Principles

Dalio describes Baseball Cards as “a simple way of presenting a person’s strengths and weaknesses and the evidence behind them” (547). The term refers to the way in which a baseball player’s key stats are often collected on baseball cards. At Bridgewater, such “stats” for each employee are utilized to easily reference employees’ strengths and weaknesses. Dalio explains that they can be useful during debates, for example, to help decide how much stock should be placed in an employee’s idea on a particular issue. Dalio notes that some employees expressed concerns about their strengths and weaknesses being monitored in this way, but he assures readers that the Baseball Cards are only used to help make decisions and inspire growth.

Believability weighting refers to the process of giving more credit to “the opinions of more capable decision makers [than] those of less capable decision makers” (371). Dalio explains that people who have had repeated success in areas related to the matter to be decided and who are capable of explaining the logic behind their ideas ought to be considered more believable. Dalio repeatedly argues that no matter how good the idea may seem, if the logical rationale behind it cannot be explained, then it is not as believable.