I just bought Ray Dalio’s Principles. Well, a physical copy. I listened to the audiobook around when it first came out but after seeing the physical copy in store it definitely seemed worth re-visiting.
I wanted to pour a little bit of concrete over something I listened to on this episode by sharing it here.
Reid Hoffman has a lightning round question:
- “Artificial intelligence fills you with hope or dread? Pick one.”
Ray Dalio picks dread.
They talk it through:
HOFFMAN: So by the way, in radical transparency, I actually have hope. And unfortunately just because of time, because I do want to get through the Lightning Round questions, to our next conversation we’ll go into the AI stuff a little bit more.
DALIO: But let me ask you the question: Do you agree with the principle I just said? In other words if… Lets just chat a minute, because this is invaluable because I’d love your opinion, ok?
This reminded me of What You Do is Who You Are by Ben Horowitz1. Because Ray Dalio wrote a book on principles and using them for decision making. But then you can hear in this discussion that he really walks the walk and brings principles into the discussion.
Agree on principles and then work from there. Reid Hoffman then also explains the importance of considering context.
In any case, it’s good to hear two smart people discuss something they disagree on2. Dalio for dread, Reid for hope.
(Also, I made a page where I’ll try collecting lightning round questions, starting with this one.)
- That said, everything reminds me of this book because I read it in the past month and really enjoyed it.
- I’ve wanted to write a post collecting a few Brian Koppelman episodes of The Moment where he does a great job having friendly conversations with people on topics he disagrees with them on: Cal Newport on the negativity of social media, Pete Wells on Peter Luger sputtering, and Adam Carolla on just about everything