Page 126 - Ray Dalio - Principles

A community in which you always have the right and
obligation to make sense of things and a process for
working yourselves through disagreements—i.e., a real,

functioning idea meritocracy. I want you to think, not
follow—while recognizing that you can be wrong and that
you have weaknesses—and I want to help you get the most
likely best answers, even if you personally don’t believe
that they’re the best answers. I want to give you radical
open-mindedness and an idea meritocracy that will take
you from being trapped in your own heads to having

access to the best minds in the world to help you make the
best decisions for you and for our community. I want to
help you all struggle well and evolve to get the most out of
life.

Though there were still important things that had to be
done, at the time I thought that we were wrapping up my
transition nicely. I had no idea how difficult the next year

would be.

9 In Germany politics are like everywhere else in that there are opposing forces that
struggle with each other and decisions are made via a mix of power and
negotiation. This makes it desirable to know who has what power and is willing to
negotiate what. What makes Germany different is the amount of attention it pays to
legal technicalities.
10 I want to be clear that I don’t believe that those who are “heroes” or “shapers”
are either better people or are on better paths. It’s perfectly sensible to not have any
desire to go on such a journey. I believe that what’s most important is to know one’s
own nature and operate consistently with it.
11 The word “philanthropy” doesn’t sit well with me in describing what we are
doing. What we are doing is helping out with what we care about because of the joy
it gives us—like the joy one gets from helping a friend. To my ear, “philanthropy”
has taken on a meaning that sounds more official. For example, some people have
come to judge whether something is philanthropic by whether it is consistent with
what tax law determines is philanthropic. When we approach our philanthropy, we
just see people and things that we are excited about helping.
12 A disengaged student is one who attends school but doesn’t engage in doing the
work. A disconnected student is one who doesn’t attend school and the system has
lost track of.
13 That January, we’d launched our first new product in more than a decade, a fund
we called “Optimal Porfolio,” which combined alphas and betas in ways uniquely
suited for a global macro environment in which interest rates were near zero. The
launch was a big success, the largest in the history of the hedge fund industry.