The Fund

Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend

By: Rob Copeland

Narrated by: Rob Copeland, Will Damron

This program features an author's note and epilogue read by the author.

The unauthorized, unvarnished story of famed Wall Street hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio.

Ray Dalio does not want you to listen to this audiobook.

Late last year, when 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 The Fund, award-winning New York Times journalist Rob Copeland punctures this carefully constructed narrative of the benevolent business titan, exposing his much-promoted “principles” as one of the great feats of hubris in modern memory—in practice, they encouraged a toxic culture of paranoia and backstabbing.

The Fund is a thrilling, stranger-than-fiction journey into a rarefied world of wealth and power. It offers an unflinching look at the pain so often caused by the “radical transparency” Dalio has described as a core tenet of his recipe for business success and a meaningful life. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with those inside and around the firm, Copeland takes listeners into the room as former FBI director Jim Comey kisses Dalio's ring, recent Pennsylvania Senate candidate David McCormick drinks the Kool-Aid, and a rotating cast of memorable characters grapple with their personal psychological and moral limits—all under the watchful eye of their charismatic leader.

This is a cautionary tale for anyone convinced that the ability to make lots of money has anything at all to do with unlocking the principles of human nature.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

©2023 Rob Copeland (P)2023 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“At last, the era of the billionaire philosopher-king has a defining book. The Fund is a taut, nonfiction thriller."—Bryan Burrough, author of Barbarians at the Gate

“A classic American story about the most famous man on Wall Street—or the person he seems to be. The Fund manages to both shock and entertain at the same time.”—Philipp Meyer, bestselling author of American Rust and The Son

"The most explosive, mind-blowing business book I've ever read—and the most fun, too."—Bradley Hope, co-author of the New York Times bestseller Billion Dollar Whale and Pulitzer Prize finalist