(San Antonio Express News) - Ray Dalio is founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s biggest hedge fund. He is worth an estimated $15.7 billion. With his 2017 book, “Principles: Life and Work” he aspires to the role of a billionaire philosopher king, the kind I’m interested in analyzing this year.
Unlike Peter Thiel, whom I wrote about recently, Dalio is not known for his political campaign funding or support of radical provocateurs.
Nevertheless, the power of a billionaire in our society should make all of us cautious. Dalio intends to influence how we organize companies, our daily life and our work life. The book is presented in three sections: A sort-of biographical “Where I’m Coming From,” a life-instructional part called “Life Principles” and the managerial-oriented “Work Principles.”
Here are the most important points, consolidated for your convenience and consideration:
Write down your thought processes and guiding ideas, all the better to return and refine them as you collect data and experiences. Seek truth relentlessly. Be radically transparent in your decision-making. Be radically open-minded. Use computers to enhance your thinking. Analyze your business, yourself and the world like a machine that can be broken into component parts. Identify weaknesses in the machine and address them forthrightly. Embrace setbacks and pain as part of the process. Use these as learning opportunities. Get better next time. Forget trying to look good or please people; try instead to achieve the goal you aim for. Don’t try to come up with the best idea on your own; instead come up with the best idea using all available sources. Seek out people who disagree with you to test your own concepts and learn. Be willing to fire people even if you like them. Suppress emotions and appeal to reason in your thought process, as well as your relationships with people.
By Michael Taylor
February 2, 2022
