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Getting rich is about knowing what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it. It is much more about understanding than purely hard work. Yes, hard work matters, and you can’t skimp on it. But it has to be directed in the right way.
Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.
Understand ethical wealth creation is possible. If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you.
You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom.
You will get rich by giving society what it wants but does not yet know how to get. At scale.
Pick an industry where you can play long-term games with long-term people.
Play iterated games. All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest.
Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.
Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage.
Specific knowledge is knowledge you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it can train someone else and replace you.
Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now.
Building specific knowledge will feel like play to you but will look like work to others.
Capital means money. To raise money, apply your specific knowledge with accountability and show resulting good judgment.
Judgment requires experience but can be built faster by learning foundational skills.
There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes.
Study microeconomics, game theory, psychology, persuasion, ethics, mathematics, and computers.
Work as hard as you can. Even though who you work with and what you work on are more important than how hard you work.
Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true.
There are no get-rich-quick schemes. Those are just someone else getting rich off you.
Apply specific knowledge, with leverage, and eventually you will get what you deserve.
Money is how we transfer wealth. Money is social credits. It is the ability to have credits and debits of other people’s time.
Wealth is the thing you want. Wealth is assets that earn while you sleep. Wealth is the factory, the robots, cranking out things. Wealth is the computer program that’s running at night, serving other customers. Wealth is even money in the bank that is being reinvested into other assets, and into other businesses.
Specific knowledge cannot be taught, but it can be learned.
No one can compete with you on being you.
Society, business, & money are downstream of technology, which is itself downstream of science. Science applied is the engine of humanity.
Another tweet I had that is worth weaving in, but didn’t go into the “How to Get Rich” tweetstorm, was very simple: “Escape competition through authenticity.” Basically, when you’re competing with people, it’s because you’re copying them. It’s because you’re trying to do the same thing. But every human is different. Don’t copy. [78]
The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner. You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn.
Intentions don’t matter. Actions do. That’s why being ethical is hard.
If you don’t own a piece of a business, you don’t have a path towards financial freedom.
If it entertains you now but will bore you someday, it’s a distraction. Keep looking.
If they can train you to do it, then eventually they will train a computer to do it.
You’re never going to get rich renting out your time.
We waste our time with short-term thinking and busywork. Warren Buffett spends a year deciding and a day acting. That act lasts decades.
Value your time at an hourly rate, and ruthlessly spend to save time at that rate. You will never be worth more than you think you’re worth.
Spend more time making the big decisions. There are basically three really big decisions you make in your early life: where you live, who you’re with, and what you do.
Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. When today is complete, in and of itself, you’re retired.
Ways to get lucky: • Hope luck finds you. • Hustle until you stumble into it. • Prepare the mind and be sensitive to chances others miss. • Become the best at what you do. Refine what you do until this is true. Opportunity will seek you out. Luck becomes your destiny.
Apply specific knowledge with leverage and eventually, you will get what you deserve.
There’s no shortcut to smart.
You don’t get rich by spending your time to save money. You get rich by saving your time to make money.
In an age of leverage, one correct decision can win everything. Without hard work, you’ll develop neither judgment nor leverage.
“Clear thinker” is a better compliment than “smart.”
The really smart thinkers are clear thinkers. They understand the basics at a very, very fundamental level. I would rather understand the basics really well than memorize all kinds of complicated concepts I can’t stitch together and can’t rederive from the basics. If you can’t rederive concepts from the basics as you need them, you’re lost. You’re just memorizing. [4]
The advanced concepts in a field are less proven. We use them to signal insider knowledge, but we’d be better off nailing the basics. [11]
Very smart people tend to be weird since they insist on thinking everything through for themselves.
To be honest, speak without identity.
Theoretical physicist Richard Feynman famously said, “You should never, ever fool anybody, and you are the easiest person to fool.” The moment you tell somebody something dishonest, you’ve lied to yourself. Then you’ll start believing your own lie, which will disconnect you from reality and take you down the wrong road.
If you have a criticism of someone, then don’t criticize the person—criticize the general approach or criticize the class of activities. If you have to praise somebody, then always try and find the person who is the best example of what you’re praising and praise the person, specifically. Then people’s egos and identities, which we all have, don’t work against you. They work for you. [4]
Ignore the noise. The market will decide.
Simple heuristic: If you’re evenly split on a difficult decision, take the path more painful in the short term.
