Hey, I’m Jason.
I’m a writer and entrepreneur based in Brooklyn.
I believe that every challenge is a chance for us to unlock new possibilities for ourselves — we just need to have the guts, discipline, and imagination to face it.
- Twitter: @jasonshen
- LinkedIn: in/jasonshen
About the Blog
Since 2010, The Art of Ass-Kicking has been where I examine the strategies that individuals and organizations use to achieve and sustain high performance.
You can also find my writing in Fast Company and Better Humans.
Note: all writing on this site represents my personal views and not the views of any current or past employers.
Popular Posts
I’ve been blogging here for nearly a decade, so there’s a lot to go through, but here some of my favorite and most-read pieces:
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Press & Contributed Pieces
My writing and work has also appeared in other publications. Here are some to check out:
- Tech Stands Up: 13fund. A Joint Venture in Angel Philanthropy (podcast)
- Medium: Announcing 13 Fund
- Make a Difference: Why It’s the Responsibility of Leaders to Speak Openly About Their Emotional Life (interview)
- Techcrunch: All product creators can learn something from Jackbox Games’ user experiences
- Fast Company: Tech workers are showing the effects of COVID-19-related burnout
- Techcrunch: Cultivating adaptability is a pandemic coping skill
- Fast Company: “People are getting soft”: How the Away scandal exposed a Silicon Valley culture war
- Vox: Why Always Be My Maybe’s Asian American underachiever is groundbreaking
- ProductHunt: In Defense of Hard Pivots: From Hiring Platform to Esports Startup
- Fast Company: I’m a former elite athlete and I call BS on tech’s obsession with working long hours
- Indiana Business Times: Indy Tech Company Acquires New York Platform (press)
- Better Humans: How to Dramatically Improve Your Public Speaking + the podcast interview follow up
- NYTimes: What It’s Really Like to Risk it All in Silicon Valley (interview)
- Fast Company: The Networking Secret That Only Requires Writing Four Emails A Year
- Newton Wicked Local: Newton North alum Jason Shen sets Guinness Aztec push-ups record
- Sweet and Sour: Eat Bitter (ft Jason Shen) (podcast interview)
- Quartz: Enough with the excuses. It’s time to pay women what they’re worth with titles to match
- The Art of Authenticity: Jason Shen (podcast)
- The Atlantic: Asian Americans Feel Held Back at Work by Stereotypes (interview)
- Marketplace: Failing in order to succeed? There’s a conference for that (radio)
- Outside Magazine: Double Agents: Superhero Athletes of the Tech Industry
- LifeHacker: The Science of Practice: What Happens When You Learn a New Skill
- Pando: Smithsonian turns to crowdsourcing for massive digitization project (press)
- TechCrunch: Ridejoy Brings Its Ridesharing Service To The iPhone, Wants To Be Your Roadtrip Matchmaker (press)
- Mashable: The 35 Fittest People in Tech (list)
- NYTimes: Would You Trust Ridejoy’s Website? (interview)
About Me
TED / Ryan Lash
I’m the cofounder and CEO of Midgame, a Techstars and Betaworks backed company that helps gamers and esports teams play at their best.
My first startup, Ridejoy, competed with early versions of Lyft and was backed by Y Combinator and top Silicon Valley investors. My most recent company, the tech hiring platform Headlight, was acquired in 2019. I’ve written for Fast Company and Quartz, been interviewed by The New York Times and The Atlantic, and spoken on four continents at places like Google, Amazon, Pinterest, and TED.
I earned a BS and MS in biology at Stanford University, where I learned to think empirically like a scientist. I also captained Stanford’s men’s gymnastics team to the 2009 NCAA team championship, where I learned that nothing beats winning as a team.
As first-generation immigrant, I advocate on behalf of Asian Americans, in part by running The Asian American Man Study, and serve on the board of directors for the national civic tech nonprofit, the Presidential Innovation Fellowship Foundation.
On the personal side: I love athletic challenges and hold Guinness World Records for both Aztec pushups (set in 2014) and burpee pull-ups (2018).
I grew outside of Boston, spent almost a decade in Silicon Valley, and now live with my wife Amanda in Brooklyn… but I’ll never root for the Yankees.
