Money Is Just Stored Energy: Learn to Use It Like the Rich Do
Why You’re Wasting Yours
Today I want to show you a new way of seeing money. Maybe one you’ve never seen before. I hope this helps many of you. It’s helped me see things differently, and save a lot of time (and energy).
A few weeks ago, I was flying back from a business meeting. Yes, believe it or not, those still happen. I was exhausted after two intense days. That feeling when your brain just shuts down. You try to think… and it hurts.
I had tried reading, then listening to a podcast, until I finally decided to do nothing. I left everything in my bag and just stared out the window.
Everything was dark. The world was asleep. Or maybe not. There were lights everywhere. Clusters of them. From small villages to big cities. By the number and intensity, I could almost guess real estate prices.
More lights, higher prices. Fewer lights, cheaper.
That made me think of a chart I saw years ago.
Countries with high per capita energy use: rich. Countries with low energy use: poor.
That moment triggered a wave of thoughts. Everything started to flow. Dots connected. I could feel I was reaching a conclusion I hadn’t seen before, but it made total sense.
What if Elon Musk was right? What if the currency of the future is energy?
But wait… wasn’t the future all about AI? I asked myself.
And that’s when it clicked. AI needs data centers. Data centers consume massive energy. And energy is limited, valuable, essential.
I remembered the first law of thermodynamics I studied twelve years ago in university: energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed.
F**k. Energy is what moves everything.
More energy, more money. But it couldn’t be that simple. A car uses less energy than 20 people. And if I want to move a suitcase 1000 km, isn’t it more efficient to use a car?
Then I thought about the next layer: Power.
For those who don’t know, it’s the rate of energy over time. It’s how much energy you can apply in a given period.
And that’s when everything made sense: money follows power.
That’s the key. It’s not just about having energy, it’s about knowing when and how to release it. In a way that doesn’t leak.
Right then, the obese man sitting next to me ordered an enormous hamburger, followed by a regular Coke. The burger was so greasy half the plane knew what he was eating just from the smell.
And I thought: this guy just converted energy (money) into more energy for his body… when his own reserves are already full.
My mind kept spinning. How do I connect all these dots?
I got home, and as I was drifting off to sleep, I read a quote by Naval Ravikant that captured in 180 characters what my brain had been trying to articulate:
Money is energy, one step removed.
We will always expend energy to obtain it, distribute it, and secure it, whether it’s via aircraft carriers, central bankers or data centers.
The energy expenditure can be masked but not removed. Someone will spend 99 cents to take a dollar.
You know the best part? The tweet was from May 2019. Way before all the AI hype.
That’s when I understood everything. I had found the method to get rich, and it was this: