Being able to turn a complicated idea into a sentence does generally mean you get the concept, but you can still get the concept with out expressing it at a 5th grade language level.
It can't be a total accident there's a high correlation between being a good communicator and being a successful founder.
It is more political then technical. It is about connection.
Highlighting that I think helps people to focus on a completely different skill set. I know I got bogged up in the joy of my technical development and needed to remind myself to be an evangelist which is fundamentally an application of rhetoric.
It also means skilfully using cognitive short cuts that already cluster information in order to simplify.
It is not that the public cannot understand, it is just that it is hard to not use domain specific vocabulary and still communicate the concept.
Take search engine. It is a perfect example of this process.
Words start to break once you push them too far.
This is because new ideas/concepts may require new words or words outside the scope of the 5th grade rule. An idiom is a cognitive miser of sorts.
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Example - search engine
search - familiar vocabulary
engine - cognitive short cut
- machine
- technical
- related to car
- transports from point A to B (car)
- familiar
- requires steering (car)
- most are comfortable with operating (car etc)It is a hack to communicate when the available vocabulary does not convey the true intention of the speaker.
And/or the existing level of vocabulary is inefficient.
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Videos:
Star Trek Example: http://youtu.be/ukMNfTnI5M8
Archer Example: http://youtu.be/GzHhgPgO7wA
You are saying to communicate complex ideas one tends to need words a 5th grader wouldn't know.
I was saying to communicate an idea one should fit it an a single sentence.
Unless I missed something, we are not in disagreement. You are arguing for word quality, I'm arguing for word quantity. You don't disagree that boiling an idea to a single sentence is good, and I learned something new from you. The cognitive miser theory is fascinating.
Thank you for having put the effort to follow up.
It is the framing 'You do not UNDERSTAND your app unless you can simplify it in a single sentence' that I disagree with.
It is more 'You do not UNDERSTAND your market unless you can simply in a single sentence'.
(1) > my advice to young people with drive is ... solve real problems.
You say burnout is intrinsic to startups but ignore that hard work is needed for other things that aren't startups. What makes you think solving real problems doesn't require dedication?
(2) > the goal of a startup is to make money
No. It's a goal, but not the only goal. Another goal is to make the world a better place.
(3) Can you be precise about what "hurts you to see" those lectures? Is it because what they say is true and the truth is uncomfortable? Or do the lectures say something that's false? Can you point to a specific sentence that's false?
If you can't boil something down to a single sentence then you don't know what you are saying and judging from the length of your comment you don't.