Naval Ravikant Quotes

Indian American entrepreneur and investor

Naval Ravikant (born November 5, 1974) is an Indian-born American entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder and chairman of AngelList, a platform for startups, investors, and job seekers. He is an angel investor who has made early-stage investments in companies including Uber, Twitter, Postmates, and Yammer.
Ravikant is a recipient of the Edmund Hillary Fellowship. He also co-hosts a podcast with Brett Hall.

you should be able to pick up any book in the library and read it.

The ideal school would teach health, wealth, and happiness. It‘d be free, self-paced, and available to all. It‘d show opposing ideas and students would self-verify truth. No grades, no tests, no diplomas - just learning. Actually, you’re already here. Careful who you follow.

"you can’t be normal and expect abnormal returns." I’ve always enjoyed that one too.

I would say that, first, you’re accountable for your judgment. Judgment is the exercise of wisdom. Wisdom comes from experience; and that experience can be accelerated through short iterations.

"Be aware there are no "adults". Everyone makes it up as they go along."

In 1,000 parallel universes, you want to be wealthy in 999 of them. You don’t want to be wealthy in the fifty of them where you got lucky, so we want to factor luck out of it … I want to live in a way that if my life played out 1,000 times, Naval is successful 999 times.

I’m always ‘working.’ It looks like work to others, but it feels like play to me. And that’s how I know no one can compete with me on it. Because I’m just playing, for sixteen hours a day. If others want to compete with me, they’re going to work, and they’re going to lose because they’re not going to do it for sixteen hours a day, seven days a week.

"But at the same time, many of them deep down believe that they can’t make it. They don’t want any wealth creation to happen. So, they virtue signal by attacking the whole enterprise by saying, "Well, making money is evil. You shouldn’t do it.

In 1,000 parallel universes, you want to be wealthy in 999 of them

One day, I realized with all these people I was jealous of, I couldn’t just choose little aspects of their life. I couldn’t say “I want his body”, “I want her money”, “I want his personality”. You have to be that person. Do you actually want to be that person, with all of their reactions, desires, their family, their happiness level, their outlook on life, their self-image? If you’re not willing to do a wholesale, 24/7, 100% swap with who that person is, then there is no point in being jealous

We are the only animals in the animal kingdom that cooperate across genetic boundaries. Most animals don’t even cooperate. But when they do, they cooperate only in packs where they co-evolve together, and they share blood, so they have some shared interests.

The problem is that to win at a status game, you have to put somebody else down. That’s why you should avoid status games in your life because they make you into an angry combative person. You’re always fighting to put other people down, to put yourself and the people you like up.

You're going to die one day and none of this is going to matter.

The problem is that to win at a status game, you have to put somebody else down. That’s why you should avoid status games in your life because they make you into an angry combative person.

The most important trick to happiness is to realize happiness is a skill you develop and a choice you make.