“One of the leaders from the Chan Zuckerberg school showed up to dinner in tears.”
It’s funny what you pick up on the pickleball courts. It’s one of the reasons why I love playing. You start off with little dinks and that’s the perfect time to pick up some neighborhood gossip.
“They said the Zuckerberg spin machine had started. What they’re saying is the school, which serves 543 number of low-income kids, is being shut down because it hasn’t found its long-term funding source.”
I said, “What a joke. Zuchs and his wife are worth $220 billion. That was always supposed to be the long-term funding source. Anyone who builds schools knows it’s an unprofitable venture, but it’s supposed to be an investment in our future.”
The school’s annual operating loss? $8 million. That’s 0.0036% of the Zuckerberg-Chan fortune. You’d spend more trying to clean their fleet of mega yachts.
“But here’s the real reason: the week after Zuchs and Priscilla get back from inauguration, a Chief Neutrality Officer shows up at the school’s Board meeting.”
So basically, Trump told Zuchs to get rid of all the DEI stuff—and Zuchs, morally bankrupt and spineless as ever, capitulated. At Meta, he justified the shift by saying the company needed “more masculine energy.”
Toligarchs. That’s what my old founder and mentor
calls them. Tech bros turned titans who think they can rule the world but have revealed their hollowness.These days Scott is calling for some class traitors to step up and care about our country enough to rock their million dollar boats. He’s been doing the media circuit - CNN with Anderson Cooper, tearing down Elon on Piers Morgan Uncensored.
And I couldn’t be more proud.
TL;DR
Zuchs shut down a school serving 543 low-income kids. The budget shortfall? 0.0036% of his net worth. This is what moral bankruptcy looks like.
His wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan—a Chinese-Vietnamese refugee who co-founded the school—didn’t just stay silent. She helped shut the doors. It's not on just him. It's her too. #CrazyRichAsians
If you're working for Meta, you're working for this generation's version of Big Tobacco. You should consider quitting.
Scott Galloway taught me that great brands evoke emotion and speak to four core instincts: head, heart, gut, and groin.
This is a story about mentorship, grief, power—and why community, not money, is the legacy worth fighting for.
Office Hours with Prof G
“Wendy, after my mom died, it was hard. The one thing that helped was having a family.”
I’m crying and having the worst job interview of my life. Scott knew I was leaving New York to move back to the Bay Area, so he asked me to drop by the L2 office for a quick chat.
I was done with my startup. I had no fight left in me. My mom’s unexpected death a few weeks before had emptied out any desire I had to build anything —except a family.
Scott called me into office hours because he had a pitch for me. “Do you want to start L2’s office out West? We’re doing very well, and we need someone like you to build the business out there.”
“Scott, consulting and benchmarking for luxury brands? Do you not know who I am at all? You literally could not pay me enough.”
This is true. I’m the CMO for a company that improves people’s hearts for a reason. The truth is growth marketers who deeply understand growth-stage startups are always in short-supply. Stitchfix, Omada, and even First Round have come knocking.
I didn’t reply to the emails. Because I’d rather not be tempted by the golden handcuffs.
And I didn’t end up taking the L2 role. I missed out on a big pay day when Scott sold the company to Gartner.
By then, I was out West well into another phase of my digital health career. No regrets. Because it’s never been about the money.
Brilliant Minds
But we got a chance to work together again. After Counsyl (acquired by Myriad ), Clover Health (went public) and Propeller Health (acquired by Resmed ), I needed a break from the very complicated, very regulated, painfully broken world that is US healthcare.
So, when my old boss Greg Shove (Scott's BFF) reached out and asked if I wanted to democratize higher education, I said yes. That seemed like a mission I could get behind. And let’s be honest, education was always my first love. I had quit Bain to join John Doerr’s education reform nonprofit.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was about to get a deep refresher on brand, marketing, product strategy and leadership from some of the top academic and industry minds in the country - Adam Alter from Stern, Jonah Berger from Wharton, Mohanbir Sawhney from Kellogg, Gibson Biddle from Netflix, and best-selling author Mita Mallick (her new book: The Devil Emails at Midnight is on pre-order).
And of course, Scott himself.
Not only was I marketing the company. I was working with professors to build the courses, taking their life’s research and distilling it down to 6 7-minute videos that could be easily understood by a curious mind.
What I Learned About Building a Brand
People are hardwired to learn and retain knowledge through stories. It’s an oral tradition. When we were hunting and gathering thousands of years ago, we sat around a fire and told stories.
The best brands understand that. They don’t just convey information. They evoke an emotion and they appeal to one of these four basic instincts - head, heart, gut or groin. This is a Prof G special framework.
Head = rationale Google
Heart = community Facebook
Gut = consume Amazon
Groin = too hot to handle Apple
But here’s the truth no one wants to admit:
Money and power builds its own brand too and is able to control the narrative.
The Toligrarchs understand this better than anyone. Zuchs owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Musk bought Twitter to crush dissent and warp people’s reality. Trump used his inherited family brand to signal status and power. They aren’t fighting for truth. They’re fighting for narrative control.
Which means those of us who know better—who were taught better—have to do more than name the problem. We have to step into the arena and use our creativity to win hearts and minds. On LinkedIn, at the dinner table, on the pickleball courts.
Time to Fix Tech
I’ve been writing for a while about the intersection of Asian American activism and politics on LinkedIn of all places.
Why LinkedIn? Because that’s the best place to win influential hearts and minds.
Posting to Instagram and X. That’s talking to your own echo chamber.
LinkedIn. That’s an act of rebellion.
Is it career suicide? Of course, it is, but I think that I’ve made it clear that I'm choosing community over capitalism. (That said, I have a CEO recruit message in my LinkedIn inbox. Some see leadership differently than others.)
But it’s time to widen the aperture to Tech. Because right now, I see a generation of brilliant minds focused on fixing the wrong problems. Who needs another SaaS AI-driven whatever to automate whatever to drive productivity up by whatever to ultimately…make money.
In fact, I see Tech as the problem that needs fixing.
So, I’m initiating coverage. You have a juicy story about how tech is ruining our country? DM me. I’ll only reveal you as the source if you want me to.
Tethered
Scott and I don’t talk so much these days. Men get weird when you leave them. The break was inevitable. Section is now an AI school - important but not the same as democratizing higher education.
We were both raised by single moms. Educated by public schools. Type 8 INTJs.
But we’re different too. His (and Jason’s) takes are more palatable. Not because he’s more strategic or a better leader—he isn’t. But because he fits the pattern. He’s a rich white man in a world built to listen to them.
No one’s ever seen the likes of me.
A child forged by war, shaped by Silicon, supported by California-style socialism (not dirty word; just means sharing is caring), trained by the top strategists on the globe, battle-tested through 6+ startups.
That said, there’s a reason I’m still taking notes from Prof G.
Scott is an excellent writer and an even better speaker. I’ve seen him refine his craft over the past decade—and I respect it. He’s becoming world-class.
But it’s not the Toligarch call outs that are my favorite.
It’s this - Tethered. I’ve saved it in Sofia’s and David’s inboxes for when they’re old enough to read it.
Because it’s not really about power. Or ambition. Or even parenthood.
It’s about connection.
That’s what grounds us, what saves us—what makes any of this worth doing—is love.
Not the sanitized kind. But the messy, hard, inconvenient kind. The kind that tethers you to people, to place, to community.
The kind that asks you to risk your seat on the boat for someone who’s still drowning on shore - like the kids who are watching their parents being snatched by ICE when picking them up at school.
So yes, I’m calling for class traitors.
But not just to betray wealth. To choose community. To choose a different legacy.
Because in the end, that’s what power is for.
Not to shield you from the world.
But to protect those around you.
To bind you more deeply to it.
To sit in the hard places.
To love, even when it costs you.
Pull up a chair. We’re just getting started.
It will be messy, but it'll be worth it in the end.
💪 ❤️ Want to stay tethered?
Last week, I asked the Board Members of The Asian American Foundation, some of the most powerful and connected business leaders in our community, to sign a joint statement denouncing the recent immigration raids.
And now I'm asking you to support the post, so they understand the power of the people. Hit Like on this post Already have? Hit Repost.
✍️ Catch up
I've been manically writing.
Let's Break the Rules to Do Good A convo with Dr. & Rep. Ami Bera
Everybody Needs a Rachel Chu Moment Hollywood + politics = drama
The Crazy Rich Asians Movement (went viral) Two movements, not one.
5 Things I Learned About the Asian Vote Step 1 of getting out of this mess.
The Games We Play What game are you playing and why?
Wendy Nguyen Goes to Washington My adventures at Asian prom
Want The Wire delivered reliably to your inbox? Subscribe on Substack and follow Asian Americans Rise for the latest and greatest in US Politics and Asian American Activism.