Career
I'm working full-time as the CEO & co-founder of Heptabase (2021-now) to create a world where anyone can effectively establish a deep understanding of anything.
Heptabase is backed by Y Combinator, Kleiner Perkins, HOF Capital, Moving Capital, Tonic Fund, and other notable investors, including the founders of Socialcam, Triplebyte, and Codementor. In 2023, it won 1st place in Product Hunt’s Annual Golden Kitty Award for Personal Productivity.
Contact
If you’d like to discuss work-related matters—such as collaborating with me, selling a product, investing in my company, or seeking my advice—please email me at alan@heptabase.com.
If you’d like to make friends or hang out, feel free to message me and introduce yourself on Messenger or Instagram. Some of my closest friendships have started with a simple cold DM.
Education
- 2016-2017: National Taiwan University
- Double major in Physics and Mathematics.
- Completed several graduate-level courses, including General Relativity and Classical Electrodynamics, as well as a senior project in Web Development.
- Voluntarily dropped out after completing my freshman year to spend more time reading books and building projects I found meaningful.
- 2019-2020: Minerva University
- Majored in Computational Science.
- Voluntarily dropped out after completing my freshman year to focus full-time on building my startup.
- 2022: Y Combinator
- A three-month startup accelerator program that funds and helps startups build better product, grow faster, and build leverage for fundraising. My startup was accepted into their Winter '22 batch (January–April 2022).
- YC has profoundly shaped the way I think about many things in the world. I highly recommend anyone to take their free online course: How to Start a Startup.
Strength
- According to many of my friends,
- I'm the most optimistic person they've ever met.
- I'm very consistent. Once I establish a routine, I follow it for years, non-stop.
- 2013-now: I’ve been writing one blog post per month, with more than 1 million views on my Ghost + Blogger + Medium blogs.
- 2021-now: I’ve been shipping new versions of Heptabase every month, averaging about nine releases per month.
- 2024-now: I’ve been using the Bend app to stretch my body every day.
- 2025-now: I’ve been reading academic publications or nonfiction books by award-winning scholars every day, spending about 1.5 hours per day on average.
- I'm good at mathematical reasoning and spatial comprehension skills.
- 2017: Presidential Award, Department of Physics, National Taiwan University
- 2015: Taiwan National Team Member of Physics Olympiad (ranked 10th in selection)
- 2015: 1st Place, Taiwan National Intelligent Ironman Creativity Contest
- 2014: 3rd Place, Mathematics Category, Taiwan International Science Fair
- 2012: 1st Place, Mathematics Category, Taiwan National Primary and High School Science Fair
- According to my self-reflection,
- I adapt to new ways of looking at things very quickly.
- I am much less affected by the sunk cost when I notice something isn't worth pursuing.
Curiosity
- What is knowledge, and how has the standard of knowledge changed over time?
- How does modern theoretical physics understand the universe?
- What are the origins of life and complex structures?
- How did modern mathematics become so abstract, and what is it ultimately pursuing?
- What are intelligence and consciousness, and how can we mathematically characterize the power and limits of intelligence and modern AI?
- What major historical milestones paved the way for achieving artificial superintelligence?
- How close are we to achieving abundant energy, and what are the major challenges?
- How close are we to curing all diseases, and what are the major challenges?
- What is the next major technological platform shift, and how will it happen?
- How does money function and shape the modern economy?
- How have social and economic structures adapted to each industrial revolution?
- How has the history of the modern era shaped today’s global order and conflicts?