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> [Asked] “How do you deal with this war criminal?” > Don’t be so simpleminded, Dalio replied. He told her to keep her emotions in check, as The Principles pre

by V__ 3y ago

> [Asked] “How do you deal with this war criminal?” > Don’t be so simpleminded, Dalio replied. He told her to keep her emotions in check, as The Principles prescribed. “If you’re so smart,” he sniffed, “why aren’t you rich?” It was a line Dalio had used countless times before. I enjoyed reading his principles and his newsletter has some interesting insights but then you read something like this and you wonder how people walk the line between idiot and smart so freely.

pixl97 3y ago
>how people walk the line between idiot and smart so freely. Lack of immediate repercussions, is what I've seen in my life.
mlinhares 3y ago
I think the problem here is that we assume that people that are "smart" in one thing are smart in everything and this is not true at all. People "smarts" seem to be very specific and the myth of the "Renaissance man/polymath genius" is very uncommon.
xyzelement 3y ago
I can explain this as a former BW employee who knows the people involved. Ray's whole thing is intellectual humility: “Before I begin telling you what I think, I want to establish that I’m a “dumb shit” who doesn’t know much relative to what I need to know. Whatever success I’ve had in life has had more to do with my knowing how to deal with my not knowing than anything I know.” [0] One of the concepts for dealing with this is "believability weighting." ie: you may think we should do X, and I think we should do Y, but if out of the two of us, you're the one who's solved this problem - we weigh your opinion more. So what Ray is doing here, is reminding Karen to be intellectually humble - in response to her asserting an opinion. Kinda like "don't believe everything you think." He's saying it in this way because logically "if you knew everything, you'd win every single trade and be ridiculously rich" (to be clear, Karen was co-head of research at the time and quite wealthy) [0] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9871858-before-i-begin-telling-you-what-i-think-i-want https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9871858-before-i-begin-tell...
- waihtis 3y ago
  thank you, interesting to hear inside anecdotes.
- saghm 3y ago
  > So what Ray is doing here, is reminding Karen to be intellectually humble - in response to her asserting an opinion. Kinda like "don't believe everything you think." He's saying it in this way because logically "if you knew everything, you'd win every single trade and be ridiculously rich" Sure, but it's possible to do that without purposely trying to be provocative. Being correct doesn't excuse being a jerk.
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    At BW this would not be considered provocative. We optimized for the most direct/impactful communication. It wasn't meant to wound people's feelings per se - but using the feelings and dealing with them was part of the toolkit. Some of my biggest personal growth at BW happened from conversations w my boss that were very difficult emotionally.
    - saghm 3y ago
      > At BW this would not be considered provocative. We optimized for the most direct/impactful communication. It wasn't meant to wound people's feelings per se - but using the feelings and dealing with them was part of the toolkit. Sorry, I don't buy this. I don't discount your experiences and the fact that you enjoyed this environment, but there's nothing inherent about directness that requires personal insults. If anything, his insults were _less_ direct than saying what he actually meant, as evidenced by the need for your previous comment explaining "what he actually meant was...". The direct way to say "remember, you might not know the whole situation here" is not "don't be simpleminded; if you're so smart, why aren't you rich?", it's literally just stating what you mean. You can formulate a culture around purposely being rude while still being correct, and you might even be successful, but it's not the same as making a culture around being direct, and it's disingenuous to claim otherwise.
esafak 3y ago
I feel compelled to respond, "If you're so rich, why aren't you smart?" 'coz your premise is flawed.
- AlexErrant 3y ago
  You're missing context. In the stock market, you get paid for believing/knowing things others don't. Ray is calling that "smart"ness. If you know better than anyone else, there's a fortune to be made on Wall Street. A problem is that the way he uses "smart" is not in line with how non-financial people think, so when these phrases/anecdotes escape their context it sounds... uh... the way it does. Sure, there might be a better way to phrase what he's saying. But he's not wrong. (Separately, there's a reason why tweets with 500 words of qualifiers and "it depends" and "YMMV" don't catch on. Brevity counts, especially when reminding people that they don't/can't know everything compared to The Market.)

by V__ 3y ago

pixl97 3y ago

>how people walk the line between idiot and smart so freely. Lack of immediate repercussions, is what I've seen in my life.

mlinhares 3y ago

I think the problem here is that we assume that people that are "smart" in one thing are smart in everything and this is not true at all. People "smarts" seem to be very specific and the myth of the "Renaissance man/polymath genius" is very uncommon.

xyzelement 3y ago

I can explain this as a former BW employee who knows the people involved. Ray's whole thing is intellectual humility: “Before I begin telling you what I think, I want to establish that I’m a “dumb shit” who doesn’t know much relative to what I need to know. Whatever success I’ve had in life has had more to do with my knowing how to deal with my not knowing than anything I know.” [0] One of the concepts for dealing with this is "believability weighting." ie: you may think we should do X, and I think we should do Y, but if out of the two of us, you're the one who's solved this problem - we weigh your opinion more. So what Ray is doing here, is reminding Karen to be intellectually humble - in response to her asserting an opinion. Kinda like "don't believe everything you think." He's saying it in this way because logically "if you knew everything, you'd win every single trade and be ridiculously rich" (to be clear, Karen was co-head of research at the time and quite wealthy) [0] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9871858-before-i-begin-telling-you-what-i-think-i-want https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9871858-before-i-begin-tell...

waihtis 3y ago
thank you, interesting to hear inside anecdotes.
saghm 3y ago
> So what Ray is doing here, is reminding Karen to be intellectually humble - in response to her asserting an opinion. Kinda like "don't believe everything you think." He's saying it in this way because logically "if you knew everything, you'd win every single trade and be ridiculously rich" Sure, but it's possible to do that without purposely trying to be provocative. Being correct doesn't excuse being a jerk.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  At BW this would not be considered provocative. We optimized for the most direct/impactful communication. It wasn't meant to wound people's feelings per se - but using the feelings and dealing with them was part of the toolkit. Some of my biggest personal growth at BW happened from conversations w my boss that were very difficult emotionally.
  - saghm 3y ago
    > At BW this would not be considered provocative. We optimized for the most direct/impactful communication. It wasn't meant to wound people's feelings per se - but using the feelings and dealing with them was part of the toolkit. Sorry, I don't buy this. I don't discount your experiences and the fact that you enjoyed this environment, but there's nothing inherent about directness that requires personal insults. If anything, his insults were _less_ direct than saying what he actually meant, as evidenced by the need for your previous comment explaining "what he actually meant was...". The direct way to say "remember, you might not know the whole situation here" is not "don't be simpleminded; if you're so smart, why aren't you rich?", it's literally just stating what you mean. You can formulate a culture around purposely being rude while still being correct, and you might even be successful, but it's not the same as making a culture around being direct, and it's disingenuous to claim otherwise.

esafak 3y ago

I feel compelled to respond, "If you're so rich, why aren't you smart?" 'coz your premise is flawed.

AlexErrant 3y ago
You're missing context. In the stock market, you get paid for believing/knowing things others don't. Ray is calling that "smart"ness. If you know better than anyone else, there's a fortune to be made on Wall Street. A problem is that the way he uses "smart" is not in line with how non-financial people think, so when these phrases/anecdotes escape their context it sounds... uh... the way it does. Sure, there might be a better way to phrase what he's saying. But he's not wrong. (Separately, there's a reason why tweets with 500 words of qualifiers and "it depends" and "YMMV" don't catch on. Brevity counts, especially when reminding people that they don't/can't know everything compared to The Market.)