My father's spa slippers sat at the entrance of our shared office at our headquarters in San Mateo for years.
One day in December 2021 they were gone.
That was the moment I knew I was actually in charge.
I started working at Westlake in 2014. I came in at a midlevel position. Not at the top. Not with a title that meant anything yet. I had to earn my way up the same building my grandfather started and my father grew.
By 2019 I had assembled my own team (Lino Campanile, Jessica Smith and my sister Kelly Chang Levine). People I had chosen, who had chosen me. We were ready to start raising outside capital and build what I had started calling Westlake 3.0.
There was one problem. My dad wasn't ready to retire.
So in January of 2020 I took a six-month sabbatical to travel and clear my head. (I will let you guess how that timing worked out.)
When I got back, my dad (Will Chang) and I sat down and made a plan. He would fully step out by the end of 2021. No specific date. Just December.
And then one morning the slippers were gone.
He had not announced it. There was no ceremony. He had simply done what he said he would do, when he said he would do it.
That kind of trust is rarer in family business than anyone will tell you. Most transitions do not go this way. The founder or the second generation hangs on too long. They hover. They second-guess. The next generation does not get the space they need in their thirties to grow into the leader the business needs them to become.
My dad understood something I think is genuinely rare. Stepping back was not abandonment. It was the highest compliment he could have paid me. I think about those slippers a lot. I hope I remember them when it is my turn to pack up mine.
What is the one thing a parent or mentor did that gave you the space to actually become yourself?
The Day the Slippers Were Gone
