I find explaining any actually interesting idea usually requires explaining like 5 subsidiary ideas. If you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky it’s like 25 and either they’re ready for a three hour lecture or you’re not going to succeed.
I find explaining any actually interesting idea usually requires explaining like 5 subsidiary ideas. If you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky it’s like 25 and either they’re ready for a three hour lecture or you’re not going to succeed.
Incrementally improving an explanation of a technical idea might take a single author weeks to do, but could go on to save a day for thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of students, if it becomes the best option available.
Robert Wiblin • Chris Olah on working at top AI labs without an undergrad degree
Here's what I've come to see as the guiding light of my life: simple ideas, explained very clearly. You only really need, like, one or two compelling ideas that you deeply understand. And then you have to be able to make other people understand them, which is the hard part. You have to distill, and in a way distillation is harder than creation. Sim... See more
Ava • understanding is rare
1) Try to explain the concept as best as you can (ideally out loud, as this is much more effective). Pretend you’re having an imaginary conversation where you are explaining the concept to someone else.
2) While explaining the concept, focus on making it easier for them to understand.
3) Repeat this over and over, iteratively refining your explanatio... See more
2) While explaining the concept, focus on making it easier for them to understand.
3) Repeat this over and over, iteratively refining your explanatio... See more
dnbt777 • How to understand/retain complex concepts 10x better
Make things. Operating in a space with a lot of uncertainty is a very different experience to learning something.
patrickcollison.com • Advice · Patrick Collison
The first truth is that at least half of our ideas are just not going to work.
Marty Cagan • INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love (Silicon Valley Product Group)
Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.
John Doerr • Measure What Matters: OKRs: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth
If you can not distill your idea to a transmissible conversation over dinner, it’s not going to spread
Kunal Shah • Kunal Shah: Core Human Motivations [The Knowledge Project Ep. #141]
In fact, it is almost impossible to write anything interesting and worth publishing (and therefore motivating) if it is based on nothing else than an idea we were able to come up with up front before elaborating on the problem.