- Recently Sean Combs (known by the stage name Puff Daddy or Diddy) asked billionaire investor Ray Dalio to be his mentor. Here’s a conversation they had.
Sean Combs (known by the stage name Puff Daddy, Puffy, or Diddy) recently asked billionaire investor Ray Dalio to be his mentor. Combs and Dalio met at a Forbes conference and then followed that up with an in-person interview. During the interview, Combs asked Dalio who he looked up to and Dalio responded with Muhammad Yunus and Geoffrey Canada.
Yunus is credited with inventing microfinance. And Canada is the president of Harlem Children’s Zone.
Dalio is known for creating the world’s largest hedge fund called Bridgewater Associates. And Bridgewater now has $150 billion in assets under management. Dalio himself has a net worth of over $18 billion.
Combs has a net worth of about $740 million and is known for launching the Bad Boy Entertainment record label and helped develop the Cîroc vodka brand for a 50% share of the profits. Combs is also partnered with actor Mark Wahlberg and businessman Ronald Burkle on a calorie-free beverage company called Aquahydrate.
At the beginning of the interview, Combs asked Dalio what is the definition of “radically open-minded.”
“You think it should go this way and then you say to yourself ‘how do I know I’m right? Maybe that’s wrong. Is that as good as I can be?’ And then the capacity to hear and then challenge… so somebody comes up to you with an idea and says ‘okay let’s do (this). What do you think about (that)?’ To harvest the best around you but sorting it with your own mind… so I say to be open-minded and assertive at the same time. Don’t give up your assertiveness. But to be curious like ‘am I harvesting the best…’” Dalio replied. “Because the biggest thing that most people have (their problem) is they get so opinionated that they can’t take in. And the worst tragedy of mankind (almost any individual) is that they’re attached to opinions that are wrong and they don’t want to have them stress-tested so when you’re radically open-minded you can say ‘hey man, I really think it should go this way’ and then at the same time say to the smartest people that you know ‘kick the shit out of it’ and try to say ‘okay now let’s see how the stress tests’ so that I can then go to the best or how I harvest it.”
Dalio also suggested Combs to write down the things that he is not good at and then find the people who are good at those things.
“You don’t have to be good at everything,” Dalio added. “You just have to find the right people who are good when we’re not good.”
Here is the video interview:
