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

by Eric Jorgenson

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

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. ↓ Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games. ↓ 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.

The internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. Most people haven’t figured this out yet.

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

Pick business partners with high intelligence, energy, and, above all, integrity.

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.

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.

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.

Embrace accountability, and take business risks under your own name. Society will reward you with responsibility, equity, and leverage.

“Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.”

Fortunes require leverage. Business leverage comes from capital, people, and products with no marginal cost of replication (code and media).

Capital means money. To raise money, apply your specific knowledge with accountability and show resulting good judgment.

Leverage is a force multiplier for your judgment.

Good judgment in a sense is the mother of all leverage. if i can learn how to think clearly and chose the right decision, i will be able to use people, capital and product leverage better

Study microeconomics, game theory, psychology, persuasion, ethics, mathematics, and computers.

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

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

Without accountability, you don’t have incentives.

I only really want to do things for their own sake.

A leveraged worker can out-produce a non-leveraged worker by a factor of one thousand or ten thousand. With a leveraged worker, judgment is far more important than how much time they put in or how hard they work.

Well, we know it’s better because this person has some accountability. They’re responsible for the outcome, they have to sweat at night if things aren’t working.

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.

Money is not the root of all evil; there’s nothing evil about it. But the lust for money is bad. The lust for money is not bad in a social sense. It’s not bad in the sense of “you’re a bad person for lusting for money.” It’s bad for you.

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.

build your character in a certain way, then your character becomes your destiny.

“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.”

“Be a maker who makes something interesting people want. Show your craft, practice your craft, and the right people will eventually find you.” [14]

People are oddly consistent. Karma is just you, repeating your patterns, virtues, and flaws until you finally get what you deserve.

Amazing how many people confuse wealth and wisdom.

Wealth is external, wisdom is internal. Wealth is about assets, material security. Wisdom is about understanding life and making sound judgements. You need both.

Facebook redesigns. Twitter redesigns. Personalities, careers, and teams also need redesigns. There are no permanent solutions in a dynamic system.

I never ask if “I like it” or “I don’t like it.” I think “this is what it is” or “this is what it isn’t.” —Richard Feynman

praise specifically, criticize generally.

Mental models are really just compact ways for you to recall your own knowledge. [78]

Principal-Agent Problem

It’s a problem of misaligned incentives and information asymmetry. (the agent knows more than the principal) how to solve?? - incentive alignment => agent benefits only if principal benefits. - get rid of asymmetric information - might be third party reviews.