Book Cover

It’s now clear to me that my purpose, your purpose, and the purpose of everything else is to evolve and to contribute to evolution in some small way.

# Review

I actually read this book in the Principles in Action app, which is available for free and includes supplementary material such as case studies and interviews.

The book first retells the background of Dalio and the founding of Bridgewater, then it explains the importance of codifying decision processes into different principles and outlines the principles used by Dalio both professionally and personally. As a data scientist obsessed with quantifying and modeling the subjective, the main idea of codifying all processes greatly appealed to me. In fact, almost every idea appealed to me at a spiritual level; I started taking notes while reading the book and quickly found myself essentially transcribing the entire text.

At the core of many of the principles are the idea meritocracy and radical transparency. The idea meritocracy is an environment where the best idea wins, regardless of who originated the idea and radical transparency is the liberty of everyone being able to express their ideas and opinions (constructively) for the greater good of the entire organization. I have worked in organizations where the traditional hierarchical holds and ideas are expressed only from top down and I have also worked in organizations where everyone's ideas are valued solely based on merit and everyone is encouraged and expected to participate in discussions; the difference is night and day.

In the hierarchical organization, I was merely one of a number of cogs; I was constrained by my position and thus the value I could add to the organization was also constrained by my position. In the more open organization, however, I not only was able to contribute ideas and add more value to the organization, I also felt much more synergy with my team, as I know that I can be honest with them and they can be honest with me without fear of ridicule or social repercussion.

It can thus be said that I have experienced many of the principles described firsthand, including the shock of open criticism and the rewiring of my brain to not recoil from criticism and to instead appreciate the critic for trying to help me improve.

This book is very dense, and thus can be a slow read. It incorporates aspects of psychology and different strategies Bridgewater uses to achieve the principles, such as baseball cards for quantifying people based on attributes and heuristics. I especially enjoyed reading the philosophical musings which touch on stoicism (accepting reality for what it is), Nietzsche (don't let fears of what others think stand in one's way), and Buddhism/ zen (enjoying nature).

# Conclusion

A very dense book packed with actionable insights on how to be a more effective person and how to build a more effective organization.

# Overall rating: 8.8

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