Julien Smith is a Montreal-based serial entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author, and one of the earliest Twitter users (handle @julien). He co-founded Breather, an on-demand private workspace platform that raised $122M+, and later Practice, a coaching management platform backed by a16z. His 2011 free Kindle book 'The Flinch', edited by Seth Godin, remains one of the most-read Kindle books ever, and his viral blog post 'The Complete Guide to Not Giving a Fuck' is widely credited as the inspiration for Mark Manson's multi-million-copy bestseller. Today he coaches first-time CEOs.
Wes Kao is an executive coach, co-founder of Maven (the cohort-based learning platform backed by a16z and First Round), and co-creator of the altMBA with Seth Godin. She pioneered the cohort-based course category, scaled altMBA to 550 cities in 45 countries, and now helps senior tech operators at companies like Google, Amazon, and Shopify sharpen their executive communication and influence. Her biweekly newsletter reaches 300,000+ readers across platforms.