Naval

Most advice is people giving you their winning lottery ticket numbers. • The best founders listen to everyone but make up their own mind 0:00 • Advice is maxims you can recall later, when you get your own experience 1:29 Transcript: http://nav.al/reject-advice

Apply specific knowledge with leverage and eventually you will get what you deserve. • On a long enough time scale you will get paid 0:00 • What are you really good at that the market values? 1:59 Transcript: http://nav.al/deserve

Competition will blind you to greater games. You're one step away from a better market. • Businesses that seem like they're in direct competition really aren't 0:00 • My first company got caught up in the wrong game 1:23 Transcript: http://nav.al/stupid-games

Competition can make you play the wrong game. No one can compete with you on being you. • Competition will trap you in a lesser game 0:00 • No one can compete with you on being you 1:27 • In entrepreneurship, the masses are never right 2:40 • Combine your vocation and avocation 3:45 Transcript: http://nav.al/competition-authenticity  

Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true. • Keep redefining what you do until you're the best at what you do 0:00 • Find founder-product-market fit 1:35 Transcript: http://nav.al/redefining  

You should be too busy to “do coffee”, while still keeping an uncluttered calendar. • Be too busy to “do coffee” while keeping an uncluttered calendar 0:00 • People will meet with you when you have proof of work 2:00 • Networking is overrated even early in your career 2:09 Transcript: http://nav.al/meetings

Work as hard as you can. Even though what you work on and who you work with are more important. • Work as hard as you can 0:00 • But what you work on and who you work with are more important 1:00 • Nobody really works 80 hours a week 2:22 • Inspiration is perishable 3:05 • Impatience with actions, patience with results 3:36 Transcript: http://nav.al/work-hard

If outsourcing a task will cost less than your hourly rate, outsource it. • Set and enforce an aspirational hourly rate 0:00 • You can't penny pinch your way to wealth 1:27 • My aspirational rate was $5,000/hr 1:56 • If you can outsource something for less than your hourly rate, outsource it 2:57 • Your hourly rate should seem absurdly high 3:39 Transcript: http://nav.al/hourly-rate

Everything we've discussed so far has been setting you up to apply judgment. • In an age of infinite leverage, judgment becomes the most important skill 0:00 • Everything else you do is setting you up to apply judgment 1:21 • Judgment is knowing the long-term consequences of your actions 2:40 • Without experience, judgment is often less than useless 3:15 • The people with the best judgment are among the least emotional 4:05 • A lot of the top investors often sound like philosophers 5:18 • The more outraged someone is, the worse their judgment 6:00 Transcript: http://nav.al/judgment

The continuum from laborer to real estate tech company goes from low accountability to high specific knowledge, accountability and leverage. • Laborers get paid hourly and have low accountability 0:19 • General contractors get equity, but they're also taking risk 1:20 • Property developers pocket the profit by applying capital leverage 2:14 • Architects, large developers and REITs are even higher in the stack 3:16 • Real estate tech companies apply the maximum leverage 4:05 Transcript: http://nav.al/laborer-tech

Ideally, you should pick a business model with network effects, low marginal costs and scale economies. • Scale economies: the more you produce, the cheaper it gets 0:00 • Zero marginal cost of reproduction: producing more is free 0:51 • Network effects: value grows as the square of the customers 1:34 • Network effect businesses are natural monopolies 2:26 • In a network effect, each new user adds value to the existing users 3:06 • Zero marginal cost businesses can pivot into network effect businesses 5:01 Transcript: http://nav.al/business-models

Labor and capital are limited to the people who control those resources. But products reach global markets. • Product leverage is a positive-sum game 0:00 • Status goods are limited to a few people 0:57 • The best products tend to be targeted at the middle class 1:25 • Creating wealth with product leads to more ethical wealth 2:06 • You want to use the product that is used by the most people 3:06 • Capital and labor are becoming permissionless 4:24 Transcript: http://nav.al/egalitarian-leverage

Product and media are the leverage of new wealth. Create software and media that work for you while you sleep. • Product and media are the new leverage 0:00 • Product leverage is where the new fortunes are made 0:55 • Combining all three forms of leverage is a magic combination 1:28 • Product and media leverage are permissionless 2:03 • The robots army is already here—code lets you tell them what to do 2:59 Transcript: http://nav.al/product-media  

Wealth requires leverage. Labor and capital are older forms of leverage that everyone is fighting over. • Our brains aren't evolved to comprehend new forms of leverage 0:00 • Society overvalues labor leverage 1:08 • You want the minimum amount of labor that allows you to use the other forms of leverage 1:56 • Capital has been the dominant form of leverage in the last century 2:40 • You need specific knowledge and accountability to obtain capital 4:52 Transcript: http://nav.al/labor-capital

If you have high accountability, you're less replaceable and you can get a piece of the business. • Accountability is how you're going to get equity 0:00 • Taking accountability is like taking equity in all your work 0:29 • The downside of accountability is not that large 2:11 • Accountability is reputational skin in the game 4:30 Transcript: http://nav.al/accountability-equity  

Embrace accountability. Society will reward you with leverage. • You have to have accountability to get leverage 0:00 • Take business risks under your own name 0:54 • A well-functioning team has clear accountability for each position 2:09 • People who can fail in public have a lot of power 3:47 Transcript: http://nav.al/accountability-leverage  

There's no actual skill called business. Avoid business schools and magazines. • There's no actual skill called business 0:00 • Doing is faster than watching 0:55 • The number of “doing” iterations drives the learning curve 2:49 • If you're willing to bleed a little every day, you may win big later 3:53 Transcript: http://nav.al/skill-business

If you understand mathematics and logic, you have the basis for understanding everything else. • The ultimate foundations are math and logic: 0:00 • It’s better to read a great book slowly than to fly through a hundred books quickly: 1:22 • Learn persuasion and programming: 2:08 Transcript: http://nav.al/math-logic

You should be able to pick up any book in the library and read it. • Read what you love until you love to read: 0:00 • Read the original scientific books in a field: 1:44 • Don't fear any book: 2:43 • The means of learning are abundant, the desire to learn is scarce: 3:54 Transcript: http://nav.al/love-read

Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.  • Learn to sell, learn to build 0:00 • The Silicon Valley model is a builder and seller 1:07 • If you can do both you will be unstoppable 1:52 • I'd rather teach an engineer marketing than a marketer engineering 2:48 • Building is better when you're starting out, sales scales better over time 4:33 Transcript: http://nav.al/build-sell