2025-01-06 12:47
Status:
Notes:
Wealth
“Making money is not what you do, it’s a skill you learn.” It’s not exactly hard work or luck, it’s about “knowing what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it.” The direction is more than how hard you work, don’t just grind, it’s more important to figure out what you should be working on.
Naval’s Tweetstorm
Go for wealth over money or status.
Ethical wealth is possible, if you despise it, you won’t get it.
You won’t get rich renting out your time. You must own equity-a piece of a business to gain financial freedom.
“You will get rich by giving society what it wants but does not yet know how to get. At scale” Play long-term games with long-term people in your industry.
“The internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. Most people haven’t figured this out yet.”
“All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest. Play iterated games.” (Games that are repeated)
Partner with people who have high intelligence and energy. And paramount, integrity. Don’t partner with cynics and pessimists.
“Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.”
“Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage.”
Specific knowledge is knowledge you cannot be trained for, if society can train your knowledge it will replace you.
Specific knowledge is found by genuine pursuit of curiosity and passions, not by trends.
“Building specific knowledge will feel like play to you, but will look like hard work to others.”
When specific knowledge is taught, it is taught through apprenticeship and doing, not schools.
Specific knowledge is often highly technical(specialized) or creative(generalized) It cannot be outsourced or automated.
“Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the earth” - Archimedes
Fortune requires leverage. These take the form of people, capital, and product with no marginal cost of reproduction. (code and media)
Capital leverage is raising money, applying specific knowledge to show good judgement (Investing)
Labor leverage is people working under you. Avoid this as much as possible.
Capital and labor require permission, everyone wants it but someone has to give it to you or decide to follow you.
Code and media are permissionless. This is the new rich, with software and media that works while you sleep and has infinite reproductive ability.
Without coding, I can write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts. (Perhaps with good code behind me, my friends, we could partner to implement AI as business. Though, understand the disparity with pursuit)
Leverage multiplies the force of your judgement.
Judgement has no direct learning, but it will be improved by other skills. This is your skill stack to build specific knowledge.
Study game theory, wisdom, persuasion, psychology, ethics, mathematics, computers, AI (I study wisdom, psychology, writing.)
“Reading is faster than listening. Doing is faster than watching”
Set and enforce your personal hourly wage. If solving a problem will save less than your rate, ignore it. If outsourcing costs less than your rate, outsource it.
Focus and work as hard as you can once you are decided. Let the tools be light in your hands as you are unleashed to obsession.
Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true (Redefining does not look like trying to decide, it looks like experimenting and committing to one meaning at a time)
Summary: Productize yourself
“Life is a search of who, and what needs you the most” This is hard, it can take a long time to figure out, but execution once you have it figured out will be the greatest time of your life.
For whatever you do, if people want to pay you for doing a good job, you have created value for someone, and now you have an IOU for something in return, money.
“Escape competition through Authenticity” competition with someone means you are copying them. You could only ever be the second best at it, don’t copy, don’t compete. You won’t do the same thing.
If what you are building and marketing is fundamentally an extention of who you are, no one can compete with you on that.
The best jobs aren’t on lists or degreed. They are creative expressions of continuous learners in a free market.
“The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner. You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn.”
“Forty-hour work weeks are a relic of the Industrial Age. Knowledge workers function like athletes-train and sprint, then rest and reassess.”
“Spend more time making the big decisions. There are basically three really big decisions you make in your early life: where you live, who you’re with, and what you do.”