In Ray Dalio's famous Principles, a book which all employees are
required to read and live by, he writes, "Above all else, I want you to
think for yourself - to decide 1) what you want, 2) what is true, and 3)
what to do about it. I want you to do that in a clear-headed thoughtful
way, so that you get what you want." Ray Dalio is the infamous founder
of Bridgewater Associates, the largest global macro hedge fund, with
$120 billion in assets under management. But more so, he is striving to
find truth and personally evolve. His success is what makes him famous,
but it is his spirituality that makes him successful.
Mr. Dalio is one of the nine case studies of the new book, The Alpha Masters: Unlocking the Genius of the World's Top Hedge Funds
,
by Maneet Ahuja, and he is one of the more interesting. Now in his
60's, he has stepped down as Co-CEO but remains one of three Co-CIO's of
the company. The investing strategy that has been successful for
Bridgewater since the 1990's is still in place and has driven the firm
to be the largest hedge fund in the world. Bridgewater has a portfolio
of alpha-generating positions, normally around 15 or so. Bridgewater is
able to tailor risk to each client by investing a portion of the assets
in this alpha portfolio, and then the rest in a passive, index portfolio
that only has beta. Thus, each investor can achieve optimum levels of
risk and still have exposure to alpha.
Many have called Dalio the Steve Jobs of the investing world. As a
huge proponent of mediation, Dalio says that twenty minutes of
meditation can make up for hours of lost sleep. Further with his
spiritual nature, he believes in the search for truth. As he writes in
Principles, "There is nothing to fear from the truth. Being truthful is
essential to being an independent thinker and obtaining a greater
understanding of what is right."
If Dalio were to give you one piece of advice, it would be to go
after what you want. In the book, he tells the story of trying to hire
an architect to build his home. When he told the architect what he
wanted, the architect replied that he had always wanted to design
something like that, but never did. The architect showed Dalio a book of
designs from another architect who had done those types of designs
before and would use that as inspiration. Dalio proceeded to call the
other architect and hire him to design his home. Dalio first asked this
new architect how he started designing these types of structures, and
the architect replied "I built doghouses to begin. But I really wanted
to build this kind of stuff." The point of this story is to tell people
that to get anywhere, you need to start. Start small, go after what you
want, work hard, learn from mistakes, and success will follow.
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