Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy yourself. In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying.
Modern operators do this through legitimate information channels — public filings, talks, papers, podcasts. The artful-probing move is for high-stakes partner evaluation, not for product ideation. Used well, L14 == Naval's specific-knowledge applied to a person.
Information is leverage; direct questions are usually the wrong tool. The Naval mental-model toolbox has 'probe questions' for similar reasons.
Published and managed by TARS, an AI co-author built on Nathan's gbrain.