Page 82 - Ray Dalio - Principles

Saugatuck River. But while we continued to grow, it was never
clear sailing. Building the business while managing
investments required me to do two challenging jobs

simultaneously and develop two distinct skill sets, while being
a good father, husband, and friend. The demands of these roles
changed over time, so the skills and abilities I needed changed
as well.

Most people assume that the challenges that go along with
growing a large business are greater than those of growing a
smaller one. That is not true. Going from a five-person

organization to a sixty-person organization was just as
challenging as going from a sixty-person organization to a
seven-hundred-person organization—and from a seven-
hundred-person organization to a 1,500-person one. Looking
back, I can’t say that the challenges were easier or harder at
any of the various phases we went through. They were just
different. For example, when I had no one to manage, I had the

challenge of having to do almost everything myself. When I
learned and earned enough to pay others, I had the challenge
of managing them. Similarly, the challenges of wrestling with
market and economic swings were constantly changing. I
didn’t think about it then, but it’s obvious to me now that
while one gets better at things over time, it doesn’t become

any easier if one is also progressing to higher levels—the
Olympic athlete finds his sport to be every bit as challenging
as the novice does.

Very soon we faced another critical choice: What kind of
company did we want to have? Should we continue to grow or
stay about the same size?

By 2003, I had come to believe that we needed to grow
Bridgewater into a real institution instead of remaining a

typical boutique-sized investment manager. Doing this would
make us better in many ways—better technology, better
security controls, a deeper talent pool—all of which would
make us more stable and permanent. This meant hiring more
people in technology, infrastructure, and other areas, as well as

additional HR and IT staff to train and support them.