Mao is a blogger, software architect, researcher in learning and social technology.

Mao's essay "Sharism: A Mind Revolution" appeared in the Freesouls book project.

In 2009, he was a speaker at the 40th anniversary of The Internet Conference held at UCLA[2][3] As a trained software engineer, he has a long history of developing both business and consumer software.

He worked as a Chief Architect in the Intel HomeCD project and Tangram BackSchool suite.

[4][5] As of 2008, Mao published an open letter to Google, challenging the search engine giant to support anti-censorship efforts and change its strategy on China.