“Too complicated for people to understand”

That’s a great reason to dumb things down. It’s also a trap that leads us to stasis and mediocrity.

Let’s break it down:

People: Which people? All people? The majority of voters? Day traders or institutional long term investors? Every VC or just this one?

Pick your people, pick your future.

Complicated: If it can be made simpler and just as effective, then by all means, please do so. If you can tell a more compelling and actionable story, do that as well. But ‘complicated’ just might mean, “we don’t understand it yet.”

Understand: Few people understand how the iphone works, or even the refrigerator. But that doesn’t mean we can’t effectively use it. The people who were moved by The Rite of Spring or Miles Davis or Esperanza Spalding might not have understood the music but it still succeeded.

People walk away when it’s not worth the effort to pay attention. People ignore innovation when the network effect is insufficient to overcome their fear. People rarely understand something the same way the creator does, but that’s okay.

Our first job is to do work that matters for people who care. It helps to follow that up with the scaffolding needed to cause cultural change, so the idea spreads.

But don’t dumb it down to reach people who don’t want to be reached in the first place.

March 25, 2026