Sharran Srivatsaa

26 predictions for 2026: 1. Gemini will be the most used AI model because it’s baked into Google and people will use whatever shows up by default. 2. Substack will become the YouTube of writing, where a small group of writers get most of the attention. 3. LinkedIn will be full of AI slop, which will make real human writing way easier to spot. 4. Hyper-local creators will become mini celebrities in their cities and drive real business locally. 5. Facebook’s organic reach will be wildly underpriced compared to every other social platform. 6. Meta’s AI glasses will start going mainstream because they don’t ask people to change how they live. Even my wife has one. 7. YouTube will be the number one place for views, brand building, and growing a business. 8. Amazon will keep winning retail because people say they want Etsy but click Amazon when it’s time to buy. 9. Zillow will fight the entire real estate industry to assert its dominance and own more of the home buying and selling process. 10. Email will beat paid social ads for most small and mid-size businesses. 11. Direct mail will grow again as a marketing channel because email inboxes are full and physical mailboxes are mostly empty. 12. PDFs will stop working as lead magnets and get replaced by free tools and simple apps. 13. Investors will stop caring about boring 15-slide pitch decks and pay more attention to live demos and real working products. 14. Small niche creators will build tools and apps because they have distribution, but most will never get SaaS-level valuations. 15. AI that brings in customers and revenue will beat AI that saves time and costs for small and medium businesses. 16, Platforms like Coinbase, DraftKings, FanDuel, and prediction markets will grow in 2026 even as most users lose money. 17. More people will put new money into index funds than into buying homes in 2026. 18. Bitcoin will be owned by fewer people, but those people will own a lot more of it. 19. Private credit will be the biggest winner among boring asset classes and will attract retail investors who have never had access before. 20. When SpaceX goes public, it will make people remember why they liked investing in the first place. 21. Tesla will keep dominating while Elon Musk becomes so rich that even people who hate him will have to admit he won. 22. Avengers: Doomsday and The Odyssey will carry the box office and make the business of Hollywood look healthier than it really is. 23. Interest rates will come down a bit, but borrowing money will still feel expensive. 24. Lawyers will stay busy cleaning up dumb mistakes AI puts into contracts. 25. People will watch phone-style content on their TVs while using their phones as a second screen. 26. Comedy creators will dominate watch time because they give people a quick break from being online and overwhelmed all day.

3 truths about work ethic: 1. It's harder than it looks 2. It takes longer than you think 3. It's worth more than you imagine

Talent isn’t rare. Leverage is. The fastest way to waste your talent is to spend it in rooms that don’t value it.

Want to grow fast? Attach yourself to someone who is already winning. • Be useful • Absorb everything • Take on their pressure Proximity accelerates progress.

Your habits vote daily for the person you’re becoming. You can’t talk your way into a new identity. You have to rehearse it. What you repeat, you become.

You can build an entire career from your laptop now. That doesn’t mean you should try to do everything at once. The internet rewards people who pick one problem, study it deeply, and talk about it publicly for years while everyone else gets bored.

20 years of investing compressed into three lessons: 1. Time in the market > timing the market 2. Taxes matter more than returns 3. Risk = where you sit in line when things go wrong Wealth isn’t built on brilliance. It’s built on structure.

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The simplest plan you’ll actually follow beats the perfect one you won’t.

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A pattern I’ve noticed: The higher the level, the more basic the questions. I’ve advised Fortune 100 CEOs and 8-9 figure founders, and the conversations aren’t exotic. They’re about delegation, time, hiring, clarity, stress. The deeper you go, the more you realize that mastery is disciplined repetition of fundamentals. The amateurs chase hacks. The elite protect the basics.

If you want to be valuable inside any company, learn to do one of these: 1. Make money 2. Save money 3. Manage the people who make/save money

Leadership Tip: If you are with your team and you feel like talking about yourself, just pause… and ask a question instead.

Naval says intelligence is getting what you want out of life. But there are 2 parts to this: 1. Knowing what you actually want 2. Getting what you actually want Most people fail at step one. They spend years chasing goals they think they should want instead of figuring out what they genuinely desire. A simple test: Would you still want it if no one knew? If the answer is no, you’re just performing. But even when you figure out what you truly want, there’s a second problem… You have to earn it. And that’s where mediocrity creeps in. Average isn’t random. It’s what happens when you know exactly what you want but refuse to pay the price. It’s the outcome of breaking small promises to yourself. Hitting snooze. Saying “tomorrow.” Negotiating with commitments you already made. Life is simpler than we pretend. Do what you said you would do. When you said you would do it. Whether you feel like it or not. Your word to yourself either carries weight or it doesn’t. The compound interest of kept promises, no matter how small, creates the kind of person who doesn't fail at life. The person who breaks promises to themselves gets exactly what they deserve: a mediocre existence where they never achieve anything. So the real question isn’t what you want. It’s whether your word means anything.

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10 lessons I learned this week 1/ Quitting your worst habit will change your life faster than starting your best new habit. Meaning, stop the leak before you fill the bucket. 2/ Speaking of buckets, if yours is leaking… painting it won’t help. Ask the hard question on what is on your to-do list. 3/ In a world where AI is coming for our jobs and our lunch, your communication skills determine your compensation more than your technical skills ever will. 4/ The fastest way to change your life: change what you do in the first hour after you wake up. If you do nothing else except engineer the “Perfect First Hour,” you will win. 5/ Successful people love boring habits. They wake up the same time, work out consistently, and read daily. Excitement is overrated. 6/ The fastest way to spot a successful person: watch how quickly they turn ideas into finished results. Speed plus completion is king. 7/ Uncomfortable truth: Most of your friends won’t support you until strangers start to celebrate you. 8/ Hot take: Every successful person is someone who got tired of their own bullshit before anyone else did. They became their own worst enemy first. Then their own best friend. Most people skip step one. 9/ The older I get, the more I realize that poor people overthink small decisions and rush big ones. Rich people do the opposite. 10/ The people who win long-term are the ones who can hold two truths at once: be proud of how far you’ve come and be honest about how far you still have to go.

Uncomfortable truth: If you need motivation to do it, you don’t want it badly enough.

There’s something powerful about choosing a direction and sticking with it long enough to see what happens. The world feels chaotic until you anchor yourself to one meaningful aim. Once you do, confusion disappears and the path reveals itself.

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The quickest way to build confidence is reps. Do it until it feels boring.

Productivity hack: Work in 90-minute focused blocks with no distractions. You'll accomplish more in 3 hours than most do in 3 days.

You can tell how serious someone is by what they tolerate. Deadlines slipping. Excuses repeating. Whatever you tolerate becomes the standard.