Mistaking Familiarity for Common Knowledge

We probably all have those moments when we assume that what’s second nature to us must be common knowledge to everyone else. It’s a little mental blind spot known as the “curse of knowledge.” It works like this: once we know something well, we forget what it was like before we learned it.

Recently, I had a driveway conversation with my neighbor that reminded me just how powerful this blind spot can be. It also reminded me how powerful it is to step outside our own bubbles, and how much we can learn when we do. Let me share that story with you.

My neighbor is a sharp guy and a serious professional in his own field. It has nothing to do with what I do, and honestly, I couldn’t even describe his industry accurately without getting some of the details wrong. What I do know is that he works with heavy machinery, real data, real constraints, and real consequences if things go sideways.

Somewhere in the conversation, we drifted into talking about AI. He mentioned that he’d used ChatGPT a bit, mostly to ask questions or get explanations. Somehow, the conversation drifted to the data he received from his corporate offices. I said, almost casually, “Have you tried just vibe coding a solution for it?”

He looked at me like I had grown a third eye. It was apparent that “vibe coding,” something I first played with several years ago, meant nothing to him. I tried again. I told him he could use the data his corporate office sends him and build the analysis he was looking for himself using AI. He said, “I didn’t know you could do that.”

That part landed harder than I expected.

I asked him to send me one of the data files his company had already provided him. I told him I didn’t need to understand his business or even know what questions he was trying to answer. He pushed back just a bit and said, “But you don’t know what I’m looking for, and what if some of the field titles are in Chinese?” I told him that was fine. In fact, it would be a better demonstration because I didn’t need to know. I just needed the data.

Creating Common Knowledge

So he sent me two XLSX files. I decided to use Claude Opus 4.5 because it excels at producing self-contained HTML files that can run on data like this without sharing the information on the web. I knew his company might be sensitive to that. And because I wanted him to understand the simplicity of the prompt that initiated this process, I shared the following GIF with him via text. This all happened, of course, within minutes of receiving it.

I then shared the insights that it returned while Claude was building the dashboard. Without knowing the business, the data still told a story. Revenue surged late in the summer, then fell off as the year ended. A small handful of customers accounted for more than half the revenue, creating a risk most people do not see until it becomes a problem. Nearly all sales were concentrated in one country, with only a thin tail elsewhere.

When the AI separated buyers by type, a pattern emerged: some ordered often but spent little, while others ordered rarely but spent a lot. Their product codes alone made it obvious which categories actually mattered and which just created noise. And none of that insight required insider knowledge; it just needed to be looked at differently.

I told him this was just a snippet and that I expected to deliver an interactive dashboard to him in minutes. I did the same for the second data file. I can’t share those with you because the data is proprietary, but when I tell you they are beautiful dashboards, they are.

My Eyes Are F***ing Huge

His response? “Some of these insights are EXACTLY what I report on. And others are the missing information I really need. This is awesome!!” What I didn’t know when he sent that first response was that he had not downloaded the HTML files yet. He was only responding to the insights.

The next morning, after opening the dashboards and seeing them in action, he replied with, “I saved the HTML to a folder. Then opened that file and dropped the same sales data I sent you. My eyes are f***ing huge. I need to understand what I am seeing.”

He was genuinely stunned. Not because the output was magical, though clearly insightful, but because he had never realized this was even an option. He had been standing next to a powerful tool and only knew how to use one small corner of it. If life allows, he’s coming over today to learn more.

Breaking The Curse Of Knowledge

What struck me afterward wasn’t the technology’s capability. It was how casually I had assumed he already knew this was possible. That realization stayed with me longer than the dashboards did.

I had assumed that something that felt obvious to me must already be obvious to him as well. What I thought was common knowledge wasn’t. And if I’m honest, that assumption probably shows up in my life more often than I’d like to admit. Not just with AI, but with ideas, tools, and ways of thinking that feel so familiar I forget they were ever learned.

The real lesson here isn’t about AI or dashboards. It’s about proximity.

We spend most of our time around people who speak our language, use our tools, and share our assumptions. That comfort slowly convinces us that our perspective is universal when it’s anything but. Stepping outside that bubble doesn’t just help others. It sharpens our own thinking and exposes how much “common knowledge” is really just personal familiarity.

The takeaway is simple. Talk to people who don’t live in your world. Ask what they’re struggling with. Pay attention to the moments when someone looks at you like you’ve grown a third eye.

That’s usually not a sign you’re ahead.

It’s a sign you’ve forgotten how much you’ve learned, and how powerful it can be to make that knowledge common to someone else.

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