reflection of conscious choices he’s made to do things differently. (Location 102)
But I don’t take his perspectives, maxims, and thoughts seriously because of the business stuff. (Location 112)
Questions nearly everything Can think from first principles Tests things well Is good at not fooling himself Changes his mind regularly Laughs a lot Thinks holistically Thinks long-term And...doesn’t take himself too goddamn seriously. (Location 114)
So, pay attention...but don’t simply parrot his words. Follow his advice...but only if it holds up after scrutiny and stress-testing in your own life. (Location 120)
Naval is broadly followed because he is a rare combination of successful and happy. (Location 132)
while maintaining a healthy, peaceful, and balanced life. (Location 134)
An introspective founder, self-taught investor, capitalist, and engineer (Location 136)
Tweets, podcasts, and interviews quickly get buried and lost. (Location 146)
My mother uniquely provided, against the background of hardship, unconditional and unfailing love. 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] (Location 172)
Books make for great friends, because the best thinkers of the last few thousand years tell you their nuggets of wisdom. [8] (Location 178)
once I had the Stuyvesant brand, I got into (Location 182)
I always have a bunch of side projects. [4] (Location 187)
at the end of the day, I can’t quite teach anything. I can only inspire you and maybe give you a few hooks so you can remember. [77] (Location 191)
I like to think that if I lost all my money and you dropped me on a random street in any English-speaking country, within five or ten years I’d be wealthy again because it’s just a skillset I’ve developed that anyone can develop. [78] (Location 199)
It’s not really about hard work. (Location 202)
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. (Location 202)
Yes, hard work matters, and you can’t skimp on it. But it has to be directed in the right way. (Location 203)
You should not grind at a lot of hard work until you figure out what you should be working on. (Location 205)
Over time (sadly or fortunately), the thing I got really good at was looking at businesses and figuring out the point of maximum leverage to actually create wealth and capture some of that created wealth. (Location 207)
Seek wealth, not money or status. (Location 213)
Understand ethical wealth creation is possible. If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you. (Location 215)
You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. (Location 218)
You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom. (Location 219)
You will get rich by giving society what it wants but does not yet know how to get. At scale. (Location 220)
Pick an industry where you can play long-term games with long-term people. (Location 222)
Play iterated games. (Location 225)
All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest. (Location 225)
Pick business partners with high intelligence, energy, and, above all, integrity. (Location 227)
Don’t partner with cynics and pessimists. (Location 228)
Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable. (Location 230)
Specific knowledge is knowledge you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it can train someone else and replace you. (Location 232)
Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now. (Location 234)
Specific knowledge is often highly technical or creative. It cannot be outsourced or automated. (Location 238)
Embrace accountability, and take business risks under your own name. (Location 240)
Business leverage comes from capital, people, and products with no marginal cost of replication (code and media). (Location 244)
To raise money, apply your specific knowledge with accountability and show resulting good judgment. (Location 245)
Labor leverage will impress your parents, but don’t waste your life chasing it. (Location 248)
Code and media are permissionless leverage. They’re the leverage behind the newly rich. You can create software and media that works for you while you sleep. (Location 251)
If you can’t code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts. (Location 254)
Leverage is a force multiplier for your judgment. (Location 256)
There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes. (Location 258)
Study microeconomics, game theory, psychology, persuasion, ethics, mathematics, and computers. (Location 260)
Reading is faster than listening. Doing is faster than watching. (Location 261)
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. ↓ (Location 264)
Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true. ↓ (Location 268)
Apply specific knowledge, with leverage, and eventually you will get what you deserve. (Location 271)
Productize Yourself (Location 274)
“Yourself” has uniqueness. “Productize” has leverage. “Yourself” has accountability. “Productize” has specific knowledge. “Yourself” also has specific knowledge in there. So all of these pieces, you can combine them into these two words. (Location 275)
decades—I’m not saying it takes decades to execute, but the better part of a decade may be figuring out what you can uniquely provide. [10] (Location 280)
Technology democratizes consumption but consolidates production. The best person in the world at anything gets to do it for everyone. (Location 290)
Society will pay you for creating things it wants. (Location 291)
So, technology is the set of things, as Alan Kay said, that don’t quite work yet [correction: Danny Hillis]. Once something works, it’s no longer technology. (Location 295)
Sales skills are a form of specific knowledge. (Location 303)
When you meet someone who is a natural at sales, you just know they’re amazing. They’re really good at what they do. That is a form of specific knowledge. (Location 304)
But you can improve sales skills. You can read Robert Cialdini, you can go to a sales training seminar, you can do door-to-door sales. It is brutal but will train you very quickly. You can definitely improve your sales skills. (Location 307)
Specific knowledge cannot be taught, but it can be learned. (Location 309)
figure out what you were doing as a kid or teenager almost effortlessly. Something you didn’t even consider a skill, but people around you noticed. (Location 310)
The specific knowledge is sort of this weird combination of unique traits from your DNA, your unique upbringing, and your response to it. (Location 317)
It’s almost baked into your personality and your identity. Then you can hone it. (Location 318)
Society, business, & money are downstream of technology, which is itself downstream of science. (Location 328)
