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

by Eric Jorgenson

you will get all the bathwater with the baby.

veneer

latchkey

If you have nothing in your

life, but you have at least one person that loves you unconditionally, it’ll do wonders for your self-esteem. [8]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

If you can’t code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts.

Judgment requires experience but can be built faster by learning foundational skills.

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

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

Set and enforce an aspirational personal hourly rate. If fixing a problem will save less than your hourly rate, ignore it. If outsourcing a task will cost less than your hourly rate, outsource it.

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.

mnemonic. [78]

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

The specific knowledge is sort of this weird combination of unique traits from your DNA, your unique upbringing, and your response to it. It’s almost baked into your personality and your identity.

The group of scientists who have made real breakthroughs and contributions probably added more to human society, I think, than any single other class of human beings. Not to take away anything from art or politics or engineering or business, but without science, we’d still be scrambling in the dirt fighting with sticks and trying to start fires.

Specific knowledge is found much more by pursuing your innate talents, your genuine curiosity, and your passion.

“Escape competition through authenticity.”

The best jobs are neither decreed nor degreed. They are creative expressions of continuous learners in free markets.

being able to convey yourself simply using ordinary English words is far more important than being able to write poetry, having an extensive vocabulary, or speaking seven different foreign languages.

Knowing how to be persuasive when speaking is far more important than being an expert digital marketer or click optimizer. Foundations are key.

You can only achieve mastery in one or two things. It’s usually things you’re obsessed about. [74]

foibles

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

glib

Code is probably the most powerful form of permissionless leverage.

The most interesting and the most important form of leverage is the idea of products that have no marginal cost of replication.

We waste our time with short-term thinking and busywork. Warren Buffett spends a year deciding and a day acting. That act lasts decades.

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

Whether in commerce, science, or politics—history remembers the artists.

The last kind of luck is the weirdest, hardest kind, where you build a unique character, a unique brand, a unique mindset, which causes luck to find you.

You don’t get rich by spending your time to save money. You get rich by saving your time to make money.

I think the smartest people can explain things to a child. If you can’t explain it to a child, then you don’t know it.

It’s only after you’re bored you have the great ideas.

“Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.”

praise specifically, criticize generally.