"But Everybody Already Knows This!"

What's the opposite of Imposter Syndrome? The Curse of Knowledge.

Imposters think they lack sufficient knowledge or experience to achieve the goal at hand and believe others will catch them.

The Curse of Knowledge is the other extreme. A person has specialized knowledge and experiences that make it trivial to achieve the goal at hand, and they think everyone else can do the same. Why? "Because everybody already knows this."

Spoiler alert—they probably don't.

I experienced this phenomenon multiple times this week.

First, in a CTO Slack channel. A member had joined a new company and was sharing their week one findings. Shockingly, the senior developers were committing numerous junior-level mistakes, ignoring best practices that had been codified and taught for over a decade. I'll spare you the details, but they were bad enough that I blushed while reading them.

Second, in multiple discussions with senior leaders about their team's AI fluency. I had expected that most companies would already be learning and applying the latest and greatest tools, achieving 2-5x gains in productivity. NOPE! Most were struggling to even get their lead engineers to try. Worst, many were struggling with where to start, where to invest their time, and what tools and playbooks to run.

And so on and so on.

In every case, my first instinct was to assume that the things I found easy (after paying the price of time, money, and energy to learn them myself) would be easy for others.

This, my friends, is The Curse of Knowledge biting you in the ass.

So why does this happen?

I think the best explanation I've ever come across is XKCD Comic 1053: Ten Thousand.

Given we all start with no memories or facts in our brains, everyone has to be exposed to a fact for the very first time. Using simple math assumptions, this means that every day, 10,000 people in the US encounter a fact for the very first time.

This is the perfect antidote to "But Everybody Already Knows This" thinking.

And if you're in the business of training or mentoring, it means there is NEVER a lack of opportunities for new users or customers.

If what you have is valuable to learn or know, there are 10,000 new potential leads every day.

And now you know that!