A discussion and Q&A of my piece on ways to expand your luck surface area

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Today at a Glance:

Much of what we come to call "luck" is actually the macro result of 1,000s of micro actions. Your daily habits put you in a position where “luck” is more likely to strike.

In order to get lucky, you have to remove the “black holes” (anti-luck) from your existence. You have to take actions to expand your personal luck surface area.

Today’s piece shares 20 ways to expand your luck surface area.

How to Get Lucky

“Diligence is the mother of good luck.” - Benjamin Franklin

“Luck has nothing to do with it, because I have spent many, many hours, countless hours, on the court working for my one moment in time, not knowing when it would come.” - Serena Williams

“Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Luck is an interesting concept.

There is certainly “luck” that is uncontrollable—pure and raw. Where you are born, who you are born to, and the base circumstances of your life all fall into this category of luck.

But as we push beyond this baseline, the concept of luck morphs into something more impure and fluid.

In fact, I believe that much of what we come to call "luck" is actually the macro result of 1,000s of micro actions. Your daily habits put you in a position where “luck” is more likely to strike.

Interstellar & Luck Surface Area

In the movie Interstellar (slight spoiler if you haven’t seen it!), there’s a scene in which the main characters discuss the habitability of a planet on the edge of a large black hole.

The protagonists realize that the proximity to the black hole makes life unlikely to exist on the planet—the black hole absorbed all of the “lucky” events that might have been the spark for life. The asteroids carrying the seeds of life, the chance collisions—none of them could occur because the “luck surface area” of the planet was minuscule given its proximity to the all-absorbing black hole.

I think about this scene a lot—it’s a sneakily powerful metaphor for life.

In order to get lucky, you have to remove the “black holes” from your existence. You have to take actions to expand your personal luck surface area.

In today’s piece, I’d like to get you started on this journey…

Here are 20 ways to expand your luck surface area:

Be the Dumbest in the Room

If you have a choice between entering two rooms, choose the room where you are more likely to be the dumbest one in the room.

Once you’re in the room, talk less and listen more. It’s bad for your ego, but it’s great for luck.

Good things tend to happen in these rooms.

Hang Out With Optimists

Pessimists sound smart, optimists get rich.

When choosing who to spend time with, prioritize spending time with optimists. Pessimists see the doors that are closed. Optimists see the doors that are open—and probably kick down the closed doors.

Pessimists are “black holes” in your life that need to be removed in order for you to get lucky.

Get in the Arena

There's no luck on the sidelines—the arena is where it strikes.

It's lonely and vulnerable, but it's the only path that bears real fruit. When faced with two paths, choose the path that puts you in the arena—where collisions happen, where luck can strike.

Furthermore, surround yourself with people who are also in the arena. Sideline rock slingers never get lucky.

Write in Public

When you write and publish your ideas and insights, you are casting a web of magnets out into the world.

Those ideas and insights will attract some people to you—and perhaps repel others.

As your web grows, the connections—and luck—compound accordingly.

Sahil Note: I am a testament to this fact. My luck has increased significantly since I started writing in public. There are no qualifications or requirements to get started—just energy.

Talk to Strangers

"Don't talk to strangers" is a classic we are told as children—the residue of which carries into adulthood for far too many people.

New relationships spark new ideas, insights, and opportunities—these compound just as well as any financial investment.

Broad Network = Broad Luck.

"There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met." - William Butler Yeats

Send More Cold Emails

Cold emails are responsible for some of the biggest breaks in my life—new mentors, relationships, and career opportunities.

Cold emails are a force multiplier for your efforts.

Follow the principles in my Cold Email Guide to enhance your odds of success.

Always remember: Shooters shoot.

Schedule Free Time

The idea that free time is bad is one of the greatest lies you’ve been told.

In investing, it’s often said that cash is a call option on future interesting investments. Well, in life, I believe that free time is a call option on future interesting opportunities. When you have free time, you have the headspace to pursue new ideas and go down rabbit holes.

Plan for more of it.

Ruthlessly Eliminate Negativity

Everyone has a few negative people in their circle. They tell you to be realistic. They laugh at your ambition. They argue.

Eliminate this negativity from your life. It's a boat anchor—a major black hole—cut the damn line and run away from it as fast as you can.

Negative people are quite literally the anti-luck.

Embrace the Unexpected

You should spend your 20s saying yes to almost everything.

Saying yes puts you into uncomfortable situations that lead to new relationships, opportunities, and growth.

These unexpected moments are luck-rich. Embracing them is how you capitalize.

Hustle Hard

When you have a bias for motion, good things happen. You create more random collisions in your ecosystems—it’s like chaos theory.

A bit of hustle goes a long way.

“There’s luck through persistence, hard work, hustle, and motion. This is when you’re running around creating opportunities. You’re generating a lot of energy, you’re doing a lot to stir things up. It’s almost like mixing a petri dish or mixing a bunch of reagents and seeing what combines. You’re just generating enough force, hustle, and energy for luck to find you.” - Naval Ravikant

Trust the Weekend Test

"What the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years." - Chris Dixon

Observe the weekend project...

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Today at a Glance:

Economic sanctions fall into the category of economic statecraft—the use of financial levers to drive desired geopolitical outcomes. They can be broadly defined as any planned commercial or financial penalties applied by one or more countries on another country, group, organization, or individual.

The goals of the sanctions include constraining cross-border money flows that are necessary for financing a long-term war effort, punishing the oligarchs who support Putin and his war efforts, depleting Russia’s financial reserves, and creating political unrest within Russia that puts Putin under pressure.

While the base package of sanctions was considered standard, the weekend announcements of a cutoff from SWIFT and a Central Bank reserve freeze is potentially much more damaging to Russia and Putin.

A Primer on SWIFT & Sanctions

“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” — Vladimir Lenin

The world is in a dramatically different state since you last received a deep-dive piece from me just one week ago. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has tragically plunged countless lives into chaos and encouragingly rallied much of the world to support the besieged Ukrainians. In the vein of support, I will be donating the proceeds from today’s newsletter to UNICEF: Protect Children in Ukraine.

The situation is an intensely complicated one. There are two wars being waged here: a military war and an economic war.

Today, I’d like to talk about that economic war and provide a simple breakdown of the most important weapons involved. I hope this piece makes you feel more well-informed in the days and weeks ahead.

A Brief History of Sanctions

Economic sanctions have become a staple of modern statecraft.

Economic sanctions fall into the category of economic statecraft—the use of financial levers to drive desired geopolitical outcomes. They can be broadly defined as any planned commercial or financial penalties applied by one or more countries on another country, group, organization, or individual.

They are not new.

Most historians agree that the first formal economic sanctions were in 432 B.C., when Athens restricted merchants from a rival city-state called Megara from participating in its marketplaces. The action choked off economic activity in Megara—the sanctions were highly-effective.

Fast forward several millennia to World War I and economic sanctions had become a core tool in the geopolitical toolkit. A prolonged naval blockade by the Allies was used to restrict the flow of goods to Germany and the other Central Powers.

As the 20th century progressed, sanctions were used time and again—the industrial logic was that their potential dire impact on an economy would cause would-be aggressors to think twice before taking military action.

Unfortunately, this didn’t take into account the human impact of the collateral damage of these sanctions, which was often devastating.

In the post-9/11 world, the increased awareness of this human impact gave rise to so-called “targeted” sanctions—sanctions specifically designed to mitigate collateral damage and have precise impact. If general sanctions had been a shotgun blast historically, targeted sanctions were designed to be a sniper shot.

This is largely where we are today and how we got here. The U.S. and Western world continue to make heavy use of sanctions due to broad global reliance on the dollar for trade and commerce.

With that history in mind, let’s turn to our present situation…

The Russia Sanctions

Over the weeks preceding Russia’s formal invasion of Ukraine, as its military aspirations became increasingly well-understood, the U.S. and Western world began preparing its financial response.

There are several interconnected goals of the sanctions package here:

Constrain cross-border money flows that are necessary for financing a long-term war effort.

Punish the oligarchs who support Putin and his war efforts, many of whom live and work outside of Russia.

Deplete Russia’s financial reserves (reduce its cushion).

Create political unrest within Russia that puts Putin under pressure.

Increase the cost—actual and perceived—of an international company doing business in Russia.

I would segment the potential response into two core tiers:

Tier I: Sanctions on Russian banks, companies, and oligarchs.

Tier II: A cutoff from SWIFT and Central Bank reserve freeze.

Tier I was table-stakes—effectively the standard operating procedure of the West in such a situation. Tier II was considered much less likely, with many media outlets calling the cutoff from SWIFT the economic “nuclear button” in this situation.

After the invasion began, when it became clear that Putin planned to press forward, the U.S. and EU quickly progressed from Tier I to Tier II. Over the weekend, plans were announced to cut many Russian banks off from the SWIFT system and freeze Russia’s access to foreign currency reserves held in the West.

Let’s talk about what this all means and why it’s so impactful…

SWIFT

SWIFT is short for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications. It’s a global cooperative of financial institutions based in Belgium.

SWIFT was formed in 1973 when 239 banks from 15 countries came together to establish a way to handle cross-border payments. Today, SWIFT connects more than 11,000 financial institutions across 200+ countries.

SWIFT doesn’t actually do any funds transfer or holding of funds, but it’s a critical part of the communication infrastructure that enables cross-border money flows. The best way to think about SWIFT is like a simple email or messaging collaboration system enabling secure messages across its member banks—like a sort of Slack for international banks.

SWIFT sees an average of 40 million messages a day—including around orders, payment confirmations, FX exchanges, and trades. These messages provide a form of reliable, safe communication for international banks to execute tr...

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Today at a Glance:

“The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.” - Oliver Wendall Holmes, Sr.

As children, we are taught to live by an ever-expanding set of rules. The rules keep us safe. They limit our downside during a fragile period of our lives. They also limit our upside, as they create artificial constraints on our movement and collisions as we travel through the universe.

Rules are good—but just like the old man in the quote above, you have to know when to bend and break them.

15 Life Rules Worth Breaking

I’d like to open with one of my favorite quotes of all time:

“The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.” - Oliver Wendall Holmes, Sr.

Read that again.

So much wisdom contained in such a short, concise statement.

As children, we are taught to live by an ever-expanding set of rules. This is (mostly) good—it gives us a concrete, stable way to view the increasingly complex, dynamic world that we have entered.

The rules keep us safe. They limit our downside during a fragile period of our lives.

The problem? They also limit our upside, as they create artificial constraints on our movement and collisions as we travel through the universe. They force us to walk down a narrow path with bumpers on both sides—they eliminate the flashes of serendipity, the asymmetries that define the lives of the greatest among us.

Rules may limit your risk, but they also limit your reward.

Rules are good—but if you’re looking to play asymmetric games—those with low downside and uncapped upside—you have to know when to bend and break them.

Here are 15 life rules worth breaking:

Wait for the Perfect Moment

This rule has paralyzed would-be action-takers for generations.

The reality: there is no such thing as the perfect moment.

Sometimes you just have to open the door, jump out of the plane, and hope you packed the parachute tight.

You Have to Work Hard to Succeed

Hard work is important—but it's relative, not absolute.

In the Digital Age—when creative and inspired work stands out and is rewarded—what you work on is more important than how hard you work.

Play your game, not theirs. You’ll play it better.

Become an Expert, Not a Generalist

Society celebrates experts in any given field.

But as David Epstein finds in Range, many experts succeed because of the range of pursuits that preceded their main endeavor.

Become a polymath. Generalize first, specialize later.

Let Things Play Out

This isn't a movie that you're watching on your TV.

You are not a passive observer of your own life. There are times to sit back, and there are times to push.

Learn to identify the difference and never be afraid to provide a little push.

Don't Ask Too Many Questions

Children are born with an insatiable curiosity, but somewhere along the line, we are told to stop asking questions.

The most successful people in the world never listened—they broke this rule.

Ask questions. Be curious. Be interested.

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

Complacency will always lead you down a bad path.

Just because something isn't broken, doesn't mean it can't be improved.

Continuous improvement is the way. Focus on small, incremental improvements—day in, day out.

Get a Stable Job

This might have been a good rule in the Industrial Age, but its foundation is crumbling in the Digital Age.

The way we work is fundamentally changing—opportunities for creative, unstructured career paths are endless.

Find your Zone of Genius and operate in it.

Stay in Your Lane

A rule of the fixed, stagnant, and hierarchical—often used to keep employees in line.

It's great to double down on your strengths, but never let external pressures prevent you from expanding your domains.

Growth mindsets rule the world.

Think Through Every Big Decision

We are told to methodically consider the pros and cons of every big decision in our lives.

As a result, many of us have decision paralysis.

With big decisions, you're actually better off making them fast—let your gut and instincts guide you.

Don't Talk to Strangers

A classic we are told as children—the residue of which carries into adulthood for far too many.

When we open up to those around us, we stimulate, learn, and grow.

"There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met." — William Butler Yeats

Get a Four-Year Degree

For decades we told children they had to attend a traditional four-year college, or else they were a failure.

That is a lie—and we loaded a generation with student debt because of it.

Four-year degrees make sense for many, but not for all.

Follow YOUR path.

Save Now to Enjoy Later

All mainstream financial advice tells you one thing: save now to enjoy later.

I agree, with a caveat...

You have to enjoy the prime of your life! Now and then, it's ok to save a bit less to go to that concert with your friends.

Find your balance.

Have a Plan & Stick to It

It's important to have a plan.

But as Mike Tyson famously said, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

Plans have to be dynamic—and punch-proof! You'll only go as far as your ability to absorb and pivot on the fly.

Don't Be Self-Promotional

It's easy to condemn self-promotion when you're at the top.

But when you're first starting out, you may be the only one in a position to promote.

When you put in the work, energy and love, share it with the world! Genuine pride is infectious.

Be Realistic

It's not up to anyone else to decide what is possible for you or your life.

Are there constraints outside of your control? Sure. Is that a reason to settle? Hell no.

As Will Smith says in Pursuit of Happyness: "If you want something, go get it. Period."

There you have it: 15 life rules worth breaking.

I’d love to hear from you. What common rules am I missing? Comment below!

If you enjoyed this, consider sharing it with your network so I can continue to grow this amazing curiosity tribe. Thank you for joining me on the journey!

Until next time, as always, stay curious, friends!

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Today at a Glance:

Razors are rules of thumb that help simplify decisions and drive better outcomes.

When used appropriately, they can meaningfully improve the quality of your decision-making (and reduce stress along the way).

The article below provides 20+ valuable razors, when to use them, and a few additional notes from the author.

The Most Valuable Razors

The Feynman Razor

Named after famed American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman—the Feynman Razor is a simple recognition that complexity and jargon are often used to mask a lack of deep understanding.

If you can’t explain it to a 5-year-old, you don’t really understand it.

If someone uses a lot of complexity and jargon to explain something to you, they probably don’t understand it.

Use It When: You’re faced with a hand-waving, jargon-heavy explanation to a simple question.

The Smart Friends Razor

If your smartest friends are all interested in something, it’s worth paying attention to.

If that something seems crazy, it's worth paying a lot of attention to.

The passions of the smartest people in your circles are a looking glass into the future.

Use It When: Your smart friends have mentioned something that sounds crazy 3+ times.

Sahil Note: I’ve ignored this signal on two occasions: Bitcoin (2013) and NFTs (BAYC). Both cost me a lot of money. I’ll never make that mistake again, and I suggest you don’t either.

The Rooms Razor

If you have a choice between entering two rooms, choose the room where you are more likely to be the dumbest one in the room.

Once you are in the room, talk less and listen more.

Bad for your ego, great for your growth.

Use It When: Deciding what to do on your next free night out.

The Man in the Arena Razor

It's easy to throw rocks from the sidelines—it's hard to step into the arena.

It's lonely and vulnerable, but it's where growth happens.

When faced with two paths, choose the path that puts you in the arena—choose the path with real skin in the game.

Use It When: Choosing how to approach a new and scary endeavor.

Sahil Note: This is often a very challenging one, but it’s the one I feel most strongly about. It’s so much more comfortable to stay on the sidelines—it’s easy to convince yourself that it’s the safe or appropriate path. Ultimately, it’s very hard to create asymmetric outcomes on the sidelines. You have to be in the arena if you want to reap the outsized rewards.

The Serendipity Razor

Some of what we call luck is actually the macro result of 1,000s of micro actions.

Your daily habits put you in a position where luck is more likely to strike.

When choosing between two paths, choose the path that has a larger serendipity surface area.

Use It When: Choosing what to do on a free night (when you have some energy).

Sahil Note: The topic of “serendipity surface area” is one I plan to write about in greater depth in the future. It’s hard to get lucky watching TV at home. It’s (relatively) easy to get lucky when you’re engaging with people, interacting, and learning—physically or digitally. It’s possible to put yourself in a position to get lucky.

The Uphill Decision Razor

When faced with two options, choose the one that’s more difficult in the short-term.

Naval calls this making "uphill decisions”—overriding your biological pain avoidance instinct.

It's worth it—short-term pain creates compounding long-term gain.

Use It When: Deciding between two near-term development pathways.

The Rare Opportunity Razor

There is a rare class of opportunities that the average person will get 0 to 1 chances at in their lifetime.

They look scary, but have insanely asymmetric return profiles.

If you are fortunate to be faced with one of these opportunities, jump at it.

Use It When: Making a decision on that one big opportunity.

The Buffett Reputation Razor

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.” - Warren Buffett

Your reputation is built over decades, but it's made of glass, not stone.

Remember that—act accordingly.

Use It When: You’re placed in that one tricky situation that puts your integrity on the line.

The Narrative Fallacy Razor

Humans are storytelling creatures—we weave together sequences of events to identify cause-and-effect when the reality is just luck.

When reading stories of success, it's fair to assume they downplay the role of luck as a contributing factor.

Use It When: You find yourself leveraging stories of the success of others to inform your own decision-making.

Sahil Note: Survivorship Bias is rampant in the media. We only hear the stories of success, so we fail to recognize the true base rates. Be aware of the bias and make decisions accordingly.

The Time Billionaire Razor

Time is our most precious asset.

When choosing between two paths, choose the path that places the highest appreciation on the value of your time.

This is not about money—it's about leverage.

The path where you spend more time in your Zone of Genius.

Use It When: You find yourself making inefficient time for money trades.

The Opinion Razor

"I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do." - Charlie Munger

Opinions are earned, not owed.

If you can't state state the opposition's argument clearly, you haven't earned an opinion.

Use It When: You are inclined to enter into an argument over something you don’t really understand.

Sahil Note: The most common pushback I get with this one is that Charlie Munger clearly doesn’t follow his own...

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Today at a Glance:

Learning is a meta-skill—arguably the most important meta-skill.

School taught us many things, but unfortunately, how to learn was not one of them.

The retention framework I use involves five steps: (1) Inspired Consumption; (2) Unstructured Note-Taking; (3) Consolidation; (4) Analogize; and (5) Idea Exercise. The structure is sequential, but its practice is often dynamic & iterative.

Spaced Repetition is the most formal—and powerful—idea exercise method. It’s a method in which information is consumed at increasing intervals until it's committed to long-term memory. It leverages cognitive science—the way our brains work to convert short-term to long-term memory—to help you retain newly-consumed information.

How to Retain What You Learn

Learning is a meta-skill—arguably the most important meta-skill.

School taught us many things, but unfortunately, how to learn was not one of them.

Learning is how we adapt to our changing environments, circumstances, and situations. Learning allows us to create new “maps”—and edit old ones—in order to navigate the dynamic, highly-complex world with confidence.

Growth is fundamentally driven by the long-term accumulation and compounding of usable learning. We accumulate and compound this learning through consumption and retention. Consumption is the inputs—what comes in. Retention is what remains after any leakage.

Imagine your brain like a bathtub.

The faucet is the entrance, the drain is the exit. Everything you research and consume flows in through the faucet. Everything you forget flows out through the drain.

I’ve written a lot about the faucet in the past—here and here most recently—but I’ve never talked about the drain.

Let’s fix that today—let’s talk about learning retention.

Learning from The Matrix

I love The Matrix. It’s not just sci-fi, there is a lot we can draw from it about learning and retention.

Bear with me…

In one of the early scenes of the first film, Keanu Reeves’ character—Neo—is plugged into the system and has a program uploaded into his brain. He has a moment of shocked revelation where he looks up and says, “I know kung fu.” He proceeds to demonstrate his new mastery in a virtual sparring room. Most importantly, Neo never forgets this new skill.

To be sure, this isn’t that crazy an idea. Our brains are just software. When we learn, we are updating that software. But in the real world, though, our software is flawed and buggy—we forget important things or overwrite old data all the time.

Our best bet? Develop a strategy for retention that is grounded in science. An approach to retention that is as integrated and comprehensive as our approach to learning. We may not become Neo, but we can become more Neo-like.

The Retention Framework

Here's a tactical framework for improving your retention…

The retention framework I use involves five steps:

Inspired Consumption

Unstructured Note-Taking

Consolidation

Analogize

Idea Exercise

The structure is sequential, but its practice is often dynamic & iterative.

Let's walk through each of the steps...

Step 1: Inspired Consumption

Retention starts with consumption.

I bucket consumption into two types:

Forced: Compelled, either internally or externally.

Inspired: Driven entirely by your internal inspirations.

If you've ever been in school, you know what forced consumption looks like. Forced consumption is the book you're told to read, despite the topic being of zero interest to you. It's the foundation of much of the traditional education system—yet another reason why so many of us are bad at learning retention!

Inspired consumption is when you feel genuinely pulled to consume—when you enjoy the consumption process.

It requires the willingness to put ego aside and "quit” more books (or content) when that genuine inspiration fades.

Inspired consumption is important for retention for two key reasons.

Inspiration is a precursor to flow. More flow state, more retention.

Inspiration fuels engagement. Engage with the content, retain the content.

Inspired consumption is the foundation of retention.

Step 2: Unstructured Note-Taking

When you start consuming, you should have a note-taking system in front of you.

Sahil Note: I use Notion for my note taking, but there are probably 10 other options out there (and I’m currently evaluating Obsidian as another option for more networked notes). The old fashioned way—pen and paper—works too, with the caveat that searchable notes are ideal in my opinion.

On the first pass through the material, keep your notes as unstructured and free-flowing as possible.

What to take note of:

Foundation-building ideas

Novel insights

Things that made you go “hmmm” or “wow!”

Connections you identified to other topics

Questions or confusion

Strong reactions you had to new information

Remember: This first pass of notes is intended to be unstructured. The simple act of writing helps ideas stick.

Step 3: Consolidation

Zoom out and review your unstructured notes.

What are the most interesting, novel insights or ideas? What are the most confusing?

Consolidation is where you re-consume content with a specific focus on building structure around your notes in these particular areas.

If unstructured note-taking created a bunch of dots, consolidation is where you start connecting them.

It doesn't have to be perfect, but you should start to form a more refined picture as you re-consume the content for this purpose.

Consolidation is when knowledge begins to stick.

Step 4: Analogize

Analogizing is the most effective—and least well-known—retention tool.

This is where you take your newly-learned information and place it within your broader mental maps. You make clear comparisons and connections between newly-learned and existing information.

Here's a real example from my writing to illustrate how this works:

I did a bunch of research on Morris Chang and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company for a piece. During my consolidation, it struck me that TSMC's novel pure-play chip manufacturer model had enabled independent chip designers to start their own companies.

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Today at a Glance:

De Beers created the modern diamond industry through the use of market manipulation, psychological hacks, and clever marketing.

At its height, De Beers had direct or indirect control of the majority of the global diamond supply chain, allowing it to wield its influence to manage prices.

“A Diamond is Forever” was the genius marketing campaign that created the diamond industry as we know it—convincing generations of men and women (1) that diamonds are a show of love—and that the size and quality of the diamond is proportional to the size and quality of the love and (2) that courtship and engagement involve a diamond.

Broad-based pushback against the industry and its roots has led to the rise of alternatives—like lab-grown diamonds—but diamonds remain the standard show of love in most Western cultures.

Diamonds Aren’t Forever

The mandate of this newsletter is simple: I explore my curiosity and share what I learn along the way. To be clear, this is an intentionally-broad mandate—I don’t believe that curiosity follows any fixed lesson plan.

The topics I will continue to cover include:

Growth and decision-making

Startups, investing, business, and finance

Writing and storytelling

Marketing

Life

The one constant across all of this: I can guarantee you will learn something new and interesting from each and every piece I share. One new idea or insight that will make you smarter or spark your curiosity to go deeper.

This is a learning-rich journey and I am fortunate to have almost 70,000 of you along for the ride. We’re just getting started.

This felt like a fitting preface to today’s piece. Why? Well, every now and then, a story comes along that grabs my attention and simply won’t let go until I write about it.

The story of De Beers and the making of the modern diamond industry is one of those stories. It stands out because it’s not a clear fit for any one of those buckets above—rather, it’s a fit for all of them!

So sit back, grab a coffee (or whiskey), and let’s go down this rabbit hole together…

The Beginnings

The story of De Beers starts well before the international giant existed.

It may be difficult to believe in the current context, but for most of history, diamonds were not a particularly important gem. Largely found in parts of India and Brazil, they were considered rare and beautiful, but had little intrinsic value due to their lack of industrial or monetary use cases. Diamonds were a vanity item of the ultra-ultra-rich—a very niche market.

But in 1870, everything began to change.

Massive diamond stores were discovered in South Africa near the Orange River, setting off the first diamond rush. South Africa was officially a British colony at the time, which meant that British investors immediately flocked to the region and commissioned labor—both forced and paid—to begin building the diamond mines.

It quickly became clear that the new South African mines would be producing never-before-seen quantities of diamonds.

The British investors grew worried. In a free market, the glut of supply—and associated dent in the perception of scarcity—would send the price of diamonds into free fall. Given diamonds did not have any major industrial use cases to buoy demand, the perception of scarcity was critical to their price and desirability.

So in 1888, one British financier and mining operator proposed a plan…

The Making of De Beers

Cecil Rhodes was born in England in 1853, but after a sickly adolescence marked by severe asthma, his father sent him to South Africa, a climate he believed would be better for his health.

Rhodes entered the diamond industry at age 18 in 1871 and began to systematically acquire and consolidate mining operations in South Africa. By 1888, he had built one of the most powerful mining operations in the region.

But the diamond industry was in turmoil, with wild price fluctuations and uneven demand. Sensing an opportunity, Cecil Rhodes and his business partners led a push to merge and consolidate the various South African mining companies.

His pitch: continued competition meant death; consolidation meant survival.

The new company—or cartel, as it were—was named De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd. Its explicit goal: to manage diamond production and continue to perpetuate the perception of scarcity and desirability that was so important to the price of the stones.

De Beers was officially born.

“A Diamond is Forever”

Econ 101 Lesson of the Day: There are two sides to every market—supply and demand. The story of De Beers is unique in its practical application of the manipulation of both…

Supply-Side Manipulation

In the 20th century, De Beers methodically expanded its influence over the entire diamond supply chain.

In addition to having direct control over diamond mining and production, it began to accumulate direct or indirect control of the major diamond trading companies across England, Switzerland, Israel, Belgium, Holland, and Portugal.

It was widely known and understood that De Beers controlled the diamond industry. With control over production and distribution, De Beers was able to control the stock and flow of diamonds in the market, effectively creating direct control over prices. While other commodities saw wild price swings, diamonds exhibited no such volatility, creeping steadily upwards over time.

But many cartels throughout history have managed to manipulate supply—demand is much mo...

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Today at a Glance:

First principles thinking is the most powerful framework for deconstructing complex problems, generating creative solutions, and driving non-linear outcomes.

A first principle is a basic, foundational assumption—one that cannot be deduced or broken down any further. In simple terms, think of first principles as foundational truths that do not require any additional assumptions.

As a simple rule of thumb: when speed and efficiency are critical, use reasoning by analogy; when creativity and innovation are required, use first principles thinking.

To leverage first principles thinking, use Socratic Questioning to drill down to the foundational truths of a problem. Once you uncover them, you can begin to slowly build up to a more creative, imaginative solution.

First Principles Thinking

The most successful entrepreneurs, investors, and scientists in the world often reference first principles thinking as having been critical to their success.

Run a simple Google search of the term and you’ll find countless articles, videos, and quotes from an array of billionaires and Nobel Prize winners who all point to the importance of first principles thinking.

Accordingly, first principles thinking has become something of a buzz-phrase—often talked about, yet rarely understood (let alone employed effectively).

In this post, I’d like to provide a simple, intuitive breakdown of first principles thinking: what it is, how it works, when to use it, and how to leverage it in your problem solving journey.

Introduction to First Principles

First principles thinking is the most powerful framework for deconstructing complex problems, generating creative solutions, and driving non-linear outcomes.

Let’s start with the basics: what is a first principle?

Aristotle—the Ancient Greek philosopher, polymath, and student of Plato—defined a first principle as "the first basis from which a thing is known."

A first principle is a basic, foundational assumption—one that cannot be deduced or broken down any further. In simple terms, think of first principles as foundational truths that do not require any additional assumptions.

They are the base layer—the atomic unit.

First principles thinking—sometimes referred to as "reasoning from first principles”—is a problem-solving and innovation framework that requires you to deconstruct a complex problem down to these most foundational elements.

The aim: to ground yourself in the foundational truths and build up from there.

Elon Musk explained this in a 2013 interview:

“First principles is kind of a physics way of looking at the world. You boil things down to the most fundamental truths and say, ‘What are we sure is true?’ … and then reason up from there.”

This method runs in contrast to our natural wiring.

When we encounter challenging problems, our tendency is to rely on base level assumptions we have been told are true (or we believe to be true). Why? It’s quick and easy to do.

This is called "reasoning by analogy”—it leads to solutions that are much like something else. Slight modifications or iterations on an existing solution. The unimaginative, linear solutions that closely resemble what has been done before.

To be sure, it can be very useful when speed is the priority. Moving fast has its advantages at times—like if our ancestors were trying to avoid being eaten by a lion! But reasoning by analogy falls short when dealing with complex problems requiring creative, imaginative solutions.

Imagine the solution to a problem as a house:

The foundation of the house is the assumptions upon which the ultimate solution will rest.

If it's a shoddy, quickly-built foundation, the house may collapse. Even if it remains standing, the architect and builder will know that they are limited in what they can build on top of it.

If it's a sturdy, deliberately-built foundation, the house will thrive. The architect and builder can get creative with what they build on top of it, as they know the base is strong.

First principles form that sturdy, deliberately-built foundation for the house.

Elon Musk & SpaceX

To bring this to life, let's look at a classic example of first principles thinking in action: Elon Musk & SpaceX.

First off, what was the problem?

Sending a rocket to Mars to begin the process of making humans an interplanetary species. Yes, I think that meets the bar of being complex…

As he began digging in to develop a solution, Elon Musk quickly discovered the cost of buying a rocket was astronomical (bad pun intended)—$65 million. It was not only financially untenable—SpaceX was a startup at the time—it was also grounded in assumptions of how rockets have always been built and what they should cost.

Taking stock on the situation:

Complex Problem ✅

Creativity > Speed ✅

So he turned to first principles thinking:

“Physics teaches you to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. So I said, okay, let’s look at the first principles. What is a rocket made of? Aerospace-grade aluminum alloys, plus some titanium, copper, and carbon fiber. Then I asked, what is the value of those materials on the commodity market? It turned out that the materials cost of a rocket was around two percent of the typical price.”

Based on this upfront analysis, SpaceX began building its own rockets and software systems that would dramatically alter the future of the space economy.

Rather than accepting the established "truths" about the cost of a rocket, Musk grounded his problem solving in first principles.

Today, SpaceX rockets are doing extraordinary things at a fraction of the historical cost. Furthermore, Elon Musk and SpaceX shattered the deeply-engrained beliefs about the costs of doing business in space, which has unlocked hundreds of other entrepreneurs and companies to build new, innovative solutions for the future.

The dreams of a Mars voyage in our lifetimes are alive and well…

How to Use First Principles Thinking

Ok, now that we have covered the theory, let’s get into the practice. How can YOU leverage first principles thinking to create better outcomes?

First—and most importantly—determine if first principles thinking is necessary for your given problem, or if reasoning by analogy is a better fit.

As a simple rule of ...

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Today at a Glance:

In the normal course of my content consumption habits, I come across a steady stream of learnings, ideas, and connections, some of which have an asymmetrical impact on my life.

In this post, I share a list of 20+ high-impact ideas on business, investing, growth, and life, all of which were learned or surfaced in the last year.

I plan to begin sharing a regular quarterly post of new ideas to bring you along for this learning journey.

The Most Powerful Ideas

I am an avid content consumer.

Content consumption is a core part of my “job”—a critical element of my personal flywheel. I have built a “content engine” (more on that in a future post!) that provides a steady stream of learnings, ideas, and connections, all of which amplify the quality of my investing, business building, and content creation pursuits.

In this post, I’d like to share some of the most powerful ideas I have come across over the last year, with additional notes and insights where helpful.

So let’s dive right in: 20+ high-impact ideas on business, investing, growth, and life…

Time Billionaire

Time is our most precious asset.

When you're young, you are a "time billionaire”—rich with time. Too many people fail to realize the value of this asset until it is gone.

Treat time as your ultimate currency—it’s all you have and you can never get it back.

Sahil Note: When I first learned this concept—from a Tim Ferriss podcast with Graham Duncan—it hit me hard. I had spent most of my life prioritizing the value of money or power, when the reality is that time is our most valuable asset, and the only one that cannot be bought or sold. It forced me to think deeply about how I want to spend my time, who I want to spend it with, and why I want to pursue certain paths over others. I would encourage you to think deeply about the same…

Darkest Hour Friends

It's easy to be there for people to celebrate their wins. It takes character to show up for them in their darkest hour.

People never forget those who supported them when the chips were down.

I call these your “darkest hour friends”—find them, treasure them.

Engineered Serendipity

Some of what we call "luck" is actually the macro result of thousands of micro actions. Your daily habits can put you in a position where "luck" is more likely to strike.

It's possible to increase your serendipity surface area and engineer your own luck.

Sahil Note: Serendipity surface area is an interesting concept. When you’re on a “track” in your life or career, you are walking on such a narrow path that very little luck can hit you. The more you open yourself up to the world—to new experiences and people—the more you expand your serendipity surface area. There’s quite literally more area for luck to strike.

Leverage

"Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough and I shall move the world." - Archimedes

Leverage is anything that multiplies the force of your inputs.

Building systems that provide leverage on your time, money, and energy will allow you to create a life you deserve.

Sahil Note: Leverage can cut both ways. When used too aggressively, it can be a negative (just ask Archegos or the founders at Long-Term Capital Management). Beware of over-leveraging your life or pursuits!

Free Time as a Call Option

You've incorrectly been told that free time is bad—hustle culture lied to you.

The reality: Free time is a call option on future interesting opportunities.

When you have free time, you have the headspace and bandwidth to pursue high-upside ideas.

Sahil Note: I have learned that the same idea applies to cash. I used to believe that I had to be fully invested, otherwise I was leaving return/yield on the table. But I later realized that cash is a call option on future interesting opportunities. Having some idle cash allows you to invest in that new idea, pursue a weekend project, etc. It’s worth it.

Decentralized Friend Groups

There are two types of friend groups:

Centralized: one cluster of friends with shared backgrounds & beliefs.

Decentralized: small, varied, unconnected clusters of friends.

When in doubt, opt for decentralized friend groups. The variety of backgrounds and beliefs is the key to developing independent thought.

Sahil Note: I picked this up from my friend George Mack, who I would consider part of one of my decentralized friend groups. The internet affords ample opportunity to build these groups. Join a few Discord servers, share ideas, build a micro-community. There has never been a better time in history to do it.

Work Like a Lion

9-5 work culture is a remnant of the Industrial Age—it emphasizes long periods of steady, monotonous work.

Most people are not wired to work 9-5. Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. When you establish fixed hours to do your work, you find unproductive ways to fill it—you work longer, but get less done.

In the Digital Age, those who do creative work will stand out and be rewarded. If your goal is to do this inspired, creative work, you have to work like a lion.

Wait. SPRINT. Eat. Rest. Repeat.

Q1 Relationships

All relationships exist on a 2x2 matrix of:

How healthy it is

How enjoyable it is

Q1 relationships are healthy & enjoyable. Focus on spending more energy on your Q1 relationships—cherish them.

Scrub the Q4s from your life.

Sahil Note: I learned this from my friend Tim Urban, who is one of the deepest thinkers I know. If you aren’t already following him, you should do that ASAP…

The Persuasion Paradox

Have you noticed that the most argumentative people rarely persuade anyone of anything?

The most persuasive people don’t argue—they observe, listen, and ask questions. Argue less, persuade more.

Persuasion is an art that requires a paintbrush, not a sledgehammer.

Inversion

“All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there." - Charlie Munger

The best innovators think forward AND backward.

When faced with a challenging problem, reframe it in inverse form—new perspective allows you to solve the problem more creatively.

Sahil Note: Inversion is one of my favorite mental models. You can use it for generating new business ideas, solving complex problems, or managing and maintaining healthy personal and professional relationships. The use cases are literall...

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Today at a Glance:

Curiosity and inspiration are perishable—they must be acted upon when they strike. But unfortunately, despite its importance to your career and life, learning is not a skill we’re ever explicitly taught how to approach.

The Feynman Technique is a beautiful, intuitive framework for learning literally anything.

The process in a nutshell: identify a topic, research it deeply, attempt to explain it to a child, and then study to fill in the gaps.

The Feynman Technique

Curiosity is unpredictable.

It strikes at random—and often inopportune—moments. But it is also notoriously perishable, so it must be acted upon.

Let’s assume for a moment that you've been bit by the curiosity bug and are ready to act on it—ready to learn something new and (hopefully) exciting.

Now what? Where do you start? What approach do you take?

You’re inspired and motivated to learn, but you don’t even know where to begin.

Unfortunately, despite its importance to your career and life, learning is not a skill we’re ever explicitly taught how to approach.

Let’s fix that…

In today’s piece, I’d like to talk about a beautiful, intuitive framework for learning literally anything: The Feynman Technique.

Introduction

Richard Feynman was an American theoretical physicist born in 1918 in New York City.

Feynman was a very late talker—he didn’t utter a word until he was three—but it was clear from a young age that he was extremely observant and intelligent. His parents valued non-consensus thinking—they constantly encouraged young Richard to ask questions and think independently.

Feynman taught himself advanced mathematics in his teens and would go on to earn a B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a PhD from Princeton University. He would then become famous for his work in quantum electrodynamics and receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his contributions to the field.

So yes, you could say that Richard Feynman was intelligent...

But there are a lot of intelligent people in the world. Feynman's true genius was in his ability to convey extremely complex ideas in simple, elegant, digestible ways—to abstract complexity and deliver simplicity.

He had observed at a young age that complex language is often used to mask a lack of deep understanding. As a rule of thumb, if someone uses a lot of acronyms and jargon to explain something to you, they probably don’t understand it very well themselves.

We've all encountered this type of “expert” at one time or another…

What was Richard Feynman’s secret? He had developed a learning framework—accidentally or intentionally—that forced a deep, elegant understanding of a topic that most people never achieve.

The Feynman Technique: How It Works

The Feynman Technique can be broken down into five key steps:

Set the Stage

Read & Research

ELI5 (Explain It To Me Like I'm 5)

Assess & Study

Organize, Convey & Review

Let's walk through each step, including notes on how I personally implement each one in my own learning processes…

Step 1: Set the Stage

What’s the topic you want to learn?

Starting with a blank page, write the topic at the top and jot down everything you know about it. For some topics, that might be precisely nothing; for others, it might be a lot.

The starting point is irrelevant, you’re just setting the stage.

Sahil Notes: I like to use Notion for tracking and managing my various research and learning efforts. It’s just a personal preference, so you can identify what works for you. I keep a “Knowledge Neural Net” board and for each new topic, I create a new page. I can then go back and connect ideas and topics as I see fit.

Step 2: Read & Research

Now that you have a baseline of your starting knowledge, you can begin your reading and research.

The most effective strategy for research: start horizontal, then go vertical.

Horizontal = Breadth

Vertical = Depth

Here’s a simple visualization of how I think about this process:

Horizontal Research (“HR”): Lays the foundation for your learning. When you start horizontal, you gather information across the full breadth of the topic area. This gives you the capacity to "see the entire field”—it draws a surface-level map of the topic. With horizontal research, it’s perfectly acceptable to keep it simple: Google and Wikipedia (sorry to all of my high school teachers!) are both great tools.

Vertical Research (“VR”): Historically much more challenging—it typically required hours of finding and reading long, dense books on a topic. But in the Information Age, we have a diverse array of tools that provide much higher time leverage. These tools include (but are not limited to): Reddit, Twitter, Newsletters, Podcasts, Expert Networks, Books. With these tools, you’ll be able to go vertical—quickly and effectively—on any topic.

Take notes, cite sources, and track gaps as you go. This step is where you start to build out your knowledge base on a topic.

Sahil Notes: I really try to take my time in this phase. True depth of understanding requires significant time. I find it helpful to conduct this research in sprints—short bursts of high intensity research—rather than in jogs. Try to create mental maps that connect together pieces of information as you go—it will help cement new learnings.

Step 3: ELI5

Ok, so up to this point, it all feels like a standard process—no Feynman touch. But here's where it gets fun (and challenging)…

Attempt to explain the topic to a child—figuratively (or literally if you're ambitious!).

On a new blank page, distill everything you know about your topic—but now pretend you are explaining it to a child. Use exclusively simple language.

Sahil Notes: In this step, rather than a blank page, I simply create a new header in my same Notion tab. Below this header, I attempt to distill the highlights of the topic into 1-2 paragraphs. I think of this as the “elevator pitch” or “cocktail party fodder” on the topic—i.e. the 60-second bit that I would use to explain the topic to any new acquaintance. The key is that you have to distill and write in a way that assumes the individual is “uninitiated” on the topic.

Step 4: Assess & Study

Test it out. Try your “elevator pitch” on another person. How’d you do? Reflect on your performance—form a balanc...