38 Principles · Naval Ravikant · May 2018
How to Get Rich (without getting lucky)
A tweetstorm on building wealth — set here in two colours, because the whole idea is what keeps working after you stop.
Begin the readThe Man Who Lived the Thread
Before you read the rules, meet the person who wrote them — and, more to the point, built his own life out of them.
Naval Ravikant came to the United States from Delhi as a nine-year-old, raised in Queens by a single mother who worked while she studied. Libraries did the parenting the family couldn't afford. That's not a rags-to-riches flourish — it's the point: he had no capital, no network, and no permission, so he had to get rich the only way left. The way he describes here.
He co-founded AngelList, the platform that rewired how startups raise money and hire — turning a closed, permissioned game into an open one. As an angel investor he backed Uber, Twitter, Notion, Postmates, Stack Overflow and hundreds more, many before they were obvious. Then, in May 2018, he compressed three decades of that experience into a single free tweetstorm — 38 posts — and later a podcast unpacking each one.
Look at what he actually did, and the whole essay is autobiography. He armed himself with specific knowledge the market couldn't train into anyone else. He took risk under his own name. And he reached millions not by asking anyone's permission but through pure permissionless leverage — code and the written word. He didn't sell a course on getting rich. He gave the ideas away, and the reputation compounded anyway.
He is, in the most literal sense, his own proof of concept.
Seek Wealth, Not Money or Status
Before the how, the what. Three words we spend as if they were the same currency — and shouldn't.
We use three words interchangeably. They could not be more different.
Watch what happens to each as the day turns to night — as you stop paying attention.
“Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep.”
Built once, it keeps producing. Night falls, and it does not stop.
N1“Money is how we transfer time and wealth.”
A claim, not the thing — a bucket you must keep filling, or it drains away.
N1“Status is your place in the social hierarchy.”
Zero-sum and ancient: for you to rise, someone must fall. Ignore the players who gain status by attacking wealth creators.
N1 · N3Ethical wealth creation is possible.
“If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you.” Only one of these three keeps working while you sleep.
N2Play the Long Game
Wealth is not won in a sprint. It is the residue of games worth repeating — with people worth repeating them with.
“You’re not going to get rich renting out your time.”
You must own equity — a piece of a business — to gain your financial freedom.
N4“All the returns in life come from compound interest.”
In wealth, relationships, and knowledge alike. Play iterated games — the same game, many times.
N8Long-term games, with long-term people.
Trust and reputation compound only across repeats. Late years dwarf early ones — that is the whole shape of it.
N6Pick partners with intelligence, energy, and — above all — integrity.
Don’t partner with cynics and pessimists; their beliefs are self-fulfilling.
N9 · N10Learn to sell. Learn to build.
Give society what it wants but doesn’t yet know how to get — at scale. The internet has quietly widened the space of careers.
N5 · N7 · N11Arm Yourself: Specific Knowledge
The first of three weapons. Knowledge the world cannot hand you on a course — and so cannot take back.
Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage. The three fit together; miss one and the rest can’t carry you.
Specific knowledge is knowledge you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it can train someone else — and replace you. You find it not by chasing whatever is hot, but by following your own genuine curiosity.
It is taught, when it is taught at all, through apprenticeship rather than school. It tends to be highly technical or highly creative. It cannot be outsourced, and it cannot be automated.
It will feel like play to you but will look like work to others.
Accountability & the Four Leverages
Accountability earns you the lever. Leverage decides how far it moves the world. Two kinds ask permission; two do not.
Code and media are the leverage behind the newly rich — they work for you while you sleep.
Take business risks under your own name.
Embrace accountability; society repays it with responsibility, equity, and leverage.
N18“Give me a lever long enough… and I will move the earth.”
Fortunes require leverage. There are exactly four kinds.
N19 · N20Capital and labor are permissioned.
Everyone chases capital, but someone has to give it. Everyone wants to lead, but someone has to follow.
N21 · N22 · N23Code and media need no one’s permission.
Products with no marginal cost of replication — the leverage behind the newly rich, working while you sleep.
N24 · N25Write books and blogs. Record videos and podcasts.
Leverage is a force multiplier for your judgment. Hover any cell for its example.
N26 · N27Build Judgment
There is no course in getting rich. Only the disciplines that quietly compound into judgment.
There is no skill called “business.” Skip the magazines and the classes.
- 01Microeconomicshow value moves
- 02Game theoryhow players choose
- 03Psychologyhow minds work
- 04Persuasionhow minds change
- 05Ethicshow to be trusted
- 06Mathematicshow to be certain
- 07Computershow to build the lever
Reading is faster than listening. Doing is faster than watching. Optimize your input, then close the book and go.
Execute, and Value Your Time
Judgment is spent through action. Guard the hours; they are the raw material.
N32Be too busy to “do coffee,” yet keep an uncluttered calendar.
N34Work as hard as you can — while remembering who you work with and what you work on matter more.
N35Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true.
The Wealth Equation
Naval’s whole thread, in one line. Read the sign in the middle carefully — these multiply. Drag any term.
Strong on every axis — this is what compounding looks like.
Any single factor near zero collapses the whole product. That is the difference between × and +.
Apply specific knowledge, with leverage, and eventually you will get what you deserve.
There are no get-rich-quick schemes — those are just someone else getting rich off you. And when you’re finally wealthy, you’ll realize it wasn’t what you were seeking in the first place. But that is for another day.
All 38 Principles
Why “without getting lucky.” Climb the ladder and luck stops being chance — it starts seeking you out.
Source: nav.al/rich and The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. Words are Naval Ravikant’s; the printing is an interpretation.
Set in Fraunces, Space Grotesk & Space Mono. A static site — GSAP & Lenis, no tracking.
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