Ray Dalio is a good content marketer and an unpleasant person

My notes on "The Fund"

I tore through The Fund by Rob Copeland which is a teardown of the massive hedge fund Bridgewater and its founder Ray Dalio. It’s a fun book if you like corporate drama.

I read Dalio’s book Principles a few years ago and thought it was pretty compelling: a framework for thinking about the economy and life by a wildly successful financier. He’s good at telling stories about how things in the economy move together and it gives you a sense of control and understanding when you read it.

It seems like this talent led him to be able to raise lots of money for Bridgewater. He wrote a newsletter for years prior to starting the fund, which earned him a reputation for knowledge of commodities markets and macro trading on Wall Street. He parlayed this into aggregating a huge amount of capital. Then he had some (probably deserved) good results, and the story and the capital compounded and they were able to raise bigger and bigger funds.

At some point, it seems like Bridgewater’s edge dried up but the marketing and the story continued and they have made a ridiculous amount of money on fees alone. It reminds me of a16z in the private markets, who have successfully followed a strategy of doing lots of content marketing —> doing well in the early days —> raising huge funds —> making lots of money on fees, even if the later funds don’t perform very well.

I would love to get a drink with someone who worked at Bridgewater and hear about their experience; it’s hard to know how much to believe from either of these books. But it’s fascinating and fun to learn about, and makes me very glad I don’t work there.