Late last year, when Ray Dalio the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund on the planet, announced that he was stepping down from the company he started out of his apartment nearly 50 years ago, the news made headlines around the world. Dalio cultivated an aura of international admiration and fame thanks to his company's eye-popping success, coupled with a mystique he encouraged with frequent media appearances, celebrity hobnobbing, and his bestselling book, Principles.
In this discussion The New York Times award winning reporter Rob Copeland draws on his new book The Fund, to try and puncture the carefully-constructed narrative of the benevolent business titan, expose his much-promoted "principles" and argue that he created a toxic culture of paranoia and backstabbing in his company.