Stuyvesant High School

The selective New York City public high school Naval Ravikant attended starting in 1989 (age 14). He says passing the entrance test “saved my life” — as an unknown kid from a poor immigrant family, getting the “Stuyvesant brand” got him into an Ivy League college (Dartmouth), which led him into tech. He calls it “one of those intelligence lottery situations where you can break in with instant validation,” letting you go “from being blue collar to white collar in one move.”

Where this appears

• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant