Naval sees credentials as social proof that kills natural curiosity. “Credentials reward conformity”. They replace authentic intellectual desire with herd behavior.
“Schools and our educational system replaces curiosity with compliance”. You get “an obedient factory worker, but you no longer get a creative thinker.” This destroys the unique insights that create lasting wealth. Industrial scale education produces interchangeable parts.
The system creates zero-sum competition for replaceable positions. “If they can be taught like in a school, then eventually you’re gonna be competing with someone who’s got more recent knowledge, who’s been taught, and is coming in to replace you”. Market forces naturally commoditize what can be credentialed.
“The most interesting things cannot be taught. But everything can be learned”
Real expertise comes from repeated practice. “To the extent that specific knowledge is taught, it’s on the job. It’s through apprenticeships”. These are “things society still has not figured out how to train and automate yet.” Evolutionary pressure hasn’t commoditized them.
Warren Buffett offered to work for Benjamin Graham for free. Graham said “You’re overpriced, free is overpriced”. Real apprenticeships have compound returns—you should pay for access to concentrated wisdom.
Business schools teach “anecdotes. They call them ‘case studies’“. Naval prefers foundational theory. “I would have focused on theory and principles over facts. Facts fade or facts can be looked up”. Information decays, but mental models compound.
Credentials create people who are “overeducated, but they’re lost”. They know facts but lack practical wisdom. They try to “apply things in the wrong places.” Abstract theory without real consequences creates dangerous confidence.
Naval’s sanctuary childhood proves the point. “If you can learn to like to read, you never need to go to school”. Books as leverage beats institutional gatekeeping. Pure intellectual desire creates monopoly positions.
The credentialing system optimizes for the wrong selection pressures. It rewards conformist signaling over creative problem-solving. Naval chose intellectual freedom—turning autodidactic obsession into asymmetric advantage.