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Curse of knowledge

Once you know something, you cannot remember not knowing it. Fresh eyes see what you no longer can: a newcomer's, or your own after time away.

Our reading of the idea · 10 claims from 7 people, in their own words

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What is obvious to you is often not obvious to anyone else, so show early drafts to a representative reader.

  1. Steven Pinker by Cognitive scientist and author at Harvard You’d often be surprised to find that what’s obvious to you is not obvious to anyone else, The Curse of Knowledge: Pinker Describes a Key Cause of Bad Writing (APS Observer, report of his APS lecture)psychologicalscience.org · by 30 Jul 2015All korrents from this piece
    You’d often be surprised to find that what’s obvious to you is not obvious to anyone else,

The curse of knowledge is the chief contributor to opaque writing.

  1. Steven Pinker by Cognitive scientist and author at Harvard I think the curse of knowledge is the chief contributor to opaque writing, The Curse of Knowledge: Pinker Describes a Key Cause of Bad Writing (APS Observer, report of his APS lecture)psychologicalscience.org · by 30 Jul 2015All korrents from this piece
    I think the curse of knowledge is the chief contributor to opaque writing,

The end of the day convinces you your work is good; the next morning tells you the truth.

  1. Jason Fried Co-founder and CEO of 37signals (Basecamp, HEY) The end of the day has a way of convincing you what you’ve done is good. The next morning has a way of telling the you truth. Morning tells the truthsignalvnoise.com · 1 Dec 2011All korrents from this piece
    The end of the day has a way of convincing you what you’ve done is good. The next morning has a way of telling the you truth.

Everybody's own ideas seem obvious to them, so what is obvious to you may be amazing to someone else.

  1. Derek Sivers Founded CD Baby in 1998 and sold it in 2008 Everybody’s ideas seem obvious to them. I’ll bet even John Coltrane or Richard Feynman felt that everything they were playing or saying was pretty obvious. So maybe what’s obvious to me is amazing to someone else? Obvious to you. Amazing to others.sive.rs · 21 Nov 2010All korrents from this piece
    Everybody’s ideas seem obvious to them. I’ll bet even John Coltrane or Richard Feynman felt that everything they were playing or saying was pretty obvious. So maybe what’s obvious to me is amazing to someone else?

Working at a company turns you into a power user, which is why pattern matching fails and even an experienced growth leader is wrong all the time.

You are not the user

  1. Albert Cheng Head of growth at Chess.com I've worked a lot of companies right but I'm wrong all the time and I think consumer behavior can be very fickle and especially when you work at a company you become a power user naturally. So sometimes you you may forget like what the actual user experience is for a brand new user. Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)youtube.com · 5 Oct 2025 · 0:56:07 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    I've worked a lot of companies right but I'm wrong all the time and I think consumer behavior can be very fickle and especially when you work at a company you become a power user naturally. So sometimes you you may forget like what the actual user experience is for a brand new user.

Rather than coasting on intuition and taste, a data-informed person starts from the assumption that they know nothing.

  1. Julie Zhuo Co-founder of Sundial; former vice president of product… Rather than surfing by on intuition and taste, the data-informed individual adopts a beginner's mindset: Assume you know nothing Stay Healthy. Stay Data-Informed.lg.substack.com · 17 Mar 2020All korrents from this piece
    Rather than surfing by on intuition and taste, the data-informed individual adopts a beginner's mindset: Assume you know nothing

Agency and clock speed beat domain experience in a hire, and in a fast-moving field experience is often a crutch of habits that need discarding.

  1. Albert Cheng Head of growth at Chess.com I saw some of the highest performers just being people that had very high agency, had that clock speed, had that energy. Um, yes, they they cared about the mission, but they didn't necessarily need to have deep experience on that matter. And in fact, sometimes that experience could be a crutch in certain ways. Especially in this world where the grounds are shifting so fast with AI, a lot of your like learn habits actually need to be intentionally discarded. You know, you need to have a beginner's mind on this type of stuff. Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)youtube.com · 5 Oct 2025 · 1:08:35 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    I saw some of the highest performers just being people that had very high agency, had that clock speed, had that energy. Um, yes, they they cared about the mission, but they didn't necessarily need to have deep experience on that matter. And in fact, sometimes that experience could be a crutch in certain ways. Especially in this world where the grounds are shifting so fast with AI, a lot of your like learn habits actually need to be intentionally discarded. You know, you need to have a beginner's mind on this type of stuff.

Breakthroughs come from questioning the obvious, and the outsider's stupid question is where that power lies.

  1. Don Norman Cognitive scientist and designer It is by questioning the obvious that we make great progress. This is where breakthroughs come from. We need to question the obvious, to reformulate our beliefs, and to redefine existing solutions, approaches, and beliefs. That is design thinking. Rethinking Design Thinkingcore77.com · 19 Mar 2013
    It is by questioning the obvious that we make great progress. This is where breakthroughs come from. We need to question the obvious, to reformulate our beliefs, and to redefine existing solutions, approaches, and beliefs. That is design thinking.

Writers should avoid jargon, treating any word not regularly read in a newspaper as suspect

  1. Greg Mankiw American macroeconomist, born 1958, the Robert M Avoid jargon. Any word you don’t read regularly in a newspaper is suspect. How to Write Well (Greg Mankiw's Blog, 2006)gregmankiw.blogspot.com · 7 Oct 2006All korrents from this piece
    Avoid jargon. Any word you don’t read regularly in a newspaper is suspect.

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