The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
Notes and quotes from the new book about Naval Ravikant
Dear CMQ Investors,
My friend and CMQInvesting subscriber Jason Jacobs told me about The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, an organized collection of the ideas Naval Ravikant has shared over the years through a variety of mediums.
The name of the book is obviously inspired by Poor Charlie’s Almanack, a similarly themed, but much more extensive, thorough book based on the life and ideas of Charlie Munger. The real root of the name is Poor Richard’s Almanack, the annual almanack Benjamin Franklin published under the pseudonym of Poor Richard, aka Richard Saunders. But I digress…
After reading The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, I am positive that the @charliemungerquotes community will enjoy the book and Naval’s ideas. If you are reminded of Charlie Munger, it is because Charlie is one of Naval’s inspirations.
“The best mental models I have found came through evolution, game theory, and Charlie Munger. Charlie Munger is Warren Buffett’s partner. Very good investor. He has tons and tons of great mental models.” —Naval
Who is Naval Ravikant?
If you are unfamiliar with Naval, I’ve provided some basic information about what he has done:
Born in New Delhi, India in 1974
Moved to NYC at the age of 9
He is the co-founder, chairman and former CEO of AngelList.
Early investor in Twitter and Uber (and many, many more)
Notes & Quotes
The following notes and quotes will provide you with usable information, without giving away the full value of the book. If you like what you read below, I encourage you to purchase a copy.
Figure out what you should work on
Success requires hard work. Two people can work equally hard on different things and get different results. Naval stresses the importance of directing your hard work in the right way. So, what should you be working on?
“If you don’t know yet what you should work on, the most important thing is to figure it out. You should not grind at a lot of hard work until you figure out what you should be working on.”
This reminded me of this famous Einstein quote:
“If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” — Albert Einstein
The problem to solve: What should I be working on? Where will my hard work result in the best outcome, both financially and personally?
Be your authentic self
Being your authentic self, and then doing things that are authentic to you, can give you an advantage in the 21st century. Your authenticity eliminates your competition.
“Basically, when you’re competing with people, it’s because you’re copying them. It’s because you’re trying to do the same thing. But every human is different. Don’t copy.”
This reminded me of one of my favorite Charlie Munger quotes. Imitating the majority is the sure-fire path to average results.
You know you are being your authentic self when work does not feel like work.
“The way to get out of the competition trap is to be authentic, defined by the thing you know how to do better than anybody. You know how to do it better because you love it, and no one can compete with you.”
How do you turn your work into wealth?
Make something society wants, but does not know how to get.
“Think about what product or service society wants but does not yet know how to get. You want to become the person who delivers it and delivers it at scale. That is really the challenge of how to make money.”
It’s not just about creating something society wants. You need to give society something that only you can give them.
“Society always wants new things. And if you want to be wealthy, you want to figure out which one of those things you can provide for society that it does not yet know how to get, but will want, providing it is natural to you, within your skill set, and within your capabilities.”
This reminds me of another Charlie Munger quote on the importance of doing things where you have passion and aptitude:
“You’ll do better if you have passion for something in which you have aptitude. If Warren Buffett had gone into ballet, no one would have heard of him.”
—Charlie Munger
Where are you needed most? If you can figure this out, then you will be sure you are working on the right thing.
“Your goal in life is to find the people, business, project, or art that needs you the most.”
Ownership is the difference-maker.
This is a no-brainer, but I am glad this point was emphasized.
“If you don’t own equity in a business, your odds of making money are very slim. You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business.”
“If you love to do it, be authentic, and then figure out how to map that with what society actually 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.”
Play the long-game in all areas of your life
This is so important, and it is one of the life lessons I hold near-and-dear. I wrote about the advantage long-term thinking creates in my notes on The Warren Buffett Portfolio.
“All benefits in life come from compound interest, whether in money, relationships, love, health, activities, or habits.”
There is mathematical proof that playing the long-game is advantageous. Read more about that here.
More Quotes from The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
Act when you are inspired
When you have inspiration, act on it right then and there.
Creativity is a wealth-producer
“The higher the creativity component of a profession, the more likely it is to have disconnected inputs and outputs. If you’re looking at professions where your inputs and your outputs are highly connected, it’s going to be very hard to create wealth and make wealth for yourself in the process.”
Be a learning machine
“If you’re a perpetual learning machine, you will never be out of options for how to make money. You can always see what’s coming up in society, what the value is, where the demand is, and you can learn to come up to speed.”
Be a multi-disciplinary thinker
“Reading science, math, and philosophy one hour per day will likely put you at the upper echelon of human success within seven years.”
The definition of happiness
“Happiness is what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.”