‘Inspiration is a beautiful and powerful thing; when you have it, just seize it’: Naval Ravikant

In a YouTube video, she started off by mentioning that “there’s this battle that happens on Twitter a lot between should you work hard and should you not”, wherein one side argues against slave driving people and the other advocates that “all great founders work their fingers to the bone”.

When speaking about the latter, Ravikant said, “that a person has to get everything right: they have to have great judgment, they have to pick the right thing to work on, they have to recruit the right team, and they have to work crazy hard because they’re basically engaged in a competitive sprint.”

Addressing those people, Ravikant shared that “hard work is absolutely no substitute for who you work with and what you work on”, stressing on the latter as the most important aspect. He says that picking the right area to work in, the right people to work with, and how hard is you work are like the three legs of a stool. He went on to say that “finally, once you’ve picked the right thing to work on and the right people to work with, then you work as hard as you can.”

He also dissed the idea that people effectively work 80-120 hours a week while also having positive output. Instead, he said, “the way people tend to work most effectively, especially in knowledge work, is they sprint as hard as they can while they’re working on something and they’re inspired and they’re passionate, and then they rest to take long breaks; it’s more like a lion hunting and much less like a marathon runner running.”

Lastly, he stated that inspiration is perishable, hence work on it right then and there as and when it comes because “inspiration is a beautiful and powerful thing, and when you have it, just seize it.”

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