Naval Ravikant is an Indian-American investor and entrepreneur. He was born in New Delhi, India, in 1974 and emigrated to the United States as a child ending up in New York with his brother and mother when he was nine years. He graduated from Stuyvesant high school in 1991 and then pursued a degree in Computer Science and Economics and graduated in 1995 from Dartmouth College.
In 1999, Naval co-founded a consumer product review site, and they raised $45 million in advance capital from August Capital and Benchmark Capital. Other profit-making organizations co-founded by Naval Ravikant include MetaStable Capital, Hit Forge, AngelList, and more. He is the chairman, co-founder, and former CEO of Angelist. Naval has invested early-stage in more than 200 companies, including Twitter, Uber Yammer, Notion, and more.
Naval Ravikant has recently become well known as a philosopher with big ideas that have attracted a massive following on Twitter and Clubhouse. He has much wisdom to impact about life, business, entrepreneurship and relationships. His quotes will inspire you.
Our Favorite Naval Ravikant Quotes
1. “Forty hour workweeks are a relic of the Industrial Age. Knowledge workers function like athletes — train and sprint, then rest and reassess.”– Naval Ravikant
2. “If you want to be a philosopher king first become a king then become a philosopher. Not first become a philosopher and then become a king.”– Naval Ravikant
3. “If you care about ethics in wealth creation, it is better to create your wealth using code and media as leverage because then those products are equally available to everybody as opposed to trying to create your wealth through labor or capital.”– Naval Ravikant
4. “If you’re good with computers, if you’re good at basic mathematics, if you’re good at writing, if you’re good at speaking, and if you like reading, you’re set for life.”– Naval Ravikant
5. “Politics is sports writ large — pick a side, rally the tribe, exchange stories confirming bias, hurl insults and threats at the other side.”– Naval Ravikant
6. “Technology is not only the thing that moves the human race forward, but it’s the only thing that ever has. Without technology, we’re just monkeys playing in the dirt.”– Naval Ravikant
7. “A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought — they must be earned.”– Naval Ravikant
8. “We’re not really here for that long and we don’t really matter that much. And nothing that we do lasts. So eventually you will fade. Your works will fade. Your children will fade. Your thoughts will fade. This planet will fade. The sun will fade. It will all be gone.”– Naval Ravikant
9. “As long as you can keep taking shots on goal, and you keep getting back up, eventually you’ll get through. Just stick at it.”– Naval Ravikant
10. “Your goal in life is to find out the people who need you the most, to find out the business that needs you the most, to find the project and the art that needs you the most. There is something out there just for you.”– Naval Ravikant
11. “I don’t care how rich you are. I don’t care whether you’re a top Wall Street banker. If somebody has to tell you when to be at work, what to wear and how to behave, you’re not a free person. You’re not actually rich.”– Naval Ravikant
12. “Sophisticated foods are bittersweet (wine, beer, coffee, chocolate). Addictive relationships are cooperative and competitive. Work becomes flow at the limits of ability. The flavor of life is on the edge.”– Naval Ravikant
13. “Branding requires accountability. To build a great personal brand (an eponymous one), you must take on the risk of being publicly wrong.”– Naval Ravikant
14. “The problem happens when we have multiple desires. When we have fuzzy desires. When we want to do ten different things and we’re not clear about which is the one we care about.”– Naval Ravikant
15. “We feel guilt when we no longer want to associate with old friends and colleagues who haven’t changed. The price, and marker, of growth.”– Naval Ravikant
16. “So I have no time for short-term things: dinners with people I won’t see again, tedious ceremonies to please tedious people, traveling to places that I wouldn’t go to on vacation.”– Naval Ravikant
17. “If you’re more passionate about founding a business than the business itself, you can fall into a ten year trap. Better to stay emotionally unattached and select the best opportunity that arises. Applies to relationships too.”– Naval Ravikant
18. “Wealth creation is an evolutionarily recent positive-sum game. Status is an old zero-sum game. Those attacking wealth creation are often just seeking status.”– Naval Ravikant
19. “The Efficient Markets Hypothesis fails because humans are herd animals, not independent rational actors. Thus the best investors tend to be antisocial and contrarian.”– Naval Ravikant
20. “Doctors won’t make you healthy. Nutritionists won’t make you slim. Teachers won’t make you smart. Gurus won’t make you calm. Mentors won’t make you rich. Trainers won’t make you fit. Ultimately, you have to take responsibility. Save yourself.”– Naval Ravikant
21. “Most of modern life, all our diseases, are diseases of abundance, not diseases of scarcity.”– Naval Ravikant
22. “Be present. Be meditative. Form real friendships. Stay away from business networking events or friendships where there is always an underlying business angle.”– Naval Ravikant
23. “Success is the enemy of learning. It can deprive you of the time and the incentive to start over. Beginner’s mind also needs a beginner’s time.”– Naval Ravikant
24. “Making money through an early lucky trade is the worst way to win. The bad habits that it reinforces will lead to a lifetime of losses.”– Naval Ravikant
25. “Tell your friends that you’re a happy person. Then you’ll be forced to conform to it. You’ll have a consistency bias. You have to live up to it. Your friends will expect you to be a happy person.”– Naval Ravikant
26. “When building habits, choose consistency over the content. The best book is the one you can’t put down. The best exercise is the one you enjoy doing every day. The best health food is the one you find tasty. The best work is the work you’d do for free.”– Naval Ravikant
27. “If you’re desensitized to the fact that you’re going to die, consider it a different way. As far as you’re concerned, this world is going to end. Now what.”–Naval Ravikant
28. “If you eat, invest, and think according to what the news advocates, you’ll end up nutritionally, financially and morally bankrupt.”– Naval Ravikant
29. “A rational person can find peace by cultivating indifference to things outside of their control.”– Naval Ravikant
30. “Information is everywhere but its meaning is created by the observer that interprets it. Meaning is relative and there is no objective, overarching meaning.”– Naval Ravikant
31. “A contrarian isn’t one who always objects — that’s a confirmist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently, from the ground up, and resists pressure to conform.”– Naval Ravikant
32. “One of the most damaging and widespread social beliefs is the idea that most adults are incapable of learning new skills.”– Naval Ravikant
33. “Crypto is a bet against the modern macroeconomic dogma, which is passed off as science, but is really a branch of politics — with rulers, winners, and losers.”– Naval Ravikant
34. “The power to make and break habits and learning how to do that is really important.”– Naval Ravikant
35. “Social media has degenerated into a deafening cacophony of groups signaling and repeating their shared myths.”– Naval Ravikant
36. “Technology is applied science. Science is the study of nature. Mathematics is the language of nature. Philosophy is the root of mathematics. All tightly interrelated.”– Naval Ravikant
37. “Happiness is a choice and a skill and you can dedicate yourself to learning that skill and making that choice.”– Naval Ravikant
38. “Anger is a hot coal that you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at someone else.”– Naval Ravikant (Naval’s take on a buddhist saying)
39. “Politics and merit are opposite ends of a spectrum. More political organizations are less productive, have less inequality, and top performers opt out. More merit based organizations have higher productivity, more inequality, and higher odds of internal fracture.”– Naval Ravikant
40. “During decision-making, the brain is a memory prediction machine. A lousy way to do memory prediction is “X happened in the past, therefore X will happen in the future.” It’s too based on specific circumstances. What you want is principles. You want mental models.”– Naval Ravikant
41. “Most of life is a search for who and what needs you the most.”– Naval Ravikant
42. “People who try to look smart by pointing out obvious exceptions actually signal the opposite.”– Naval Ravikant
43. “Cynicism is easy. Mimicry is easy. Optimistic contrarians are the rarest breed.”– Naval Ravikant
44. “If you hurt other people because they have an expectation of you that’s their problem. If they have an agreement from you that’s yours.”– Naval Ravikant
45. “Someone who is using a lot of fancy words and big concepts probably doesn’t know what they’re talking about. The smartest people can explain things to a child; if you can’t do that, you don’t understand the concept.”– Naval Ravikant
Joe Rogan Experience #1309 – Naval Ravikant
This is a fascinating interview that covers many diverse topics. If you want to get a good sense of what Naval’s deep thinking is like, this interview is one to watch! Also you can see our Joe Rogan Quotes here.
Summary
To wrap it up, Naval Ravikant is a well-known entrepreneur who has ventured into numerous businesses. His success cannot go unrecognized and this has been made possible by his massive Twitter followers.
Some of his tweets inspiring people on how to get rich without luck have gone viral due to the motivational message. If you dream of getting reach and with ambition, the above quotes about Naval Ravikant are typically meant for you. Enjoy!
If you are interested in learning about Naval, recently Eric Jorgenson compiled An Almanack of Naval Ravikant. Eric did an amazing job by gathering Naval’s best thoughts. And the best part…it’s a FREE Download. You can find it here and download to your iPad or Kindle or phone.
Image Credit: “Naval Ravikant – Launch Conference – San Francisco” by Kris Krug is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
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