Ray Dalio: We’re Heading Into Very, Very Dark Times! – DOAC Podcast (Transcript)

So when you have big wealth and opportunities gaps, there’s conflict, okay? Conflict between the left and the right. And when you get to the situation where you don’t believe the system is working for you and you don’t trust the system, then there are wars, there are internal conflicts over that and so on.

So the third force is the geopolitical force. In other words, there’s a cycle that usually goes from one big war to another big war. So the last war ended in 1945, 44. And we began a new order in 1945. And the way that works is that the winners of the war determine how the world order works. They draw borders. They say, “here’s how it’s going to work.” And that’s the new order, okay?

And that continues until there’s a rising power challenging an existing power in the existing world order, which typically is deteriorating at that time. And then you have international conflict, okay? These orders, there’s a monetary order, they all break down. There’s an internal political order, they all break down. And there’s a geopolitical order. They all have this conflict and they work together.

The fourth force throughout history has been acts of nature. Droughts, floods and pandemics, for example, have killed more people than wars and acts of nature. Nature has a big effect.

And then number five force is man’s inventiveness, particularly of new technologies, okay? Because if you see that inventiveness that has raised per capita incomes, GDP per capita, any measures of living standards over a period of time and so on. But it is also related to the first four that I said, those four, four forces interact.

Now, when we go back to your UK case, okay, they have a financial problem. They, and almost every country now is dealing with more of that internal political problem for the same reasons. Wealth gaps, opportunities gaps, what do we do? Who’s got the power? I don’t trust the system kind of thing, okay, Number three is we are certainly in an international great powers conflict, right?

And it certainly affects Europe and the UK as we’re dealing with not only the Ukraine situation, but the Russian situation. And what does that mean? And that relates to the money thing because, okay, where’s the money coming from to have defense or military expenditures and so on and so forth. So that matters, right? The geopolitical matters, Climate certainly matters. And then of course, technology and inventiveness. So everything could be looked at through that lens.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And so what does this mean for the UK if all other countries are going through this as well, doesn’t it just mean that all countries are going to suffer equally?

RAY DALIO: No, no, no. Because they’re not all equal, okay? Some are more in debt than others. Okay? Some people are more willing to hold their debt than others. Some means they have more resources. Some are bigger and more powerful, some are less powerful. They’re different, okay? They’re all in different conditions. Some countries have surpluses. Some countries are not in the middle of where there’s having a war.

The UK’s Outlook

STEVEN BARTLETT: Are you optimistic about the future of the UK at the moment?

RAY DALIO: No. No.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Because it has high debt, it has the social internal conflict. It’s affected by the geopolitical factors. And in terms of inventiveness, it doesn’t have the culture that other countries have. Like the US is that.

RAY DALIO: Yes, the culture and the capital markets to support that at a scale that it needs to be supported to play seriously in the game.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And for anyone that doesn’t know capital markets mean basically the investor markets, it’s.

RAY DALIO: A way of saying, well, I mean, it gets you the money. In other words, you’re a guy with. You know, what happens is we have to enable people, okay? What works is finding great people, talented people, and identifying those who you want to bet on and enabling them. And that works. That’s the most important force, much more important than money. Okay?

Because you can see who’s got the money and power. And where did they come from? Where did Nvidia come from? Where do they all come from? Okay? They’re guys like you, entrepreneur, in a sense, who’s been enabled, okay, by because you have the talent and people want to bet on you and that’s the capital market. So they give you money to help enable you because they want to bet on you and then good things happen.

The United States’ Position

STEVEN BARTLETT: But are you optimistic about the United States at the moment?

RAY DALIO: The United States is very much a big picture. No, I think it’s very much in this issue. So if I go down my list, it definitely has this debt money economy problem. We can get into that. Okay? It definitely has the internal conflict power in which there is a fight between the left, you know, the hard left and the right due to wealth and values gaps and people not believing that the system will work for them.

And so democracy is at risk because they don’t believe they’re not going to follow the rules in the sense they don’t believe the rules are going to. Number three. It’s of course, the leading one side in this great power conflict of the World, Right. In other words, yes, between the United States and the one side, let’s say, and China and the allies, their allies on the other side.

I mean, in the news, you just saw the meetings of Xi, Putin, Modi and that group over there walking down, you know, and okay, so now it should be pretty clear how the sides are lining up. Okay. It’s always better to be in a place that’s not in one of those wars, like stay out of wars. And of course climate has an effect.

And of course then we have technology. The United States and China are in the big technology competitions. The others are really not in the game. They don’t have the money that this innovation and talent in a sense, to play at that scale and so on. So we have a great technology war which can be used to create great advances, but at the same time could be used for great conflicts.

And so now the question is going to be who wins the technology war? Because the winner of the technology war is going to win all wars. Okay. In other words, they’ll win the economic war, they’ll win the geopolitical war, because technology, and I’m not saying anything that hasn’t repeated through history.

Historical Context of Technology Wars

STEVEN BARTLETT: Give me the historical context if you can, just for the technology.

RAY DALIO: For example, nuclear, nuclear won World War II.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And does this cycle go back further than just.

RAY DALIO: Oh, no, it goes back that book. Okay. In order to understand these things, because I have to bet on what’s going to happen. I’m a global macro investor. I studied the last 500 years of history and it happens over and over again in all cases. So I could take the British Empire, I could take you through all the empires, the Dutch Empire before that and all this. And it happens all the time.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I watched your videos about this and it was truly fascinating how predictable this stuff is and the work that you’ve done to uncover this trend throughout history. I mean, it’s almost, for me, it was almost irrefutable. Watching the evidence in, I think it’s like a 40 minute video on YouTube where you show how this played out through empires.

And it begs the question, you know, because when you live in the United States, when you’re in the present time, you almost never assume that the empire you’re in could fall. You just don’t, you don’t see how it could happen. We’re so strong, we’re so great. You know, we’re so that doing AI over here, have money over here, everything’s good, the sun’s shining.

The Future of Global Power Dynamics

RAY DALIO: It’s inconceivable of course, people always think that the future would be a slightly modified version of the present. And it’s not. Watch over decades. But it’s like watching a person grow. You know, you watch your kid or you watch a person and your age, any age, and that’s what you see. And you don’t see the life arc. But the life arc is irrefutable.

STEVEN BARTLETT: But do you think it’s conceivable that in the next 50 to 100 years the US could no longer be the dominant power globally?

RAY DALIO: Yeah. More than conceivable.

STEVEN BARTLETT: More than conceivable. What do you mean by more than conceivable?

RAY DALIO: I mean that these evolutions always take place and they take place in a certain way. And that if you look at the probabilities and the paths and the symptoms, there is a challenge. The United States is facing a number of those challenges.

And we’re at a moment where it’s a question of whether the system and the people can get control of the situations and deal with it strongly and well in a way where they are not fighting to the point of damaging each other and damaging the prospects for the future.

STEVEN BARTLETT: But I mean, the United States is very innovative. Got all these great innovative companies here, so surely.

The Two Americas: Innovation vs. Inequality

RAY DALIO: Yeah, but you can’t make generalizations about the United States and you can’t make generalizations, by the way, about the markets either. What you see is 1%, a small percentage, 1% of the population. If you’re looking at the breakdown of incomes and also you’re looking at the innovation, the stock markets, which stocks are doing well, who owns those companies and all of that.

About 3 million people in a country of 330 million people are really unbelievably doing great. And you could pick the neighborhoods they’re in and what they’re doing. And then there’s the top 10%, let’s say, which is the people around them, and they’re really, really doing great in that world.

At the same time, the bottom 60%, 60% of Americans have below a sixth grade reading level. And that population, in terms of the basics, being productive, you have to be productive and be prosperous. What you need to have a successful society is to have broad based productivity and prosperity. And that’s a problem. So which America are you looking at? And are you watching the war that’s happening between these?

STEVEN BARTLETT: It’s a little bit complicated for me as a bit of an outsider, because I see Trump saying he represents those people. But obviously Trump is from the billionaire class himself. So, I mean, is he a savior for inequality? Is he correcting.

RAY DALIO: I think he sees a lot of the problem, and I think he sees the debt problem, I think he sees the internal conflict disorder problem. And I think he represents the red. Let’s call it the red states. I mean, you look at a map and there’s red and blue, and you see where they are. And he represents that, and they’re united behind him in terms of doing some things.

So he represents. Let’s call it the red side, which is located where the maps shows red, and then there are the blue. And he views himself as somebody who needs to take charge and to do certain things. Others in that population would say, those who, let’s say, are not getting or having the food stamp program cut off or having other programs cut off that they’re dependent on would say, “wait a second, that’s not representing me.”

And so we have gone. That population has gone to significant number behind him that are devotees. They’re all in. At the same time as we have the other side, which will have their devotees. We’re in New York City. And the upcoming mayoral election will be an example of the two sides. And they will try to use the system. But there’s a question. Will the system have enough support to work? But that’s what we have.

Fixing the UK: The Challenge of Millionaire Exodus

STEVEN BARTLETT: Just to close off on this point of the UK in particular, if you were to try and fix it, what would you be aiming at? I say this because we do have a millionaire exodus that’s widely reported in the UK where I think this year we’re set to lose 16,000, roughly 16,000 millionaires. When you look at the big, big countries like China, America, the UAE, the UK, we’re losing more millionaires than anybody else. And I was wondering if you think it’s fixable and if you were in charge of the UK, what you might aim at? First, it’s different.

RAY DALIO: You know, first of all, if you go back to the basic problem, which is there’s too much debt, there are deficits, there’s differences in education and opportunity levels and so on, the most important thing that you can have is a strong middle.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Political middle.

RAY DALIO: Political middle. To be analytically strong and also strong enough to get the people to do what needs to be done, even if they don’t want to do it, to get to be productive. Now, that’s an easy thing to say. It’s not an easy thing to do, but you do need that strong middle, and you do need to convey to people that you need to have the strong middle to change productivity.

And, you know, and are you in it? Are you in it? Are you patriotic and in it? And, you know, but you look at history. How did the United States come to be the United States? People will go to the places that are better than them, then stay in the places that worse for them. This is fundamental, right?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Incentives.

RAY DALIO: So you have to make the place better. Now, I would say also you can take pockets and they go into the pocket and let it spread out. But you also have to have this equal education or, you know, you’ve got to strive for equal opportunity. But anyway, it’s a difficult question that I’m afraid I’m incapable of solving.

STEVEN BARTLETT: It was unnerving to hear the tone of your voice drop when I asked it. You seemed slightly as if you. You’ve kind of given up on the UK a little bit. Your facial reaction?

RAY DALIO: No, I’m just a practical guy. I’m a realistic guy. I made my money. I’m in the business. And it’s my nature to try to be realistic and to bet on how things will transpire. And that’s not healthy. The situation in the UK is not healthy. And the situation in the United States is very risky in many ways. It’s what we’re describing.

So, you know, and then if you look, where are people going? Then you see the places that have the qualities we’re talking about. They’re civil, they’re creative. The people aren’t at war with each other.

Historical Patterns: The Path to Autocracy

STEVEN BARTLETT: What happens next in history?

RAY DALIO: Well, usually there’s a big fight for.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Control, political revolutions and things like that.

RAY DALIO: The system breaks down because they don’t trust the system. So will the legal system resolve that? Will the parliamentary system resolve that? These disputes satisfactorily to the satisfaction of those people and the other people who have different points of view. And the sides won’t believe it.

And this goes back. This goes back to Rome. It goes back to Caesar, you know, the Senate. This goes back through history all the time, right? In the 30s, four major democracies chose to be autocracies. That happened in Italy, Germany, Spain and Japan.

STEVEN BARTLETT: What’s autocracy for anyone that doesn’t know the words?

RAY DALIO: Well, it means a dictatorship essentially, of a limited number of people at the top who are autocratic, which means that they are directing things, rather than a democracy in which there’s representatives of all different points of view that get together. And follow rules to make decisions.

STEVEN BARTLETT: So the UK could become an autocracy, as could the US I guess.

RAY DALIO: You’re going to see a lot of pressure for that strong leader who will get control of things and make it work well. And you’re likely to see two different views as to which side, you know, the red and the blue sides, so to speak. You’re likely to see that type of clash.

STEVEN BARTLETT: You said the US is playing a risky game itself. Is that from a debt perspective or otherwise?

RAY DALIO: From these things? From the debt, from the internal conflict, from the changing world order, the geopolitical world conflict. I don’t know. We’re playing with nuclear weapons in wars in different places. And then of course, climate and then the technology war, how we’re doing that.

China’s Rise and Global Power Transitions

STEVEN BARTLETT: You know, I saw that image the other day of Putin and President Xi and China together, walking together. If China does become the dominant force in the world, the dominant power, is that a smooth transition?

RAY DALIO: First of all, I don’t think either side is going to be the clearly dominant power for a very long time. And the quickest way to have it is some kind of a war. And that’s a dangerous thing. But maybe it evolves, hopefully the way the Soviet Union evolved, that the worry of mutually assured destruction keeps everybody not having that kind of war.

And then the systems, one system or another system wins. But that’s an evolutionary process. And I can’t say.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Do you think much about time frames, because when I was watching, when I was going through the changing world order, there seems to be somewhat consistent or predictable time frames when these transitions happen. Do you think about where we are?

RAY DALIO: Well, they’re long term, big cycles. Right? It’s like a life cycle. On average they are about a life cycle, about 80 years. But it’s not predetermined, just like your life cycle is not predetermined. Like if you take care of yourself and you, you know, I don’t know, don’t smoke, eat well, exercise and so on and so forth, then you will probably have a longer life cycle than if you don’t take care of yourself.

And it’s kind of like that, you know, and so you see them in history, they evolved, but you can see the symptoms. You can see the actions and the symptoms, which, like taking a physical then gives you a sense of where they are in their life cycles.

STEVEN BARTLETT: We’re 80 years from World War II.

RAY DALIO: 80 years from World War II. Yeah.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And you’re seeing the symptoms.

RAY DALIO: Yeah, symptoms are clear. They’re all in that book. You can see the charts of all the systems.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Is it something to be worried about or concerned about if you’re in the United States?

RAY DALIO: No. Shit. Yes. And then the question is how you as an individual handle it.

Personal Strategies: The Smart Rabbit Approach

STEVEN BARTLETT: How do I as an individual handle it?

RAY DALIO: Well, first of all, I think you have to be aware of the situation and the risks for me and my.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Family, though, in terms of risks and how I should counteract those risks. Is it a case of me saving for a rainy day? Is it a case?

RAY DALIO: That’s part of it, yeah. There’s this. There’s a saying in Hong Kong, a Chinese saying, which is “a smart rabbit has three holes.” And what that means is, you can see, is it the UK or the US And I can then move to the better place and get out of the place. That’s a terrible place. So can I successfully be an immigrant or whatever and change my location? Throughout history, that’s been important.

So the ability to go to good places and away from bad places, that’s part of it. Secondly, building your financial strength is important, which has to do with how you earn, spend and save. That will determine the amount. And then what you do with that amount is invest. And so how you invest is also important.

So if you have your financial ability and you can make the move and then you have knowledge, you know, about what’s happening so that you can change things, those are the things you need.

STEVEN BARTLETT: So on that first point about a smart rabbit having three holes, is it therefore a better decision at this point in time to not. To not buy a house? Because a lot of people end up buying a house and anchors them to a place, and it means that they then have to pay into a mortgage.

So a lot of the financial advice most of us have growing up is when you get enough money to buy a house, move in, pay that mortgage for 25 years. But if I’m in a new economy, in a new world, and flexibility and the ability to get up and go and move is. There’s value to that.

RAY DALIO: The ability to move capital matters. And if you look at history, this has been an important consideration. Yes. So it matters. So if you’re nailing yourself down and that’s your primary capital and it’s nailed down there, then those limit your flexibility.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And on the point of earning, spending and saving, I wonder what.

RAY DALIO: You’re a.

STEVEN BARTLETT: You’re a father, aren’t you?

RAY DALIO: Yeah.

The Path to Meaningful Work and Wealth

STEVEN BARTLETT: What advice are you giving to your children about earning money in the current world where they should set up their shop, the skills that are most valuable to acquire the technologies. We talked about the US being a place to one of the better places to build your career for all the reasons you described.

RAY DALIO: Well, that’s kind of like the particular that you asked me for. That’s below the level of the higher level. The higher level is I have a principle: Make your work and your passion the same thing. And don’t forget about the money part.

If you make your work and your passion the same thing so that you’re really enjoying your work, you’ll have an enjoyable, satisfactory life and you’ll probably be better at your career. As a result, you’ll probably advance and so on, so you have a happier life and you will have probably a more successful life.

But it is true that the careers that you choose will have financial implications. And if you say “I want to be a poet” or something along those lines, you better consider the financial implications of that. That doesn’t mean that you have to go make a ton of money, because I think a lot of people fall into that trap that they think the money is like vast amounts of money is vast amounts of success. And that’s not true.

In other words, is your work and your passion the same thing? So I think that what brings people happiness is meaningful work and meaningful relationships. If you have meaningful work that you’re into and your passion and your work’s the same thing and you have meaningful relationships, whether through that work or beyond, you’re going to have probably a great life.

And you have to keep that in mind. And it doesn’t have much correlation past a certain level of money doesn’t have much correlation with that well being with the amount of money you have. And you see studies across societies and you’ll see that past that certain basic level, there’s no correlation between the amount of money they have and how much happiness they have or well being.

That the highest level of correlation across societies in studies of happiness and well being is community. Do you have a sense of community? Do you have those around you who are your community? You’ll live longer that way. You’ll have a more joyous life and it’ll be a better outcome. But anyway, so thinking about those things I think is important.

Playing Different Games at Different Life Stages

STEVEN BARTLETT: Based on your life cycle in this book, principles, your guided journey, create your own principles to get the work and life you want. Do you think you have to play different games in different seasons of your life cycle as it relates to generating wealth? And what I’m talking about here is really risk profile or what I should be optimizing for. Should I be trying to hang around with Ray Dalio or should I be focusing on the job that pays me the most?

RAY DALIO: First of all, the answer is yes. And the second question you asked, the answer is that you should be around the people who are the best people to teach you, to operate by, the mentors and the learnings and so on. You should be around the best people. And when I say best people, I mean people of good character and good capabilities. And so you should be around the best, not the job that pays you the most.

And yes, in terms of that arc, you will play it differently at different parts of your life cycle. So in the early part of your life cycle, what you’re going to do is, I mean the more learning and experiencing is the most important thing that you can do in the learning in the early part of your life cycle, it’s like you’re going to make your choices. What direction am I going to be in, and so on and so forth. So learn. That’s most important.

And then what? You’re at the end of your life cycle, you’re pretty much relieved from all of that. You’re not going to be working to earn. You’re going to be free of all of that. You’re going to have and you have freedom of choices and so on. And you’re going to be thinking about transitioning. How do I transition? Well being or how do I transition my wealth or how do I transition? And so on. That’s where you are.

Still learning is a joy, but at the same time, in terms of trying to accomplish, it’s not the same at your late part of your life cycle as it is in your early part of your life cycle.

Ray Dalio’s Early Career Journey

STEVEN BARTLETT: So I want to ask about your early life cycle and what the most important strategic or wealth generating decisions you made that you would encourage everybody to consider if their nature is aligned to yours.

RAY DALIO: My nature was I hated school. I didn’t like the whole thing of remembering this and remembering this and then give it back to me. And there were these, history, like there’s William the Conqueror in 1066 and what did he do? And all of that was what education represented.

And when I was 12, a kid, I earned money with odd jobs. I had a paper route and I mowed lawns and I caddied and I took my caddying money. And when I was 12, I got, everybody was talking about the stock market. So I put some money in the stock market. I didn’t know what I was doing, of course, but I picked the stock. It was the only stock I ever heard of that was selling for less than $5 a share. And my reasoning was I could buy more shares. So if it went up, I could make more money.

That was a stupid criteria, but it was a company that was about to go bankrupt, and another company acquired it and it tripled in price. And I said, “I like this game.” So I got hooked on the game. I’m still hooked on the game, right? So I liked it.

That affected me. So I barely got into C.W. Post College, and then I went to Harvard Business School. And that opened my eyes to the world in many ways because of who were there and what it was like and all that. The best and the brightest kind of thing. But I always still traded markets because I always played the game. I mean, I can tell you stories. You want a couple of quick stories?

STEVEN BARTLETT: 100%.

The Nixon Shock and Early Market Lessons

RAY DALIO: So I’m clerking on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange between graduating from college in the summer, between graduating from college and going to Harvard Business School. And that is 1970, the summer of 1971. And on August 15, 1971, Richard Nixon gets on the television and says that the promise that you were going to be able to take your paper money and go get gold. You can’t do that. And we’re going to cut that off. He didn’t say it in exactly those words, but money then was gold. And what we think of as paper money, fiat money, was claims on the gold.

So I walked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange that summer, and I thought the market was going to go down a lot. And the market went up a lot. And I didn’t understand why, because I never went through a devaluation before. And I studied history, and I found that in March of 1933, Roosevelt got on the radio and made the exact same announcement. That you’re not going to get your gold, and they’re going to print the money. And when you print a lot of money, you have that.

So I learned that history of things that never happened in my lifetime before were important things to understand. I went back then to Harvard Business School for two years. And two years later, as a result of all the printing of money and the oil shock, because of all of that, we had the 1973 oil shock. And now, because of my background, I’m hired to be director of commodities at a Wall Street brokerage firm.

And then all sorts of things happened. Turbulence and so on and so forth. That firm went broke. I went to another firm. And I was rowdy. I wasn’t your typical good employee. Follow everything. And so I got fired. And that was in 1975. And then I. But clients all like me things. And so they would pay me for advice. And I continued to trade the markets. And that’s when I formed Bridgewater. That was 1975. I just passed along Bridgewater 50 years later.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

Building Bridgewater: Pain Plus Reflection Equals Progress

RAY DALIO: So there’s a journey there that has failures and successes and learnings. I have a principle: Pain plus reflection equals progress. Your best learnings come from the pain. It’s a message. Pay attention. Learn how reality works and how to deal with it differently. So you have principles for dealing with reality better. And I learned that process. And from that process, my company, Bridgewater, became the largest hedge fund in the world. Extremely successful, managing $150 billion. 1500 people.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And that’s made you a very wealthy man.

RAY DALIO: And made me a very wealthy man. Which, by the way, was not my intention. I just wanted to play the game and to have meaningful work and meaningful relationships, that was paramount. But it happened to be the game I played. If you’re good at the game, you make a lot of money. And now I’m at a stage in my life where I want to pass things along. I need to pass things along. Right? So hence the books, hence our conversation, and here we are. That’s the life arc. But I learned a lot. And so that’s the journey.

Dealing with Pain: The Ultimate Learning Tool

STEVEN BARTLETT: Just for context, people don’t like talking about money and I understand it, but you’re a prolific philanthropist. Also, Google says that your net worth is in the tens of billions of dollars. And I’m sure there’s some people that have clicked on this conversation and aren’t aware of the scale of wealth you built up and the scale of Bridgewater Capital and how prolific and famous it is in the investing world. In that 50 year life arc, one of the things you mentioned is pain. All of us will encounter pain. And you said pain plus reflection. Reflection equals progress. How have you learned to deal with pain? You’ve had a lot of pain in all facets of life because you’ve lived the life arc and you continue to. What’s the best principle for dealing with pain?

The Power of Meditation and Reflection

RAY DALIO: First of all, to calm yourself down and to get centered. Meditation has had a big beneficial effect on my life. We can get into meditation in a minute of how it has, but the ability to calm yourself down and when the time is right, to reflect on what’s happened, both to understand how reality works.

You want to be a hyper realist. I understand how reality works. Therefore I need to do this under this set of circumstances, which means developing principles. And so what I did, when I would do that, anytime, whenever I would think, what should I do? Whether painful or not, I would pause, reflect on what should I do if that happened again. And that’s how I would write down my principles.

And what I did was I wrote down a lot of principles. If this happens, that happens, and whatever. And so I wrote these principles down. And then I found that in investing, if I can computerize those decision rules, I could back test them, see how they would have worked and so on. So I built systems, decision making systems, computer would make decisions. So it was AI before LLMs, but it was AI to have decision making criteria.

So it would be like I would make a computer chess game that would play, while I am playing my mental chess game, what moves we would make. And it’s completely automated and so on. But what I’m trying to say is that reflecting on how does reality really work and what do I do when this happens to that happens is the development of principles. And that has been invaluable.

And it also makes me see things differently because a lot of people, and if I didn’t do this, I would be seeing almost as a blizzard of things coming at me. Instead, I see everything as another one of those. So let’s say, for example, it’s a species. So it’s like seeing, okay, what kind of species is it and how do I deal with that species? So it’s one of those rather than just a lot of things coming at me.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Pattern recognition.

RAY DALIO: Yeah. But let’s say if you think of it’s a duck.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Okay, okay.

RAY DALIO: Oh, okay, it’s a duck. How do I deal with the duck? Or it’s a lion. Okay, how do I deal with a lion? Rather than just a lot of things coming at it. So this principle, thinking and seeing it that way had a big effect on the quality of my decision making, and that helped.

Developing Principled Thinking

STEVEN BARTLETT: Two questions I had there is to become a principled thinker, I need to do more reflection. Right. And then the other thing is think.

RAY DALIO: About how does the machine, how does life, how do these things work? So that’s what I mean.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And to write that down.

RAY DALIO: Yeah, yeah, write down your thoughts. I find sometimes what I would do is I’d dictate them into my iPhone. I’d say, okay, this is how, when you’re making a decision, why did you make that decision? So not just make a decision, but think about the criteria you’re using to make the decision.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Also my emotions, my trauma, my insecurities, my anxiety.

RAY DALIO: Right. And you might say, when reflecting on that, is that helpful? Is that harmful? And what do I do about that? Like, for example, what you’re referring to is, yes, the emotions and the things and all of those. You have to understand that basically the brain’s got two parts to it. Right? It has the logical part of your brain, reasonable tries to reason things through, which is conscious. And then it has the subconscious mind, which is the subliminal that is really driving you.

And so when you can reflect, okay, how my emotions entering into it, what do I do, and so on. And you can think and you can align that. That’s very powerful.

Understanding Transcendental Meditation

And meditation, by the way, naturally does that because what you do when you meditate and maybe a time’s coming, I should explain meditation, how it works, what you do is, it’s a process by which you sit quietly and you repeat in your mind what is called a mantra, which is a sound that it’s a word that has no meaning. Let me say the most classic example of that would be “om.” So you quietly there and you go with your breath, you go “om.” Like that. But you need to be taught.

But anyway, when you’re doing that because your mantra is in your mind, you’re not able to have other thoughts. You’ll see yourself wavering between doing that and staying on the mantra and then having thoughts. And then you go back to your mantra. When you are in the mantra a lot, then it disappears, the sound disappears, and you go into your subconscious mind. That’s what they call transcending. Transcendental meditation is meditation I do.

And so you go there, and you’re not in a conscious state and you’re not in an unconscious state. You’re in a subconscious state. It’s not unconscious, is you’re sleeping. Conscious is that you’re awake like we are. You’re in this. So it’s a different state. Like if you hear the noise, you would hear that noise. It would be big. Not when you’re sleeping, but when you’re in your subconscious state, then it’s relaxing. It’s helpful.

And this process helps to bring your conscious state and your subconscious state into alignment. In other words, you recognize both and it calms you down. It’s like the ninja in the ninja movies, they’re fighting, but it seems in slow motion. The camera shows them in slow motion and they’re doing whatever they’re doing along that it kind of makes you in that kind of state of mind so that you’re dealing with what’s coming at you in that way. And so what you referred to is these things that happen and how you deal with those is really important to the quality of your decision making.

STEVEN BARTLETT: How influential was Transcendental Meditation in your success?

RAY DALIO: Oh, enormously successful. Enormously significant. Very, very significant. In other words, that way of seeing.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Things and how often.

RAY DALIO: And by the way, there’s the serenity prayer. The serenity prayer is, “God, give me the serenity to accept that which I can’t control and give me the power to control that which I can and the wisdom to tell the difference.” And so to how you approach these things, we’re talking about reflection. You asked me reflection. If you can reflect in that quality way then you deal with anything.

And I’ve dealt with the worst possible thing. I lost a son, and I would have rather died. I would have rather lost everything to lose my son. So it’s the worst possible thing. And then to see what it did, the damage and the harm and fear from family, terrible. Then to go through that with meditation, with reflection and so on was invaluable. And people have their own challenges. But to be able to do it that way, I really urge your audience, I urge you to learn that. That’s very helpful.

Tragedy and Life’s Arc

STEVEN BARTLETT: How did that tragedy change your perspective and your principles in any way on life, on happiness, on success, on all these things that you’ve written about?

RAY DALIO: Well, it’s again, I go above it and you reflect on the life arc. And I realize at that higher level that that’s what the life arc is like in all my books. There’s this arcing. Here’s a bigger version of it. And that’s what life and evolution is like to me. Meaning you make advances, you will have setbacks. If you reflect well and you learn how reality works and how you will deal with it, you will get past that and go on. And that’s just what it is. That’s just the way life is. And if you do that well, then that’s your best possible life.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Are you religious? Are you a religious person?

RAY DALIO: I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual. The Dalai Lama, who I had the pleasure of meeting, told me, and I agree with that. Religions are typically a mix between superstitions and spirituality. There’s half of it is that element that nobody knows, but there is the way people should deal with each other. There is karma. All religions, there’s a part of them that says, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, or what goes around, comes around. And then you get to the particulars.

And it is true that if we work well together, that even little things I can do to help you can make a big difference in your life. And little things that you can do to help me make a big difference in our lives. And so it’s practical, and it is also joyous. That creates a relationship. And we talked earlier about how that meaningful relationship is like the source of great happiness. But when you have a community and you do that, you have a better society. And almost all religions will tell you that there’ll be elements of those.

And when I believe in spirituality, what I also mean is we’re all part of this greater whole. We’re all part of the greater whole. And if you could see yourself as part of the greater whole and love the greater whole and whatever that is spirituality, really. And so I will go through my life arc and I will die. And I’m comfortable with that. It’s all part of the greater whole. Nature and whatever it is. That’s true. I can’t tell you about other things, but I do believe in the things I just told you.

The Importance of Hard Work

STEVEN BARTLETT: When it comes to living a successful life, we’ve talked about having dreams and understanding your nature and aspiring for things and then understanding reality, which transcendental meditation is a great mechanism and vehicle to do. And in your book about a successful life, you talk about plus determination plus determination, hard work. If I want to be a successful man or woman, how important do you think hard work is?

RAY DALIO: Well, it gives you power. It’s very important, right?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Some people.

RAY DALIO: Some people, I’m not saying they want to choose it, but the irony of things is there are first order consequences and there are second order consequences. This is like a rule of life. And most of the time, the first order consequences, whether they’re likable or not, has the opposite second order consequences. What I mean by that is like eating or exercising. Eat the food you like. Second order consequences, probably not going to be good. I don’t want to exercise. Second order consequences won’t be as good. Working hard, which gives you strength. Where does strength come from? I mean, strength comes from working hard. So working hard will give you power. Power will make things easier and make things better. That’s just the way it is.

Being Open-Minded and Assertive

STEVEN BARTLETT: And being open minded while you do it.

RAY DALIO: Something that was open minded. Yeah. I say the importance of being open minded and assertive at the same time. I watch people becoming so tied to their own opinions. Like, this is the greatest tragedy of mankind. The greatest tragedy of mankind, because it so easily can be fixed, is holding a strong opinion that is wrong that you could have made right better if you were open to learning more.

If you said, “I want to be stress tested, I want my thinking to be stress tested. I want to make sure that I’m making the better decision and so I’ll be challenged.” But a lot of people view that challenging like a fight. It’s not a fight if somebody holds a different opinion. It should prompt a curiosity. I don’t know, am I wrong or are they wrong? There’s a 50% chance, I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. So it should prompt curiosity and an exchange to try to make sure that you’re seeing the whole picture and so on. But subliminal instincts are, I’m going to stick with it and I’m going to have a fight.

STEVEN BARTLETT: That’s a problem because there’s too much on the line for so many people to.

RAY DALIO: It’s subliminal. It just goes back to the mind thinking that the intellectual challenge is a fight and it’s egotistical. Ego. I must be right.

STEVEN BARTLETT: As an investor and entrepreneur. That’s obviously particularly important because you’re constantly dealing with new information and feedback which you need to be flexible.

RAY DALIO: That was one of the two things that changed my whole direction and made me successful. I can explain it if you want.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Please.

The 1982 Crisis and Learning from Failure

RAY DALIO: In 1979 and 1980, I had calculated that American banks had lent more money to foreign countries than they were going to be able to pay back and that we were going to have a debt crisis. Very controversial point of view. In August of 1982, Mexico defaulted on its debts and over the next decade many other countries did and it caused bank problems.

However, at that time I thought things were going to get bad and that was the exact bottom in the stock market August 1982. So I couldn’t have been more wrong. I lost money for me. I lost money for the clients. I lost money. I was so broke that I had to borrow $4,000 from my dad to help to pay for family bills because I was faced with the choice what am I going to do? And do I go back to work on Wall Street, get a tie, get on the train and go back to that which is again not in my nature or whatever.

And two things changed me. Reflection. First of all, I learned what we were just talking about. I learned humility and fear of being wrong and open mindedness. So I wanted the smartest people who I could find to stress test my opinions because I always realized I could be wrong. And then I learned how to diversify my bets so that I could dramatically reduce my risk without reducing my returns.

That was the bottom. From that point all the way over, following those principles took me to the biggest hedge fund in the world, the most successful, and so on because I applied it to the markets, applied it to what we did, and so on. So that notion of reflection and then how do you deal with what reality is like. And then, learn radical open mindedness. In other words, there’s a principle in the book you have to take in before you put out or that decision making is a two step process. First take in, then decide. So yes, open mindedness doesn’t in any way minimize your ability to decide. So you still have the freedom to decide. But it’s crazy not to be open minded.

The Two-Step Decision Making Process

STEVEN BARTLETT: You recognize that the biggest threat to good decision making is harmful emotions. And that two step process is first learn and then make the decision. Which is funny because it sounds simple, but when you said it, I think about all the worst decisions I’ve ever made in business and I missed step one. I forgot to take a minute and do the evidence gathering or the information gathering process.

RAY DALIO: Yeah, just smart people care about your decision. Say stress test me.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Why don’t we do that?

RAY DALIO: That ego and also instinct that that’s a fight.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Is there any advice you would give me on becoming a better decision maker? So I have a fund, I have many businesses. Is there any sort of practical, simple foundations of becoming a better decision maker that we haven’t talked about? Get smart people to interrogate my thinking. Be open minded.

Leveraging Yourself Through Others

RAY DALIO: I think we’ve talked about almost all of them. I think then you have to then know about how to leverage yourself. In other words, as you do more and more. How do you do more and more? When your brain has a capacity limit. And there’s only a certain number of hours in the day or the week. You have to know how to do that.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Is that focus or is that something.

RAY DALIO: No, no, it’s knowing how to do it through others. It’s knowing how to pick others and orchestrate. Well, it’s like running a symphony or whatever. Get the best players. When I say, you know, good character and good capabilities and orchestrate them well, and then provide that leverage.

Like when I was doing the most, I had 30 direct reports, whatever the number is, the process is how to get more out of a minute or a day, not how to work harder. It’s how to leverage yourself. And you’re going to leverage yourself by picking the right people who you can trust. They’re not going to screw you. They’re going to operate in your interest and they’re going to be capable.

And so a lot of people, what you can do is you can deal with them and then you can say like I would deal with them on this 30 reports. I’d have maybe an hour meeting with them. Once every two weeks, and they go off and do things. And when you do that, you can even find people who are much better at things than you would be if you did them. Because if you have these different things, you better, because otherwise you don’t have the capacity.

STEVEN BARTLETT: You have these two key challenges to overcome as an entrepreneur, which is find these great, capable people that have great character and then bind them with the right culture to make sure that they do the best work.

Radical Truthfulness and Transparency

RAY DALIO: Right. In other words, it’s meaningful work and meaningful relationships through radical truthfulness and radical transparency.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Radical truthfulness and transparency.

RAY DALIO: First, if you can have meaningful work and meaningful relationships, the people are on the mission with you. Wow, that’s fantastic. But you better be truthful and transparent. That’ll show that you’re honest, and you better, because you have to get a truth, including what people are bad at and how to deal with all those things. And most people hide them. They don’t bring them out into the open.

Everybody’s worried about hurting each other’s feelings or, you know, that. And then so they’re not honest with each other. And that’s the barrier we talked about, the barrier of disagreement. It’s like that. You know, I don’t know. Are you good at that? Are you striking out? If you’re striking out, and what is it? How do we deal with it? You better talk about that clearly, because you need to have an A team of players. You know, you have to work yourself. So your team is an A team of players who are tight.

STEVEN BARTLETT: How did you do that at Bridgewater? How did you make people honest?

RAY DALIO: Well, first of all, at a policy talk behind another person’s back, critically, that happens three times, you’re out. And then I would have radical transparency so everybody could see everything. So you could see why I’m making decisions, and I would reflect. But the main thing is, you know, if it’s happening or not. And I made that comfortable because that’s ordinarily uncomfortable.

We talked about the fact that there’s an intellectual you and there’s an emotional, subliminal you. I made them understand, like if I had a team, a football team and so on, that this is going to be better for the team, it’s going to be better for you, and you’ll have your evolution because what do you want to have? Dishonesty? Do you want people to think one thing about you and really say something different? How is that going to work? So there’s an intellectual. We believe it.

And then also by having the meaningful relationships, I mean, I don’t force them. I create a culture of meaningful relationships so that they know each other for a long time. They go to each other’s parties or they go to each other’s. There are funerals, there are baby showers. There are these things, not that anybody’s. I created clubs. I said any club that you want to create that has more than 20 people, whatever it is, up to $500 per version, I’ll pay for half. So I don’t care what it is. If it’s play softball or play chess or whatever it is that you’re enjoying each other’s company or you want to go to ball games or something, I don’t care what it is. I’ll pay for half. Up to that, up to $500. So nobody has obligations to or something. But if I have that kind of meaningful relationships so you can talk honestly with each other, I found that very helpful.

Building an Idea Meritocracy

STEVEN BARTLETT: And you’ve built a. Famously built an idea meritocracy, which in my understanding means where the best idea ends up winning in the company versus just your idea because you’re the most powerful person in the business.

RAY DALIO: Right? I mean, what do I want? I want the best idea to win.

STEVEN BARTLETT: This sounds simple, but again, it’s not how businesses operate. One of the fascinations I’ve always had is that when businesses get bigger and they have more intellectual horsepower by. I mean, if you just added up how many brains they had, they sometimes get less innovative and it feels like the CEO.

RAY DALIO: Well, because they become more bureaucratic and more fragmented.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

The 75-100 Person Threshold

RAY DALIO: I found it to be true. And it’s well established fact that if you get a group of people past a certain size, which is 75 to 100 people, they don’t know each other. They start to become different and then you lose those relationships, you lose a lot and so on.

I found it because at the holiday season every year, what I would do is I would write everybody notes, long notes in their cards and I would pick an individualized holiday gift for them. And when it got to be to 67 people, I remember the year it broke my back. I mean, I just couldn’t do it. And I realized that at that point I was going into another frame.

And so it’s a organizational reality that you can keep that group. And then what you have to do is then you have different those different areas and you have to create cohesiveness between those different cohesiveness, common mission. And how do you do that between that? So like for example, when we would have our holiday party where it used to be, everybody would be, you know, sort of go in and you have a holiday party and everybody together. What I found out is we had a big arena that we would go to and I’d have both. I’d have, that department is in that area and whatever. And then they come out and they all mingle together and so on. So there’s an organizational thing that you’ve got to realize in terms of culture and management of that.

STEVEN BARTLETT: It’s like villages in a city, I guess. Like you basically keep. Build the villages and then.

RAY DALIO: Good example.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah, interesting. Our media companies at that exact point now it’s at. It’s at that 90, 90 odd people.

RAY DALIO: There you are.

STEVEN BARTLETT: When you said 75 to 100, I was like, interesting.

RAY DALIO: Yeah.

The Importance of Hiring

STEVEN BARTLETT: I was thinking about all the things I should be doing now to counteract some of those adverse effects of culture splintering or relationships breaking down. But I guess you’ve described it there. Interesting. And I have to say, one of the things that I found to be most. I’m 33 years old. I just turned 33 last week. It’s crazy how, how often people say that hiring is the most important thing yet when you look at how what entrepreneurs are spending their time on, it’s usually like the product, the marketing, et cetera. And it’s maybe like one or two hours in some cases, if they’re lucky, on finding truly exceptional people, they often just outsource it to someone else, the recruitment team. When you think back through your career, how important was it to find truly exceptional people?

Systemizing the Hiring Process

RAY DALIO: Of course. Well, I systemized it. First of all, I think that anything I do or one does can be systemized. So I would think, what are the personalities, what are the backgrounds of the people that I’m hiring? What are the choices? How do I specify it? And I got it by also maintaining a lot of data with people. There’s a TED Talk I did that explains how like data, everybody’s going around and they’re operating in a certain way. So I know what people are like. If you know what people are like, you know what you can expect of them.

And then I would then say in a very data way, those people who are successful in these jobs have the following attributes that would create a job specifications for that type of job. So I knew that in that type of job there would be that type of person I’m looking for, what works? They work. Data. And then I would find that would be my job spec. And so we had the systems and then we had some people who are responsible for doing that. Because you’re right, it takes time. How can I interview all those people? And so on, but who can you trust? And you’re operating that way.

And then evaluation process doesn’t stop when you hire them. The valuation process continues from that moment and you still learn more about what they’re like and you do that same process and still think, would I still have hired them? And if I wouldn’t have hired them in the first place, then they shouldn’t be there. And so I have a process. And people, people in process, do people.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Change after a certain point? So if you’ve hired someone in six months, in 12 months, and they haven’t changed, is it worth giving them another year? Is it worth a performance review?

The Importance of Cultural Adaptation in Leadership

RAY DALIO: I found out that for me, the big question, mostly there were two big questions, but the big question is, how do you adapt to my culture? And that would take about 18 months to find out. Like, can you speak honestly about what? Can we have thoughtful disagreement? Do you like this evolutionary process where you’re challenged and all of this kind of thing?

That culture, that’d take about 18 months. And then, roughly speaking, then learning about the people, their strengths and weaknesses would take 18 months, 2 years maybe something along those lines. And so then you could pretty much decide. But always being open every day by day, so nobody’s surprised that you’re always talking about things, you know, how’s it going?

AI as a Powerful Leveraging Tool

STEVEN BARTLETT: AI is a bit of an alien that seems to have entered the room and has is going to change almost every industry.

RAY DALIO: Great. Yeah.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic.

RAY DALIO: No, truly, if you are working with it, controlling it, if it’s a good partner to be able to get a lot of leverage, it’s truly fantastic. As I said in almost everything I did, we had the criteria, we had the systemized. Would you do that? Would you not do that? How did you know? How does reality work? What are the principles?

And so it’s a fantastic leveraging like I described. I would make the decision making model like the computer chess game that would make it. Well now it’s better than ever those resources. So it leverages you enormously.

AI’s Impact on Economic Inequality

STEVEN BARTLETT: What about having a strong middle? We talked about having a strong sort of economic political middle.

RAY DALIO: Political middle, yeah, yeah.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Is it going to drive inequality?

RAY DALIO: Yes, it’s going to. That’s like all good, like all things. It’s going to be. It has good things and bad things. And we were talking, let’s say first about managing and doing that. I think in managing and knowing what people are like and how they’re all. It’s going to be very valuable, mostly very valuable in terms of changing.

There’ll be a limited number of winners and a bunch of losers and I think it’s going to create much greater polarity which as we’re seeing through the system, the ways that we talked about, you know, that top 1 to 10% benefiting a lot. So that will be a dividing force.

The Future of Human Labor in an AI World

STEVEN BARTLETT: I think I’ve got to pose a question. With robotics accelerating at the speed of light with Optimus and Tesla and all the things they’re doing, and all these other companies, humanoid robots, and then with artificial intelligence having trillions of dollars plowed into it and accelerating, we’re in this crazy boom at the moment with these two things combining.

You’re going to be able to have a humanoid robot that can navigate human spaces, but is also smarter than I am. Lawyers, accountants, lots of people in the medical profession. Why would you. Why would one need them if we had a humanoid robot that is smarter than all of us and has a PhD and everything?

RAY DALIO: Well, we will not need a lot of those jobs for the reasons that you’re saying. Okay. And then the question is what our society does.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And what do you think we do in such a world?

RAY DALIO: I think we fight over about what we do, unfortunately. But as I say, I don’t think we have escaped a world where most people have a healthy society. Most people have to be productive and prosperous. I don’t. I think people need to be now, certainly there. And there certainly needs to be a redistribution policy.

I don’t think that’s just a redistribution of money policy because uselessness and money may not be a great combination. So I think that you have. That has to be figured out. And the question is whether we’re too fragmented to figure that out and agree on it. And I’m worried about that.

Historical Precedents for Technological Disruption

STEVEN BARTLETT: Interesting times. Is there any historical precedence for this, in your view, someone that knows history? Is there any historical precedence for something like AI and robotics converging well.

RAY DALIO: Through evolution? We have gone from a period of time which was called the Dark Ages or the Agricultural age, in which basically there was land, it’s agricultural, and so on, and people were treated. They were essentially like oxen, most people. And then there were the landowners who were the nobles, and then there were the royalty who, with the families that control most things and so on.

And then in history, with the invention of the printing press, there became more knowledge, more intelligence. And we see an evolution in which you start to see new ages emerge and thinking emerge and power change. And I won’t take you through the whole history, but you start to see that individuals can be clever enough to earn money.

So you begin the age of exploration and the industrial revolutions in which machines replaced people and it’s almost like they first replaced them physically. In other words, they didn’t have. They were not like oxen doing the thing. So you get a tractor or something and it’s almost like for of the body up in terms of the Mind.

And so you’ve seen that evolution through time and the rise of intelligence in its various forms go through this arc of rising in intelligence. And now you see that intelligence matters more than anything. Okay? It matters more than money. It matters more than anything because intelligence will attract people to, among those with money to invest in them in the development of that.

And so we have seen this arc through history develop in that way, right? And we’ve seen people replaced. Now the question is, as we get higher and higher in thinking, okay, whether we’ve run out of capacity to shift or whether we’re just going to be totally replaced. Our muscles have been totally replaced, replaced. But, okay, as this is happening, our best thinking may be totally replaced and we’re going to have to deal with that question.

Hope and Human Nature in the Age of AI

STEVEN BARTLETT: Are you hopeful?

RAY DALIO: I’m excited. I’m. I think it all comes down to human nature. Okay. I’m excited in that fast forward. Make the most of it, jump on it, you know, I’m excited. I’ve also watched the evolution of species. Almost all species have come and gone for certain reasons. And they, one of the reasons that they come have come and gone is because almost their strengths are not in all respects great strengths. You can use these things, intelligence to your detriment.

And I believe that the things that these technologies and so on bring us, while very important, extends life expectancy. And all of that is not as important as human nature. And so if you were to go back in time and we’re at different societies, do you have happier societies? Is the well being greater?

Okay, so you can go 50 years ago and you might say the well being is greater 50 years ago. Not in all ways, not in many ways. The technologies and the consequences of those are much better. But you may have had a better life and it’s human nature of how people are going to deal with each other.

So I think the real question is, can people rise above this? And which. It goes back to the spirituality question. Can people then rise above it so that they think of the collective good and they think of, you know, collectively, how do we make the best? And also karma, you know, in other words, the realization that if I help you in ways that can be so simple for me to help you make such a big difference in your life and you do the same and we have win win relationships, it’ll be good, but if we don’t do that, and I worry about human nature and I worry about this process, especially when you’ve got geopolitical tensions and it’s because of human nature.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I’ve had a lot of conversations on the podcast about AI, and I just can’t seem to get to my own solid conclusion about this. Because when I look at human nature, as you say, I see greed, I see power, hunger, status.

RAY DALIO: Yeah, some problems. Just accept the fact that you may not be able to be confident about a prediction in the future, so it’ll always be a question, and just get on with the fact of using it for yourself in the best way that works for you.

Book Recommendations from Ray Dalio

STEVEN BARTLETT: That’s what I’m doing. We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next, not knowing who they’re leaving it for. You know, this person because I’ve seen you with them. The question they left for you is what is a book or books that you’ve recommended or gifted more than others, and why? Can’t say your own.

RAY DALIO: But right. There are three books. There’s a book on evolution, but written by Richard Dawkins, “River from Eden,” I think it’s called, then a book by Will and Ariel Durant, which are the. Maybe the greatest historians in time. And it’s called “Lessons from History.” It’s a very short book. I think it’s 104 pages. They wrote massive amounts, about 5,000 years of history and so on. And they sort of condense their lessons. “Lessons from History.” And then Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey.”

STEVEN BARTLETT: Is it “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”?

RAY DALIO: Yes, that’s it “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.”

STEVEN BARTLETT: And why Dawkins book? Why did you say that one?

RAY DALIO: Oh, he understands evolution. Everything is evolving, okay? All species. Man is one of 10,000 species. I mean, and they’re. And they’re all structured simply. There’s a structure. They, you know, like two eyes, a brain that has a structure to it that. And the same parts of the brain. There’s the cerebrum, the cerebellum, the prefrontal cortex. There’s this structure that makes you think differently and so on. There’s evolution. There’s all evolution.

So it’s not just limited to human evolution or what humans are like. It’s the force of evolution. Mankind is only about 200,000 years old in history. That’s short, okay? And the species. And all species evolve, okay? And it’s very interesting. So that’s, you know, that’s what his books are about. And, you know, I think they’re very good.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey,” the.

RAY DALIO: “The Hero with the Thousand Faces.” It’s about human nature and the evolution of life. And the life journey that we’re talking about.

The Value of Interdisciplinary Thinking

STEVEN BARTLETT: What I find so interesting, Ray, is how you draw on principles from other domains, whether it’s from nature or biology, as you were talking about there, to tie into your work in business and investing and everything else and life and happiness. And it really says something to me about being more eclectic and be broadly curious in order to be successful in my.

RAY DALIO: More narrative. Yeah, I just see. Is that to me, maybe too much of a specialist kind of mentality, but the world is being interrelated to these things. If you want to understand how reality works, you can’t say, “I’m going to be just a specialist.” I mean, these are all affected by each other.

The Impact of Ray Dalio’s Work

STEVEN BARTLETT: Thank you so much for writing these books. They are iconic and the YouTube videos that explain these books are iconic. I don’t know who you have on your team that makes the animations and pulls it all together, but not only is the content so important because they are principles, so they’re enduring through time, but they’re so unbelievably accessible to all people of all ages.

And if people haven’t read this book, I’d be shocked. But all of these books are fantastic. This book “Principles” by Ray Dalio, which I’m going to link all of them below for anyone that wants to read them, I suggest you read them all will be formative in your life, even if you’re not interested in business or investing.

Because as it says on the book, they’re principles. And the economy affects us all in ways that we might not understand. We’re all trying to be successful or happy in our own right and that’s interwoven into all of these books. So thank you. I hope you write more books.

RAY DALIO: Well, and thank you because I’m at a stage in my life. This is a symbiotic relationship, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. And my benefit is that I want to pass along these things and we’re doing it together.

And I have found, and it’s joyous to me to know that these things have made a big difference in people’s lives. People come up to me and they say, “Thank you for the difference you’ve made.” And at this stage in life, that’s what I want to do.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I think that’s an understatement. I think it’s had a profound impact. In fact, every person I know, all of my best friends, have taken something from your work which has had a profound impact on their decision making, which has led them to be happier in some way.

And when I told my friends that I was interviewing you, I’m interviewing 16 people while I’m in New York over the next month, when I told my friends, my best friends in the world that I’m interviewing you, all of them were telling me to pass on a message of thanks, because there’s something in one of these books that’s helped them, and they’re all young people in that first season of their life.

And there’s something in all of these books that’s pushed them closer to their success and their happiness. So thank you on behalf of me, because you’ve had a profound impact on me.

RAY DALIO: But thank you. Thank you for giving me that joy. Thank you.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I really, really mean that. Thank you so much.

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