Li Shanyou: Purity Means Hiding Nothing
Counselor Vitality
For the first episode of our podcast Signal and Noise, our guest is Professor Shanyou Li, founder of Hundun (混沌). From the persistence of "doing just one thing for ten years" to the epiphany of "the opening of the world of ideas"; from the lectern at CEIBS to his studies at Stanford, to the founding and evolution of Hundun — this is a reflection on "purity," and the inner journey of an entrepreneurship mentor who guards his internal order amid the noise and refuses to hold anything back.
We hope this conversation leaves you with some feeling of purity as well.
If you have any reflections you'd like to share after listening, please leave us a comment.
Below, we've excerpted some of the most inspiring moments from our conversation, shared here in written form.
Enjoy.
Li Shanyou: I think I was influenced by one person — Wang Dongyue. I started listening to his lectures in 2013, and began studying philosophy. Philosophy gets to the root of things, so I started asking: "What's underneath this internet thinking?" And I realized: it's essentially mobile internet, a discontinuous innovation against traditional industries. So I began lecturing on disruptive innovation, discontinuous innovation, and so on.
But academically, I couldn't really discuss it with anyone — it was too new, and people didn't understand what I was talking about. So I thought: if I want to learn this, what's the best school in the world for entrepreneurship and innovation?
Stanford.
In 2015, I went to Stanford as a visiting scholar for a full year. First, to study seriously. Second, to found Hundun.
Oasis: Did founding Hundun feel forced at the time?
Li Shanyou: From today's perspective, "forced" only describes how it felt at that level of understanding. From a higher dimension, it was the universe giving me a push.
Oasis: What was your state of mind back then?
Li Shanyou: I thought it was wonderful. Going to study for a year meant putting everything down, learning like a student.
It was there that the motivation to found Hundun sprouted. I said I wanted to build an internet university without walls. The concrete vision of that educational dream — Stanford gave me that.
Oasis: You'd already attended and taught at CEIBS, and met many founders. What moment at Stanford made you suddenly realize this school was different?
Li Shanyou: At Stanford, I completely treated myself as an undergraduate.
The teaching style at Stanford's business school is similar to CEIBS — one professor plus one Silicon Valley entrepreneur, co-teaching a course. The entrepreneurs were top-tier, the professors world-class. Logically, the courses should have been world-class. I was excited at first, but after listening, I found they were still talking about phenomena, still telling stories, still teaching theorems. This wasn't what I wanted.
So in my second semester, I started attending philosophy classes, physics, biology, cosmology — all kinds of classes. I'd ride my bike there in the early morning while it was still dim, and return home after dark.
Stanford has a hill behind it, where Steve Jobs often went. One day I climbed to the top. To the south was the Pacific Ocean; to the north, I could see Stanford. The buildings are all yellow, nestled among the trees. In that moment, I felt: I have to build a Stanford. That feeling.
Li Shanyou: There was another story that moved me then — the story of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. They invited Albert Einstein and told him: research if you want, don't if you don't want to. We'll give you a year, do as you please. That story deeply moved me.
Also, the Santa Fe Institute, the holy land of complexity science, in the desert, bringing together professors from interdisciplinary fields — that story influenced me too.
I hoped to start with myself, but ultimately, to truly find some pure, talented scholars and let them do scholarship purely, without worrying about titles or money — none of that. This was deeply appealing to me.
Oasis: So it sounds like you were supposed to study business, but instead you studied the universe, studied physics. And you became very interested in that kind of pure, interdisciplinary research. And then in 2017, Hundun became a "university."
What changed from 2017 to now?
Li Shanyou: In 2020, new regulations came out — we had to drop the word "university." So what to call it then? I traced back to ancient Greece.
In ancient Greece there was Plato's Academy. Raphael's painting The School of Athens — that held great meaning for me. Even when we were still called Hundun University, I had someone replicate that painting and hung it in our most important meeting room.
Oasis: Why?
Li Shanyou: I built a "lingjiao" ecosystem. When they were organizing Hundun's materials and interviewing me, they asked: "Professor, why did you put this painting next door?" I suddenly started crying, tears streaming down.
I said I want to find the people in this painting. I want to create such an academy in China.
This anchor weighs heavily in my heart. Originally I lectured on entrepreneurship and innovation, then started talking about cognition, but cognition still felt empty. Eventually I was really talking about philosophy, defined as "philosophical and scientific thinking illuminates innovation." Then I traced back to ancient Greece. Around 2016, I was talking about "first principles," still citing Aristotle's era. By 2019, I knew in my heart I had returned to Plato. When we couldn't use "university," we changed it to Hundun Academy — actually an homage to Plato's Academy. That's how the change happened.
Oasis: It seems like every time you've been pure in your life, it's been a turning point.
You went to Stanford with purpose, looking for answers in business school. Couldn't find them, so you said forget it, I'll study other things instead. Didn't matter if I understood or not — no purpose, then pure, and purity changed you. Also because of political and economic reasons, you stayed home watching movies and reading books, no purpose, pure, and discovered the "world of ideas."
But given your philosophical and scientific training, even after realizing the "world of ideas" exists, shouldn't your first reaction have been "I'm not the inventor, I'm the discoverer"?
Li Shanyou: No. For example, when I give a big lecture, I don't hold back even a fraction. I present everything I know, the very best of what I have.
I lecture with my life. I have immense respect for the lectern — I must be worthy of those listening.
And precisely because of this mindset, after each lecture I discover "this part isn't right" or "this can be dug deeper." So often the day after lecturing, I start preparing anew, and ideas naturally emerge.
So there's really something of offering myself as a sacrifice to the lecture.
Oasis: Actually, most people hold things back, because holding back feels like self-protection. Instead, by not holding back, you discovered your own problems. In other words, not holding back is actually a form of protection?
Li Shanyou: Just as Wenfeng Liang of DeepSeek said "open source is actually protection" — "leaving no room" has enormously helped me.
The less you express, the less you empty yourself completely, the less new things can emerge. This is a truth I later understood. As I once told you: it's cash flow, not cash. Only when it flows is it money; when it doesn't flow, it's not money.
Later I understood: "wisdom" isn't right either. It should be "wisdom flow." The flow of wisdom is wisdom. Once it stops flowing, wisdom is no different from mud or chaos — it blocks the heart.
Oasis: So what should the flowing attitude toward scholarship be?
Li Shanyou: Let it carry you along. Who has this feeling? Hayao Miyazaki. He draws, but halfway through he doesn't even know what the ending will be. He lets the rhythm inside carry him, and the result is always a masterpiece.
Doing scholarship is the same. Wang Dongyue wrote The Theory of Evolution of Things with no draft, no conclusion, nothing. Write the first sentence, and there's a second. Write the first chapter, and there's a second.
Let scholarship carry you, and only then can results emerge. Otherwise, "I want it to be like this" — you yourself become its boundary.
Oasis: Not holding back sounds easy, but it's actually quite hard for entrepreneurs. Especially many entrepreneurs who are experts in some field — some people probably followed them early on precisely because of this so-called professional ability, and they'll instinctively use this to protect themselves.
Li Shanyou: Wenfeng Liang put it very well. He said that in disruptive technology fields, closed source doesn't actually create competitive advantage. Instead, open source forces you to build your capabilities on your team's growth. Based on team growth, you must build an innovative culture. If the culture exists, the team will grow. I think this gets to something fundamental.
Not holding back — letting your abilities flow outward — finally allows your talent to emerge. If you don't use your abilities to the limit, talent won't come out.
So expression is full of divinity — you must express outward. At first the expression may be mud, but that's fine. Once the mud is expressed, what remains may be water; continued expression may become vapor, true gaseous form. The higher you go, finally it's the "Dao." You can't hide anything — not even the "Dao."
Oasis: We encounter many young entrepreneurs, born in '95 or even post-2000, very excellent. What advice would you give them to maintain this purity, or return to it?
Li Shanyou: Two things.
First, let them see pure people. A person cannot see themselves in themselves — I see myself in you. The resonance that your purity brings gives me strength. If you ask me to find it myself, I can't. People usually have a lot of self-doubt.
Let pure people be with pure people. The resonance between hearts and hearts — I believe this is the greatest force, because it can produce emergence.
Second, from a business perspective, give them positive feedback. Because you must also see both sides of things — pure people have the heart of the Dao, but are weak in technique. So they should be helped commercially.
Being together is so important. Being together makes one increasingly pure. Technical things can be learned from each other — that's the solution.
At major historical junctures, bad money usually drives out good. Through pure resonance, we can change this — how important that is!