699: Jack Raines - How to Build Your Career, Increase Your Surface Area For Luck, and Find Your Purpose | Why Memories Compound Faster Than Money

The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk

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My Guest: Jack Raines is a writer and investor. At 24, he quit his corporate finance job at UPS, bought a one-way ticket to Barcelona, and spent the next year traveling through 25 countries while writing a newsletter that grew to hundreds of thousands of readers. He went on to earn an MBA from Columbia, help build Sherwood News at Robinhood, and join the venture capital firm Slow Ventures, where he invests in creators. His first book, Young Money: A Field Guide to Finding Wealth and Purpose in Your Twenties, is out now.

Key Learnings

Jack's Grandma Ruth took him to Africa when he was 11. She was in her late 60s. She had the money. She said: "I can spend it on you now or leave it to you when I'm dead. This is better."

Money has no value until you exchange it for something. We need to decide what we want that to be.

Every year of your 20s is worth $10 million. (Nikita Bier) You'll never have this window of flexibility again.

Say yes to interesting experiences in your 20s. Your income is going to climb exponentially anyway. Don't save $500 at the cost of a memory.

Move to where the action is. Jack moved to New York for business school. Then San Francisco for a job. Then back to New York. High slope of learning. High slope of contact with good people.

Network amplifies ability. It doesn't create it. A million times zero is still zero. A million times two is two million.

The only real risk is not doing anything.