The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness

Naval Ravikant’s credentials provide substantial credibility for the book’s wealth-building advice, though his background also reveals important limitations. As an entrepreneur and angel investor, Ravikant co-founded several companies, including Epinions (which eventually went public for $750 million), and created AngelList, which reached a $4 billion valuation by 2022. He invested early in major successes such as Uber, Twitter, and Postmates, with his portfolio spanning over 200 companies, 10 of which became unicorns. His immigrant background—arriving in Queens at age nine after his father emigrated and then abandoned the family—adds authenticity to his perspectives on wealth creation, which might seem abstract from someone born into privilege. Ravikant’s mother worked menial jobs at low wages while taking night classes, forcing him to become self-reliant as a “latchkey kid” who found companionship primarily in books. His academic foundation, degrees in economics and computer science from Dartmouth College, and experience surviving a major lawsuit against venture capitalists over Epinions provide him with both theoretical knowledge and hard-earned understanding of Silicon Valley’s power dynamics. His personal transformation from rating his happiness at 2-3 out of 10 to consistently achieving 9 out of 10 suggests genuine experience with the psychological frameworks he advocates.