"Hackers" / startup guys / whatever you want to call them tend to have similar patterns of thought, which can be applied to cooking to make it easier to learn. For example, we tend to get on well with science and chemistry, which means that it may be easier to teach high-quality meat cookery based on Mailliard reactions, denaturing of proteins, conversion of connective tissue, and so forth.
Hence the question of whether a specifically focused course might help or appeal to the HN crowd - despite the many cookery courses out there, I do see people (like the OP) mention that they haven't found cooking easy to learn.
These things are fine to learn, but they're not essential to learning how to cook. Knowing about the connective tissues isn't going to suddenly make you better at cooking a steak or braising short ribs. Time, practice and patience is what's going to help.
Realistically the easiest and simplest way for anyone to cook is with a crock pot. There are a million recipes out there for basic crock pot cooking. And even better it lets you make large enough batches for multiple days.
I know that I personally became a much better cook - and specifically, since you mention it, much better at cooking steak - after learning the science behind it.
I do agree that they're not essential to learning how to cook. Millions of people cook without knowing these things. But for people with a specific mindset, they are likely to be helpful if more "traditional" routes don't gel well for them.
I largely agree with this. I love my crock pot. Very easy and simple to make very tasty delicious meals. And you can leverage the timing by doing things like turning it on before leaving for work in the morning, and then come home to a hot, tasty, home-cooked meal.
(This is assuming you're comfortable leaving a heat based appliance turned on. In the case of a crock pot, I am. YMMV)
And even better it lets you make large enough batches for multiple days.
Exactly, this is a great feature of slow cookers. I bought one of the larger ones for this exact reason.
The need for cheap, healthy and delicious meals isn't mutually exclusive to "Hackers." In fact there are many sites out there that have this aim already. One such site is called Budget Bytes [1] which my wife and I use all the time.
1: http://www.budgetbytes.com/