- Aug 12, 2022
Speaking of Dario, people in the financial world seem to know everything. After all, he is the head of the world's largest hedge fund and an investment guru alongside the likes of Warren Buffett. His Bridgewater Fund has grown from nothing to more than one trillion yuan in assets under management. In 2016, his own wealth increased by 10 billion yuan.
Dario's hair was grey and untidy, and his suit didn't look exactly fitting. When he walked into the venue, half the crowd pulled out their phones to take pictures -- it was probably more meaningful for them to see the Oracle itself than to hear what the Oracle had to say.
Unlike Buffett, Daliou, now in his later years, seems to think of himself more as a philosopher than an investor. This can be seen in his "Principles" or simple powerpoint presentation. Dario likes to think of his experience as a series of data inputs that, over time, are transformed into valuable guidelines for what to do next. Like Soros, who likes to present his philosophy as reflexive, Dariou's has a name: principles or algorithms.
But just as many reject Soros as a philosopher, elites may not like Dario's algorithmic philosophy. But in any case, for the general audience, principle is enough. According to the data released by the host that day, his book "Principles" sold half a million copies in a month in China. The sales were incredible even to Dario-worshippers like me -- I was one of the first people to get my hands on a Chinese translation of the book, and I thought it would sell a million copies. It seems that I still underestimated the strong marketing ability of Citic Press.
But there's nothing we can do to stop this God. In the video, the investment guru says there are three stages of life. The first is growth, the second is work, and now he has entered the third stage -- helping others succeed. Dalio seems to have grown tired of investing (or, in his own words, losing his appetite for success), preferring instead to be a life coach.
This sentiment also seems to be seen in the criticism of others. Although he is a guest of honor in China, he has been criticized in the United States for writing books. However, the big guy is the big guy, I have been the first in the world, lonely seek defeat, you point and point to how?
It's true that the divine needs some genes or innate qualities. Decades ago, when Dalio was caddy at a golf course, he overheard a stock, poured all he had into it and netted three times as much.
But both in the book and in person, Dariou still attributes success to evolving algorithms of principle. Looking back, Dario says his first windfall was a matter of luck, and that it was actual bankruptcy that taught him about investing. In the early 1980s, he made a bad investment and went completely bankrupt.
As for the book of Principles, I can hardly call it good. Aside from the fact that the opening autobiography is very enlightening and wonderful, the principles behind it are simply too much chicken soup. Mr Dariou's embrace of principle is neither new nor suggests more good ways to implement it. For the most part, his thinking is worse than Soros's. Even though I'm a fan of Dario, I have to say that a lot of the hype right now is actually overdone.
But clearly, the principles fit with the current algorithmic quest. In an age of ever more ferocious machines, we need to be generally aware of this view, and to a large extent to submit to it. Dariou says the combination of machine and man will produce great power, but that masks his true inclination: investors increasingly believe in machines, which have made investing what it is today.
Dario believes in evolution, and evolution is a cruel business. Never mind that, as the authors of "A Brief History of Man" point out, we have given up a lot of pleasure in order to evolve, even if the outcome is good, the process is super painful. But unfortunately, our current species, especially the Chinese, believe in evolution and survival of the fittest, which on the one hand accelerates us and on the other makes us tired.
But Mr Dariou was also a little too confident in his quest to find a common formula for success and then generate his own algorithms. At least all previous "my success can be replicated", has been a failure. At this point, I think Dalio would do better to take a leaf out of Silicon Valley's book and put his money where his mouth is rather than writing chicken soup.