# Why a PDF?

In late 2020, Eric Jorgenson published The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, a cut-and-paste collection of the "transcripts, tweets, and talks that Naval has shared."

I appreciate Jorgenson's effort, and I'm glad that he put time into such a worthwhile project. The world is better for condensing Ravikant's ideas into one publication. And Jorgenson is doing a great job of continuing to spread them.

But having paid for The Almanack, I was annoyed at the repetition of several ideas and the lack of clarity in certain sections. The content was "edited for clarity and brevity (multiple times.)" But that was a few times too few.

# Problems with The Almanack

# Repetition

Concepts, and near-identical passages, appear in multiple locations throughout the book. Here are some examples. (The numbers that follow each quote are the Kindle locations.)

# Example: Pursue specific knowledge

Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now. ²³⁴

Following your genuine intellectual curiosity is a better foundation for a career than following whatever is making money right now. ⁴⁵⁷

# Example: Capitalize on probability

In 1,000 parallel universes, you want to be wealthy in 999 of them. ⁷⁷³

I want to live in a way that if my life played out 1,000 times, Naval is successful 999 times. ¹⁷⁹⁴

# Example: Acknowledge stoic choices

In any situation in life, you always have three choices: you can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it. ¹⁴⁶⁴

You always have three options: you can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it. ¹⁴⁷¹

# Ambiguity

In addition to the repetition, the section titles within the collection often don't reflect their content.

# Example: Find Work That Feels Like Play

Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. When today is complete, in and of itself, you’re retired. One way is to have so much money saved that your passive income (without you lifting a finger) covers your burn rate. ⁷¹⁸

Retirement and "work that feels like play" are not the same thing.

# A solution?

If Ravikant was writing a summary of his own thoughts, I suspect he would avoid reprinting such similar passages and being so unclear with titles. So why didn't The Almanack treat Ravikant's ideas with the same respect?

With that in mind, I've reduced and reworked the content. Where possible, I've eliminated the repetition by cutting or regrouping necessary passages. And I've restructured the book into a driver-horse-cart approach to the philosophy to make sure that first things get first place. (You can read more about that in the Introduction.)

First, I read and highlighted what I thought were the most important concepts. I skipped any that I thought didn't contribute much to the whole. My intent was depth over breadth.
Second, I regrouped my highlights according to the parent concept and/or the title hierarchy in The Almanack. If a title was a poor match for its content, I changed it. For example, the title above ("Find Work That Feels Like Play") became "What It Means To Retire."
Third, where warranted, I added sub-sections to each chapter to highlight different aspects of an idea.
Lastly, I added an Afterword section to emphasize two things: Ravikant's most powerful idea (specific knowledge) and his most inaccurate one (that wealth is money made while you sleep.)

# References to The Almanack

Throughout the text, you'll see numerical references. Each reference indicates the location in the Kindle version of The Almanack. (They're not page numbers.)

# My disclaimer

Before reading The Almanack, I had never heard of Naval Ravikant. (OMG! WOT?) And I still haven't read anything of his other than The Almanack. (Sorry, Naval.) So my interpretations could be way off the mark.

As a copy of a copy, The PDF does run the risk of being a smudgy approximation of the original. You have been warned.