The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
“Avoid competition through authenticity. Essentially, when you compete with people, it’s because you’re copying them. It’s because you’re trying to do the same thing, but every person is different. Don’t copy.”
Some books are apparently simply excellent… in fact, better to put it this way, some people simply have smart thoughts, which aren’t beating empty straw, but sentences that make you ponder a bit.
For those who don’t know, Naval Ravikant is an Indian-American entrepreneur and investor. At nine years old he moved to New York with his family. He graduated from college, where his focus was on computer science and economics. And soon he started breaking through in this cruel world.
He was one of the founders of the site “Epinions” (price comparison and product reviews by customers), which was later taken over by the company “Shopping.com” (for comparing prices and ratings of various products in several countries), whose parent company is giant “eBay.”
“You have to go deep into something because otherwise you’ll be a mile wide and an inch deep and you won’t get what you want from life. You can only achieve mastery in one or two things. Usually those are things you’re obsessed with.”
Then he founded one venture capital fund (“The Hit Forge”) which had some very smart investments. And then he turned to cryptocurrencies and founded a hedge fund (special type of investment fund) called “MetaStable Capital,” which “held” various cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero… And then he (again) decided on investment funds, so he founded “Spearhead.co,” which had the function to as angel investor provide technology companies with a million dollars in investments.
Naval also guests on various popular podcasts, and has his own (Nav.al) where he discusses philosophy, business, investing and life in general.
“Intentions don’t matter. Actions do. That’s why it’s hard to be ethical.”
However, what he’s (especially in the business world) known for is as founder of the site “AngelList,” a platform for fundraising and connecting startup companies and angel investors.
In translation, the man knows business and knows how to earn. And he’s one of the stars of Silicon Valley and startup culture.
Why is all this important for the book “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant”?
“Essentially, you work for someone else, and that person takes the risk and bears responsibility, has intellectual property and brand. They won’t pay you enough. They’ll pay you the minimum minimum they must to get you to do their job. That minimum can be high, but it still won’t be true wealth, like when you retire but still earn.”
At first glance, maybe it’s not.
However… Eric Jorgenson (investor, entrepreneur and writer) decided to unite Naval’s wisdoms and experiences he’s shared over the last decade on social networks (especially “Twitter,” i.e., current “X”), blogs, podcasts and interviews.
And thanks to him for that!
As I just mentioned, “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant” is a collection of Naval’s thoughts and reflections. In form they resemble aphorisms like “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius or “Striking Thoughts” by Bruce Lee, and don’t lag at all in quality.
Why? Well, while you read his thoughts, ideas, advice and reflections, you see Naval is a man who (apparently) studied philosophy, economics, complexity theory, compound interest principles (not just in financial sense!), mathematics, meditation his whole life… moreover he has an interesting background and way of breaking through to success…
…and on top of all that, while reading this almanac, you get the impression this man is, damn, truly simply happy and calm! Without need to emphasize it or make something up or exaggerate (like almost everyone does today, especially various “influencers”), but everything is seen (even felt) in his words.
“Avoid things that could cause loss of all capital, entire savings. Don’t put everything at once at stake. Instead, stick to rational optimistic stakes with big gains.”
The book is, roughly speaking, divided into two big parts/areas (“Wealth” and “Happiness”), which within themselves have smaller chapters (“Building Wealth,” “Building Judgment,” “Learning Happiness,” “Saving Yourself” and “Philosophy”), and each has subchapters with very interesting titles (like “Play Long-Term Games with Long-Term People,” “Build or Buy Equity in a Business,” “Be Paid for Your Judgment,” “Be Patient,” “Drop Your Identity to See Reality,” “Learn to Love to Read,” “Happiness Is a Choice,” “Happiness Requires Peace,” “Happiness Is Built by Habits,” “Meditation + Mental Strength,” “Rational Buddhism,” “The Present Is All We Have” and many others).
And this book reads slowly… oh yes, absolute recommendation to read slowly, to slowly absorb and think about some of his thoughts and how you can adapt them to your own situation.
“The first thing that clouds our ability to see reality is that we have pre-made ideas about what it should be.”
The very form of the book is equally interesting as Naval’s thoughts. Sometimes it’ll be a paragraph of reflection on some topic, sometimes just a sentence, sometimes a Twitter statement (or chain of same) and occasionally some likeable (and logical) graph will also appear.
Likewise, Naval’s thoughts are, in principle, quite simple, practical and easy to understand, yet have specific depth. He’s apparently that right category of rational Zen Buddhist – concrete and simple philosophy, practical application. From his texts/thoughts/aphorisms you’ll see how much he emphasizes it’s important for a person to find a way as soon as possible to have (passive) sources of income; to invest their time and money in what they love, not give their time for others’ money (he gave a very excellent example how we can never earn well while working for others); that each of us is a unique personality, and each of us has a unique set of skills which, if we combine with something we love, can provide us great (financial and spiritual) success; how we shouldn’t fight for status; that a person’s first priority should be their health and should really watch what they put in their organism; how practical meditation can help; what could be life’s purpose; how building right habits is one of the keys to happiness and success; how of everything we have at our disposal we only have the present moment and many other beautiful but applicable thoughts…
“Life will play out how it’ll play out. There’ll be something good and something bad. Most of it actually depends only on your interpretation. You’re born, have a set of sensory experiences, then die. It’s up to you how you’ll decide to interpret those experiences, and different people interpret them differently.”
Simply, you have the impression the man truly speaks things from his perspective, from what he experiences (or experienced), not to sound smart or recycle others’ (wiser) thoughts before him. You can see he emphasizes significance in finding ways to create content that will later earn for you even when you sleep, that health is everything for a person… but what I especially liked is how much significance he places in a person having peace within and around themselves, and that we should value our time because it’s the most valuable currency.
“Value your time. It’s all you have. It’s more important than your money. It’s more important than your friends. It’s more important than everything. Your time is all you have. Don’t waste time.
This doesn’t mean you can’t relax. As long as you’re doing what you want, you’re not wasting time. But if you’re not spending your time doing what you want, and not earning, and not learning – what the hell are you doing?”
Besides all this, “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant” also has a bonus addition. There you can find Naval’s book recommendations for reading (he mentions truly interesting titles, I’ve already “targeted” some 😁) and blogs, and you have listed some of Naval’s life formulas and rules.
Interesting fact is you can find the book (legitimately) for free in PDF (as well as .epub and .mobi) format on the author’s site. However, this is a book you’ll want to have in physical form in your library too. Simply, with this book it’s useful to have some marker or pencil. In my case it was both, because I read the book twice in a row and always had something to mark, so I can at any moment return to some truly important points (i.e., Naval’s thoughts) from the book.
Also, the book is great as a gift for anyone (and especially people from the business world) and with it I’m convinced you won’t go wrong.
And to mention some of Naval’s wise investments in early stages of companies: “Uber,” “Twitter,” “Wish.com,” “FourSquare,” “Postmates,” “ClubHouse,” “Stack Overflow,” “OpenDNS,” “Yammer”… He had over 70 “exits” (when investor sells part or entire stake in some company at the best moment for their profit) and over 10 companies that got “unicorn” status (when startup company’s value exceeds a billion dollars)
All in all, “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant” is one excellent (not to say phenomenal) title, full of wisdom that can truly inspire you to concrete action. This is definitely one of the better books I’ve read this year (but also years back) and immediately ended up on my special shelf.
Absolute recommendation!
And you, dear reader, have you previously had the chance to hear about Naval Ravikant? 😊
Naval Ravikant’s website | Eric Jorgenson’s website
Book price: Kontrast (with code kafaiknjiga you get 20% discount!) | Vulkan
