Go behind the curtain with Wall Street titan Ray Dalio

Today on Extra Crunch, TechCrunch fintech contributor Gregg Schoenberg went deep beneath the surface with an insider profile of investor Ray Dalio. While Dalio is certainly a celebrity in the world of financial services, some outside of Wall Street might need a quick refresher on Dalio, his career and his influence.

Dalio built his reputation in the finance universe as the founder of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates. With 40-plus years of operation under its belt, Bridgewater now manages roughly $160 billion in assets for a long list of the largest institutional investors from across the globe.

But outside of the investment community, Dalio has built up a chunky following through his book “Principles,” which outlines his views on management, leadership and investing. “Principles” focuses on the best practices, mental frameworks and strategies that have worked for Dalio in both career and life.

While the set of tools presented in “Principles” can be observed in practice every day at Bridgewater, its efficacy seems to have proven to be at least somewhat applicable across backgrounds. Since the full version of the book’s publication in 2017, “Principles” has sold between one to two million-plus copies, been a New York Times Best-Seller, and has been praised by thought leaders across politics, business and the Valley, including Bill Gates, Marc Benioff and Reed Hastings.

More recently, in April, Dalio and his team launched the Principles in Action mobile iOS app, which includes the book’s full text intertwined with interactive videos (including some from actual internal Bridgewater meetings), animations, quizzes and case studies built to help users track personal growth goals. According to the app’s development team, since launch, Principles in Action has had roughly 115,000 downloads and an average of 30,000 monthly active users over the past three months, with users completing more than 5,000 case studies. The team pushes out updates every two to three weeks and plans to launch on Android in December.

And if Gregg’s deep profile on Extra Crunch, the “Principles” book and Principles in Action app didn’t offer enough access to Dalio’s brain, Dalio will also be joining us for a fireside chat on the Extra Crunch stage this October at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, where he will discuss how to build an effective and actionable culture at a startup of any scale.

Though he’s been stock investing since age 12, Dalio’s new passion is sharing to as broad an audience as possible the tactics to which he attributes his success. So join us on Extra Crunch and at the Extra Crunch Disrupt stage for exclusive candid insights from Ray Dalio and the principles that have helped him become one of history’s most successful financial entrepreneurs.