Joe Rogan Experience #1309 Naval Ravikant
When you combine things you are not supposed to combine people get interested. [7:07]
I like the model of life the ancients had ... this arc to life where you try your hand at everything. I don’t believe in this model of trying to focus your life on just one thing. You’ve got one life just do everything you are going to do. [7:47]
I was raised by a single mom in New York. She used the local library as a day car center. She’d say when you get back from school go straight to the library and don’t come out. I read everything. I ran out of things to read. [12:01]
I’d rather read the best 100 books over and over again until I absorb them rather than read all the books. [12:33]
When reading i’m looking for ideas. When I find something really interesting I’ll reflect on it. I’ll research it. When I’m bored of it I’ll go to another book. [13:07]
[The Internet] is like the library of Alexandria that I can research at my disposal. [14:16]
You don’t want to be the guy who succeeds in life while being high strung, high stress, and unhappy. Leaving a trail of emotional wreckage with you and your loved ones. [21:07]
You want to be the person who gets there calmly. Quietly. Without struggle. [21:30]
Social contracts are very powerful. If you want to give up drinking and you are not serious about it you’ll tell yourself you’ll cut back. I’ll only have one drink a night. But if you are serious you will announce it to everyone. You’ll say I’m done drinking I’m throwing all the alcohol out of the house. [22:34]
[On happiness being a choice] If you are so smart how come you aren’t happy? How come you haven’t figured that out? That is my challenge to all the people who think they are so smart and so capable - if you are so smart and capable why can’t you change this ? [23:21]
Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want. When I am unhappy about something I look for what is the underlying desire that I have that is not being fulfilled. [24:28]
You have to have desires but don’t have too many. Don’t pick them up randomly. Don’t have thousands. Pick your one overwhelming desire - it’s ok to suffer over that one. But on all the others you want to let them go so you can be calm, peaceful and relaxed. [24:42]
We live in an age of infinite leverage. Your actions can be multiplied 1000 fold. By podcasting, investing capital, having employees, or code. Because of that the impacts of good decision making are much higher than they used to be. Now you can influence millions of people through your decisions. [25:55]
We like to view the world as linear. I’m going to put in 8 hours of work I’m going get back 8 hours of output. It doesn’t work that way. The guy running the corner store is working just as hard or harder than you and me. What you do and how you do it is way more important than how hard you work. Outputs are nonlinear based on the quality of your work. [27:58]
You won’t get rich renting out your time. The first thing you need to do is own a piece of a business. You need equity. [29:37]
It was the industrial work that created this model of thousands of people working together on one thing with bosses, and schedules etc. [30:45]
If somebody can tell you when to be at work, what to wear, and how to behave you are not a free person. You are not actually rich. [31:06]
We are in this model now where we think it is about employment and jobs. Intrinsic in that is that I have to work for somebody else. The Information Age is breaking that down. [31:23]
The Coase Theory talks about why is a company the size that it is. [31:44]
We are seeing the atomization of companies. We are seeing the optimal size of a company shrink. It is most obvious in Silicon Valley. Startups shaving off little pieces of businesses from companies and turning them into huge markets. [32:27]
The smart people have figured out what the internet enables: remote work, on their own schedule, on their own time, on their own place, in their own way. This is how we are most productive. The information revolution is allowing us to go back to working for ourselves. That is my ultimate dream. [33:19]
Creativity is the last frontier. [45:23]
Wealth creation is not zero-sum. It is positive sum. You create something brand new you exchange it with me for something brand new I’ve created. There is higher utility for both of us. [48:48]
I like Nassim Taleb’s framing of this: with my family, I’m a communist. With my friends, I’m a socialist. At the state level, I’m a democrat. At higher levels, I’m a republican. At a federal level, I’m a libertarian. The larger the group the less trust there is. The more cheating in the system, the more the interests must be aligned. [50:35]
If you want to see who rules over you see who you are not allowed to criticize. [57:12]
Social media has massaged all the mechanisms to addict you. [1:00:42]
The internet creates a few large aggregators and millions of individuals. It destroys the middle. [1:05:11]
When you suppress speech the organization metastasizes. I think we will create decentralized media that is not owned by any single entity- that can’t be suppressed or shut down. [1:10:16]
Social sciences are fake sciences. You can tell because they have the word science tacked on at the end. [1:16:09]
The test of any good system is you build a system and then hand it over to your enemies for the next decade. [1:19:59]
If all of your beliefs line up in one political party you are not a clear thinker. Your beliefs are socialized. They are taken from other people. If you want to be a clear thinker you can not pay attention to politics - it will destroy your ability to think. [1:22:33]
The diseases of modern life are diseases of abundance. Not scarcity. [1:22:56]
An over-stimulated mind is the road to misery. You want to rest your mind. [1:24:31]
The best way to change the world is to live the life you want other people to live. [1:31:22]
Society will give you money for giving it things it wants and doesn’t know how to get. [1:47:10]
Live below your means and you will find a certain kind of freedom. [1:47:16]
Most smart people over time realize that possessions don’t make them happy. [1:52:36]
The fundamental delusion: There is something out there that will make me happy and fulfilled forever. [1:55:05]
Retirement [to me] is when you stop sacrificing today for some imaginary tomorrow. Ways to get there: save a lot of money and your passive money income covers your burn rate. [keep your burn rate low] Another way is you are doing something you love. You enjoy it so much it is not about the money. [1:55:57]
The most powerful moneymakers are individual brands. People like Joe Rogan, Elon, Oprah. These people have leverage. They have knowledge no one else has. [1:57:00]
The beauty is you have no competition. If Joe Rogan were to disappear off the air tomorrow no one could step in and fill the void. It is just gone. The way to escape competition is by being authentic. [1:58:02]
Nassim Taleb says there are two great addictions - heroin and a monthly salary. [1:59:13]
There are 2 ways of seeing almost everything. [2:06:49]
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