Articles by Wei
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10 Years @ Amazon!
10 Years @ Amazon!
My 10-year anniversary with Amazon is coming up, can't believe it. I consider myself lucky to only have had 4 managers…
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Wei Gao shared thisCongrats to Xanadu and Creative Destruction Lab!Wei Gao shared thisThis morning, Xanadu began trading on the Nasdaq and TSX under ticker XNDU – becoming the first ever Creative Destruction Lab venture to go public. What began as a white paper in a CDL session is now a publicly traded company.
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Wei Gao shared thisYou don’t want to miss this event!Wei Gao shared thisJ. Kenji López-Alt: ✅ Author of The James Beard Foundation winning/NYT Bestseller (3x) books ✅ The New York Times Columnist ✅ 1.8 million YouTube subscribers ✅ Massachusetts Institute of Technology Grad ✅ Host of The Recipe podcast ✅ Proud Seattleite ✅ (most impressive) Keynote speaker Pacific Science Center luncheon PacSci's annual Ignite luncheon is Friday May 15th. I will be hosting the fun table-- hope you can join me. Who may not be having as much fun, is the caterer, serving lunch to a world renown food scientist 😂 Please register or (thank you) gift in lieu here: http://pacsci.org/luncheon : Supports game-changing, hands-on science education across the state. Will be a great time... https://lnkd.in/gpkRaDxD Jason Barnwell Eric Laughlin Elizabeth Tripoli Laughlin Jembaa Mai Dawn Trudeau Ed Wu Dean Allsopp Ella Dillon Sherilyn Anderson Brandon Bray Wei Gao Will Daugherty Sarah Zablotny Buhayar Suzi LeVine Levix Liang David Browdy Neal Black Doug Bowser Diana Birkett Rakow Jessica Paulson Rashmi Raghavendra
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Wei Gao reposted thisWei Gao reposted thisCNH Selects Re:Build Cadonix Arcadia and smartBuild to Enhance Wire Harness Design and Manufacturing Framingham, MA — March 19, 2026 — CNH, a world-class equipment, technology and services company specializing in Agriculture and Construction, has selected Arcadia and smartBuild from Re:Build Cadonix to modernize and streamline its wire harness design and manufacturing processes for its precision farming solutions. Arcadia provides a fully integrated, cloud-based electrical CAD environment that connects electrical schematics directly to wire harness layout, formboards, documentation, and manufacturing outputs. When combined with smartBuild, Cadonix’s digital formboard and harness manufacturing platform, CNH gains a seamless digital thread from engineering through production—helping teams improve design efficiency, manufacturing productivity, and overall product quality. “CNH is a recognized leader in advancing precision agriculture and next-generation vehicle technologies,” said Chris Flaherty of Re:Build Cadonix. “By adopting Arcadia and smartBuild, CNH can connect electrical system design directly to harness manufacturing within a single digital platform. This enables engineering and production teams to collaborate more effectively, reduce errors, and deliver high-quality systems faster and with greater confidence.” “Electrical systems are becoming increasingly complex as agricultural equipment continues to evolve with advanced electronics, sensors, and autonomous capabilities,” said Brian Carda, Director of Operations from CNH’s Sioux Falls, SD manufacturing facility. “By adopting Arcadia and smartBuild, we expect to significantly improve the efficiency of our design and manufacturing processes while enhancing quality and traceability. We anticipate these improvements will have a meaningful positive impact on our business as we continue to scale and innovate.” CNH develops advanced technologies that enable modern agricultural equipment to operate with greater precision, efficiency, and automation. By integrating sophisticated electronics, connectivity, and automation into agricultural machinery, the company helps farmers improve productivity and optimize field operations. Re:Build Cadonix provides the industry’s only cloud-native, end-to-end electrical design and manufacturing platform built specifically for modern wire harness and electrical system development. Through solutions including Arcadia and smartBuild, Cadonix enables organizations to: - Maintain a digital thread from concept through manufacturing execution - Automatically generate accurate manufacturing documentation - Eliminate manual interpretation and build errors - Accelerate production cycles up to 50% - Reduce design-to-build errors by up to 95% - Lower direct labor costs up to 25% - Support rapid product variant management and scaling production demands For more information, visit: www.cadonix.com
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Wei Gao shared thisThe privilege is mine!Wei Gao shared thisIt has been a privilege to work with outstanding, high-achieving and generous women in my life. Especially during International Women’s History Month, I am honored to serve on the International Women’s Forum – Washington State Forum Board, with fellow Board Members: Co-President Mary Knell, Treasurer Kathi Lentzsch, Secretary Cindy L. Runger Runger, VP/Membership Sherilyn Anderson, VP/Programs Gretchen Broderson, Past President Nicole Grogan, IWF Global Board and previous IWF-WA President Terry Axelrod and our at large Board Members Jamila Conley, Wei Gao, Julie Pham, PhD Pham, Lynne Varner, Betsy Webb and Darlene Wilczynski. Together, with other IWF-WA Forum leaders and members, we are focused on uniting to advance women’s leadership today and tomorrow. Our Forum is comprised of about 200 of the most powerful and impressive women leaders in the greater Puget Sound area. We are part of the Global International Women’s Forum, the only global women’s organization with 50 consecutive years of growth. Today, our membership comprises over 8,200 preeminent women leaders in 35 countries and 77 local Forums. We unite our global community across cultures and careers, with the common mission to advance women’s leadership today and tomorrow. Here’s to amazing women who lift one another! #IWD2026 #IWF #IWFWA #GiveToGain #WeLead Our members are Nobel laureates, Olympic athletes, CEOs, heads of state, academics, artists, astronauts, lawyers, financiers, scientists, entrepreneurs, and more. Our members build, create and transform our business, our society, and our world.
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Wei Gao reposted thisWei Gao reposted thisSee how an advanced maritime systems manufacturer accelerated prototyping with Cadonix’s smartBuild solution. Our customer needed to design and assemble more than 15 complex, multi-branch wire harnesses in under a month to meet aggressive testing schedules. Traditional processes could not keep up. After implementing smartBuild, they achieved: • 50% reduction in time and resources • Five days saved per formboard setup • Zero build failures across eight harness builds • Day-one productivity for new technicians Discover how smartBuild helped them build faster, reduce waste, and scale precision manufacturing without adding complexity. Check out the full case study >> https://lnkd.in/eDCyeZBT #WireHarness #Manufacturing #DefenseManufacturing #Industry40 #SmartManufacturing #ElectrificationAutonomous Defense Drone Systems Accelerates Prototyping - CadonixAutonomous Defense Drone Systems Accelerates Prototyping - Cadonix
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Wei Gao reposted thisWei Gao reposted thisI was proud to Stand Up for Science with Kim Schrier, MD, Justin Gill, DNP, APRN, RN, Councilmember Dave Upthegrove, Alexis Mercedes Rinck, MPA, and other leaders in Seattle today. Science is about asking questions. The ability, the willingness, and the right to ask questions. It’s about curiosity and critical thinking. Those are not only the foundations of science and innovation. They are also the foundations of a healthy economy and a healthy society. If you are curious, then you are a scientist. Critical thinking isn’t an elite skill. It’s a survival skill, and we need to treat it like one. That means that access to the experiences that build critical thinking cannot be a privilege. Science must not be the territory of the privileged. When zip code, income, or identity determines who gets to see themselves as curious, as capable, as a scientist, we don't just fail those individuals. We fail ourselves as a society. The work of making science accessible isn't optional. It's infrastructure. That’s what we do at Pacific Science Center. Our mission is to ignite curiosity in every child and fuel a passion for discovery, experimentation, and critical thinking in all of us. Be curious is not just a nice tagline. It’s a civic act. Our future depends on a STEM workforce that is not only skilled but also expansive and diverse. Innovation doesn’t happen in a monoculture. The most creative solutions come from rooms where different people, with different life experiences, look at the same problem. Every kid we fail to inspire, every community we leave out of the scientific conversation is a gap in our collective capacity to solve the problems headed our way — climate change, disease, infrastructure, all of it. A society that loses its grip on critical thinking doesn’t just make bad policy. It becomes vulnerable — to misinformation, to manipulation, to fear. Science doesn’t ask you to believe blindly. It asks the opposite. It asks you to question, to test, to revise. That habit of mind is democratic in the deepest sense. Always be curious.
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Wei Gao reposted thisWei Gao reposted thisMy life’s work has been to maximize the size of the pie for the innovation economy: better, bigger outcomes for founders, company builders, and the entire region. For 26 years, I’ve strived to build a vibrant startup ecosystem here in Washington, and I’m very concerned that a state income tax would not only crush the innovation economy that Washington has come to take for granted but also fail to achieve its stated goals. Today, I published an op-ed in GeekWire laying out my concerns in detail. First, we need to clear the air on the narrative being used. The term “millionaire’s tax” itself is inaccurate. Let’s be clear: this new tax is an income tax. No income tax in history has ever stopped at just high earners. The legislature is trying to convince you otherwise, but their own track record proves otherwise: they’ve raised gas taxes, payroll taxes, revenue (B&O) taxes, and capital gains taxes. In Olympia, it’s never enough! They are trying to claim that an income tax won’t broadly expand in a future “emergency,” but it is folly to trust them on something with such severe risks. My inspiration for expanding the pie is derived from my own direct life experiences. My mom never went to college, and my dad was the first in his family to attend college. They met in the U.S. Army, and both worked incredibly hard to provide an opportunity for our family, which paved the way for me to study and work hard. Twenty-six years ago, I took the greatest risk of my life to move our young family from Georgia to Seattle to join a fledgling investment firm backing founders right as the dot-com bubble burst! Our firm, Madrona, helped founders prioritize, cut costs, and survive a true economic crisis exacerbated by 9/11. Founder resilience produced amazing success stories that contributed back to Washington state in countless ways. Now, many of those entrepreneurs have left the state for other regions that are more supportive of their contributions. Everyone deserves an opportunity to realize their full potential in life and earn the benefits from their hard work and risk-taking. Most who succeed choose to be very generous with their time, talents, and resources in the communities where they live. If state political leaders try to paper over bad economic policy with yet more taxes, those taxpayers will simply leave for a different state, meaning the state still won’t get the additional tax revenues they seek, and the innovation economy will be much worse for it. Ultimately, this income tax would serve to divide the pie rather than expand it. It would drive innovators away from Washington and leave us significantly weaker — and poorer! Sadly, that is not a narrative but a reality the state will have to live with forever if they create an income tax today. https://lnkd.in/g8xZmXQiOpinion: The narratives and realities of an income tax in WashingtonOpinion: The narratives and realities of an income tax in Washington
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Wei Gao shared thisThis is hands down the best leadership development program. Actually it is so much more than that - the sisterhood, the courage, the support and the inspiration last well beyond the program. Highly recommended! If you are interested in applying, we are hosting a Q&A session for Washington State applicants. Please ping me to get an invite.Wei Gao shared thisIWF’s 2025-2026 Leadership Fellows expanded their personal leadership capacity last week while attending INSEAD’s redesigned custom program in Fontainebleau, France. The goal: leverage the program’s highly experiential design, grounded in INSEAD’s pioneering research on leadership and gender, to better equip Fellows to navigate the universal challenges faced by all leaders- and the additional hurdles that women may encounter. Fellows concluded the week with a private reception hosted by IWF France at Galeries Lafayette, deepening both the powerful peer support network in the cohort and the connection to the IWF global community. Applications for the 2026–2027 Leadership Fellows Program are now being accepted and due on May 15. Apply below: https://lnkd.in/eb-_4GW9 #INSEADExecutiveEducation #INSEADCustomProgrammes INSEAD Executive Education Mary Carey Laure Drothier-Potter
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Wei Gao reposted thisWei Gao reposted thisAmzn and Msft co-authored an OpEd, and Brian Valentine and I wrote a response. We sent our response to The Seattle Times but they either (a) didn’t find it useful / timely for readers, or (b) thought publishing it might earn them a stint in Seattle Big Tech’s PR doghouse. Our experience tells us both are possible. :-) Either way, we’re sharing our response here and you can decide. We appreciate some may think LinkedIn isn’t the place for this, and in some other timeline, maybe that’s true. But in this one, it feels like exactly the place for this. Thanks for reading.Seattle Big Tech Must Build Its Way Out of an Integrity CrisisSeattle Big Tech Must Build Its Way Out of an Integrity Crisis
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Congrats!
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Aliette Leleux, you left lasting impact with your work and the foundation is lucky to have you at the helm!
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Wei Gao liked thisWei Gao liked thisCongratulations to Associate Professor Marijel (Maggie) Melo! 🎉 Melo has been named the next Frances Carroll McColl Term Professor at UNC SILS, a professorship recognizing faculty for notable contributions to research, teaching and service. Her research focuses on how students seek help, engage with information and build confidence as learners—whether entering a makerspace for the first time or using AI chatbots for academic support. “This recognition is especially meaningful because it reflects a research agenda centered on student learning and success across academic environments,” Melo says. Read the full story here: 🔗 https://buff.ly/GNhUxNd #UNCSILS #UNCChapelHill #FacultyAchievement #HigherEd #AI #StudentSuccessMaggie Melo Named McColl Term Professor at UNC SILS - School of Information and Library ScienceMaggie Melo Named McColl Term Professor at UNC SILS - School of Information and Library Science
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Wei Gao liked thisWei Gao liked thisThis morning, Xanadu began trading on the Nasdaq and TSX under ticker XNDU – becoming the first ever Creative Destruction Lab venture to go public. What began as a white paper in a CDL session is now a publicly traded company.
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Wei Gao liked thisWei Gao liked thisThank you all for joining us for the third annual BrainFest featuring amazing scientists from the @alleninstitute 🧠
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Wei Gao liked thisWei Gao liked thisLast week, I sent a memo to every Decagon employee about where we’re headed next. Sharing it here: In the near future, every brand will have an AI agent that serves as its primary interface with customers. Need to book a flight? Report a lost card? Order new running shoes? The way every business interacts with its customers is fundamentally changing. Every major technology shift like this produces a handful of defining companies. In the previous major shift, cloud replaced on-premise servers and unlocked a new category of applications. The successful ones, like Databricks, became $100B+ businesses. The shift to AI is even more significant, because it's touching a larger category of spend than cloud ever did. For the first time, delivering personalized, concierge-level experiences to every customer isn't constrained by headcount. That’s the market Decagon is building for. We’re in the early innings of creating the next Databricks of this generation. The application layer is where value accrues. Just as OpenAI and Anthropic are building the critical model layer, someone has to build the critical application layer on top that actually solves business problems end-to-end. History is clear on how this plays out: your hotel minifridge earns higher margins for a pack of M&M’s than the cocoa bean refinery. We have direct exposure to the business problem, with the pricing power that comes with it. The scope is massive. Decagon's main use case is customer service. As we’ve grown, our product has evolved to handle all conversations a brand has with its customers i.e. the "AI concierge". The reason we're winning against incumbents and competitors is that we’ve built the best end-to-end product. The entire development lifecycle can be done right in the product, accessible to more than just engineers. This is a genuinely hard technical problem. Strong foundational LLMs are only a small part of the solution. The rest of the industry is taking a Palantir-style approach, where forward-deployed engineers assemble custom agents for each company. It sounds reasonable until you realize that AI agents need constant iteration, and that architecture makes iteration expensive and slow. What businesses actually need is a natural language interface and an execution engine capable of capturing arbitrarily complex logic across wildly different customers. That requires training custom models to meet real performance requirements. It also requires building the surrounding platform tooling — versioning, analytics, simulation environments, automated self-improvement — so that less-technical teams can build and optimize their agent without engineering support. To accomplish this, we’ve assembled high-agency teams of cracked engineers, applied AI researchers, and former/future founders. The opportunity is in front of us, and it’s ours to execute on. ------------------------ If you’re interested in joining our team, open roles are in the comments.
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