Recap of Naval Ravikant on Clubhouse

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Hey everyone, here’s the recap of my Clubhouse session with Naval. Check out the full recording below if you want to listen along. Hope you enjoy!

Contentment vs. Happiness and Peace (0:00)

People will always be chasing more happiness, and don’t know when to stop trying. There is no direct path to these things and everyone has a different vision. The mind is always in the way and might keep us from being happy. Being at peace takes practice and it is the longing for happiness that creates each individual’s unique path. 

  • “The direct pursuit of happiness is the surest path to unhappiness.” (1:12)

  • “Trying to parse another person’s wisdom is a fool’s errand.” (2:27)

  • Your own mind is your own filter into reality. You have to adjust your filter, and only you know how it is set up and what you like or don’t like.” (3:36)

Q: What Drives You? (5:58)

Everybody has different drivers in life at different times, could be money driven, health driven... The underlying driver since Naval was small that always resurfaces is curiosity for the world and a desire to understand. Looking for truth through science, philosophy and non-fiction. If he was at a point where he has everything else that he wants, his curiosity for truth still persists.

Curiosity and How the Industrial Education System Kills Curiosity (7:38)

The industrial education system replaces curiosity with compliance. It doesn’t train independent thinkers and curious kids. The second someone tells you what the wrong and right way to think is, is when you are taken out of the truth. He realized this when nurturing his own kids. It’s really important to answer your kids’ questions. Never tell them you don’t have time for their questions, always give them the real answers, and never leave the “why” questions unsatisfied.

On students who do well vs. don’t:

  • People who earn good grades are rarely the most successful people in life. The ones who did the bare minimum to get good enough grades are the system hackers. The kids who can resist what school can do to them (educationally not socially) are the ones who become most successful in life.

Life Paths / Traumas Build Character (11:08)

Life is very path dependent. Everybody is in a certain situation, with certain choices, and you take the path that is in front of you. In 1000 different universes, Naval says he wouldn’t have been an entrepreneur or started AngelList 1000 times. 

Technology is the intersection of money and science. At the center of tech was the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley. When Naval got there, he realized he wasn’t the hardest working person. He loves to work, but couldn’t do “classic work” at a 9-to-5, showing up on time, sitting at a desk and answering questions from bosses. He never liked bosses and was fired from his first internship. 

Naval used the analogy of breaking up with a significant other. “Reality and suffering hits us when we can no longer deny what reality is telling us.” (12:50) When you are broken up with, you don’t want to acknowledge the relationship was bad. The moment they leave you, you cry and are sad because you’re forced to face reality. All the expectation comes out of you and you crash to the floor because you’ve been denying reality. These things bring you back to reality, and force you to reconcile with yourself and improve and change.

  • “The most important turning points in your life are the ones where you have the most trauma.” (13:27)


Internet Evolution / Blockchain and Decentralized Mechanisms (13:38)

Nobody knows the exact future, Naval feels that AI is overhyped but would be a game-changer if it comes through. He believes blockchains are the most interesting things that are going on now in technology. That blockchains are the third wave of the internet after the creation of classic web companies and the Apple and Google takeover.


Bitcoin is redefining what money is and is moving it onto the internet. He believes there will be hugely beneficial repercussions to society for doing this. There is an entire decentralized stack of financial systems around the world being done better, easier and smoother on an ethereum stack. It is getting better and better but isn’t quite ready yet. 

  • “I’m pretty confident that not only are blockchains the most important thing going on right now, but they’re also the fundamental layer for whatever comes next.” (18:00)


Comparing Blockchain to VC / Blockchain Technologies (18:10)

“Due to their design, they’re basically venture capital done in public.” The classic tech model is closed to the average investor by regulations, makes certain people wealthier and keeps most people from venture capital investing until it’s really late in the game and most of the appreciation is gone. We will soon see social and gaming protocols and revolutionary shifts. By the time the shift materializes, it will be too late for the incumbent... imagine Nokia seeing the iPhone for the first time. When blockchain based technologies become frictionless and well-implemented, they will overwhelm the current technologies that they are facing.

Investing in Clubhouse (27:47)

Naval always wanted a product like Clubhouse. He saw Paul Davidson’s vision and superpower of consumer products with a small, hard charging team to build something for lots of people when they worked together at CoinList. He begged Paul to invest when he started Clubhouse. He hopes in 10 years from now however, we’re not still locked into centralized social platforms.

The Issue with Twitter (30:34)

Everything you say on Twitter is just an excerpt of what you’re actually thinking. You’re not there to provide context. On Twitter, people will find the worst interpretation of what you say and attack it. On Clubhouse, you can speak in context, and most listeners can’t comment. Jack Dorsey described Twitter as a town hall for conversation, but it ends up as a fist fight in most cases. Naval believes that Twitter is better as a broadcast medium, because unfortunately well intentioned people are drowned out by spammers and haters.

Decentralization of Social Media (33:27)

4 things decentralized social networks offer the world:

  1. Immutability (content and followers are forever)

  2. Payments (built in)

  3. Programmability and Composability (open code, no need for APIs)

  4. Peer Governance (users taking ownership and agency)

It will be uncensorable, but different communities will have different policies and moderation.

Pineapple on Pizza? (40:22)

Q: “I know you shared some really awesome insights about happiness earlier. My question is pretty lighthearted, but does pineapple on pizza make you happy or is it the worst thing in the world?”

  • “I grew up in New York so unfortunately I would have to categorize it as an abomination. It probably should be illegal. If I could censor pineapple and pizza photos I would.” Naval said jokingly.

Q: “If you were in your 20’s, what would you be working on right now?” (40:51)

Would be all over crypto and DeFi, as well as a decentralized social network. Naval believes in the inevitability of VR and AR, but doesn’t think the technology is there yet. He believes in his friend Balaji Srinivasan’s framework to the most important things we can do in humanity:

  1. Immutable Money (cryptocurrency)

  2. Infinite Frontier (space travel)

  3. Immortal Life (anti-aging)

Who is someone that you’ve never talked to that you would love to speak with? (46:10)

Very impressed by the works of David Deutsch, the author of The Beginning of Infinity and the Fabric of Reality.

But with all the great people he’s met, he realizes they’re all just people. Meeting someone will most likely not suddenly transform your life or turn into an amazing conversation. His favorite conversations are with books, because it’s a conversation you have with yourself through self reflection.


What do you like most about Elon Musk? (51:18)

They’ve met a few times, but Naval mostly knows him through his public persona. It’s inspiring how optimistic and future focused he is. He’s a person of action and taking risks. He’s a builder that’s passionate and is doing things that are unequivocally good from humanity, which is inspirational. Every person needs to show up and be their best self like Elon is.

Elon is a person who is following their most intense passions and is doing so publicly. Everybody needs to ask themself “am I following my most intense passions as intensely as he is following his?” To do this we need to set targets.

He always puts in the effort, but on his own terms, so while it looks like he is a manic worker, it doesn’t feel like work to him. 

Life Lesson from his older brother’s friend

Naval’s older brother had a friend who looked financially and socially successful. A quote that his friend had said which stuck with him was “I’ve always done what I want.” This made Naval feel better that he wasn’t going to be miserable in the journey. 

Daily Routine (56:34)

Wakes up. Meditates and works out. Makes a bunch of phone calls and responds to a lot of emails. Goes for a walk. Makes dinner. Plays with the kids. Goes to bed.

  • Reads a lot during the day whether it’s books or Twitter

  • Reads 20-120 pages of books every night before he goes to bed.

  • Fun fact: Listens to podcasts in the shower with his AirPods in!

Intermediaries and Joe Rogan (1:00:00)

Feels that intermediaries are needed less and less, even in the new social media. Interviews have moved from The New York Times to Twitter to Bloomberg/CNBC and now Clubhouse. There is no need for one person to interview you, as you can now go to Clubhouse and have everyone interview you. 

When speaking on Joe Rogan, Naval said he was “the single most prepared interviewer I have ever encountered.”

Time is of Importance (1:04:17)

Protect your time. Don’t spend time doing things that other people can do unless you enjoy it. You should be spending all of your time earning, learning, relaxing, working out. Don’t spend free hours on the things that frustrate you.

Creativity is a point of leverage and requires a free mind. If you aspire to be wealthy, you can’t have a busy schedule. This does not mean that you’re lazy, it means that all your time will be going into creative and intellectual endeavors.

Creators need a lot of time. For entrepreneurs, the initial moment of entrepreneurship was the point where they made the hardest and most crucial decision. If they structured it in the wrong way, or went into the wrong place, nothing could save them.

The world is not rigged so the harder you work the more you get. Hard work is a prerequisite, an ingredient. You cannot outwork everybody else because everyone has the same amount of hours in a day. Naval gave the example of Elon Musk who is known as a hard worker. Elon has the same amount of hours in a day as anyone else, but when he was younger, he chose to spend his time learning things instead of allocating time differently as other kids would. Make sure you allocate your time to the things that you think are important.

Trust and Safety (1:10:40)

Q: Do you see a conflict between the idea of independent tech companies growing trust & safety and their revenue models?

  • If it’s legal to say it, you should be able to say it on Twitter. Private companies, however, have a different definition of free speech than what legally is free speech. Free speech should not be defined by a private company that finds itself in a utility like position and becomes a monopoly. Owners of platforms that can decide what is and what is not free speech, is not free speech.

Ethics and Corruption (1:13:54)

When you are doing something unethical, you know it. You have that weird feeling in your gut and are probably questioning “can I get away with this?” You have to live up to your own moral code, not others. However, there are some collective sins (coercing other people, silencing people, being dishonest, forcing people).

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. If a monopoly is operating, there is only a matter of time before they become unethical. Google used to have the motto “don’t be evil” on their website, but removed it and started censoring. If you have a true free market with an even playing field, you tend to have a good outcome. It doesn’t work on the internet because you have free market competition, but with aggregator benefits, network effects, and scale economies, the winner dominates everything. Scale economies and network effects lead us to single monopolists who inevitably end up corrupt.

One could argue that the United States of America is a free country because George Washington turned down a third term. He saved the U.S. from becoming another dictatorship/monarchy.

Rich people are generally less happy than the average person. Money really doesn’t buy you happiness, most of the rich people he knows are miserable.

Philosophical Tweets / Relationships (1:23:06)

On the topic of founding consumer product review company Epinions: Not the most interesting topic, he was always into startups and wanted to start a company. He just went with the best idea he had at the time. 

"If you can't see yourself working with someone for life, don't work with them for a day." 

  • “This doesn’t necessarily mean don’t give people a chance. But the day you decide you’re not going to be friends forever, there’s no point in investing more time into that relationship. (This Tweet) came out of my Epinions experience. There were times that I knew that I shouldn’t be working with one or two of the people involved, but I went ahead and did it for the money… That was a hard-fought lesson (that I learned).” (1:25:46)