Ray Dalio, Unplugged

October 13, 2021

It’s hard enough to know ourselves, let alone others. We are contradictions, moods and degrees of disclosure and so are those we try to understand. Observer and observed are in motion. Those familiar to us also remain elusive.

I first met Ray in the summer of 2004. Bridgewater Associates, the company he founded, had around 150 people. I asked around Wall Street and people said Ray was unusual and wrote great research. (I now think he writes great research because he is unusual). Bridgewater wasn’t famous, even though Ray had been assiduously building it since … 1975. There were no written principles.

I worked for Ray for sixteen years, retiring last year. In that time, I watched Ray go from hard working and obscure to hard working and famous. Bridgewater became the biggest hedge fund in the world and Ray became a billionaire. The last time I was in China with him, people stopped us to take his photograph.

While I often experienced Ray’s sometimes impossibly high standards first hand, there was still a lot I didn’t know about him. In our conversation I purposely skipped his economic outlook, views on China and principles. Much of that is available on-line.

Instead, I wanted to ask him some of the questions he asked me in my 2004 job interview. What growing up was like? How did he find his path?  If he was comfortable, I also wanted to discuss every parent’s worst nightmare, losing a child. I appreciated his candor and think you will as well.

You can listen for yourself with this link. The podcast is also on Apple podcasts and my website.

I took away a few lessons.

1. Early in life, independent thinkers might seem merely quirky rather than possessing unique insight.
2. Ray didn’t start out trying to create a great company; he had curiosities and wanted to follow them in a way that generated enough money to live. Bridgewater grew out of that.
3. Great analysts sometimes get forecasts egregiously wrong.
4. We all experience loss. While always painful, when it happens out of the normal sequence, like the child dying before the parent, it is excruciating.

Likely you will have different take aways. I’m all ears.

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