Ray Dalio, the founding father of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, sat down for a dialog with Fortune CEO Alan Murray on the Fortune World Discussion board in Abu Dhabi Wednesday. As normal, the billionaire investing legend held forth on macroeconomics, geopolitics and the enterprise local weather. However he additionally talked about that e-book.
Regardless of stepping down from his function main Bridgewater late final yr, the place he stays a CIO mentor and board member, Dalio has been much more within the public eye of late after the discharge of a scathing, unauthorized expose by New York Occasions reporter Rob Copeland, referred to as The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend.
The e-book paints a less-than-rosy image of Dalio and his path to success at Bridgewater, though it largely focuses on inside staffing and administration disputes quite than Dalio’s decades-long report as one of many greats of the hedge fund world. Dalio has been critical of the book since before it came out, and in reality has criticized Copeland’s protection of him for years, going again to when the reporter labored on the Wall Road Journal. However on Wednesday, in Abu Dhabi, he didn’t maintain again. The billionaire stated the e-book is all simply “fiction, created as fact” by a reporter with a vendetta. It’s a black eye for all journalists, Dalio continued: “When truth gets mixed with fiction by journalists, the country has a problem.”
Making stuff up?
The story of The Fund begins greater than a decade in the past, Dalio stated Wednesday, when Copeland utilized for a job at Bridgewater and was rejected earlier than starting his profession in journalism. Dalio claimed that this expertise led Copeland to “make stuff up” and “exaggerate” when writing in regards to the hedge fund. (Copeland disclosed his interview experiences with Bridgewater in his e-book, which included in depth feedback from Bridgewater and Dalio’s authorized representatives.)
Dalio, who initially responded to the book on LinkedIn by accusing Copeland of creating a profession out of “writing distorted stories about me and Bridgewater,” argued in dialog with Fortune that this e-book goes past distortion: “He will make up the conversation between two people, and there are only two people in the room and both of them said the conversation never happened.”
Dalio even stated there have been “over 400” situations the place a reality checker discovered that key factors had been “made up” by Copeland, though he didn’t point out from the stage that Bridgewater’s feedback had been mirrored all through Copeland’s e-book, indicating that he adopted a radical fact-checking course of.
Dalio then appeared to criticize American media tradition and media legislation. “In the name of journalistic freedom,” he informed Murray, “reporters can actually make up things and lie intentionally … in the United States.” He urged listeners to “forget about my case, people know me or don’t know me, what is interesting is the system” that permits reporters to combine reality and fiction.
If Copeland will not be fabricating tales, the claims are certainly salacious. The Fund describes Bridgewater as a poisonous office, primarily having to do with the weaponization of Dalio’s famed “Principles,” which describe the billionaire’s lifestyle and investing and are a characteristic of Bridgewater’s company tradition.
Quite a few excerpts of the e-book, together with in Fortune, have portrayed a local weather the place, as an illustration, former Attorney General James Comey would examine, together with by means of a number of mock trials, the violated precept of an worker not bringing in bagels as promised. When Comey despatched his notorious e-mail about investigating Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server forward of the 2016 election, what he realized from the tradition of “radical transparency” at Bridgewater was highlighted by his former colleagues on the hedge fund.
Dalio has written a number of books on these ideas and stated that they’re crucial to his success—Bridgewater is even nonetheless spending cash promoting them today. However they created a tradition of concern and time losing at Bridgewater the place arguments over “wrinkled” peas on the cafeteria or using a dry-erase board turned frequent, in keeping with Copeland’s e-book.
Pushback, however no lawsuit
When Dalio beforehand addressed The Fund in his November Linkedin post, he referred to as the e-book a “sensational and inaccurate tabloid” and argued Copeland has a vendetta in opposition to him after his job utility to Bridgewater was rejected.
“Bridgewater obviously is not and was not as he describes it. If it were, it wouldn’t have had so many happy employees who have stayed so long (about one-third have been there for over 10 years),” he wrote.
Bridgewater has additionally independently rebutted claims made by Copeland in his e-book, arguing it was a “false and misleading depiction of our past.”
Copeland and his writer, Macmillan, couldn’t be instantly reached for remark.
Nonetheless, neither Dalio nor Bridgewater has indicated their intention to carry a lawsuit of any variety in opposition to Copeland or his writer. They’ve issued vociferous complaints in regards to the e-book, however Dalio’s feedback in Abu Dhabi appear to go additional, suggesting outright fabrication, quite than the “false narrative” critique he and his fund have been airing.
Dalio appeared to point his method to the e-book going ahead when he first addressed it: “I suggest that you take this book for what it is and not get distracted by it, but do what you like with it. From this point on, I’m not going to give it more attention.”
