Raymond Dalio is an American billionaire investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist.He is the founder of investment firm Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds. As of January 2018, he is one of the world’s 100 wealthiest people, according to Bloomberg.
In Principles, Dalio shares what he’s learned over the course of his remarkable career. He argues that life, management, economics, and investing can all be systemized into rules and understood like machines. The book’s hundreds of practical lessons, which are built around his cornerstones of “radical truth” and “radical transparency,” include Dalio laying out the most effective ways for individuals and organizations to make decisions, approach challenges, and build strong teams. He also describes the innovative tools the firm uses to bring an idea meritocracy to life, such as creating “baseball cards” for all employees that distill their strengths and weaknesses, and employing computerized decision-making systems to make believability-weighted decisions. While the book brims with novel ideas for organizations and institutions, Principles also offers a clear, straightforward approach to decision-making that Dalio believes anyone can apply, no matter what they’re seeking to achieve. (
Ray Dalio was born in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York. He is the son of a jazz musician, Marino Dallolio (1911-2002), who “played the clarinet and saxophone at Manhattan jazz clubs such as the Copacabana,” and Ann, a homemaker. Dalio began investing at age 12. At this young age he bought shares of Northeast Airlines for $300 and tripled his investment after the airline merged with another company. Dalio received a bachelor’s degree in finance from Long Island University (CW Post) and an MBA from Harvard Business School. After completing his education, he worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and traded commodity futures. He later worked as the Director of Commodities at Dominick & Dominick LLC. In 1974, he became a futures trader and broker at Shearson Hayden Stone. In 1975, he founded, out of his apartment, the Westport, Connecticut based investment management firm, Bridgewater Associates which in 2012 became the largest hedge fund in the world, as it is today, with over $160 billion in assets under management, as of October 2014. Dalio has said that he could continue improving his returns by solidifying recurring lessons into “principles.” (
In Principles: Life and Work (2017), Ray Dalio describes core practices he developed during his career as an investor. Dalio believes that by applying these principles to their lives, readers can improve their relationships, enhance group decision making, and more easily adapt to changing circumstances. Purchase this in-depth analysis to learn more. (
