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

The Knowledge with David Elikwu

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.

🐣 Twitter: @Delikwu / @itstheknowledge

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The Knowledge is a weekly newsletter for people who want to get more out of life. It's full of insights from psychology, philosophy, productivity, and business, all designed to make you more productive, creative, and decisive.

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