weskao.com

A weekly newsletter with insights on how to be a sharper operator in a contemporary organization. Covering the “why” and “how” of topics like rigorous thinking, presenting to your CEO, and managing up. Over 250,000 readers across LinkedIn, Twitter, and Substack. 

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Join my new course: Executive Communication & Influence for Senior ICs and Managers -> https://maven.com/wes-kao/executive-communication-influence

Reach out at wes@weskao.com

Teaching, coaching, writing

Maven

Maven is a platform for live, cohort-based courses. Learn more at maven.com

Co-founder

Various courses

Built, launched, and grew courses that have reached 300,000 students. Clients included: Section (Professor Scott Galloway), Outlier (from cofounder of MasterClass), Build a Second Brain, Write of Passage, Poo~Pourri, Morning Brew, and more.

Cohort-based courses

altMBA

Created and built the altMBA with bestselling author Seth Godin. One of the first mainstream cohort-based courses. Grew from zero to thousands of students in 45 countries and 550+ cities at $3,000 price point (10x higher than avg online course at the time).

Flite

Head of Digital Marketing

Bare Escentuals

Global Brand Management Marketing

Gap Inc.

Business Analyst

L'Oréal

Brand Management Marketing

Wes Kao is an entrepreneur, coach, and advisor who writes at newsletter.weskao.com. She is co-founder of Maven, an edtech company that raised $25M from First Round and Andreessen Horowitz. Previously, she co-founded the altMBA with bestselling author Seth Godin.

Newsletter for 50,000+ high performers on Wednesdays at 8am ET -> weskao.com/newsletter

Live, 2-day intensive course on Executive Communication & Influence -> https://maven.com/wes-kao/executive-communication-influence

Many things that look intuitive and simple actually take huge amounts of work behind the scenes. I think about this every time I write my newsletter. My usual thought is, “I bet people would be shocked at how many hours this took.”

It’s whatever number of hours you think is a lot, then multiply that by three. I used to be embarrassed about this, and still kind of am, but am increasingly open about it.

Because here’s the thing: Excellence takes time.

As much as we want to rush it, there’s a certain pace with creativity and problem-solving that can’t always happen on demand.

I am tired of “professional managers” who have never built The Thing—whatever The Thing is: compelling copy, intuitive design, an engaging program, etc.

If you haven’t built it, it’s natural for you to think, “This looks simple. Why is it taking so long?”

This is why I believe player-coaches are so important. We need managers and leaders who have built The Thing themselves, because they recognize that things take time.

The uncomfortable reality in our speed-obsessed world is:

Quality takes time.

Getting it right takes time.

Craft takes time.

Developing insights takes time.

Connecting dots takes time.

Obviously, I’m not saying to spend your time indiscriminately, or to use this as an excuse to move slowly. And to be clear, you can spend time, and still create mediocre work! I don’t blindly equate time spent with excellence.

But when you see something really good, assume it took time. Don’t rush to judge yourself for being too slow. Don’t be disappointed when there’s no short cut.

You’re probably not too slow. You probably have unrealistic expectations about how long it takes to make stuff really good.

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If you want thoughtful, practical insights about being a hands-on operator and leader, check out my newsletter: weskao.com/newsletter

Wes Kao

Co-founder of Maven. Co-founder of altMBA. Helping tech operators raise the bar for themselves and their teams.

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