There are many ways to beat your competition and prevail, but there could be a way to escape competition entirely.
Naval Ravikant, the entrepreneur and philosopher behind AngelList who has become one of Silicon Valley’s most influential thinkers, has a contrarian take on success. Rather than fighting harder in crowded markets, he suggests the real advantage comes from doing what’s uniquely natural to you. In a recent discussion, Ravikant laid out a framework that challenges conventional career wisdom and reframes how we should think about professional success in the modern era.
“The more you do things that are natural to you, the less competition you have,” Ravikant explains. “You escape competition through authenticity by being your own self. If I had to summarize how to be successful in life in two words, I would just say productize yourself. That’s it.”
The concept is deceptively simple: “Just figure out what it is that you naturally do that the world might want, that you can scale up and turn into a product and it’ll eventually be effortless for you. Yes, there’s always work required, but it won’t even feel like work to you. It’ll feel like play to you, and modern society gives us that opportunity.”
Ravikant contrasts this with the limited options of the past. “If you were 2000 years ago, you’re born on a farm, your choices are very limited. You’re gonna do stuff on that farm. Now, you can literally wake up and you can move to a different city. You can switch careers, you can switch jobs, you can change the people that you’re with. You can change so many things about who you are and who you’re with and what you’re doing that there is infinite opportunity out there for you, literally infinite.”
Given this abundance of choice, Ravikant advocates for a deliberate approach: “It’s much better to treat this like a search function, to find the people who need you the most, to find the work that needs you the most, to find the place you’re best suited to be at. And it’s worthwhile to spend time in that exploration before diving into exploitation.”
He warns against one of the most common pitfalls in modern careers: “The biggest mistake in a world with so many choices is premature commitment. If you prematurely commit to being a lawyer or a doctor, and now you’ve got five years invested into that, you might have just completely missed. You might just end up in the wrong profession, the wrong place, the wrong people for 30 years of your life grinding away.”
But Ravikant offers hope for those who feel trapped: “The best time to figure that out was before, but the second best time is now. So just change it.”
The implications of this philosophy are profound, especially as we witness a growing trend of professionals abandoning traditional career paths. The “Great Resignation” that began in 2021 saw millions of workers leaving jobs to find better alignment with their values and interests. More recently, we’ve seen the rise of the creator economy, where individuals are building careers around their authentic interests—whether that’s niche YouTube channels, specialized newsletters, or unique consulting practices that didn’t exist a decade ago.
Ravikant’s framework also aligns with emerging research on career satisfaction. Studies have increasingly shown that autonomy, mastery, and purpose—rather than pure financial compensation—are the key drivers of long-term professional fulfillment. His advice to “productize yourself” isn’t about becoming a brand; it’s about identifying the intersection of what you naturally do well, what energizes you, and what others find valuable.
In an era of increasing AI automation and global competition, the ability to offer something authentically unique—something that emerges from your specific combination of interests, skills, and perspective—may be the most defensible competitive advantage. As Ravikant suggests, the path to success isn’t necessarily about working harder in the same race everyone else is running. Sometimes it’s about finding a race where you’re the only competitor.