Ray Dalio: To Be Successful In The Markets You Have To Be An Independent Thinker

Here’s a great interview with Ray Dalio at Bloomberg in which he discusses China, Europe, US Inflation, and his investment strategy. Near the end of the interview (12:48) Dalio says, “In order to be successful in the markets you have to be an independent thinker”.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

Dalio: OK. Nobody in their heads has all the right answers. Right. There’s a range of thinking. We all think differently. And to be able to have an idea of meritocracy in which people can be very straight forward with each other… and then together work on finding out what’s true by understanding the art of thoughtful disagreement, is very powerful.

Because in order to be successful in the markets, or in order to be successful as an entrepreneur you have to be an independent thinker. Because the consensus is built into the price in the markets. So you have to be an independent thinker and be right. That’s true as an entrepreneur, you have to be an independent thinker and be right. You don’t know if you’re right!

The greatest risk. One of the greatest tragedies of man is people holding in their heads wrong opinions that they’re confident about and they don’t put out and stress test them. So what am I talking about? What’s the problem of being radically truthful and radically transparent with each other. It may be uncomfortable for some people and I say get used to it because it’s effective! So what’s the problem with being radically truthful and radically transparent to bring in the best ideas from independent thinking? It improves the probability of being right!

You can watch the full interview here: