June 20, 2022
Ray Dalio is a world-class macro-economic investor who built the largest hedge fund in the world, Bridgewater Associates, managing more than $150 billion dollars. Dalio is the founder, (he started the firm out of his apartment in 1975 after graduating from C.W. Post College in 1971 and Harvard Business school in 1973) and longtime CEO until he gave up that position to become Co-chief Investment Officer and Co-chairman.
He is more than a businessman-philosopher, he is a student of history who believes passionately in the Socratic dialogue and radical transparency which he instilled in the culture of Bridgewater. He is also one of America’s leading philanthropists.
Dalio has laid out his philosophy of management, life and success in three popular books, “Principles: Life and Work,” “Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crisis,” and “Principles for Success.” In his new book, “Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed And Fail,” Dalio becomes a historian, combing 500 years of the past to unlock the future It worked for him in the past, as he studied the Great Depression era in the United States to predict the financial crisis of 2008 and made a fortune for his company.
In “The Changing World Order,” published in 2021, Dalio lists 18 metrics that define the simultaneous occurrence in history of three things: debt and the printing of money, wealth gaps and the rise of extreme populism on the left and right, and the rise of a new global power to challenge the world. When that happens, Dalio says, execution of power changes and so does the world order. The last time it happened was 1945, after World War II, when the United States emerged as the strongest economic, political, and military nation in the post-war world.
As the world economy today faces rising inflation and slower growth, and the war in Ukraine continuing after a Russian invasion causing food shortages and energy disruptions, the question is becoming more urgent: is the American-Chinese conflict for global leadership likely to expand and lead to war, changing the world order and affecting global relationships throughout the world?
Visit charlierose.com for the full conversation with Ray Dalio.