What is Naval Ravikant's perspective on salary income versus equity income?

Sure, here's the translation:

How Does Naval View Salary and Equity? A Perspective that Helps You Truly Understand the Essence of Wealth

If you only remember one thing, remember Naval’s core message:

Salary is the money you get for renting out your time; Equity is owning a tiny piece of a company – it’s real assets.

To truly grasp financial freedom, you first need to understand this fundamental difference.

Let’s Talk Salary First: Why Does Naval Think It’s Hard to Get Rich on Salary Alone?

For Naval, salary is more like a "trap," or a "sedative" that lulls you into complacency.

It’s "Linear" and Has a Ceiling
- What’s linear? You trade one hour of work for one hour’s pay. You only have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even if you skipped eating, drinking, and sleeping, the time you can sell has a hard limit.
- An analogy: You’re like someone hauling buckets of water from the river. You carry one bucket, you earn money for that one bucket. Want to earn more? Run back more times or use a bigger bucket. But no matter what, your physical strength and time are finite. Your income quickly hits a ceiling.
Your Time Is "Replaceable"
- For most jobs, you trade your time working for a company. The company pays your salary to buy that block of your time. If your work lacks strong uniqueness and irreplaceability (what Naval calls "specific knowledge"), then the company can always find someone else to do the same job, potentially for less.
- This means your bargaining power is limited. It’s hard to demand an outrageously high salary because the market sets your price.
It Distances You from the Real "Wealth Game"
- A stable monthly paycheck gives you security, but it also dampens your drive to take risks. You get used to trading time for money, making it hard to think about building a "system that earns money on its own."
- Naval believes true wealth is an "asset that makes money while you sleep." Salary obviously isn't that. The moment you stop working, your income stops.

Now, Let’s Talk Equity: Why Does Naval Advocate for It So Strongly?

Equity, in Naval’s view, is the ticket to financial freedom.

It’s "Non-Linear," with No Ceiling
- When you own equity in a company (like stock), even just 0.01%, you are a shareholder (a small owner). If the company's value grows 100 times, the value of your slice grows 100 times too.
- This growth isn't tied to whether you worked 8 or 10 hours today. It depends on the entire company’s team, product, market, and leverage effects.
- An analogy: This time, you’re not hauling buckets. Instead, you build a pipeline that brings water directly to the village. You invest effort upfront to build and maintain this pipeline. Afterwards, even while you sleep, as long as people use water, you keep earning income. This "pipeline" is your asset, your equity.
You Own a Piece - You Have "Ownership"
- Ownership is key. You’re no longer just a "worker"; you’re an "owner." Your mindset fundamentally shifts. You stop worrying only about "How much salary will I get this month?" and start thinking, "How can we make the company more valuable?"
- This ownership lets you benefit from the leverage of the entire system – the company's technology (code can be copied infinitely), brand (media can amplify influence), capital (money can make money), etc. These aren’t things you could create by just renting out your own time.
It Fits the Definition of Wealth
- Remember that line? “Wealth is an asset that makes money while you sleep.” Equity is exactly that kind of asset. As long as the company is operating and growing, this asset is working for you.

So What Should Ordinary People Do?

Does this mean you must join a startup and get stock options? Actually, Naval's thinking can be applied more broadly:

Prioritize Jobs Offering Equity: If you have a choice, between a high-paying job with no equity and one with decent (but slightly lower) pay plus significant equity/stock options, especially in an early-stage company with potential, the latter is often a better path to financial freedom.
Build Your "Personal Equity" at Work: Strive to become irreplaceable. Develop your "Specific Knowledge," become an expert in a particular niche. When your value is unique, you gain strong bargaining power – this itself is a form of intangible equity.
Create Your Own "Equity":
- It doesn't have to be company stock. You could write a book, create a course, develop an app, build an influential blog or social media account… these are your assets.
- You invest a finite amount of time and effort to create them, and they can generate continuous passive income for a long time. This is essentially creating your own form of "equity."
Use Your Salary to Buy "Equity":
- For most people, the most practical approach is this: Use the money you earn hauling buckets (your salary) to invest in buying other people's "pipelines" (buying stocks of high-quality companies).
- Even if you didn't build the pipeline yourself, by participating in the public market, you still gain ownership. You get the best minds working to increase the value of your assets.

In summary, Naval's core message is:

Don’t settle for just renting out your time – it’s a crowded path with a hard ceiling. Strive by any means to own assets (equity), whether by joining a company, creating something yourself, or using your salary to invest. Because only assets can leverage scale, achieve non-linear growth, and ultimately free you from "earning stops when you stop working," giving you true wealth and freedom.

This isn't just financial advice; it’s a life philosophy: Shifting from being a consumer of time to a creator and owner of value.