Hey there, I’m Wes Kao. My goal is to share honest insights and practical advice for operators in fast-moving organizations. I’ve been a founder, marketer, and operator for 15+ years. A few highlights:
Co-founded Maven, a platform for live online courses. Raised $25M from First Round and Andreessen Horowitz, served 27,000+ students, and helped instructors earn $18M+.
Co-founded the altMBA with bestselling author Seth Godin. Created the category of cohort-based courses, scaled to thousands of students in 55 countries.
Currently teaching tech operators through my 2-day intensive course: Executive Communication & Influence for Senior ICs and Managers. Students are from Uber, Amazon, Grammarly, Google, Brex, Atlassian, Pinterest, Expedia, Stripe, Twilio, Spotify, GitHub, Zillow, PayPal, Netflix, Square, and more.
Since 2010, I’ve written on my blog to document my learnings, which has evolved into this newsletter. Over 60,000+ tech operators and leaders read this newsletter each week.
New issues are published on Wednesdays at 8am ET because I love a good alliteration re: Wes on Wednesdays.
Each week, I tackle the “why” and “how” of topics to help you drive the business:
managing up
rigorous thinking
communicating effectively
framing your ideas
how to get people excited about what you're excited about
navigating organizational dynamics
creating a culture of direct feedback
setting a high bar of excellence
If you’re looking for bite-sized nuggets during the week, follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Who is this for?
This newsletter is for individual contributors, managers, leaders, and strategic doers. It’s for you if:
You are on a lean team punching above your weight class
You believe there’s no upper boundary to how good you can be at your craft
You care about quality, rigorous thinking, and setting a high bar
I’m fascinated by topics that are deceivingly basic. Topics that seem tactical or minor on the surface, but underneath there’s more nuance than most people realize. I believe by unpacking what’s usually taken at face value, you will have a more accurate mental model of the world and gain an advantage by pulling levers other people don’t even know exist.
Almost every category and function is getting more competitive. Because most of us have the same growth goals and access to the same levers, I believe the way to stand out is by learning to see and act on what others miss.
I also care a lot about judgment. As you advance in your career, variables like skills and years of experience matter less, and your judgment matters more. Judgment can be contextual, subjective, and hard to learn. So with every essay, I try to break down the “why” so you see my thought process and can better form your own perspective.
Ways to go deeper
If you’re looking for hands-on practice on the topics in this newsletter, I offer a 2-day intensive course on Executive Communication & Influence for Senior ICs and Managers. → See course details
If you’re interested in 1:1 executive coaching, my clients are hands-on leaders at organizations like Amazon, Product Hunt, Vercel, etc. I’d love to help you get more recognition, increase your influence, and grow your impact.→ More about coaching
It’s fun to be good at your job. I’m hoping this newsletter will help you get even better at what you do.
If you have questions you think I can help with, hit reply and let me know. I’ll keep it anonymous and share some suggestions in an upcoming newsletter.
Thanks for being here,
PS See you in your inbox this Wednesday at 8am ET.
