I know of some currently successful companies whose founders used meaningful, honest, yet vague phrases like "we're trying to change the way people ___________"

I know of some currently successful companies whose founders used meaningful, honest, yet vague phrases like "we're trying to change the way people ___________". And they did. And I know of about 5x the startups whose founders used the phrase "we're in stealth mode" whose isolated, protected ideas showed complete mismatch with market need when launched. Why? Because that isolation reflects arrogance. You have two options here: a) say your vague idea and hear from people who care about it, getting more data, more ideas, more market need (or lack of), more competitive landscape, etc. e.g., The line: "We're working on fixing the calendar" Person: "Have you tried Sunrise? It's great, but I can't use it because it asks for permissions my security team won't allow" This gives you, as product creator, info. Or maybe the person wants to come work with you, or knows someone who is passionate about it, or knows someone wanting to invest in that, etc. b) Say "we're in stealth mode" This shuts down any opportunity immediately. I guess b) is reasonable when you are disinterested in further conversation (totally legitimate)[1], otherwise it just accomplishes nothing other than providing an air of arrogance. [1] When I was at Apple in mid 00s, the standard line to strangers was "sorry, we're prohibited from discussing features or future products for legal reasons". This shut down conversation immediately, which was the intention.