Starting and building
Naval Ravikant
Leverage
Naval Ravikant (Contemporary · 1974–) — Leverage.
What actually happened?
The thread was later compiled into a book by a reader, Eric Jorgenson, and released free — the whole text, downloadable, with Naval taking nothing from it. For a man whose entire subject is leverage, that is the argument made in the form of a decision rather than a sentence: a book that costs nothing travels further than one that earns, and reach compounds where royalties merely add. He gave away the thing most authors protect, because giving it away was the higher-leverage move.
Four kinds of leverage, and two need permission
Labour means managing other people and requires leadership. Capital means money making money and requires having some. Code runs once written, at zero marginal cost. Media is read once written, at zero marginal cost. The first two need somebody's consent; the last two need nobody's, and that is historically new.
The essay published tonight and the fund raised next spring carry the same idea. Only one of them can start tonight.
Wealth, money and status are three different games
Wealth is assets that work while you sleep and it is positive sum. Money is the instrument for moving wealth about. Status is your rank, and it is zero sum — for you to rise somebody falls. How much time goes into each decides which game you are actually in, whatever you say you are doing.
A year spent on titles and a year spent on something that earns are indistinguishable while they are happening, and very distinguishable afterwards.
Happiness by subtraction
He argues happiness comes from removing desires rather than satisfying them: every unmet want is a standing source of unhappiness, so peace is not owning everything but no longer being pulled by what you do not own. He read a great deal of eastern philosophy and is restating an old line in a modern setting.
The list of things that would finally make it fine has been rewritten four times, and each version was believed completely at the time.
How do I use it today?
Ask which part of your work could be written once and used many times — code, writing, a process, a framework, a tool. Identify those and move your hours towards them, because everything else is priced by the hour and stops when you do.
Deep read
Read alongside
Further
Lines to keep
If your income is measured in hours you will never truly be wealthy.
Code and media are the permissionless leverage of this era.