The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 34 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Computers will surpass humans at quality thinking long before intuition
“It'll be a long time before those intuitions and those imaginations are created by computers. Ok, but it won't be a long time before computers produce better quality thinking.”
Dalio: Neither autocratic nor democratic decision-making works well in organizations
“The problem that most people have at that point is that either there is an autocratic decision maker or a democratic decision maker. Neither of those work well. The autocratic decision maker is just the guy who's the boss who says, okay, well, now I'm going to…”
Dalio: Coders riding algorithms will displace workers and cause economic bifurcation
“There are going to be people who are riding the algorithms that will replace the people who are doing jobs. And so there's going to be a bifurcation, and I think that learning how to code is like learning how to read and write for the next generation”
Bridgewater anticipated the 2008 financial crisis by studying the 1930s
“The only reason we were able to anticipate it and benefit from it is because it, we felt that it was necessary to understand what had happened in the thirties and what happened before, because the same things happen over and over again.”
Dalio: Major Debt Crises Occur Roughly Once Every 75 Years
“Some things happen once every 75 years, particularly debt crises and those kinds of things.”
Dalio: Best decisions come from consulting three believable experts who disagree
“Go to three highly believable people who are willing to disagree with each other. And hear that disagreement, and interact, and bring out that disagreement, and see where there's agreement, so that you get to the other side, so when you either have agreement, …”
Dalio: In discussions, know if you are student, teacher, or peer
“At the same time, I think it's important for the parties to try to think am I a teacher, student, or peer? Because if I'm speaking with somebody who really knows a lot more about them, something, I want to be asking more questions than I want to be sharing opi…”
Bridgewater records nearly all internal meetings and discussions
“All discussions, meetings are taped and pretty much unless it's an ultra personal matter. We don't do that unless it's something proprietary. We don't do that, but when we're encountering other things most things, we let people see things, and the reason is if…”
External systems will soon know individuals better than their spouses
“Radical transparency is coming at you fast anyway. Because we're now living in a world where the data that you leave about yourself all over the place is meaning that people will, you know, strangers, systems, can now examine you and know you better than peopl…”
Dalio has no attachment to Bridgewater's culture after his departure
“No, no, it's, I would say it's like a family in the next generation, right? It's now up to others to make that choice, to not be attached.”
Dalio: Bridgewater debates decision criteria rather than individual choices
“Rather than thinking about what our decision is, we spent more time thinking about what our criteria for making the decision is.”
Dalio: Historical market patterns repeat and can be codified into algorithms
“Everything happens over and over again. Right? Everything I, we think of this as, everything's another one of those. So by being able to look at history and make the connections and examine how the mechanics of the cause-effect relationships are, That's what w…”
Dalio: Meditation eliminates stress and fosters effortless creativity
“Completely eliminates stress, and it fosters creativity, because when you think of creativity, it's not that you go muscle it. It's more like, you know, you take a hot shower, and these great ideas come to you.”
Dalio: Reconciling subconscious intuition with conscious logic is extremely powerful
“And when one can reconcile their subconscious thoughts, those instincts, those intuitions with their logic and the consciousness, it's very, very powerful.”
Balancing audacity with humility and triangulation creates robust decisions
“I went from thinking, you know, I'm right, to asking myself, how do I know I'm right? In other words, how do I triangulate? It gave me the humility I needed To balance with my audacity.”
Dalio: Mankind's Greatest Tragedy Is Clinging to Untested Wrong Opinions
“I think the greatest tragedy of mankind and the greatest tragedy of most people is to hold opinions in their head that are wrong, that they're attached to, and that they don't stress test.”
Dalio: Bridgewater scores team members to conduct believability-weighted voting
“And we literally have scores of these tests and whatever they are that become the scores. So we have believability weighted voting.”
Dalio: Frank criticism instinctually triggers amygdala fight-or-flight responses
“In which there's a part of our brain, the amygdala, which has this fight or flight thing. And when there's that kind of frankness, and that kind of exploration of one's weaknesses, people can think that they're being attacked instinctually.”
Dalio: Adapting to Bridgewater's culture typically takes about 18 months
“So it's a transition. It's probably like a transition of trying to eat healthy and exercise and do those types of things. Typically takes about 18 months.”
Dalio: College hires and experienced hires succeed equally at Bridgewater
“The people who come directly from school are tend to be a little bit more arrogant, know a little bit less, and go through a transformation that's pretty much easier. They're more adaptable. So that's why they're prone to like it, but it, but also depending on…”
Dalio administered personality tests to Bill Gates and Elon Musk
“I've given personality tests to well, I mentioned that in, in the book, Bill Gates, Elon Musk many, many incredible, successful people, and they all have some elements in common, and then they also have differences, and so there's a path to leadership.”
Dalio: Life has three stages, ending in helping others succeed
“In the second stage of your life you're working, and other people are dependent on you. First stage of your life is when you're learning And you're dependent on others. When you get into, let's say, your twenties, or when that is, and you enter your second sta…”
Wealth was never Dalio's priority, just a byproduct of good work
“And, you know, for money, for me, money was not very much a priority to begin with. It just happened to be the thing that I do. It produces a lot of money if you do it well.”
Wealth has virtually no correlation with happiness past basic needs
“There is virtually no correlation between the amount of money one has and one's happiness that's pretty well known past a certain basic The factor that's the highest correlation is whether is relationships, sense of community across societies.”
Transcendental Meditation is one of the greatest things in Dalio's life
“One of the most important, greatest things in my life, because it allowed me to have an equanimity.”
Dalio: The stock market bottomed in August 1982 when Mexico defaulted
“If you look at the exact bottom in the stock market, August, When Mexico defaulted, that was the exact bottom in the stock market”
Dalio: Bridgewater's 1982 crash forced him to borrow $4,000 from his father
“I was so broke that I had to borrow 4000 dollars from my dad”
Dalio plans to release Bridgewater's internal management tools publicly
“A lot of these tools I'd like to get out there and make public at some point, I'm figuring out how to do that.”
Dalio requires reasonableness and considerateness in all of his relationships
“The only two things I require in a relationship are people to be reasonable, in other words, able to reason, and to be considerate. And I will give People an enormous amount of that, and I expect an enormous amount of that. And that's in all relationships.”
Dalio: IBM Watson creator Dave Ferrucci works on Bridgewater data processing
“We have on the data collection processing type of thing, we have a fellow by the name of Dave Ferrucci, who was the person who started and created Watson at IBM.”
2017 marks Dalio's transition out of the Bridgewater CEO role
“2017 is my transition year. It's why I wrote the book, and it's why I'm in that process.”
Dalio: Even vast billionaire wealth is tiny relative to societal needs
“And by the way, it's interesting because I thought I, you know, have a lot of money, and I have a lot of money relative to most people. And then you realize through this that you have a tiny bit of money relative to all that needs to be done.”
Dalio punched his boss on New Year's Eve while drunk
“He and I were drunk on New Year's Eve, and yeah, you know, and we had we had this playful, fun challenging relationships, and I decked him, and he then crashed the car when he went home, and his wife chewed him out, and I figured that I was going to lose my jo…”