I worked at NPR for three years. It was an amazing place to work.
After I left NPR, I worked as a founder at a genetics startup. Which is funny, because I knew basically nothing about genetics.
In 2019, we attended a genetics conference in San Diego. I might have the only non-scientists in the entire conference hall. I was a fish out of water.
So I did what a scrappy founder does: I talked my way into a genetics session. Then I talked my way onto the vendor showroom floor even though I didn’t have the money for a ticket.
And once I was in, I ran a simple play.
I walked booth to booth, chatting with every hardware vendor I could find, and I asked the same question every time:
“Can you explain your tech to me as if I were an NPR reporter?”
That one phrase changed everything.
The answers got calmer. Clearer. More narrative. Less jargon-by-default. They stopped selling and started explaining. They gave me context. They made tradeoffs legible. They told stories that a human could actually follow.
I wasn’t asking for “dumbed down.” I was asking for “well translated.”
Side Context: My co-foudner was the science side of the team. He was the biology SME. I was the translator. He knew the science and the tech; I knew how to ask for the story. He was dumbfounded: ‘How did you get into the vendor room—and why are you in there?’
Fast forward to now: I do the exact same thing with AI.
There’s something magical about the words “NPR reporter.” It sets a frame that’s both intelligent and accessible. It quietly forces structure: a human-readable narrative, plain language, gentle pacing, grounded examples, and a bias toward clarity over flexing.
And this is the part I don’t want anyone to miss:
This worked before AI.
The breakthrough wasn’t the tool. It was the prompt.
The best “prompt engineering” isn’t about clever tokens. It’s about choosing the right role, audience, and format so the explanation lands. With humans or machines, context is the multiplier.
So yes—thank you, Terry Gross, Guy Ross, and Ira Glass, and every other storyteller who taught me that the fastest path to understanding isn’t more information.
It’s the right framing.
PS - It feels great to know that what worked before AI will hold up!