1 min lesson
Answer the skeptic plainly
Name the parts in "Answer the skeptic plainly" and give the practical job of each one.
Step 1 of 2
Answer the skeptic plainly
The three questions every technical buyer asks
- Accuracy
- "It's a strong draft, not gospel; your review and CI catch the rest, same as any code."
- Hallucination
- "Codebase context cuts it sharply because the model reasons over your real APIs, not guesses."
- Security
- "Fair question, here's the high level and I'll bring our security resource for the specifics."
Plain, honest answers. Hedging or bluffing on any of these costs you the room.
Interview move
In the mock demo round, expect a "gotcha" technical question planted to see if you bluff. The right move is to answer what you genuinely know plainly, then say "for the deep specifics I'd pull in our sales engineer" without flinching. Interviewers grade composure and honesty here far above whether you knew the exact answer.
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Optional practice
Practice: Answer the skeptic plainly
QHow should you adapt your message for an individual developer versus the CTO and why run both at once?