The School Pyramid Simplification Method
Build a curriculum from kindergarten to PhD to make a gnarly project comprehensible.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 88%
A method for taming complex projects by deliberately entering at a 'kindergarten level,' identifying the most basic building blocks, then layering complexity in graded curricula — kindergarten, elementary, high school, college, PhD. Simplifying is not oversimplifying; it's revealing the fundamentals and building detail on top so people at different levels of understanding can align.
Origin
Gleit's 'Naomi-isms'; she cites author Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens) as an exemplary simplifier who spans the whole pyramid.
Core principles
- 01Simplifying is not oversimplifying — it's finding the true building blocks
- 02Enter a complex project at a beginner level on purpose
- 03People on a project sit at wildly different levels of understanding
- 04Mastery is 'profound simplicity' — moving fluidly up and down the pyramid
- 05The act of simplifying surfaces what actually matters most
How to run it
- 1
Enter at kindergarten level
When joining a project where everyone operates at a PhD level, deliberately come in as a beginner and force yourself to understand it at the most basic level.
Watch out Resist the pressure to sound expert immediately — beginner questions expose the missing building blocks.
- 2
Identify the most basic building blocks
Find the fundamental concepts of the problem — the kindergarten curriculum — without oversimplifying away what's real.
Watch out Oversimplifying is a failure mode; the goal is the true fundamentals, not a distortion.
- 3
Build graded curricula upward
Layer complexity in stages — elementary, high school, college, PhD — so anyone on the project can find the level they need and climb.
Pro tip Harari ships Sapiens at multiple levels — the book, a graphic novel, and a kids' version — the same idea across the whole pyramid.
Watch out Until every level's curriculum exists, it's very hard to make progress because people are stuck at different levels.
- 4
Let simplification reveal priorities
Use the process of building the pyramid to identify the most important things to deal with on the project.
In the wild
Gleit cites Yuval Noah Harari, who compresses all of human history into a thesis (humans differ by their ability to believe in shared stories) and publishes it as a PhD-level book, a graphic novel, and a kids' version — spanning the entire pyramid.
→ An illustration of 'profound simplicity': a true master can move all the way up and down the levels of a complex topic.
Common mistakes
Oversimplifying
Cutting real complexity to make something sound simple isn't simplification — the method preserves the fundamentals and layers detail on top.
Is it for you?
Best for
PMs and leaders parachuting into gnarly, cross-functional projects who must align stakeholders at different depths of understanding
Not ideal for
Simple, well-understood projects where a full graded curriculum is unnecessary overhead
From the transcript
“I go into a project everyone's operating at a PhD level I'm coming in at a kindergarten level”
“they're not oversimplifying but what they are doing is identifying the most basic building blocks of a complex problem and then unfolding or revealing”
“sometimes I talk about a school pyramid but like I need to establish the kindergarten curriculum and then the elementary school curriculum”
“a master of a topic has profound Simplicity”
From the episode
Meta’s Head of Product (and 29th employee) on working with Mark Zuckerberg, early growth tactics, why PMs are like conductors, and more
Naomi Gleit