Naval Ravikant

Shelly, thank you for the love and the care that you showed and continue to show for Scott and for gathering us here.

I'm sorry I couldn't be here in person, but Scott had a huge influence on my life and my writing.

And so I wrote a few words about the Scott that I remember, and I'd like to share them.

A man finds to his astonishment that he exists.

After the elation of childhood wears off, he asks, who am I?

Why am I here?

How does this all work?

These are hard questions, so after a brief struggle, he selects a ready-made answer and goes about the motions of life.

Scott Adams was not such a man.

He was a live player, ever curious, intent on figuring out the simulation that he found himself in.

From first principles, Scott unraveled, understood, and ultimately controlled his own reality.

He hacked himself with affirmations, others with persuasions, the world with simultaneous sips.

He explained people as moist robots, two movies happening on one screen.

His world is God's debris.

He carved a personal mission to be useful and made us all better writers, public speakers, and persuaders.

He preached the footwear theory of motivation, the Adam's law of slow-moving disasters, the skill stack, systems over goals, and of course, the Dilbert principle.

Besides cartooning, philosophizing, and teaching, Scott rose to the occasion and displayed the one virtue that cannot be faked, courage.

Scott had the courage to speak honestly as he saw it about Trump, about his nation, and about his time, even though it cost him friends, audience, money, and his ticket into polite society.

Scott had true courage, the kind that makes you unpopular, the kind that is always and everywhere in short supply.

At the end, as any hacker of reality, Scott covered all of his bases.