Principles: Summary

by Ray Dalio

Abstract: What follows are three distinct parts that can be read either independently or as a connected whole. Part 1 is about the purpose and importance of having principles in general, having nothing to do with mine. Part 2 explains my most fundamental life principles that apply to everything I do. Part 3, explains my management principles as they are being lived out at Bridgewater. Since my management principles are simply my most fundamental life principles applied to management, reading Part 2 will help you to better understand Part 3, but it’s not required—you can go directly to Part 3 to see what my management principles are and how Bridgewater has been run. One day I’d like to write a Part 4 on my investment principles. If you are looking to get the most bang for your buck (i.e., understanding for the effort), I suggest that you read Parts 1 and 2, and the beginning of Part 3 (through the Summary and Table of Principles) which will give you nearly the whole picture. It’s only about 55 pages of a normal size book.

Above all else, I want you to think for yourself—to decide 1) what you want, 2) what is true and 3) what to do about it. I want you to do that in a clear-headed thoughtful way, so that you get what you want. I wrote this book to help you do that. I am going to ask only two things of you—1) that you be open-minded and 2) that you honestly answer some questions about what you want, what is true and what you want to do about it. If you do these things, I believe that you will get a lot out of this book. If you can’t do these things, you should reflect on why that is, because you probably have discovered one of your greatest impediments to getting what you want out of life.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Self Help, Philosophy, Leadership, Finance, Personal Development

106 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Raymond Dalio (born August 8, 1949) is an American investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. Dalio is the founder of investment firm Bridgewater Associates, one of the world's largest hedge funds.

Reviews

[Martin Brochhaus · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm putting this down at 43%. Massive waste of time. The first half of the book is Dalio bragging about his achievements, but trying to stay humble while doing it.

Then comes the interesting part of the book, where he is supposed to lay out his principles. There is one chapter that is really good where I underlined almost everything, but that's just about three pages long.

Then he goes on and on and on and on to repeat hundreds of times that you should be radically open minded, and that you should be aware of the two halves of your brain - because, you know, this is all based on science, bro!

There is nothing in this book that gave me any clear actionables to try out in my own life/job. There are hundreds of pages about simply applying common sense and not being a total asshole. And there is an uncomfortable amount of pseudo-science and anecdotal evidence.

This book is worthless. Since he keeps talking about open mindedness and meditation: Better go read a good book about mindfulness meditation, for example "Mindfulness in Plain English".

[Ellen Chang · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt liberated after reading Principles. Being an independent thinker is liberating.

Dalio's philosophy that everything works like a machine (the economy and life in general) is a refreshing look at how we decide to live our lives. My favorite part about this book though, is his clear and concise writing about the importance of principles and his personal principles. He practices real integrity throughout his writing and I admire his voracious pursuit of seeking the truth through thoughtful disagreements.

His comment on real integrity is so on-point:
"The word “integrity” is from the Latin root “integer,” which means “one” i.e., that you are the same inside and out. Most people would be insulted if you told them that they don't have integrity—but how many people do you know who tell people what they really think?"

[Chiara Cokieng · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book again because it has been recommended to me as the “best book on learning how to be effective.” So far, I agree. Already, I am using an "issues log", designing experiments, seeing every failure I make and every success I achieve as artifacts to analyze. My biggest takeaway from this reading is summed up in this quote,

"I learned that everyone makes mistakes and has weaknesses and that one of the most important things that differentiates people is their approach to handling them."

It’s cliche to say that you should learn from your mistakes... But Principles attacks the concept from all angles, successfully persuades you to believe and act on it, and teaches you how to do it exactly.

I plan to read this book every 3 months for the rest of 2015, and then annually after that.

It’s one of those books you have to be ready for. The first time I read it was in 2013, when I first quit my job. It’s 2015, and man, it is a different, way more useful, book. And if you’ve opened it before, it’s worth revisiting even if you first found it not-so-useful.

[ScienceOfSuccess · Rating 5 out of 5]

TL:DR: You can just watch my summary here:




Ray Dalio has an amazing story, and this book explains many principles that he uses every day.
This book contains his biography and his hedge fund cornerstone rules, you have to read it!

[Omar Bohsali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. Read it twice. Principles is like a modern day Meditations aimed at professional and career development.

[Franta · Rating 5 out of 5]

First, there is much expanded version including Ray Dalio's biography: www.principles.com .

Principles are one of the most interesting strategy (or 'self help') books I have read.
Here, Dalio explains his rational (system engineering-like) process to achieve (any) goals.

Some excerpts:
-----------

## Reality + Dreams + Determination = A Successful Life
## Pain + Reflection = Progress

Ask is it true?

What he really wanted to do was beat the market. He just had to figure out how to do it.

So he was...
1) working for what he wanted, not for what others wanted him to do;
2) coming up with the best independent opinions he could muster to move toward his goals;
3) stress-testing his opinions by having the smartest people he could find challenge them so he could find out where he was wrong;
4) being wary about overconfidence, and good at not knowing; and
5) wrestling with reality, experiencing the results of his decisions, and reflecting on what he did to produce them so that he could improve.

5-Step Process:
- Have clear goals.
- Identify and don’t tolerate the problems that stand in the way of achieving your goals.
- Accurately diagnose these problems.
- Design plans that explicitly lay out tasks that will get you around your problems and on to your goals.
- Implement these plans—i.e., do these tasks.

[Tarik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dalio lists about two hundreds very healthy work and management principles. I mostly find myself agreeing with him. It should indeed be about finding the truth, and being radically transparent and honest in this worthwhile quest.

However the Principles are quite repetitive, a lots of redundancies. Maybe Dalio's way to get his point through.

Still worth reading.

[Vincent Stoessel · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75 rounded up to 5. Add this to the list of books that I wish were around when I was 20 years younger. There are some really interesting ideas in this book and makes me wonder if there are other companies and organizations that pursue "idea meritocracy" out there in the world. Definitely a book geared toward business but for me, the potential applications are vast.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still deeply skeptical of the "idea meritocracy" and Ray Dalio himself, as I'm suspicious that many of his ideas are in practice used as excuses for being an asshole, and like all versions of meritocracy, is likely to have deep implementation flaws that cover up bias with a veil of objectivity. Plus, it's a funny thing in America that we hold up people who have made a lot of money through the finance world as models for us to look up to, a la Warren Buffett. There is no doubt that Ray Dalio is an intelligent person who has learned a lot through creating a company and leading and growing it over decades. But he is likely no more a model of how to live one's life than those who have done great work in less lucrative fields.

But there are nuggets of wisdom in this book, and I'm happy to read what others have learned over varied life experiences, and pick and choose what I take away. One thing I liked was the idea of "believability weighting" decisions, which does seem like a more scalable way to make good decisions as an organization grows. Another good idea is giving and receiving frank feedback—but I believe that there are important skills that those giving need to learn in order to deliver effective feedback, rather than the transformation belonging entirely on the other side becoming more receptive to receiving feedback, which seems to be where Ray thinks the problem lies. Yet another is the idea that if we automate decision-making processes and run those processes alongside that of human decision-makers, we can make better decisions in the long run. I think this latter concept is one of the chief things I took away from the book, and is a technique that can _reduce_ bias in organizations, rather than increase it... though I can see it being much harder to implement in fields less easily describable in machine terms.

The book is a hefty read that took me a while to get through, but I think it was worth it.

[Maroun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic. Not only are his life & work principles insightful and applicable to my life, but I walked away creating principles of my own for various aspects of my life following his framework. Highly recommend the printed book, it's beautifully designed and worth the higher price tag.

[Gabriel Adamante · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impressive. Precise, practical advice. No bullshit. I wish more bright people wrote down their principles like Dalio did.

[Daniel Clausen · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is much to like about this book. Ray Dalio examines his life in prose that is often honest and straightforward, often bordering on the conversational and vernacular. As you read this book, you feel as if you are talking with Ray in his office or in a restaurant. That gives the book some of its charm. For these reasons, we can comfortably situate this book with other autobiographies/life lesson books. Benjamin Franklin's autobiography and "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius are other great examples. What these books lack in elegant prose, they more than makeup for in practical wisdom.

At the forefront of Dalio's approach is his practical scientist's approach to life and systems. Many pages are written about fundamental principles of life -- not all of them are as brief as they could be. This is fine. It should be kept in mind that this book is written by a practitioner, not a professional essayist or social scientist. In that case, the best style is raw honesty whenever possible. And it seems that Ray Dalio has stripped away at least some of his ego and status-seeking in order to tease out the themes of his life.

However, if I may attempt to bring a level of brevity and wit to Dalio's main messages, I would summarize his philosophy this way: 1) think in terms of systems
2) use painful moments as learning experiences
3) practice problem-solving through elegant design and
4) consistently and aggressively iterate.

These are timeless principles that have been written about in other books on start-ups and practical life success, but Dalio brings his own level-headedness and life experience to these themes. He doesn't often talk about systems, for example, but instead "machines" within "machines", which hurt the eyes and ears of this reader. Systems come in many forms: machines, ecosystems, and communities. Not all systems behave similarly and are as amenable to human manipulation. But one thing comes out crystal clear: learn to think in terms of systems.

Throughout his book, Dalio references other "great" people of his era. In doing so, he makes a mistake that is common to many who have studied great men or people: he samples on the dependent variables. (Here is one quick reference to explain sampling on the dependent variable: http://gabrielr.bol.ucla.edu/soc210a_...)

At several points in his book, he looks at the great people of our time -- the "shapers" -- and then works backward to understand what characteristics made them great. I doubt Dalio would have made the same mistake with investing. You don't look at the "winning" investments and then work backward without testing the principles you come up with against a complete sample of winners, losers, and somewhere in-betweeners. If he did have such a sample of human beings, he might find that many of the greatest shapers of history died before their time (because of sickness, war, or accident), were suppressed because of their gender or race, or were simply geographically or historically unlucky. These concepts are better explored in books such as Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" and the theoretical writings of Nicholas Nassim Taleb in his writing about "survivorship bias" ("Fooled by Randomness" and "Black Swan"). In fact, the concept of survivorships bias is so important (perhaps even more important than this book) that I feel compelled to include a link so that any reader of this book can explore it in depth.

Here is one quick article I found here: https://fs.blog/2019/12/survivorship-...

But, just to repeat in case you missed it: Understanding survivorship bias is more important than anything you will get from this book (and that's no knock on this book, it's just an endorsement that everyone needs to understand survivorship bias).

"Black Swan", "Fooled by Randomness", and "Outliers" -- these books should serve as good theoretical groundings before reading "the secret to my success" books or the autobiographies of great men (or women).

For his part, Dalio himself adds to this literature by recounting honestly some of the "great" people he knew who ended up on the losing side of history. In short, some of his rich clients "blew up" or "crashed out" because of over-zealous speculation. For anyone looking to understand the secrets of success these glorious blow-ups -- Nelson Bunker Hunt (silver speculator) and Alan Bond (fraud and speculation) -- are as important if not more important than understanding successes like Dalio.

Dalio expresses great respect for the Elon Musks and Steve Jobs of the world, but as both will probably tell you under the possession or truth-serum, they were probably both one or two f*** ups away from sleeping on park benches. The blade of exceptionalism can cut both ways: highly motivated risk-takers can end up being the historical movers of our time or can suffer untimely demises (both physically or financially).

Exceptional people can also cut both ways in the impact they have on the world. In his sample of "shapers," Dalio also leaves out the highly motivated evil-doers of history. I found it curious that his very first principles had more to do with having a scientific view the world -- privileging the "is" over the "should" -- than with core values. I was surprised that values weren't the first thing discussed. The last thing the world needs is a bunch of highly effective status-seekers who are morally agnostic. Without solid core values, the world and its people are left to the whims and idiosyncrasies of these highly efficient and lucky "shapers".

In this way, Dalio runs dangerously close to becoming the character of Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness". This supposedly great man -- the epitome of the modern man -- was simultaneously all things successful in a modern world: an opportunist, a capitalist, a humanitarian, a tyrant.

It's worth quoting from the Heart of Darkness extensively on the character of Kurtz and his amorality.

"He electrified people. He had faith. He could get himself to believe anything. He would have been a great leader of an extreme political party.’ ‘What party?’ I asked. ‘Any party,’ he answered. ‘He was an all-around extremist.’ I agreed."

The character of Kurtz is a warning bell I keep inside of me whenever I'm confronted with the tales of "great" people or any kind of hero-worship. Because so often the drive to greatness without a moral center is status-seeking for status-seeking's sake.

I don't think that's what Dalio does. I think in his life you can see genuine empathy and compassion. At several points in his book, he observes what I have often observed in my life: great people can be found in all walks of life and in any income class. Real greatness is actually income and status agnostic. And for that reason, let me write an amended "Principle 1" -- Let genuine compassion for others be your guide.

Ray Dalio's first section shows why often the story or the "case study" as a kind of raw data is more important than the analytical work done by the scientists (or in this case the autobiographist) to make sense out of nonsense. Just like in the case studies Dalio had to examine in Havard Business School, it's important to have these case studies and their messy details so we can reason through them ourselves. I believe also it's important to have an understanding of bias and potential bias that may contaminate the case study. Biographies are sometimes better than autobiographies because biographers bring certain objectivity to their subject. Autobiographers always have the potential of being motivated by status-seeking.

As for the principles themselves. Some worked very well for me while others fell flat.

For me, here were the gems.

On page 161: Ask for help at skills you are not good at. All successful people have this skill. That is something I need to work on. Thanks for that Ray.

Throughout his principles, Ray emphasizes that we need to push through pain to make progress. All progress is painful he argues. Perhaps this principle needs some kind of revision, perhaps it is somehow incomplete, but actually, that's exactly what all my progress feels like...whether it's writing another draft of a book, repairing a relationship with a loved one, or simply exercising. You need to push through the pain.

Thank you for taking the time to write an honest, useful book, Ray.

[Rahul Patel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book out of an interest in gaining business insights from a successful entrepreneur and financial leader. Without question, Ray Dalio has a knack for figuring out ways to make money using financial instruments, in particular via hedging strategies on commodities. He tries to detail many personal as well as business principles that led to his (and his hedge fund's) success. What I walk away from, though, is that it is difficult to quantify or create an algorithm for success, as many of these principles try to outline. Dalio's own hedge fund has struggled with new leadership, after his departure as CEO, highlighting again that there are some ingredients to success that are hard to quantify and replicate. Other factors that led me to give this book a modest rating - the writing is at times almost childish. For example, early in the book, he describes his interest in meditation, stating how his friend Steve Jobs loved meditation, he tried meditation too, it's been good for him! To his credit, Dalio is quite candid about his life, including his family, in this book, showing a vulnerability in describing the family's struggles with his son's depression, for example. Regarding the details of business and the hedge fund industry, I walk away with more affirmation of my view of this as a shallow endeavor. As an example, Dalio details how proud he was early in his career, in helping McDonald's create chicken nuggets, by creating financial hedging instruments for the chicken suppliers to weather fluctuations in chicken feed and other costs. Not sure many other people would take pride in helping make chicken nuggets a reality! There's also some unsavory details about life as a hedge fund king, such as hiring strippers for company parties. Overall, though, there are some interesting tidbits on business, and personal success that make this worth skimming through.

[Alexander Pavlov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Рэй Далио - американский миллиардер, основатель хэдж-фонда Bridgewater - изложил принципы, которыми он руководствуется в жизни и в управлении. Это книга для сотрудников Bridgewater для того, чтобы донести до них принципы и культуру управления в компании. Поэтому предпринимателям интересно читать с двух точек зрения: как устроен менеджмент в Bridgewater; и как Рэй Далио доносит до сотрудников основные принципы, некоторые из которых могут быть восприняты как весьма жесткие.
Стоит приготовиться к тому, что книга будет идти тяжело. Можно будет осилить лишь несколько страниц за раз из-за высокой концентрированности мыслей. Но это не умаляет её ценности.
Рекомендую для руководителей разного уровня, а также для тех, кто хочет лучше понимать руководителей.

[Julius · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite discoveries in 2017 - Ray Dalio and his Life and Work Principles. It's a 500+ page book for those who want to rise to the top, who want to become more efficient at making decisions, and who sometimes feel lost when thinking about their values.

Reading this book felt like getting access to cheat codes in a game just because how much knowledge and wisdom are distilled in it.

[Sambasivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most important books that I have read this year.

The author Ray Dalio who is one of the top 100 influential individuals in the world, also acclaimed to be the ‘Steve Jobs of investment industry’ distils his life time learnings of the past 32 years and has done all of us a great favour.

As be rightly says, it is not important to follow the same principles that he did, but it is important to chalk out one’s own principles and follow the same with rigour and diligence.

Fantastic read.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a bit disappointing. Overall, it contains good ideas but I would have preferred a longer Medium.com blogpost which would have meant less repetition. In addition, I don't think I have ever read a book in which I was confronted with so much arrogance. The author is clearly very successful so maybe it was the tone of the audiobook -- not sure. In addition, I noticed the vague use of terms such as 'algorithms' and 'AI' throughout the book. It feels that the author uses these terms in a dot-com bubble fashion, not really elaborating on what he means with these and leaving the reader/listener with the impression that he doesn't really know what he is talking about in these instances. I listened to most of the audiobook at 1.5x speed.

[Brad Dunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Ray Dalio. This is a wonderful induction into his attitudes towards people and business, and would be a perfect read for someone wanting to start a business. Think of it like hundreds of Twitter sized suggestions on how to run a company. Very specific details. How to run a meeting, how to recruit staff. Mostly though it's about values. It's like a crash course in radical management theory. There is some pretty left of field tactical things in here. You can probably read it in an afternoon.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ray's collected all the Rules for Living and Working you could ever possibly need, and arranged them in clusters, subgroups, and units for easy perusal. This book is really an instructional manual for the clueless, or the nerdy, or people who have spent their lives staring at their mobile phones. It's all here, and most of it is very, very wise. The only thing Ray didn't get was that having hundreds of rules is too many to live by. He needs to reduce them to, say, the ten most important.

His most interesting and compelling concept, which he's apparently following at his hedge fund, is radical transparency, where everyone says exactly what they're thinking and no one beats around the bush, softens the truth, or fudges things. It must be an amazing place to work.

I remember reading somewhere that the average person lies hundreds of times per day -- what we used to call white lies, lies designed to avoid hurting people's feelings -- you look lovely in that dress -- and I guess none of that goes on at Ray's company. I imagine if I were to work there I'd need, at the very least, a whole new wardrobe. And probably a whole new personality.

[Zhi Wei Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Principles" reads like a modern-day Meditations, except the content is largely written for a professional/work context. Also, Meditations is way better. I'm not entirely sure why this book made waves. It's not terrible, but it's not terribly insightful either. I'd say what's useful about this book are the specific practices that he shares about leadership and management in the appendix, which can be some sort of repository of brainstorming material for one's own use. But there isn't anything really groundbreaking - just the run-of-the-mill self-help/management guru spiel dressed in a different arrangement of words and even equations.

[Eugene · Rating 5 out of 5]

good and compressed base for entrepreneurs and then the list of 200+ principles for the Bridgewater organization. great ideas and workflows: view organization as machine, ok to remove yourself once don't fit anymore, checking yourself and your ideas against the reality and the nature, ability to overcome short term pains to achieve long term advantages is how the nature designed the evolution.

[Fang William · Rating 5 out of 5]

1. Trial - Error - Reflection - Principles - System(Machine with Algorithm)
2. System > People

[Vikash · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well written book which elaborates the life lessons learned by the author.

Favourite Quote-"People who are one way on the Inside and believe that they need to be other way outside to please others become conflicted and lose touch with what they really think and feel"

Q) Who is this book for?
Everyone. It has some serious and valuable life lessons. It's a book to learn and apply so everyone needs it.

Q) What are the key takeaways? 1. Embrace the Pain- Yeah, crave for the difficulties, because that's where the Gold is hidden. Once you know your Pain givers, defeat them with full force. Pain+reflection=Progress

2. Design the task- ever wondered why most people fail terribly at execution. It's only because they don't have a clear design to achieve it. Plan, visualise and then success is yours. Designing Precedes doing!

3. Identify cause not symptoms- are you failing at something continuously? Maybe it's because you are busy curing the symptoms and not identifying the real issue. Cure cause not symptoms!

Q) what's the best part about the book?

The lessons are systematically arranged which enables the reader to connect with the author. So yes the structure is pretty good.

Rating- 5/5

Highly recommended

[Xavier Amatriain · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book I would wholeheartedly recommend to managers and leaders, but I would also caution them to read with an extremely critical eye. Because I don’t think most people are reading it like that, I am worried that this book will do more harm than good.

Let me say that I truly believe that the book has a lot of very good things. However, because it has a lot (and I mean really a lot) of things, it also has many things that I don’t only disagree with, but I think they are plain wrong. There are 20 high-level principles, of which I only disagree with 2 (10%). But, that is not the problem. Even for those that look really good at a high-level, there are sub-principles that are dangerously wrong in my book.

Now, I hear you saying, who are you to say that some of these principles are wrong? These are the principles that have made Dalio and Bridgewater extremely successful. You are right. I am nobody. However, keep this in mind: no matter how successful you consider Bridgewater to be, you can find companies that are just as successful and have a completely different culture. Case in point: Netflix, which has a well-documented and strong culture that disagrees with these principles in way more than 10%.

Other things, I’d recommend people keeping in mind when reading the book:

- Dalio repeats over and over that while Bridgewater’s culture “hurts at first”, it ends up making people happier. While I am an ultra-marathon runner and a fan of “no pain no gain”, please do keep the survivor bias effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivo...) when hearing things like this.
- The author of these principles is someone who feels extremely proud of having made a company like McDonald’s more money by playing the global meat market and says that “a chicken can be seen as a simple machine consisting of a chick plus its feed” (pg. 24)
- Other interesting things I will draw your attention to, in case you miss them:
- The author is a fan of “tough love” and mentions this several times in the book, including the section titled “Evaluate accurately, not kindly”
- He is also a fan of “forced rankings” (pg. 452), which have proved unfair and not useful time and again (see http://fortune.com/2013/11/18/microso..., for example)
- He promotes people working during vacations (only “as little as an hour a day” pg. 462)
- He thinks people can’t be trusted: “When offered the choice of being fair with you or taking more for themselves, most people will take more for themselves. Even a tiny amount of cheating is intolerable, so your happiness and success will depend on your controls.” (emphasis mine, pg. 513)

If you are willing to read this book with that sort of critical eye, I do recommend it to you since there are a lot of important and good lessons to learn. If you are reading it with the purpose of taking everything to heart maybe because you are star struck, do everyone a favor and pick another management book

[Sergei Rudz · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books i have ever read. Program by which you are operating is not necessarily yours. Sometimes there are principles which are sabotaging your life due to not being optimal for achieving certain results in life.
A Good idea would be to adopt principles from someone who you think is a master or at least is wiser than you in some respective field.

Your opinions are only as good as your information and your actions are largely driven by your inner program. Certain principles drive certain actions which bring certain results.

Meritocratic principles described here are perfect to adopt when working within some group.

He talks about the importance of continuous education and growth and why it is an essential part of evolution of any person or a group.

"Truth —more precisely, an accurate understanding of reality— is the essential foundation for producing good outcomes." - if your brain is conditioned to process truth/accurate information then you can make decisions which will be in accordance with REALITY. Liars have their brain wired differently and it hinders their ability to have an objective picture of reality.

Everyone has different attributes and aptitudes, if your group will have people who will compensate each other then your group will be able to handle anything as long as there is harmony and vector of intention.

People have to take responsibility for their results in life because mostly their own actions have brought them to certain events.

It is more important to BE than to APPEAR. Inaccurate appearances are not in accordance with reality and distort the objective perception of reality.

"Recognize the Most Important Decisions You Make Are Who You Choose to Be Your Responsible Party" - Chose wisely who you want to influence you. Its inevitable.


________________________
Truth-Meritocracy-Perfectibilism

[Yanal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to this on Audible and it worked well with him narrating most of the book. The book covers both his personal and professional life so it was surprising how much he opened about in the book. In speaking about culture, he values an environment of where the truth can be freely told, failure is accepted, and ability to get and give feedback. He also talks about people in organizations where he states that hiring is one of the most important decisions you make. Also the following:
-Recognize everyone's differences.
-Build your team carefully.
-Run your team like a machine.
-Be direct and honest with employees, and ask them to do the same.
-Be accurate instead of kind with evaluations.
-Guide your employees' evolution.
-If someone isn't working in a role, take them out of it.
-Have criteria for what constitutes a problem and identify them when they arise.
-Determine the root of problems.
-Help employees understand their problems and how they were resolved.
-Build your team around achieving your goals.
-Always achieve what you set out to do.
-Recognize what you don't know.
-Minimize risk.
-Remember the 80/20 Rule — 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.
-Find outcomes that will keep you improving.

[Chris Garin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished the audible version of this book. Really found this helpful since it talks about actual systems and processes used in Bridgewater — ones that deal with how to manage team members correctly and effectively. What I like most about is that Ray actually wrote down the detailed steps - many of which I can apply. So far, managing team members has been the most challenging part of my duties, and this book pretty much covers solutions to these challenges.

Will be buying the kindle version so that I have a copy I can skim through when I encounter problems in dealing with team members.

[Mark Hillick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing read, pretty phenomenal gift of knowledge from Ray Dalio. Clearly both Dalio & Bridgewater aren’t for everyone but there’s so much education in this book for us all in both personal and professional development. Dalio doesn't hide behind his failures, or the pain, and is unsurprisingly forthright the book.

This is a book that I plan to regularly revisit and I’m sure I’ll pick up something new every time.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good general principles, with somewhat weak reasoning behind them, and a sprinkle of self promotion in between.

[Javier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good insights but too repetitive at times