The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness

by Eric Jorgenson

Making money is not a thing you do—it’s a skill you learn.

Getting rich is about knowing what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it.

If you don’t know yet what you should work on, the most important thing is to figure it out. You should not grind at a lot of hard work until you figure out what you should be working on.

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.

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.

Play iterated games. All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest.

Don’t partner with cynics and pessimists. Their beliefs are self-fulfilling.

Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.

Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now.

When specific knowledge is taught, it’s through apprenticeships, not schools.

Specific knowledge is often highly technical or creative. It cannot be outsourced or automated.

Reading is faster than listening. Doing is faster than watching.

Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true.

Specific knowledge cannot be taught, but it can be learned.

The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner.

Intentions don’t matter. Actions do. That’s why being ethical is hard.

99% of effort is wasted.

generally, people will forgive failures as long as you were honest and made a high-integrity effort.

Whether it’s business, exercise, romance, friendship, whatever, I think the meaning of life is to do things for their own sake. Ironically, when you do things for their own sake, you create your best work. Even if you’re just trying to make money, you will actually be the most successful.

You’re more likely to have skills society does not yet know how to train other people to do. If someone can train other people how to do something, then they can replace you. If they can replace you, then they don’t have to pay you a lot. You want to know how to do something other people don’t know how to do at the time period when those skills are in demand. [1]

Forty hour work weeks are a relic of the Industrial Age. Knowledge workers function like athletes—train and sprint, then rest and reassess.

Learn to sell, learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.

Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. When today is complete, in and of itself, you’re retired.

If you’re not getting promoted through the ranks, it gets a lot harder to catch up later in life. It’s good to be in a smaller company early because there’s less of an infrastructure to prevent early promotion. [76]

To get rich without getting lucky, we want to be deterministic. We don’t want to leave it to chance. [78]

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.

Nivi said, “In a long-term game, it seems that everybody is making each other rich. And in a short-term game, it seems like everybody is making themselves rich.”