In other words, I just want to be right—I don’t care if the right answer comes from me. So I learned to be radically open-minded to allow others to point out what I might be missing. I saw that the only way I could succeed would be to:
Seek out the smartest people who disagreed with me so I could try to understand their reasoning.
Know when not to have an opinion.
Develop, test, and systemize timeless and universal principles.
Balance risks in ways that keep the big upside while reducing the downside.
Doing these things significantly improved my returns relative to my risks, and the same principles apply in other aspects of life. Most importantly, this experience led me to build Bridgewater as an idea meritocracy—not an autocracy in which I lead and others follow, and not a democracy in which everyone’s vote is equal—but a meritocracy that encourages thoughtful disagreements and explores and weighs people’s opinions in proportion to their merits.
