- The episode is sponsored by 99designs, a platform for graphic design projects
- Naval Ravikant is the CEO and co-founder of AngelList, an online fundraising and recruiting platform for startups
- Naval is a deep thinker and successful investor
- He is known for being intense and competitive, but has also been working on being more calm and happy
- The interview will cover a range of topics and recommendations from Naval

- The speaker discusses the contradiction between the pursuit of success and the pursuit of happiness.
- They argue that society's emphasis on success can lead to unhappiness and a constant feeling of not being good enough.
- They suggest that surrounding oneself with less successful people can lead to greater happiness.
- The speaker attributes their intensity to their upbringing and the adversities they faced.
- They emphasize the importance of honesty and being present in order to achieve happiness.
- The speaker references physicist Richard Feynman and his belief in the importance of honesty.
- They also mention the impact of growing up around rough individuals and witnessing the value of honesty in relationships.
- The speaker suggests that being present and honest can lead to greater happiness and fulfillment.
- They mention a book called "Lying" by Sam Harris that explores the impact of deceit and white lies.
- The speaker also mentions their admiration for Richard Feynman's multidisciplinary approach to life.

- AngelList was created to solve the problem of entrepreneurs not having information on raising money and finding investors.
- AngelList has expanded to also help founders find help building their business and recruiting talent.
- The goal of AngelList is to support founders and underdogs in the business world.
- The founder of AngelList believes that in the future, most people will work for themselves, and the optimal size of a company will shrink.
- When looking for founders to invest in, intelligence, energy, and integrity are key qualities.
- Personal compatibility and the ability to learn from founders are also important factors.
- Examples of impressive founders include the creators of After School and Bolt.

- Certain entrepreneurs care deeply about their ventures and treat every move as building a foundation for success.
- Founders who treat their ventures as a quick flip or are not committed for the long haul often do not achieve good outcomes.
- The venture capital industry rewards those who are right when everyone else is wrong.
- Conventional wisdom in the industry is often wrong, and great companies can look very different from previous successful ones.
- It is important for investors to evaluate each opportunity on its own merits and not be deterred by past failures in a certain industry or space.
- There is no perfect formula for success in startups, and investors should be open-minded and listen to new companies without preconceived notions.
- Working on one's internal state and overcoming biases and conditioned responses is crucial for successful investing.
- Books in the stoicism and rational Buddhism categories have been influential in improving the ability to invest and allocate resources.

- Jiddu Krishnamurti, an Indian philosopher, has had a significant influence on the speaker, emphasizing the importance of examining one's own mind.
- The speaker recommends "The Book of Life" by Krishnamurti and "Striking Thoughts" by Bruce Lee as books with valuable philosophy.
- Blogs are an underappreciated resource for wisdom, especially in a time of Twitter and Facebook.
- Books can be challenging to read in the modern age due to decreased attention spans and conflicting ideas about finishing books.
- The speaker developed a hack to treat books as throwaway blog posts or tweets, allowing for more flexible reading.
- Ancient wisdom can be found in books that have stood the test of time.
- Blogs can provide efficient and valuable information, but it is important to be selective and filter sources.
- "Melting Asphalt" and the blog of Scott Adams are recommended as excellent sources of intellectual and scientific curiosity.

- The speaker praises Scott Adams as a great thinker and writer, particularly recommending his blog post "The Day You Became a Better Writer" as a valuable resource for improving writing skills.
- The speaker mentions having a tennis lesson with Scott Adams and plans to have him on a podcast.
- The speaker discusses their successful investments in companies like Twitter, Uber, and Postmates, but also mentions some missed opportunities like Twilio and Pinterest.
- The speaker reflects on the importance of learning from mistakes and not dwelling on bad investments.
- The speaker emphasizes the need to guard one's time as an early-stage investor and values time more than money.
- When asked about successful people, the speaker mentions individuals like Steve Jobs, Mark Andreessen, and Elon Musk, but also admires those who have internal self-control and rise above the game entirely.

- Naval Ravikant, CEO of AngelList, is known for his deep thinking and success as an investor.
- The interview covers various topics, including the pursuit of success versus happiness.
- Surrounding oneself with less successful people can lead to greater happiness.
- Naval emphasizes the importance of honesty and being present for happiness and fulfillment.
- AngelList was created to help entrepreneurs raise money and find investors, and has since expanded to support founders in building their businesses and recruiting talent.
- The optimal size of a company is expected to shrink in the future, with more people working for themselves.
- When investing in founders, qualities like intelligence, energy, integrity, personal compatibility, and the ability to learn are important.
- The venture capital industry rewards those who are right when others are wrong, and conventional wisdom can be misleading.
- It is crucial for investors to overcome biases and conditioned responses and work on their internal state.
- Books, blogs, and selective sources provide valuable wisdom and information.
- Naval recommends books by Jiddu Krishnamurti and Bruce Lee, and blogs like "Melting Asphalt" and Scott Adams'.
- Learning from mistakes and not dwelling on bad investments is important.
- Naval values time more than money as an early-stage investor.
- Successful people mentioned include Steve Jobs, Mark Andreessen, and Elon Musk, as well as those with internal self-control.

- The speaker discusses the concept of success and how it is related to mental peace and detachment from external outcomes.
- They share their experience with meditation and describe a form of meditation called choiceless awareness or non-judgmental awareness.
- They explain that this form of meditation involves being aware of thoughts without making judgments or decisions.
- The speaker discusses the internal response to negative thoughts and how they try to be aware of their thoughts without judging them.
- They emphasize that most thoughts are fear-based and that recognizing this can help quiet the mind and bring a sense of peace.
- The speaker mentions a book called Siddhartha and how lust is often a distraction from enlightenment.
- They discuss the importance of habits and how they can shape our lives.
- They share their experience with a daily workout routine and how it transformed them physically and mentally.
- The speaker emphasizes the power of habits and the need to constantly replace bad habits with good ones.
- They mention the importance of breathing control in their morning routine and how it contributes to a present state of mind.
- They mention that significant changes can be made in a short period of time, but long-term habits are necessary for sustainable results.

- The speaker believes that people can underestimate how quickly they can fall back into bad habits after losing weight
- They emphasize that sustainable habits are important for long-term success
- The speaker discusses their approach to changing their eating habits, focusing on enjoying healthier foods and substituting unhealthy options
- They mention the importance of measurement and recommend the book "The Power of Habit" by Duhigg
- The speaker shares their experience with the teppanyaki grill and how it has improved their meals at home
- They also discuss their workout routine and the benefits of exercising at home with dumbbells
- The speaker talks about their decision to give up caffeine and alcohol for health reasons
- They explain how suffering can be a catalyst for change and discuss the effects of caffeine on their energy levels
- The speaker provides tips for combating sugar cravings, such as increasing sodium intake and taking branched chain amino acids.

- It is sometimes easier to change multiple behaviors at once, especially when subtracting negative behaviors or inputs.
- A three-day meditation retreat helped the speaker remove caffeine from his life.
- Internal readiness for complete change is important, and making commitments to others can help hold oneself accountable.
- Punishments or rewards can be effective incentives for behavior change.
- Using biases and weaknesses to hack one's own brain and mind can lead to positive change.
- "Sapiens" by Yuval Noah Harari is a mind-blowing book that offers an orthogonal view on humans as a species, focusing on storytelling and the impact of humans on the Earth.

- The speaker discusses how every generation has a form of racism, with the current one being rich versus poor.
- The speaker recommends books such as "Injustice," "The Rational Optimist," "Poor Charlie's Almanac," "The Book of Life," "Siddhartha," "Meditations," and "The Origin of Species."
- The speaker mentions a theory that Homo sapiens were able to dominate Neanderthals because they were able to domesticate wolves.
- The speaker believes that evolution explains human behavior better than anything else, and recommends reading "The Origin of Species."
- The speaker suggests treating life as a movie, which can lead to a more positive and ethical outlook.
- The speaker discusses the importance of self-awareness and being present in the moment.

- The speaker discusses lucid dreaming and the use of a written vocabulary while speaking to sound smart
- They mention their overuse of certain phrases and their habit of looking at things in an evolutionary context
- The importance of understanding game theory and the book "Influence" by Robert Cialdini is mentioned
- The speaker criticizes the lack of education on important life skills and recommends reading as a way to learn
- Book recommendations are given, including "Snow Crash," "V for Vendetta," "Sapiens," and "Meditations"
- The importance of finding books that grab your interest is emphasized, and the benefits of using a Kindle are mentioned

- The video discusses the book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" and its sequel "So What Do You Care What Other People Think?"
- Reading is emphasized as a powerful skill that can be used to learn and develop other skills.
- The importance of being true to oneself and not living up to others' expectations is highlighted.
- The power of love and giving love to others is discussed.
- The first 60 minutes of the day are described, including waking up naturally, doing a light workout and meditation, and avoiding alarm clocks.

- Evolution has shaped our sleep patterns and the need for social connection
- Sleeping alone and in a quiet room is not natural for humans
- Loneliness and depression can stem from being disconnected from our tribal roots
- Building a tribe and surrounding ourselves with people can help combat loneliness
- Real love is giving without expecting anything in return
- Acceptance is key to finding peace and happiness in life
- The speaker asks for book recommendations that have had a significant impact on people's lives

- The speaker discusses the concept of success and mental peace
- They share their experience with choiceless awareness meditation
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of habits and replacing bad habits with good ones
- They discuss their approach to changing eating habits and recommend the book "The Power of Habit"
- The speaker talks about their decision to give up caffeine and alcohol for health reasons
- They provide tips for combating sugar cravings
- The speaker discusses the importance of self-awareness and being present in the moment
- They recommend various books, including "Sapiens" and "Meditations"
- The speaker highlights the importance of reading and being true to oneself
- They discuss the power of love and the importance of building a tribe
- Acceptance is key to finding peace and happiness in life

- Naval Ravikant asks listeners to share the book that has had the biggest impact on them
- Naval can be found on Angel List and has a neglected blog at startupboy.com
- Naval's Twitter account is twitter.com/Nival
- Tim Ferriss encourages people to engage with Naval on Twitter
- The conversation with Naval focused on good thinking and asking good questions, not just startups
- Tim Ferriss mentions his email newsletter, 5 Bullet Friday, and invites people to sign up on his website
- Tim Ferriss promotes Athletic Greens and offers a 50% discount code
- Tim Ferriss also promotes 99designs and offers a free $99 upgrade for listeners.

Take 10 seconds and sign up for my free "5-Bullet Friday" newsletter: https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-yt/ Each Friday, you’ll get a short email from me with five things I've discovered that week, sending you off to your weekend with fun and useful things to ponder and try. 🙌

Naval Ravikant (@naval) is the CEO and a co-founder of AngelList. He previously co-founded Epinions, which went public as part of Shopping.com, and Vast.com. He is an active angel investor and has invested in more than 100 companies, including more than a few “unicorn” mega-successes.

BUT, even if you have zero interest in startups or investing, this episode is well worth your time. This is really about the habits and beliefs of a highly successful (and happy) person.

Naval has refined his way of living in very unique ways, and you can borrow what he’s learned, read the books that have changed him, and experiment with the habits he has developed through trial and error.

Connect with Naval Ravikant:
Follow Naval Ravikant on Twitter: https://twitter.com/naval

The Person I Call Most for Startup Advice
Show Notes: https://tim.blog/2015/08/18/the-evolutionary-angel-naval-ravikant/

Intro [0:00]
On the intensity of Naval Ravikant [6:55]
On uncompromising honesty [16:54]
How AngelList and Venture Hacks came to be [20:09]
What Naval looks for when deciding to invest in a founder [25:24]
Common “wives tales” in venture capital [32:39]
What books, outside the startup world, have most improved Naval’s ability to invest? [36:54]
Greatest investing hits and misses [51:49]
When you think of the successful people, who is the first that comes to mind? [58:19]
Meditative practices [1:00:58]
How to replace bad habits with good habits [1:07:06]
On setting stakes and awards [1:24:49]
How to treat your life like a movie [1:34:44]
Overused words and phrases [1:39:39]
Early life education and the importance of “loving to read” [1:43:19]
Advice for his younger self [1:51:09]
Describing the first 60 minutes of each day [1:52:40]
If you could have one billboard anywhere, where would it be and what would it say? [2:04:19]


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About Tim Ferriss:
Tim Ferriss is one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People” and an early-stage tech investor/advisor in Uber, Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Duolingo, Alibaba, and 50+ other companies. He is also the author of five #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers: The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Chef, Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors. The Observer and other media have named him “the Oprah of audio” due to the influence of his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, which has exceeded 200 million downloads and been selected for “Best of iTunes” three years running.

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This episode is brought to you by 99designs, your one-stop shop for all things graphic design related.

I have used 99designs for everything from banner ads to book covers including sketches and mock-ups that led to the 4-Hour Body which later became number 1 New York Times, number 1 Wall Street Journal.

And the brainstorming, a lot of it took place with designers from around the world.

Whether you need a t-shirt, a business card, a website, an app thumbnail, whatever it might be, you submit that project and designers from around the world will send you sketches and mock-ups and designs you choose your favorite and you have an original that you love or you get your money back.

And many of you who are listening have already used it and created some amazing things that I'll be sharing in the future.

But in the meantime, if you want to see some of my competitions, some of the book covers, as well as get a free $99 upgrade, go to 99designs.com forward slash Tim.

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens.

I get asked all the time if you could only use 1 supplement, what would it be?

And my answer is inevitably Athletic Greens.

It is your all-in-one nutritional insurance.

I recommended it in the 4-hour body, did not get paid for that and I travel with it to avoid getting sick.

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oh my God, 50% off, yes, 50% off if you go to athleticgreens.com forward slash Tim, that's athleticgreens.com forward slash Tim.

It's tasty, but more important, it will help you not screw up when you're doing your nutritional planning.

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Hello my frisky little kittens, this is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world class performers to tease out the routines, the habits, the influences such as favorite books and so on, that have made them good at what they do.

And the intention, of course, is to unearth the things that you can borrow, that you can replicate in your own life, ASAP.

And The guests range from chess prodigies to hedge fund managers to celebs to fill in the blank.

And this time we have a fill in the blank, which is a world-class entrepreneur, builder and investor.

Naval is the CEO and co-founder of AngelList.

He is a close friend, has become an even closer friend because I am now an advisor to AngelList.

He previously co-founded ePinions, which went public as part of Shopping.com and Vast.com also.

He is a very active angel investor, not surprisingly, and has invested in more than 100 companies, including more than a handful of unicorn, so-called unicorn mega, mega, mega, I think I'll just say that again, mega successes.

His deals include Twitter, Uber, Yammer, Postmates, Wish, Thumbtack, and OpenDNS, which Cisco just bought for

There are many more, and you can find many examples on his AngelList page, which is just angel.co forward slash naval.

If you want to see mine, it is angel.co forward slash Tim.

And AngelList is 1 of the most incredible tools for investing, matching opportunities and investors that I've ever seen.

And it's very, very disruptive to the venture capital space.

There were, I think, around 10 people who were introduced to Uber way back in the day as investors and given the opportunity on AngelList.

I have led a couple of deals, including SHIP, S-H-Y-P.

You can check them out at ship.com, which is, I think, around 40x up in its valuation from the first time that I put it on AngelList and made it available to people like yourselves, who are accredited investors.

So you can check out all of my startup deals at angel.co forward slash Tim.

But let's talk about Naval and why he's on the podcast.

Naval's on the podcast because he is a very deep thinker who is very good at asking questions and testing, in other words, questioning the obvious.

And that practice and the practice of being hyper rational when other people are emotional has allowed him to be very successful in the world of investing.

But it translates to many other sectors of life and business.

And that is why, even if you have no interest in early-stage investing, I highly, highly encourage you to listen to this.

Much like the Krasaka episode, Naval has had a huge impact on my own thinking about the world and startups and investing.

And he's been very much a mentor in that capacity and many others.

So I hope that my enthusiasm and enjoyment in this interview translates to the same for you.

He is a treasure trove of many recommendations, and you will probably take down a lot of notes.

But you can find the links to the books and so on in the show notes.

And the show notes are at 4hourworkweek.com forward slash podcast, all spelled out, 4hourworkweek.com forward slash podcast.

And without further ado, please enjoy Nival Ravikant.

I have really been looking forward to this because I always enjoy sitting down in this somewhat artificial formal setting to talk with close friends because it gives me the opportunity to do something that would never work in say a dinner or sitting down, which is basically have a unidirectional Charlie Rose experience of lobbing questions at you.

So I'm actually pretty stoked to jump into it.

The first thing that I wanted to ask is, I suppose, a pretty basic 1.

But when people ask you, what do you do, how do you answer that?

Fundamentally at heart, I'm an entrepreneur and any day in which I solve the same problem twice in a row, I'm pretty unhappy.

So by definition, I like to do something different every day and I think all humans are sort of meant to do that kind of thing.

The idea that we repeat ourselves and we specialize and we pigeonhole ourselves is a modern invention created through specialization of labor and the industrial revolution.

And hopefully as more and more people move up Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we're going to be able to define ourselves much more loosely.

So that's a good way of dodging your question.

My day job is I am co-founder and CEO of AngelList, which is kind of the world's largest platform for online fundraising and recruiting for startups.

We have lots of great lead investors, essentially mini micro venture capitalists who can do deals on the platform and allows anyone who is sufficiently wealthy and sophisticated to invest behind them.

We also run a large marketplace for introducing talent to startups where we have over 10,000 companies recruiting now.

We have hundreds of thousands of candidates who are looking to join great startups and we're making over 10,000 introductions, mutual introductions every single week between candidates and startups.

But the reality of what I do on a day-to-day basis is just completely different.

Now, I wanted to talk about 2 seemingly opposed, maybe they're complementary characteristics of yours that I've observed.

The first I thought I'd introduce just via a story.

So we have a mutual friend who's a salty old Polish trainer who I won't mention by name.

He does a lot of incredible Olympic lifting.

And he is 1 of the most aggressive, intense human beings I've ever met in my life.

And of all of the people that he and I know mutually, He's like, Naval, that guy is intense.

So, why does he have that opinion of you and do you agree with it?

I think at my core level, I am an extremely intense person, very competitive.

I usually research the hell out of any topic I get into and learn

of it very quickly and I take nothing at face value.

So I'm always kind of questioning and deciding.

And when I first met this gentleman who, just like you, he's transformed my life, actually.

He's made me healthier and fitter than I've ever been.

I mean, there were things that he said that I thought were smart, that I could corroborate, that I took as he had handed them.

And there were things that he had said that contradicted my own experience in reading and so I dismissed them.

So I think he was little, he might refer to me as being intense because I have my own point of view on everything or everything that matters.

That said, I've probably spent the last half decade of my life like all of us who are getting a little older being much more introspective, much more aware of my own foibles and trying to be a much calmer person and trying to be less stressed and more happy and more in the moment.

And part of that means learning how to control the intensity, dial it up and dial it down.

And that's a contradiction that we all deal with, that we all want to be successful people, but we also want to be happy people.

The 2 of those run in almost diametric opposites to each other.

If you look at all the new wisdom, the new wisdom is if you walk into an airport bookstore, you open up Time Magazine, it's all about, you must be like Elon Musk or Larry Page, it's all about success, success, success.

And because we live in this mythology of anyone can achieve the American dream, if you're not successful, if you're not Tim Ferriss, then you're a loser.

if you're Tim Ferriss and you're not Elon Musk, you're also a loser, right?

There's always someone higher up the stack.

So the success-driven mentality drives you to unhappiness.

And if you want to be successful, surround yourself with people who are more successful than you are.

But if you want to be happy, surround yourself with people who are less successful than you are.

So, this is the contradiction that we deal with all day long because we're also told that the American dream will bring you happiness and it will not.

I think a lot of us learn as we get older that happiness is internal.

Happiness is a choice that you make and then a skill that you develop.

And that's the fundamental contradiction.

And that's why our mutual friend can consider me incredibly intense.

And by the way, I hope you'll have him on the show someday because I think he has incredible wisdom to pass along.

So that's where the intensity comes in, the desire to be successful.

And at the same time, the non-intensity comes in, which is the desire to be happy.

So Victor, what I expect would likely happen if I had Victor on this podcast is he would just spend 60 minutes berating me and telling everyone how fat I was and uncoordinated.

I think it would be very hard to steer him away from the beat Tim with a leather whip routine.

The intensity, I'd love to ask just some follow-ups about that because your brother, Kamal, is a great friend as well of mine and seems very different, right?

He seems almost the sort of yin to your yang, wrote a great book called Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It.

Why Do you think you have that intensity, which not to say Kamal lacks, but to a much lesser degree of course?

I mean, the genetics and evolution are a powerful thing.

And you could just say at some base variation level, both of us were hit with similar adversities in life and our genes chose to respond very differently to see who would adapt their way out of the situation.

So at the core level, we are very different.

You know, we had a tough childhood growing up, make no secret of that, and we just responded in different ways.

For me, it was all about winning and having a strong desire to win.

I started out as a bookworm and then I had to transition into sort of being a combatant in the field of business, if you will, and now I'm sort of making my transition back into being a bookworm.

I think everyone gets shaped very, very early on in life.

You're probably baked in terms of your core personality by the time you're 12 or

You sort of emerge into the world, you become an adult, you construct your ego, you go out there to fight your fights, to do your things, to become who you want to be.

And then at some point, you get to where you are, where you wanted to be or close enough and you start realizing, wait, it's not about external world, it's not about external accomplishment, I have to work on myself.

And I think my brother Kamal has gotten to that point as well and then you sort of start working on the inner being.

So I'm not sure I answered your question about where it comes from, but I think we all get shaped by adversity.

Every great thing that I've ever done or accomplished according to external metrics or even when I look internally, all the great things that have happened to me in my life that I consider highly positive, they all started with something highly negative.

So we came to this country when I was 9, My brother was 11.

My mother raised us as a single mom in a studio apartment.

Yeah, she worked a menial job by day and then she went to school at night.

So we were latchkey kids and sort of left to develop and learn on our own.

And a lot of growing up was watching the ideal American lifestyle, but sort of from the other side of the window pane with my nose pressed against the glass and saying, yeah, I want that too.

So I grew up with a very dark view of the world on the other side of the tracks, and then kind of had to cross over and start trying to fit into this amazing life that is available to most but not all Americans.

And where did you, which part of India did your mother come from or bring you from and then where did you grow up in the US at that point?

So we came, yeah, we came from Delhi, which is the capital of India.

And we grew up in Queens Village, in Jamaica, Kew Gardens.

We probably lived in 9 or 10 different places in the course of 9 years.

I think that you're a very, very good strategist and combatant when need be.

And coming back to the intensity, I'd never thought of it this way, but you never hesitate to say what's on your mind.

And so I could see how that would be interpreted by a lot of people who are used to sort of polite, uh-huh, nod-nod conversation.

I remember when you and I were both invited to a dinner and there were a bunch of a lot of people, neither of us had really met before around and we were standing in a group of a couple of people and I walked up and I had a pretty unusual get up on.

I had this like turquoise long-sleeved shirt, which I'd never wore.

jeans on and then these like brown unusual looking dress shoes, kind of looked like bowler shoes.

And you were like, wow, you look like a gay banker.

And then this woman that neither of us had ever met started defending me and I was like, oh, God, here we go.

The honesty thing is a core foundational value, right?

Well, and I think like so I have a couple of core foundational values and they're not things that I explicitly developed.

They're just sort of you can look back after the fact and say, oh yeah, I won't compromise on those things.

But now, I realized how important honesty is and I learned that from a couple of different places.

1 is when I grew up, I wanted to be a physicist and I idolized Richard Feynman.

I read everything by him, technical and non-technical, that I get my hands on.

And he said, you must never ever fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

So the physics grounding is very important because physics, you have to speak truth.

You don't try and make them feel better because if your equation is wrong, it just won't work, whatever you're doing.

So I think the science background is important in that.

A second is Growing up in New York, I grew up around some really rough and tumble kids, some of whom were actually the Russian mob.

And I once had an encounter where I watched 1 of them threatened to kill the other.

And the 1 who would be the victim, you know, went and hid.

And then finally, he let the aggressor into his house after the aggressor promised him, no, I'm not going to kill you.

Honesty was such a strong virtue between them that even when they were ready to kill each other, they would take each other's word for things.

And even though it was honesty in a mob context, I realized like how important that is in relationships.

And then as I get older in life, I realized that a lot of happiness is just being present and whether you get this out of Buddhism or cognitive therapy or drugs or wherever, you realize that to live in the present moment is the highest calling.

And when you're not honest with somebody else or when you even withhold something in your mind, What you've done is you've created a second thought process.

You've created a second thread in your head that then has to stay active, keeping track of what you've said versus what you're really thinking.

And that takes you out of the moment and it brings you unhappiness over time.

You will not realize it at that moment itself, but it will create stress and distraction.

So if you really want to be happy, you have to be present.

And 1 of the core tenets of being present is to be completely honest at all times.

**Matt Stauffer** There is a great short book that had a huge impact on me on this topic called Lying by Sam Harris, which was just phenomenal because it explored the impact not just of lying in the way that most people think of it, but generalized deceit or even white lies that are intended to protect people.

And just to come back to Feynman also, Feynman is a character and a thinker who I've long idolized in many ways.

And even for non-technical people, I think he's someone worth exploring.

And if you're not the reading type, you could just search for a video.

I think it was done on Nova ages ago called The Joy of Finding Things Out, which is just—it gives you such a taste of Feynman and the way that he not only, I think, questioned the so-called obvious or best practices, but also explored being a polymath, right?

I mean, even though he was a world-class physicist, he was also an amateur safecracker and pickup artist and musician, you know, and in other ways.

It seems like you have scratched your own itch in a lot of respects, right?

With whether it was venture hacks, like you had a pain point and you wanted to help other people understand what can be a very opaque black box, which is venture capital and so on.

And so you provided these how-to articles and so on that you would have liked to have had, right?

And it seems like AngelList – does AngelList serve a similar function?

So it's exactly that, which is basically self-actualizing, creating the product that you want.

So the initial problem was entrepreneurs go out and raise money.

They do the most important negotiation of their life which is the initial term sheet or initial deal with a venture capitalist and they have no information.

So they need that information, boy I wish I had that information and that's where venture hacks came from.

And then AngelList was well okay, that's how you negotiate a term sheet.

How do I find investors in the first place?

And then a few years into Angel List development, it became very clear the biggest problem in this environment is not how do I raise capital, it's how do I get help building my business, How do I find great individuals to help me and how do I recruit great talent?

So we created both our syndicates product where you of course are 1 of our top leaders who invest in companies as well as we created our jobs product which helps companies find great engineers.

At the end of the day, we stand for founders.

It's funny, you asked me at the beginning how do I describe what I do.

I said I'm an entrepreneur and in the back of my mind what AngelList does is it helps founders fund other founders and on the recruiting side it helps founders recruit and find other founders.

And in fact when I look inside Angelist itself, the company is only 30 people, almost everyone in the company is a former founder or wants to be a future founder and is getting their training wheels on at AngelList and then is going to go start a great company.

And we've had former engineers from us go and start companies like Instacart and Cover and many more will come out of it.

So at the end of the day, to me, it's all about founders, it's all about individuals, it's all about the underdog.

And I think long term, on a long enough time scale, maybe it's 50 years from now, maybe it's 500 years from now, but almost everybody on this planet will work for themselves.

The information revolution is reversing the Industrial Revolution.

What the Industrial Age did was it allowed human beings to team up in mechanistic, organized, hierarchical ways to create factories and production.

And I think the Information Revolution is breaking down the communication barriers.

It's saying the optimal size of the firm is shrinking from thousands to hundreds to dozens, maybe even to 1 at some point.

And eventually every morning, someone will wake up or every week you will wake up and on your phone or whatever the devices of the future, You will get an alert with a various bunch of jobs and contracts that you can choose from.

You'll pick out which ones you like based on your social connections and how much they're offering you and how much it can build your profile and your future work.

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Naval Ravikant — The Person I Call Most for Startup Advice | The Tim Ferriss Show (Podcast)