The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

April 12, 2024


I finished reading this book in three separate visits to a bookstore while my mother was shopping or getting a haircut.

It's just Naval's tweet thread on How to Get Rich (without getting lucky) packaged into a book, so it was very readable.

A few notes to remember:

  • Learn how to build and how to sell.
  • 99% of effort is wasted, go all in on the 1%. Focus on foundational skills.
  • Follow curiosity and passion - find what feels like work to others that is play to you.
  • Earn with your mind, not your time.
  • 3 types of leverage: labor, money,and permissionless leverage (code, media. Having all 3 -> billion dollar company
  • Spend more making the big 3 decisions:
    • 1) where you live, 2) who you’re with, and 3) what you do
  • Get out of competition trap
    • Doing the thing you know you’re to do better than anybody. If you love to do it, be authentic, and then figure out how to map that to something society wants.
    • Apply some leverage and put your name on it. You take the risk but you gain the rewards, have ownership and equity in what you’re doing, and just crank it up
  • Creating business and making money is nor more of an art.
    • Art is creativity, anything done for is own sake. Creating business is play
  • Build your character in a certain way and it becomes your destiny
    • Your character and reputation are things you can build, which will let you take advantage of opportunities other people characterize as lucky, but up know it isn’t luck
  • Make interesting things that people want. Shoe your craft, practice your craft, and the right people will eventually find you
  • On success
    • Great people have great outcomes. You just have to be patient. Success never happens on the time scale you want, but it does happen
    • You have to put in the time, put in the hours, put yourself in the position with the specific knowledge, with accountability, with leverage, with the authentic skill set you have, to be the best in the world at what you do
    • You have to enjoy it and keep doing it, keep doing it, and keep doing it. Don’t keep track, and don’t keep count because if you do, you will run out of time
  • You real resume is the catalog of all your suffering, all the sacrifices you made and the hard things you did.
  • What is wisdom?
    • Wisdom is knowing the long term consequences of your actions. Wisdom applied to external problems is judgement
  • Eliminate as many "should"s in your life as possible
  • “Peace is happiness at rest; happiness is peace in motion.”