Naval Ravikant

Entrepreneur and Investor

Country: USA

Born: November 5, 1981

About Naval Ravikant

Naval Ravikant is an Indian-American entrepreneur, angel investor, and thought leader, known for his insights on startups, investing, and personal development. Born in New Delhi, India, in 1974, he moved to the United States at a young age and graduated from Dartmouth College. Naval co-founded AngelList in 2010, a platform that revolutionized startup investing by connecting entrepreneurs with early-stage investors, helping democratize access to venture funding.

An influential angel investor, Naval has invested in over 100 companies, including notable startups like Twitter, Uber, and Yammer, cementing his reputation in Silicon Valley. Beyond his work in tech, Naval shares his philosophy on wealth, happiness, and self-actualization through his popular tweets, podcasts, and essays. His wisdom on building a fulfilling life—summed up in his widely-followed essay, How to Get Rich (without Getting Lucky)—has inspired millions worldwide.

Naval emphasizes principles like independence, lifelong learning, and the importance of compounding relationships, knowledge, and health. Known for his clear, philosophical approach, he believes true wealth lies in financial freedom, inner peace, and intellectual autonomy. Today, Naval continues to share transformative ideas on self-improvement, and his influence resonates across tech, investing, and personal development spaces.

Quotes by Naval Ravikant

On AngelList, we get 100 new companies created a day. That's an insane flood.

Naval Ravikant

Getting in the middle of financial transactions is a regulatory minefield.

Naval Ravikant

All of the marketplaces like Prosper, LendingClub, etc., as they get larger, they flip from being retail capital to institutional capital.

Naval Ravikant

Unlike a normal venture fund, we never stop raising capital. We can always absorb new capital on the platform and into the next deal as long as we feel it won't distort the allocation and the pricing.

Naval Ravikant

Startups are constantly raising money, sometimes before they have even hired a lawyer.

Naval Ravikant

Rules that may be easy for Wall Street are a death sentence for startups. They are easy to break accidentally and the penalty for noncompliance is severe.

Naval Ravikant

When the venture industry started, it was enough to just have money and then it was enough to sort of have this big fuzzy brand. But now startups are getting a lot smarter.

Naval Ravikant

VC firms that don't have a brand are going to struggle. Because there is a lot of money out there, you need to have a point of view, a brand, to really add value. You can't just talk about it, and say well, we are smart people.

Naval Ravikant

One philosophy I have at AngelList is I would rather have someone working on the wrong thing and do it their way and be motivated, than working on the right thing and do it my way and not be motivated.

Naval Ravikant

We just think it's important that everybody have some technical training and background. Even though not everybody is coding but even our deals team and our designers all have GitHub accounts and they go into the code base.

Naval Ravikant

Just as the web democratized publishing and development, Bitcoin can democratize building new financial services. Contracts can be entered into, verified, and enforced completely electronically, using any third-party that you care to trust, or by the code itself.

Naval Ravikant

People come in. They are too gung ho. They invest too much money in things they don't know. They lose it and then they clam up and stop investing. Then they miss the actual boom. That's the nature of the market.

Naval Ravikant