Wes Kao
Co-founder, Maven. On 2 shows, 3 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveauthoroperator@wes_kao ↗LinkedIn ↗weskao.com ↗
Wes Kao coaches technology leaders and writes frameworks on managing up, executive presence, and persuasive workplace communication. She co-founded the cohort-based course platform Maven and previously co-founded the altMBA alongside Seth Godin.
2shows
3appearances
59statements
2resolved
2supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
10said about them ↓ Everything Wes Kao said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Kao: Executives succeed when treating a founder's personality as a constraint
“I think that many pairings of execs and founders that work really well are when execs recognize that their founder can be spiky in different ways that might not really make sense, that they are really good at certain things and not as good as at other things.
…”
Kao: Speed vs quality is a false trade-off in most situations
“Trade-offs like speed versus quality, you know, like people talk about that and throw that around, like, You probably have room or I had room to be faster and to produce better quality without starting to trade off on either. That in most situations, there's s…”
Kao: Public speaking is a terrible mental model for workplace communication
“There was so much of communication that operators and founders do on a day to day basis where public speaking is actually a terrible mental model. If you think about it with public speaking, it's one directional. You're sage on stage. You have one speech which…”
Kao: Bulleted fragments often mask unformed ideas and slow down readers
“It feels faster and more concise to put bullets and fragments, but a lot of times your reader on the other end of that is Needing to decipher and interpret and guess what you actually meant. So it net, net takes longer. And I also think that it can be a little…”
Kao: Professionals prematurely claim diminishing returns after mediocre tactic execution
“In my experience, I find that people claim the point of diminishing returns way too early. And this isn't just for communication. This is for strategies, tactics, et cetera. Like they'll try something once, you know, a mediocre attempt and be like, this channe…”
Kao: Cohort-based courses are the future of education
“We both really believe that core based courses are the future that we're going to want to teach these courses, but it's just too hard from a technical perspective now, but it doesn't have to be that way.”
Kao: One-directional content formats allow more low-substance claims
“So if you imagine a pyramid triangle at the bottom, there's more room for BS and at the very top of the triangle, there's less room for BS. So what's at the bottom of that triangle, Twitter podcasts, short, you know, articles, right? It's basically situations …”
Kao: Low-emoting leaders should amplify enthusiastic wording over forced facial expressions
“If you are someone who's low emoting instead of trying to be, you know, high emoting, you should basically take that into account and turn up the enthusiasm in your words, in the actual content of your words, instead of relying on your facial expressions or to…”
Wes Kao: Most people over-index on explicit rather than implicit feedback
“I think that most people over index on explicit feedback. So we wait until, you know, our colleague complains about something. Or, you know, gives us very direct feedback before we're like, oh, okay, this was bothering them. Whereas if you took a step back and…”
Kao: Frame recommendations under a founder's existing values, not new ones
“It is much better
To frame whatever it is you want to talk to them about or your recommendation under an existing umbrella of what they already care about, of values they already have, of ways that they already think the business should be run.”
Kao: Competing outside natural strengths guarantees defeat to naturally talented peers
“Whatever it is you find extremely difficult and unnatural for you, there is someone out there who loves doing that and it comes extremely naturally for them. So if you are in a role that requires you to do this thing that you are not very good at and could not…”
Kao: Leaders react better to concrete proposals than defining abstract concepts
“It's much easier for most leaders to react to something you're putting in front of them to correct you basically to say, yes, that no, not that. Then it is to say, you know, teach me ways to be strategic or define what that means for me. Your leader Hasn't don…”
Kao: A business problem does not automatically warrant resources to solve
“Just because something is a problem doesn't mean it warrants resources to solve, or the resources that you are asking for to solve, and so You know, developing that sense of right sizing, of context, of, you know, is the juice worth the squeeze here to try to …”
Kao: Building an audience requires a spiky point of view
“I think with an individual, but I would also say this works for companies, having a spiky point of view is really valuable. And so when I say spiky point of view, I don't mean stirring the pot with controversial statements just for the sake of it. I mean, Havi…”
Kao: The best founder content originates from internal pet peeves
“When I reflect on my own experiences and things that bother me, Pet peeves of mine. Things that I think are annoying. That's where a lot of my best stuff comes from. And I think, you know, that's kind of going full circle to what we started with, how important…”
Kao: Poor delivery causes most workplace communication failures, not uncooperative audiences
“Instead of blaming other people for not understanding me, I think about how could I explain this more clearly? How can I be more compelling? How can I anticipate any questions that they might have? So I'm a big proponent of agency and realizing that we can onl…”
Kao: Practicing pitches only with executives limits crucial communication reps
“And I just don't think that you're going to be able to get enough reps to actually get good at executive communication if you are only doing it with executives. Because many of us only present to execs once a month, right? Or a couple times a quarter. And that…”
Kao: Secure buy-in before sharing logistics to avoid low response rates
“A sales note is meant to get people excited to do the thing you want them to do and to agree to do it. And only then after they have bought in, does it make sense to share the logistics. So there's an order of operations here. If you switch the order of operat…”
Kao: Always re-establish context and value before diving into logistics
“So I actually think that you should always do a little bit of selling even for situations where people have generally bought in because most of us have a lot going on and we're not actively thinking about whatever you're talking about. So even though I agreed …”
Kao: Stop pitching immediately and move on once an executive agrees
“What was really helpful for me was realizing that I should take the win. Okay. If five seconds already agreed take the win and keep it moving, move on.”
Kao: Concision is driven by insight density, not absolute word count
“And being concise is not about absolute word count. It's about economy of words. It's about the density of the insight that you're sharing. And so you can have a 300 word memo that's meandering and long-winded and a thousand word memo that is tight and concise…”
Kao: Unclear thinking is the primary cause of long-winded communication
“And all of these pithy aphorisms assume that you actually know what your core point is. So you can't cut to the chase unless you know what the chase is. You know, you can't unbury the lead unless you know what the lead is. And so that I found is the bottom leg…”
Kao: Thorough preparation is the only reliable solution for meeting concision
“And so the only solution I found consistently to being concise is preparation. It's not a very glamorous solution by any means, but the clearer I am going into a meeting, going into a conversation, going into a pitch, the better I am at being concise and being…”
Kao: The organizational blast radius of poorly written memos is heavily underestimated
“I think the blast radius of a poorly written memo is way bigger than most people think. So if you're just shooting off a message in a Slack channel with 15 other people, and it's confusing, and you didn't include information you should have included, there's g…”
The other half of the tape: Wes Kao's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 10 times in 4 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Lenny Rachitsky 8Alistair Croll 2
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
Lenny's Podcast 10
2024 8 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
2023 1 mention in 1 episode
2022 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Wes's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LENNY'S PODCASTLEDGER | Co-founder, Maven | 2 | 44 | 100% 1/1 | full record on Lenny's Podcast → |
 IN DEPTHLEDGER | Co-founder, Maven | 1 | 15 | 100% 1/1 | full record on In Depth → |