An Interest-Weighted Confidentiality Principle
While reading Ray Dalio’s Principles, I was struck by his call for a radically open and transparent culture inside a company so that information can flow and problems can be debated broadly. Yet business is warfare: information determines whether you win. In an era where information can be collected in countless ways and spreads almost instantly, how can we stay transparent enough to keep the organization efficient without turning ourselves into transparent targets for rivals?
Keeping secrets is already hard in an age of transparency. If we keep trumpeting our core secrets, we become fish in a glass tank—fully exposed. Only by confining confidential matters within interest-aligned circles can we protect them as best as possible. Take a company, for example. Because it exists to make a profit, shareholders are the ultimate beneficiaries. They have the strongest interest in secrecy and therefore deserve the broadest right to know. Management formulates and executes key decisions and shares in the rewards, so they also bear direct responsibility for safeguarding secrets.
Secrecy and intelligence have always been archrivals. Wherever there is a security service there is an intelligence unit. Spy dramas have already demonstrated every trick in both protecting and stealing secrets. It is worth applying reverse thinking to consider how to remain airtight when facing constant attacks from adversaries.
Guarding secrets is not only about past events; it is also about ideas that have yet to be put into practice. Protecting an idea is often more important—and easier—than defending a fait accompli, because the idea lives only in your mind. It is like the Wallfacers in The Three-Body Problem: even though the Trisolarans can monitor every human word and action through sophons, they cannot read minds.
Above all, the last and most crucial rule of secrecy is to cultivate a discreet, quiet temperament. Never expect someone who loves to show off to keep a secret.
Published at: Nov 19, 2025 · Modified at: Nov 19, 2025
