Future owner earnings are worth less than a dollar in hand today — the discount rate is how much less. A dollar 10 years from now, discounted at 10%, is worth about 39 cents today.
Why the default is 10%, floored at 7%. 10% approximates the long-run historical return of the stock market — a reasonable "opportunity cost" baseline for what else you could do with the money. Intrinsic won't let this go below 7% even if you try, because a lower discount rate mechanically inflates every future cash flow's present value, and it's one of the easiest levers to quietly overvalue a stock with.
Higher discount rate = more conservative. If a business feels riskier than average — more debt, more competitive threats, more cyclicality — a higher discount rate is the right way to demand a bigger margin of safety for taking on that risk.