I’m Owen Hsiao (蕭為謙), currently based in Taiwan.
I spent several years working as a software developer before taking time off to travel and think more deliberately about what I want to do with my life. During that period, I visited Eastern Europe, Turkey, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. To see and to know how people living their life.
Those experiences shifted something in how I think. Being exposed to different cultures, meeting people with completely different worldviews, and having long conversations with artists, entrepreneurs, and travelers made me realize how narrow my previous intellectual circle had been.
I write about things I’m trying to understand: psychology, philosophy, decision-making, learning methods, and occasionally music theory or statistical reasoning.
Most of my writing falls into two categories:
Essays are longer pieces where I explore an idea in depth—usually something I’ve been thinking about for a while and want to work through systematically.
Insights are shorter notes, observations, or frameworks I find useful. These are often concepts I want to remember or refer back to later.
I don’t claim to have figured things out. Most of what I write is me working through ideas, questioning assumptions, and trying to build better mental models.
I prefer evidence and clear reasoning over vague inspirational talk. When I reference research or theories, I try to understand them properly before writing about them. If something is just my opinion or speculation, I say so.
This blog is published in both English and Traditional Chinese. I’m more comfortable writing in Manderin for technical or analytical topics, but I try to make both versions equally thorough.
Technology and software development. That’s what I spent most of my professional life doing, and it’s still how I think about systems and problems.
But I’ve realized that purely technical thinking has its limits. Understanding people, culture, psychology, and philosophy matters just as much—maybe more—than understanding code.
If you want to reach out, email works best: [email protected]