Author: Ray Dalio is the founder and co-CIO of Bridgewater Associates, which, over the last forty years, has become the largest and one of the best performing hedge funds in the world using a global macro approach. As of 2022, Mr Dalio is one of the most influential businessmen in the world as well as the author of three books: Principles, Big Debt Crisis, and The Changing World Order.
Book: The book is divided into three parts: (i) The history of Bridgewater and Ray Dalio, (ii) Life Principles, and (iii) Work Principles. Ray Dalio was born a middle-class kid who started to show high interest in investing early on. After graduating from HBS in 1973, he worked for less than 2 years trading commodity futures and in 1975 he founded Bridgewater in his two-bedroom apartment. For the next 42 years, he would bankrupt his fund, raise it again, and become it the largest and most successful one of its kind. On the way, he also managed to bring concepts like risk parity, currency overlay, portable alpha, and global inflation-indexed bond management. In the other two sections of the book, Dalio shows the lessons (principles for work and life) that he has learnt during his life – the ones that have helped him overcome all kinds of failures and become successful. In a nutshell, he advocates for making believability-weighted decisions, continually operating by principles, and systemizing your decision-making.
Opinion: I remember reading this book years ago while at university and it was quite inspirational. If you are into investing/finance, the first part will be of high interest for sure. Even if you already know the outcomes, seeing how an ultra-successful man deals with struggles is interesting. Regarding principles, I enjoyed more life principles than work principles. When I have experienced painful failure, having in mind those principles has been key. Pain + Reflection = Progress. Think about it. However, I think that work principles are not as universally applicable as life ones. They might have worked well in Bridgewater, but I strongly believe that they would create a toxic culture in many places.
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