Are Ray Dalio's Principles the Secret to His Success?

Since founding Bridgewater nearly 50 years ago, Ray Dalio has become one of the world’s richest investors. He is widely credited with having predicted and profited from both the 1987 crash and the 2008 financial crisis. He is the founder of the world’s largest hedge fund and is one of the most successful businessmen alive, yet he professes to be seeking something more meaningful than just money or business success.

According to Dalio, his main interest, over the last twenty years is to lead others toward “meaningful lives” and “meaningful relationships” through the application of his principles. He has written a number of books and given a Ted Talk on this topic.

Rob Copeland is a journalist at the New York Times and was previously the longtime hedge fund beat reporter at The Wall Street Journal. In his new book “The Fund” he smashes through some of the mystique built up around Ray Dalio in recent years. He argues that very little of Dalio’s success is due to his widely promoted “Principles” and can be better explained by his ability to befriend influential people and impress them with his broad knowledge of the world, his skill at getting good publicity, and his early investment success.

Rob interviewed hundreds of Bridgewater employees in order to write this unauthorized biography that shows Ray Dalio in a very different light.
Dalio declined to be interviewed for the book and has threatened a lawsuit against Rob and his publisher. In today's video I interview Rob to hear his account of life at Bridgewater and whether he believes Ray Dalio’s principles are worth following.

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[TarlanT]

I worked for Bridgewater in 2013-2014.
Attrition rate was around 30-40% a year.
60-80% of time was spent on rating and open examination of other people’s actions and behavior.
Everyone was forced to memorize principles and their numbers.

[MoneyMacro]

Fascinating video Patrick. I was not at all convinced by Dalio's principles for a changing global order. But, I didn't see this one coming.

[geekytraveler]

On a very different note.
You know what's the most impressive quality of Rob - he is true professional journalist / interviewer - he doesn't interrupt, he does listen, he shares his carefully well thought point. Rare skill in today's journalism - way too many hype journalist who wouldn't even let to speak their counterpart.

[Nwnatves]

It’s amazing how a guy makes a ton of money and then suddenly he’s a genius we need to listen to about all sorts of things. Dalio was good at making money…doesn’t mean he’s good at anything else. The self importance people of wealth ascribe to themselves is amazing.

[helloiamchuck]

Unintentional poetry at 1:00:36 "The asset management industry is a great place to be/
When you're the asset manager collecting the fee." (The meter's a little off, but that's what editing is for.)

Silliness aside, I am so glad that Patrick is able to get people for these long-form interviews.

[del]

39:44 I was awfully confused about all this financial talk on my favourite rap channel, but finally we're getting to the point.

[annaczgli]

Ray Dalio's Principles: Where the only constant principle is that he constantly has principles!

[maxmeier]

The argument that ex-employees will always have a bias in an interview about their former boss, can be easily answered: If they independently give the same specific descriptions of certain behaviours, it's unlikely they are all making up the same thing. Or to stay in the ex-wife comparison: If one man's 5 ex-wives tell you independent of each other, that their former husband used to eat his boogers, it's probably true.

[bp]

Dalio's principles predicted his own rise and fall. Truly inspirational.

[Kane]

This guy has definitely had training on what he can say to mitigate the likely future attacks. This’ll be one of the first actual paper books I’ve bought in a long time!

[slovokia]

It’s interesting how having great wealth probably makes it mostly possible to be able to tell any story you want about yourself and your creations without anyone daring to contradict you for fear of being sued.

[faksibey]

I talked to MANY former Bridgewater Associates, and it is ALWAYS negative from a variety of roles . . since the 1990s. Be skeptical of Ray’s Principles.

[MC-qeop]

His principles always seemed like “water is wet, don’t touch it to stay dry” type stuff to me

[justgeezer]

My biggest respect for journalists like this. Thank you both!

[Lemma]

Having engaged with this, must thank Pat for introducing us to this young man, and his research; together, you allow us to find our own truth that has something enduring in it. Quality work, Chaps.

[j.singer]

An excellent interview, Patrick. This channel is going from strength to strength!

[Football__Junkie]

I really enjoyed Dalio’s Priciples book. “Deal with what is, not what should be” is a good one to live by.

Having said that, as with any hedge fund I believe their success is based on being fed insider information from people in power. 😀

[ericmyrs]

So, not being a finance guy I first head about Ray, not in the context of him being a mega successfull trader, but just some guy that had some principles on a podcast.
I immediately thought "this guy is selling me something I don't want to buy". I guess I was right about that.

[olegnesterenko]

Well done Patrick, I just bought the book the Fund. I read most of Dalio books, except for Principles because it did smell wrong. Billionairs are not made by following good virtue principles, but rather in reverse.

[dawnfmEnthusiast]

Your author interviews are awesome. The one with Zeke Faux was so entertaining and made me buy the book!