9 ms·

How to Get Rich (2019)

94 points by mottiden 4y ago

dchia 4y ago
Despite all the criticism, this remains one of the best threads on Twitter so far.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
1letterunixname 4y ago
There's a hilarious book by the same name by an actual (late) billionaire. It won't help you get rich unless you change your thinking and go with what works. PS: I'm always sad that so many corporate employees are content with not attempting to do the work to get rich and put their futures and their family's future in the hands of capricious managers who will happily fire them and make it next to impossible for them to be rehired anywhere else if they're "too old". If you're not trying to get rich in meaningful ways, then someone else is getting rich off of you.
- pasquinelli 4y ago
  the implication is the only way to get rich is to exploit other people, and you could reason from that that the reason so few people try to get rich is that they would rather not get rich and not exploit people than get rich and exploit people.
  - FrontierPsych 4y ago
    What do you mean by "exploit"? Do you mean people shouldn't hire other people to help them in the company they want to start? Do you mean that there is a black market for slavery and people are buying other people in Istanbul or Madagascar or Iceland and making them work in their parent's basement for them for free and they keep them in chains? Does exploit mean that you try to sell your products to people and that they buy them and you get money from them, when you should give everything away for free, a la Richard Stallman? "Exploit" is a pretty vague word, what specifically do you mean by exploit? Because honestly, I have zero idea what you mean.
    - M95D 4y ago
      Exploit: Pay them (much) less than their work is worth. Because some of that money that comes from their work goes to other people that don't work (previously called slave owners, then feudal landlords, now called shareholders).
      - FrontierPsych 4y ago
        How do you know what someone's work is worth? Also, if I should happen to save some money up, shouldn't I be able to invest is somewhere and get a return on it? Or is charging interest or getting a return on your money bad? Because if one gets interest or loans money to a corporation, and expects to get some kind of dividend at all, then that is using someone else's work for me to get money. I'm not pro or con here, just trying to understand.
        M95D 4y ago
        It doesn't matter how much is work worth. Their work generates some amount of money and some of that money goes goes to people that don't work. That is all. In my opinion, investing and expecting returns (above bank deposit rate, which would be very low in normal, stable economy) is the bad and unfair thing in all this. It is unfair because it allows a person that has a lot of money to get even more money in a self-sustaining loop without work. I have nothing against being rich. Just don't get even more rich doing nothing.
        FrontierPsych 4y ago
        So what do people do with the money they make? Just keep in in the bank with no interest? Put it in a shoe box? Also, what about people who have so much money, like Jeff Bezos, that it doesn't matter if he gets interest because he has so much money he doesn't have to work. Also, what about business owners - if they have employees, they can't just sit at home and watch movies all day? Or are you saying that they should be in their business working all day, and they have no options, they must work, just like a slave - not allowed to not work? Or if they don't work, then are you saying that they get their business taken away from them? And given to whom, if so? The employees? The government? How would people get rich in your scenario? Is it only by working, like a surgeon who can charge $1 million per year, but still works? What about if someone sells info online but once he or she creates the information, people keep buying the info, but the person doesn't really work, except for the one time? Since he or she is not actively working, do 100% of the profits go to the government? It's so confusing. Is there a book about this economic system that you are talking about?
- jimmydddd 4y ago
  "How to Get Rich" by Felix Dennis. A great and hilarious book. One lesson from the book is that, when starting out, he and other startups mutually helped each other out and grew their businesses together througout the years.
- plandis 4y ago
  Why would I risk throwing away what wealth I have accumulated for a small chance of growing my wealth multiplicatively? I see your attitude a lot in friends I’ve made since college who are almost all from at least upper middle class families. It’s much easier to take risks when you have a wealth safety net.
ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
He gets wealth vs status wrong. Status is nothing but the "bigger guns diplomacy." Historically, the highest status person has always been the warlord. Today, the highest status person is arguably also the biggest warlord in the world: the US president. Wealth on the other hand is made through trade. You can buy a certain amount of status (guns) with that and climb your way up. But it is always about guns, humans are monkeys after all. And if you have the guns, you can just take wealth from the trades-folk.
- klipt 4y ago
  > And if you have the guns, you can just take wealth from the trades-folk. “In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it,’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it,’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the name of the gods.’ ‘Do it,’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me – who lives and who dies?”
  - danrocks 4y ago
    Where's that from? Killing the rich man is the clear winner here. 10/10 would slay again.
    - bpodgursky 4y ago
      It's from Game of Thrones, and there's no right answer. The point is that power lies where people think it lies.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
    The sellsword swings and chops off three heads at once and becomes the new incredibly wealthy god king.
TbobbyZ 4y ago
Naval admitted this was a clickbait title. It should read “How to Get Wealth”, which he admits requires luck/timing. One criticism I have of Naval is he thinks anyone can get wealth. Overall his material is A+ for anyone with average intelligence.
- piyush_soni 4y ago
  I went through many of famous 'sayings'. I found them way too simplistic at best (so much so that they end up being completely useless). He says abstract things like "learn to sell, learn to build, if you can do both, you will be unstoppable". Oh really? Isn't it known to everyone? But how to do that, that is the hard part. I could have just said "learn to be like Steve Jobs, then you will be unstoppable" instead. Correct, but of no value.
  - piyush_soni 4y ago
    Moreover, I very politely found out some logical flaws in some other comments of his on Twitter. I'm a nobody, he's the famous Naval. Just on that small thing he blocked me (no, I didn't use any rude words or bad language etc.)! I found it too shallow for a person of his stature.
    - sedeki 4y ago
      What do you mean by "logical flaw" in these sort of motivational/inspiring-type quotes?
      - piyush_soni 4y ago
        Two of his quotes that were logically inconsistent with each other. I forgot the exact ones and can't search them right now but that was it.
  - meken 4y ago
    I agree. All the “advice” is describing what the end state looks like. How any one person achieves that end state is a complete mystery, and it’s not clear at all to me that knowing how the end state looks is useful for getting there. In fact, I would say it’s more often a detriment.
jongjong 4y ago
Some industries including large subsets of the tech industry have become essentially zero-sum games. It's almost impossible to make money in those industries because they have been monopolized. If you happen to launch a software service in those industries, you will not be able to get any serious traffic from Google or social media because those platforms favor certain providers over others (e.g. US-based providers). Also you need to be careful of launching in an industry which is about to become monopolized. So if you're not based in the US or you don't have many personal connections, you shouldn't dream too big; you need to find a niche which isn't going to be gate-kept.
- Mandatum 4y ago
  You're insane if you don't launch in the US - even virtually. US is where the money is, US is where the market is, and US is where the only customers that matter are (unless you're selling to defence, gov or niche regional finance). It makes acquisitions easier, it makes hiring easier, it makes marketing and sales easier and it makes billing easier. Unless you want to bootstrap until you retire because it's a lifestyle business, then just do it where you are and chill - you are the 0.001%.
  - MonkeyClub 4y ago
    > US is where the only customers that matter are I’d love to hear the rationale behind that.
    - Mandatum 4y ago
      If you can name a global organisation that doesn't get the lion's share of revenue from US organisations, or doesn't make major purchasing decisions out of the US - feel free to correct me. If you're a startup, you should only be going after low-hanging fruit, and that's only your existing network, and in the US.
circular_lights 4y ago
Excellent advice on how to play the game best according to the rules* * rules as in "rules for thee, not for me"
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
imtringued 4y ago
I think it is sad that we let others steal our freedom and then fall for the illusion that we need to steal others freedom just to get our own freedom back. >You want wealth because it buys you freedom—so you don’t have to wear a tie like a collar around your neck; so you don’t have to wake up at 7:00 a.m. to rush to work and sit in commute traffic; so you don’t have to waste your life grinding productive hours away into a soulless job that doesn’t fulfill you. >The purpose of wealth is freedom; it’s nothing more than that. ... It’s about being your own sovereign individual. Don't want a collar around your neck? Tie collars around other necks!
- koonsolo 4y ago
  I think the whole premise of these statements are wrong. If you want to work for money, and go home not bothered with it, then get a job. If you want your whole life ruled by the business, then start a business. The most hard working people I know have businesses, so starting one in the illusion that it will buy you freedom is very strange. Start a business if you want to start a business, but it will take over your life, not give you "freedom". If you want "freedom" in the weekends and evenings, just get a job.
  - babaganoosh89 4y ago
    Freedom != time spent, it's time spent on your own terms.
    - MonkeyClub 4y ago
      I think koonsolo has a point, namely that you may start a business thinking “yeah my terms”, but pretty soon the business will determine the terms - and the times.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
black_13 4y ago
SuperSandro2000 4y ago
Have rich parents. Add ready as that.
- AlchemistCamp 4y ago
  The author grew up poor and was raised by a single mom.
  - Grimburger 4y ago
    > Ravikant was born in New Delhi, India in 1974. He moved to New York with his mother and his brother, Kamal, when he was 9. On a scale of 1 to average Indian person today where would you put him?
    - fho 4y ago
      Yeah ... I think most people do not realize that most Indian people they interact with are not from the lower classes. I was invited and attended the wedding of my former Indian room mate and only then I realized that his family was pretty wealthy with a nice house in a nice district of Bangalore.
    - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
      Today he's one of the richest people, not only from India, but anywhere in the entire world. That's why so many people pay attention to his advice about how to get rich. He's not selling you course in order to become wealthy. He already has, and he's sharing what he learned without asking for anything in return.
lo_zamoyski 4y ago
Just the status game being played by equating status with wealth? This parallels how Nietzsche's slave morality vilifies power, but this vilification is merely how the powerless and weak express their will to power.
janef0421 4y ago
If wealth is assets that produce income for me without doing anything, then, logically, either someone else is doing work for which I receive some portion of the income, or I am benefitting from inflating asset prices, which make it harder for others to purchase those assets. This is socially unproductive and I have no real interest in it.
- ac29 4y ago
  Assets that produce income aren't acquired for free, so you are doing something (exchanging money for assets). That is absolutely productive.

94 points by mottiden 4y ago

dchia 4y ago

Despite all the criticism, this remains one of the best threads on Twitter so far.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

1letterunixname 4y ago

There's a hilarious book by the same name by an actual (late) billionaire. It won't help you get rich unless you change your thinking and go with what works. PS: I'm always sad that so many corporate employees are content with not attempting to do the work to get rich and put their futures and their family's future in the hands of capricious managers who will happily fire them and make it next to impossible for them to be rehired anywhere else if they're "too old". If you're not trying to get rich in meaningful ways, then someone else is getting rich off of you.

pasquinelli 4y ago
the implication is the only way to get rich is to exploit other people, and you could reason from that that the reason so few people try to get rich is that they would rather not get rich and not exploit people than get rich and exploit people.
- FrontierPsych 4y ago
  What do you mean by "exploit"? Do you mean people shouldn't hire other people to help them in the company they want to start? Do you mean that there is a black market for slavery and people are buying other people in Istanbul or Madagascar or Iceland and making them work in their parent's basement for them for free and they keep them in chains? Does exploit mean that you try to sell your products to people and that they buy them and you get money from them, when you should give everything away for free, a la Richard Stallman? "Exploit" is a pretty vague word, what specifically do you mean by exploit? Because honestly, I have zero idea what you mean.
  - M95D 4y ago
    Exploit: Pay them (much) less than their work is worth. Because some of that money that comes from their work goes to other people that don't work (previously called slave owners, then feudal landlords, now called shareholders).
    - FrontierPsych 4y ago
      How do you know what someone's work is worth? Also, if I should happen to save some money up, shouldn't I be able to invest is somewhere and get a return on it? Or is charging interest or getting a return on your money bad? Because if one gets interest or loans money to a corporation, and expects to get some kind of dividend at all, then that is using someone else's work for me to get money. I'm not pro or con here, just trying to understand.
      - M95D 4y ago
        It doesn't matter how much is work worth. Their work generates some amount of money and some of that money goes goes to people that don't work. That is all. In my opinion, investing and expecting returns (above bank deposit rate, which would be very low in normal, stable economy) is the bad and unfair thing in all this. It is unfair because it allows a person that has a lot of money to get even more money in a self-sustaining loop without work. I have nothing against being rich. Just don't get even more rich doing nothing.
        FrontierPsych 4y ago
        So what do people do with the money they make? Just keep in in the bank with no interest? Put it in a shoe box? Also, what about people who have so much money, like Jeff Bezos, that it doesn't matter if he gets interest because he has so much money he doesn't have to work. Also, what about business owners - if they have employees, they can't just sit at home and watch movies all day? Or are you saying that they should be in their business working all day, and they have no options, they must work, just like a slave - not allowed to not work? Or if they don't work, then are you saying that they get their business taken away from them? And given to whom, if so? The employees? The government? How would people get rich in your scenario? Is it only by working, like a surgeon who can charge $1 million per year, but still works? What about if someone sells info online but once he or she creates the information, people keep buying the info, but the person doesn't really work, except for the one time? Since he or she is not actively working, do 100% of the profits go to the government? It's so confusing. Is there a book about this economic system that you are talking about?
jimmydddd 4y ago
"How to Get Rich" by Felix Dennis. A great and hilarious book. One lesson from the book is that, when starting out, he and other startups mutually helped each other out and grew their businesses together througout the years.
plandis 4y ago
Why would I risk throwing away what wealth I have accumulated for a small chance of growing my wealth multiplicatively? I see your attitude a lot in friends I’ve made since college who are almost all from at least upper middle class families. It’s much easier to take risks when you have a wealth safety net.

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago

He gets wealth vs status wrong. Status is nothing but the "bigger guns diplomacy." Historically, the highest status person has always been the warlord. Today, the highest status person is arguably also the biggest warlord in the world: the US president. Wealth on the other hand is made through trade. You can buy a certain amount of status (guns) with that and climb your way up. But it is always about guns, humans are monkeys after all. And if you have the guns, you can just take wealth from the trades-folk.

klipt 4y ago
> And if you have the guns, you can just take wealth from the trades-folk. “In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it,’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it,’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the name of the gods.’ ‘Do it,’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me – who lives and who dies?”
- danrocks 4y ago
  Where's that from? Killing the rich man is the clear winner here. 10/10 would slay again.
  - bpodgursky 4y ago
    It's from Game of Thrones, and there's no right answer. The point is that power lies where people think it lies.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
  The sellsword swings and chops off three heads at once and becomes the new incredibly wealthy god king.

TbobbyZ 4y ago

Naval admitted this was a clickbait title. It should read “How to Get Wealth”, which he admits requires luck/timing. One criticism I have of Naval is he thinks anyone can get wealth. Overall his material is A+ for anyone with average intelligence.

piyush_soni 4y ago
I went through many of famous 'sayings'. I found them way too simplistic at best (so much so that they end up being completely useless). He says abstract things like "learn to sell, learn to build, if you can do both, you will be unstoppable". Oh really? Isn't it known to everyone? But how to do that, that is the hard part. I could have just said "learn to be like Steve Jobs, then you will be unstoppable" instead. Correct, but of no value.
- piyush_soni 4y ago
  Moreover, I very politely found out some logical flaws in some other comments of his on Twitter. I'm a nobody, he's the famous Naval. Just on that small thing he blocked me (no, I didn't use any rude words or bad language etc.)! I found it too shallow for a person of his stature.
  - sedeki 4y ago
    What do you mean by "logical flaw" in these sort of motivational/inspiring-type quotes?
    - piyush_soni 4y ago
      Two of his quotes that were logically inconsistent with each other. I forgot the exact ones and can't search them right now but that was it.
- meken 4y ago
  I agree. All the “advice” is describing what the end state looks like. How any one person achieves that end state is a complete mystery, and it’s not clear at all to me that knowing how the end state looks is useful for getting there. In fact, I would say it’s more often a detriment.

jongjong 4y ago

Some industries including large subsets of the tech industry have become essentially zero-sum games. It's almost impossible to make money in those industries because they have been monopolized. If you happen to launch a software service in those industries, you will not be able to get any serious traffic from Google or social media because those platforms favor certain providers over others (e.g. US-based providers). Also you need to be careful of launching in an industry which is about to become monopolized. So if you're not based in the US or you don't have many personal connections, you shouldn't dream too big; you need to find a niche which isn't going to be gate-kept.

Mandatum 4y ago
You're insane if you don't launch in the US - even virtually. US is where the money is, US is where the market is, and US is where the only customers that matter are (unless you're selling to defence, gov or niche regional finance). It makes acquisitions easier, it makes hiring easier, it makes marketing and sales easier and it makes billing easier. Unless you want to bootstrap until you retire because it's a lifestyle business, then just do it where you are and chill - you are the 0.001%.
- MonkeyClub 4y ago
  > US is where the only customers that matter are I’d love to hear the rationale behind that.
  - Mandatum 4y ago
    If you can name a global organisation that doesn't get the lion's share of revenue from US organisations, or doesn't make major purchasing decisions out of the US - feel free to correct me. If you're a startup, you should only be going after low-hanging fruit, and that's only your existing network, and in the US.

circular_lights 4y ago

Excellent advice on how to play the game best according to the rules* * rules as in "rules for thee, not for me"

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

imtringued 4y ago

I think it is sad that we let others steal our freedom and then fall for the illusion that we need to steal others freedom just to get our own freedom back. >You want wealth because it buys you freedom—so you don’t have to wear a tie like a collar around your neck; so you don’t have to wake up at 7:00 a.m. to rush to work and sit in commute traffic; so you don’t have to waste your life grinding productive hours away into a soulless job that doesn’t fulfill you. >The purpose of wealth is freedom; it’s nothing more than that. ... It’s about being your own sovereign individual. Don't want a collar around your neck? Tie collars around other necks!

koonsolo 4y ago
I think the whole premise of these statements are wrong. If you want to work for money, and go home not bothered with it, then get a job. If you want your whole life ruled by the business, then start a business. The most hard working people I know have businesses, so starting one in the illusion that it will buy you freedom is very strange. Start a business if you want to start a business, but it will take over your life, not give you "freedom". If you want "freedom" in the weekends and evenings, just get a job.
- babaganoosh89 4y ago
  Freedom != time spent, it's time spent on your own terms.
  - MonkeyClub 4y ago
    I think koonsolo has a point, namely that you may start a business thinking “yeah my terms”, but pretty soon the business will determine the terms - and the times.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

black_13 4y ago

SuperSandro2000 4y ago

Have rich parents. Add ready as that.

AlchemistCamp 4y ago
The author grew up poor and was raised by a single mom.
- Grimburger 4y ago
  > Ravikant was born in New Delhi, India in 1974. He moved to New York with his mother and his brother, Kamal, when he was 9. On a scale of 1 to average Indian person today where would you put him?
  - fho 4y ago
    Yeah ... I think most people do not realize that most Indian people they interact with are not from the lower classes. I was invited and attended the wedding of my former Indian room mate and only then I realized that his family was pretty wealthy with a nice house in a nice district of Bangalore.
  - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
    Today he's one of the richest people, not only from India, but anywhere in the entire world. That's why so many people pay attention to his advice about how to get rich. He's not selling you course in order to become wealthy. He already has, and he's sharing what he learned without asking for anything in return.

lo_zamoyski 4y ago

Just the status game being played by equating status with wealth? This parallels how Nietzsche's slave morality vilifies power, but this vilification is merely how the powerless and weak express their will to power.

janef0421 4y ago

If wealth is assets that produce income for me without doing anything, then, logically, either someone else is doing work for which I receive some portion of the income, or I am benefitting from inflating asset prices, which make it harder for others to purchase those assets. This is socially unproductive and I have no real interest in it.

ac29 4y ago
Assets that produce income aren't acquired for free, so you are doing something (exchanging money for assets). That is absolutely productive.