June 24, 2019
The Naval Podcast – We Should Eventually Be Working For Ourselves
Check out Naval’s Episode Page & Show Notes
This podcast clip is part of a conversation between Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi. Unless otherwise noted, quotes are from Naval. For reference, check out Naval’s famous How to Get Rich tweet storm.
Key Takeaways
- Naval’s How to Get Rich tweet storm (and podcast) is for anyone who wants to be entrepreneurial and control their own life yet realizes there are no shortcuts – creating wealth will take a long time
- You HAVE to be patient and be in it for the long-haul
- It may seem like the things covered in this podcast are far too idealistic, but maybe they can inform:
- Your weekend projects
- Your self re-education you do at night on the internet
- What roles you take on at the company you work for (ideally ones closer to points of leverage + judgment and things you’re naturally good at)
- People often think about moving up the corporate ladder – but that mostly just involves managing more people
- “What you really want to be doing is managing more capital, products, media and community” – Nivi
- OR instead – move to a different organization/create your own organization to get more leverage
- “In general… you will do better in a smaller organization than a larger one”
- You’ll have more accountability (and it’ll be more visible)
- You’re more easily able to try multiple things to see what you’re good at
- You’ll have more flexibility
- There will be more authenticity as to how the company operates
- A good progression for a career – start out in a large company and then progressively move to smaller and smaller ones
- Larger companies are certainly more stable, but are more about politics and lack innovation
- “The goal, long-term, is, if we are all wealthy, that we are all working for ourselves”
- And the people who will be working for will be robots
- Today that’s software robots executing code
- Tomorrow it could be delivery robots or mechanical robots carrying things around
- And the people who will be working for will be robots
- “The best relationships are peer relationships”
- “If there’s someone above you, then that’s someone to learn from. If you’re not learning from them and improving, then there shouldn’t be anybody above you.”
- “If there’s somebody below you, it’s because you’re teaching them and enabling them. If you’re not teaching them and enabling them, then get a robot underneath. You don’t need a human being below you.”
- “In the not-too-distant future, anybody who wants to work for themselves will be able to work for themselves”
- You may have to make other sacrifices and take on more risks – but we’re moving towards a future where it’s more and more doable
