Naval Ravikant
{{Short description|American entrepreneur and investor (born 1974)}}
{{COI|date=December 2023}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2023}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Naval Ravikant
| image = Naval Ravikant (cropped).jpg
| caption = Ravikant in 2009
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1974|11|5}}{{cite book |last1=Jorgenson |first1=Eric |title=The Almanack of Naval Ravikant |date=2020 |publisher=Magrathea Publishing |isbn=978-1-5445-1420-8 |url=https://navalmanack.s3.amazonaws.com/Eric-Jorgenson_The-Almanack-of-Naval-Ravikant_Final.pdf |access-date=March 19, 2021}}
| birth_place = New Delhi, India
| death_place =
| death_cause =
| education = Stuyvesant High School
| alma_mater = Dartmouth College (BS)
| occupation = Entrepreneur
Investor
| years_active = 1999–present
| employer = Davis Polk
Boston Consulting Group
| known_for = {{Plainlist|
| website = {{Official URL}}
}}
Naval Ravikant (born November 5, 1974) is an Indian-born American entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder, chairman and former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AngelList.{{Cite web|url=https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/03/angellist-founder-what-gives-elon-musk-true-superpowers-in-business.html|title=Top Silicon Valley investor: This is what gives Elon Musk 'true superpowers' in business|last=Clifford|first=Catherine|date=April 3, 2019|website=CNBC|language=en|access-date=March 15, 2020}} He has invested early-stage in Uber, FourSquare, Twitter, Postmates, SnapLogic, and Yammer.{{Cite web |last=Stankovic |first=Stefan |date=April 15, 2018 |title=Naval Ravikant: Complete Profile and Meta List of All Things @Naval |url=https://unblock.net/naval-ravikant/ |access-date=2024-10-11 |website=Unblock}}
Ravikant is a recipient of the Edmund Hillary Fellowship.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ehf.org/alumni-directory-advanced-search#advanced-alumni-search/view-fellow-details/60c66ce733ee78071b3caf2b/|title=Edmund Hillary Foundation Alumni Directory|website=EHF|language=en|access-date=July 2, 2025}} He also co-hosts a podcast with Brett Hall.{{Official URL}}
Early life and education
Ravikant was born in New Delhi, India in 1974. He moved to New York City with his mother and his brother, Kamal, when he was 9. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1991.{{citation needed|date=October 2024}} In 1995, he graduated with degrees in Computer Science and Economics from Dartmouth College. In college, he interned at law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell.{{Cite web |last=Smillie |first=Eric |date=2014-11-01 |title=Avenging Angel |url=https://dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/articles/avenging-angel |access-date=2024-10-11 |website=Dartmouth Alumni Magazine}}
Career
Naval briefly worked at Boston Consulting Group before heading to Silicon Valley.
=Epinions=
{{Main|Epinions}}
In 1999, Ravikant co-founded consumer product review site Epinions. They raised $45 million in venture capital from investors, including Benchmark Capital and August Capital. In 2003, Epinions merged with comparison pricing site Dealtime with the approval of Ravikant and the other co-founders that had left the company—even though it meant valuing their shares at zero.{{Cite news |last=Rivlin |first=Gary |date=January 26, 2005 |title=Founders of Web Site Accuse Backers of Cheating Them (Published 2005) |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/26/technology/founders-of-web-site-accuse-backers-of-cheating-them.html |newspaper=The New York Times}}
The merged company became Shopping.com which held an Initial public offering (IPO) in October 2004. In January 2005, Ravikant and three of his co-founders filed a lawsuit against Benchmark, August Capital, their co-founder Nirav Tolia who remained at Epinions after his co-founders' departures claiming that—to get their approval for the merger—they were misled to believe that at the time of the merger, the company was worth "$23 million to $38 million", less than the $45 million that they had raised in outside capital, making their shares worthless. The lawsuit was settled in December 2005.{{citation needed|date=October 2024}}
=Hit Forge=
Around 2007, Ravikant started a $20 million early stage venture capital fund named The Hit Forge. Hit Forge invested in startups including X (formerly Twitter), Uber and Stack Overflow.{{Cite web |date=November 21, 2013 |title=AngelList’s Naval Ravikant on His Syndicates Program, Two Months In |url=https://www.strictlyvc.com/2013/11/21/angellists-naval-ravikant-syndicates-program-two-months/ |access-date=April 26, 2020 |website=Strictly VC |language=en-US}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.businessinsider.com/sv-angel-50-2012-7|title=The 50 Early Stage Investors In Silicon Valley You Need To Know|last=Huspeni|first=Alyson Shontell, Andrea|website=Business Insider|access-date=April 26, 2020}}
=AngelList=
{{Main|AngelList}}
In 2007, Ravikant began co-writing a blog called Venture Hacks, which "offered detailed advice on negotiating term sheets, explained which sections mattered, and which provisions were bogus."{{Cite web|url=https://www.fastcompany.com/3027305/naval-ravikants-angellist|title=Silicon Valley's Avenging Angel|first=Alex|last=Halperin|date=March 24, 2014|website=Fast Company}} That blog evolved into AngelList, which Ravikant co-founded in 2010, as a fundraising platform for startups to raise money from angel investors. AngelList also operates Product Hunt. In 2022, AngelList reached a $4 billion valuation.{{Cite web|url=https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/08/angellist-series-c/|title=AngelList Venture takes on rare capital at a $4 billion valuation|last=Jun 2022|website=TechCrunch|date=March 8, 2022 }} Naval is the chairman and former CEO of AngelList.
=MetaStable Capital=
File:Naval Ravikant in 2011 (cropped)1.jpg
In 2014, Ravikant co-founded MetaStable Capital, a cryptocurrency hedge fund that owned Bitcoin, Ether, Monero and a number of other cryptocurrencies. A June 2017 regulatory filing reported its assets as $69 million.{{Cite web |last=Wieczner |first=Jen |date=2016-07-26 |title=Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz Are Secretly Backing This Cryptocurrency Hedge Fund |url=https://fortune.com/2017/07/26/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-hedge-fund-sequoia-andreessen-horowitz-metastable/ |access-date=2024-10-21 |website=Fortune}} Investors in the fund include Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Union Square Ventures, Founders Fund and Bessemer Venture Partners.
=Spearhead.co investment fund=
In 2017, Naval launched Spearhead, an investment fund which raised $100m for its third fund to provide founders with $1m each to invest in technology companies as angel investors.{{Cite web|url=https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/15/spearhead-will-give-1m-to-15-founders-to-invest-freely/|title=Spearhead will give $1M to 15 founders to invest freely|date=October 15, 2019 }} The first two classes of Spearhead include founders from 35 companies. Together, these companies are worth over $10B, and four of them are unicorns. The companies include Neuralink, Opendoor, PillPack, Shippo (company), Rippling and Scale.{{Cite news|url=https://spearhead.co/faq/|title=FAQ|website=spearhead.co}} Previous Spearhead leads include Shippo co-founder and chief executive officer Laura Behrens Wu, Scale AI founder and CEO Alexandr Wang and Rippling co-founder and chief technology officer Prasanna Sankar.
=Nav.al, Spearhead, and other podcasts=
Naval runs a short-form podcast at Nav.al and Spearhead.co, where he discusses philosophy, business, and investing. He has also been a podcast guest on The Joe Rogan Experience, The Tim Ferriss Show, Coffee with Scott Adams, The James Altucher Show, Farnam Street, [https://open.spotify.com/episode/2KyMXeMQS0djxazcFJZaSb?si=XJAqOBoWRfe11Q4cKTm_hQ Modern Wisdom] , among others.{{fact|date=August 2024}}{{Cite web |last=Parrish |first=Shane |date=August 17, 2019 |title=Naval Ravikant: The Angel Philosopher [The Knowledge Project Ep. #18] |url=https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/naval-ravikant/}}
With Ravikant's permission, Eric Jorgenson curated Naval's tweets, essays, and interviews on wealth and happiness, then published them as a free downloadable book called The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, with a foreword by Tim Ferriss.{{Cite web|url=https://www.navalmanack.com/|title=Almanack of Naval Ravikant|website=navalmanack.com}}
=Airchat=
Ravikant co-founded Airchat in 2023, a social media app.{{Cite web |author=Anon |date=2023-05-23 |title=Indian-American investor Naval Ravikant is building a social media app called Airchat: Details here |url=https://www.livemint.com/technology/apps/indianamerican-investor-naval-ravikant-is-building-a-social-media-app-called-airchat-details-here-11684850959785.html |access-date=2024-03-13 |website=livemint.com |language=en}} It uses Generative AI and is similar to Instagram stories.
References
{{Reflist}}
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Category:Stuyvesant High School alumni
Category:Dartmouth College alumni
Category:American chief executives