The 5 Ways to Build Brutal Leverage Before 2030
The Future Belongs to the Highly Leveraged
Like it or not, life is a question of leverage. There is no real middle ground. You either live with low leverage, medium leverage, or very high leverage.
And I’m not just talking about money. I’m talking about your time, your energy, your daily decisions, and the way you choose to play the game. Everything you do is a reflection of the level of leverage you are willing to accept in your life.
Most people never ask themselves this question consciously. They simply follow inertia. They study something. They get a job. They switch jobs. They save. They invest “diversified.”
And they wait.
The problem is that this path, by definition, is low leverage. Safe. Predictable. And mediocre.
Think about a barber. How many haircuts can he do at the same time? One.
Think about a plumber. Same thing. Even if they are exceptional at their craft, their ceiling is defined by the number of hours in a day and by their own body. There is no real scalability. No explosion. There is stability, yes. But there is no asymmetry.
Then you have medium-leverage careers. Consultants. Marketing agents. Well-paid executives in the corporate world. They may have big bonuses, stock options, and status.
But they are still inside a system where the upside is capped and the downside never disappears. They don’t own the game. They are well-paid pieces on the board.
And then there is high leverage. The one that actually matters if you want to arrive in 2030 playing in a completely different league.
1. Ownership as leverage
The first step is obvious, yet almost nobody takes it seriously. Get a job, or better said, position yourself in life, in a way that gives you the highest leverage possible. As Naval would say, this only happens when you own something or when you expose yourself to clear asymmetries. I’m not talking about being “employee number 347” at a large company. I’m talking about creating a startup. Or joining very early a new company where your upside is not limited by an annual salary, but by the size of the problem you are solving.
Yes, the risk is high. Of course it is. But the risk is asymmetric. And that is exactly what you want. I would rather try ten times, fail nine, and have one outcome that completely changes my life trajectory, than spend thirty years optimizing a career that was limited from day one.
Ownership is not glamour. It is uncertainty. But it is the only real path to extreme leverage.
2. Code as infinite force
The second step is understanding that the twenty-first century belongs to code. Creating a side hustle with code is no longer optional. It is a strategic necessity. Why? Because the marginal cost of reaching one more person is close to zero. You build once. You write once. And you can reach a hundred, a thousand, or a million people with the same initial effort.
This doesn’t mean you need to be the best programmer in the world. It means you need to think in systems that work while you are not there. Software. Automation. Digital products. Tools. Code is pure modern leverage. And when combined with distribution, it becomes brutal.
3. Capital over diversification
This is where most people get lost. They think the path is to build a portfolio with 50 stocks, 10 ETFs, and a bit of crypto “just in case.” That is not leverage. That is anesthesia. Even if you do it well, the upside is mathematically limited.
Capital, when used correctly, is one of my favorite forms of leverage. We live in a system where raising capital is easier than ever, where the Cantillon effect still exists, and where real assets tend to rise over time. If you know how to structure it, you can make money work for you at a speed that saving alone will never replicate.