The LSE Directory / Hedge fund managers
Raymond Thomas Dalio (born 1949) founded Bridgewater Associates in 1975 out of his New York apartment and built it into the world's largest hedge fund by assets under management, which peaked at approximately $150-160 billion. Bridgewater is known for two flagship strategies: Pure Alpha (a discretionary global macro strategy) and All Weather (a risk-parity approach designed to perform across economic regimes), the latter of which became widely influential and spawned an entire risk-parity investment industry. Bridgewater's Pure Alpha strategy gained approximately 9.5% in 2008 while equity markets fell sharply, establishing Dalio's macro credibility. Dalio is also known for the radical transparency and 'idea meritocracy' management culture he imposed at Bridgewater, extensively documented in his 2017 book 'Principles: Life and Work', which became a bestseller. He stepped down as co-CIO in 2022 and resigned from the board in 2023, transitioning full leadership to the next generation. He remains actively engaged as a public intellectual on macroeconomics.
