Ray Dalio

Raymond Dalio (born August 8, 1949) is an American billionaire investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. Dalio is the founder of investment firm Bridgewater Associates, one of the world's largest hedge funds. As of January 2018, he is one of the world's 100 wealthiest people, according to Bloomberg.

Raymond Dalio was born in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of New York City's Queens borough. He is the son of a jazz musician, Marino Dallolio (1911-2002), who "played the clarinet and saxophone at Manhattan jazz clubs such as the Copacabana," and Ann, a homemaker. He is of Italian descent.

Dalio began investing at age 12 when he bought shares of Northeast Airlines for $300 and tripled his investment after the airline merged with another company.^[9] Dalio received a bachelor's degree in finance from Long Island University (CW Post) and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

After completing his education, Dalio worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and traded commodity futures. He later worked as the Director of Commodities at Dominick & Dominick LLC. In 1974, he became a futures trader and broker at Shearson Hayden Stone. In 1975, he founded investment management firm, Bridgewater Associates, out of his apartment. The firm opened an office in Westport, Connecticut in 1981, and in 2005, the firm became the largest hedge fund in the world. The firm had $160 billion in assets under management, as of October 2017.

Dalio has said that he could continue improving his returns by solidifying recurring lessons into "principles."

In 2007, Bridgewater predicted the global financial crisis, and in 2008 Dalio published an essay, "How the Economic Machine Works; A Template for Understanding What is Happening Now", explaining his model for the economic crisis.

In 2011, he self-published a 123-page volume called "Principles", which outlined his logic and personal philosophy for investments and corporate management based on a lifetime of observation, analysis and practical application through his hedge fund.

In 2012, Dalio appeared on the annual Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2011 and 2012 he was listed by Bloomberg Markets as one of the 50 Most Influential people. Institutional Investor's Alpha ranked him No. 2 on their 2012 Rich List