Ray Dalio

Born in 1949 in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York, Dalio started investing at age 12 when he bought shares in Northeast Airlines for $300. He founded Bridgewater Associates in his New York apartment in 1975, and over five decades built it into the world's largest hedge fund with over $150 billion in assets under management and approximately 1,500 employees. Dalio pioneered risk parity — an asset allocation approach that balances portfolio risk contributions across asset classes rather than allocating by capital weight. His All Weather portfolio design, intended to perform in any economic environment, became a template for institutional portfolio construction worldwide and launched a generation of risk parity products. Bridgewater's systematic macro approach analyzes economies as machines with cause-and-effect relationships, producing investment signals from economic data rather than company fundamentals. Dalio developed and documented these frameworks in his "Economic Machine" model, which became one of the most-viewed economics videos on YouTube. In 2017 Dalio published Principles, which described his management philosophy based on radical transparency and algorithmic decision-making. The book became an international bestseller and influenced management practices at dozens of major institutions. He later published Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises and The Changing World Order, expanding his frameworks to macroeconomic history. Dalio stepped back from day-to-day management of Bridgewater in 2022, transitioning to a senior mentor role while Greg Jensen and Nir Bar Dea took over as co-CEOs.