I’ve spent time with Richard Branson, Naval Ravikant, Tony Robbins, and dozens of other billionaires.
Not one of them told me to wake up earlier.
Not one said grind harder.
What they actually taught me? A completely different set of rules.
Rules that almost nobody knows exist.
Each one builds on the last and by the time you’re done reading this… you’re going to realize that almost everything you’ve been taught about success is working AGAINST you.
Billionaires Play a Completely Different Game
You and I grew up learning one game.
Go to school. Get a job. Work hard. Save money. Retire at 65.
Billionaires aren’t playing that game.
They didn’t tweak it. They didn’t optimize it.
They deleted it and installed something completely new.
It’s how Richard Branson runs 400 companies but still spent a full day skiing with us at his lodge in Switzerland.
He’s not working harder than you. He’s just not playing the game we’ve been taught.
But before you can install anything new, you’ve gotta uninstall what’s already running.
Delete Your Old Software
Your mind is like an operating system.
Stop updating it, and it lags.
But before you can upgrade, you have to DELETE.
Here are the 2 billionaire rules that show you how.
Billionaire Rule #1: Laws Are Meant to Be Broken… Sometimes
Travis Kalanick was one of my first investors.
I watched him build the earliest version of Uber from a shared workspace.
And I watched what he ran into immediately.
There are 13,250 taxis in New York City today.
There were 13,250 sixty years ago.
The original operators got their licences for free, then lobbied the city to stop issuing new ones.
This manufactured fake scarcity.
For years, many rideshare trips were technically illegal.
Travis didn’t accept that reality.
He moved first. Made the old rules irrelevant.
By 2017, 36 states passed new ridesharing laws.
The founders who change industries are rarely the ones who waited for approval.
Billionaire Rule #2: Think in First Principles
First principles thinking means asking how you can go from point A to point B as fast and cheap as possible.
Best example? Elon Musk.
NASA was paying $380M per rocket launch. SpaceX cut that to $67M.
How? Elon didn’t ask how rockets had always been built.
He asked what’s actually true about the physics.
Stripped everything down to its bare essentials.
And used reusable rocket technology to drive costs down to one-sixth of NASA’s.
The primary driver? Elon’s ability to recover and reuse the first-stage booster, which accounts for the 70% drop of the rocket’s cost.
Install the New Software
Once the old programming’s cleared out, you’ve got room for something better.
Here’s what billionaires install.
Billionaire Rule #3: Look for Leverage, Not Labour
Most people think more work = more money.
Billionaires think more leverage = more money.
Leverage is simple: small input, massive output.
Naval Ravikant taught me that there are 4 C’s of leverage:
- Code. Build it once, runs forever without you. Software doesn’t sleep. It doesn’t take vacations. Every night it’s cranking out results while you live your life.
- Content. Your ideas, frameworks, and knowledge, documented and out in the world. Your genius is more valuable as content than as labour. A playbook, a course, a book, a video. These things work for you forever.
- Capital. Money that makes money. Understanding how to deploy dollars through investing so your wealth compounds without you touching it.
- Collaboration. The ability to recruit, partner, and unlock other people’s networks. One relationship can give you access to thousands of clients, opportunities, or resources. That’s the multiplier.
Every billionaire I’ve met has mastered all four.
Not one of them built their empire by working more hours.
Billionaire Rule #4: Build Net Worth, Not Active Income
Here’s something that surprised me early on…
Most billionaires don’t have a billion dollars in cash.
They OWN something worth a billion dollars.
Elon owns 19.8% of Tesla. That percentage (not a salary or a paycheque) is what makes him the wealthiest man alive.
Stop asking how do I make more money.
Start asking what do I own that can compound?
At Martell Ventures, my AI venture studio, we own equity in dozens of companies.
I took my knowledge, documented it, partnered with the right people, and built.
We’re on pace in just our second year to hit nearly $250M in value.
The billionaires I know don’t obsess over their bank balance.
They ask two questions: how much do I own… and who do I know that can solve my biggest problems?
Act Lazy
Every time I meet a new billionaire, I’m surprised.
Not by how much they work. By how LITTLE.
Text them, they reply immediately. They’re always available.
Their whole philosophy is: I don’t want to be the bottleneck.
From the outside? You’d call it lazy.
But it’s actually the most advanced form of leverage there is.
Billionaire Rule #5: Create Your Filter
Richard Branson doesn’t carry a phone.
He has his assistant, Helen, and nothing gets to Richard unless it’s truly worth his attention.
During the week I spent with him, I watched him close several multi-million dollar deals over dinner conversations.
He wasn’t buried in email. He wasn’t in back-to-back calls.
He was present. Scanning for opportunities. Using his mind for its highest purpose.
That week changed how I operate.
I hired an in-person executive assistant to handle the noise.
One of the highest-leverage decisions I’ve ever made.
Billionaire Rule #6: Stop Working So Hard
Jeff Bezos brags that most mornings he putters.
He told himself a long time ago: I need to make 2 or 3 really good decisions per day.
Not fifty. Not a hundred. Three.
Done consistently, those 3 decisions create more value than a hundred reactive ones made while you’re running on fumes.
What makes billionaires different from most entrepreneurs isn’t their schedule.
It’s what they PROTECT.
Most entrepreneurs protect their time. Billionaires protect their thinking.
Fall in Love With the Game, Not the Outcome
I was recently sitting across from a group of people collectively worth billions of dollars.
Not one of them talked about their bank account.
They talked about the people they were building. Who they were becoming. What scared them for years.
The money was a byproduct. Not the point.
When you do something for the love of doing it, money naturally follows.
Billionaire Rule #7: Never Stop Growing
Tobi Lütke, founder of Shopify, has a rule: the company must grow 40% per year.
If you can’t keep up, you become the bottleneck.
But the growth isn’t just about the business.
Every problem can make you sharper.
Every failure can make you tougher.
Every hire, every fire, every hard conversation is an upgrade IF you look for the lesson.
You get paid for the value you create. Not the hours you log.
Billionaire Rule #8: Build a Life Resume
Jesse Itzler is one of the most deliberate people I know.
Takes every Friday off. Every month, a full week away.
He also does what he calls an annual misogi: one defining challenge per year.
Something so hard it should feel 50% impossible.
Doing an Ironman. Hiking a mountain. Writing a book. Something that marks the year.
That way, every year has a story.
2024 was this. 2025 was that. What’s yours for 2027?
The billionaires I’ve spent time with are always stacking experiences worth remembering.
Stop trying to win a game someone else designed.
Billionaires don’t play by other people’s rules. They write their own.
They build their filters, frameworks, definitions of success. That’s the operating system.
Delete what’s not working. Install what is. Build for leverage. Protect your thinking. Fall in love with the game.
And build a life worth remembering.
-DM