Brian Gubernick walks through Naval Ravikant's 24 rules for building wealth from a 2018 Twitter thread. The framework emphasizes owning equity instead of renting time, delivering value at scale, building specific knowledge driven by curiosity, and playing long-term games. Ravikant distinguishes wealth from money and status, and argues that freedom matters more than riches.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Naval Ravikant— haven't talked about him in a little bit, but, uh, one of the greatest entrepreneurs and investors and thinkers out there. And if you've been listening to No Days Off for some time, you know that The Almanac of Naval is one of my most favorite books over the past few years. If you haven't read The Almanac of Naval Ravikant, pick it up. It is awesome. It is awesome. But Naval is a genius. And in 2018, he wrote this legendary Twitter thread and it was titled How to Get Rich Without Getting Lucky. It's Naval's tweetstorm on wealth. It has since been expanded into different blog posts and podcasts, and frankly, even the book that I mentioned is more or less based on this tweetstorm. I'm gonna talk through the full thread here. I'm gonna more or less read this, not that you can't go read it somewhere else, but I wanna make sure that you in fact hear it all. I wanna take this, you know, take the step of going to read it out of your hands and just get it in your ears today, because I think it's that powerful. It's, it's 24 steps, and I'm going to try to move through it quickly and efficiently, but we may, we may go a little long today, so stick with us. Here's the, here's the, the thread entitled How to Get Rich Without Getting Lucky by Naval Ravikant. Number 1: Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your rank in the social hierarchy. Again, number 1, seek wealth, not money or status. Number 2, understand that ethical wealth creation is possible. If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you. Number 3, ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games. Number 4, 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. Number 5, you will get rich by giving society what it wants but does not yet know how to get it at scale. You'll get rich by giving society what it wants but does not know yet how to get it, period, at scale, period. Number 6, pick an industry where you can play long-term games with long-term people. Number 7, the internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. Most people haven't figured this out yet. I would bet if Naval revises one a slight bit today, he would include something around AI, our conversation just yesterday. Number 8, play iterated games. All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest. Number 9, learn to sell, learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable. Number 10, arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage. Number 11, specific knowledge is knowledge you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it could train someone else and replace you. Number 12, specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now. Number 13, building specific knowledge will feel like play to you, but will look like work to others. Number 14, when you're accountable for your work, you'll get more leverage. Embrace accountability and take business risks under your own name. Society will reward you with responsibility, equity, and leverage. Number 15, leverage is key to wealth. Labor and capital have limits. Code and media are the ultimate leverage. Number 16, you should be too busy to do coffee while still keeping an uncluttered calendar. Number 17, set and enforce an aspirational hourly rate. If fixing a problem will take less than your hourly rate, pay someone else to do it. Just 6 more, stick with me. Number 18, become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true. Number 19, there are no get-rich-quick schemes. That's just someone else getting rich off you. Number 20, apply judgment to leverage. A well-judged decision with leverage can make you rich overnight. Number 21, be patient. Become the kind of person who deserves wealth and wealth will find you. Number 22, play the long game. Number 23, when it comes to wealth creation, avoid competition. The best entrepreneurs are not competing, they are creating. And finally, number 24, the ultimate goal is not just wealth, but freedom. Freedom to do what you want, when you want, with whom you want, for as long as you want. Actually move through that list pretty quickly. Naval's 24— his list of 24 ways, or, or the framework that Naval has, 24 ways to, to become wealthy, to get rich. I think what Naval would say is wealth is built, it's not earned. He'd also say stop trading your time for money. I think there's so many favorites I have in this 24, it's hard to narrow it down. But the ones that are sticking out to me very much at this, this very moment, I think, uh, the first one that really sticks out to me is, and I've been using this phrase quite a bit, pick an industry where you could play long-term games with long-term people. I've been talking quite a bit about our ability to extend our time, meaning that most people look at things in like 6 to 12 month increments and that's how they set their goals. What if you started setting goals in 6 to 12 year increments? You start to look at long-term games and long-term people a little bit differently. Thinking about that one quite a bit. The next one I'm also thinking about, well, he's got a couple in here about specific knowledge, but I really, really, really embrace Naval's take on specific knowledge. Remember, specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now. And it's something specific knowledge is something you cannot be you cannot be trained for. It's knowledge you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it could train someone else to replace you. I really love this idea of developing your specific knowledge, especially for the younger generations, you know, because they've got to have this, this thing that sets them apart. Building specific knowledge will feel like play to you, but will look like work to others. Where does that show up for you right now? And then the last one that, I mean, again, they're all fantastic, but the one that's really just hit me right now is to become the best in the world at what you do. And then he says, keep redefining what you do until this is true. That should be a really good, you know, whiteboard question for you during your thinking time. What am I best in the world at? And most of us probably would answer Nothing. Like, I'm not— I might be good at something, but I'm not best in the world. And Naval would follow it up by saying, okay, keep redefining what you do until this statement is true. So the whiteboard exercise would be, what would have to be changed? What would I have to revise? What would have to be my approach or my niche or my area of focus? Or what relationships am I missing? You start asking yourself all these questions and redefining certain things until the statement, "I am the best in the world," is in fact a true one? It's a really big question. And with big questions, we get really big answers. So, a little bit different in episode today as I run through a list of 24 things. I think many of you, you know, that probably hit you pretty hard. There's certain things Naval says are just absolutely brilliant we all need to be thinking about. Replay this episode a time or two and go through those 24. I would consider reviewing this on a weekly basis for a little while. If you're like me, it will change the way that you approach your day, your week, your month. And again, that's the spirit of the No Days Off mentality. That's all I have for you today. The No Days Off podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
