
May 2, 2018
Naval’s Periscope Session – 4/29/18
- “I don’t want anything from anyone, so boredom is the only thing that drives me to do anything”
- Naval recommends Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb
- Rick and Morty is the only TV show he watches
- “Reality is really interesting for the most part”
- “TV’s just a slow method of consuming nonfiction. Reading is a lot faster.”
- Why are so many people leaving SF?
- A combination of the taxes, it’s not the cleanest city, and there’s a huge homeless problem
- It’s a chosen home for the tech industry, and it’s not going to disappear anytime soon
- With companies where everyone is working remotely, it’s hard to do creative work where everyone needs to synchronize
- India
- They have a lot of corruption, bureaucracy, and high taxes making it hard to build things there
- It should be doing a lot better than it is with the large amount of STEM graduates
- “The only way you can sell something, is if you yourself believe in it”
- This is what Elon Musk does all day long
- “If you truly believe in what you’re selling, no one can compete with you on that scale”
- Education
- The education system is very industrialized
- It was developed. and still is this way to some degree, to breed obedient factory workers
- Educating people is very hard – especially when you need to do it cheaply, and all at the same time
- Teachers are teaching a curriculum that’s been negotiated over decades and decided upon by politicians, courts, parents, and unions – this doesn’t make it efficient
- Maybe it’s time we provide students with free tablets, that educate students about what THEY actually want to learn
- We have the technology now, where the software can figure out you’re intellectual levels in different subjects (math, science, etc.)
- Naval doesn’t manage his own crypto, he goes through funds
- “Self conflict is a complete waste of time”
- All judging, and arguing with yourself is pointless
- Guilt is society’s voice speaking in your head
- How do you put your brain in debug mode?
- You won’t stop having thoughts, and you can’t control your thoughts, but you can stop them from running away like a freight train
- Anger
- “We didn’t evolve to be angry all the time”
- Anger hurts YOU first and foremost
- “Anger is a hot coal that you hold in your hand while you wait to throw it at somebody else”
- Notice every time you’re angry, how much it hurts you
- When you don’t want an emotion, it doesn’t arrive with the same intensity
- To deal with procrastination, ask yourself – “Am I going to have to do this at one point or another?”
- If the answer is yes, do it anyway
- Another tip is to work on the second most important thing you’re doing
- Ask why you’re procrastinating, really get to the bottom of it
- A philosophical mystic that Naval has enjoyed reading
- He’s a great thinker on enlightenment, peace, truth, and self examination
- Check out the book The Sun Rises in the Evening
- How did Naval meet Kapil Gupta
- Kapil tweeted at him
- Vegan food technology companies
- It’s only a matter of time before we can either 3D print meat or create food that tastes enough like meat that causes society to slowly shift away from eating meat
- When this happens, people in the future will probably judge us for killing so many animals for food
- The Bay Area
- A positive – Has the highest concentration of brilliant people, and also the natural beauty
- A negative – the amount of the monoculture/ group think , the lack of independent thinkers
- What makes someone smart?
- Genetics is the biggest component
- Intellectual curiosity is an important trait to cultivate
- “If you’re just curious as to how things work, and are more concerned with figuring it out correctly than being right, then you put yourself in a very powerful position”
- Kanye for president?
- He has a very good shot at winning
- Social media has really changed who can run for president
- “We’re going to see celebrity presidents a lot more”
- Presidents within decades will be wearing cameras, and we’ll be able to tune into the president’s channel to see what he’s up to
- Naval has noticed the “blue check marks” on Twitter are the least interesting people
- “Your mind isn’t unfocused. It’s just focused on something that another part of your mind wan’ts it to be focused on. This creates self-conflict.”
- “Your mind is doing exactly what you want it to do at all times”
- What would Naval tell his 23 year old self?
- Do everything you’re going to do, but with less emotion and less angst
- Longevity
- We’re the first generation with smart phones/the internet, but we’re probably the last generation before they figure out, or “crack”, longevity
- “If there’s one thing that does kill you early, it’s stress. So chill out.”
- Incarciration
- “It’s basically one monkey putting another monkey in a cage.”
- Maybe we can create another solution – perhaps we have an exile society where we can put prisoners
- Tips for public speaking
- Record and watch yourself to catch your flaws
- Know your subject cold, and don’t feel the need to rehearse
- If you know your subject, just talk
- Tips for marriage
- Marriage is not dead – it’s the institution you enter into to have children. If you’re not going to have children, you should really think twice about marriage.
- Get married based on compatibility of values
- Naval is not doing any public speaking this year
- He only wants to speak on platforms he can control
- Self confidence vs. IQ vs. Emotional Intelligence
- IQ can be traded for Emotional Intelligence – if you’re really smart you can figure out your emotions
- “An intelligent person, over time, will end up confident”
- How does Naval deal with failure?
- These days, he tries not to have too many goals
- “If you don’t have goals, you can’t fail to meet them”
- You don’t have to deal with anyone you don’t want to – just walk away
- “The trick to doing anything, is first cultivating a desire for it”
- Mathmatics is the language of nature
- It’s human beings reverse engineering things encoded into nature
- Humans have no overarching responsibility or purpose for living
- We all can create and follow our own meaning
- “I’m not trying to do anything important. I’m just doing what I feel like. If I like it, I’ll be good at it.”
- Yoga and reading – “If you want to find me, I’m usually on my yoga mat with a book”
- Naval doesn’t watch movies
- At some point you realize your life is limited, do you want to waste it watching a movie?
- “Your emotions may get taken for a ride, but once your emotions get taken for a ride a bunch of times… you know the feeling already”
- Can only one cryptocurrency survive in the end?
- There will be many survivors, but the economic value will be concentrated at the top
- The most valuable cryptocurrency will be more valuable than all the others
- The second most valuable cryptocurrency will be more valuable than third through the last put together
- etc.
- Intelligence and hard work will get you very far
- Stop thinking in terms of “careers”
- Develop skills, and do what you want to do at that time to get paid
- The idea of a having a lifelong career is going away
- If you want money – “Give the world something it wants that it does not yet know how to get”
- You have to like what you’re doing though – if you don’t like it, someone who does will out compete you
- Everyone should know how to sell
- You can probably tell who’s going to be a good sales person when they’re 10 years old
- Reading Jiddu Krishnamurti has made Naval realize how little he knows about himself
- Naval has recommended Total Freedom in the past – very very thought provoking book
- Naval recommends The Power of Now
- How to have a good relationship
- Be totally selfish
- If you can’t keep doing it 50 years from now – don’t do it today to impress someone
- Blockchain Technology is the most inetresting thing right now
- Check out the book Siddhartha
- Happiness is something we can learn
- You shouldn’t count on life after death
- You’ll probably be happier in this life if you don’t expect it
- It’s worth the investment to have a good “proposal story” with your girlfriend
- In a sense, life is indistinguishable from a dream – everything eventually disappears
- This reality will one day be gone
- Are we living in a simulation?
- It doesn’t matter and it wouldn’t change your life
- Naval really loves his Airpods
- Some people think they might somehow cause brain tumors, but Naval thinks it’s unlikely
- There’s no scientific evidence
- How do you find your life partner?
- Be worthy of a worthy mate – work on yourself
- The data shows the life of the average person throughout the world is getting better
- A lot of unhappiness comes from comparing current events to past events
- Naval is really enjoying The Sun Rises in the Evening by Osho
- Intermittent fasting has worked very well for Naval
- He doesn’t think he does it often enough, but when he does, he’ll only eat dinner
- The benefits really start after 16 hours of fasting
- Best way to learn how to learn?
- Read a lot and read things you like
- Naval does the happy body routine for his workouts
- Check out Stories of Your life and Others
- Naval sleeps about 5 hours a night