Specific Knowledge

Specific knowledge is a concept coined by entrepreneur and angel investor Naval Ravikant, which refers to expertise that cannot be easily taught or replaced, but rather is built through innate talents, genuine curiosities, and personal experiences.

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Naval says in his podcast 'How To Get Rich (without getting lucky)': "The thing is that we have this idea that everything can be taught, everything can be taught in school. And it’s not true that everything can be taught. In fact, the most interesting things cannot be taught." He continues to explain: "But everything can be learned. And very often that learning either comes from some innate characteristics in your DNA, or it could be through your childhood where you learn soft skills which are very, very hard to teach later on in life, or it’s something that is brand new so nobody else knows how to do it either, or it’s true on the job training because you’re pattern matching into highly complex environments, basically building judgment in a specific domain."

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So, to find specific knowledge, follow your innate talents, genuine curiosity, and passion instead of simply going to school or pursuing what is currently popular. Specific knowledge is often found at the edge of knowledge, involving topics that are just being figured out or are particularly difficult to understand. It’s about figuring out what you bring to the world that no one else can offer because no one can compete with you on being you.

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In the domain of ideas, compound interest and leverage really applies. When you're not 100% into it somebody else who is 100% into it will outperform you. And they won’t just outperform you by a little bit, they’ll outperform you by a lot.

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Naval Ravikant emphasizes the importance of following you curiosity: "So, if you’re operating with 1,000 times leverage and somebody is right 80% of the time, and somebody else is right 90% of time, the person who’s right 90% of the time will literally get paid hundreds of times more by the market because of the leverage and because of the compounding factors and being correct. So, you really want to make sure you’re good at it so that genuine curiosity is very important."

What specific knowledge can look like:

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• Sales skills

• Musical talents, with the ability to pick up any instrument

• An obsessive personality: you dive into things and remember them quickly

• Love for science fiction: you were into reading sci-fi, which means you absorb a lot of knowledge very quickly

• Playing a lot of games, you understand game theory pretty well

• Gossiping, digging into your friend network. That might make you into a very interesting journalist.

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The specific knowledge is sort of this weird combination of unique traits from your DNA, your unique upbringing, and your response to it. It’s almost baked into your personality and your identity." — Naval Ravikant