It bugs me that everytime he goes on a talk show recently, he pegs himself up a horse with "I have stopped doing talk shows and I am doing it for you because ____". He comes across as an arrogant and self-serving. Most of his content is rehashing from other books. A lot of it straight from Feynman interviews on Youtube. Some spiritual stuff repeated verbatim from Jiddu Krishnamurthy.
The interesting thing about Naval is that he has a magnetic effect to new listeners and there is a cult-like following. I used to love his early talks and then the more I got to hear him, the more I realized he is just this narciscist rich guy without a shred of humbleness. He has a great sense of clarity in his thoughts and he speaks well. It's a shame really that his character puts me off more than anything else. I'd rather go read original sources with far more insight.
His repeated claims of "I can get rich even if I start over" - yes, Naval, go for it. Give up the name, money and everything you have and try working 2 jobs as a waiter and a nurse, raising kids and keeping your spouse happy while saving enough to go after your investor instincts. The whole thing comes across as out of touch with reality, compassion and thoughtful consideration; instead relies on his survivorship biases as a guiding beacon of life.
I partially agree and partially disagree with you.
I think most of the problem is people treating him (or Tim Ferriss) like a God, and his thoughts as the Holy Bible.
For example, tons of people in Silicon Valley praise "Sapiens" by Harari. When I finally read it, I quickly realized that I knew most of his stuff from other books. Surprised that Naval loved that book so much - but as a consequence, many people have bought and read and praised the book.
I don't know if he's a narcissist person, and I am not sure he's not humble. I think he partially suffers from the same problem that plagues Sam Altman: they both come across in a certain way, because they don't seem to have the social skills to present their persona and give justice to the nice parts. I think it happens when you think most other people are super smart and introverts like you.
I'm sorry, I did not mean "ban". What I meant was "block". On one occasion I'm pretty sure he responsed to somebody with "virtue signalling" followed by a block, which seemed ridiculous on a platform for exchanging views.
The interesting thing about Naval is that he has a magnetic effect to new listeners and there is a cult-like following. I used to love his early talks and then the more I got to hear him, the more I realized he is just this narciscist rich guy without a shred of humbleness. He has a great sense of clarity in his thoughts and he speaks well. It's a shame really that his character puts me off more than anything else. I'd rather go read original sources with far more insight.
His repeated claims of "I can get rich even if I start over" - yes, Naval, go for it. Give up the name, money and everything you have and try working 2 jobs as a waiter and a nurse, raising kids and keeping your spouse happy while saving enough to go after your investor instincts. The whole thing comes across as out of touch with reality, compassion and thoughtful consideration; instead relies on his survivorship biases as a guiding beacon of life.