at Google says that we're moving from PRDs to prototypes, you gotta believe the shift. It's a sought after skill now. Also validates the post that I shared about the AI PM hiring that had a vibe coding round. Vibe coding is a hard skill presentation. If you can communicate with AI effectively, you can definitely communicate with developers. No more assuming. If you're anyways writing a spec doc, fit it into an application and check the output as well. You might well realise what you were missing all this time. I've been pro vibe-coded prototypes for some time now. But it's not easy as you'd think. I've some resources as to how to maximise vibe coding apps. So do check out my profile. I'll continue writing this here. I had seen this coming for a year now so I'm over the majority of trial and testing phases. #vibecoding #google #ai #productmanagement

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