> Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.
My note: wealth is options; options are freedom, and buying your time back. Only play status games if you’re playing for fun, but don’t confuse it with success and freedom.
I agree wealth buys optionality, but regarding variance wouldn't that imply wealthy people have better and worse outcomes than nonwealthy people, who would have consistently middling outcomes? That doesn't really match my observations.
Massive on an absolute basis? Sure. Is Bill Hwang going to live the rest of his life in poverty after losing billions? I doubt that very much. (Perhaps a poor example, seems like Hwang is facing charges.)
Not really something I'm interested in having an extensive debate about though. The reason I asked is I suspect the metaphor means something different from how I've interpreted it.
This seems overly reductive. Folks without wealth still try to demonstrate brands and experiences associated with wealth: luxury cars, clothes, trips, etc. Yet they sacrifice much more to do so.
Some also posses political forms of power, influence, and status disconnected from wealth. Gandhi for example was never weathly or rich in money or assets.
Appears to me that status is an abstract thing, albeit correlated with wealth.
When I lived in New York and worked at a trading firm, I met plenty of "high-status" people. They usually lived paycheck-to-paycheck on a 7-figure salary because they were busy playing status games - giving a few hundred thousand to charity, having a big loft in a nice neighborhood, throwing lavish parties, etc. Other people saved that money and retired at 40 to places like Wisconsin and Montana - they had wealth. Status is expensive. The only people for whom it is cheap are the uber-wealthy, those who earn $100 million a year or so.
I disagree; wealth can be displayed as status. Money can be spent in status-seeking ways. But money can also be earned so that one can care for sick family members (or a sick future self), or to put kids through college. Or money can be spent on enjoyable experiences that no one else will see.
Money is not the ultimate status game, even though it is an important ingredient in most status-seeking activities.
Status is based on attention, deference and so on other people give you. You can, to a degree, buy that, in different qualities, from different audiences. It doesn't mean wealth is status.
Money isn't all there is to status. A surgeon has higher status than a lottery winner or heir to a fortune. So Naval's point is that a desire for status can sometimes conflict with getting money, because it pushes you down a conventional path which is competitive and therefore unlikely to make you rich.
adding onto the "disagree" siblings. that money is status is far too simplistic.
plenty of people are simply not impressed by money. it's not even really a concerted thought, it's just a matter of different strokes for diff folks. people have all sorts of tribes. money is really just one. just a gawdy obnoxious one.
> Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.
https://twitter.com/naval/status/1002103627387813888
> Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.
From @naval’s Twitter thread “how to get rich (without getting lucky)”
https://twitter.com/naval/status/1002103360646823936
My note: wealth is options; options are freedom, and buying your time back. Only play status games if you’re playing for fun, but don’t confuse it with success and freedom.