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Comment by rch | Hacker News Reader

True: "If you really understand something, you can say it in the fewest words, instead of thrashing about."

Not necessarily. My friend and cofounder is one of the smartest people I know, but even when he talks about things I know he is an expert at (as demonstrated by his skill), he's often a bit verbose.

Personally, I can generate concise statements (and I'm good at it when I try), but the first couple of times I verbalize an idea I'm usually somewhat verbose. I make an explicit effort to figure out a concise way to say things once I've noticed that I'll probably be expressing the same idea again (and when I write). Perhaps other people become significantly more concise over time without effort, but I'd estimate my baseline compression rate is only something like 10% (whereas when I explicitly compress I can often get 30% or better).

I think the difference is that some people think very verbally and linearly, whereas I tend to think more visually and abstractly. A lot of the time, I have to translate the ideas in my head from these somewhat amorphous concepts or visual ideas into English (or German, or code, or whatever).

I think what you're referring to is synthesis, which I consider an important aspect of understanding. One might be an expert only through knowing, another precursor to understanding (see, expert Visual Basic programmer).

My girlfriend might take this opportunity to point out I much I like to ramble on sometimes. shrugs

The thing is, I tend to think about the sorts of things which are complex enough that you can't trivially describe them in a linear format. Imagine that somebody asked you to tell them about programming. Programming is such a huge and complex topic that there really isn't an effective way to begin explaining it without putting significant forethought into how to explain it, even if you're an expert programmer. So, unless you've put thought into how to explain and teach it, if someone randomly asks you, you're probably going to fumble and be verbose. (This is one of the reasons many professors are bad at teaching.)

Of course, in the context of the article, somebody interviewing with investors probably should have thought out in advance about the sorts of things the investors would want to know and ask about, so they shouldn't be fumbling too much.

This is true, and teaching is hard because of this, but I think there is a "correct" way of handling it. Think about the kind of background the questioner has, what they already know, what they don't know, and what they want to know. Phrase your answer on that level.

Doing this in a few seconds time requires both intimiate knowledge of the subject at hand, and the ability to intuit a person's world-view as it relates to that subject. If I know nothing about the person asking the question, then I ask them questions so I can figure out what kind of an answer is appropriate.

I don't know, if someone randomly asks me to tell them about programming, I'd reply that it's the ability to make the computer do what I want it to do by speaking a language it understands. That'd shut most people up while giving them a basic understanding.

I was assuming that they were asking you to teach them to program, or at least give them a comprehensive survey of the field. What you said is the obvious short answer for people who are just asking to be polite or to get an idea of what you do.

Ah, well of course, teaching them how is another matter entirely.

Let's assume I have just said 'I do X for company Y'. Your next response might be along the lines of a) What languages/tools do you use?, b) What's a peptide?, c) Did you watch Daniel Hillis' Ted talk?, or d) I just published a phylogenetic pruning algorithm on arxiv, you should check it out.

Seems to me that there is a lot to be learned through conversation, even when neither party is doing any teaching.

What you're missing is that PG says "can." When you're in a ten-minute interview that could change your life forever, you're going to be concise when possible.

That being said, I don't believe that one's 'natural' verbosity has any correlation with intelligence. Minds aren't that simple.

Sure; in the particular context of a ten minute interview, you'll have prepared and it ought to be relatively easy to be concise most of the time. But if they throw you a curveball, then I don't think it ought to reflect negatively on you if you're a bit verbose (though it might reflect negatively on you that you didn't anticipate whatever the question was).

I replied because the quote was taken out of context, and I don't think that the idea applies in the general case.

Not necessary - by using this rule you might miss a lot of truly brilliant people (I know a couple of them: they just mumble about things and you understand what they were saying only after you see their design and code). This again tries to equate somebody being able to express something using English (in other words, being a good communicator) and ability to really understand the nature and working of a very complex system or idea.

But each startup must have at least one founder which has this capability.

I think this is true, but I don't think it's the whole story.

What I see is that the best entrepreneurs understand that it's ok to leave 70% of the potential value on the table in order to have a business that's more explainable to investors and customers.

I think that's a particularly salient point for most intelligent/dedicated people to understand; if you're intelligent, you've got to remember that most people have a harder time understanding things than you, and if you're dedicated to your idea, you've got to remember that most people don't care about your idea as much as you do.

I would add that I think the Y Combinator application process forces you to leave most of the potential value of your idea on the table (assuming your idea has a moderate or high level of complexity). Since they're more interested in founders, this is probably a wise choice.

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