Naval and Warikoo
Naval and Warikoo both share similar content. We love quoting Naval, but shit on Warikoo.
My hypothesis: It is mimesis at play.
The common argument is: Oh, Warikoo is doing this for the money.
As if other Youtubers don’t care about money and independence through Youtube and just do it for the love of sharing knowledge. As if most VCs share knowledge just to give back to the world and not to build their brands and distribution (so that they get leads). Tim Ferris shares knowledge to benefit the world, but he is also building his brand. Every platform he enters, his distribution becomes stronger. He has been doing this for decades. Same with Ryan Holiday and Ali Abdaal.
But lets mock Warikoo because he wants to build his brand. Shows you a few ads.
BTW I think Naval’s Almanack was great. I love Naval’s content. Have binged on so many of his podcasts.
I got interested in Health and Life Insurance after watching Warikoo’s videos. I shared them too.
So I think both of them are doing good by sharing their knowledge.
(And yes, there are cringe things about both, but let’s focus on the good.)
I remember Naval talking in podcasts about how people used to laugh at him earlier for sharing these ‘Meditations’ style tweets. Then people got over it. It was classic mimesis in play then. Same for us with Warikoo.
Naval was not born a Buddha. I remember Sriram Krishnan (earlier HOP, Twitter) talking in a podcast about how Naval’s tweeting style used to be very different earlier. I think he realised what works for his audience and tailored his style. Warikoo is doing the same. There is no point hating either of them.