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Naval Ravikand 1/29/16

Naval Ravikand 1/29/16
  • AI – people who think sky net is a reality, don’t write much code. There is no major AI breakthrough, the new code just works faster or with more data. Likely to serve people, not kill them
  • If you want to be relevant in twenty years, get really good at something, and build a personal brand doing it. Don’t worry about the mainstream job, like working for the times as a photographer, create your own brand as a photographer.
  • Get comfortable working in a boom bust fashion – working for a few weeks, then vacation for a few weeks.
  • Happiness is internal. Start with an experience on an external path, then search for internal happiness.
  • In school, factual memorization is unnecessary in the Internet era. Curriculum focus needs to change.
  • Most happiness is actually just pleasure. Real happiness comes from peace. From understanding yourself.
  • We keep judging things, and the act of judging separates you from that thing. When you judge yourself, you separate yourself from everything and you end up lonely. This loneliness leads to suffering.
  • Happiness comes from peace, realizing that you don’t need something anymore.
  • Tricks to happiness –
    • Meditation, specifically insight meditation – trying to understand how your mind works.
      • Be aware, catch yourself judging. Rational effort until it becomes intuitive.
    • Tell friends that you are a happy person and it forms a consistency bias, forcing you to be happier.
    • If you catch yourself wanting something, ask, is it really that important to me?
    • Dropping caffein
    • Working out daily
    • Happiness is a skill to develop and a choice to make. Work at it once you decide to be happy.
  • Try to not associate with high conflict people to avoid anger and conflict.
  • Life insight – not afraid of death anymore. Much of life’s struggle arises from fear of death.
    • Even the pressure we put on our kids stems from the need have some form of immortality.
    • End the quest for immortality.
  • Out existence is infinitesimal. Nothing will last. Even the sun will fade one day. Why kill yourself teaching for posterity?
    • If you do not believe in afterlife, why are you wasting your glimmer of hope on unhappiness.
  • Nothing you do will matter that much in the long run, so don’t take yourself too seriously. Stop over thinking.
  • Grand goal in living – keep growing and seek truth while you can.
  • Book – anything by Matthew Ridley. How to love yourself like your life depends on it. The power of habit.
  • Do some kind of physical activity every single day, if only for the habit.
  • Break one bad habit every six months.
  • Start one good habit every six months.
    • Develop the habit of happiness as a choice.
  • Focus on the one or two really important habits or obsessions at a time.
  • To get into the start up culture, you have to move to a startup hub.
  • The biggest skills are math, physics and learning how to learn.
  • Individual entrepreneurial efforts frequently fail. Individual entrepreneurs, over their careers, rarely fail.
  • People who win too early in life don’t learn the right lessons.
  • Losing all of his money early on was a blessing.
  • Better to do the startup game early on, while the stakes are lowest.
  • How do you protect your time? It’s all you have!
    • If you can’t see yourself working with someone for life, work them for a day.
    • Derek Sivers – if not hell yes, then no.
    • Create days of empty space. With nothing on your calendar.
    • As you get older, money matters Less.
  • Busy is the death of productivity.
  • Investing is luck. Just create systems to rely on, and you can navigate the randomness that way.
  • Bad news comes suddenly, but good news takes time.