Page 319 - Ray Dalio - Principles

meaningful relationships.

When there were just a few of us, we had meaningful
relationships because we knew and liked each other. When we
grew to between fifty and a hundred people, we had a
community; when we grew beyond that, the sense of
community began to slip because we didn’t all know each

other in the same way. That’s when I realized that having
groups (departments) of around a hundred (give or take about
fifty) that are bound collectively by our common mission was
the best way to scale the meaningful relationship. While
bigger companies tend to be more impersonal, that is just
another challenge that has to be figured out.

2.4 Remember that most people will

pretend to operate in your

interest while operating in their

own.

For example, most people will operate in a way that
maximizes the amount of money they will get and that
minimizes the amount of work they have to do to get it.

To see this, just leave someone unsupervised and allow
them to bill you for what they have done. Be especially wary
of this conflict of interest when people are advising you on

matters that will affect how much money they earn—such as
the lawyer who spends a lot of billable hours giving you
advice, or the salesperson who advises you on what to
purchase while receiving a commission on the amount that you
spend. You can’t imagine how many people I meet who are
eager to “help” me.

Don’t be naive. Strive for the highest possible percentage of

your population having meaningful work and meaningful
relationships while recognizing that there will always be some
percentage of the population who won’t care for the
community and/or will do it harm.