Page 106 - Ray Dalio - Principles
P. 106
systematic, and practical. They are assertive and open-minded
at the same time. Above all, they are passionate about what
they are doing, intolerant of people who work for them who
aren’t excellent at what they do, and want to have a big,
beneficial impact on the world.
Take Elon Musk. When he had just come out with the Tesla
and showed me his own car for the first time, he had as much
to say about the key fob that opened the doors as he did about
his overarching vision for how Tesla fits into the broader
future of transportation and how impor-tant that is to our
planet. Later on, when I asked him how he came to start his
company SpaceX, the audacity of his answer startled me.
“For a long time,” he answered, “I’ve thought that it’s
inevitable that something bad is going to happen on a
planetary scale—a plague, a meteor—that will require
humanity to start over somewhere else, like Mars. One day I
went to the NASA website to see what progress they were
making on their Mars program, and I realized that they weren’t
even thinking about going there anytime soon.
“I had gotten $180 million when my partners and I sold
PayPal,” he continued, “and it occurred to me that if I spent
$90 million and used it to acquire some ICBMs from the
former USSR and sent one to Mars, I could inspire the
exploration of Mars.”
When I asked him about his background in rocketry, he told
me he didn’t have one. “I just started reading books,” he said.
That’s how shapers think and act.
At times, their extreme determination to achieve their goals
can make them appear abrasive or inconsiderate, which was
reflected in their test results. Nothing is ever good enough, and
they experience the gap between what is and what could be as
both a tragedy and a source of unending motivation. No one
can stand in the way of their achieving what they’re going
after. On one of the personality assessments there is a category
they all ranked low on called “Concern for Others.” But that
doesn’t mean quite what it sounds like.
