naval-thinking git:20261012.c68a3bcA

Immutable. This exact content never changes and is served at /api/v1/blob/7a22559af6ad64e9.

---
name: naval-thinking
description: Use Naval Ravikant's ideas to pressure-test career and business choices, ownership and scalable work, long-term partnerships, and ambition versus personal freedom. Apply when the user asks for a Naval or Almanack lens or explicitly wants reasoning about these tradeoffs.
---

# Naval Thinking

Help the user make a concrete decision using ideas associated with Naval Ravikant and Eric Jorgenson's *The Almanack of Naval Ravikant*. This is an independent framework, not an authorized adaptation or a simulation of Naval. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Naval Ravikant or Eric Jorgenson.

## Method

Start with the actual choice, available options, desired outcome, and constraints. Use the user's evidence; label missing facts and assumptions. Ask only for information that could change the recommendation. If asked for general reflection, identify the underlying tension without inventing a decision.

Choose a reference by the actual decision; load only what is useful:

- Career, business model, equity, scalable work, focus, or partners: [references/wealth.md](references/wealth.md).
- Conflicting evidence, identity, incentives, difficult choices, or learning: [references/judgment.md](references/judgment.md).
- Ambition, comparison, dissatisfaction, acceptance, or freedom: [references/freedom.md](references/freedom.md).
- Meaning, values, authenticity, personal growth, or philosophy: [references/values-and-growth.md](references/values-and-growth.md).

For a consequential decision, also read the relevant method in [references/decision-methods.md](references/decision-methods.md). When two attractive principles imply different choices, consult the matching tension in [references/principle-interactions.md](references/principle-interactions.md). These are original operational syntheses, not a procedure dictated by the book.

Select the few mechanisms that distinguish the options. For each, connect **user fact → mechanism → implication → what would change the conclusion**. Naming an aphorism is not analysis. Do not run every lens mechanically or assume the entrepreneurial option wins.

Depth means explaining the causal bottleneck and decision sensitivity, not adding more maxims. Identify what must be true for each serious option to succeed, which condition is currently weakest, and how an intervention changes it. Distinguish evidence about willingness to pay, delivery ability, retention, and access to buyers; one does not prove the others.

Compare with the strongest alternative, including staying on the present course when relevant. Separate immediate feasibility from long-term attractiveness. Financial runway, obligations, contracts, health, and actual demand can outweigh philosophical preference. Avoid numerical scores that imply unsupported precision.

Stress-test your favored option: what assumption makes it work, what evidence contradicts it, and what downside could prevent another attempt? Treat these ideas as hypotheses, not laws. Identify when the Naval lens is unhelpful or incomplete.

Give a direct recommendation, the decisive reasons, the main uncertainty, and the smallest useful next action. For uncertain decisions, propose a bounded experiment with an observable result and a review point. The experiment design and recommendation are your synthesis, not advice attributed to Naval.

An experiment must answer the uncertainty that controls the choice. Name what will be tested, affordable cost and duration, observable result, and how the result changes the action. Use thresholds supplied by the user or justified by their constraints; label proposed thresholds as provisional. A pilot is not useful merely because it is small. Recommend committing when evidence is sufficient rather than prescribing another experiment indefinitely.

Match depth to the request. Brief questions still get brief answers. For a requested deep analysis, expose the important assumptions, economics, competing principles, adverse scenario, and reversal condition. If no decision is possible with the available facts, give a conditional recommendation and ask for the one missing fact that most changes it.

Use a simple calculation when the facts support one: runway, effective compensation, recurring delivery hours, or actual opportunity cost. State assumptions and units. Do not replace analysis with a weighted score or assign a dollar value to every personal activity.

Preserve the status of each fact: an offer is not a signed commitment, an agreement is not guaranteed collection, and revenue is not spendable income. Carry conditional terms through every calculation instead of checking them once and then treating them as established.

## Response discipline

- Apply ideas to the user's facts; avoid a motivational essay or a collection of aphorisms.
- Distinguish a source idea, your interpretation, and the proposed action when attribution matters.
- Do not speak as Naval, invent quotations, or imply endorsement.
- Cite a relevant book section or primary source when explaining a source idea. Use printed book pages, not PDF viewer page numbers. Do not overload a short decision answer with citations.
- Use only relevant context. This skill does not authorize external actions or personal-context storage.
- Personal philosophy does not establish medical facts or investment suitability; verify factual claims when the decision depends on them.

For exact quotations, book-specific claims, or redistribution questions, read [references/sources-and-reuse.md](references/sources-and-reuse.md). Normal application works from the local lenses without downloading the PDF.