On America and Wealth Creation

Chris James

Feb 13, 2024

I’m back in the land of large parking lots.

Whites everywhere! And blacks too!

People are getting pissed off in the airport security line. It needs to go faster!

It’s good to be home.

Back to Teslas, guns, and large people. Very large people.

The land of efficiency. We’re so efficient that we sacrifice on quality. The land where people live to work. It’s a bit ironic, but just business.

America is the GOAT. A lot of people are trying to come here. I’ve driven from Oregon to Maine to Florida. I have seen the grandeur of my homeland. Both the natural beauty and the god-tier network of roads and restaurants.

But there is one main reason why I love America. It is a country of creative geniuses.

Other countries are good. But from my view, America is the indisputable creativity GOAT.

It’s most obvious in media, which spreads easily. In Peru, the music was often American songs with English lyrics, even though most of them can’t speak English! I heard more Biggie Smalls bumping in Peru than I do in America.

Another category where it’s obvious is apparel, which also spreads easily. Peruvians were often wearing California or New York shirts and hats, although they'd likely never visited America. They’re getting paid $10-$20 PER DAY. And to visit America they need to pay to apply for, and get accepted for a tourist visa.

It’s not only music and clothes, they watch American films and TV shows. They use American social media platforms. Facebook, WhatsApp, and YouTube are dominant. Totally dominant. So far as I know, I’ve never used a non-American social media. Fuck TikTok, by the way.

American colleges are viewed as prestigious. Impoverished Peruvians in Peru were wearing Yale apparel. My grandfather went to Yale. I grew up near the Yale campus. It struck me as bizarre to see the Yale logo in a land far far away.

In America, the relative quietness, confidence, stability, reliability, and access to capital give Americans the advantage for innovation and creative output. The American GDP per capita is awesome, despite an older population, low labor participation, and a lot of fat and sick people.

Peruvians are waiting for an hour at the bank, waiting an hour at the post office, waiting an hour at the phone store, sweeping the streets by hand, scrolling their phone feed, or heckling tourists to buy their shit. I’m not judging. But these are objectively not creative activities.

My Peruvian friend, Arantxa, is destined for America. She was early to our dates. Which is very rare, almost unheard of in Peru. She communicates well. She learned English, secured an internship at a hotel in America, and now her English is perfect.

The stepping stones out of poverty are clear to me, but I think it’s unclear to most Peruvians because the majority of them don’t appear to be walking in the direction of wealth creation. They get caught in the trap of waiting for tourists to come to them and give them just enough to survive. While they wait, they scroll their phone and listen to reggaeton.

The path out of poverty is this: Use the internet, the most powerful learning tool ever invented. Learn English, the international language of the world. Participate in the global economy. Take advantage of cost of living arbitrage. Leverage specific knowledge.

Arantxa secured a new job, working remotely for an American hotel company. Before that, she was getting paid $16 per day. Now she gets $16 per HOUR. She 8X’d her pay overnight. Getting paid $100/day while living in a cheap Peruvian neighborhood, and eating local food, means she will soon have a fat bank account. Cost-of-living arbitrage goes both ways. Americans can move abroad and work remotely from a country where life is cheaper. The even bigger opportunity is for people who already live where it's cheap, to learn English and work online with Americans.

Nonetheless, it’s still getting rich by renting out your time. As soon as you stop clocking in, the money stops flowing. Few people know the formula for getting wealthy. I learned it from Naval Ravikant. The abbreviated version is three words: leverage specific knowledge.

Code, capital, labor, and media are the main forms of leverage. Code is like media that you can interact with. Labor is code in biological form. Robotic labor code in physical form. Capital is a bit different. It is leverage on judgment.

I became financially wealthy with capital as leverage on my judgment. The specific knowledge was Tesla. I had access to capital at a young age because my ancestors came to America and built new businesses, wrote books, and invested in businesses and properties. In the 1800’s my maternal forefathers harvested ice from ponds in New England, packed it into ships, and sent it to be sold in the South. For the ice business, the specific knowledge was how to harvest ice, move it, and keep it frozen using sawdust. The leverage was labor. They tied ice saws to horses, leveraging animal labor.

Leverage specific knowledge is a timeless mental model. Refrigerators destroyed the ice business, but my family used the surplus ice money for leverage on the judgment of properties and other businesses. In some ways, I followed in their footsteps.

Side note: My mom‘s side has been wealthy since the 1800s. They have also been plagued by illness. Beware of large inheritances. My mom’s family almost entirely failed to procreate. Fertility and wealth are inversely correlated.

I digress.

Steps for wealth creation

Learn English

Participate in the global economy
Accumulate capital via cost of living arbitrage
Acquire specific knowledge via learning online and experimenting
Leverage specific knowledge with code, media, capital and/or labor

The steps can be done simultaneously.

America was founded by tough immigrants from Europe. They created the U.S. Constiution, possibly the greatest piece of code ever written. They won World War II and the Cold War. The dominant culture in America deserves some credit. People show up on time. They go to school for 20 years.

America is the greatest empire ever built. America magnetically attracts global talent. But it's hard to get here. Arantxa has spent thousands of dollars and multiple years trying to legally immigrate to the GOAT, I mean the United States. I doubt that off-the-books migrants have a much easier process. The people who make it here have talent, perseverance, or both.

The number one determining quality for the success of an entrepreneur is determination. Number two is probably a willingness to hold a low-status job.

Come to America.

I want to tell my South American friends to come visit me. “You can stay at my place,” I want to say. But I don’t say it because I know how difficult and unlikely it is for them to be allowed to visit, let alone move here.

Nevertheless, anyone with an internet connection has access to WhatsApp, Calendly, Zoom, Google Docs, and PayPal. They can work online. Many of them are not aware of the online opportunities. My friend Daniel, from Rio, had never left Brazil before his trip to Cusco, where we met. Despite only living in Brazil, he can speak fluent English and Spanish, in addition to his native Portuguese. He has self-doubt about participating in the Internet economy. Instead, he sticks to what he knows, teaching English to Brazilians for $9/hr. He’s 25 and lives with his parents. He wants to make more money, so he can eat at nice restaurants and travel more.

I suggest he start working online with Americans.

“But what would I do?” he asks.

It’s a silly question. There are so many opportunities. He’s a smart guy who speaks fluent English. He will happily work for $15/hour. There are so many jobs. Any employer in America knows how hard it is to find people like Daniel.

Simply put, nobody taught him how to use the internet. So now it’s my job. I like Daniel.

The first thing I taught him was how to use dating apps. You post great photos, send a similar set of messages in high volume, and meet them “for a drink or a dessert” to find out what they’re like IRL. He quickly got more dates than me.

For work, I told him about Calendly, Zoom, UpWork, Fiverr, Circle, Facebook expat groups, Google Docs, and offering prospects free trials. I offered him a research position for a book project to get him going and build his confidence. I had him schedule a Calendly call. He showed up to the zoom call late, but that’s okay.

He is new to using email. I shared Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets with him. This is all new to him. He’s doing a pretty good job taking notes on Elon Musk podcasts. His next lesson is invoicing and getting paid.

“Phil-” means love, and “-anthropy” means humanity. Philanthropy is love of humanity. Showing people the ropes, getting people working, is philanthropy at its finest.

Teach a man to fish.

Look, here’s how it goes on the Internet. Free trial is the bait, Calendly is the hook, Zoom is the line.

Learn English, go fishing. Reel in the opportunities.

Find your role models, learn from other people’s experiments, and be a person worth paying.

Knowledge and capital can be accumulated by working, playing, and experimenting online. There is a huge arbitrage opportunity for people living in places with cheap food and rent. My South American friends live with their parents. They eat for a few dollars a day. They don’t own cars. When they start making real money, it can be mostly profit.

To some extent, people don’t think like an investor because they don’t have capital, and they don’t have capital because they don’t think like an investor. They don't have skills because they don't know what to do, and they don't know what to do because they don’t have skills. They don’t have the time and energy to read and write because they work a shitty job, and they work a shitty job because they don’t read and write.

It’s hard to know where to start. It's hard to find the starting line, start, and keep going.

It's also easier than it's ever been.

A good place to start is to find the people you want to be like and imitate them. Read the books they read. Think how they think. Do what they do. Naturally, you will do it in your own way. I imitated Buffet's investment mindset (diversity is for losers), Elon’s thinking (first-principles), and Paul Millerd’s work/lifestyle (write most days, share a lot). Now I’m learning from Joe Hudson.

Today, a world-class education is free of charge. Learning can precede capital. When I was a teenager, I wanted a shit ton of money as soon as possible. It was obvious to me that to get rich, I needed to learn about finance, and to learn about finance, I needed to use the internet, particularly YouTube. That story can be read here, and in my book All Outcomes Are Acceptable.

I told Daniel that he can look at job opportunities on Upwork and use YouTube to learn the skills he needs to do the work.

“Just watch a bunch of YouTube videos,” I said.

“YouTube videos?” He looks bamboozled.

People don’t realize the power in their hand. A billion people are using YouTube to watch videogamers and listen to music, which is cool, but they have no idea that they have the most powerful learning tool ever invented.

YouTube is a hyper-useful tool fused with a hyper-addictive drug. Years ago, I discovered the DF YouTube Chrome extension. It solved the YouTube dilemma for me. The extension allows users to modify YouTube and block the YouTube suggestion feed. The only videos I watch are ones that I search for and my subscriptions. The tool allows you to modulate YouTube’s firehose of clickbait mindless media.

I suggested Daniel post videos on YouTube. He's good on camera. Looks great, speaks well, and has good energy. It's all about the energy.

“Every time I get an idea, I see that someone is already doing it.”

“Someone is already doing it? Great. That means it works.”

Imitating is not being a copycat. We naturally infuse our own flavors into it. Unless you're straight up copying and pasting, in which case you suck.

How do you motivate someone to go down a pathless path? I asked one of my mentors, Paul Millerd. He said drop bread crumbs.

Ask questions.

I'm going to ask Daniel where he wants to be in five years. I'm going to ask him how much money he wants to have. I'm going to ask him what are the stepping stones to get there. I'm going to share this post with him.

Subscribe for the next one. I’m writing about my next big investment. I’m writing about helping Daniel work online. I will go to Rio and hang with Daniel. I’m sure some crazy shit will go down in Brazil and I’ll write about it.

I'll end this banger with a reflection. For years, I asked myself, how do I get rich? I got rich and my life got way worse. I wanted to die. Today I’m answering, how do I be useful at scale? I like my life now.

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