文字记录 · CC BY 3.0

与 Naval Ravikant 的炉边谈话——新前沿 2019

本页标题、字幕、摘要和阅读笔记为已保存的 AI 译文,可能有误。时间戳与来源一致,可展开查看原始字幕,并对照原视频核对。

Naval Ravikant 的 2019 New Frontiers 访谈,关于数字素养、吸引创业者、区块链协调以及创业生活的压力。

Vidleaf 阅读指南。 新西兰的背景赋予了这场 New Frontiers 2019 访谈独特的焦点:开场问题询问一个国家技术生态系统如何发展。Ravikant 将数字素养和移民与这个问题联系起来,随后讨论了创业者崇拜、区块链协调以及他自己对创业压力的体验。请将后来关于幸福的反思与那场本地政策讨论以及访谈的 2019 背景结合起来阅读。

Edmund Hillary Fellowship · 发布于 · 23 分钟 · 英语 · 许可:CC BY 3.0 · 来源:在 YouTube 上观看

文字记录来源:YouTube上创作者上传的字幕。Vidleaf添加了AI标点;保留原始措辞和时间戳锚点。原始文字记录可在下方获取。

AI生成的摘要

在这场 2019 New Frontiers 访谈中,Naval Ravikant 将他作为创业者和投资者的经验与关于新西兰技术生态系统的问题联系起来。他主张数字素养和吸引创业人才,随后讨论了技术周期以及将创始人视为权威的局限。他对区块链的论述聚焦于协调与信任,同时也谈到当时加密货币市场的投机性质。最后一部分转向名声、创始人面临的压力以及他自己对幸福的态度。这场对话以其历史背景呈现,并附有来源链接,以便跟进每个论点及其限定条件。

要点

  • [2:17] Ravikant 提出数字素养和吸引创业者是新西兰的机遇。
  • [14:54] 他对区块链的讨论涉及去中心化数字网络中的协调与信任。
  • [21:20] 他描述了名声和创业压力带来的个人代价,以及他对幸福的追求。

根据文字记录生成。请对照原始视频核查所链接的段落。简要说明和要点由 Vidleaf 于 2026-10-21 审核。

完整概述

Naval Ravikant讨论了他作为硅谷企业家和投资者大约二十年的经历,涵盖了他创办或投资的公司,包括AngelList、Epinions、Twitter、Uber和Product Hunt,以及他在《JOBS法案》上的工作。他为新西兰提出了两个颇具挑衅性的想法:数字素养和移民,主张计算机是现代素养,硅谷是吸引而非创造企业家,而新西兰已经具备许多要素,可以把移民政策用作力量倍增器。他说,技术在经历开发阶段之后正重新回到打破范式的阶段,而技术的破坏力往往先于其创造力出现;他还描述了硅谷的创业崇拜和英雄崇拜,称企业家作为灵感来源很好,但作为真理来源则很愚蠢。他解释了自己自2013年以来对区块链的兴趣,将其视为拜占庭将军问题的技术解决方案,以及区块链如何把市场带入任何数字领域并创造无领导的数字网络,并指出货币发行历来需要国王或国家,而比特币本质上将货币与任何个人对它的控制分离开来。本次会议还涵盖区块链作为信任技术、加密市场的下跌及其发展、比特币与黄金的对比,以及名声和创业的个人代价:加密被描述为一个高度投机性的市场,结合了货币、代码和治理,可与1999-2000年的互联网泡沫周期相比,更像1980年代的计算机而非1990年代的互联网,尽管发展更快,且仍有大量基础开发工作要做;比特币估值约为80十亿美元,而全球黄金供应约为七至十万亿美元,它具备黄金的许多功能,有些更好,有些更差,市场对其定价介于成为数字黄金的五百分之一到百分之一的可能性之间,使其在今天成为一种非常投机性的工具。演讲者还称名声是一种诅咒,描述了创始人必须从不示弱的压力,尽管100家初创企业中有99家实际上会失败;他解释说,五六年前他决定不再痛苦,把幸福当作个人纪律来对待,这让他失去了一些商业联系和生意。会议最后宣布,将在2:30的主舞台上进行更深入的第二部分,并设有Q&A(问答),并请观众一起向Naval Ravikant表示感谢。

带时间戳的章节摘要

Naval Ravikant 的硅谷职业生涯

  • [0:05] Naval 在硅谷担任企业家和投资者已有大约二十年。
  • [0:13] 他出于对科学技术的热爱创办了公司,包括一家制造光放大器的公司和一家后来成为 Google Earth 的公司。
  • [0:28] 他创办了 Epinions,该公司作为 Shopping.com 的一部分上市,此外还有几十次失败的尝试。
  • [0:38] 他创办了 AngelList,这是最大的在线初创企业融资平台,已筹集超过十亿美元,几乎全部用于种子期初创企业。
  • [0:48] AngelList 还运营着最大的免费人才初创企业招聘市场,英语世界中约一半的初创企业在此寻找人才。
  • [0:56] 他们拥有 Product Hunt,并分拆出 CoinList,这是一个受监管的加密和 ICO 市场。
  • [1:06] 他曾是 Twitter、Uber、Wish 和 Postmates 等公司的天使投资人。
  • [1:15] 他合著了博客 Venture Hacks,并参与了 JOBS 法案的工作,该美国法律促成了众筹、一般性招揽和常规加 IPO。

新西兰科技的数字素养与移民

  • [1:50] Naval 称系统设计是一个难题,并表示将新西兰定位为系统设计的孵化器很诱人,但非常困难且风险很高。
  • [2:17] 他提出了两个颇具争议的想法:数字素养和移民。
  • [2:20] Naval 认为计算机是有史以来创造的最强大工具,无需许可即可提供无限杠杆,而擅长使用计算机就是现代素养。
  • [2:54] 他提议进行一项实验,创建一个完全具备数字素养的国家,让每个人都精通计算机,即使在计算机工作之外也能带来广泛优势。
  • [3:37] 他说这也可以提高其他职业的工资,并引用了鲍莫尔成本病以及人们本来可以从事其他事情的机会成本。
  • [4:01] Naval 将计算机与汽车区分开来:汽车是一种反复以相同方式使用的实用工具,而计算机是一种用于自我表达的创造性工具,不会被自动化取代。
  • [4:28] 他说新西兰非常适合成为一个具备数字素养的国家,因为它讲英语、是第一世界国家且有法治、拥有良好的教育体系,而且规模足够小,可以推动这一进程。
  • [4:46] 关于移民,Naval 说硅谷不是一个创造企业家、财富或技术的地方,而是一个吸引它们的地方,像好莱坞一样充当吸引器。
  • [5:25] 他称明智的移民政策是世界上最大的财富创造者,尽管大多数地方并没有那么明智地实施。

新西兰的移民杠杆

  • [5:52] 发言者希望吸引教师。
  • [5:56] 在科技行业,由于计算机的存在,人们拥有世界上最大的杠杆。
  • [6:01] 科技工作者有很高的收入能力,并选择住在最好的地方。
  • [6:04] 他们想要好天气、干净的水和空气,以及高质量的生活和文化。
  • [6:11] 新西兰在所有这些方面都得分很高,拥有绝佳的时区和通往环太平洋地区的通道。
  • [6:16] 新西兰已经具备许多要素,可以将移民政策用作力量倍增器。
  • [6:24] 归根结底,是为有限的可用资源吸引和筛选合适的人。
  • [6:33] 四百个签证将产生巨大影响,尽管四百人并不多。

科技的范式转变阶段

  • [6:51] 科技目前正处于一个良好的创新阶段,新平台和新系统正在被创造和推出。
  • [7:06] 过去的平台,如手机、互联网和个人电脑,带来了重大变革。
  • [7:15] 随后是开发阶段,构建像Facebook和Twitter这样的应用,它们有趣但层次较低,较少颠覆性创新。
  • [7:32] 科技正回归到一个颠覆性范式阶段,投资者、天使投资人和企业家们足够大胆,愿意在超音速飞机、火星火箭、电动汽车、自动驾驶汽车、VR/AR、远程工作和合成生物学上冒险。
  • [8:08] 技术的破坏力往往先于其创造力出现,就像核武器先于安全的核电站,社交媒体上的战斗先于文明对话。
  • [9:01] 人工智能正在经历一场机器学习和机器视觉革命,计算机在模式匹配和解决非常特定类型的问题上变得非常擅长。
  • [9:23] 像埃隆·马斯克这样的人值得称赞,他们通过做或尝试大胆的事情,提高了人们对可能性的标准,即使他们失败了。

创业崇拜与英雄崇拜

  • [9:55] 硅谷确实存在创业崇拜,有一种地位等级制度,源于企业家,向下过滤到生态系统中的其他人,然后到用户、客户和更广泛的社会。
  • [10:11] 英雄崇拜和崇拜是人性的一部分,在好莱坞的名人崇拜和顶级政治家的崇拜中也有类似表现。
  • [10:34] 把企业家作为灵感来源完全没问题,但把他们当作真理来源则是愚蠢的。
  • [10:42] 演讲者说,他只在很窄的领域有非常狭窄的专业知识,却提供所谓的真理,这很愚蠢,但有人想要他对一切的意见。
  • [10:56] 这就是个人崇拜的显现,但你仍然得选一只猴子站到部落前面。

区块链与去中心化网络

  • [11:11] 演讲者在2013年开始接触加密货币和区块链,最初被它们吸引是因为它们是解决拜占庭将军问题的技术方案。
  • [11:25] 区块链解决了让互不相识或不信任的人仍能达成一致的问题。
  • [11:37] 人类合作和组织的能力既是超能力也是诅咒,提出了如何运营人际网络并做出决策的问题。
  • [12:11] 历史上组织人的答案包括独裁、贵族制、宗教和民主,每种都有不同的权衡,如暴民统治。
  • [12:51] 市场在过去几百年中出现,作为一种自组织的、基于功绩的系统,实际上没有人真正负责。
  • [13:20] 区块链将市场的能力带入任何数字领域,例如Uber的车辆路线规划或公用事业公司的电力路由。
  • [13:55] 基于区块链的网络不属于任何人,也不由任何人运营,不像当前技术是一种高度中心化的力量。
  • [14:20] 地理寡头已被全球垄断所取代,消除了独立参与者的中间层,这是一个令人担忧的趋势。
  • [14:54] 区块链利用数学、密码学和点对点网络来创建数字共识和真正无领导的数字网络,从金融应用开始,因为货币就是一个账本。

货币控制与区块链信任

  • [15:20] 货币发行历来需要国王或国家负责。
  • [15:26] 那些被赋予印钞能力的人倾向于印更多钱,而这些钱会流入他们自己和朋友的口袋。
  • [15:33] 在新西兰这个以廉洁著称的国家,这可能不是问题,但即使在那里也始终是个问题。
  • [15:40] 与世界其他完全是盗贼统治的地方相比,这可能是个问题。
  • [15:47] 比特币本质上将货币与任何个人控制货币分开,使其成为集体货币。
  • [15:57] 演讲者理论上正试图为一个可编程金融系统做到这一点。
  • [16:01] 随着区块链在解决这些问题上变得出色,并证明它们能够确保像发行和转移货币这样难以确保的事情,它们可以在生活的所有其他方面被信任。

加密市场衰退与发展

  • [16:26] 加密是一个高度投机性的市场,结合了货币、代码和治理。
  • [16:35] 互联网泡沫在1999-2000年经历了类似的周期,所以这种模式以前见过。
  • [16:43] 加密旨在创造数字黄金,尽管有数千亿美元的奖励也无法破解。
  • [16:55] 加密非常难以确保安全和转移,并且仍处于发展初期。
  • [16:59] 感觉像是1980年代的计算机,而不是1990年代的互联网,但它的发展速度更快。
  • [17:06] 仍有许多基础开发工作要做。
  • [17:10] 加密是前沿计算机科学,涉及博弈论、攻击向量和黑客技术,因此需要时间来解决。

比特币与黄金及投机价值

  • [17:22] 全球比特币总存量价值约80亿美元,或考虑损失后为70亿美元。
  • [17:34] 全球黄金总供应量大约在七到十万亿美元之间。
  • [17:37] 比特币做了许多黄金能做的事,有些更好,有些更差。
  • [17:42] 比特币的优势在于它可以数字传输、更容易确保安全,并且更加稀缺。
  • [17:47] 比特币更糟的地方在于可能存在漏洞,你可能被黑客攻击,或者可能丢失你的密钥。
  • [18:03] 市场对比特币的定价,大致介于其成为数字黄金的概率的五百分之一到百分之一之间,而微小的概率变动就会引发剧烈的价格波动。
  • [18:16] 比特币如今最终成了一种高度投机性的工具,就像天使投资或早期风险投资一样,你可能损失全部或大部分资金。
  • [18:29] 这些还没有准备好进入主流,但它们终会做到。

名声、创业压力与选择幸福

  • [18:49] 名声是一种诅咒,并不值得推荐;富有而匿名胜过贫穷而闻名。
  • [18:59] 社交媒体驱使每个人去追求转瞬即逝的名声,但名人却是最痛苦的人之一。
  • [19:12] 创业压力极大,因为创始人绝不能在董事会成员、员工、客户或合作伙伴面前显露软弱。
  • [19:40] 在科技行业,99 家初创公司中有 100 家实际上会失败,所以大多数创始人缺乏产品市场契合度,却必须假装自己正在取得成功。
  • [20:03] 大多数人在这种压力下崩溃,并把它隐藏起来,因为现代应对工具并没有被教授。
  • [20:31] 他把 Twitter 当作一本公开日记,记录自己学到的东西,而他所谓的成功给了别人谈论此事的许可。
  • [20:49] 五六年前,他决定不再痛苦,而要快乐起来,改变了他认为成功必然伴随不幸的假设。
  • [21:20] 他把幸福当作一种个人纪律,就像饮食和锻炼一样,因人而异,并且每天为之努力。
  • [21:57] 记录自己的历程让他失去了一些商业联系和生意,但快乐的一部分就是不介意别人怎么想。

会议总结和第二部分2公告

  • [22:12] 演讲者表示,他们将在第二部分更深入地探讨这个话题。
  • [22:15] 第二部分将回到 2:30 的主舞台。
  • [22:20] 空间也将开放用于问答&。
  • [22:22] 请观众一同感谢 Naval Ravikant。
  • [22:24] Naval Ravikant 感谢观众坚持听完整场会议。

[0:00](观众鼓掌)——我现在在加利福尼亚的硅谷,我在那里做企业家和投资人已有大约二十年。我毕业后直接搬到了那里,创办公司,因为我热爱科学和技术,而技术是科学的商业,或者说应用科学,所以我创办了几家公司。一家制造光放大器,一家成为今天的Google Earth,还有一家叫Epinions,作为Shopping.com的一部分上市。

[0:33]几十次失败的努力,你从未听说过的东西,你可能以后会听说。我创办了AngelList,这是最大的创业融资在线平台。我们现在已经筹集了超过十亿美元,几乎全部用于种子期初创公司。我们还运营着最大的免费人才创业招聘市场,英语世界大约一半的初创公司在那里寻找人才。我们拥有Product Hunt,公司在那里发布产品。我们还分拆出了CoinList,这是一个巨大的、照明良好、受监管的加密和ICO市场。

[1:06]我曾是Twitter、Uber、Wish和Postmates等公司的天使投资人,还有许多其他公司。合著了一个叫Venture Hacks的博客。有一个小小的Twitter账号,并参与了JOBS法案的工作,那是美国 enabling 众筹、一般性招揽、常规加IPO的法律。是的,差不多就是这样。——所以我请Naval来做这个,因为我无法公正地介绍他的履历。但对于那些不知道的人,我的意思是Naval现在在全世界都算是个传奇人物,尤其是在硅谷。

[1:38]所以我很好奇,Naval,从你的角度来看,新西兰在我们的技术生态系统方面有什么机会,一个运作良好的生态系统由哪些要素和参与者构成?——所以,这是一个难题,系统设计,我想Yosef刚才在谈这个。他基本上把新西兰定位为系统设计的孵化器,这非常诱人,也非常困难,因为尝试新系统意味着你自动在做世界其他地方不想做或不需要做的事情。

[2:09]所以,这有风险。但我可以抛出一些我认为具有挑衅性和有趣的东西。让我只谈两点。一个是数字素养,另一个是移民。你知道,就数字素养而言,我认为计算机是人类创造的最强大的工具。它们允许在没有许可的情况下实现无限杠杆,而对我来说,知道如何熟练使用计算机就是现代素养。它是新的读、写、算,这将在几十年后被广泛接受和承认。

[2:41]但今天我们处于那个过渡阶段,作为一名软件工程师,你的报酬很高,而且没有失业。但作为一个从旧经济转型出来的人,你有一个巨大的鸿沟要跨越。所以我认为这会很有趣。一个有趣的系统设计实验是创建一个完全具备数字素养的国家,每个人都熟练掌握计算机。当然不是每个人都会从事与计算机相关的工作,但仅仅是你能够将这个创造性工具发挥到最大产出这一事实,就给了你一种优势,在各个方面都让你领先一步。

[3:12]你会制作更好的播客,你会做得更好,你知道你会更擅长创建文档,你会更擅长把你的想法编码出来,你甚至会更擅长使用网上银行或存储。就像,如果你相当好地理解数学,那么你就不害怕科学书籍。你可以用同样的方式拿起任何东西。如果每个人都足够好地理解计算机,他们就完全不害怕计算机。他们会拥有高杠杆。对于创新和就业来说,这可能是一件大事。有趣的是,这也会全面抬高其他职业的工资,因为经济学中有一个叫鲍莫尔成本病的东西,即你必须支付给某人的价值是他们在其他方面可以做的事情的机会成本。

[3:52]不一定是他们正在做的事情,所以,即使所有咖啡师都有计算机科学学位,他们也会得到高得多的报酬。所以,这是一个你可以做的激进且有趣的例子。但我不认为它有那么激进,人们经常会说,为什么我需要知道如何给计算机编程?我不需要知道如何修车才能开车?但这是不同的,汽车是一个实用工具,把你从A点带到B点,你一遍又一遍地做同样的事情,而计算机是一个创造性工具和创造性过程,不会被自动化掉。每个使用计算机的人,就像使用画笔或书写工具一样。

[4:23] 你是在把它用于另一件事,用于在一片充满可能性的空白画布上进行自我表达。所以我认为,拥有一个完全具备数字素养的国家——而新西兰在这方面处于有利位置,因为它是英语国家、第一世界法治国家、拥有良好的教育体系,而且社区规模足够小,可以进行这种推动——我认为这会非常有意思。 - 你还提到了移民。 - 是的,移民很有意思,因为人们看着硅谷,然后说,我们怎样才能在这里创造一个硅谷?而这是全世界都尝试过的实验。

[4:55] 但实际上,硅谷并不是一个创造创业者、财富或技术的地方。它是一个吸引创业者的地方,而这些创业者创造财富和技术。所以它实际上是一种吸引器功能。几乎任何磁石般的地方都是如此。比如好莱坞吸引潜在的演员和艺术家进入其中,而不是创造他们。那里未必全是土生土长的洛杉矶人,或者说本地人真的从中受益。所以我认为关键在于吸引。因此,明智的移民政策实际上是世界上最大的财富创造者。

[5:29] 而且在大多数地方,这件事并没有做得那么明智。大多数地方多少是偶然的,是历史机缘,比如,哦,我们这里有一所科技大学,我们有好天气等等。所以我认为,如果你看看,尤其是在——而我关注的是科技行业——显然你支持移民的话,你可以做很多事情。你可以说,我想吸引人来产生影响。我想吸引教师。但无论你在做什么,你都可以有意识地去做。至少就科技行业而言,这些人——再次感谢计算机——是世界上最具杠杆作用的人。

[6:01] 所以他们的赚钱能力非常高,因此他们实际上会选择住在最好的地方。所以他们想住在天气好、水干净、空气干净、生活和文化质量高的地方。而我认为在所有这些方面,新西兰得分都很高。时区很好,通往环太平洋地区的通道很好。所以对我来说,新西兰已经具备了很多要素,可以把移民政策用作力量倍增器。所以我认为,归根结底就是既要吸引,又要为你有限的资源筛选出合适的人。

[6:32] 你知道,看看那(听不清)四百个签证,它会产生很大影响。四百人并不多。你可以把他们安置在一个小社区里,或者一小片房屋里,但理论上,它可以改变一些事情。 - 在技术方面,我很好奇你能否谈谈你看到的趋势?一些重要的重大趋势,以及它们为什么重要。 - 我们实际上正处于一个我认为技术创新的不错阶段。这是好是坏,我不是要评判,但我们经历过不同阶段,在这些阶段中我们创造、发现并推出改变事物的新平台和系统。

[7:06] 例如,手机是一个平台,互联网是一个平台,个人电脑是一个平台,它们都相当程度地改变了事物。然后我们经历这些平台的开发阶段,我们构建大量应用。曾经有移动社交阶段,我们构建了Facebook和Twitter等等。那些是有趣的应用,但那是较低层次的创新,或者说同样必要,但没那么具有范式颠覆性。我想说,现在有趣的是,技术正在回到那个范式颠覆阶段,投资者、天使投资人、创业者变得足够大胆。

[7:41] 受到鼓舞,并且足够愿意承担风险去做这样的事情,比如,嘿,现在我们要开发超音速飞机,我们要把火箭送上火星,我们要造电动汽车,我们要造自动驾驶汽车,我们要造VR和AR,我们要把远程办公做对,让它感觉就像你真的在那里。还要做合成生物学并改造人类,这既可怕又令人兴奋。先可怕,后兴奋。不幸的是,这就是(人群笑)技术的本质,破坏性力量先于创造性力量出现。

[8:13] 你先拥有核武器,然后才拥有功能安全的核电站。不幸的是,在社交媒体上,你先拥有战斗,然后才拥有文明对话。所以,即使你回溯人类历史,你先有火药,然后才有蒸汽机和飞机。所以,不幸的是,这就是技术的本质,颠覆性和离解性的力量先到来。所以,我们会先得到所有功能失调、反乌托邦的东西,你知道,也许VR和AR,就像是一个让那些在现实世界中无法集会的人聚集的地方。

[8:49] 或者,你知道,互联网 famously 在任何其他应用之前先接纳了色情和赌博。但最终,如果我们活得够久,你会看到从中结出果实。就此而言,合成生物学是一个有趣的例子。今天的人工智能正在经历一场机器学习和机器视觉革命,计算机在模式匹配和问题解决方面变得非常非常擅长,如果是非常特定类型的问题的话。但这确实意味着我们将看到非常智能的代理生活在网络云中,并改变我们做事的方式。

[9:21] 所以我认为所有这些都非常有趣。我完全赞赏像埃隆·马斯克这样的人,他确实提高了人们对可能之事的标准。仅仅通过做大胆的事情,或者尝试大胆的事情,即使他们失败了,即使他们不擅长,即使你对财务上的花招有问题。至少这种愿景,我认为,激励人们前进。而且他不是唯一一个。现在有一群企业家,他们有点只是在尝试做大胆的事情。——关于这一点,有人说我们想要摆脱这种创业崇拜或对企业家的崇拜。

[9:53] 你对此怎么看?——硅谷确实存在一种创业崇拜。有一种等级制度,所有的地位都源自企业家,然后向下过滤到生态系统中帮助实现事情的其他人们。然后,当然,还有用户和客户以及他们所立足的更广泛的社会。我只是认为这是人类的本性,你总是会有一些英雄崇拜,你总是会创造一种崇拜。你去好莱坞,就有一种名人崇拜。我的意思是,有这样一种崇拜,他们每年互相颁奖,然后我们收看。

[10:24] 所以,这只是政治家的本性。我们围绕顶级政治家创造一种崇拜,而不看他们所立足的所有人。这大概就是人类的天性。这就是我们获得灵感的方式。所以我认为用企业家作为灵感来源完全没问题,但我认为把他们当作真理来源是愚蠢的。就像,事实上,我站在这里,给你们所有这些所谓的真理,这很愚蠢,实际上我只是在一个非常狭窄的事物集合中有非常狭窄的专业知识,但不知何故,出于某种原因,有人想听我对一切的意见。

[10:56] 这就是个人崇拜的显现。但尽管如此,你得选一些猴子站在部落前面,你知道。在各个时刻,这可能现在会转向。——而你一直专长的事情之一就是区块链,所以我很想听听,什么是区块链,为什么它重要?——是的,我在2013年就进入了加密货币和区块链,对我来说,它最初吸引我的是作为解决一个非常特定的计算机科学问题的技术方案,叫做拜占庭将军问题。但你只需要理解的是,它们解决的是让一群互不相识、互不信任的人仍然就某事达成一致的方法。

[11:33] 这是一个比听起来要困难得多的问题。人类是高度合作、有组织的生物。比自然领域中几乎任何其他物种都要如此,这使我们能够做惊人的事情,比如我们可以都聚在这个房间里,一起努力实现我们相信的更美好的未来。它也允许我们做可怕的事情,比如在战场上聚在一起,以某种意识形态的名义互相残杀。你知道,猴子没有基督教或法西斯主义,它们不会想出那些意识形态,所以它们不会大量互相谋杀。但那种团结在一起的能力既是我们的超能力也是我们的诅咒,因为当你们聚在一起时,你如何操作那个人际网络?

[12:10] 我们如何做决定?从历史上看,我们有几种答案,它们都有不同的权衡。旧的答案曾经是最残暴的猴子掌权。那曾经是国王,今天世界上许多地方仍然如此,在独裁者统治下。然后就是最聪明和最暴力的少数猴子聚在一起掌权,那就是贵族制,或者如果是精英阶层,但你有一小部分人在为社会管理事情。宗教是另一个。我和上帝交谈,上帝给了我答案,你听我的。

[12:41] 还有另一种围绕民主的模式,我们都是平等的,我们都投票,但你也可能最终陷入暴民正义、暴民统治。多数人转向少数人。所以,你只是所有这些不同的组织人的系统,在过去几百年里,我们创造了一种叫做市场的东西。这可能是市场,你知道,你喜欢的东西和你不喜欢的东西。但本质上只是这个想法,我们可以交易东西,它有点自我组织,有一种功绩模型,根据我投入多少钱,或我投入什么资产,我得到什么回报。

[13:12] 但没有人真正——如果你看全球信贷市场、债务市场、股票市场、货币市场、商品市场,没有人真正负责。所以区块链所做的是将市场的能⼒带入任何数字领域。所以你可以把任何数字网络——而且数字网络比我们想象的要多得多。例如,优步实际上是一个数字网络,在路由汽车。你当地的公共事业实际上是一个数字网络,在路由电力,特别是如果我们都有太阳能并且我们在交易那个电力。

[13:44] 今天我们有手机运营商是自上而下的,但实际上我们每个人的手机都在广播蓝牙和WiFi,我们家里有WiFi接入点,你可以拼接一个数字网络。而基于区块链的网络不属于任何人,不由任何人运行。我认为我们是历史上的一个临时飞艇,你与朋友的所有联系都由帕洛阿尔托的一小部分人控制,或者世界上所有的数字新闻媒体基本上都由Twitter和YouTube以及极少数人运行。

[14:15] 所以,当前这一代技术的本质是,它是一种高度中心化的力量。我们用全球垄断取代了地域性寡头垄断。与此同时,虽然还存在这种独立参与者的长尾,但旧世界中曾经存在的那条粗壮的中段已经消失了。过去你会有十家电子商务零售商,而现在你只有一家在某种程度上控制着整个互联网零售。过去你会有数百家本地出租车调度公司,但现在所有出租车都由旧金山的Uber或Lyft调度。

[14:45] 所以那条趋势线非常令人担忧,因为我认为那不是我们所有人都曾被承诺的互联网。我们曾被承诺一个去中心化的互联网,在那里我们某种程度上共同控制结果。但是,像任何系统一样,你必须有规则,你必须有共识,你必须有奖励为网络做贡献的人的方式。你必须有惩罚损害网络的作弊者的方式。而区块链利用数学、密码学、点对点网络来创造数字共识,并允许真正无领导的数字网络,我认为这就是它们引人注目的地方。

[15:16] 我们从金融应用开始,因为货币就是一种账本,历史上我们不得不让一位国王或一个国家来掌管它,而他们有个习惯,你知道,当你把印钞的能力交给某人时,他们就会印更多,于是它就流进了他们的口袋和他们朋友的口袋。在新西兰这可能不是问题,因为它是著名的清廉国家,但是,是的,即便在那里,对吧,总会有问题,但相比世界上那些彻头彻尾的盗贼统治地区,那可能是个问题。

[15:47] 所以你有像比特币这样的东西,它本质上把货币与任何控制货币的个人分离开来,然后它就成了集体货币。理论上,我正试图为一个可编程的金融系统做到这一点,而且我认为你会看到,随着区块链越来越擅长解决这些问题,并证明它们能够保障像发行和转移货币的能力这样难以保障的东西,那么它们在生活的所有其他方面也能被信任。所以我认为这真的很有趣。——人们说加密货币市场在过去一年下跌了90%以上,它是不是已经结束了,或者只是一时风潮?

[16:24] 你如何回应?——是的,我的意思是,看,这是一个高度投机性的市场。它是货币、代码和治理的奇怪组合。而互联网泡沫在1999年、2000年经历过这个,所以我以前看过这种电影。而加密货币是一个非常难的问题。加密货币基本上就是你在说我要创造数字黄金。我要让它无法被黑客攻破,即使奖励会是数千亿美元。相信我,我的代码里没有漏洞,因为如果有,你就会失去你所有的钱。

[16:55] 它非常难以保障和转移。它仍然非常、非常处于开发阶段。感觉就像计算机在1980年代时的样子。不是互联网在1990年代时的样子,但它在更快地发展。所以仍然有很多基础性的开发工作要做。加密货币不是简单的计算机科学。它是前沿计算机科学、博弈论、攻击向量、黑客技术。你试图解决一些非常难的问题。所以弄清楚它需要时间。而今天,例如,世界上比特币的总存量价值约为80十亿美元或70十亿美元,如果把损失等等考虑进去的话。

[17:31] 实际上起点更高,大约会是一百。但世界上黄金的总供应量大约在七到十万亿美元之间。而比特币做了很多黄金所做的事,有些更好,有些更差。更好的方面在于它可以数字传输、更容易保障、更稀缺。更差的方面在于可能存在漏洞。你可能被黑客攻击,你可能丢失你的密钥,我见过这种事发生在我朋友身上。所以它仍然远不那么确定。它新得多,而黄金已经存在了永远。

[18:02] 所以你现在看到的是,市场给比特币的定价是,它成为数字黄金的概率在五百分之一到千分之一到百分之一之间,而当市场对这些非常小的概率改变看法时,你就会看到价格的巨大波动。所以它今天确实最终成了一种非常投机性的工具,它就像天使投资,或者像早期风险投资,你可能会失去你所有的钱,或者大部分钱,但是,而且涉及很多风险,但也有很多回报。这些还没有准备好进入主流,但它们会达到那一步。

[18:32] ——我们会更深入地探讨区块链、加密货币、以太坊等等。我确实想趁大家都在的时候,稍微谈谈,你现在在Twitter上出名了。这是从哪来的?如果你能稍微谈谈你因谈论创业的内在博弈而成名的事。——是的,所以名气是一种诅咒。我不向任何人推荐它。你想成为,这话有点轻率,但你想成为富有而匿名的人,而不是贫穷而著名的人。这是社交媒体的疾病。每个人都在获得他们五秒钟的名气,成为名人,而名人是世界上最痛苦的人。

[19:06] 所以追求它未必是件好事。话虽如此,我认为当时发生的情况是,就像任何当过创业者的人一样,我过着压力极高的生活。而让创业格外有压力的一点是,你不仅被期望掌握所有答案、做着非常艰难的工作,还被期望永远不能示弱,因为面对董事会成员,你一示弱,他们就不会给你投资,不会信任你。你向员工示弱,他们就会跑得远远的。面对客户,他们就不会从你这里买东西。

[19:37] 面对合作伙伴,他们就不会与你合作。所以你必须表现出极度的稳定。而技术行业的本质就是,99 家初创公司中有 100 家实际上会失败,因为赢家通吃、赢家规模大得离谱且极为罕见。所以大多数四处奔走的创业者都知道自己还没有找到产品市场契合点,对此活在极度的恐惧中,却不被允许谈论它,每个人都必须假装自己一直在赢、一直在碾压一切。这压力极大。我认为大多数人就是在这种压力下崩溃了,然后把它藏起来。

[20:07] 因为我们没有学过现代应对工具,不知道如何应对它。也许古代文化有更好的答案,你知道,你冥想、你在自然中散步、你有更紧密的家庭纽带、你有更大的部落,或者你刚从学校毕业就直接去经营一家百人公司的可能性要小得多。所以这些只是非常现代的压力和紧张。就像任何人一样,我必须想办法挺过去。而在我挺过去的过程中,我开始把 Twitter 当作公开日记,记录我学到的对我有用的东西。

[20:38] 我认为如果是其他任何人在谈论这个,就不会那么有意思,但因为我身处科技行业,而且据说是成功的,而我在谈论它,我认为这给了人们谈论它的许可。所以就在五六年前,我决定,我受够了痛苦,我要快乐起来,你知道(轻笑)。我知道这在事后看来似乎很容易,但当时的情况有点像,嗯,一直以来,我都只是想当然地认为快乐的人不成功,如果我要成功,我就不能快乐,我必须痛苦。如果我要在世界上有所作为,我就必须一路不快乐。

[21:10] 我只是稍微转变了心态,决定,实际上,我没时间了,机不可失时不再来,没有未来可以为之而活,如果我不想办法快乐起来,我就会不快乐地死去。我把它变成了一种自律,就像饮食、营养和锻炼一样,这些都是高度个人化的自律,对我们每个人来说都是独一无二的,我们必须找到适合自己的方式。没有别人能让你的饮食对你有效,因为这是一场每天每顿饭都要打的仗,也没有别人能让你的锻炼和健身计划对你有效,因为甚至不只是半小时去健身房或锻炼,它实际上是你如何举止、如何行动、你主动参与哪些活动。

[21:50] 所以同样地,我认为你内在的心理状态同样具有可塑性,但同样艰难,同样因人而异。于是我就开始记录我的旅程,很多人其实觉得这很奇怪,我确实因此失去了一些商业联系人,肯定也失去了一些生意,有些人则被它吸引,但快乐的一部分就是不介意别人怎么想,所以我不再在意了。- 我们将在第二部分更深入地探讨这一点。我们回到 2:30 的主舞台。希望在那里见到你。

[22:20] 我们也将开放空间用于问答&。请和我一起感谢 Naval Ravikant。- 感谢大家坚持听完。(观众鼓掌)

查看英文原始字幕

[0:00] (audience applauding) - I'm in Silicon Valley in California right now, where I've been an entrepreneur and investor for about two decades. Moved there straight out of school, started, starting companies because I loved science and technology, and technology is the business of science or applying science, and so started a couple of companies. One that made optical amplifiers, one that became what is today Google Earth, one that was called Epinions, went public as part of Shopping.com.

[0:33] Dozens of failed efforts, things you've never heard of, things that you might yet hear of. I started AngelList, which is the largest online platform for start-up fundraising. We've now raised over a billion dollars, almost all for seed-stage startups. We also operate the largest free talent start-up recruiting marketplace, where about half the start-ups in the English-speaking world find talent on there. We own Product Hunt, which is where companies go to launch their product. We've also spun out CoinList, which is a giant, well lit, regulated marketplace for crypto and ICOs.

[1:06] I've been an angel investor in companies like Twitter and Uber and Wish and Postmates, and a bunch of others. Co-authored a blog called Venture Hacks. Got a little Twitter feed, and worked on the JOBS act, which was the US law that enabled crowd-funding, general solicitation, regular plus IPOs. Yeah, that's kind of it. - So I asked Naval to do that, 'cause there was no way I was gonna do justice to the bio. But for those who don't know, I mean Naval's a bit of a legend across the world now, and especially in Silicon Valley.

[1:38] And so I'm curious, from your perspective Naval, what is the opportunity for New Zealand around our technology ecosystem, and what constitutes the elements and the actors in a well functioning ecosystem? - So, it's a hard problem, systems design, I think that's Yosef was talking about. He was basically positioning New Zealand as an incubator for systems design, which is very seductive and very difficult, because trying new systems means you're automatically doing things that the rest of the world doesn't want to or need to do.

[2:09] So, it's risky. But I can throw some things out that I think are provocative and interesting. Let me just touch on two. One is digital literacy, and the other is immigration. You know, in terms of digital literacy I think that computers are the most powerful tool ever created by humanity. They allow for infinite leverage without permission, and, to me, knowing how to be good with computers is the modern literacy. It's the new reading, writing, arithmetic, and this will be widely accepted and acknowledged decades from now.

[2:41] But today we're in that transition phase where as a software engineer you're very well paid, and there's no unemployment. But as someone transitioning out of the old economy, you have this giant gap to jump. So I think it would be interesting. One system design experiment that would be interesting is to create an entirely digitally literate nation, where everybody is facile with computers. And of course not everybody is going to be in a computer related job, but just the fact that you can use this creative tool to it's maximum output gives you an advantage, a leg up, in every possible way.

[3:12] You'll make better podcasts, you'll do better, you know you'll be better at creating documents, you'll be better at coding up your ideas, you'll be better at even just using online banking or storage. Just like, if you understand mathematics fairly well, then you don't fear science books. You can pick up anything the same way. If everyone understood computers well enough, they didn't fear computers at all. They would be highly leveraged. And for innovation and employment, that could be a huge thing. It would also, interestingly, raise all the wages across the board in other professions too because there's a thing in economics called Baumol's cost disease, where the value that you have to pay someone the opportunity cost of what else they could be doing.

[3:52] Not necessarily what they are doing so, even if all the baristas had computer science degrees they get paid a lot more. So, that's an example of something radical and interesting you can do. But I don't think it's that radical, and people often would say, well why do I need to know how to code a computer? I don't need to know how to fix my car to drive my car? But it's different, the car is a utility that gets you from point A to point B, and you do the same thing over and over, whereas the computer is a creative tool and a creative process that's not gonna be automated away. And every person who uses a computer, it's like using a paintbrush or a writing instrument.

[4:23] You're using it for a different thing, for self expression on a blank canvas of possibilities. So I think having a fully digitally literate nation, and New Zealand is well positioned to do that by being English speaking country, first world rule of law, good educational system, and a fairly small enough community that you can make that kind of a push, I think would be really interesting. - And you also said immigration. - Yeah, immigration is interesting because I think people look at Silicon Valley and they say, How can we create a Silicon Valley here? And that's an experiment that's been tried all over the world.

[4:55] But really, Silicon Valley is not a place that creates entrepreneurs or wealth or technology. It is a place that attracts entrepreneurs, who create wealth and technology. And so it's really an attractor function. And that's true of almost any magnet place. Like Hollywood attracts the potential actors and artists into it, doesn't create them. There's not necessarily all Native Los Angelinas, or the natives really benefit from that. So I think that it's about attracting. So intelligent immigration policy is actually the largest wealth creator in the world.

[5:29] And it's not done that intelligently in most places. Most places it's sort of an accident, happen stands of history like, oh we have a technology university here, we have good weather and so on. So I think that if you look at, especially in the, and I'm focused in technology industry, obviously you're for immigration you can do lots of things. You can say, I wanna attract people to make an impact. I wanna attract teachers. But whatever you're doing you can do it intentionally. And at least in the technology industry, these people, thanks to again computers, are the most leverage people in the world.

[6:01] So they're earning power is very high, so they actually choose to live in the nicest places. So they want to live in places with good weather, and clean water and clean air and high quality in life and culture. And I think in all of those things, New Zealand scores really well. The time zone is great, the access to the Pacific Rim is great. So, New Zealand to me already has a lot of the elements to use immigration policy as a force multiplier. So I think it really just comes down to both attracting and screening sort of the right people for the limited resources that you have.

[6:32] And you know, look at the (inaudible), four hundred visas, it's gonna make a big difference. Four hundred is not a lot of people. You can fit 'em in one small neighborhood, or one small cluster of houses, but it can, in theory, change things. - And on the technology side, I'm curious if you could speak to the trends that you're seeing? Some of the significant trends of importance and why they're important. - We're actually kind of in a good phase of, I think, technology innovation right now. Is it good or bad, I don't mean to judge, but we've gone through different phases where we are creating and discovering and rolling out new platforms and systems that change things.

[7:06] So for example, mobile phones was a platform, the internet was a platform, personal computers were a platform that changed things quite a bit. And then we go through exploitation phases on those platforms where we build lots of apps. There was the mobile social phase where we built Facebook and Twitter and so on. And those are interesting apps, but it's kind of a lower level of innovation or it's equally necessary, but not as paradigm busting. I would say now, interestingly, technology is going back into that paradigm busing phase where investors, angels, entrepreneurs are getting bold enough.

[7:41] Emboldened and enough to take the risk do to things like, hey now we're gonna have to develop super sonic airplanes, we're gonna send rockets to Mars, we're gonna build electric cars, we're gonna build autonomous vehicles, we're gonna build VR and AR, we're gonna get remote working right so that it feels like you're actually there. Do is gonna do synthetic biology and hack humans, which is both scary and exciting. Scary first, exciting later. Unfortunately that's, (crowd laughs) It's the nature of technology that the destructive power arise before the creative power.

[8:13] You get to have a nuclear weapon before you get to have a functionally safe nuclear plant. You get to have, unfortunately on social media, you get combat before you get civil discourse. So, even if you go back to human history, you get gunpowder before you get steam engines and airplanes. So, it's just unfortunately, the nature of technology that the disruptive and the dissociative power arrives first. So, we're gonna get all the dysfunctional, dystopian things, you know, maybe VR and AR, it's like a place for people to rally who couldn't rally in the real world.

[8:49] Or for, you know, how the internet famously adopts porn and gambling before any other application. But eventually, you will see the fruits come out of that if we live long enough. And synthetic bios is an interesting one that regard. AI today is going through a machine learning, a machine vision revolution where computers are getting very, very good at pattern matching and problem solving, if a very specific kind of problem. But it does mean that we're gonna see very intelligent agents living in the networking cloud and changing how we do things.

[9:21] So I think all of those are very interesting. And I give full credit to people like Elon Musk, who just really up the bar on what's conceivable. Just by doing audacious things, or trying audacious things, even if they fail, even if they're not good at it, even if you have problem with the financial shenanigans. It's just at least the vision, I think, inspires people to move forward. And he's not the only one. There's a bunch of entrepreneurs now, who are kind of just trying to do audacious things. - And on that point, some people say we want to shift away from this cult of entrepreneurship or this worshiping the entrepreneurs.

[9:53] How do you feel about that? - There's definitely a cult of entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley. There's kind of a hierarchy which is all the status derives from the entrepreneur and then it sort of filters down to the other people in the ecosystem who help makes things happen. And then, of course, the users and customers and broader society that they stand upon. I just think it's a nature of humans, that you're always gonna have a bit of hero worship, you're always gonna create a cult. You go to Hollywood and there's a cult of the celebrity. I mean, there's such a cult that they give each other awards every year and then we tune in to watch it.

[10:24] So, it's just a nature of politicians. We create a cult around the top politicians without looking at all the people they stand on. It's just kinda how humans are hardwired. It's how we get inspired. So I think it's completely fine to use an entrepreneur as a source of inspiration, but I think it's silly to use them as a source of truth. Like, in fact, it's silly that I'm up here and I'm kind of giving you all this so called truth and really I just have very narrow specialization in a very narrow set of things, but somehow, for some reason, somebody wants to hear my opinion on everything.

[10:56] That's the cult of personality kind of poking through. But still, you gotta pick some monkey to get in front of the tribe, you know. At various points, this might turn right now. - And on of those things that you've been a specialist at is blockchain and so I'd love to here, what is blockchain, why is it important? - Yeah, I got into cryptocurrencies and blockchains back in 2013 and it was, to me, it first fascinates as technology solution to a very particular computer science problem called the Byzantine General Problem. But all you need to understand is what they solve is a way of getting a bunch of people who don't know each other and don't trust each other, to still agree on something.

[11:33] And this is a much harder problem than it may sound like. Humans are highly, cooperating, organizing creatures. Much more so than almost any other species in the natural domain and that allows us to do amazing things like we can all get in this room and work together to what we believe is a better future. It also allows us to do terrible things, like get together in a battle field and kill each other and name some ideology. You know, monkeys don't have Christianity or Fascism, they don't come up with those ideologies so they don't murder each other in large quantities. But that ability to unite together is both our super power and our curse, because when you get together, how do you operate that network of people?

[12:10] How do we make decisions? And historically, we've had a couple of answers and they all have different trade offs. The old answer used to be the most brutal monkeys in charge. That used to be the king and that's still how much of the world lives today, under dictators. Then there it was just the smartest and most violent few monkeys who get together are in charge, and that's aristocracies or if it's as smart as the elites, but you have a small number of people sort of running things for society. Religion was another one. I talked to God, God gave me the answers, you listen to me.

[12:41] There was another model around democracy, where we're all equal, we all vote, but you also can end up with mob justice, mob rule. Where the majority turn as the minority. So, you just all these different systems of organizing people and the last few hundred years, we've created one called markets. And this could be markets and, you know, things you like and things you don't. But it's essentially just this idea that we can trade things and sort of self organizes and there's a merit model in terms of how much money I put in, or what assets I put in, what I get back.

[13:12] But no one's really if you look at the global credit markets, debt markets, equity market, money markets, commodity markets, no one's really in charge. So what blockchains do is they bring the ability to have markets into any digital domain. So you can take any digital network and there are a lot more digital networks out there than we think. So, for example, Uber is actually a digital network that's routing cars around. You're local public utility is actually a digital network that's routing power around, especially if we all had solar and we were trading that power.

[13:44] Today we have cell phone carriers that are top down, but actually each of our phones is broadcasting bluetooth and wifi and we have wifi access points at home, you can stich together a digital network. And a blockchain based network isn't owned by anybody, it isn't run by anybody. I think we're sort of a temporary blimp in history where all of your connections with your friends are controlled by one small set of people out of Palo Alto, or all the digital news media in the world is run basically by Twitter and YouTube and a very small number of people.

[14:15] So it is the nature of the current generation of technology that it is a highly centralizing force. We have replaced geographic oligopolies with global monopolies. Well at the same time, there's sort of this long tail of independent actors but that fat middle that used to exist in the old world is gone. When you would have ten eCommerce retailers and now you just have one that's kind of controlling the whole internet retail. When you would have had hundreds of local taxi dispatchers but now all taxis are dispatched out of San Francisco by Uber or Lyft.

[14:45] So that trend line is very worrying because that's not the internet, I think, we were all promised. We were promised a decentralized internet where we kind of all collectively control outcomes. But, like an any system you have to have rules, you have to have consensus, you have to have ways of rewarding people who contribute to the network. You have to have ways of punishing cheaters who harm the network. And blockchains use mathematics, cryptography, peer-to-peer networking, to create digital consensus and allow truly, leaderless digital networks and I think that is what is compelling about them.

[15:16] And we're starting with the financial applications because money is a ledger, it's something that we've historically had to put a king in charge for or a state and they have a habit, you know, when you hand somebody the ability to print money, then they just print more of it and so it finds its way into their pockets and their friends' pockets. And it may be not a problem in New Zealand because it's a famously uncorrupted country, but, yeah even there right, it's always something, but compared to other parts of the world that are outright kleptocracies, that can be problematic.

[15:47] So you have things like bitcoin that essentially separate money from any individual controlling the money, and then it becomes collective money. In theory, I'm tryin to do that for a programmable financial system and I think you'll see as blockcahins get good at tackling those problems and they demonstrate that they can secure something as hard to secure as the ability to make an issue and transfer money, then they can be trusted in all other aspects of life. So I think it's rally interesting. - And people say the cryptocurrency markets down 90 percent plus in the last year, isn't it over or was it a fad?

[16:24] How do you respond? - Yeah, I mean, look it's a highly speculative market. It's this weird combination of money and code and governance. And dot.com went through this in 1999, 2000, so I've seen this kind of movie before. And crypto's a really hard problem. Crypto is you're basically saying I'm going to create digital gold. I'm gonna make it unhackable even though the reward will be hundreds of billions of dollars. Trust me, I don't have a bug in this code, 'cause if I do, you lose all your money.

[16:55] It's very hard to secure and transfer. It's still very, very much in development. It feels like the computers were in the 1980's. Not where the internet was in 1990s, but it's moving faster. So there's still a lot of fundamental, development work to be done. Crypto is not simple computer science. It is bleeding edge computer science, game theory, attack vectors, hacking. You're trying to solve some very hard problems. So it's gonna take time to figure out. And today, for example, the total stock of bitcoin in the world is valued at about 80 billion dollars or 70 billion dollars, if you take in account losses and so on.

[17:31] Actually started higher, it would be about a hundred. But the total gold supply in the world is somewhere around seven or ten trillion dollars. And bitcoin does a lot of things that gold does, some better, some worse. Better in the sense that it's digitally transmissible, easier to secure, more scarce. Worse in the sense that there might be a bug. You can get hacked, you might lose your passkey which I've seen happen to friends of mine. So it's still much less certain. It's much more new, gold's been around forever.

[18:02] So what you have right now, is the market is pricing bitcoin as being somewhere between one five hundredth the chance of being digital gold to being one one thousandth to one one hundredth and when the market changes its mind on these very little probabilities, you these massive swings in the price. So it does end up being a very speculative instrument today, and it's like an angel investment, or like an early venture investment where you can lose are your money, or most of it, but, and there's a lot of risk involve, but there's also a lot of reward. These are not ready for prime time yet, but they'll get there.

[18:32] - We're gonna go deeper on the blockchain, crypto, ethereum in the like. I do wanna just while we have everyone, talk a little about, you're famous on Twitter now. Where did this come from? And if you could talk a little bit about your becoming famous in terms of talking about the inner game of entrepreneurship. - Yeah, so fame is a curse. I don't recommend it for anybody. You wanna be, this is glib, but you wanna be rich and anonymous, not poor and famous. This is the disease of social media. Everybody is getting their five seconds of fame and becoming a celebrity and celebrities are the most miserable people in the world.

[19:06] So it's not necessarily a good thing to go for. That said, I think what happened was, like anyone who's been an entrepreneur, I was running extremely high stressed lifesyle. And one of the things that makes entrepreneurship especially stressful, is that not only are you supposed to have all the answers, you're doing very hard work, but you're supposed to never show weakness because you're board members, you show them weakness, they're not gonna fund you, they're not gonna trust you. You show it to your employees, they're gonna run for the hills. You're customers, they're not gonna buy from you.

[19:37] You're partners, they're not gonna partner with you. So you have to show extreme stability. And it's the nature of the technology business that 99 out of 100 start ups effectively fail, 'cause the winners are so out sized and so rare. So most entrepreneurs walking around know that they don't know have product market fit to live in mortal terror of it, they're not allowed to talk about it, and everybody has to pretend they're winning and crushing it all the time. And this is highly stressful. Most people, I think, just melt down under the stress and they just hide it.

[20:07] 'Cause we're not taught the modern coping tools on how to work with it. And maybe ancient cultures had better answers, you know, you meditate, you walk in nature, you have closer family ties, you had bigger tribes, or you're just much less likely to go from being fresh out of school to landing into running a hundred person company. So these are just very modern pressures and stresses. And just like anybody, I had to kinda work through it. And as I worked through it, I started using Twitter as my open diary on what I had learned that was useful to me.

[20:38] And I think if anybody else was talking about this, it wouldn't be that interesting, but because I'm in the tech business and supposedly successful and I'm talking about it, I think that gives people license to talk about it. So I just decided, five or six years ago, that I was done being miserable and I was gonna be happy, you know (chuckles). And I know this sounds easy in hindsight, but it was sort of like, well this entire time, I've just assumed that happy people aren't successful, and if I'm gonna be successful then I can't be happy, I have to be miserable. If I'm gonna make a difference in the world I have to be unhappy along the way.

[21:10] And I just sort of shifted my mindset, and decided actually, I'm out of time, it's not or never, there's no future to live for, and if I don't figure out how to be happy, I'm gonna die unhappy. And I made it a discipline, and just like diet, and nutrition, and exercise, these are highly, personal disciplines that are unique to each of us and we have to find what works for us. And nobody else can make your diet work for you, 'cause it's a battle that's fought everyday at every meal and no one can make your exercise and fitness routine work for you 'cause not even just a half hour, you go to the gym or workout, it's literally how you carry yourself, how you move, what activities you volunteer yourself for.

[21:50] So the same way, I think your internal mental state is just as malleable, but just as hard, and just as individual. And so I just started documenting my journey, and a lot of people actually thought it was strange, and I did lose some business contacts, and definitely some business over it, and some people were attracted to it, but part of being happy is not caring what other people think and so I don't care anymore. - So we're gonna go much deeper on this part two. We're back up here on the main stage at 2:30. So hope to see you there.

[22:20] We'll open the space for Q&A as well. Please join me in thanking Naval Ravikant. - Thanks for sitting through this. (audience applauding)

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