Moonshots with Peter Diamandis - Ray Dalio on AI, Job Loss & the Future of the Economy | #EP 148

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

In this episode, Ray and Peter discuss the changing world order, China vs. the USA, and Ray’s thoughts on the future of the US. Recorded on Feb 3rd, 2024 Views are my own thoughts; not Financial, Medical, or Legal Advice. Ray Dalio is a renowned investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist who founded Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, managing approximately $130 billion in assets as of 2022. While no longer actively managing Bridgewater, Dalio remains influential, serving on the firm's board and mentoring its strategies. In 2024, he launched the Dalio Market Principles Program in Strategic Investing for Family Offices, an educational initiative through Singapore's Wealth Management Institute. He is a thought leader committed to causes like education reform and social inequality through "The Giving Pledge." Dalio continues to influence global markets, economic discourse, and investment education, leaving a profound legacy in finance and beyond. Read a preview of Ray’s upcoming book here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-countries-go-broke-introduction-chapter-one-ray-dalio-3wjae/?trackingId=N1iU2nZfSAGBn6rbKjrpQA%3D%3D  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-countries-go-broke-chapter-two-three-ray-dalio-w1gue/?trackingId=7a0JpA8PQ%2BCrVA99sifjGw%3D%3D  ____________ I only endorse products and services I personally use. To see what they are,  please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:  Get started with Fountain Life and become the CEO of your health: https://fountainlife.com/peter/ AI-powered precision diagnosis you NEED for a healthy gut: https://www.viome.com/peter  Get 15% off OneSkin with the code PETER at  https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod _____________ I send weekly emails with the latest insights and trends on today’s and tomorrow’s exponential technologies. Stay ahead of the curve, and sign up now:  Blog _____________ Connect With Peter: Twitter Instagram Youtube Moonshots

Our country is going to go broke faster because of AI and robotics. That is likely to happen. There's going to be great disruption. I can vibrantly feel the energy in the biotech world, in the AI world. Technology and AI is going to be a force and it's a tailwind. The question is, is the tailwind greater than the headwind? Listen, I'm the guy who, not the glass isn't half full, the glass is overflowing. I'm Mr. Optimism, Mr. Abundance, but reading your book, it's got me thinking a lot. As we take one, two, three, four, five years, do you think you're not going to have an economic downturn? Do you think you're not going to have a bear market? Really?

How do you think about China? We are at war with China and you cannot lose the war. Everybody, welcome to Moonshots. Today, my guest is none other than Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater, the world's largest hedge fund with $130 billion under management. I asked Ray about why he holds gold over Bitcoin, the impact of AI and robotics on the global economy and on the US economy. His advice for entrepreneurs building tech companies over the next one to two years.

We'll talk about China and we'll talk about the world ahead. It's a fascinating conversation with one of the smartest thinkers ever, particular on his new book, How Countries Go Broke. And being in the United States, I wanna know what's the impact on me and you as an entrepreneur. Right, let's dive in.

Ray, good evening. You're on the other side of the planet. I'm in Santa Monica. You're in Abu Dhabi right now, is that correct? Well, welcome to Moonshots, my friend. It's a pleasure to see you. I normally run into you in Riyadh or in the Emirates, sometimes in New York. And I have to say, I've been so looking forward to this conversation. I think the work that you have been doing recently in writing about how countries go broke, we'll dive into that, really on the back of the changing world order.

As individuals, as entrepreneurs who are really focusing on AI and robotics and longevity, I think about, of course, the future. A lot of us really want to have a stable world in which to build our dreams. And I think it's important for folks to understand the cycles that humanity and countries go through to help them get a sense of where things are going. So no one better than you. Alright, well let's jump in and in particular, you've charted what you describe as sort of the five major forces that are driving the health and wealth of nations. Could you give us an overview of those? Please. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And is that typically also an 80 year like cycle. Okay. I'm going to, at some point later, I want to get into the conversation, how tied is

this to human life's lifespan. Yeah. I remember my parents, they were born during the depression effectively or the tail end and it changed the way they were wired. Turn the lights off, son. Eat that food. But that was their mindset. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. United Nations. Yeah. United Nations, yeah. Okay. Yeah. You know, when you speak about climate, most people go to, you know, the current climate crisis, but you're really talking about the long cycles of climate causing drought, causing starvation, basically just ending nations.

Yeah. The rap tech. Yeah. Right. Right You it bill it builds on itself, right Okay. Thank you. Yeah, we have a silver tsunami, we have an aging populace, and we have growing... I mean, it's interesting, right? Because these are... The age demographics are... I think... I'm thinking they play a much bigger role today than they ever have. And will. Yeah. Everybody, Peter here. If you're enjoying this episode, please help me get the message of abundance out to the world. We're truly living during the most extraordinary time ever in human history and I want to get this mindset out to everyone. Please subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts and turn on notifications so we can let you know when the next episode is being

dropped. Alright, back to our episode. I want to get into something and then get into the five stages of the big debt cycle that you write about. I want to dive into something instantly here, which has been bothering me. I did not get a good night's sleep thinking about this last night as we get ready, which is our country is going to go broke faster because of AI and robotics. So if I understand this correctly, the Federal Reserve's mandate is basically to juggle jobs and inflation, provide maximum jobs, maximum employment, stable prices, moderate long-term

interest rates, and traditionally you lower interest rates that boosts employment because companies can borrow cheaply, they expand operation, they hire more work more workers and that's been the game up until recently. Now you've got Optimus, humanoid robot and figure, Optimus, humanoid robot and figure. You know, the prediction right now is we'll have billions of them by the mid 2030s. You know, Elon's prediction when I interviewed him at FII in Riyadh, it was, you know, 10 billion by 2040. You had Sam Waltman tweet out yesterday that their 03 mini model and their deep research tech will start displacing single digit employed, you know, white collar workers right away. I interviewed Mark Benioff on this podcast two weeks ago, and he said, listen, with with Salesforce's new agent technology, we're 30% more productive and are hiring no new engineers. And so the question becomes, you know, as we're marching forward here,

if a company has access to lower interest rates, when they just buy more robots and hire more AI agents and thereby, you know, reduce and hire more AI agents and thereby reduce labor and sort of create this massive decoupling compared to what had been the process. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to go a step deeper here because traditionally you would hire workers that would get money in their pockets, they would start consuming, that would fuel demand, they would pay down corporate and government debts. And the challenge again is, again, in coming from your recent work, how governments go broke, if workers aren't seeing wage growth and aren't getting jobs, then who's driving

consumption? And then how does that drive our economy? I guess the question is, is it going to accelerate your predictions on the challenges? Sure. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I remember that that number was around seventy thousand dollars or thereabouts for happiness with Uh-huh I was saying for the United States. Yeah. Yeah Have food. Yeah. So part of the question becomes is there going to be a new type of social contract that's going to have to be created? I mean, I do believe and I write about this and I think about this a lot that technology is a force that turns whatever was scarce into abundance, right?

We've created massive energy abundance and food abundance to the point where obesity is the new issue. Abundance of information, abundance of all the entertainment you could possibly want, abundance of almost every... There's very little that if you pushed me, I couldn't paint a picture of increasing abundance. Even life, the amount of things you can do per unit time per second today. So the efficiency of how we spend our time. But even with that increasing abundance, if people are unhappy and it turns us towards civil strife, then we've got real issues. Yeah.

Yeah. And graph paper, sure. We have problems, right? Yes. We have problems, right? Yes. Yeah. I had to... What's that? and Yeah, I had this conversation with Neil deGrasse Tyson, he was saying, we're having a conversation exactly that every generation feels like they're at the most extraordinary period of technological and societal growth ever. And it feels that way. I mean, the stuff that is coming, Ray, that is, I think, I have to believe it's transformational. And the question is, is it unlike what it was in the past in terms of the level degree of transformation, right? I know you do.

Efficient. There is debate, but the question is what is a long way? Is it a long way? Three years, five years, ten years? I'm sorry. These are still human relationships, human relationships. This is human emotional relationships. Okay. Okay.. Yeah. And we'll get to that conversation about US and China, which I think is the dominant conversation in that realm right now. Before we get there, I want to talk about this concept of abundance. I wrote a book 12, 13 years ago now called Abund future is better than you think. And the argument for increasing global abundance, thank you, the follow-on age of abundance is going to come out in 26 but the detail looking at access to food, water, energy, health care, education, almost every particular factor and the demonetization and democratization

has been just off the charts and accelerating. We're on the verge of fusion potentially. The Chinese just had held a fusion reaction for 18 minutes. You've got Helion and many others looking at fusion by turn of the decade here. Solar exploding onto the scene. And energy, of course, drives everything else. So I guess the question is, when you think about abundance as a concept for America and Americans and for the world, how do you, how do you, I'd like to know how you think about that. Is it a world of increasing abundance? Are there factors that are going to basically shut that down? Okay. But you showed that you showed the technology is a continuous force and building on itself despite the up and down cycles. Sure. Right. And if you're listening to this... Yes. Yeah.

Yes. I slowed down, I can't very slow down. Yeah. Okay. free.com bus, right? Yeah. Yeah, when my mom starts telling me, should I buy this stock or my Uber driver's tires telling me about that, you know you're in trouble. Yeah. Of course, it was interesting when Jeff Bezos at one of his earnings calls said, yeah, Amazon might not exist in 30 years. I mean, it shocked people for him to say that. Yes. I'm still impressed that Microsoft is doing as well as it's done for the last 50 years.

It's crazy. For 40 years. Yeah. Let's get into the big debt cycle and the five stages you break it down into. And again, the lens I'm coming at this from is we have a lot of entrepreneurs who are building companies. And when time is good, you know, we just entered a new administration where we've got a pro technology, pro M&A, you know, mindset, minimized regulation, and I'm just, I can vibrantly feel the energy in the biotech world, in the AI world, people are building, building, building. Capital is beginning to flow again and people are not looking at what's likely to be coming in the next two to five years. They're just like, the time is

good now, borrow, build, go, go, go. So, what's your advice to entrepreneurs right now? And let's do that in the context of your, of the five stages we're in. And I'd like to understand where you think we are in the United States. What's the impact of that Elon's having and Doge, you know, can we hold off these dead cycles? Is there any chance for that or is it just too far gone? It's a lot of questions but let's take it a step at a time. Thank you. I know it's on LinkedIn. Is it just Google? Just Google how countries go broke?

The principles for navigating a big... Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Mm-hmm. Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay. And it's the, I mean, the challenge of an entrepreneur is you've got to be especially a moonshot entrepreneur. You've got to be super optimistic even to get into the game. And but people are not don't see the long-term writing on the wall. So how do you properly capitalize yourself? How do you protect against the downside? How do you not over burden yourself with debt or too rapid growth? I mean, this is the message I want folks to be listening to. Listen, I'm the guy who not the glass isn't half full, the glass is overflowing. I'm Mr. Optimism,

Mr. Abundance, but as I said, reading your book, it's got me thinking a lot. So I want to pass on I want to pass this on Yes, it differentiates us from most of the world. There's a great talk that Bill Gross, not the economic Bill Gross, Bill Gross from Idealab gives about what's the single most important aspect for a successful company and its timing. It's living long enough to live forever. If you can live through the downturn and be there at the upturn, then you know, yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Honorably, guys. It was about 13 years ago, I had my two kids, my two boys, and I remember at that moment in time, I made a decision to double down on my health.

Without question, I wanted to see their kids, their grandkids, and really, you know, during this extraordinary time where the space frontier and AI and crypto is all exploding, it was like the most exciting time ever to be alive and I made a decision to double down on my health and I've done that in three key areas. The first is going every year for a Fountain upload. You know, Fountain is one of the most advanced diagnostics and therapeutics companies. I go there, upload myself, digitize myself, about 200 gigabytes of data that the AI system is able to look at to catch disease at inception. You know, look for any cardiovascular, any cancer, neurodegenerative disease, any metabolic disease. These things

are all going on all the time and you can prevent them if you can find them at inception. So super important. So Fountain is one of my keys. I make it available to the CEOs of all my companies, my family members because health is in you wealth. But beyond that, we are a collection of 40 trillion human cells and about another 100 trillion bacterial cells, fungi, viri, and we don't understand how that impacts us. And so I use a company and a product called Viome. And Viome has a technology called Metatranscriptomics, it was actually developed in New Mexico, the same place where the nuclear bomb was developed, as a

bio-defense weapon and their technology is able to help you understand what's going on in your body to understand which bacteria are producing which proteins and as a consequence of that what foods are your super foods that are best for you to eat or Or what foods should you avoid? What's going on in your oral microbiome? So I use their testing to understand my foods, understand my medicines, understand my supplements, and Viome really helps me understand

from a biological and data standpoint, what's best for me? And then finally, feeling know, feeling good, being intelligent, moving well is critical, but looking good. When you look yourself in the mirror saying, you know, I feel great about life is so important, right? And so a product I use every day, twice a day, is called One Skin, developed by four incredible PhD women that found this 10 amino acid peptide that's able to zap senile cells in your skin and really help you stay youthful in your look and appearance. So for me, these are three technologies I love and I use all the time. I'll have my team

linked to those in the show notes down below. Please check them out. Anyway, hope you enjoyed that. Now back to the episode. Let's get into the big debt cycle and the five stages and give us understanding of where we are in that process, if you would. Six years typically, yeah. Clean sheet of paper. Yeah. It's a good use of capital. Yes. Confidence is high. Financial systems are stable.

Ah, okay. And by the way, I'll want to speak about Bitcoin at some point as an alternative to gold, but not right now. Yeah. and Bar against your house and put it in the marketplace. place. Is that where we are today? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Which would you get? We still have a year and a half of good times ahead. Yeah. Ray, can I just ask a question here, which is these cycles have been over and over and over again. There are historians and printed books and so forth, is it the politicians are just unable to make hard decisions in order to keep in political power? Is this just fundamental in human nature that we can't steer this? Okay. No. But that's historically because the credit employed people that then consumed. Yeah.

Yeah. Which needs to be serviced. Yeah. A local dip. Okay. Thank you. All the time. Unless you're in the hedge fund industry. Yes. Unless you're in the hedge fund industry Yes So the the party ends the bubble pops And I mean, I found that incredible to get into negative interest rates even. Why do I think that's incredible? Oh, right. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, it seems insane. I'm sorry. Okay. Wow. Barak. Borrowed. Mm-hmm. What are those? Okay. Sure. And so people start stalling their debt. Thank you. Okay. Okay. What? Okay. Yeah But for a company that will drive a bankruptcy in the United States that drives what Yeah. Because the dollar is not worth anything. Yeah. And everybody thinks, you know, I'm a genius, my house prices are going, my house is going up, the value of my stock portfolio is going up, but it's all in massively inflated dollars and you're... Yes, what kind of dollar what kind of dollar value today? Which is why I still like the meme, you know, when Bitcoin equal one Bitcoin. Unfortunately, one dollar does not equal one dollar anymore. So we're in your five stages. Okay. with barrels of pesos or whatever it might be. Where are we in terms, I mean, let me ask the question I started with, which is, we're in this administration,

Elon jumps in, the Department of Government Efficiency is created. The goal is cut back government waste, try and get us more towards a balanced budget. I mean, clearly had we not done anything, there's no hope we're heading towards disaster. Is there any, do you think that DOGE can make an impact on this? and Yeah. But you're, but you are clear. Okay, I appreciate that. But you are clear if we're doing nothing, there's a, there's a definitive wall we're racing towards. Yeah Okay. I'm going to go ahead and turn it off. Thank you. Okay.. Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's a few high-flying solutions out there, and I want to throw one towards you.

Ray, you know my passion about longevity and extended health span. Dario, who's the CEO of Anthropic, I don't know if you know Dario, was at Davos and saying something that's been discussed and asserted by a number of other individuals that in the next five to ten years, we will see fundamental breakthroughs in human health span and longevity. That we may see, his words, not mine, a doubling of the human lifespan. You know, we have a 101 million dollar healthspan XPRIZE going on right now to add 20 healthy years. And so, one of the factors I find fascinating is the notion of if people are

vibrant, have the cognition and the the fortitude, the vitality to keep functioning so that at 80 or 90, you've got the wherewithal you had in your 50s or 60s. I have to imagine that would have a impact on the economics here? Of course. The cost of living, cost of health. Huh. Yeah. Passive. Yeah, when France tried to change. Well, the, yeah. Yeah. Today in the US, the average lifespan is around 79, the average health span is around 63,

meaning you're spending the last 16, 17 years of your life in some level of pain and decrepitude. And I think the goal is can we actually change that so that you're healthy initially and then extend the two together? I'm sorry. Remember Logan's run the movie? Yeah, you were supposed to be, you know, knock yourself off at age 35 and turn yourself into a food supply. Anyway, that's I believe that if this person is got the energy and the drive and is not in pain and is not restricted by regulation that at the peak of That's at least the work. We're going to find out soon enough. What I keep on telling people is, you know, we're alive during the 99th level of gameplay and a lot of these questions are going to be in.

Ray, I'm trying to. Tony Robbins, who's a mutual dear friend and I both invite you to come and join us at Fountain Life and let us appreciate that. Let's talk to Bitcoin. Let's talk about Bitcoin in a second. I know you're a Bitcoin holder, but you're still more excited about gold, if I remember correctly. How do you think about Bitcoin? You know Mike sailor was my roommate fraternity brother at MIT

And he's probably one of the most outspoken Individuals if you I'm sure you've heard Michael speak about Bitcoin. Are you sold by his his vision? When you say anti-money, define anti-money, please. Yes. and Thank you. Mm-hmm. Okay. 10 to 15 percent should be bitcoin or gold? Anti-money and you're putting the two together in that bucket. Yes. Well, I agree the fact that it can be monitored, the movement of it can be monitored, but it doesn't exist at their pleasure. Are you saying that the government could shut down? Tax-fuelled. Yes. Mm-hmm. Okay. We do inflate gold every year.

What percentage is mined every every year Okay Yes I'm curious. By the way, I just asked Anthropic here and it's we inflate gold about 1.5% to 2% per year. I am still, I would expect Bitcoin to go up when there is international strife or instability or difficulty in predicting what's coming next. But we're seeing swings that are not related to anything that's really explainable today. Could you imagine changing your mind? Yeah, well, it, yeah, I'll give you another answer to that Ray, just so you have it in your quiver.

If quantum computing were to allow us to break encryption on Bitcoin, we have a lot bigger problems. That same quantum decryption would give us the nuclear codes, would allow anybody to enter your bank accounts, allow us to do a lot more. Okay. You're on the first flight back to college. Let's uh, two final subjects. Uh, if you've got the, uh, I know it's getting late there, but I want to talk about China and I want to talk about what your 2025 predictions might look like. So there's a lot of conversation right now about China versus US. We've got a new administration coming in.

My concern, of course, is we've seen recently with DeepSeq, we've seen with nuclear fusion, you know, while the US is vibrant in terms of an entrepreneurial and technology ecosystem and engine, China should never be misjudged as someone who is pushing across the board. How do you think about China? How should we, how should an entrepreneur think about China? I'm going to go ahead and close the slides. So if you're watching this, you can see the slides. So if you're watching this, you can see the slides. So if you're watching this, you can see the slides. So if you're watching this, you can see the slides. So if you're watching this, you can see the slides. So if you're watching this, you can see the slides.

So if you're watching this, you can see the slides. So if you're watching this, you can see the slides. So if you're watching this, you can see the slides. So if you're watching this, you can see the slides. So if you're watching this, you can see the slides. So if you're watching this, you can see the slides. So if you're watching this, you can see the slides. Okay. The art of war. Okay. Okay. Okay. and Okay. Yes. Sure. Yes, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you said a few things I think are really important to hit on here. Number one, any kind of restrictions we put on China for AI, like chips from Nvidia and so forth, all that does is force them to basically start building capabilities internally and

with Huawei chips right now. The second thing it forces them to do is to become a lot more efficient. So DeepSeq was an example of, okay, we don't have the chip resources, so how do we change the algorithms and just do it a lot more efficiently? So bringing a new sort of Darwinian evolution, we have a constraint, evolution will find a way around it. So I think we've been seeing, we see that. Also, I'm a bit concerned, I'm curious what your thoughts are. You mentioned that 60% of the US doesn't read above the sixth grade level, which is kind of shocking. We do have a leveling of the education playing field happening very soon

when this device becomes a polymath in your pocket, right? Where in a conversation with your AI agent, you're able to deduce or learn or create or serve anything that you need both in China and the US. I mean, so we've got an augmented population. You don't think so? Okay. you you you Fair enough. 2025, year ahead. Fair enough. 2025, year ahead, what are you seeing? What are your predictions for the, what's the best we're going to see this year?

Right? and Okay. and Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'll swing. You're an entrepreneur or I'm an entrepreneur. Your advice looking forward, thinking about, you know, planning your business for the next year or two your equity coffers. Don't take on too much debt. Plan for realistic growth. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think that's beautiful wisdom. Ray, grateful for you.

Thank you for making your research available and writing these books. And I sure wish we humans were a bit more intelligent or a bit more had longer memories. You know, I do wonder sometimes whether AI can help us get out of these repeated cycles and support us in more logical planning and growth. I guess we're going to find out. Oh, good to see you, my friend. Thank you again for your time. Grateful for you. Thank you, buddy.