4 ms·

yea its general tech/sv thought leader styles content. there's the other guy on twitter nevel or something? i cant remember. i hate follow a bunch of these guys

• rebelos 6y ago
  Naval Ravikant is a bit of a "head in the clouds" type, but he does have some genuinely interesting ideas that are worth paying attention to. The problem with both Ravikant and Graham is that they're pontificating in a space where the ideas seem superficially trite but become powerful when applied. I think of Dale Carnegie's book 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' as a good illustration of this. People around here especially love to hate on it, but that's because they don't quite understand the point of it. The point of that book (and of the musings of people like Ravikant and Graham) is to explain to people that success is a product of attitude and behavior as much as it is a product of intellect. That simple ideas, routinely applied, can yield wondrous outcomes. And, perhaps most importantly, that the ingredient for success absent in most STEM-inclined minds is the capacity to restrain analytical/cynical impulses in just the right way. Neither Ravikant nor Graham is an intellectual slouch. They have noteworthy backgrounds in STEM that categorically refute any possible accusation of dimwittedness. When they decide to discuss 'soft' ideas, it's because their experience in the real world, pattern matching against countless observations made in the trenches of the tech industry, has taught them that these ideas are crucial.