Own Things, and Be Internally Driven

You get rich by owning things that grow: equity in a business, property, intellectual property. Almost no one in the history of the Forbes list got there on salary. Selling your time caps you at linear returns, and the escape is owning something that compounds while you sleep. The best way is to build something people want, at scale.

The final point explains who actually pulls all of this off. Most people are externally driven: they chase status and do what impresses the people around them. That leads to chasing crowded, consensus goals and caring too much about short-term scoreboard readings.

The most successful people Altman knows are primarily internally driven. They act on their own standard, out of a need to make something excellent, and often out of a sense of mission. Past a certain point, money and status stop motivating anyone; the people who keep going, and keep winning, are running on something internal. Eventually, he says, you define success as contentment with your own life, and that almost always means work built around your deepest values.