Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy. (View Tweet)
Understand that ethical wealth creation is possible. If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you. (View Tweet)
Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games. (View Tweet)
You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity - a piece of a business - to gain your financial freedom. (View Tweet)
You will get rich by giving society what it wants but does not yet know how to get. At scale. (View Tweet)
Pick an industry where you can play long term games with long term people. (View Tweet)
The Internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. Most people haven’t figured this out yet. (View Tweet)
Play iterated games. All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest. (View Tweet)
Pick business partners with high intelligence, energy, and, above all, integrity. (View Tweet)
Don’t partner with cynics and pessimists. Their beliefs are self-fulfilling. (View Tweet)
Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable. (View Tweet)
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Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage. (View Tweet)
Specific knowledge is knowledge that you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it can train someone else, and replace you. (View Tweet)
Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now. (View Tweet)
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Building specific knowledge will feel like play to you but will look like work to others. (View Tweet)
Note: David says people often look for the “efficient” way to learn something. Instead try to find the “fun” way to learn
When specific knowledge is taught, it’s through apprenticeships, not schools. (View Tweet)
Specific knowledge is often highly technical or creative. It cannot be outsourced or automated. (View Tweet)
Embrace accountability, and take business risks under your own name. Society will reward you with responsibility, equity, and leverage. (View Tweet)
The most accountable people have singular, public, and risky brands: Oprah, Trump, Kanye, Elon. (View Tweet)
__“Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.”
Note: Naval goes on to talk about the kinds of leverage you can apply. Capital, labor, or permissonless code
Fortunes require leverage. Business leverage comes from capital, people, and products with no marginal cost of replication (code and media). (View Tweet)
Capital means money. To raise money, apply your specific knowledge, with accountability, and show resulting good judgment. (View Tweet)
Labor means people working for you. It’s the oldest and most fought-over form of leverage. Labor leverage will impress your parents, but don’t waste your life chasing it. (View Tweet)
Capital and labor are permissioned leverage. Everyone is chasing capital, but someone has to give it to you. Everyone is trying to lead, but someone has to follow you. (View Tweet)
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. (View Tweet)
An army of robots is freely available - it’s just packed in data centers for heat and space efficiency. Use it. (View Tweet)
If you can’t code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts. (View Tweet)
Leverage is a force multiplier for your judgement. (View Tweet)
Judgement requires experience, but can be built faster by learning foundational skills. (View Tweet)
There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes. (View Tweet)
Study microeconomics, game theory, psychology, persuasion, ethics, mathematics, and computers. (View Tweet)
Reading is faster than listening. Doing is faster than watching. (View Tweet)
You should be too busy to “do coffee,” while still keeping an uncluttered calendar. (View Tweet)
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. (View Tweet)
Work as hard as you can. Even though who you work with and what you work on are more important than how hard you work. (View Tweet)
Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true. (View Tweet)
There are no get rich quick schemes. That’s just someone else getting rich off you. (View Tweet)
Apply specific knowledge, with leverage, and eventually you will get what you deserve. (View Tweet)
When you’re finally wealthy, you’ll realize that it wasn’t what you were seeking in the first place. But that’s for another day. (View Tweet)
