Ray Dalio & Bill Belichick on Going From Nothing to Something Big: Part 1

I think the interesting thing, one of the most interesting things of the book was when you talked about going from, what was it, a four-person company? Well, it started with me and another guy, and yeah, three people. Three, okay. And how many? 1500? 1500.

Um, the transformation of that and your role in that, from being an investor to being a manager to all the other things in between. So for my success, it was a relationship of meaningful work and meaningful relationships. But from a time management standpoint, Ray, when you spent your time trying to find the right investments, trying to find the right way to manage and maximize the returns to being responsible for 1500 employees, right?

There's no way you could spend the same amount of time managing, you know, the actual dollars as managing the people. When you start, and you know it's two or three people, and then you go to another level, I had to invent a new way. A new way. A new way!

I remember when we got to 67 people that I would always give personalized gifts at the holiday season, and I would always write everybody a long letter at the holiday season. And I remember it was 67 people, and I remember I couldn't do it right because it broke my back. I mean, just too much. And then I knew that I was now going to another level, and when I was going to that other level, I had to invent a new way of operating.

So going from the three to the 1500 required a lot of different inventiveness.