Naval Ravikant on Clubhouse - 2/28/21

The world is not rigged in such a way that the harder you work, the more you get. Hard work is a prerequisite, it is an ingredient, but you cannot outwork everybody else; there just aren't that many hours in the day.

I've met a lot of incredibly wealthy people ... One interesting point is they're generally less happy than the average person. That whole thing about [how] money doesn't buy you happiness and rich people aren't happy, it weirdly turns out to be true. Most of them are miserable for reasons that I still have a hard time wrapping my head around.

I would say that the most important turning points in your life are actually the ones where you had the most trauma because if I were to take those away, I would take away the story of your life, and what would remain would be pretty boring.

Reality and suffering hits us when we can no longer deny what reality is telling us.

The majority of what I've learned in life is by reading, and then by applying it, and then by reflecting on it. It has not been through conversations ... If you're talking about the important timeless principles that will make you happier or will make you wealthy or just set you apart from everyone else, you're much more likely to find that through books and self-reflection than by talking to anybody.

If you can't see yourself working with someone for life, don't work with them for a day.

What I like to do is I like to place asymmetric bets where, if I am right, I will be paid extremely well, and if I'm wrong, I just lose my little entry fee. So, they have lottery ticket-like characteristics except.... the expected value is positive unlike the lottery where it's negative.

You want to spend all your time either learning, earning, or relaxing.

I actually think Twitter has now become an incredibly unpleasant place to be. Maybe it's just me because I have a lot of followers, but I also think that something happened in 2020 that broke most people's online brains, and a lot of the crazies just came out of the woodwork. And they were always there on Twitter, but they just went even crazier. So, I just find the quality of discourse on Twitter has completely collapsed.

If you look at entrepreneurs, right, who are successful, yes they grind all the time, but that initial moment of entrepreneurship when they created a company, that was the point where they made the hardest and most important decision. If they created in the wrong space or started [the company] with the wrong person... no amount of hard work could have saved them later.

I don't think fame gives you all that much in modern society. It's much more of a trap in many ways than it has benefit.