Every argument clarity score on this site is built from rows on this page. Each
question and answer was assessed with names hidden, the host's own answers included, on
four things from 1 to 5:
directness (does it answer the question asked), coherence (do the ideas follow),
precision (concrete details and clear references), compression (says a lot per word). The weighted
mix (30/30/25/15) is the exchange score. A person's published score averages their exchange
scores on raw tape only, at least 8 of them, shrunk toward the cohort mean.
Full method →
Answered raw tape
D 4 · C 4 · P 3 · Cm 3 3.60
Q I totally agree with you. In terms of like, oh, people saw it. When you are published in TechCrunch, or anywhere like we discussed, what do you do then? Like, what did you get, you know, the Duolingo founders, you know, the founders of Tumblr to do? You're like, hey, we're in this, tweet it, LinkedIn it, Instagram it, like, how do you help with that distribution?
A That's, that's such a great point because it's so important. Like first it's just how you get that thing. That's like the signifier, like, look, we're important. And then how do you like spread that mask, that message as much as possible. So, um, with Duolingo would probably be leveraging like our social media channels and make sure that we have like, you know, really great copy. And I, I really love one. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but one of your questions on your, on the thing was like, do people still care about brand and like brand love? And I hear, I think that this is so relevant because everything, if, if you're trying to build a brand, which you shouldn't be, because you know, again, it's about how you make people feel, not about whether the thing that you're making is useful only. Um, if you're writing social media copy to get people to do something like, for example, to share your, the story that was published on TechCrunch, if you just say, Hey, please share this, you can with your friends, but with people who don't care, they won't. So first those relationships matter, but then second, If you're able to write copy in a way that makes people care about, and then in the case of Duolingo, the case of Tumblr, in the case of Latitude, which is what I'm building now, it's always about the mission. Like, do you want to get behind this mission? Then you would …
AI assessment note: “it's always about the mission. Like, do you want to get behind this mission?”
Answered raw tape
D 3 · C 4 · P 4 · Cm 3 3.55
Q we were chatting, that it's actually kind of heavily underutilized and underrated, I think, by founders. Actually, I think it's often denigrated, if we're being totally honest. Fluffy PR marketing, whatever stuff. Um, and it's handed to like the intern, I find, and it's really just not the right way to do it. So my question to you is, how should founders think about PR at the most tactical level?
A PR is so not sexy. It's considered really old school. It's like, ugh, no, I want to do product-led growth. I'm going to be doing A-B tests. I ended up doing PR before I knew what PR was. I just thought, you know what, if I get these big newspapers to write about Tumblr, then I think that like, we're going to get a lot of users. And then I was like, how do I get these big papers to write about Tumblr? Maybe I should just find who the journalists are and then I should figure out like what interests them. And that I guess was PR. Um, and it honestly was the most important lever that helped Tumblr grow in Latin America and that helped Duolingo grow. In the first two years, I would say, which is crazy. And of course, we were talking about retention. I only had the luxury of doing PR because those were retentive products. Those were products that already had a baseline of retention such that, you know, we knew that it had product market fit, and people actually wanted to use it. So from a very tactical perspective, here's how I think about PR. Looking back, and I have a playbook, but at the time, just to really highlight my ignorance, I didn't have a playbook. I was just really trying things out, and they worked. So here's what you need to do. First, you need to have a story to tell. And if you don't have a story to tell, it doesn't mean that it's not there. It just may, it might mea…
AI assessment note: “First, you need to have a story to tell.”
Partly raw tape
D 3 · C 4 · P 3 · Cm 3 3.30
Q about retention there being the focus. I had Alex Schultz, the CM of Meta, on the show, and he said basically, retention's king. Everything else doesn't really matter. How do you think about effective North Star metric setting? Because I think most people actually just set the wrong North Star and then optimize for the wrong thing. How do you think about that, and how did retention play into that?
A I agree. Retention is everything. To me, retention is almost like product market fit. If you have retention, it means that people actually like the thing that you made, and it's actually useful for them. And that determines whether something's going to succeed or is not going to succeed. So that's like a very basic way of looking at it. You can, you can, you know, create like, you know what, Harry, I just made this box. I think it's an incredible box. And if I invest a lot of money in marketing this box, and if I'm a marketing genius, It's going to sell a lot, and then the minute I stop investing, it will not sell a lot because it's actually not that great, and it's just like every other box out there. But if you make something that's amazing, you know, then every dollar you pour, every minute you pour into making people aware that that exists and that that's a possibility to solve their problem, then that money and that time goes far, goes a lot further because it actually is useful to people.
AI assessment note: “I agree. Retention is everything. To me, retention is almost like product market fit.”
Redirected raw tape
D 2 · C 4 · P 3 · Cm 3 3.00
Q What did the journalists respond? Were they all just like, yes, you're amazing and how wonderful. Like, how did that go?
A Look, I did a lot of PR in my, in my career at Tumblr, and especially at Duolingo, because every opportunity we got then, we would just milk it, and so, and we would come up with a feature, and then we would come up with a feature in order to get the press, like, make press out of something that wasn't that interesting, so I did a lot of it, and you have to be really resilient, because a lot, you get a lot of no's, even when you're able to tell a great story, But you know, but if here's one big difference about being the person at your startup who does PR yourself versus hiring a PR agency and why I'm a big advocate for doing it yourself. If you can, when you are at a startup, you have nothing to lose by spraying and praying. You have very little to lose, to be honest, which means like, I really want to get featured on whatever newspaper or whatever site or whatever blog or whatever influencers account. Um, You can then go and find out all of the people who are writing about it, or who are, you know, journalists at this organization, and you can pitch 10 of them. And that is a huge faux pas in PR. You're not supposed to pitch 10 people at the same organization. It actually can backfire tremendously, and if you are an agency, you are burning all of your bridges, and people won't listen to you anymore. But if you are the founder of a startup, and your life depends on the startup …
AI assessment note: “you get a lot of no's, even when you're able to tell a great story”
Redirected raw tape
D 2 · C 4 · P 3 · Cm 3 3.00
Q What did the journalists respond? Were they all just like, yes, you're amazing and how wonderful. Like, how did that go?
A Look, I did a lot of PR in my, in my career at Tumblr, and especially at Duolingo, because every opportunity we got then, we would just milk it, and so, and we would come up with a feature, and then we would come up with a feature in order to get the press, like, make press out of something that wasn't that interesting, so I did a lot of it, and you have to be really resilient, because a lot, you get a lot of no's, even when you're able to tell a great story, But you know, but if here's one big difference about being the person at your startup who does PR yourself versus hiring a PR agency and why I'm a big advocate for doing it yourself. If you can, when you are at a startup, you have nothing to lose by spraying and praying. You have very little to lose, to be honest, which means like, I really want to get featured on whatever newspaper or whatever site or whatever blog or whatever influencers account. Um, You can then go and find out all of the people who are writing about it, or who are, you know, journalists at this organization, and you can pitch 10 of them. And that is a huge faux pas in PR. You're not supposed to pitch 10 people at the same organization. It actually can backfire tremendously, and if you are an agency, you are burning all of your bridges, and people won't listen to you anymore. But if you are the founder of a startup, and your life depends on the startup …
AI assessment note: “you get a lot of no's... But here's one big difference about being the person”
Partly raw tape
D 3 · C 3 · P 2 · Cm 2 2.60
Q I totally agree with you. In terms of like, oh, people saw it. When you are published in TechCrunch, or anywhere like we discussed, what do you do then? Like, what did you get, you know, the Duolingo founders, you know, the founders of Tumblr to do? You're like, hey, we're in this, tweet it, LinkedIn it, Instagram it, like, how do you help with that distribution?
A That's, that's such a great point because it's so important. Like first it's just how you get that thing. That's like the signifier, like, look, we're important. And then how do you like spread that mask, that message as much as possible. So, um, with Duolingo would probably be leveraging like our social media channels and make sure that we have like, you know, really great copy. And I, I really love one. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but one of your questions on your, on the thing was like, do people still care about brand and like brand love? And I hear, I think that this is so relevant because everything, if, if you're trying to build a brand, which you shouldn't be, because you know, again, it's about how you make people feel, not about whether the thing that you're making is useful only. Um, if you're writing social media copy to get people to do something like, for example, to share your, the story that was published on TechCrunch, if you just say, Hey, please share this, you can with your friends, but with people who don't care, they won't. So first those relationships matter, but then second, If you're able to write copy in a way that makes people care about, and then in the case of Duolingo, the case of Tumblr, in the case of Latitude, which is what I'm building now, it's always about the mission. Like, do you want to get behind this mission? Then you would …
AI assessment note: “leveraging like our social media channels and make sure that we have like”
Not addressed raw tape
D 1 · C 3 · P 3 · Cm 2 2.25
Q Like, A hundred percent. And so, like, you, instantly you have that recognition. And I, I wrote down two things on my arm. One is paywall. There are publications which have paywalls, but their names are great. How do you think about that?
A For me, growth and PR and humanity, a lot of the time it just comes up, comes down to understanding how you make people feel. And if you're able to make people feel anything, then they remember you. And if they remember you, then you're much more likely to get what you want. And I don't mean that in like a completely Machiavellic way. I just mean that in like a basic human psychology way. So if you like someone's tweet regularly, they'll remember who you are and they'll think like this person cares and hopefully you care. And normally if I like someone's tweet, it's because I actually care either about what they said or about them that I want them to feel good about. And, or I want to, you know, for example, if I see someone I know and they tweet about something, Eric Torenberg, uh, he tweeted about something recently and then he put it on LinkedIn as well. I liked and commented on both because I know that that's going to impact his chances of like growing and I care. So I'm going to do that. Right. And so if you, if you develop a relationship with people, whether it be like And remembering something you said that was personal or making them laugh or, you know, whatever, then, then you're able to, and that really works for growth hooks as well. It's thinking about how that made people think. Now, going to your question, which was?
AI assessment note: “Now, going to your question, which was?”
Not addressed raw tape
D 1 · C 3 · P 3 · Cm 2 2.25
Q Like, A hundred percent. And so, like, you, instantly you have that recognition. And I, I wrote down two things on my arm. One is paywall. There are publications which have paywalls, but their names are great. How do you think about that?
A For me, growth and PR and humanity, a lot of the time it just comes up, comes down to understanding how you make people feel. And if you're able to make people feel anything, then they remember you. And if they remember you, then you're much more likely to get what you want. And I don't mean that in like a completely Machiavellic way. I just mean that in like a basic human psychology way. So if you like someone's tweet regularly, they'll remember who you are and they'll think like this person cares and hopefully you care. And normally if I like someone's tweet, it's because I actually care either about what they said or about them that I want them to feel good about. And, or I want to, you know, for example, if I see someone I know and they tweet about something, Eric Torenberg, uh, he tweeted about something recently and then he put it on LinkedIn as well. I liked and commented on both because I know that that's going to impact his chances of like growing and I care. So I'm going to do that. Right. And so if you, if you develop a relationship with people, whether it be like And remembering something you said that was personal or making them laugh or, you know, whatever, then, then you're able to, and that really works for growth hooks as well. It's thinking about how that made people think. Now, going to your question, which was?
AI assessment note: “Now, going to your question, which was?”
