Principles by Ray Dalio is an interesting read. With no prior knowledge of Ray’s life, his story is easily inspirational. Ray founded Bridgewater Associates in 1975. He is straightforward about the difficulties encounter at the beginning the company.
In other words, I enjoyed learning of his early life. He addresses his career in part one: “Where I’m coming from” begins in 1947 and carries Ray’s life to 2017.
Looking back after running Bridgewater for so many years afforded him a series of behaviors that helped drive his success. At the same time he does address difficult decisions that resulted in layoffs when his business was struggling.
Similarly, his key advice drawing on his long experience is to rely upon hard data (or evidence) to make smart decisions. On the other hand opinion based decisions are difficult and require those with an established history.
Above all, Ray discusses over and over: “Idea Meritocracy = Radical Truth + Radical Transparency + Believability-Weighted Decision Making.”
However there are quite a lot of ideas to absorb. For many including myself the book becomes very detailed. Furthermore, Ray indicates the behaviors he has identified may take over 18 months of focus to see results.
Moreover Ray collected a list of principles over time to solve problems a lot faster and easier. Principles helped Ray work smarter instead of emotionally. Finding patterns in situations that he saw already helped defined a better course of action.
In conclusion his list of principles is very detailed. It’s not easy to go through, and not easy to act on them. Work Principles are not just vague slogans. They are concrete and everyone can understand them in order to act on them.
Talks at Google | Principles: Life and Work | Ray Dalio
TED Talks | How to build a company where the best ideas win
60 Minutes | Ray Dalio explains his principles