Naval Ravikant is the CEO and co-founder of AngelList. He’s invested in more than 100 companies, including Uber, Twitter, Yammer, and many others.
Naval is an incredibly deep thinker who challenges the status quo on so many things. This is an interview you’ll want to listen to, think a bit, and then listen to again.
Listen and Learn: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Transcript
We discuss reading, happiness, decision making, habits, and mental models.
Here are a few highlights from our conversation:
- What a “typical day” looks like (not the answer I expected, and not one you’ve likely heard before)
- How Naval developed his legendary reading habits and how he finds time to read no matter how busy life gets
- How the internet has impacted book reading (both good and bad) and how to make sure you’re getting the best information from the most reliable sources
- What popular habit advice Naval thinks is BS and why
- Naval’s habit stacking technique that helped him overcome a desire for alcohol and other potentially destructive habits
- How Naval’s core values give direction to his life and how those values developed over time
- Naval’s thoughts on the current education system and what we can do to facilitate better learning for our children
- Naval’s favorite mental models for making critical high-stakes decisions
- His brilliant two-factor calendar authentication concept to keep him focused on only the most important projects
- Naval’s definition for the meaning of life (buckle up for this one)
- His amazing response to the investor who wanted to be just like Steve Jobs
- And so, so much more.
This episode is considered by many to be the best podcast ever recorded. So grab a pen and a sheet of paper and enjoy this amazing conversation.
Enjoy this amazing conversation.
Books mentioned
- Seven Brief Lessons On Physics
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
- The Book of Life
- René Girard’s Mimetic Theory
- Tools of Titans
- Stories of Your Life and Others
- Thermoinfocomplexity: A New Theory: Origin of Life and Evolution of Complex Adaptive Systems
- Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade
- The Lessons of History
- The Story of Philosophy
- God’s Debris: A Thought Experiment
- The Undercover Economist
- Feynman, Perfectly Reasonable Deviations
- Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman
- The Evolution of Everything
- The Three-Body Problem
- Man’s Search for Meaning
- Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships
- Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
- The Art of Manipulation
- Thing Explainer
Want even more Naval? He’s been chatting on Periscope, and we have edited transcripts [First, Second].
