Page 83 - Ray Dalio - Principles

Giselle argued strongly that we should not grow. She
believed that introducing a lot of new people would threaten
our culture, and that the time and attention that hiring, training,

and managing them required would dilute our focus. While I
agreed with her points, I didn’t like the alternative of not
allowing ourselves to become all we could be. I felt about this
fork-in-the-road choice the way I felt about most others—that
whether or not we could have our cake and eat it too was
merely a test of our creativity and character. For example, I
could envision ways in which technology would help us get

the most out of people. After a fair amount of wrestling with
these questions, we decided to go ahead.

FLESHING OUT PRINCIPLES

Ever since Bob, Giselle, and Dan had presented me with the
“Ray Feedback Memo” in the 1990s, I had been much more
explicit in writing down and sharing my work principles in the
same way I had written down my investment principles. At
first, this took the form of shared philosophy statements and

emails to the entire company. Then, whenever something new
came along that required me to make a decision, I would
reflect on my criteria for making that decision and write it
down as a principle so people could make the connections
between the situation, my principle for handling these
situations, and my actions. More and more, we saw everything

as “another one of those”—another of a certain type of
situation like hiring, firing, determining compensation, dealing
with dishonesty—that had principles for handling them. By
having them explicitly written out, I could foster the idea
meritocracy by having us together reflect on and refine those
principles—and then adhere to them.

The number of principles started small and grew over time.

By the mid-2000s, Bridgewater was beginning to grow
rapidly, and we had a number of new managers trying to learn
and adapt to our unique culture—and who were increasingly
asking me for advice. I was also beginning to have people
from outside Bridgewater ask me how they could create idea