The Rise of the Mini Navals

You may have noticed a proliferation of a new essayist archetype on the internet in recent years - the "Mini Navals." Modeled after angel investor, entrepreneur, and philosopher Naval Ravikant, these mini me's desperately want to become the next big thought leader by aping Naval's pithy, maxim-filled style. Naval has achieved success through decades of experience, and he reflects on it. In contrast, Mini Navals try to compress "wisdom" into a handful of tweets and blog posts.

Most Mini Navals tend to be in their early-to-mid 20s, still figuring things out but portraying themselves as gurus who have life all figured out. They boldly proclaim hot takes on everything from tech trends to philosophy to politics, with little credibility to back it up other than having read Naval's entire archive. With the Mini Navals, it's usually just word salad dressed up as profundity.

Sometimes, the best philosophy is just living intentionally without needing to proselytize your process. In a world that could use more wisdom, perhaps we don't need so many more mini-versions when the original is still strong.