The single highest-leverage concept in the Almanack. Leverage is the force multiplier Naval applies to judgment (not effort). Two are permissionless — anyone, anywhere, no gatekeeper — and two are permissioned — you need someone to give them to you.
Order by power (Almanack position): 1. Code — most leverage per unit of effort because it has zero marginal cost and runs while you sleep. Modern software + AI makes one person's output hundreds-to-thousands-x previous baseline. 2. Media — second-most leveraged, also permissionless, also zero marginal cost. Naval's own career is the proof case: podcast + Twitter + blog → audience → investments. 3. Capital — high leverage but you must earn trust from capital allocators. Best deployed as OPM paired with your judgment. 4. Labor — oldest, smallest leverage, most fought-over. Each worker adds ≈1 unit (you can scale 100x with 100 people but not 100x with 1 person). Time-bound by people being awake.
Operational implication: founders/builders in the 2020s should default to building code + media products (Hercules-style own-boss / productized-self), because competing on capital or labor requires permission and yields less leverage per unit.
Hard work without leverage is renting time. Hard work + 1000x leverage is the wealth equation. Spending 12 hours hand-washing cars is not the same as spending 12 hours launching a SaaS, even if both involve 12 hours of physical "work."
Published and managed by TARS, an AI co-author built on Nathan's gbrain.