Ray Dalio: What Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Other Shapers Have in Common | AI Podcast Clips
00:00:00.000 | - You mentioned shapers, Elon Musk, Bill Gates.
00:00:05.000 | What, who are the shapers that you find yourself
00:00:09.340 | thinking about when you're constructing these ideas?
00:00:12.880 | The ones that define the archetype of a shaper for you?
00:00:16.160 | - Well, as I say, a shaper for me is somebody who
00:00:19.760 | comes up with a great visualization,
00:00:22.880 | usually a really unique visualization,
00:00:26.440 | and then actually builds it out
00:00:28.600 | that makes the world different,
00:00:30.320 | changes the world in that kind of a way.
00:00:32.560 | So when I look at it,
00:00:34.160 | Mark Benioff with Salesforce,
00:00:36.400 | Chris Anderson with TED,
00:00:38.440 | Mohammed Yunus with Social Enterprise and Philanthropy,
00:00:42.240 | Jeffrey Canada and Harlem Children's Zone.
00:00:45.280 | There are, all domains have shapers
00:00:49.160 | who have the ability to visualize
00:00:51.800 | and make extraordinary things happen.
00:00:54.200 | - What are the commonalities between some of them?
00:00:56.760 | - The commonalities are, first of all,
00:01:00.720 | the excitement of something new,
00:01:03.960 | that call to adventure,
00:01:05.040 | and then again, that practicality,
00:01:08.080 | the capacity to learn.
00:01:09.720 | The capacity then,
00:01:12.040 | they're able to be in many ways full-range.
00:01:15.400 | That means they're able to go from
00:01:17.880 | the big, big picture down to the detail.
00:01:21.120 | So let's say, for example, Elon Musk.
00:01:24.160 | He describes, he gets a lot of money
00:01:27.760 | from selling PayPal, his interest in PayPal.
00:01:31.360 | He said, "Why isn't anybody going to Mars
00:01:34.680 | "or outer space?
00:01:35.680 | "What are we gonna do if the planet goes to hell?
00:01:37.780 | "And how do we gonna get that?"
00:01:40.000 | Nobody's paying attention to that.
00:01:41.800 | He doesn't know much about it.
00:01:43.320 | He then reads and learns and so on.
00:01:46.200 | Says, "I'm gonna take, okay, half of my money,
00:01:49.200 | "and I'm gonna put it in there,
00:01:51.300 | "and I'm gonna do this thing."
00:01:52.480 | And he learns, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
00:01:53.960 | and he's got creative, okay.
00:01:55.200 | That's one dimension.
00:01:56.800 | So he gave me the keys to his car,
00:02:01.280 | which was just early days in Tesla.
00:02:04.120 | And he then points out the details.
00:02:07.480 | Okay, if you push this button here,
00:02:09.880 | it's this, the detail.
00:02:11.560 | So he's simultaneously talking about
00:02:15.520 | the big, big, big picture.
00:02:17.840 | Okay, when does humanity going to abandon the planet?
00:02:21.720 | But he will then be able to take it down
00:02:24.200 | into the detail so he can go,
00:02:26.520 | let's call it helicoptering.
00:02:28.080 | He can go up, he can go down,
00:02:29.640 | and see things at those types of perspective.
00:02:31.600 | - And then you've seen that with the other Shapers as well.
00:02:33.400 | - And that's a common thing, that they can do that.
00:02:35.940 | Another important difference that they have in mind
00:02:40.260 | is how they deal with people.
00:02:42.920 | I mean, meaning there's nothing more important
00:02:46.080 | than achieving the mission.
00:02:47.960 | And so what they have in common
00:02:51.040 | is there's a test that I give these personality tests,
00:02:55.880 | 'cause they're very helpful for understanding people.
00:02:58.200 | And so I gave it to all these Shapers.
00:03:00.520 | And one of the things in workplace inventory test
00:03:04.080 | is this test, and it has a category called
00:03:06.680 | concern for others.
00:03:07.820 | They're all having concern for others.
00:03:11.360 | This includes Mohammed Yunus,
00:03:13.040 | who invented microfinance, social enterprise,
00:03:16.520 | impact investing, as Mohammed Yunus
00:03:18.600 | received the Nobel Peace Prize for this,
00:03:21.400 | Congressional Medal of Honor.
00:03:23.320 | A fortune determined one of the 10 greatest
00:03:29.120 | entrepreneurs of our time.
00:03:30.720 | He's built all sorts of businesses
00:03:32.780 | to give back money in social enterprise, a remarkable man.
00:03:36.800 | He has nobody that I know practically
00:03:39.220 | can have more concern for others.
00:03:42.120 | He lives a life of a saint.
00:03:44.160 | I mean, very modest lifestyle,
00:03:46.000 | and he puts all his money in to try to help others.
00:03:49.080 | And he tests low on what's called concern for others,
00:03:51.920 | because what it really, the questions under that
00:03:55.040 | are questions about conflict to get at the mission.
00:03:58.660 | So they all, Jeffrey Canada,
00:04:00.520 | who changed Harlem Children's Zone
00:04:02.400 | and developed that to take children in Harlem
00:04:04.680 | and get them well taken care of,
00:04:05.960 | not only just in their education, but their whole lives.
00:04:09.280 | Him also, concern for others.
00:04:11.360 | What they mean is that they can see
00:04:15.480 | whether though individuals are performing at a level,
00:04:20.480 | an extremely high level,
00:04:22.440 | that's necessary to make those dreams happen.
00:04:25.320 | So when you think of, let's say,
00:04:26.960 | Steve Jobs was famous for being difficult with people
00:04:30.920 | and so on, and I didn't know Steve Jobs,
00:04:33.000 | so I can't speak personally to that.
00:04:34.920 | But his comments on, do you have A players,
00:04:37.600 | and if you have A players, if you put in B players,
00:04:39.600 | pretty soon you'll have C players and so on.
00:04:41.640 | That is a common element of them.
00:04:43.880 | Holding people to high standards
00:04:45.760 | and not letting anybody stand in the way of the mission.
00:04:50.080 | - What do you think about that kind of idea,
00:04:51.880 | sorry to pause on that for a second,
00:04:53.400 | that the A, B, and C players,
00:04:57.600 | and the importance of, so when you have a mission,
00:05:01.200 | to really only have A players
00:05:02.880 | and be sort of aggressively filtering for that.
00:05:07.040 | - Yes, but I think that there are all different ways
00:05:09.160 | of being A players.
00:05:11.400 | And I think, and what a great team,
00:05:14.960 | you have to appreciate all the differences
00:05:17.620 | in ways of being A players, okay?
00:05:21.080 | That's the first thing.
00:05:22.280 | And then you always have to be super excellent,
00:05:26.480 | in my opinion, you always have to be really excellent
00:05:29.180 | with people to help them understand themselves
00:05:33.680 | and get in sync with them about what's true
00:05:37.000 | about them and their circumstances and how they're doing
00:05:39.840 | so that they're having a fabulous
00:05:41.560 | personal development experience
00:05:43.880 | at the same time as you're dealing with them.
00:05:46.220 | So when I say that they're all different ways,
00:05:49.500 | this is one of the then qualities,
00:05:52.360 | you asked me what are the qualities,
00:05:54.240 | so one of the third qualities that I would say
00:05:57.260 | is to know how to deal well with your not knowing
00:06:02.260 | and to be able to get the best expertise
00:06:08.220 | so that you're a great orchestrator of different ways
00:06:12.140 | so that the people who are really, really successful,
00:06:15.620 | unlike most people believe that they're successful
00:06:18.500 | because of what they know,
00:06:20.260 | they're even more successful by being able
00:06:24.340 | to effectively learn from others
00:06:26.420 | and tap into the skills of people
00:06:28.580 | who see things different from them.
00:06:30.780 | - Brilliant, so how do you, when that personality being,
00:06:34.180 | first of all, open to the fact that there's,
00:06:36.740 | other people see things differently than you
00:06:39.980 | and at the same time have supreme confidence in your vision,
00:06:44.100 | is there, just the psychology of that,
00:06:46.680 | do you see a tension there between the confidence
00:06:49.060 | and the open-mindedness?
00:06:50.340 | - No, it's funny because I think we grow up
00:06:52.980 | thinking that there's a tension there, right?
00:06:54.980 | That there's a confidence and the more confidence
00:06:58.820 | that you have, there's a tension with the open-mindedness
00:07:02.340 | and not being sure, okay?
00:07:05.380 | Confident and accurate are almost negatively correlated
00:07:10.380 | in many people.
00:07:11.900 | They're extremely confident and they're often inaccurate
00:07:15.700 | and so I think one of the greatest tragedies of people
00:07:19.140 | is not realizing how those things go together
00:07:21.980 | because instead, it's really that by saying,
00:07:25.980 | I know a lot and how do I know I'm still not wrong
00:07:30.380 | and how do I take that, the best thinking available to me
00:07:35.260 | and then raise my probability of learning?
00:07:38.460 | All these people think for themselves, okay?
00:07:41.380 | I mean, meaning they're smart
00:07:43.340 | but they take in like vacuum cleaners,
00:07:45.820 | they take in ideas of others,
00:07:48.020 | they stress test their ideas with others,
00:07:50.640 | they assess what comes back to them
00:07:52.940 | in the form of other thinking
00:07:55.460 | and they also know what they're not good at
00:07:58.140 | and what other people who are good at,
00:08:00.240 | the things that they're not good at,
00:08:01.620 | they know how to get those people
00:08:03.380 | and be successful all around
00:08:05.420 | because nobody has enough knowledge in their heads
00:08:08.740 | and that I think is one of the great differences.
00:08:11.420 | So the reason my company has been successful
00:08:15.220 | in terms of this is 'cause of an idea meritocratic
00:08:17.900 | decision making, a process by which you can get
00:08:21.080 | the best ideas, you know, what's an idea meritocracy?
00:08:24.620 | An idea meritocracy is to get the best ideas
00:08:27.660 | that are available out there and to work together
00:08:30.060 | with other people in the team to achieve that.
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