125. Authentic Ideas, Social Media, and Writing with Wes Kao

David speaks with Wes Kao, an entrepreneur, coach, and advisor who writes a newsletter. She is the co-founder of Maven, an edtech company that raised $25M from First Round and Andreessen Horowitz. Previously, she co-founded the altMBA with Seth Godin. Wes now writes for over 300,000 operators across LinkedIn, Twitter, and Substack, coaches tech leaders, and teaches a 2-day intensive course on executive communication and influence.

They talked about:

🔗 How social media is redefining connection

💬 Why it’s good to disagree sometimes

🔥 The trap of chasing viral content

📝 How writing builds rigorous thinking

🧩 The danger of memetic ideas

🧭 The importance of being clear and decisive in leadership

📜 Full transcript:

theknowledge.io/weskao-1/

📹 Watch on Youtube:

https://youtu.be/GLQsGJsU-8o

🗣 Mentioned in the show:

Seth Godin | https://theknowledge.io/why-seth-godin-is-eminem-in-a-suit/

altMBA | https://altmba.com/

Andreessen Horowitz | https://a16z.com/

Spiky point of view | https://www.weskao.com/blog/spiky-point-of-view-lets-get-a-little-controversial

ChatGPT | https://openai.com/index/chatgpt/

Wes Kao’s Blog | https://www.weskao.com/blog

Wikipedia | https://www.wikipedia.org/

Rick Rubin | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rubin

Substack | https://substack.com/

Nilay Patel | https://www.theverge.com/authors/nilay-patel

Decoder | https://www.theverge.com/decoder-podcast-with-nilay-patel

Maven | https://maven.com/

👤 Connect with Wes:

Website: https://www.weskao.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weskao

Twitter: https://twitter.com/wes_kao

👨🏾‍💻 About David Elikwu:

David Elikwu FRSA is a serial entrepreneur, strategist, and writer. David is the founder of The Knowledge, a platform helping people think deeper and work smarter.

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