Naval sees children as the ultimate teachers of curiosity - until adults destroy it.
His own childhood shaped everything. The latchkey kid experience gave him something most people never get: massive intellectual leverage. “I was raised by a single mom in New York, and she used the local library as a daycare center… So I used to basically live in the library, and I read everything”. This accidental education created his core philosophy. No curriculum. No tests. Just infinite learning following intrinsic desire.
Children start perfect. “Children have a natural curiosity. If you go to a young child who’s first learning language, they’re pretty much always asking: What’s this? What’s that? Why is this? Who’s that? They’re always asking questions”. This is pure first-principles thinking - the hunter-gatherer state before civilization intervenes. His son demonstrates this constantly. “My little son is always asking why, why, why, why, why. And I always try and answer him. And half the times I realized actually I don’t really understand why”. The child’s relentless questioning exposes the adult’s borrowed knowledge. Children naturally think like scientists.
Then schools kill it. [“Schools and our educational system, and even our way of raising children replaces curiosity with compliance. Credentials reward conformity. And once you replace the curiosity with the compliance, you get an obedient factory worker, but you no longer get a creative thinker”](transcripts/rich.md). This is evolutionary maladaptation - training for mechanical work in an age that rewards specific knowledge. Schools turn learning from an infinite game into a zero-sum competition. Children learn to optimize for external validation instead of genuine understanding.
Naval would redesign everything. “If I’m running a grade school curriculum for children, ignoring credentials, I would probably optimize happiness, nutrition, diet, exercise… I’d probably teach them public speaking, business writing, basic persuasion”. Skills that create personal wealth instead of employee mindset. “I would probably have them run a lemonade stand or a small business and earn money so they can understand how that works”. This teaches real accountability - you profit or lose based on decisions. No participation trophies. Pure market feedback creates authentic learning.
“The most interesting things cannot be taught. But everything can be learned”
This captures Naval’s core insight about intellectual leverage. Formal education focuses on what can be systematically replicated. But specific knowledge emerges from following your authentic curiosity. Children learn best through intrinsic motivation - the same force that drives great entrepreneurs. External rewards corrupt this natural learning engine.
The stakes are ultimate. [“For example, the simplest one is getting married to someone, and having kids, and raising children. That’s compound interest, right? Investing in those relationships”](transcripts/rich.md). Naval sees parenting as the highest-leverage decision you can make. The compound effects of raising a child correctly create generational wealth - not just financial, but intellectual and emotional.
Children reveal what adults have lost: natural meditation. “This is the existence that little children live… they’re generally pretty happy because they are really immersed into the environment and the moment”. They haven’t yet learned to live in mental projections. Their effortless presence is what Naval spends years trying to recover through spiritual practice. Children are born enlightened - we teach them to be miserable.