Sheng Huang

I'm two days into living Verse #3, and wanted to share the questions I'm wrestling with, the connections I'm making, and a framework that emerged: https://youtu.be/hENpcs0nCfU

Bruce Lee defined will as the executive power that turns intention into action. But what if we strengthened our bones (our nature) instead? What if we let our actions flow directly from who we are, bypassing the need for will entirely?

That's what I'm sitting with this week. Pour some tea and let's walk through it together.

For those who can't read my crazy cursive, here's the writeup: open.substack.com/pub/sheng/p/bruce-lee-and-the-ta…

1 day ago | [YT] | 69

Sheng Huang

Sunday's live reflection on Verse #2 is up: youtube.com/live/MwwoV-5-lBc

I streamed it from under a tree at a music festival three hours outside Austin — phone balanced on a branch for reception, electrolytes instead of tea. Came in straight from organizing a chaotic two-day robotics conference in California, and the verse turned out to be exactly what I needed: letting go of how you thought things should look.

If you're on the fence about joining our Sunday reflections, here's what we covered: how water fills any container (and how to be more like water), "just tree" as a Zen koan, the bell curve of nuance, how to love and how to fight. And more…I've timestamped the whole thing, so drop into whatever pulls you.

Verse #3 is already in motion: https://youtu.be/uuQVvakFS7A

Along with the Substack companion essay: sheng.substack.com/p/the-lao-tzu-detox

And of course this week’s Verse #3 reflection livestream for this Sunday 8am PT: youtube.com/live/8CqCk1O4XYI.

See you there.

3 days ago | [YT] | 32

Sheng Huang

My friends, Verse #3 is up — a bit later than I planned. I've been overlanding deep in the wilderness this week and the Starlink wasn't cooperating. Spotty reception on the road too. Lao Tzu has a sense of humor, releasing a verse about emptying the mind on a day when the upload bar refused to move past 12%. That was my sign to leave the forest and return to modernity.

But in the spirit of slow is fast, I used the wait time to write a companion essay on Substack — going deeper into the 4-part Lao Tzu detox and how I'm living it this week. If the video is the seed, the essay is the soil, you are the gardener.

🎬 Verse #3 deep dive: https://youtu.be/uuQVvakFS7A
✍️ Companion essay: open.substack.com/pub/sheng/p/the-lao-tzu-detox

See you Sunday at 8am PT for our live reflection: youtube.com/live/8CqCk1O4XYI

— Sheng

3 days ago | [YT] | 85

Sheng Huang

Sunday's live reflection on Tao Te Ching's Verse #1 is up: youtube.com/live/Iz0u2ZHxzg0

First time opening this kind of morning practice to a circle — I had no idea what to expect, which was the point...full trust in what emerges from the Tao ;)

What came back was more nourishing than anything I could have planned.

We mapped the Three P's, sat with the three D's, and talked about why every expansion needs an intentional contraction. Chronos vs Kairos, presence vs performance, the weight of saying no when alignment shifts. The best parts were the threads YOU brought in real time in the live comments.

I've timestamped the whole thing — dive into whatever pulls you.

Same time next Sunday. Pour some tea, my friend.

1 week ago (edited) | [YT] | 50

Sheng Huang

May we continuously re-discover and remain within our inner stillness in each movement.

sheng.substack.com/p/tao-te-ching-verse-1-how-im-l…

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 29

Sheng Huang

Knowledge Absorption, vs passive reading, is an active mental and emotional endeavor - as demanding as any high intensity sport. You should feel like you're getting stronger even after an exhausting session with the writer. See you in Verse 1 of the Tao Te Ching tomorrow morning at 8am PT.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 19

Sheng Huang

Dear friends, it is not an overstatement to say that the Taoteching is the most important book that I have ever absorbed.

And I mean absorbed, not read.

Because I believe books are useless if we don't take the time to fully integrate them into our lives. If we don't create a dialogue with the writer,  question them, wrestle with them. Until eventually we find them worthy to include in our Council of Advisors, writers whose mindset and spirit is so ingrained that we don't just memorize  their words, but embody their being.

Filmed in the Austin greenbelt with a fresh copy of Red Pine's translation, a traveler's notebook, and some green tea. This is the start of a 4-month journey through the Taoteching — verse by verse, lived not read: https://youtu.be/IVF0nmGsoAQ

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 104

Sheng Huang

This Sunday I’m bringing something to life that’s been on my mind for a while.

It’s called Sunset Stories.

For the past few years I’ve noticed something missing in a lot of creative spaces. We often share the finished product — the song, the poem, the art — but not the story that made it inevitable.

The heartbreak.
The random Tuesday insight.
The strange path that led someone to create something in the first place.

Sunset Stories is an attempt to create a space for that.

A simple gathering at sunset where people share not just what they’ve made, but the story behind it.

No stage.
No pressure to perform.
Just a circle of people on blankets, watching the sun go down over Austin and listening to the human experiences behind what we create.

I’m excited (and a little nervous) to bring the first one to life this Sunday.

If you’re in Austin and want to be part of the very first gathering, I’d love to see you there.

Bring something you’ve made — or just come listen.

📍 Rock Island — Zilker Park
🗓 Sunday, March 15
⏰ 5:30pm (sharing starts 6ish)

RSVP here (link also in my bio)
partiful.com/e/1DyqdsZWGBcwlETRaNkt

See you at sunset 🌅

1 month ago | [YT] | 5

Sheng Huang

One question I keep coming back to lately as we wander through the post-AI age:

🏡 What if homes became cultural infrastructure instead of just investment assets?

For most of modern urban history, there’s been a familiar pattern.

Phase 1️⃣: Artists move into a neighborhood. They make it hip and vibrant: galleries, music, community, experimentation.

Phase 2️⃣: Then success attracts capital and development. Rents go up. Real estate values climb.

Phase 3️⃣: The very people who created the cultural energy get pushed out.

We’ve seen this story play out in city after city.

But I noticed something different about Austin.

Some property owners are opening their homes to become spaces for:

🎶 backyard concerts

🖼 small galleries

🤝 neighborhood gatherings

Instead of culture making real estate valuable…real estate is being used to host and sustain culture. 🔄

I see this shift becoming even more important in our post-AI world. If productivity becomes increasingly automated, the real scarcity may not be labor or capital.

It may be human presence, expression, connection. It might just be the new North Star for our purpose when we’ve shed our identity attachment to job titles. Instead of introducing ourselves at dinner parties by what “we do”, we’ll describe ourselves by what “we create”.

And the places where those things happen might not be traditional offices and venues.

They might be homes.

On Saturday at SXSW I'm exploring this idea together with Ten Cadle, Reid Estreicher, and Malcolm Holden — community leaders who have been actively experimenting with what this looks like in practice:

"Real Estate Reimagined: Turning Homes into Urban Cultural Engines"

📍 Remedy Bar Austin

🕒 Saturday 3/14 • 1–2 PM

Signup: luma.com/obnvrh4d

If you're around SXSW and curious about new models for cities, culture, and community infrastructure, come join the conversation and say hi! I'd love to meet you in person :)

1 month ago | [YT] | 3

Sheng Huang

Apparently *700+ builders, founders, and investors* have already RSVPed for tomorrow’s AI Builders event at SXSW.

Which feels fitting, because the question we’re exploring is becoming increasingly important:

🤖 + 🧑 What if AI doesn’t reduce human agency — but dramatically expand it?

For most of the past decade, the dominant narrative around AI has been replacement.

AI replaces workers.
AI replaces skills.
AI replaces decision-making.

But agent systems are starting to suggest a different model. Instead of replacing humans, they may *amplify human intent*.

The limiting factor stops being technical capability and starts becoming something else:

Clarity of intention.
What do you want done?
What problem are you trying to solve?
What outcome do you care about?

The people who thrive in this world might not be the best programmers.
They might be the people who can:

• frame problems clearly
• orchestrate systems
• exercise judgment
• take responsibility for outcomes

In other words, the scarce resource becomes *agency*.

Tomorrow I’ll be digging into this with Thomas Chen, who IPO’d BitGo and is now deep in the world of OpenClaw — an open-source AI agent system that’s spreading like wildfire.

We’ll explore:
• whether this is a Sputnik moment for human agency
• what’s hype vs what’s real
• and how non-technical people can actually get in on this shift

📍 SXSW — ART HUB ATX
🕒 Thursday 3/12 • 3:40–4:30 PM

If you’re around SXSW and thinking about the future of human-AI collab, come join the convo.

Signup: luma.com/vwllgca0

If it's recorded, let me know if you'd like to me to post it to this channel 👇

1 month ago | [YT] | 13