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Duolingo has become one of the most recognizable brands on the internet, but what does it *actually* take for a language-learning app to become a cultural phenomenon?

Katherine “Kat” Chan, Sr. Director of Marketing at Duolingo, has spent her career at the intersection of tech, culture, and creativity. Before helping turn Duo into the internet’s favorite unhinged owl, she worked at Red Bull, Tesla and Facebook, alongside some of the biggest names in tech like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

And despite all of that, Kat has almost no digital footprint. She rarely does interviews, which made this a very rare chance to unpack how she actually thinks about creativity, taste, ambition, and building brands people genuinely care about.

In this ep, we talk about:

→ how Duolingo built a brand that moves at internet speed

→ why most companies can’t simply copy the Duolingo playbook

→ what “good taste” actually means and whether you can learn it

→ how Kat hires and identifies exceptional creative talent

→ where AI can make creatives better... and where it makes us dangerously average

→ what working at Tesla and Facebook taught her about prestige, burnout, and choosing the right environment

→ and the question I can’t stop thinking about before becoming a mom: can you actually have it all?

This episode is a masterclass in taste, creative leadership, internet culture, and building an ambitious career without letting ambition consume you.

→ Find Kat on Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/yotsechan/

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Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-art-of-being-tastefully-unhinged-sr-director/id1752596006?i=1000785565362

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/05BVa2zx0dWMAWCgFTtHwl?si=5LL91A13T262DbQW6zPsAg

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The Art of Being Tastefully Unhinged | Sr Director of Brand Marketing @Duolingo, Kat Chan

Office Drama

The Art of Being Tastefully Unhinged | Sr Director of Brand Marketing @Duolingo, Kat Chan