The Millennial who built a $10B startup (Notion) on Ancient Philosophy.

Ivan Zhao.

It's impossible to be distracted, lost in systems, or creatively stuck after understanding his teachings.

Here’s his 5-step approach to awaken "Zen-like" productivity: Ivan Zhao—A philosopher disguised as a founder.

His obsession? Building tools that unlock human potential.

In this thread, you’ll learn how he did it—and how you can too.

But first, his journey:

The man who made $7.9 billion from one email…

This is Joe Gebbia.

• $25,000 in credit card debt in 2007
• Emailed his best friend a desperate plan
• Built Airbnb—now worth $80B+

Here’s how one email turned a broke designer into a billionaire: 2007: Joe Gebbia was drowning in debt.

On top of that, his landlord raised the rent by 25%, and Joe couldn’t afford it.

He was desperate. His bank account? Empty.

But then, he discovered something:

You’re not procrastinating because you’re lazy.

It’s because you’re anxious.

I learned this the hard way after burning myself out while building 3 startups.

If you suffer from procrastination, read this: Your attention is gold in today’s world.

Everywhere you browse and visit is full of stimuli aiming to take control of your mind and implant its ideas into your desires and behavior.

If someone controls your mind and decisions, like
@thedankoe says here, they control YOU.

This is Elon Musk.

• Has 11 kids
• Runs $5 billion companies
• Still has time to sh*tpost on X (Twitter)

I had to know how the hell he manages his time.

Here’s what I found: 🧵 Time is the very fabric our lives are woven from. How you spend your days is how you spend your years.

We each have around 4,000 weeks in our lives—which is not a lot.

The best time managers recognize the scarcity of this resource:

Most people are depressed.

So, I've spent 100+ hours studying Naval Ravikant's Happiness Theory.

Here's what I found: Happiness is a skill that can be learned.

Over the years, Naval went from a 2/10 to 9/10 in happiness.

"Happiness...is a highly personal skill that can be learned, like fitness or nutrition.

I'm 27.

I’m obsessed with learning how to learn.

So, I spent 100+ hours studying how Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Naval Ravikant absorb information.

Here’s what I found on becoming a learning machine: 🧵 (thread) College Is Overrated

Most people are convinced you need college to learn. Elon is proof that you don’t.

Despite only majoring in Econ/Physics, he’s built 4 billion-dollar companies in industries he knew nothing about.

How did he pull this off?