Time Is Linear. Leverage Is Exponential.
You have 24 hours in a day. I have 24 hours in a day. The difference between someone who builds massive impact and someone who stays stuck isn't time—it's leverage.
Leverage is anything that amplifies your input. In the physical world, it's tools and machinery. In the digital world, it's code, systems, and automation. And if you're a developer who understands this concept, you have an unfair advantage.
The Three Types of Leverage
Naval Ravikant breaks leverage into three categories: labor, capital, and code/media. As developers, we have direct access to the most powerful form—code.
- Labor leverage: Hiring people to multiply your efforts. Expensive, hard to manage, doesn't scale cleanly.
- Capital leverage: Using money to make more money. Requires capital to start, which most people don't have early on.
- Code & media leverage: Write once, distribute infinitely. Zero marginal cost to replicate. This is the leverage we have.
Code runs while you sleep. It serves thousands of users simultaneously. It doesn't get tired, doesn't need management, and scales globally with cloud infrastructure. This is creative leverage.
Building Systems, Not Tasks
Most people optimize for completing tasks. High-leverage thinkers optimize for building systems that eliminate tasks entirely.
Ask yourself: "If I automate this once, how many times will it run?" If the answer is more than 10, automate it. If it's more than 100, automate it yesterday.
Examples of High-Leverage Systems
- Portfolio rebalancing script: Runs quarterly, reallocates assets based on targets. Set once, runs forever.
- Content distribution pipeline: Write a blog post, auto-post to Twitter, LinkedIn, and your newsletter. One input, multiple outputs.
- Data aggregation dashboard: Pull metrics from multiple APIs, display in one view. Check once instead of logging into 5 platforms.
- Automated invoicing: Client completes project milestone, invoice generates and sends automatically. No manual follow-up.
These aren't just productivity hacks—they're force multipliers. Each system gives you back hours per week. Those hours compound.
Leverage in Decision-Making
Leverage isn't just about automation. It's about decision frameworks that scale. Instead of making 100 individual decisions, you make one decision that covers 100 scenarios.
Example: Instead of deciding "should I buy this stock?" every time you have extra cash, create a rule: "Every month, invest 20% of income into index funds automatically." One decision, infinite applications.
This applies to code too. Instead of fixing bugs reactively, build linting and testing pipelines that catch bugs before they ship. One system prevents thousands of future problems.
The Compound Effect of Small Leverage
You don't need to automate your entire life overnight. Start small. Automate one thing this week. Build one system this month.
Here's what happens when you compound small leverage over time:
- Week 1: Automate daily standup notes. Saves 15 minutes/day.
- Week 2: Script your deployment process. Saves 30 minutes/deploy.
- Week 3: Build a template for common tasks. Saves 1 hour/week.
- Week 4: Create a dashboard for key metrics. Saves 2 hours/week checking analytics.
By the end of the month, you've reclaimed 10+ hours. Those hours can build more leverage. This compounds exponentially.
Creative Leverage vs. Busy Work
Not all work is created equal. There's busy work, and there's leverage work. Most people spend 80% of their time on busy work because it feels productive.
Busy work: Responding to emails, attending meetings, manually updating spreadsheets, doing repetitive tasks that don't scale.
Leverage work: Writing code that automates processes, creating templates and frameworks, building systems that others can use, documenting repeatable processes.
The shift happens when you start asking: "Can this scale?" If the answer is no, it's probably busy work.
How to Identify Leverage Opportunities
Look for patterns. Anything you do more than twice is a candidate for systematization. Here's a framework:
- Track your time for one week. Write down every task that takes more than 15 minutes.
- Identify repeating tasks. Circle anything you did more than once.
- Estimate automation ROI. How long would it take to automate vs. how much time would it save over a year?
- Build the highest ROI automation first. Start with quick wins to build momentum.
This process itself becomes leverage—once you have the framework, you can apply it every quarter to find new opportunities.
Leverage Stacks
The most powerful leverage comes from stacking multiple forms together. Code + capital. Code + audience. Code + distribution.
Example: You build a stock screening tool (code leverage). You invest using your own tool (capital leverage). You write about your process and share the tool (audience leverage). Now your code works for you, your capital compounds, and your audience grows—all simultaneously.
This is creative leverage. And it's available to anyone who can code.
Start Building Your Leverage Today
Pick one task you do regularly. Automate it this week. Then automate another next week. In six months, you'll have built a personal operating system that runs on autopilot.
Leverage isn't about working less—it's about making every hour of work count exponentially. And once you see the world through this lens, you can't unsee it.
Code is leverage. Systems are leverage. Time spent building infrastructure is the highest ROI work you can do.
Start small. Compound relentlessly. Build systems. Create leverage.