233. Tech Tools: Write with Confidence and Impact

Summary

Podcast Summary: Think Fast Talk Smart – Tech Tools: Write with Confidence and Impact

Host: Matt Abrahams
Guest: Max Litvin, Co-founder of Grammarly
Date: October 2, 2025
Episode: #233

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Episode Overview

This episode, part of the "Tech Tools" miniseries, explores how technology can support and supercharge our ability to communicate—especially in written form. Host Matt Abrahams interviews Max Litvin, co-founder of Grammarly, to discuss the origins of Grammarly, the challenges people face in written communication, and actionable strategies and mental models for writing with confidence and clarity. Litvin also shares personal tips for collaborative communication and discusses the importance of knowing your purpose and audience.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Origins and Mission of Grammarly

[01:19]

• Max Litvin explains the "aha" moment behind Grammarly: Previous work in plagiarism detection led to the realization that many plagiarize not out of malice but because putting thoughts into writing is difficult and intimidating for many.
  • Quote: “Most people who plagiarize, they actually knew what they want to say… just putting it in writing was the barrier that they couldn't overcome… and they resorted to plagiarism.” — Max Litvin [01:33]
• Rather than policing plagiarism, Litvin and his co-founder aimed to reduce the need for it by empowering people to write effectively and with confidence.
• Litvin highlights the broader vision: as the world pivots towards knowledge work, clear communication is both the process and result of knowledge creation.

2. Grammarly’s Elevator Pitch and AI Evolution

[03:31]

• At Matt’s suggestion, Max delivers Grammarly’s pitch using a clear structure:
  • Quote: “What if you could transform every email, document and post… into an effective polished professional piece of communication without spending hours editing, so that you could focus on what truly matters?” — Max Litvin [03:34]
• Grammarly saves users time and mental energy, improves tone, and is evolving with features that adapt suggestions to personal style, industry benchmarks, and company culture.
• Max acknowledges using Grammarly’s own AI to craft this pitch, blending previous pitches, the elevator pitch structure, and the company roadmap. It took him two minutes.

3. What Makes Communication "Better"?

[05:03]

• There’s no universal formula—good communication is highly situational.
  • Quote: “The answer we came to is: it depends. The definition of better… is very situational.” — Max Litvin [05:05]
• The key is clarity about your goal: do you want someone to act, know, change, or be entertained? Knowing intent streamlines message crafting.
• Matt echoes the importance of understanding both your goal and your audience as foundational principles.

4. Role Models in Communication

[07:12]

• When asked about communicators he admires, Max spotlights Adam Grant for his ability to make complex ideas practical and accessible—without oversimplifying.
  • Quote: “It’s easy to simplify things, but that sometimes does a disservice… The way Adam does it is making it simple but without hiding that there is more.” — Max Litvin [07:32]
• Matt and Max agree that accessibility is more about clarity than dumbing things down.

5. Personal Communication Hacks: The “Yes, and…” Technique

[08:37]

• Max shares a personal communication tool: starting difficult or contentious conversations with “yes, and” instead of “yes, but” or launching into argument.
  • Quote: “What it does, it switches my brain into collaborative communication mode…” — Max Litvin [08:50]
• This approach unlocks collaboration, helps focus on common ground, and avoids the zero-sum dynamics of competitive communication.
• Max uses the Lego analogy: instead of arguing whose pieces are better, put them together and build something new.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the “why” of Grammarly:
  • “If we can improve [communication] by even a fraction of a percent for a couple billion people, it’s a tremendous impact on a humanity level.” — Max Litvin [02:34]
• On the core of effective communication:
  • “What really makes a difference is starting with the goal… Having clarity on that before you start helps to communicate better and faster.” — Max Litvin [05:22]
• On the “Yes, and” approach:
  • “In collaborative communication, it’s one plus one equals three… that starting answer with yes is a great tool.” — Max Litvin [09:23]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:19 – Origins and philosophy behind Grammarly
• 03:31 – Grammarly’s elevator pitch and AI-driven evolution
• 05:03 – What truly elevates written communication
• 07:12 – Communicators Max admires, especially Adam Grant
• 08:37 – Max’s personal communication hack: “Yes, and…”

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Tone & Style

The episode is friendly, practical, and optimistic. Both Matt and Max emphasize clarity, empathy, and actionable takeaways in a conversational and accessible tone—an embodiment of the very communication skills they discuss.

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For Listeners: Top Takeaways

• Writing Confidence: Tools like Grammarly can remove the friction and fear from writing, helping more people share their ideas clearly.
• Purpose & Audience: Begin with clear intentions—know what you want to achieve and who you’re talking to.
• Collaboration First: Start even tough conversations by acknowledging agreement and common ground (“yes, and…”)—it fosters psychological safety and creative problem-solving.
• Accessible, Not Simplistic: It’s possible to make complex topics accessible without sacrificing nuance.

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Transcript

[A]

This tech Tools miniseries is brought to you by Prezi, the presentation tool that makes your ideas easy to follow, hard to forget and faster than ever to create. With Prezi AI, the best investment is in the tools of one's own trade. At Think Fast, Talk Smart, we're taking this quote by Benjamin Franklin, the famous US inventor and founding father, very seriously. As you know, our show strives to share tips and techniques to help you hone and and improve your communication and careers. These practices and approaches can be augmented with tools and technology. I'm Matt Abrahams. I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to this Tech Tools miniseries of Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast. In this multi part miniseries we'll introduce you to tools we use at Think Fast Talk Smart to help us be better at our spoken and written communication. And you'll learn best practices from the founders who created them. Taken. We hope these communication tools will help you find new ways to think fast and talk smart. I am excited today to speak with Max Litvin, who is one of the co founders of Grammarly. Max, welcome. Thanks for being here. I always love to learn. What was the origin of Grammarly? What led you to create it?

[B]

First, my co founder Alex and I previously ran a company that did plagiarism detection and we often had to answer a question, why so many people plagiarize and actually staggering number of people plagiarize. In our user interviews we learned that actually the biggest reason for plagiarism is the difficulty and even perceived difficulty of just taking thoughts from your head and putting them in writing. So many people, most people who plagiarize, they actually knew what they want to say and it just putting it in writing was the barrier that they couldn't overcome because of lack of time or lack of confidence or a combination of things. And they resorted to plagiarism. So that gave us an idea. Why don't instead of policing plagiarism, we just create a tool that makes it much easier to take your thoughts and put them in writing. But in addition to that, we looked at where humanity and technology were going and we saw that people make fewer and fewer things and more and more knowledge. What's knowledge? Knowledge is essentially communication. When you write a book, you're communicating. When you make a video, you're communicating. Pretty much any knowledge we create is communication. And how do we create knowledge? In process of creating knowledge, we collaborate through communicating as well. So communication is both the process and the result. If we can improve that by even a fraction of A percent for couple billion people. It's tremendous impact on humanity level. And that seemed like a very compelling idea.

[A]

It is incredibly compelling and so important. I find it really exciting and that you're doing the work that you're doing to help people in this information based world to communicate better. Personally, I think it's great that rather than just building a better plagiarism detection tool, you actually said what's causing all this plagiarism. Turns out people aren't comfortable writing or feeling competent in doing it, so you work to help them. Some of our listeners might not know yet what Grammarly is. Can you share what your product is using the elevator pitch structure I teach my MBA students. What if you could so that for example. And that's not all.

[B]

Absolutely. What if you could transform every email, document and post that you write into an effective polish professional piece of communication without spending hours editing so that you could focus on what truly matters. Sharing your ideas with confidence, building trust with your audience, achieving your career and professional goals through clear and effective communication with Grammarly. Over 50,000 teams and millions of individual users save time and mental effort by instantly catching any challenges with their writing, improving their tone, addressing their audience in a more effective way. And that's not all. Grammarly continues to evolve. Soon you'll see even more support from real time suggestions tailored to your unique personal style, to the standards and norms and benchmarks of your industry, your company culture and company style, and even compliance. Wow.

[A]

So you get an A plus on using the structure and it sounds like.

[B]

You actually used your tool to help.

[A]

You with that answer. Can you share more about that?

[B]

Exactly. I use some of the new AI based features of Grammarly and essentially I pointed it to the structure that you suggested and I pointed it to some of the pitches I made earlier. But also to make it a little bit more forward looking, I pointed it to our roadmap and that's what it produced. It took me about two minutes to accomplish it.

[A]

Now you've spent a lot of time thinking about how to help people write better. What have you learned that really seems to make a difference?

[B]

I spent literally years wrecking my brain on this very question. Because Grammarly helps people to communicate better and what is better? It's critical for our company's existence to be able to answer that question. The answer we came to is it depends. The definition of better or what makes writing better is very situational. I think what really makes difference is starting with the goal, understanding what you want to accomplish with your communication. And it can take a moment. Just like what do I want to do? Do I want somebody to act or do I want somebody to know something? Or do I want somebody to change their opinion? Or do I just want to entertain people? Having clarity on that before you start communicating, it helps to communicate better and faster.

[A]

I 100% agree. And one of the foundational principles in all of the work that I do and many of our guests have shared on the podcast is this notion of you have to understand your audience and you have to have a clear vision of your goal. And once you have those two things, then you can craft meaningful communication for them. And you're just echoing that. So thank you. Now we're going to take a quick break. Thanks for supporting the partners who help us share smart communication with the world. Here's a quick message. The hardest part of presenting isn't knowing what to say, it's keeping people with you so they leave convinced. That's why I've been a long time Prezi user and love it. It's my favorite tool for giving memorable talks and it can help you do the same. Prezi is a presentation tool that makes your ideas easy to follow and hard to forget, not just slide after slide. With Prezi AI, you can turn any idea into a presentation that's clear, engaging and ready to share, with no design skills needed so you can focus on delivering it with confidence. Try it now with 25 off [e-mail] thinkfast that's prezi.com thinkfast or check the link in the show notes while the offer lasts. Before we end, I'd like to ask you two questions that I'm asking everybody who is part of this mini series. Are you ready for that?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Great. I would love to know who is a communicator that you admire and why.

[B]

This is a difficult question for me because my just personal philosophy is I can learn from everyone and I pick specific pieces that a person does really well or differently from everyone and learn these pieces. But one name that comes to mind is Adam Grant. What I like in his communication and what I want to do better myself is explain complex things simply in a way that makes it easier to apply to practical situations, but without obscuring the nuances, without obscuring the depths of complexity because it's easy to simplify things, but that sometimes does a disservice to your audience because we just don't get the lead into the nuance. But the way Adam does it is making it simple but without hiding that there is more.

[A]

The Notion of making things accessible is really critical. So it's not about dumbing it down or oversimplifying it. As you said, that can be risky. In fact, what it's all about is finding ways to make it accessible so people can appreciate the depth and the nuance. And Adam Grant does a great job with that. Thank you. Final question. Question 2. Beyond your tool, beyond Grammarly, what is one communication hack or tool or shortcut that you use to be more effective in your communication?

[B]

Oh, I love this. One thing that dramatically changed my communication for the better is whenever I'm in a contentious situation, an argument, or just a high stakes discussion and I have an instinct to attack somebody's point or start focusing on like differences and opinions, I just start my response with yes and not yes, but, but genuine yes. And it's for. It's mostly for me. It's not for the other person. What it does, it switches my brain into collaborative communication mode where I focus first on things that, where there are commonalities, where there is mutual understanding, and then develop into things that we see differently. And that is a simple thing, but it has such a dramatic effect in the results. I'm sure you've dealt with collaborative versus competitive communication a lot. In competitive communication, it's usually a zero sum game at best and in many cases it just destroys value. In collaborative communication, it's one plus one equals three. To explain it, I often use analogy of Legos, that I have my Legos, you have your Legos. Instead of arguing whose Lego pieces are better, we just put them in one pile and build something together. That's how I can explain collaborative communication to people who are new to this concept. But that starting answer with yes is a great tool to first switch your brain into collaborative communication mode, but then it also switches your audience brain into that collaborative communication mode and leads to better results.

[A]

People can't see this, but I'm smiling from ear to ear. We have talked a lot on this podcast about the principle from improvisation of yes and and how it really brings you into collaboration. And I love that you have found somebody in your role as a senior leader of a company that's doing really cool stuff, that you start from the yes and mentality and you personally see your benefit. And I just want to highlight for everyone listening that what Max did was he actually followed some of the things he's talked about. He repeated himself in a couple different ways. He made something that's very complex, the notion of collaborative communication. People have spent their academic careers studying this and through an analogy of Legos made it more accessible. So Max, thank you so much for the tool that you've created. Thank you for taking the time to share with us key takeaways that can make us all better communicators. I appreciate your time and thank you man.

[B]

That was very enjoyable conversation.

[A]

Thank you. Thank you for joining us for one of our communication tools, episodes of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. Please be sure to listen to all of the episodes in this miniseries. We appreciate Prezi's sponsorship of these episodes. This episode was produced by Kathryn Reed, Ryan Campos and me, Matt Abrahams. Our music is from Floyd Wonder. With special thanks to Podium podcast company. Please find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us. Follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram and check out fastersmarterio for deep dive videos, English language learning content and our newsletter. Please consider our Premium offering for extended Deep Thinks episodes, Ask Matt Anythings and much more at fastersmarter IO Premium.