No music, no intro, this is the Morgan Snyder Show.
Last week, I talked about the head of CEO content position at PayPal: their quarter-million-dollar budget for their CEO’s brand.
It was if I could hear your thoughts in the Substack ether. Many of you were thinking something like, “Well, that's nice for them. But we could never do something like that.”
You’re absolutely right. You can’t. You aren’t PayPal.
But I can assure you that it’s not a strategy reserved for the Fortune 500.
Today, I want to talk about a real person, a CEO who is an absolute master of this.
Her name is Wes Kao.
For those who don't know, Wes is the co-founder of a company called Maven. It’s an edtech company that raised $25M from First Round and Andreessen Horowitz. Before that, she co-founded the altMBA with Seth Godin.
Does she have the financial firepower of PayPal? No.
What they have is Kao’s X (Twitter) and LinkedIn profile. And it is a weapon.
It is a great lesson for all of us about how a single leader's voice can build an entire ecosystem around their company.
She is landing expert creators, taking executives through her coaching program, attracting world-class talent, and she’s doing it with a consistent, low-budget content strategy that any executive listening can learn from.
Let's take a look at it.
The Kao Pillars
Her strategy has three core pillars:
First Pillar: "Give Away the Blueprints."
If you’re a fan of creator content, or follow any marketing consultant, I’m sure you’ve heard the debate of gated vs. ungated content.
I think you should give almost everything away for free, and Wes has the same approach.
Kao does so much more than share random opinions on X. She shares frameworks.
She gives away the blueprints to her thinking. She’ll post a thread that deconstructs, in excruciating detail, how to write landing page copy that converts. Or how to structure a curriculum. Or how to build a community.
Most consultants would charge you a handsome fee for that kind of advice. She gives it away for free. This is a “costly signal” of extreme confidence. It does two things: First, it establishes her as an undisputed authority. Second, it acts as a sales funnel. She’s creating an entire market of highly-educated course creators who, after reading her frameworks, see Maven as the only logical platform to build on.
Second Pillar: "Building in Public."
I feel like lately you can find this phrase in nearly every social media post out there written by a founder.
Everyone and their mother wants to document each step of building a company.
Well, I should say, share sanitized posts about the company—the big milestones, the smart people they’re hiring, the hackathons they had—you know, all the cool stuff.
It’s true that Kao humanizes her company by sharing the journey. She’ll talk about the thinking behind Maven’s product decisions, the challenges of a feature launch, or the debates they have internally.
She makes her audience feel like insiders. I think that’s the distinction with Kao’s content.
Just a few months ago, she posted about why they intentionally chose not to build a certain feature that users were requesting, and she laid out the entire rationale. That kind of transparency is magnetic. It makes potential customers trust you, because they feel like they're a part of the story. They’re buying a product AND joining a mission they've watched being built from the ground up.
Third Pillar: "Championing the Creator."
This is how she wins the talent and partner war. Her feed is a constant celebration of the experts on her platform. She spotlights their courses, shares their wins, and promotes their work. She understands that her success is tied to their success.
This sends a massive batsignal to the market. For creators, it says, “If you build on Maven, we will have your back.” And for potential employees, it says, “This is a company that is deeply invested in the success of its customers.”
So, what's the result of all this?
On the customer side, it's a no-brainer. Her content acts as a pre-qualification filter. The people who come to Maven are true believers who have been learning from her for months. The trust is already built.
And on the talent side, it’s even more powerful. Top product managers, marketers, and engineers in the creator economy all follow Wes Kao. They read her threads. They admire her thinking.
So when Maven posts a job opening, they get A-plus applicants who are already completely bought into the company's philosophy. I guarantee you they have hired people who took a pay cut from a FAANG company, simply because they felt they could learn more by having a front-row seat to the way Wes Kao thinks.
So when you see PayPal spending a quarter-million dollars on a head of CEO content, don't get distracted by the title or the salary.
The job is to do for Alex Chriss what Wes Kao is already doing for herself.
She is running the exact same playbook (building trust, controlling the narrative, and acting as a talent magnet) with nothing more than the native tools on LinkedIn and X, and a commitment to extreme generosity with her knowledge.
Final Thought
I have been inspired by Kao and others who are spending significant amounts of time making things for people to learn, grow, and do.
I’ve created 220 articles for anyone and everyone to read about my experience, detailing the wins and losses, the times where I wanted to give up, in hopes that there will be one person who feels like they could try to share their story.
I love what writing has done for my life, for my family’s life, and I wish that I could tell more people about how much I’ve changed because of it.
This is my very small dent in the Substack universe.
In some way, I’m sure you feel the same about the business you’re running, or the idea that you’re trying to bring to the world.
I hope that these podcast episodes are helping you think about your own content approach, or at least, nudging you in the right direction.
Reminder
Before you go, a reminder: my book, Keep It Light, is free to read on Amazon Unlimited. It’s a year’s worth of content starters for the busy executive.
Take an idea, steal a line—it’s yours. If you like it, please give it 5 stars, along with this podcast. It tells other people that this is worth listening to.
My friends: Keep writing, keep pushing, and I’ll see you next time.
