We live in an era where the entire world is frantically learning prompt techniques.
Yet almost no one stops to ask: Is this even the right way?
As a five-year follower of Naval Ravikant, his latest conversation with his long-time friend Nivi pushed me to rethink things I once took for granted.
I’m a tech professional who works with AI every single day.
Agents — including the recently viral OpenClaw — and various AI skills have become essential to my workflow.
I once deeply studied prompt courses. I spent 3 months memorizing prompt frameworks, testing 100+ templates, and even paid for a $299 “expert prompt course” to “outsmart AI.”
We live in a fast‑moving world that wants to go even faster. A clever prompt promised to get me what I wanted from AI instantly.
I never questioned the value of prompts. I spent hours mastering complex, layered prompt structures.
That all changed after listening to their discussion.
“The Hottest New Programming Language Is English”
“I just sit there stupidly talking to the computer because I know that this thing is now at the stage where it is going to adapt to me faster than I can adapt to it.”
Outside, prompt courses are everywhere, promising superpowers.
However, Naval — one of Silicon Valley’s sharpest thinkers — says he doesn’t study any of it. He just talks to AI in plain, natural language.
At first, it sounds almost dismissive. Is this just a hook to keep you listening?
But as you dive deeper, you realize his judgment is brutally clear:
In the AI era, workflows and tooling have extremely short lifespans — months, sometimes even weeks.
The prompt template you spent weeks perfecting today may become obsolete on the next model update, just three months from now.
You spend time adapting to the model. But the model is also iterating nonstop, adapting to you.
The real question is:
Who adapts faster?
The answer is obvious: the model.
So Naval’s “laziness” is actually extreme judgment.
In an era of relentless change, what’s truly worth your time is structured thinking and the ability to clearly articulate what you want.
Those are timeless skills.
“No Entrepreneur Is Worried About AI Taking Their Job”
This second idea resonated deeply with me.
First, a tricky one: entrepreneurship isn’t a job, So AI can’t replace it.
Entrepreneurship is about creating something you want in the world, building scalable systems around it, bringing it to market, and delivering value.
It’s far harder than any job. AI can only be a helper, an ally.
If you’re an entrepreneur, you have nothing to fear.
Second, what does AI lack, compared to humans — to developers, to scientists?
It has no genuine desire of its own.
AI has no survival instinct, no sense of self — not yet, at least.
It doesn’t fear being turned off. It cannot truly be an entrepreneur.
The biggest difference between an entrepreneur and an engineer?
The former has a powerful sense of agency. They have somewhere they desperately want to go, something unique they want to fulfill. An engineer executes defined tasks — which means they can be replaced.
In the AI era, anyone who knows what they want and pursues it wholeheartedly will only be accelerated by AI, not threatened.
It’s a harsh truth. (And yes, I am an engineer)
“AI Fails the Only True Test of Intelligence.”
“The only true test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life.”
Naval says this is one of his most widely shared tweets.
And it hits hard.
Many people go to top schools, have strong skills, but still live unhappy lives:
struggling with relationships, failing at healthy habits, not earning what they want.
Now apply that standard to AI.
It doesn’t work at all — because AI doesn’t want anything.
Here’s a spicy twist:
Most things we want in life are competitive.
If you want to win someone over, you compete with others.
If you use AI to invest, it competes with other investors and their AIs.
When everyone uses AI, the marginal advantage fades away.
The people who win in the end are still those who know what they truly want.
At the end of the discussion, one line stood out above all:
“The means of learning are abundant. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.”
In the AI era, you can learn almost anything by simply asking.
AI can explain a concept in 100 different ways until you understand.
You can master any skill you set your mind to.
But this only matters for one kind of person:
someone who actually wants to learn.
No amount of resources matters without desire.
This episode isn’t just about AI.
It’s about the relationship between humans and machines.
Will AI replace us? Will AI surpass us?
Behind all those questions lies the one that matters most:
We’re building increasingly advanced models and agents.
But as humans, what do we really want?
When you face AI, what do you want?
It may be the first question we must answer before we can truly remain human in the AI era.
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