When Ray Dalio, billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, announced in October 2022 that he was stepping down from the company he founded forty-seven years ago, the news made headlines around the world. Dalio achieved worldwide fame thanks to a mystique of success cultivated in frequent media appearances, celebrity hobnobbing, and his bestselling book, Principles. Tracing more than fifty years of Dalio’s leadership, The Fund peels back the curtain to reveal a rarefied world of wealth and power, where former FBI director Jim Comey kisses Dalio’s ring, recent Pennsylvania Senate candidate David McCormick sells out, and countless Bridgewater acolytes describe what it’s like to work at this fascinating firm.

New York socialite Isabel Leib, in the late 1960s, whose grandson Gordon was causing the family grief with his drinking and pot-smoking, so she decided that her nice caddie might be just the person to straighten him out. She paid the young Raymond Dallolio to befriend her  grandson, inviting him to family parties and even bankrolling a six-week trip through Europe for the two of them.  The family’s black sheep shearing his shaggy hair and ditching the electric guitar for classical music.

As a reward Ray Dallo was given a clerkship at the New York Stock Exchange by Isabel’s husband , Wall Street titan George Leib. The money however helped finance Dalio’s MBA at Harvard Business School, and Leib ‘s friends bankrolled a consultancy Dalio founded in 1975, Bridgewater Associates.

Bridgewater today is the world’s biggest hedge fund, with approximately $125bn under management. This has made Dalio, the philosopher king of finance, sought after for his economic insight, and personal bromides. 

Finance reporter Rob Copeland blows apart the mystique of Bridgewater  and its founder.  The fund manages the improbable task of living upto its claim of unravelling a Wall Street legend.

Dalio is described as berating a pregnant protegee in front of the whole senior management team until she breaks down weeping. Bridgewater is a weird cult with a hedge fund attached is a well-worn joke on the Wall Street. Dalio’s ability to turn economic insights into simple but lucrative trading rules  was what powered Bridgewater’s rise.

 He also had the ability to schmooze government officials for clues on major policy shifts and you have the recipe for its ascent, and more importantly  this ability to surf economic trends was overtaken by rivals,  and instead of evolving  the hedge fund became consumed by implementing Dalio’s precious principles.

 An estimated $58bn Bridgewater has generated for investors.

The Fund: Ray Dalio Bridgewater Associates, and the Unravelling of a Wall Street Legend by Rob Copeland, Macmillan Business £22/$32, 352 pages.