A short YouTube interview clip in which Naval Ravikant explains that the most important factor in business and investing is the people you choose to work with. He advises finding partners who have very high intelligence, very high energy, and very high integrity, and warns that lacking any one of these traits leads to failure or active harm; he also notes that integrity takes time to learn about someone.
Chapters
You'll hear the same advice, whether it's Warren Buffett telling you about public investing, or whether it's experienced venture capitalists telling you about private investing, or an older entrepreneur telling you about starting a company. And they'll all tell you it's the people stupid. And everybody goes, huh? They nod and they don't really understand what that means. And you figure that out 10 years later, once you've worked with enough of the wrong people. What I usually say is that you should find a great partner, no matter what it is that you're doing. And you should look for someone who is very high intelligence, very high energy, and very high integrity. And you need all three of those and you can't compromise on any one of them. Otherwise you'll end up with either someone who's not smart, which does you no good, or someone who's not hard working, which also does you no good, or the worst case is you end up with a smart, hard working crook who ends up working against your interests. And integrity is something that takes a lot of time spent with someone to figure out.