Nothing defines me better than this map. Those hundreds of yellow and red dots quietly mark the places I went—for opportunities, not for fun. I’ve been all over North America, South America (mostly LatAm), Asia, and Europe—including Austria. I still haven’t had a real reason to do something in Africa yet.
Who am I?
Some cliché keywords: Ph.D. (math + computer science), businessman since sophomore year, entrepreneur, deal maker. I’m in my 40s, and the midlife crisis still hasn’t knocked on my door. I hate being defined. I want to be freer—beyond labels. So I practice whatever fits my schedule to know myself and the world: boxing, painting, coding, writing—just for fun.
The goal of writing Steel & Silk is to serve handsome Dr. Billy HAO first.
My bright side: spotting problems, assembling and running great teams, finding valuable assets, talking to interesting people, traveling, making deals. My dark side: daily life loaded with pressure, constant friction, messy holes, and relentless decisions.
I’m against “drawing the audience persona.” I’m the #1 audience. Everyone else is secondary. Writing, for me, is mainly a prompt—to think and act clear and clean. If something helps me think cleaner and move faster, I write it down. If not, I drop it.
Steel is a long, practical essay—methods, tools, and moves I can use immediately to solve my real daily problems.
Silk is a handwritten Zen/Buddhist distillation—turning method into teaching: one principle, one calmer way to see.
What you’ll get here:
Long essays from the field: decisions, experiments, failures, and what actually worked.
Practical tools I reuse: models, checklists, mental scripts, and “spiritual/philosophical” tools that keep me steady under pressure.
Most posts begin with a “Silk Leaf”: a handwritten note where I translate the Steel into Silk—often through Zen and Buddhist language.
This is it.
Thanks,
Billy H.
