Prioritize and Focus
Prioritize and Focus
I’ve encountered plenty of bad luck along the way. The first little fortune I made I instantly lost in the stock market. The second little fortune I made, or should have made, I basically got cheated out of by my business partners. It’s only the third time around that has been a charm.
Even then, it has been a slow and steady struggle. I haven’t made money in my life in one giant payout. It has always been a whole bunch of small things piling up. It’s more about consistently creating wealth by creating businesses, creating opportunities, and creating investments. It hasn’t been a giant one-off thing. My personal wealth has not been generated by one big year. It just stacks up a little bit, a few chips at a time: more options, more businesses, more investments, more things I can do.
Thanks to the internet, opportunities are massively abundant. In fact, I have too many ways to make money. I don’t have enough time. I literally have opportunities pouring out of my ears, and I keep running out of time. There are so many ways to create wealth, to create products, to create businesses, and to get paid by society as a byproduct. I just can’t handle them all. [78]
Value your time at an hourly rate, and ruthlessly spend to save time at that rate. You will never be worth more than you think you’re worth.
No one is going to value you more than you value yourself. You just have to set a very high personal hourly rate and you have to stick to it. Even when I was young, I just decided I was worth a lot more than the market thought I was worth, and I started treating myself that way.
Always factor your time into every decision. How much time does it take? It’s going to take you an hour to get across town to get something. If you value yourself at one hundred dollars an hour, that’s basically throwing one hundred dollars out of your pocket. Are you going to do that? [78]
Fast-forward to your wealthy self and pick some intermediate hourly rate. For me, believe it or not, back when you could have hired me…Which now obviously you can’t, but back when you could have hired me…this was true a decade ago or even two decades ago, before I had any real money. My hourly rate, I used to say to myself over and over, is $5,000 an hour. Today when I look back, really it was about $1,000 an hour.
Of course, I still ended up doing stupid things like arguing with the electrician or returning the broken speaker, but I shouldn’t have, and I did a lot less than any of my friends would. I would make a theatrical show out of throwing something in the trash pile or giving it to Salvation Army rather than trying to return it or handing something to people rather than trying to fix it.
I would argue with my girlfriends, and even today it’s my wife, “I don’t do that. That’s not a problem that I solve.” I still argue that with my mother when she hands me little to-do’s. I just don’t do that. I would rather hire you an assistant. This was true even when I didn’t have money. [78]
Another way of thinking about something is, if you can outsource something or not do something for less than your hourly rate, outsource it or don’t do it. If you can hire someone to do it for less than your hourly rate, hire them. That even includes things like cooking. You may want to eat your healthy home cooked meals, but if you can outsource it, do that instead. [78]
Set a very high hourly aspirational rate for yourself and stick to it. It should seem and feel absurdly high. If it doesn’t, it’s not high enough. Whatever you picked, my advice to you would be to raise it. Like I said, for myself, even before I had money, for the longest time I used $5,000 an hour. And if you extrapolate that out into what it looks like as an annual salary, it’s multiple millions of dollars per year.
Ironically, I actually think I’ve beaten it. I’m not the hardest working person—I’m actually a lazy person. I work through bursts of energy where I’m really motivated with something. If I actually look at how much I’ve earned per actual hour that I’ve put in, it’s probably quite a bit higher than that. [78]
Can you expand on your statement, “If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you”?
If you get into a relative mindset, you’re always going to hate people who do better than you, you’re always going to be jealous or envious of them. They’ll sense those feelings when you try and do business with them. When you try and do business with somebody, if you have any bad thoughts or any judgments about them, they will feel it. Humans are wired to feel what the other person deep down inside feels. You have to get out of a relative mindset. [10]
Literally, being anti-wealth will prevent you from becoming wealthy, because you will not have the right mindset for it, you won’t have the right spirit, and you won’t be dealing with people on the right level. Be optimistic, be positive. It’s important. Optimists actually do better in the long run. [10]
The business world has many people playing zero sum games and a few playing positive sum games searching for each other in the crowd.
There are fundamentally two huge games in life that people play. One is the money game. Because money is not going to solve all of your problems, but it’s going to solve all of your money problems. People realize that, so they want to make money.
But at the same time, many of them, deep down, believe they can’t make money. They don’t want any wealth creation to happen. So, they attack the whole enterprise by saying, “Well, making money is evil. You shouldn’t do it.”
But they’re actually playing the other game, which is the status game. They’re trying to be high status in the eyes of other people watching by saying, “Well, I don’t need money. We don’t want money.” Status is your ranking in the social hierarchy. [78]
Wealth creation is an evolutionarily recent positive-sum game. Status is an old zero-sum game. Those attacking wealth creation are often just seeking status.
Status is a zero-sum game. It’s a very old game. We’ve been playing it since monkey tribes. It’s hierarchical. Who’s number one? Who’s number two? Who’s number three? And for number three to move to number two, number two has to move out of that slot. So, status is a zero-sum game.
Politics is an example of a status game. Even sports are an example of a status game. To be the winner, there must be a loser. I don’t fundamentally love status games. They play an important role in our society, so we can figure out who’s in charge. But fundamentally, you play them because they’re a necessary evil. [78]
The problem is, to win at a status game, you have to put somebody else down. That’s why you should avoid status games in your life—they make you into an angry, combative person. You’re always fighting to put other people down, to put yourself and the people you like up.
Status games are always going to exist. There’s no way around it, but realize most of the time, when you’re trying to create wealth and you’re getting attacked by someone else, they’re trying to increase their own status at your expense. They’re playing a different game. And it’s a worse game. It’s a zero-sum game instead of a positive-sum game. [78]
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
What is the most important thing to do for younger people starting out?
Spend more time making the big decisions. There are basically three really big decisions you make in your early life: where you live, who you’re with, and what you do.
We spend very little time deciding which relationship to get into. We spend so much time in a job, but we spend so little time deciding which job to get into. Choosing what city to live in can almost completely determine the trajectory of your life, but we spend so little time trying to figure out what city to live in.
Advice to a young engineer considering moving to San Francisco: “Do you want to leave your friends behind? Or be the one left behind?”
If you’re going to live in a city for ten years, if you’re going to be in a job for five years, if you’re in a relationship for a decade, you should be spending one to two years deciding these things. These are highly dominating decisions. Those three decisions really matter.
You have to say no to everything and free up your time so you can solve the important problems. Those three are probably the three biggest ones. [1]
What are one or two steps you’d take to surround yourself with successful people?
Figure out what you’re good at, and start helping other people with it. Give it away. Pay it forward. Karma works because people are consistent. On a long enough timescale, you will attract what you project. But don’t measure—your patience will run out if you count. [7]
An old boss once warned: “You’ll never be rich since you’re obviously smart, and someone will always offer you a job that’s just good enough.”
How did you decide to start your first company?
I was working at this tech company called @Home Network, and I told everybody around me—my boss, coworkers, my friends, “In Silicon Valley, all of these other people are starting companies. It looks like they can do it. I’m going to start a company. I’m just here temporarily. I’m an entrepreneur.”
…I didn’t actually mean to trick myself into it. It wasn’t a deliberate, calculated thing.
I was just venting, talking out loud, being overly honest. But I didn’t actually start a company. This was in 1996, it was a much scarier, more difficult proposition to start a company then. Sure enough, everyone started saying “What are you still doing here? I thought you were leaving to start a company?” and “Wow, you’re still here…” I was literally embarrassed into starting my own company. [5]
Yes, I know some people aren’t necessarily ready to be entrepreneurs, but long-term, where did we come up with this idea the correct logical thing to do is for everybody to work for somebody else? It is a very hierarchical model. [14]
优先与专注
一路走来，我遇到了很多不幸。第一次小有积蓄后，我在股市中瞬间赔光了。第二次即将有点积蓄时，基本上被我的商业伙伴骗走了。直到第三次，我才真正有所收获。
即便如此，这也一直是一个缓慢而稳定的奋斗过程。我从未在生活中一夜暴富，积累财富一直都是一件件小事逐渐累加起来的。更多的是通过不断创造企业、创造机会和投资来持续积累财富。这不是一锤定音的事。我个人的财富也不是靠某一年突然暴增的收入获得的，而是一点点、一枚枚筹码地堆积起来的：更多的选择，更多的业务，更多的投资，更多我可以做的事情。
由于互联网的缘故，机会变得极为丰富。事实上，我有太多赚钱的方法，以至于时间不够用。可以说，我的耳边充满了各种机会的呼唤，但我却总是时间不足。有很多创造财富、创造产品、创造企业并以此得到社会回报的方法，但我根本无法应付所有这些机会。 [78]
按小时来衡量你的时间价值，并毫不犹豫地花钱来节省时间。你永远不会比你认为自己值的更多。
没有人会比你更看重你自己。你必须为自己设定一个非常高的小时费率，并且坚持下去。即使我还很年轻时，我就决定自己比市场上认为的要值更多的钱，我开始这样对待自己。
在每个决定中都要考虑你的时间成本。每个决定要花多少时间？比如，要花一小时穿过城市去取某样东西，如果你给自己定价一小时值一百美元，那就等于从你口袋里扔掉了一百美元。你会这么做吗？ [78]
快进到未来的富有的自己，并为自己设定一个中间的小时费率。对我来说，信不信由你，在当时你还能雇佣我的时候——现在显然你不能了，但当时你能雇佣我——这在十年前甚至二十年前是真的，即便当时我没有真正的钱。我对自己反复说的小时费率是5000美元。今天回头看，实际上大约是1000美元每小时。
当然，我还是会做一些愚蠢的事情，比如和电工争论，或者退掉坏掉的音响，但我不该这么做，而且我比任何朋友都少做这样的事。我会像演一场戏那样，把某样东西扔进垃圾堆，或者捐给救世军，而不是试图退掉它，或者直接把它交给别人而不是自己修理。
我会和女朋友争论，甚至到今天也是和我的妻子争论，“我不做这个。这不是我解决的问题。”我现在还会和我母亲争论，当她让我做一些琐事时。我就是不做那些事。我宁愿为你雇个助手。即便在我没有钱的时候也是如此。 [78]
另一个思考问题的方式是，如果你可以用低于你的小时费率的费用外包掉某件事情，或者干脆不做，就外包掉或者不做。如果你能雇人用低于你的小时费率的价格完成某件事，那就雇人做。即便是像做饭这样的事情也是如此。你可能想吃健康的家常饭，但如果你能外包掉，还是外包掉吧。 [78]
为自己设定一个非常高的小时理想费率并坚持下去。这个费率应该看起来和感觉上都高得离谱。如果没有，那说明它还不够高。无论你选了多少，我的建议是再提高一点。就像我说的，即使在我还没有钱的时候，我长时间为自己设定的小时费率都是5000美元。而如果你把它换算成年薪，那就是每年数百万美元。
讽刺的是，我实际上认为我超越了这个数字。我不是最努力工作的人——实际上我是个懒人。我通过短暂的能量爆发来工作，当我对某事非常有动力时。如果我真的去看我每实际工作一小时赚了多少钱，这个数字可能比那个还要高。 [78]
你能进一步解释一下“如果你暗中厌恶财富，它就会远离你”这句话吗？
如果你陷入一种相对思维模式中，你会一直厌恶那些比你做得更好的人，你会一直嫉妒他们。在你和他们做生意的时候，他们会感受到这些情绪。当你试图与某人做生意时，如果你对他们有任何负面想法或评判，他们会感觉到。人类天生就能感受到对方内心深处的情感。你必须摆脱相对的思维模式。 [10]
从字面上看，反财富的心态会阻碍你变得富有，因为你不会有正确的心态，你没有正确的精神状态，也不能与他人处于正确的层次。要乐观、积极。这很重要。从长远来看，乐观主义者实际上会做得更好。 [10]
商业世界中有许多人在玩零和游戏，而少数人在寻找对方进行正和游戏。
人们在生活中基本上玩两种大游戏。一种是金钱游戏。因为金钱不会解决你所有的问题，但它会解决所有的金钱问题。人们意识到这一点，所以他们想赚钱。
但同时，很多人内心深处相信他们赚不到钱。他们不希望任何财富创造发生。因此，他们通过说“赚钱是邪恶的，你不应该这么做”来攻击整个企业。
但他们实际上在玩另一种游戏，那就是地位游戏。他们试图在其他人眼中显得高人一等，通过说“我不需要钱，我们不想要钱”来获得高地位。地位是你在社会等级中的排名。 [78]
财富创造是进化上较新的正和游戏。地位则是古老的零和游戏。那些攻击财富创造的人往往只是在追求地位。
地位是零和游戏。这是一个非常古老的游戏。自从猴群时代开始，我们就在玩这个游戏了。它是分层的。谁是第一？谁是第二？谁是第三？而第三名要想变成第二名，第二名就必须让出那个位置。所以地位是零和游戏。
政治是地位游戏的一个例子。甚至体育运动也是地位游戏的一个例子。要成为赢家，就必须有输家。我从根本上不喜欢地位游戏。它们在我们的社会中起着重要作用，让我们知道谁在掌权。但从根本上说，你玩它们是因为它们是必要的恶。 [78]
问题是，要在地位游戏中获胜，你必须贬低别人。这就是为什么你应该避免在生活中参与地位游戏——它们会让你变成一个愤怒、好斗的人。你总是在努力贬低别人，抬高自己和你喜欢的人。
地位游戏总会存在。这是无可避免的，但要意识到，大多数时候，当你试图创造财富而受到他人攻击时，他们是在试图通过贬低你来提高自己的地位。他们在玩一个不同的游戏。而这是一个更糟糕的游戏。它是零和游戏，而不是正和游戏。 [78]
玩愚蠢的游戏，赢得愚蠢的奖品。
对刚起步的年轻人来说，最重要的事情是什么？
花更多的时间做出重大决策。在你早期生活中，基本上有三项非常重大的决定：住在哪里，和谁在一起，以及做什么工作。
我们在决定进入一段关系时花的时间很少。我们花很多时间在工作中，但在决定要做哪份工作上花的时间却很少。选择在哪个城市生活几乎可以完全决定你的人生轨迹，但我们在决定住在哪个城市上花的时间却很少。
给一个考虑搬到旧金山的年轻工程师的建议：“你是想离开朋友，还是想成为被留下的那一个？”
如果你准备在一个城市生活十年，如果你准备在一份工作中工作五年，如果你在一段关系中待十年，你应该花一到两年的时间来决定这些事情。这些都是非常具有决定性影响的决策。这三个决策真的很重要。
你必须对其他事情说不，腾出时间来解决这些重要的问题。这三个可能是最重要的三个。 [1]
要让自己周围有更多成功的人，你会采取哪一两步？
找出你擅长的东西，然后开始帮助别人。免费给予。先付出。因果报应之所以有效，是因为人们是前后一致的。从足够长的时间尺度来看，你会吸引到与你所传递的相一致的人。但不要去衡量——如果你计较，耐心就会耗尽。 [7]
一位老上司曾警告说：“你永远不会富有，因为你显然很聪明，总会有人给你提供一份还不错的工作。”
你是如何决定创办第一家公司？
我当时在一家名为@Home Network的科技公司工作，我对周围的人——我的老板、同事、朋友们说：“在硅谷，所有这些其他人都在创办公司。看起来他们可以做到。我也要创办一家公司。我在这里只是暂时的。我是个创业者。”
…我其实并不是故意这么说来欺骗自己。这不是一个深思熟虑的事情。
我只是发泄了一下，把想法说出来，过于诚实了。但我并没有真正创办公司。这是1996年，那时候创办公司是一个更可怕、更困难的决定。果不其然，每个人都开始说“你还在这里干什么？我以为你要去创办公司了？”以及“哇，你还在这儿啊……”我真的因为尴尬而去创办了自己的公司。 [5]
是的，我知道有些人可能还没准备好成为创业者，但从长远来看，为什么我们会有这样的想法，认为最正确、最理智的事情就是每个人都为别人工作呢？这是一个非常等级化的模式。 [14]