What I mean by cognitive dissonance is “I have never read a business plan”, followed by “I wrote something I called a business plan, but is it really a business plan? I don’t know what a business plan is”, to “what I meant by business plan is 20 pages of fluff”. The rhetoric is so incohesive that one could not possibly engage in constructive dialogue. We’re wasting our brain cells here.

Words have meaning, and pg has done a poor job articulating himself in this instance, if his goal is to be understood. Since pg is a social media personality and his business ventures stand to benefit from his social media audience, reasonable people may speculate that his goal is NOT to be understood, but rather to drive engagement, and to that end he has been successful here. But it’s not actual thought leadership, it’s purely marketing.

The hate/cancel/pitchfork sentiment expressed by some replies, could be seen then as an intended consequence of pg’s remarks - the outrage-driven engagement cycle is a well known dynamic in social media. And the defenders like you are the other side of the same coin. It’s amazing and somewhat sad, but not surprising, seeing smart people get worked up over this.