This two-day intensive course teaches mid- and senior-level tech operators how to craft clear pitches, reduce back-and-forth, and win stakeholder buy-in. Through live sessions, hands-on exercises, scripts, and teardowns led by Wes Kao, participants sharpen their real-world communication skills and gain templates and recordings for ongoing practice.

• Wes Kao's two-day live course (May 14–15) costs $850 and targets senior ICs (3+ years) and managers, teaching stakeholder buy-in, clarity, and pitching skills through hands-on exercises and teardowns
• Over 1,700 tech operators have taken her workshops, with 22 signing up in the past week alone
• Attendees from OpenAI, Figma, Pinterest, Sephora, Asana and Apple report quick "aha" moments and measurable gains in persuasion ability
• Includes lifetime access to recordings, templates, scripts, bonus one-pagers, and a certificate of completion

Phil Eaton recalls how a junior developer at Linode, Drew DeVault, used clear logic and dogged persistence to reshape the engineering team’s architecture and decision-making culture. Eaton learned that you don’t need seniority to drive change—you need preparation, the will to debate, and the judgment to know when to push and when to let go.

• A junior developer with no formal authority (everyone was titled "Developer") reshaped Linode's entire engineering architecture and culture through logic and persistence rather than seniority.
• Influence comes from preparation, sticking to your argument, and acting in good faith—not from waiting for permission from senior colleagues.
• Without someone willing to push back, teams drift toward popular or easy decisions instead of smart ones.
• Pushing too hard has real costs—Eaton's own overly aggressive advocacy once drove teammates to quit, teaching him when to press an argument and when to let go.