Podcast Notes Playlist: Latest Episodes PN Deep Dive: Naval Ravikant: How to Get Rich, Episodes 6-20
Live Below Your Means For Freedom (Listen) Episode 6
* “People who are living far below their means enjoy a freedom that people busy upgrading their lifestyle just can’t fathom” – Naval Ravikant
* Once you start making money, keep living like your old/poorer self
* When you upgrade your life as you make more money, you just stay in the “wage slave trap”
* Nassim Taleb has said – “The most dangerous things are heroin and a monthly salary”
* They’re both highly addictive
* One reason the very high marginal tax rates for the so-called wealthy are flawed:
* For many people, they toil/work extremely hard for decades, and then it finally pays off with a massive payday
* “Then of course Uncle Sam shows up, and basically says, ‘Hey, you know what, you just made a lot of money this year. Therefore, you’re rich. Therefore, you’re evil and you’ve got to hand it all over to us.’ So, it just destroys those kinds of creative risk-taking professions.” – Naval Ravikant
Give Society What it Doesn’t Know How to Get (Listen) | Episode 7
* Get rich by giving society what it doesn’t yet know how to get – at scale
* Money is like an IOU from society for something you did good in the past, that you can use in the future
* “Society always wants new things and if you want to be wealthy, figure out which one of those things you can provide for society that it does not yet know how to get, but it will want, that’s natural to you and within your capabilities. And then you have to figure out how to scale it.” – Naval Ravikant
* Creations start as just an act of creativity
* Then, for a little while, only rich people have it (like a chauffeur)
* Then it makes its way to everyone (like Uber)
* “Entrepreneurship is essentially an act of creating something new from scratch, predicting that society will want it, and then figuring out how to scale it and get it to everybody in a profitable and self-sustaining way.” – Naval Ravikant
The Internet Has Massively Broadened Career Possibilities (Listen) | Episode 8
* “The internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. Most people haven’t figured this out yet.” – Naval Ravikant
* The internet connects everyone on the planet
* This means that you can find an audience for your product/service no matter how far away they are
* “The internet allows any niche obsession…from people who collect snakes to people who like to ride hot air balloons to people who like to sail around the world by themselves…whatever nice obsession you have, the internet allows you to scale.” – Naval Ravikant
* “If you want to reach 50,000 passionate people like you, there’s an audience out there for you”
* “Each person on Earth has different interests and obsessions, and it’s that diversity that becomes a creative superpower” – Naval Ravikant
* Before the internet – this didn’t really matter
* Your town/village didn’t necessarily need your unique creative skill
* But now – you can go out on the internet and find your audience and utilize that to build wealth
* The space of careers has been broadened -Examples:
* People are now able to upload videos to Youtube to make a living – this wasn’t possible 50 years ago
* Professional bloggers
* Podcasters – Joe Rogan makes about $100 million per year from his podcast alone
* “The internet enables any niche interest, as long as you’re the best at it, to scale-out” – Naval Ravikant
* Because every human is different, everyone is the best at something
* “Escape competition through authenticity” – Naval Ravikant
* Just do your own thing – “No one can compete with you on being you”
* “The more authentic you are, the less competition you’re gonna have”
Play Long-term Games With Long-term People (Listen) | Episode 9
* “All the benefits in life come from compound interest” – Naval Ravikant
* Whether it’s in relationships, life, your career, health, or learning
* Long-term games are good for both compound interest AND trust
* If you want to be successful, more likely than not, you’ll need to work with other people
* You’ll need to figure out who you can trust over a long period of time, so you can keep working with them so that eventually compound interest will let you collect the major rewards
* If you keep switching careers/networks – compound interest can’t take effect
* Add to that – you won’t know who to trust and your new network won’t know to trust you
* “It’s important to pick an industry where you can play long-term games with long-term people” – Naval Ravikant
* A good analogy:
* In a long-term game, everyone is making each other rich
* It’s positive-sum
* In a short-term game, everyone is making themselves rich
Pick Partners With Intelligence, Energy and Integrity (Listen) | Episode 10
* Pick people to work with who have high intelligence, high energy, and high integrity – you CANNOT compromise on this
* The world is full of smart/lazy people – this is why high energy is important
* But high integrity is the most important
* Otherwise, you just have a smart/hardworking crook who will eventually cheat you
* How do you figure out if someone has good integrity?
* Read signals
* “Signals are what people do, despite what they say” – Naval Ravikant
* If someone treats a waiter badly, it’s only a matter of time before they treat you badly
* Another tip – Find people to work with who seem irrationally ethical
* “Self-esteem is the reputation that you have with yourself” – Naval Ravikant
* Good/ethical/reliable people tend to have high self-esteem because they have good reputations with themselves
* “Generally, the more someone is saying that they’re moral, and ethical, and high integrity, the less likely they are to be that way” – Naval Ravikant
* Similarly – “If you openly talk about how honest, and reliable, and trustworthy you are, you’re probably not that honest and trustworthy”
* Sam Altman has said – “One of the important things for delegation is to delegate to people who are actually good at the thing that you want them to do”
* “I almost won’t start a company, or hire a person, or work with somebody if I just don’t think they’re into what I want them to do” – Naval Ravikant
* “If you’re trying to keep someone motivated for the long term, that motivation has to come intrinsically” – Naval Ravikant
Partner With Rational Optimists (Listen) | Episode 11
* Don’t partner with pessimists
* Avoid them
* To create great things, you have to be a rational optimist
* Rational in the way you see the world
* Optimistic in your capabilities
* “All of the really successful people I know have a really strong action bias. They just do things.” – Naval Ravikant
* The easiest way to figure out if something is viable or not is by doing it
* “You’ve got one life on this planet. Why not try to build something big?” – Naval Ravikant
* But do know that it takes a lot of effort to build even small things
* “I don’t think the corner grocery store owner is working any less hard than Elon Musk“ – Naval Ravikant
* Think BIG – but be rational about it
* Being an irrational optimist > being a rational cynic
* If you think about it, we’re descended from pessimists
* If two people were in a forest 10,000 years ago, and they hear a tiger – the optimist doesn’t run and ends up getting eaten, while the pessimist books it and survives
* “We’re genetically wired to be pessimists, but modern society is far, far safer” – Naval Ravikant
* “It made sense to be pessimistic in the past, but it makes sense to be an optimist today”
* In society today, we’re dealing with situations which have limited downside and unlimited upside
* Just think – if you build the next Tesla or SpaceX you can create billions of dollars of value for society (and yourself)
* If you fail, so what? A few investors lose money and you’re right back to where you started.
Arm Yourself With Specific Knowledge (Listen) | Episode 12
* “We have this idea that everything can be taught…..everything can be taught in school. And it’s not true that everything can be taught. In fact, the most interesting things cannot be taught. But everything can be learned.” – Naval Ravikant
* Specific knowledge is the knowledge that you care most about
* You can’t be trained for specific knowledge
* If it were possible to be trained for it – then someone else could be trained for it too
* You’d then be extremely replaceable – by other humans and eventually robots
* How do you discover your specific knowledge?
* “Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your innate talents, your genuine curiosity, and your passion” – Naval Ravikant
* “If you’re not 100% into it, then someone else who is 100% into it will outperform you”
* Look back on your own life and see what you’re uniquely good at
* Specific knowledge is the stuff that feels like play to you but looks like work to others
Specific Knowledge is Highly Creative or Technical (Listen) | Episode 13
* Warren Buffet once went to Benjamin Graham, author of The Intelligent Investor, and offered to work for him for free so he could learn about investing
* Benjamin told him – “Actually you’re overpriced. Free is overpriced.”
* Apprenticeships are VALUABLE – if specific knowledge can somehow be taught, this is how
* Specific knowledge tends to be highly technical or creative – on the bleeding edge of art, communication, or tech
* An example of specific knowledge – what Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, has done with his career
* He’s essentially becoming one of the most credible people in the world by making persuasive arguments and videos on Periscope
* What he does will NEVER be automated
* Specific knowledge can only be built by spending lots of time doing whatever you’re obsessed/interested in
* It can’t be taught in a book or course
* Career Advice – Aim to get in the 10-25th percentile of 2-3 things and then combine them instead of trying to be the very best at only one thing
* Scott Adams originated this idea in this blog post
* For example: Become a very good writer and knowledgeable about finance – then write about finance
* Double down on what you’re a “natural” at
* Everyone is a natural at something
* “Take the things that you are natural at and combine them so that you automatically, just through sheer interest and enjoyment, end up top in the top 25% or top 10% or top 5% at a number of things.” – Naval Ravikant
Learn to Sell, Learn to Build – You Will Be Unstoppable (Listen) | Episode 14
* “Learn to sell, learn to build, if you can do both, you will be unstoppable.” – Naval Ravikant
* Every business has someone who’s building/trying to grow it
* Then there’s sales
* But selling can mean marketing, communicating, recruiting, raising money, inspiring people, or doing PR
* The great companies have a killer combo of builder + seller
* Example – Apple (Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak)
* Venture investors look for this combo whenever possible
* If you can BOTH build and sell – it’s a superpower
* Someone like Elon Musk or Marc Andreessen
* “The real giants in any field are the people who can both build and sell” – Naval Ravikant
* “Long term, people who understand the underlying product and how to build it and can sell it, these are catnip to investors. These people can break down walls if they have enough energy, and they can get almost anything done.” – Naval Ravikant
* It’s much more difficult for someone skilled in selling to pick up the building skill than vice versa
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