Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Ray Dalio (Part 1): Turning His Investing Principles Into a $150 Billion Hedge Fund

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

If you started investing any time within the last five years, it’s probably felt like a steady stream of firsts—between a global pandemic, changing interest rates, inflation, war, and recession fears, it’s been one plot twist after another. But it’s not a new story—it’s the same economic movie on repeat. And if you understand the principles behind it, you can learn to master the markets. That’s where today's guest Ray Dalio comes in. He’s the founder of Bridgewater Associates—the world’s largest hedge fund with over $150 billion under management—and the author of New York Times bestsellers like Principles, that’s become required reading from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Ray literally wrote the book on how to invest through any cycle—and today, he’s here to teach you how. Pre-order Ray's latest book How Countries Go Broke here. Find all of Ray's books here.

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Find a co-host at airbnb.com slash host. I'm Nicole Lapin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. Well today's guest is going to teach you how to be a world-class investor. And I'll tell you why. If you started investing any time within the last five years, you've probably felt like you've been in shark-infested, uncharted waters in a riptide. I mean, as an investor, you've had to adapt to a lot. A pandemic. SERP, the zero interest rate policy that kept the economy running during said pandemic.

Then interest rates climbing back up. Inflation. War. Elections. Supply chain disruptions. Recession fears. It has probably felt like you're watching one dramatic TV series with a new plot twist every single week. But you know what? We're actually just watching one movie. And we're watching it over and over again. In other words, economic conditions are never really new. It's all happened before and it will happen again. And if you can master the principles of these conditions, you can master investing. And today's guest wrote the book on these principles. And I don't mean that as a cliche. I mean that literally. Because today's guest is Ray Dalio. Ray is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world with over $150 billion in assets under management. He built Bridgewater from

a two-bedroom apartment into the financial powerhouse that it is today. It's managed money for governments, central banks, and some of the wealthiest families on the planet. He's also the author of Principles, the number one New York Times bestseller that's been translated into 28 languages and is required reading at companies from Silicon Valley to Wall Street. His work has been used by the U.S. Treasury, it's been studied by the Federal Reserve, and it has been bookmarked many, many times by yours truly. If you're an OG listener, you've probably already brushed up against Ray's ideas before because I talk a lot about the all-weather portfolio. This is a portfolio strategy that

Ray developed with one simple idea. If you can't predict the future, an unfortunate truth, you can prepare for it based on historical patterns and smart fundamentals. The all-weather portfolio is built to stand whatever economic storm comes your way. Inflation, deflation, growth, recession… it's designed to perform through it all through a carefully constructed mix of US long-term bonds, intermediate-term bonds, stocks, commodities, and gold. So yes, having Ray Dalio on the show is a really big deal and I could not be more excited. I flew to New York to do this interview with Ray in person,

which we actually had to move a few days because Ray was asked to join President Trump in Saudi Arabia. I know, casual. And the conversation is so full of gems. I'm going to split it into two parts. So today you'll hear Ray dissect what's happening in the economy right now and his investing principles, the biggest risks on the horizon, where interest rates are headed, and how Ray sees this next chapter in the global financial story unfolding. Tomorrow you're going to hear about how the biggest tragedy of Ray's life, the death of his oldest son, changed his money mindset forever and the principles he's learned to help him lead a rich life in every sense of the word.

But first, here's part one. Ray Dalio, welcome to Money Rehab. Oh, I'm so glad to be here. I'm so glad to have you. We moved this interview because you went to the Middle East with the president. I suppose I'll allow it How was it? It was wonderful to see really to see Saudi Arabia which has transformed itself or transformed because of the leader of Saudi Arabia MBS and to see the president and those together working together to do deals that are mutually beneficial and to have a relationship. It was harmony.

It was in some ways very contrasting with the chaos that we saw before. So it was good. It was comforting and good. Well, the chaos we saw before you went on Meet the Press and said that if it wasn't handled in the right way, we could not only potentially see a recession, but maybe something worse like a depression. Do you still feel that way? Yeah, look, we have difficult fundamentals to deal with. Most of all, buying power comes from credit. Credit produces debt. If you don't earn enough money to pay back the debt, you're going to have a debt problem. And that's true for countries as a whole, but they can print money. So sometimes

they print money to deal with the debt problem, but it still means the value of money goes down, you have inflation, you have a problem. We have that kind of problem. This is not a new situation. This is something that's built up over a generation of the credit market system. The capital market system is like the circulatory system in our bodies because it brings nutrients, spending power to be able to then produce things. But if you let the debts build up, it's like plaque. And what happens with that is that plaque begins to squeeze out other spending, and problems can occur. Okay, if we think of it like a doctor looking at a patient, and I'm looking at the country, I would say, we have, you've accumulated a lot of plaque, and you are at risk. So this is the lay of the land. Okay, now the question is how is that handled? And the most important thing is that these issues,

these difficult issues, are handled well with people dealing well with each other rather than dealing badly. So when you ask about the Saudi trip, and yes I was lucky enough I know people on both sides, intimately, and I was happy to be there to see a good trip, something in which there's elements of harmony rather than chaotic chaos and fighting. So you're more encouraged than you were last month. Well these factors are going to be with us for a long, long time. And so I felt better, yes. But it's like somebody has a disease. Are we going to have a heart attack? We are very exposed to a heart attack. So on that first factor, I just wrote this book, you know, I'm a global macro investor,

had been for 50 years, actually longer than that, but had my business and so on professionally for 50 years. And I thought it was very, very important for people to understand the mechanics of debt because it's not understood. So I did that and also how individuals should deal with it. That's why I did this study. So this is, in a nutshell, if we don't cut the budget deficit down to 3% of GDP, which is now, it's now probably gonna be about 6.5% of GDP. If we don't cut it down, we will have a heart attack. That's everything.

In other words, money and debt, money is debt, and debt is money. And what happens is if we don't deal with that and get its worst, very serious shape, yes, we are likely to have a heart attack, an economic heart attack. And that looks like a depression? Here's how it would go.

We have to sell a lot of debt. There's not enough buyers of the debt. And then the buyers are not adequately there. What happens? Either interest rates have to go up and constrict the demand, what you can sell, or the Federal Reserve has to come in and print money and buy all this debt, which is inflationary. In either case, it has the effect of reducing buying power. It produces one type of a problem or another type of a problem. The inflationary problem that we experienced before was because of all of the debt and money that was handed out. And so you can see a big version of that, something that could be worse than that,

if this isn't handled well. And think about it, our buying power all around the world is very much connected to the value of our money. So this is a very, very big issue. Yes, you can have that kind of a problem. Yeah, because you talk about the ths and you say you have this prescription for Washington. Take the 3% pledge that you mentioned, so cut, tax, and then invest. And so on this trip you're with these decision-makers from Washington. Were

you more encouraged that they would get on board with that plan? I think that there's a real recognition of the circumstances. There may not be as much public discussion about how serious the situation is. But we have all of these coming together. We have the debt issue. We have the internal fight of how the country's run. Think about the budget cuts and how they're taking place. That's a two-edged sword.

And think about the conflict internally. And it's coming with conflict externally. So they're being dealt with. But think of it like a patient that is not in good shape. You cannot change some of these things. You can only try to deal with them at their stage in the best possible way. But for so long we were this patient and we kept giving morphine in the form of ZERP,

zero interest rate policy, and people got really addicted to that. Of course, it's so much better. Who doesn't like spending? You give credit. It's the paying back that's the problem, right? I mean, I think a lot of new investors who started in 2021 love the ZERP days and want zero interest rates. Of course, it all comes from credit. Give you credit. Are we getting back to those days? The government is deeply in that. We are in an environment that's similar to zero interest

rate that could be measured by how much debt is the government getting into, how much credit. We love credit. But we can't have it all the time. We can't have morphine all the time. I think the important thing to understand is the mechanics by that I mean that it works the same for governments as it works for people with two differences. One difference is the government can print money, but you don't increase wealth by printing money.

You just lessen the value of money. So you make it easier to pay back, but you experience it through inflation. And the second difference is the government can take your money so they can tax you. Those are the differences, but it works the same for individuals. So yes, if you keep getting deeper and deeper into debt,

you have debt payments problems. Yeah, it's $1 trillion is the interest bill, which is greater than the amount of money we're spending on DeFed, $1 trillion. And then because of expiring debt we have to sell to replace that debt another nine trillion dollars and then we have to borrow new money so it's a lot of money. Are you worried about the president asking for lower interest rates or pressuring the Fed to lower interest rates more? Yes, I'm just a mechanic and the way I look at it is as you create lower

interest rates you create problems for those who are lenders. One man's debt is another man's asset. Or woman. Or woman. And so when you're holding that asset and you're getting a lower interest rate there is a problem and you reduce the demand for that and so that is a problem yes. So NetNet you are more optimistic. I'm more pleased that it is happening in a pleased that it is happening in a harmonious mutual that there are exchanges deals being made that are productive it'll bring capital into the country it's being done more analytically which means that there are smarter decisions being made and it's also less disruptive because the uncertainties and the turbulence combined with if you're not making the good difficult decision well

you're gonna have a problem. I think people are worried about that volatility oh by the way did you see the plane? No. Or they have to retrofit it for all the security and whatnot. No I've seen pictures of it but I wasn't on the plane. Do you think that's a problem? I'm sorry. Such a big present? That's a question for others to answer. I hear both sides of the argument on it and I don't have a particular expertise, so I wouldn't be presumptuous enough to say whether or not it's a problem or not.

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So if you look back, we've seen this movie before, and you can tell us how this movie is going to end or what movie we're gonna see next the reason I'm here on your show is That I'm at a phase in my life that the most important thing I can do is to pass along to people Principles that I've learned that it were helpful for me. I think people pay too much attention to what is happening and Each thing coming at them, and they're following it. But they don't step back as much and think, how does it all work?

And what are my principles for dealing with that decision? If I could do anything is to teach the man how to fish, help to pass along principles. Principles are guiding. You have to know what are you doing? What are you going after? What will make a successful life for you? What are the most important investment principles? What are the most important investment principles? What are the most important principles to deal with? And how does reality work? That's really what I'm here to pass along, I hope.

Well, let's do it. Yes, when we talked on the phone yesterday, you wanted to teach us how to financially fish. So can you show us how to do that based on what we're seeing in the environment right now? Does history repeat itself in the financial world? As the saying goes, history rhymes. The same things happen over and over again, because there are fundamental cause-effect relationships. Like, if you borrow, you'll have to pay back. Or if a government borrows, it'll have to pay back,

but it has a printing press. Okay, that's mechanics. So, for the individual, what are you going after? There was a time when I was starting out where I would think, how many weeks can I live if no money comes in? How many weeks, months, then years? So I went through the calculations.

How much money do I have and what are that spending? I think when we start with money, the important thing is okay what's the money for? How much money do I need? What am I going after? I think that success is not based on the amount of money that you have or the amount of status that you have. And so what are you going after?

But then the key is to start off to know I have an amount of money that if it doesn't come in, my family and I are going to be okay. We're going to be good. Do you know what that amount is? When looking at the amount of money that you have, you have to think of how much it returns after inflation because you're storing buying power. How much buying power do I have?

So you must look at your returns after inflation. Inflation eating about 3% every year. And it changes. But let's, you could play with that number of 3% and then you imagine that portfolio, it's X number of dollars today, but those assets can go up or down. So now the calculation you should say is,

and let's say in a worst case, after inflation, and maybe in buying power, that was to go down 50%. So what I'm saying is, do you have first and foremost enough money that you're good, that you know you're good. Once you have that, you can move on from that to do other things, to take more chances and so on to do that. You will have freedom and security.

There is nothing more important than that because if you know what your worst case scenario is and you know you're good and you know your family's good, then you have peace of mind and you have power and then you can take risk. So the first thing I would say when I'm looking at investors or when I'm looking at people is know what that number is and then know how to build a diversified portfolio so that that operates well. I put out information on courses and things, but the most important thing I think is to be in that position. Once you are there, then have a second portfolio.

Have that first base portfolio that way, and then you go on to take risk. So you created the all weather portfolio to help people do that. So once they get to a place where they want to start investing, this is a portfolio that has weathered storms over decades. Yes, and whether it goes up or down, you don't lose return in order to reduce risk. That's the most important thing thing because that one of the great things about investing is what I call the holy grail of investing. The holy grail of investing means that you can reduce risk without reducing returns by knowing how to diversify well. In other words, if you take two equally good investments

and they move differently, you will have the same return, because they're equally good, but you will have less risk because they diversify each other. And my mantra is 10 to 15 good uncorrelated investments produces a risk reduction by almost five times. In other words, you can have the same return with one-fifth the risk. That's a mantra of investing. So my main point here, because it can get complicated as to how exactly you do that,

is know your number, achieve that, have that well diversified, and be humble. Competing in the markets is more difficult than competing in the Olympics. You wouldn't think I'm going to go compete in the Olympics. It's a zero-sum game. In other words, in order for somebody to make a better return, somebody's going to have to have a worse return. So that's the challenge of active management, for example. And so you have to appreciate that with your humility. Take an asset class, any asset class class stocks. It regularly goes down 50 to 70 percent in real dollars. So the power of diversification is something that I want to convey

Yeah, so part of the all-weather portfolio. It's less of equities. Well, it's more bond. Yes makes the risks Comparable what happens is it's the nature of investment markets that less volatile investments have less returns over that period. So what happens is if you do certain things to increase their risk or decrease their risk, you can risk balance them. So the principle of having gold there is the store of value. Would you say with everything that we've seen in 2025 so far, would you tweak that at all or would you replace crypto with gold? Most financial markets do well when the credit system is normal and when the credit

system is not normal, when there's too much debt and there are big problems, gold is an effective diversifier. In other words, what's the value of money and when there's too much debt, there's a problem. So gold, it should be part of a portfolio as a diversifier. Now, what's that amount? Between 10 and 15 percent. If you have a traditional portfolio and you have about 10 or 15 percent in gold and that kind of bad time happens, you will be well diversified. So whether you expect a good time or a bad time, it's a good thing to have between 10 and 15 percent in the portfolio.

So crypto couldn't be a replacement. And then there's the question of crypto. There are pros and cons to crypto. OK, here's how I look at crypto. During very difficult times, there is a desire to have privacy for ownership. Gold is an investment that has been held by central banks that they can securely hold because it's in their hands. There's a saying that gold is the only asset that you can have, investment asset, that is not dependent on somebody giving you something. And so central banks, I don't believe, are going to hold crypto in the same way, because it can be monitored, who's owning it,

what is being done with it, and also it can be taken in various ways legally. So crypto is less appealing to me than gold, but I have some crypto, a smaller amount, a much smaller amount than gold. But I think the important thing is to have, whether it's gold and or crypto, to have some non-traditional money type of investments because of the diversification. If the credit system and the debt problems become real and there's a significant chance that they can become real problems, I think that it's very important to have that as a

diversifier. Stick to Bitcoin? I have Bitcoin but I'm not going to get into the particulars. You are a legendary investor. You've invested since you were 12 years old. Was there ever a time that you needed money rehab? Oh, I went broke. I want to tell you an enlightening, what I would say is my best experience. That was my worst experience. You had to borrow money from your dad, right? Yeah. In 1982, I had calculated that Americans had lent more money to foreigners than those foreigners were going to be able to pay back. Very controversial point of view. It got a lot of attention. And then in August of 82, Mexico defaults

on its debt. And then other countries start to fall. I saw a lot of these problems and I thought we were going to have an economic collapse. I was interviewed on Wall Street week, I was interviewed in Congress and I couldn't have been more wrong. I lost money for myself, I lost money for my family. I was so broke that I had to borrow $4,000 from my dad to help pay family bills and very publicly wrong and that was the best experience of my life had changed my life. Why? First, I started to ask myself How do I know I'm right? What do I do with that? So it gave me a humility that I needed to deal with my arrogance. I learned how to diversify better. The secret of my having done extremely

well, built the largest hedge fund, made more money for investors than any other hedge fund in existence. The secret of that was came out of that experience and that secret was to know how to build a diversified portfolio to be aggressive while being able to control risk and so from that point of view never had any significant down years and had great returns because of learning diversification, how to do that well, and also learning humility. Like I wanted to find the smartest people I could find who disagreed with me and I wanted them to stress test my thinking.

The power of open-mindedness and stress testing and diversification, I learned as a result of that. I would never have the success I had if I didn't learn those things from that experience. Nearly going bankrupt. Yeah. And so you incorporated that principle into Bridgewater famously with radical transparency. Is that a principle for success just for hedge funds or can we use that in our personal finances? So what do I want in life? What do you want in life? Tell me. Okay, I'll tell you. What I wanted in life and what I wanted for Bridgewater is meaningful work and meaningful relationships,

meaningful work and meaningful relationships through radical truthfulness and radical transparency. In other words, I want the work. I want to have a passion. I wanted all of us to have that passion and to achieve excellence in the work and simultaneously to have meaningful relationships, great relationships, and to me great relationships and success requires truthfulness, radical truthfulness, the ability to talk honestly about one is how one's thinking about things. So I wanted that, that's what I want, that's what I love. If you ask me for my life, I've now made far far more money. I never used to really much work for money.

It was mostly the game, but there's a point. But now, and even beyond, I want meaningful work, like I'm into my game, and I'm with meaningful relationships. If you can do that with fantastic people, you're doing it together. And then you do that with real truthfulness and real transparency so that there's no ability to hide what you're thinking. You can be tremendously successful and have

trust and beautiful relationships. So that's what I want. I think that everybody should think about what they want and I would recommend that. If you want your young audience that I'm speaking with, okay? What do you want? I recommend meaningful work and meaningful relationships. That should be your environment. And I think you to speak truthfully to each other about it difficult issues like what your strengths and weaknesses are to look at mistakes to realize that the power of mistakes is great because they're your learning experiences. If you avoid thinking about them, I have a principle, pain plus reflection equals

progress, okay? The pain is a messenger. So now if you reflect on that pain, you'll understand how reality works better and you'll understand principles for dealing with reality to get better outcomes. So my reaction function has changed. In other words, when these things happen and I learn how to get better. So these are the things I want.

And you have all the money in the world or access to all of the money in the world. We can agree on that. But you haven't been immune from pain. You and your family haven't been. That's right. Every painful experience is a learning lesson. Yes. And so that brings us to the age-old question, does money bring you happiness? So that brings us to the age old question, does money bring you happiness? To hear Ray's answer, and I promise it's a good one, tune into tomorrow's episode. Until then, check out clips from the interview on Instagram.

We are at Money Rehab for the show, and I am at Nicole Lapin. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lapin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some Money Rehab? And let's be honest, we all do.

So email us your money questions, moneyrehabatmoneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at Money News and TikTok at MoneyNewsNetwork for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make. you