The hardest part of building deep tech isn’t always the tech.
It’s the translation.
Between the “aha” of discovery and the “ta-da” of launch, there’s a fragile, volatile middle zone—where research becomes a product, theory becomes a system, and a dozen minds must pull together across wildly different worldviews.
This is the alchemy of research and development (R&D).
Like all good alchemy, it depends on language—not just shared vocabulary but communication styles tuned to the right kind of attention.
Over the years, I started noticing four archetypes repeatedly in this process.
Once I saw them, I couldn’t unsee them:
• 🦅 The Eagle (Executive)
• 🚂 The Coal Train (Engineer)
• 💧 The Ink Drop (Scientist)
• 📢 The Megaphone (Marketer)
These personas aren’t rigid roles—they’re patterns of attention. Learn to speak their language, and your ideas will move farther, and faster.
🦅 The Eagle → An Executive’s Attention
Executives are aerial thinkers.
They soar above their domain.
They scan. They decided. Then they strike to solve problems.
If you want to capture the attention of an eagle, you need three points:
1. The problem. What’s at stake?
2. The timing. When do they need to act?
3. The action. What’s the clear move?
How to talk to executives:
Eagles don’t want to flap endlessly, they want to strike clean shots.
Condense complex scenarios into clear, time-based, and actionable recommendations.
🚂 The Coal Train → An Engineer’s Momentum
Engineers just want to build.
Wind them up, let them go.
Once an engineer gets going, it’s like a loaded freight train—hard to turn, harder to stop.
That means before momentum builds, you must:
• Lay your tracks in the correct direction. Define scope, system boundaries, and requirements.
• Fuel the engine. Provide enough rationale and pressure to keep curiosity burning—but not so much that the boiler explodes.
How to speak to engineers:
Speak to engineers about problems, not solutions.
They don’t want hand-waving or speculation.
They want constraints:
Context - Explain the domain.
Knowns & unknowns - Be honest about what you know and what you don’t
Problem hierarchy - There are no solutions, only tradeoffs. Share your priorities.
💧 The Ink Droplet → A Scientist’s Curiosity
Like an ink droplet in a glass of water, scientists will diffuse their attention to map their intellectual domain.
Give them a question, and they’ll explore its entire field—papers, experiments, edge cases.
They will find the edge of knowledge in their niche and devise new ways to enrich it.
Scientists need you to:
• Define the glass. What’s the domain of inquiry?
• Describe the water. What context are they operating in?
• Target an outcome. Is this for understanding or action?
How to speak to scientists?
You must constrain this enrichment of knowledge by defining the boundaries of their attention. Frame the context of your problem around the existing state of the art. What are similar problems? What are existing approaches in literature?
📢 The Megaphone → A Marketer’s Message
Marketers are not messengers.
They are megaphones.
They amplify a clear, resonant message—seeking the few in a million who will echo it back.
They need:
• A story. What are we saying in one unforgettable line?
• A persona. Who are we speaking to?
• A hook. Why should they care?
• An ask. What’s action do we want our audience to take?
How to speak to marketers:
Distill your message into a story.
Who’s the hero?
What’s their struggle?
How do you make the journey faster, better, cheaper?
Why does this matter?
To succeed in RnD, you don’t need to be the Eagle, the Train, the Ink Droplet, or the Speakerphone.
…but you need to be able to capture their attention.
The true magic of applied science isn’t invention—it’s interpretation.
Not knowledge hoarded, but knowledge delivered into service.
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