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Financial Freedom Is Merely Organized Common Sense
Wisdom From Naval Ravikant
According to Wikipedia, “Naval Ravikant is an Indian-American entrepreneur and investor. Naval is the co-founder, chairman and former CEO of AngelList.[1] He has invested in over 100 companies including Uber, FourSquare, Twitter, SnapLogic, Yammer, and Clearview AI”
He also shares much of what he has learned:
On Business
- ”The whole point of a company is to try to be efficient and get stuff done.”
- Earn with your mind, not your time.
- If being ethical were profitable everybody would do it
On Investing
- The most important thing for an investor is access to deals
- If you see a get rich quick scheme, that’s someone else trying to get rich off of you
- Smart money is just dumb money that’s been through a crash
- Investing favors the dispassionate. Markets efficiently separate emotional investors from their money
- The Efficient Markets Hypothesis fails because humans are herd animals, not independent rational actors. Thus the best investors tend to be antisocial and contrarian
On Managing Yourself
- My number one priority in life, above my happiness, above my family, above my work, is my own health
- If you eat, invest, and think according to what the ‘news’ advocates, you’ll end nutritionally, financially, and morally bankrupt
- I would define values, first of all, as a set of things that you will not compromise on
- We waste our time with short term thinking and busywork. Warren Buffett spends a year deciding and a day acting. That act lasts decades
- Cynicism is easy. Mimicry is easy. Optimistic contrarians are the rarest breed
- All the benefits in life come from compound interest — money, relationships, habits — anything of importance
- The first rule of handling conflict is don’t hang around people who are constantly engaging in conflict
On Happiness
- The fundamental delusion — there is something out there that will make me happy and fulfilled forever
- Happiness is a state where nothing is missing
- A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought — they must be earned
- A rational person can find peace by cultivating indifference to things outside of their control
- The most important trick to be happy is to realize that happiness is a choice that you make and a skill that you develop. You choose to be happy, and then you work at it. It’s just like building muscles
- Happiness is a choice and a skill and you can dedicate yourself to learning that skill and making that choice
- This is such a short and precious life that it’s really important that you don’t spend it being unhappy
On Society
- Objectively, the world is improving. To the elites, it’s falling apart as their long-lived institutions are flattened by the Internet
- Politics and merit are opposite ends of a spectrum. More political organizations are less productive, have less inequality, and top performers opt out. More merit based organizations have higher productivity, more inequality, and higher odds of internal fracture
- Social media has degenerated into a deafening cacophony of groups signaling and repeating their shared myths
- Politics is sports writ large — pick a side, rally the tribe, exchange stories confirming bias, hurl insults and threats at the other side
- Politics is the exercise of power without merit
- The real struggle isn’t proletariat vs bourgeois. It’s between high-status elites and wealthy elites. When their cooperation breaks, revolution.
- Wealth creation is an evolutionarily recent positive-sum game. Status is an old zero-sum game. Those attacking wealth creation are often just seeking status
The takeaway
Business work easier and last longer if they are well conceived and base don high standards. Set Godin talks about appealing to a tribe.
You can manage happiness and do the things that make you happy. Those things will rpovide value to you and to others around you
Society is always changing and it pays to look apst the superficial and find ways to contribute productively.
I help people understand and manage risk and other financial issues. To help them achieve and exceed their goals, I use tax efficiencies and design advantages. The result: more security, more efficient income, larger and more liquid estates. Please be in touch if I can help you. don@moneyfyi.com 705-927-4770
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