Wealth & Happiness Silicon Valley Style
Insights and thoughts from Naval Ravikant’s Almanack
“The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness” is a short read of the various musing, thoughts, and tweetstorms of investor Naval Ravikant assembled by Eric Jorgenson.
Making Money
Ravikant’s famous tweetstorm on wealth summarizes many of his beliefs and insights. It’s worth a quick read. Some of the key points about “getting rich”:
- Know what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it.
- Give society what it wants but does not yet know how to get. At scale.
- Pick an industry where you can play long-term games
- Arm yourself with specific knowledge; knowledge you cannot be trained for or that cannot be easily outsourced or automated.
- Fortunes require leverage: capital, people, and no marginal cost products.
- Leverage is a force multiplier for your judgement(s)
While none of this is super new knowledge, the last two points are well-framed in particular. I like the notion that the value you can contibute is your unique knowledge and judgements and that those can be encapsulated with high leverage in products that can be sold with no marginal cost and that can create wealth — software or media products, for example.
Happiness
The book turns philosophical and shares Ravikant’s beliefs about what it takes to be happy. Some key points summarized here:
- Better to perfect your desires than do something you don’t 100% desire
- You are a combination of your habits and the people you spend time with
- Time spent undistracted and alone, in self-examination, journaling, meditation, resolves the unresolved and takes us from mentally fat to fit.
- Hiking is walking meditation. Journaling is writing meditation. Praying is gratitude meditation.
- Set up systems, not goals. Use your judgment to figure out what kinds of environments you can thrive in, and then create an environment around you so you’re statistically likely to succeed.
Many of the insights are similar to the ones from ancient wisdom that I wrote about in this blog.
Summary
The book is a bit trite, but there are some good reminders of timeless knowledge. I did appreciate the reframing on the skill of generating wealth in the newer knowledge economy as well as the reminders to be committed to those areas you can uniquely contribute, generate unique value, and working with long-term individuals and long-term industries.
This is a nice quote to summarize his beliefs:
You’re going to die one day, and none of this is going to matter. So enjoy yourself. Do something positive. Project some love. Make someone happy. Laugh a little bit. Appreciate the moment. And do your work.
Resources
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