• Burning Man, an annual nine-day art-focused festival in the middle of the Nevada desert, is a favorite of celebrities and tech CEOs alike.
• This year's attendees included Ray Dalio, Diplo, and two Victoria's Secret models, Instagram posts show.
• Past years' attendees include Heidi Klum, Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, and Mark Zuckerberg, Business Insider previously reported.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Ultra-wealthy people are readjusting to their "regular" lives after spending nine days camping in the desert for Burning Man.

The who's who of 2019 attendees was as diverse as the art installations the event is known for. A well-known hedge-fund manager, an heiress, a DJ, and several Victoria's Secret models all shared photos from the event on social media.

Read more:How the ultra-wealthy attend Burning Man, from $55,000 private jet flights to personal chefs — and why other burners aren't happy about it

Keep reading to learn more about the ultra-wealthy people who attended Burning Man in 2019.

SEE ALSO: Take a look inside the most expensive hotel room in the world, a 2-story sky villa designed by Damien Hirst that runs $100,000 per night and was just named one of the 'world's greatest places'

DON'T MISS: The racial wealth gap in the US keeps getting bigger — and it could cost the economy as much as $1.5 trillion by 2028

The heiress and DJ Paris Hilton was one of several ultra-wealthy people who flocked to Nevada's Black Rock Desert for Burning Man in late August.

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Hilton spent time partying with Major Lazer's Diplo and the DJ and music producer Blondish.

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Diplo took a Popeyes-branded private jet to the event ...

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Read more:Social-media battles, massive crowds, and overworked employees: Inside the rise and fall of Popeyes' chicken sandwich

... but navigated the playa on a bike.

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The billionaire hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio attended as well. The 70-year-old investor and philanthropist said this year's Burning Man was like Woodstock but with "less good music."

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Just back from Burning Man. Reminds me of Woodstock with better art (installations) and less good music. What a great vibe and what amazing creativity!

Photo is with my pal and coworker Jeff Taylor at his great music camp Root Society. If you go next year, 1-5am is best. pic.twitter.com/ua5UIbRlxo

Read more:Billionaire Ray Dalio showed up at Burning Man in a tie-dye fur coat and said it was like Woodstock but with 'less good music'

Burning Man is also popular with models. Poppy Delevingne, a model and actress and the sister of Cara Delevingne, brought the Victoria's Secret model Georgia Fowler.

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Alexina Graham, a Victoria's Secret angel, attended Burning Man au naturel — a common choice among attendees, both famous and not.

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Sharna Burgess, a former "Dancing with the Stars" pro, also made an appearance.

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Though they weren't pictured at the latest festival, some of the biggest (and wealthiest) names in tech — including Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk — have frequented Burning Man in years past.

Source: New York Times

Read more:Silicon Valley loves Burning Man and these tech executives are no exception

Other high-profile celebrities have previously made the trek into the desert, including Susan Sarandon ...

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... and Heidi Klum.

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Source: Business Insider

• Billionaire hedge-fund founder Ray Dalio loves answering questions.
• Dalio held a LinkedIn AMA session on Monday, opening up about his work principles, which he honed after founding the world's largest hedge-fund, Bridgewater Associates.
• Users also asked Dalio about everything from how his principles apply to women to how to go about introducing what he calls "radical transparency" in a less-accepting workplace.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Billionaire hedge-fund founder Ray Dalio loves answering questions.

Dalio held a LinkedIn AMA on Monday, allowing users to ask Dalio questions about everything from his 2017 best seller, "Principles," to his future plans for sharing his knowledge, including a training course Dalio said was "in the works." Dalio previously held a Reddit AMA last May.

Read more: 8 highlights from hedge-fund billionaire Ray Dalio's Reddit AMA session

Dalio honed his work principles after founding Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge-fund, in 1975. Bridgewater Associates currently holds about $160 billion in assets under management.

Dalio answered questions about one of his most well-known principles, something he he calls "radical transparency": The idea that employees should be completely honest with one another to ensure success, while remaining respectful. He also discussed "idea meritocracy," which involves having the courage to make the best decision in difficult circumstances, regardless of opinion.

"I particularly want to explain how a great idea meritocracy with radical truth and radical transparency really works," Dalio said in a video attached to the post. "But feel free to ask me any questions you have about work principles."

Here are some of Dalio's best responses from his latest round of online Q&A.

SEE ALSO: Billionaire Ray Dalio showed up at Burning Man in a tie-dye fur coat and said it was like Woodstock but with 'less good music'

DON'T MISS: Ray Dalio breaks down why he sees a 25% chance of recession through 2020

One of the first questions came from organizational psychologist Adam Grant, who knows Dalio personally. Grant wanted to know some strategies for disagreeing with someone thoughtfully.

Read more: Adam Grant explains why introverts will make better leaders in the future

Another LinkedIn user asked Dalio about two perennially elusive skills: time management and calendar-planning.

Another asked two questions. The first was about whether Dalio's 2012 diagnosis of possible Barrett's esophagus — a pre-cancerous throat disease — was stress-related. The second was whether Dalio's principles could apply to women.

Dalio talked about some of the tools Bridgewater uses to ensure radical transparency, including the "Dot Collector" app, which employees use to rate one another during meetings.

One user asked about implementing Dalio's principles in a workplace that may not readily accept them.

Another user asked Dalio the same question, but wanted him to boil his principles down to just two.

Dalio answered one user's question about implementing his principles in government agencies, like education.

One user asked if Dalio was working on a training course, which gave Dalio a chance to plug his app, "Principles in Action," based on his 2017 best seller, "Principles."

• Ray Dalio, the founder and cochief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates — the largest hedge fund — expressed his worry over the Trump administration's new plan to curb US investment in China. 
• The hedge-fund mogul likened this latest development to a period between 1935 and 1945, when a similar scenario resulted in the use of emergency powers and then, eventually, disaster.
• Dalio thinks all market participants need to be concerned if today's advancements follow a similar path.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

The Trump administration's latest trade-war escalation involving China is focused on limiting US investors' capital flows into the emerging nation.

Possible courses of action include: the delisting of Chinese companies from US stock exchanges, restricting US investors' exposure to Chinese investment through government pensions, and placing limits on Chinese companies included in indexes managed by the US.

This week, Ray Dalio— the founder and cochief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates— weighed in on the discussion by offering historical anecdotes, potential next steps, and reasons why this development shouldn't be taken lightly.

"Regarding the capital and currency wars, the ability of the US president to unilaterally cut off capital flows to China and also freeze payments on the debts owed to China and also use sanctions to inhibit non-American financial transactions with China must be considered as possibilities," Dalio said in a recent LinkedIn post.

He continued: "That's why the proposed step of limiting American portfolio investments in China makes me both think about the implications of this step and wonder if it is an inching toward bigger moves."

Read more: The last 2 times stocks entered the 'Grey Zone' were before the tech bubble and the global financial crisis. Here's why UBS thinks equities are on a similar path — and why the Fed will be powerless to stop it.

To that end, Dalio thinks that President Donald Trump may lean on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to further restrict the Chinese economy. 

This act "empowers the president to unilaterally impose capital and FX controls, freeze assets and/or payments on assets (coupons), and force asset divestitures to 'deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat' from outside the US to 'the national security…economy of the United States,'" he said.

Parallels to the period from 1935 to 1945

To provide historical context for his argument, Dalio referenced a similar scenario that occurred in the late 1930's between the US and Japan. During this time period, the US froze Japanese assets and embargoed oil to Japan. The conflict eventually spiraled out of control. 

Referencing this contested period from 1935 to 1945, Dalio thinks these most recent developments are akin to "the most logical steps in this classic dangerous journey."

Burgeoning wealth and political gaps, central banks' limited ability to stimulate, and a new world power on the rise were all present throughout the late '30s and early '40s.

Today, we're in that same spot. Income inequality and political extremes are present and growing, the Federal Reserve is running out of tools to stimulate the economy, and China is starting to challenge the US's status as the de facto world power.

Against that backdrop, it's easy to see why Dalio is worried about this latest development and how deepening escalations could lead to a disaster.

"In any case, from not having to worry about such things in the past, now all market participants need to worry about them," he concluded.

SEE ALSO: A hedge fund manager who turned $126,000 of firmwide assets into $500 million explains his Warren Buffett-esque investment process — and why he's not concerned with today's stock market valuation

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Nxivm leader Keith Raniere has been convicted. Here's what happened inside his sex-slave ring that recruited actresses and two billionaire heiresses.

• Ray Dalio is warning that the world economy is in a "great sag" and central banks won't be able to fight it. 
• According to CNBC, Dalio said that with interest rates so low around the world, central banks can't lift the economy through monetary policy alone. 
• Instead the billionaire called upon a coordinated response from governments to lift the global economy.
• View Markets Insider's homepage for more stories.

Hedge fund mogul Ray Dalio warned that the global economy is in a "great sag" and central banks won't be able to provide the stimulus to get out of it. 

Speaking at a panel at the IMF and World Bank meeting in Washington, moderated by CNBC, the billionaire investor said the current business cycle is "the best we get, but it's not going to continue forever, you have this sag."

Because of this "sag," Dalio warned that monetary policy would not be so effective. "We have a situation where we don't have the ability to ease monetary policy," said Dalio, who added that "Europe is at the limitation of that [interest rate cuts], Japan is [too], and the US doesn't have much to go on for that." 

Dalio said that as a result, fiscal policy and an appropriate government response should be utilized alongside central banks.

"Monetary policy it's not going to be so effective," he said, according to the video of the event. "Imagine if you have a downturn and you have not as effective monetary policy, then there has to be coordination. So how do you get coordination in this kind of political environment? Then you have to have coordination with fiscal and monetary policy to be able to do something and then you have to have political coordination between the various factors on what the policy should be."

The Bridgewater Associates founder also likened the current political and economic climate to the 1930s, touching on the idea that we have a rising power challenging an existing power in the form of the China and the United States. 

"There's four kinds of war: there's a trade war, a technology war, currency capital war, and a geopolitical war — and that's a phenomenon happening at the same time, so internally we have a lot more conflicts," Dalio told the panel.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Amazon is reportedly seeking a new space in New York City. Here's why the giant canceled its HQ2 plans 5 months ago.

• Billionaires including Mark Cuban, Marc Benioff, Ray Dalio, and George Soros have publicly called for the United States to raise taxes on the wealthy.
• Soros was part of a group of 18 ultra-wealthy Americans who published an open letter in June asking presidential candidates to support a moderate wealth tax.
• A wealth tax like the one proposed by presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren would make ultra-wealthy Americans pay the federal government a small percentage of their net worth each year.
• Here's a running list of the most high-profile, ultra-wealthy Americans who have requested a wealth tax since 2017.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Some of America's wealthiest people are campaigning for a tax hike on the ultra-wealthy.

Billionaires from Warren Buffett to George Soros have proposed a wealth tax as a way to combat America's growing wealth gap and fund health care and education initiatives. In June, a group of 18 ultra-wealthy Americans, including Abigail Disney and members of the Pritzker and Gund families, published an open letter asking presidential candidates to support a moderate wealth tax. 

Politicians, too, are rolling out proposals on this front: A wealth tax like the one proposed by presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren would make ultra-wealthy Americans pay the federal government a small percentage of their net worth each year. And in September, Bernie Sanders unveiled a wealth tax plan that is even more aggressive than Warren's.

These politicians' and billionaires' calls for a tax on the ultra-wealthy come as the divide between America's rich and poor continues to expand. In 2018, income inequality in the US reached its highest level in more than half a century. The ultra-wealthy actually paid a smaller portion of their income in taxes than average Americans in 2018, an analysis of tax data by the University of California at Berkeley's Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman found.

While the idea of using a wealth tax to solve America's inequality problem has gained traction in recent years, proposals have been hampered by questions over the effectiveness and the constitutionality of such a tax, Business Insider previously reported.

Keep reading to learn more about some of the most high-profile billionaires and multi-millionaires who have publicly supported raising taxes on the 1%, listed in chronological order.

Are you a multi-millionaire or billionaire with thoughts on wealth taxes? Contact the reporter via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (646) 768-4725 using a non-work phone, email at trogers@businessinsider.com, or Twitter DM at @TaylorNRogers. (PR pitches by email only, please.)

SEE ALSO: Former billionaire Michael Novogratz says it's 'insanity' that his billionaire friends feel like 'victims' of Elizabeth Warren's proposed wealth tax

DON'T MISS: You now need to make more than $500,000 a year to be in the 1% in America, new study shows — and that's the highest it's ever been

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban proposed taxing the wealthy to offset cutting payroll taxes in a November 2017 tweet.

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Lol. I don't like the proposed tax cuts. I think we should cut payroll taxes so everyone with a job gets a raise and make it up via other taxes on people like me and spending efficiencies https://t.co/OQeSRZt3S7

Now best known for his appearances on ABC's "Shark Tank," Cuban built a $4.1 billion fortune through a lifetime of business deals, including the $5.7 billion sale of Broadcast.com, and his ownership of the Dallas Mavericks, Business Insider previously reported.

Bill Gates has said he's paid over $10 billion in taxes over his lifetime — but he doesn't think that's enough.

"I need to pay higher taxes," Gates said in a 2018 interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria. "I've paid more taxes, over $10 billion, than anyone else, but the government should require people in my position to pay significantly higher taxes."

Gates hasn't expressed support for a specific tax proposal, unlike many of the other ultra-wealthy Americans on this list, however.

On CNBC's Squawk Box, Warren Buffett said raising billionaires' taxes is the best way to help “a guy who is a wonderful citizen” but “just doesn’t have market skills."

"The wealthy are definitely undertaxed relative to the general population," Buffett said on CNBC's "Squawk Box" in February.

Buffett has suggested that Congress expand income tax credits for low-income Americans, raising taxes on high earners in the process, CNBC reported.

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said he "should be paying higher taxes” at a CNN town hall in February, but called Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's proposed 70% marginal tax rate for millionaires “punitive.”

Schultz built a $3.8 billion fortune running the coffee chain, Business Insider previously reported. While Schultz left Starbucks in 2018, he still owns more than 37.7 million shares — or roughly 3% — of the company's stock.

When asked if the wealthy should pay more in taxes on 60 Minutes in February, billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio replied, "Of course."

In the 60 Minutes segment, Dalio said he thinks the American dream is lost and referred to the wealth gap as a "national emergency."

Dalio, 70, founded his hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, in his apartment in 1975, Business Insider previously reported. It now has $150 billion in assets under management. Dalio has a net worth of $18.7 billion, Forbes estimates.

Abigail Disney, the granddaughter of The Walt Disney Company co-founder Roy Disney, has made a name for herself as one of the biggest advocates for closing America's wealth gap.

The granddaughter of The Walt Disney Company cofounder Roy Disney has made a name for herself as one of the company's most outspoken critics. The 59-year-old heiress has criticized the salary of Disney CEO Bob Iger and defended Meryl Streep after she called Walt Disney a "bigot," according to CNN Business.

Disney has a net worth of $120 million, she said in July. "The internet says I have half a billion dollars and I might have something close to that if I'd been investing aggressively," Disney told the Financial Times.

Disney was one of 18 ultra-wealthy Americas to sign an open letter in June asking presidential candidates to support a moderate wealth tax. The letter isn't the first time that Disney has spoken out about tax reform. Disney criticized the 2017 Republican tax bill in a NowThis video, saying the bill unfairly benefited the wealthy.

Heiress Agnes Gund and her daughter Catherine Gund also signed the wealth tax letter.

In 2015, Forbes estimated that the Gund family had a net worth of $3.4 billion and ranked them among the 100 wealthiest families in America.

Agnes Gund, 81, used the fortune she inherited from her father, the president of an Ohio-based bank, to become a noted philanthropist in arts and social justice, according to The New York Times. Agnes Gund received the National Medal of the Arts in 1997 from President Bill Clinton for her work, which included serving as the president of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Catherine Gund, 54, is an Emmy award-winning film director and producer. Gund founded non-profit production studio Aubin Pictures in 1996, according to her biography on the studio's website.

The Gunds weren't the only family who signed the letter together. So did Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes and his husband, political activist Sean Eldridge.

Hughes, 35, is a cofounder of Facebook. He left the social network in 2007 to become the online organizer for Barack Obama's first presidential campaign. Despite calling for Facebook to be broken up in May, Hughes has a stake in the company worth $850 million, Newsweek reports.

In 2016, Forbes put Hughes' net worth at $430 million.

Eldridge, 32, is a political activist and former congressional candidate in New York, according to Vanity Fair. Eldridge was born in Canada.

Ian and Liesel Pritzker Simmons signed the letter together.

"This is really a conservative position about increasing the stability of the economy in the long term and having an efficient source of taxation," Simmons told the Associated Press in October.

Simmons, 44, serves as the cofounder and principal of impact investing firm Blue Haven Initiative alongside his wife and fellow signatory Liesel Pritzker Simmons, according to the firm's website. Simmons is the heir to a family fortune that stems from the construction of locks on the Erie Canal, according to Forbes.

Pritzker Simmons, an heiress to the Pritzker family fortune, has a net worth of approximately $600 million, according to a 2013 Forbes article. Simmons, now 35, is also a cofounder and principal of Blue Haven Initiative.

As a child, she starred in several big-name Hollywood productions, including "A Little Princess" and "Air Force One," alongside Harrison Ford. In 2002, Forbes reports, she sued her father and the Pritzker family and came away from it with a $500 million payout.

Simmons called retired Massachusetts real-estate developer Robert Bowditch and convinced him to sign the letter, too.

"Charitable giving by itself simply cannot provide enough money to support public goods and services, such as public education, roads and bridges, clean air," Bowditch told the Associated Press in October. "It has to be done by taxes."

Bowditch, 80, has previously advocated for raising taxes on the wealthy: In 2010, he signed an open letter to President Obama asking him to allow tax cuts for millionaires to expire, according to a CBS affiliate in Boston.

Billionaire financier George Soros signed the letter with his son, Alexander Soros.

According to his personal website, Alexander Soros, 34, serves as deputy chair of the Open Society Foundations, a nonprofit founded by his father.

George Soros told The New York Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin he supports a wealth tax even though it creates "a moral problem" for him.

"I am in favor of taxing the rich," George Soros, 89, told The Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin in October, "including a wealth tax. A financier makes people suspicious ... and it does create a moral problem for me. As I became so successful, it basically put a self-imposed constraint on me that actually interfered with making money."

The philanthropist made his fortune running Quantum Fund, which was once the largest hedge fund in the world. Soros has a net worth of $8.3 billion, Business Insider previously reported.

Investor Nick Hanauer believes a wealth tax would be good for America's economy.

"A wealth tax would not just be fair, it would be pro-growth," Hanauer wrote in an essay advocating for a wealth tax published in Business Insider. "And don't let the trickle-downers tell you otherwise."

Hanauer, 60, was an early investor in Amazon, according to his personal website. Business Insider previously reported that Hanauer is a longtime critic of America's income inequality.

Business Insider's Rich Feloni previously reported that Hanauer has said he's not a billionaire, but that, as both he and his wife have signed The Giving Pledge, their combined net worth at least approaches the $1 billion threshold.

Heiress and attorney Molly Munger told the Associated Press that seeing empty Newport Beach mansions from her family's boat on Memorial Day made her consider a wealth tax.

"It's just too much to watch that happen at the top and see what is happening at the bottom," Munger told the Associated Press in October. "Isn't it a waste when beautiful homes on the beach are empty for most of the summer?"

Munger, 71, is the oldest daughter of Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger. Munger is a Harvard Law graduate who works as a civil rights attorney in Pasadena, California, according to the Los Angeles Times. In 2012, she advocated for a tax hike in California to boost funding for the state's public schools.

Billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad wrote an op-ed in The New York Times in June 2019 advocating for a wealth tax, saying American capitalism "isn’t working."

Broad doesn't believe that his philanthropic work and other policies including a $15 minimum wage, expanding access to health care, and reforming public education are doing enough to help low-income Americans, he wrote in The New York Times.

"It's time to start talking seriously about a wealth tax," Broad wrote in The Times. "I simply believe it's time for those of us with great wealth to commit to reducing income inequality, starting with the demand to be taxed at a higher rate than everyone else."

Broad built a $6.8 billion fortune after cofounding home builder Kaufman & Broad, according to Forbes.

Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff proposed a wealth tax in an October New York Times essay.

"Local efforts — like the tax I supported last year on San Francisco's largest companies to address our city's urgent homelessness crisis — will help," Benioff wrote in  The New York Times on October 14. "Nationally, increasing taxes on high-income individuals like myself would help generate the trillions of dollars that we desperately need to improve education and health care and fight climate change."

Benioff built a $6.5 billion fortune after founding software developer Salesforce. Benioff currently serves as the company's co-CEO.

• Billionaire hedge fund founder Ray Dalio is known for his "radical transparency" when it comes to corporate culture as much as for his investing prowess.
• Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater, has built an algorithmic way of evaluating employees, who can in turn evaluate him in real time, and is planning to release the platform to the public in about three months. 
• "I would know what you're thinking, you'd know what everyone else is thinking," he said. 
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Ray Dalio wants you to know what your co-workers and boss think about you all the time, in real time.

The billionaire founder of Bridgewater said he will soon be releasing to the public the employee feedback platform that the firm uses — starting with its well-known dot system in about three months. With that dot system, employees and bosses rate each other based on factors like assertiveness, intelligence, and open-mindedness. 

In a talk to a room full of investors and peers at the Greenwich Economic Forum on Tuesday afternoon, Dalio laid out why he thinks his strategy — which uses the same basic quantitative decision-making algorithms that the investment teams use — would work in any corporate setting. 

"It offers in-the-moment, computer-driven coaching on how to best handle a situation," he said. A video was played on the dot system, in which a Bridgewater employee — "Jenn, the 24-year-old fresh out of college"— challenges Dalio on the platform after he presents an idea. The presentation prompted some surprised laughter out of the crowd in the Delamar Hotel ballroom.

"Yep, we really do that," Dalio said to skeptical audience members after the video finished. 

The system, which includes tools that break down potential employees from their first interview to the end of their career, is laid out in one of Dalio's books on principles, which also is in app form. One of the tools, used when evaluating potential new employees, breaks down people by attributes so you can see them by their "Lego bits," Dalio said.

"You can say 'Ok, what are their attributes [I like] because I want another one of those," he said. 

Other tools include things like the daily update, so Dalio can keep track of people's stress levels, and the pain button, which employees click on when they are frustrated with a task. 

"Nature gave us psychological pain for a reason," Dalio said, describing the button, but added that it also forces you to come up with a plan to deal with it. If a task continues to frustrate an employee, then it is recorded.

"It creates a kind of bio feedback," he said. 

While Dalio called his corporate culture "radical," the billionaire is also confident it can work in any office or environment. When asked by the audience why he believes in the system's universality, he noted that the book on principles has been translated into 34 languages, and that he was told by people in China it was among the best-selling books in the country. 

Bosses and employees, he said, have to be comfortable with how they act and how people think about them. He asked how people would react if "I would know what you're thinking, you'd know what everyone else is thinking" during the talk. 

"Not everyone likes to look in the mirror."

SEE ALSO: Billionaire hedge-fund founder Ray Dalio says low interest rates have allowed companies to sell 'dreams instead of earnings'

SEE ALSO: Inside a meeting of elite investors, which mixed in yacht and jet sales pitches with doom-and-gloom recession talk

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: WeWork went from a $47 billion valuation to a failed IPO. Here's how the company makes money.

• Ray Dalio — the founder and cochief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund — thinks the "world has gone mad."
• He backs his thesis by outlining a troubling culmination of irrationalities he's seeing in today's market environment.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

To Ray Dalio, the founder and cochief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, irrationalities in financial markets are seemingly everywhere. And in a new LinkedIn post, the billionaire investor wasn't coy about airing his grievances.

"This set of circumstances is unsustainable and certainly can no longer be pushed as it has been pushed since 2008," he wrote. "That is why I believe that the world is approaching a big paradigm shift."

Dalio's warning isn't without merit. The plethora of issues he sees molding the financial system are certainly not for the better.

Three of his biggest gripes with the overarching economy are a system awash with cheap capital, burgeoning government deficits, and massive pension and healthcare liabilities coming due.

Let's take a closer look.

1. Free money

It's no secret that central banks around the world have been voraciously trying to stimulate their economies. The growth and inflation that these policies have meant to spur, however, has largely been absent.

"The reason that this money that is being pushed on investors isn't pushing growth and inflation much higher is that the investors who are getting it want to invest it rather than spend it," he said. "As a result of this dynamic, the prices of financial assets have gone way up and the future expected returns have gone way down while economic growth and inflation remain sluggish."

In short, the stimulus provided by central banks is being pumped into assets and not into the economy. This lowers the expected return for stocks going forward, which is causing a big issue we'll get to in just a bit. Some are relying on those returns to fund future obligations.

2. Gargantuan deficits

"At the same time, large government deficits exist and will almost certainly increase substantially, which will require huge amounts of more debt to be sold by governments — amounts that cannot naturally be absorbed without driving up interest rates at a time when an interest rate rise would be devastating for markets and economies because the world is so leveraged long," he said.

Dalio's overarching point here is that a rising deficit starts a domino effect.

To fund deficits, governments sell huge quantities of debt that have to be held by someone.

But if there's too much supply on hand, the market will demand a higher interest rate (lower price). The problem with that is that higher rates depress stock prices, as increasing risk-free rates of return start to look more attractive.

To Dalio, this means that central banks will have to be the buyer of this debt to keep markets afloat.

There's only one problem: the depreciating effect this has on a country's currency.

"This whole dynamic in which sound finance is being thrown out the window will continue and probably accelerate, especially in the reserve currency countries and their currencies — i.e., in the US, Europe, and Japan, and in the dollar, euro, and yen," he said.

3. Pension and healthcare liabilities

The next big problem that Dalio sees poking its head over the horizon is the massive liabilities coming due with a dramatic shift in demographics.

"At the same time, pension and healthcare liability payments will increasingly be coming due while many of those who are obligated to pay them don't have enough money to meet their obligations," he said. "Right now many pension funds that have investments that are intended to meet their pension obligations use assumed returns that are agreed to with their regulators."

He continued: "They are typically much higher (around 7%) than the market returns that are built into the pricing and that are likely to be produced."

Dalio sees the odds of these pensions meeting their coming obligations as slim. The cheap capital that was mentioned above has greatly depressed the forward looking returns for stocks. As of today, a 7% return seems more like a pipe-dream than a reality.

But that's not all.

"While pension obligations at least have some funding, most healthcare obligations are funded on a pay-as-you-go basis, and because of the shifting demographics in which fewer earners are having to support a larger population of baby boomers needing healthcare, there isn't enough money to fund these obligations either," he said.

SEE ALSO: Billionaire Leon Cooperman has his own special definition of value investing. Here are 3 massive positions he has in stocks that 'nobody would identify as a value situation.'

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• Ray Dalio is warning that the trade war between the US and China could spiral into a capital war.
• "There is a trade war, there is a technology war, there is a geopolitical war, and there could be a capital war," Dalio said on Thursday. "How that is approached is going to determine our futures."
• US lawmakers have pushed to stem the flow of funds going from the US to China.
• View Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Ray Dalio is warning that the trade war between the US and China could spiral into a capital war.

"There is a trade war, there is a technology war, there is a geopolitical war, and there could be a capital war," Dalio said on Thursday, adding, "How that is approached is going to determine our futures."

The billionaire investor and founder of Bridgewater Associates, which oversees $160 billion in assets, spoke at a gala hosted by the National Committee on US-China Relations in New York — a nonpartisan group founded to push cooperation between the two nations.

"My responsibility as a global economic investor is to find the elements that make countries succeed and fail and to quantify those indicators," he said, according to the committee's tweets from the event.

"I hope that it is done with mutual understanding instead of wars — a win-win relationship rather than a lose-lose relationship," Dalio added.

The comments come amid drawn-out trade-war negotiations and after Bloomberg in September reported that the White House was weighing moves to limit US investment in Chinese firms, which could include delisting Chinese companies from US stock exchanges and stemming government pension flows into Chinese investments.

Dalio has warned of similar possibilities in the past: "There's four kinds of war: There's a trade war, a technology war, currency capital war, and a geopolitical war — and that's a phenomenon happening at the same time, so internally we have a lot more conflicts," Dalio told a panel in mid-October.

Watch video of Dalio's remarks, recorded by Bloomberg, here.

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• Ray Dalio's hedge fund has placed a bet north of $1 billion that global stocks will fall by March, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
• The position is made up of put options that could pay out to Bridgewater Associates if the S&P 500, the Euro Stoxx 50, or both drop in value, The Journal found.
• Put options are contracts that grant investors the right to sell stocks at a predetermined price by a specific date.
• In a LinkedIn response, Dalio claimed his comments to WSJ were mischaracterized, and said he's not wagering against global stocks. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Ray Dalio's hedge fund has placed a wager of more than $1 billion that stocks around the world will decline by March, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing people familiar with the matter.

Bridgewater Associates has built up a position of put options, with the help of banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, that could generate returns if the S&P 500, the Euro Stoxx 50, or both fall during the period, The Journal found.

Put options are contracts that grant investors the right to sell stocks at a predetermined price by a specific date.

According to the initial Journal report, Bridgewater's put options will expire in March, and the firm shelled out about $1.5 billion for the contracts, which are linked to about $100 billion worth of the two stock indexes.

Around mid-day, Dalio published a refutation of the report on LinkedIn.

"It's wrong," he said about the Journal's story. "I want to make clear that we don't have any such net bet that the stock market will fall."

Prior to Dalio's response, the Journal said it was unclear why Bridgewater had built up the position, though it cited multiple clients who said it could be the firm hedging against its exposure to the equity market.

The magnitude of the bet has raised the price of some options, The Journal found. The number of S&P 500 put options outstanding has also increased to a four-year high, according to data from Trade Alert cited by the newspaper.

Read more:A fund manager who's outshining 95% of his peers unpacks the secret weapons behind his top 2 tech stocks — and explains why he almost never invests in hot IPOs

The news also comes as markets have charged to all-time highs in recent weeks amid negotiations in the US-China trade war and lingering worries of a global slowdown.

Further, Wall Street titans such as Leon Cooperman and Paul Tudor Jones have issued warnings over the past few months that an Elizabeth Warren presidency could tank stocks.

Bridgewater told The Journal initially that its investments change frequently and are often used as hedges for other trades and that it "would be a mistake" to read too much into one position. The firm added that it didn't have positions meant to hedge or bet on political developments in the US.

The Journal pointed out that March is an important time for the Democratic primary because most of the party's delegates will be awarded by the end of the month.

Dalio, a billionaire investment guru, has expressed concern about the global economy several times in the past few months. In October, he said that the world economy was in a "great sag" and that central banks might not be able to combat it because of historically low interest rates.

The veteran investor also wrote in a LinkedIn post in early November that the "world has gone mad" and that the state of financial markets is unsustainable."

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• Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the cofounders of Instagram, base their investment strategies around being able to spot companies that can solve unique problems efficiently and effectively.
• Their approach, which also looks for strong managerial teams and competitive advantages, shares common threads with Warren Buffett's own investment strategy.
• Systrom also says that Ray Dalio's "very special" principled approach to work and life is something that resonated with him.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

It's safe to say that Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the cofounders of Instagram, know a bit about allocating resources and identifying investment opportunities.

After all, their photo-sharing app has one of the largest user bases and fetched a billion-dollar price tag in 2012, when Facebook bought the company.

Systrom and Krieger think about investing a little bit differently than most — a notion that was made clear in a recent appearance on the podcast "Invest Like the Best."

"The world of investing is giving ideas the chance to take flight, hoping that they work, and basically just having different levels of risk," Systrom said. "As an investor myself, what I look for are great companies that understand their customer in and out and are solving a really unique problem that no one else has quite figured out how to solve."

He added: "And those companies tend to do very, very well."

Systrom's investing style sounds reminiscent of Warren Buffett but with a Silicon Valley twist. It's innovative and somewhat philosophical but grounded in tried-and-true old-school investing tactics. It's the perfect balance of old and new.

For decades, Buffett has been touting an approach to investing that includes buying companies with wide, unique "moats." This notion provides his investments with an extra margin of safety from would-be competitors and ensures that a competitive advantage isn't easily replicable. It's Buffett's bread and butter — and something that Systrom seems to be rather fond of.

Krieger chimed in to build on Systrom's statement. "If there is any amount of edge or unique view we have on the world I think it's: What problems are solved, how well the product is solving those problems, and what team is going out and solving those problems," he said.

He added: "I have to believe that is an interesting view on the world and will lead to some ability to spot things."

Krieger also mentions that a company's team is just as important as the business itself. He believes that great leaders and teams have the ability to completely transform a business. And he said it was an idea that shouldn't be overlooked when vetting a company for investment.

It's also important to note that neither Systrom nor Krieger mention profits, addressable markets, or financial projections in their statements. This notion speaks volumes about what they believe is truly important for the longevity of an investment: a company's problem-solving ability.

Lessons from Dalio

Along their journey, Systrom and Krieger were influenced by some iconic people — and the ideas and thoughts that were shared wound up sticking.

"For me, I went outside of venture startups, and I said: 'Who just thinks the way I like to think?'" Systrom said. "And I got introduced to Ray Dalio."

For the uninitiated, Ray Dalio is the billionaire cochief investment officer and founder of Bridgewater Associates.

He's synonymous with a radically transparent and truthful approach to business and management. Over time, he has developed a set of principles that he and his firm strictly adhere to. Dalio largely credits the success of Bridgewater and his billionaire status to this type of strategy.

Systrom seems to have taken a liking to Dalio's mantras. 

"Having a very specific view and holding on to it, I thought, was something that was really special — regardless of whether you're right," Systrom said. "I think I learned a lot from him to think a little bit more principled about what we were doing."

"He was an enormous influence on me — still is," he said. 

SEE ALSO: A CEO who oversees $1.5 billion explains how the 'Tech Bubble 2.0' is primed to pop — and how some stocks could plunge 90% and still be expensive

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• Billionaire investor Ray Dalio is one of the best-known and successful fund managers in the world. 
• His firm, Bridgewater Associates, manages about $160 billion in assets and looks after roughly 350 clients.
• During an episode of "Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman," he told the LinkedIn founder that one of the keys to success is embracing and taking on conflict.
• Dalio spoke about how conflict helped him build his company, and how disagreeing with others can eventually create better results. 
• View Business Insider's homepage for more stories. 

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio is one of the best-known and successful fund managers in the world. 

His firm, Bridgewater Associates, manages about $160 billion in assets and looks after roughly 350 clients.

During a recent episode of "Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman," he told the LinkedIn founder that one of the keys to success is embracing and taking on conflict. Dalio spoke about how conflict helped him build his company, and how disagreeing with others can eventually create better results. 

"How do I find the smartest people I know who disagree with me – and are willing to disagree with each other but who really care about your outcome? You learn a tremendous amount and that raises one's probability of being right," Dalio said on the podcast.

Bridgewater's boss blamed American schools for adults' fear of conflict.

"I think the problem of our whole educational system is that it teaches you to be right and you have a possessiveness to be right. And now it's embarrassing when you're wrong, it's embarrassing when you have a weakness," Dalio said to Hoffman.

"No, everybody's wrong at times. Everybody's got weaknesses. It's by understanding that and knowing how to deal with it well, individually as well as collectively, that one can be successful."

Hoffman, who recently interviewed LinkedIn's CEO Jeff Weiner, said he invited Dalio on his podcast because of his famous principles. One of those is how Dalio invites conflict.

He told Hoffman that he often thrashes ideas out with others, being "radically truthful." Although it can be awkward, he said, it also leads to better results because different ideas are heard, put forward, and implemented that wouldn't be otherwise.

"Really the key to success is you don't have to do everything yourself," Dalio said to Hoffman.

"You don't have to say, 'I'm the guy who came up with the idea,' and be possessive about that," he continued. "You just want the best idea wherever it comes from. And you want to know that, 'Oh, I've got these weaknesses so I can work with these people who have this strength.'"

Dalio also delved into the challenges of encouraging conflict and extreme honesty in a workplace. He told Hoffman about a testing episode when he reviewed his colleagues and they reviewed him.

"The people I worked with said to me that some of this radical transparency and this radical truthfulness is hurting morale, people are feeling bummed out about it," he said. "These good friends, who also I'm working with, took me out to dinner and then we talked about that."

"I was kind of caught in this dilemma," Dalio continued. "Should I not let them know what I really think? Should we behave differently? And that to me looked like slipping back into that other way of being. That sticks in my mind as a very difficult moment."

He invited his colleagues to help him find a solution to the problem.

"Look, I don't want to do this," he told them. "I don't want to make you feel bad. So what should we do about it? Do you not want me to tell you what I really think? Do you want to be inhibited from telling me what you really think?"

Dalio said these questions allowed him and his colleagues to engage their "cerebral minds" rather than "emotional minds," because ultimately they knew the process was beneficial even though they didn't feel great about it.

They shifted their focus to identifying ways to handle emotional difficulties, rather than putting a stop to being radically truthful and transparent.

This approach invites conflict without hurting people's feelings, Dalio said. The billionaire now abides by the principle that whenever he disagrees with someone, he pauses the conversation and establishes rules and protocols about how they behave to one another, allowing them to continue their conflict in a mutually agreed way.

At Bridgewater, Dalio says, "We have a two-minute rule, we have mediators, we do certain things to have the protocols to be able to have that disagreement and then to go beyond that disagreement. And also to show that failure or being wrong is not any way bad."

"You want to learn from it," he added.

Overall the billionaire's advice is to: "Relish the conflict, to have curiosity be a motivator."

"If you're seeing something different than I'm seeing, one of us is wrong and I don't know who that might be. Maybe it's me," he said.

For more from Reid Hoffman and Ray Dalio — including their thoughts on AI, which led to a heated discussion — listen to the podcast here.  

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• Ray Dalio, who runs the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, is losing investors in Asia after a major bank advised its clients to pull their money from its top fund, Bloomberg reported.
• Bridgewater's top fund, Pure Alpha, fell 6% through August 23, while other similar funds pared gains. 
• The fund's underperformance and Dalio's public comments were main reasons that the bank made the recommendation to clients. 
• Read more on Business Insider.

Ray Dalio, the leader of Bridgewater Associates, the biggest hedge fund in the world, is losing clients after a rough year. 

His top fund, Pure Alpha, has slumped even as the stock market has soared. The fund lost 6% this year through August 23, Bloomberg reported, driven by bearish bets on global interest rates. Pure Alpha has also trailed other macro competitors, which gained about 4.7% this year through July, according to Bloomberg. 

Now, some of Asia's wealthiest people are pulling money out of the fund, Bloomberg reported. 

That's because UOB Private Bank, a large Singapore-based bank that is part of Southeast Asia's third-largest lender, recommended that clients withdraw their money from the Bridgewater fund, Chief Investment Officer Neo Teng Hwee told Bloomberg. 

The recommendation came mid-year, as Bridgewater had "not really done well for us," Neo told Bloomberg. "Previously we used to like it and it was high conviction, but now we've removed them from high conviction," he said. 

Other than the firm's weak performance, the bank considered Dalio's public comments next to his firm's investment decisions. Those didn't always line up, which was worrying, Neo told Bloomberg, although this occurs in part because the firm has different teams that run different investments. 

In November, Dalio wrote in a LinkedIn post that the "world has gone bad and the system is broken." In October, he said that the global economy is in a "great sag" and that monetary policy might prove ineffective to correct it. About a month earlier, he also likened the current political climate and economy to 1937 and said he expects a downturn in roughly two years.

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• Bridgewater Associates co-CEO Eileen Murray is leaving the $160 billion hedge fund, according a press release published Tuesday. 
• Murray will step down at the end of next quarter, and co-CEO David McCormick will serve as the sole CEO. 
• According to The Wall Street Journal, Murray was exploring leaving the hedge fund in May. 
• Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.

Eileen Murray, the co-CEO of Bridgewater Associates, is stepping down from her role at the $160 billion hedge fund at the end of next quarter. 

The world's largest hedge fund announced Murray's departure in a press release Tuesday morning. Co-CEO David McCormick will serve as the sole CEO of the firm, the release said. 

"With the firm's management transition on solid footing, I feel now is a good time for me to leave Bridgewater to pursue other opportunities," Murray said in a statement. 

Bridgewater founder and co-chairman Ray Dalio said in a statement that McCormick "brings unique leadership skills and a strategic mindset that have made a big impact and will help to position us well for the future."

Its unclear what Murray will go on to do next. She was considering leaving the hedge fund in May, according to The Wall Street Journal.  Representatives of Wells Fargo contacted Murray regarding the bank's open CEO role at the time, The Journal reported. 

Murray joined Bridgewater in 2009 and became co-CEO in 2013. Prior to that, she held senior-level roles at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse. 

Dalio has had difficulty retaining a CEO at the firm since he transitioned out of the position in 2011. Since that time, five people have served as either co-CEO or CEO, Bloomberg reported. 

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• Ray Dalio founded Bridgewater Associates, which leads the ranks of the world's largest hedge funds with $150 billion assets under management. 
• Dalio once made a mistake in 1982 that could've meant the end of Bridgewater — but it ended up being foundational to the company's future success instead.
• He elaborated on an episode of BI's podcast "This is Success."
• Here's how Bridgewater's current culture of radical transparency arose out of Dalio's willingness to constructively disagree with his employees. 
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Constructive disagreement grounded the culture of Bridgewater— allowing founder Ray Dalio and his team to build it up to dizzying heights.

Dalio baked the lessons he'd learned from a life-changing low he experienced in 1982 into the foundations of Bridgewater itself. He wanted his newly renewed company to encourage constructive dissent among the people that worked there, from the most junior employees to Dalio himself. Now Bridgewater is the world's largest hedge fund, with over $150 billion assets under management. 

Constructive disagreement means creating an environment in which dissent is allowed, even encouraged. Conflict doesn't mean the company is broken— it means that the company is actively working towards comprehensive, truly great work. 

"I think that notion of, can we be radically truthful with each other, can we know how to disagree well and then get past that disagreement to the best answers? These are questions that everybody has to face," he previously told Business Insider. 

He also recently reflected on it on an episode of "Masters of Scale" with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. 

"I think every organization, or every relationship, requires people to decide how they're going to be with each other," he told Hoffman. "I'm going to be radically truthful with you and radically transparent and I would expect you to be radically truthful and transparent with me. And so that's really how it started."

How constructive disagreement works

On an individual level, constructive disagreement could help you avoid the trap of confirmation bias, or seeking out opinions that agree with yours. If you ask people what they think about your idea, instead of what might be wrong with it, you'll receive opinions that align with what you already believe to be true. Inviting dissent, on the other hand, means deliberately allowing for dissonance between what you think you're saying and what other people are actually hearing.

Constructive disagreement is essentially a self-check mechanism that could uproot evidence collected through the lens of confirmation bias. 

"How do I find the smartest people I know who disagree with me – and are willing to disagree with each other but who really care about your outcome?" he told Hoffman. "You learn a tremendous amount and that raises one's probability of being right." 

Dalio realized that he needed it after he didn't check his own opinion in 1982, to devastating results for his nascent company. 

How a mistake in '82 changed Bridgewater — and prompted constructive disagreement

In 1982, Dalio testified before Congress that he saw a looming debt crisis. He was loud, he was confident. 

He was wrong. 

"As a result of being wrong, I lost money for me, I lost money for my clients, I had to let everybody in my company go, and I was so broke I had to borrow $4,000 from my dad to help pay for family bills," Dalio told BI.

Dalio's mistake was preventable, he admits. He could've checked his overconfidence by seriously considering an opinion or two that would've challenged what he believed— or added nuance at the very least. 

"My experience changed my whole approach to decision-making," Dalio said, adding that, "It then made me think, how do I know I'm not wrong?"

Dalio built the mindset that arose from his failure into his new Bridgewater construction by creating an atmosphere of constructive disagreement. This took on the label of radical transparency: the culture that Bridgewater is famous for.

Radical transparency means that it's okay to make mistakes, and more okay to learn from them. 

Making a system for tension

Dalio instituted an "issue log," which allows everyone at the company to write down when things go wrong. 

Once the issue has been identified, Dalio encourages employees to go to the higher principles that underlie the conflict. In the process of reflecting on how employees should ideally operate with each other, the conflict takes on a constructive tone. 

At Bridgewater, employees are free to disagree with one another as they constantly rate and critique how colleagues are doing through a Bridgewater-specific iPad app called "Dots." Everyone at the meeting can view how everyone else rates them on traits like "Assertive and Open-Minded," among others, and give specific feedback. Nearly every Bridgewater meeting is recorded for future reference (for example, in company emails).

According to Dalio, this system of radical transparency encourages constructive disagreement in how employees interact with one another. 

"If you start to realize, intellectually, that being really truthful with each other is something that is to be treasured," Dalio said, "it'll build trust." He adds that at Bridgewater, "There's a lot of trust that's going on."

Every company has to eventually set the standards for how it's going to handle disagreement, says Dalio, because it'll inevitably arise. The key is disagreeing well, and moving beyond the conflict to the best answers. 

That's how Dalio built up his own company. In his words, Bridgewater's success lies in "knowing what you don't know and knowing I may be wrong."

SEE ALSO: 'Pain is a great teacher': How Ray Dalio, the world's most successful (and mysterious) hedge-fund founder, came back from financial ruin

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• In an exclusive interview conducted by Bridgewater Associates and seen by Business Insider, Ray Dalio chatted with the legendary economist and former Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker.
• Volcker laid out three main principles that had shaped his worldview and helped him make world-altering decisions throughout his career.

"He sees things from the top."

That's how the billionaire investor Ray Dalio describes his idol, Paul Volcker— the former Federal Reserve chair who's commonly viewed as one of the most important and influential figures in US economic history.

It was that zoomed-out perspective that helped Volcker rescue America from the skyrocketing inflation that afflicted it in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His tight monetary policy was unpopular in the short term, but he was proved correct by 1983. Inflation came down, growth surged, and the US enjoyed a decade of economic prosperity.

And while that's arguably Volcker's crowning achievement, he stayed active for decades after leaving the Fed in 1987.

One prime example was his stint as chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board under President Barack Obama, a position he held for roughly two years from 2009 to 2011. As part of that role, he unveiled the so-called Volcker Rule, which was intended to scale back risky behavior by banks.

Read more:Legendary billionaire Ray Dalio told a crowd at Davos that the next economic meltdown scares him more than anything — here's what he said, and why he's so worried

Volcker recently sat down to chat with Dalio, who's become a legend himself by founding Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund. The two titans of modern finance discussed everything from broad economic principles to the current US political situation.

Dalio was particularly interested to hear about Volcker's guiding principles — the ones that he's used to make important decisions and assess the environment around him. After all, Dalio led the discussion by saying he viewed Volcker as the "most principled person" he knows.

The conversation came several months after the release of Volcker's new book, "Keeping At It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government," which hit shelves on October 30.

Here's a summary of three principles Volcker laid out, which — in the spirit of his book — are specifically geared toward what makes a strong government.

(1) Effective governance

"Alexander Hamilton put it all in a nutshell. He's an old Treasury guy, a financial guy. He restored the credit of the United States, so he's a hero of mine."

"He said the true test of good government is its ability to administer, not to create policy. Can they carry out the policies effectively and economically? Good government is not just high policy, it's making a machine work, day after day, efficiently."

"The faith of the American people in our government today is really distressing. We have a real challenge."

(2) The economization of family spending

"When you talk about principles, they go down in the family. And we were not a family that spent money easily. We liked to economize and be sure how we were spending money. I'd like to think I carried this over when I had some responsibilities in government, to try to do it sufficiently. Not only as accurately, but as efficiently as possible."

"My father took over as city manager of this bankrupt town in 1930, and lasted for 20 years. He became the principle figure in town. He was a fanatic for disclosure. He would do a very detailed budget every year, and distribute it to everyone in town."

"He was a bug for not spending more than he had to spend, but spending what was necessary for a professional organization."

(3) A strong class of civil servants

"I'm with Alexander Hamilton. The true test of effective government is the ability to get something done efficiently. We lapse in that respect. You have to have a great feeling of commitment to whatever you're doing, whether it's as an economist, or a civil servant."

"Look at this present change in government. I think there are 700 or more potential presidential appointments in the new government. About one-third of those offices are filled. But nobody's paying attention. Who's running those departments?"

"Civil servants left there may be in good form, maybe not, but they're essentially leaderless. That's no way to run a government. That's just one example of the difficulties we're having these days."

"Countries like France and Germany had very disciplined, very prestigious civil service. So did the UK. That's disintegrated a lot in recent years because it's considered too elitist, too far removed from the public. It's a great trick — how can you get the expertise and leadership you need and still respect the popular desire?"

SEE ALSO: Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker rips Trump, Congress in new interview with hedge fund legend Ray Dalio

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• Dalio says that the greatest American he's ever known is the late Paul Volcker.
• On LinkedIn, Dalio said, "I knew him personally as a man who had great wisdom, humility, and classic heroism in which he sacrificed his well-being for the well-being of others."
• View Business Insider's homepage for more stories. 

Dalio says that the greatest American he's ever known is the Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve who died on Sunday, aged 92. 

In a LinkedIn post, late on Monday, Dalio wrote:

"For the nearly 50 years that I watched him or knew him personally, I found Paul to be a man of unwavering character and capability who put working in the service of our country above all else, always putting doing the right and difficult things ahead of the expedient and partisan things."

Dalio added:

"I knew him personally as a man who had great wisdom, humility, and classic heroism in which he sacrificed his well-being for the well-being of others."

Volcker, who was Fed chairman between 1979 until 1987, was famed for his approach that helped to steady the American economy from high inflation. 

Ray Dalio is one of the most successful business people in America. He's worth about $18.7 billion, according to Forbes, and his hedge fund Bridgewater Associates is the biggest in the world, with $150 under management. 

Of his time as Fed Chairman, Dalio said of Volcker: "In 1979-84, I watched him break the back of inflation, which was essential for our economic system's survival and required great character to do the right thing under strong criticism because tightening monetary policy meant a lot of people had to suffer a lot."

Dalio added that during that time he felt Volcker was the most powerful person in the world due to his position. 

After leaving the Fed, Volcker continued to be a prominent financial advisor and economic voice, chairing the Independent Committee of Eminent Persons which looked to find Holocaust victims financial accounts in Swiss banks. It found 46,000 accounts opened most likely by Jews during the Holocaust.

Volcker also went on to serve as an advisor to the Obama administration during the financial crisis, once again giving Wall Street Bankers his no-nonsense approach — "Wake up, gentlemen, your response is inadequate."

Dalio earlier this year interviewed Volcker talking about the three principles Volcker used that led his career. Of those were effective governance, good economization of family spending, and a strong class of civil servants — all in line with his strong government approach to economics. 

Dalio, in the post, also said: "After he left the Fed in 1987, I watched him be chosen to oversee the recovery of Holocaust victim assets from Swiss banks because the world considered him to be the most capable and least biased person to tackle this highly contentious issue."

"After that I watched him take on and handle the highly politically-charged investigation of corruption in the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq, once again because he was the most principled and capable person who everyone believed would do the right things rather than politically expedient things," Dalio wrote.

"Even after he knew that he was approaching his end, when we would talk, he never worried about himself as much as he worried about the well-being of our country and those who served it."

Read More: Billionaire investor Ray Dalio sat down with his idol, Paul Volcker, who laid out the 3 principles that have guided his legendary career

Read More:Paul Volcker, the towering former Fed chairman and economist, has died at age 92

Read More:Billionaire investor Ray Dalio says inviting conflict is one of his keys to success

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• Billionaire Ray Dalio, founder and co-chairman of Bridgewater Associates, released a recent mentoring session he had with rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs.
• Dalio publicized the interview on Twitter and released it on YouTube.
• Diddy sought Dalio's mentorship "to help take his great success to another level,"according to Dalio.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

You can watch the full interview here:

Dalio-Diddy is the pairing you never knew you needed.

Billionaire hedge funder Ray Dalio gave viewers an inside look into a recent mentoring session he had with his new protégé, none other than the rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs.

This unlikely pairing took center stage in a thoughtful interview Dalio publicized on Twitter and released on YouTube.

A representative for Dalio confirmed for Business Insider that the pair met at the Forbes 100 Greatest Business Minds Summit. 

"I'm thankful that my last name ends in a C and yours ends in a D, because that's how we met," Diddy told Dalio in the video. "I was in front of you when we went to take the big picture." 

Diddy asked Dalio a few key questions based on Dalio's best-selling book "Principles," which outlines the Bridgewater founder's integral success ideas. Dalio even released a free app based on the book. 

Diddy sought Dalio's mentorship "to help take his great success to another level,"according to Dalio.

Here's what Dalio candidly told Diddy he had to do to make this happen.

Ask: Am I harvesting the best?

In defining radical transparency, Dalio advised Diddy to be open-minded, yet assertive at the same time.

"Don't give up your assertiveness, but be curious," Dalio said. "Am I harvesting the best?"

This involves the ability to hear other peoples' ideas (harvest them, if you will), and then place them through the rigorous filter of your own mind. Dalio says the biggest problem people have is that they become so tied or blocked by their own opinions that they can't take in those of others.

"The worst problem, the worst tragedy of mankind, almost any individual, is that they're attached to opinions that are wrong, and they don't want them to be stress-tested," Dalio said.

Radical transparency means going to the brightest minds with what you know and asking them to stress test your beliefs so that you can move forward with some level of confidence.

Dalio told Diddy that this was important for him to move to the next level in his career.

"The key is to find out what you're not good at," Dalio said, adding, "then you get the people who are good at those things, and then you get the great leverage, right?" 

Finding the right people

Diddy brought up the point that in searching for talent, some people interview well, but actually lack the essential qualities needed to do the job. He asked Dalio how to find the right people.

Dalio uses personality profile testing, background checks, and resumes to filter through candidates, but the key process is what he calls "reverse-360." This involves finding out about the candidate from everybody who knew them in the past.

Then, within the specs sheet, the focus shouldn't just be on skills, according to Dalio — in fact, he identifies it as the least important thing. The other two qualities that take precedence are values and abilities. 

"First, what are their values?" Dalio said. "If you're not values-aligned, you're gonna have a problem. How are you going to be with each other?"

Then comes differentiating by the abilities that people have innately, like creative thinking or dependability. 

"Each person has a natural ability and abilities that they've gone on to develop," Dalio said. "Those are the things that make you excel or bad at things."

Last comes skills, which are learned.

When the candidate comes in for the interview, they're tested, and the testing continues every day they're on the job.

Getting personal

Diddy brought Dalio's advice on team-building home when he got personal and shared his own situation with Dalio:

I had to step away from the game because it got to a point where I didn't feel like I was playing with players of my caliber. I felt like I was investing so much time in the now, and the art piece of it, that when it came time for my investment my future as far as my business team and the team of executives around me, it kind of got away from me.

I was having so much success in so many areas that I wasn't paying attention to making sure that I was still nurturing the team. 

When I had to come back out of tour and I had to come back into business mode, I realized that I had outgrown my team. It wasn't that they were bad, it's just that they weren't at the level of excellence that I was at.

That level of excellence is very, very high for me.

Dalio told Diddy that he should "absolutely" not compromise on excellence.

However, at the same time, finding the right path is about finding the right partners and having them fill in the gaps in your own skillset. 

Dalio told Diddy that once he found the right people, it would be a "kick," or a joy, to work with them. 

"Whatever you want in your life, you have to ask, 'Who's going to be capable of giving it to me?'" Dalio said.

The mindset transition should be from that of player to captain — and the leader doesn't have to do everything themselves. 

"That right there is the definition of a mentor-mentee relationship for me," Diddy said, responding to Dalio's advice. "I have my marching order, I know what to do with that."

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• Bridgewater co-CEO Eileen Murray, who will leave the $160 billion hedge fund next year, told attendees at the Project Punch Card conference on Wednesday that she is "definitely going to do something" after leaving the hedge fund. 
• Murray went over some of the biggest mistakes of her career and explained how women and underrepresented people can break into the finance space. 
• "The biggest mistake I made was I didn't, early on, ask for help," she said. 
• Click here for more BI Prime stories. 

Eileen Murray is the most powerful woman in the $3.3 trillion hedge fund industry, but admits that breaking the glass ceiling caused "a lot of glass to fall on me." 

While Murray, who was an executive at Morgan Stanley before becoming the co-CEO of Bridgewater Associates, is happy about the progress that has been made in the industry from when she started, she's still disappointed in how far is left to go.

"I'm not sure if I should cry or do a happy dance," she told attendees at the Project Punch Card conference, which is held for students underrepresented in the investment industry. 

The hedge fund industry in 2020 will get less diverse as well, as Murray is leaving Bridgewater for "the next chapter of her career" after more than a decade at Ray Dalio's $160 billion firm. Dalio transitioned out of the CEO job in 2011, and five people have served in the role since. 

Murray told conference-goers that "I am definitely going to do something after Bridgewater," recounting how she "was getting itchy" at Thanksgiving thinking about her next move. 

She didn't say what she planned to do next beyond the fact that she is currently in conversations, and "it's going to be with people I really like" on a topic she is passionate about. 

To that extent, she is following her own advice for women looking to get into the investment industry. She told students who were thinking about their careers to figure out both what they want to do and what they don't want to do, and make sure to find firms that have leadership that inspires them. 

"Who you do whatever you want to do with is more important" than what you do, she said. These are firms, she believes, that will help the gender imbalance in finance's upper echelon even out. 

She laid out how to move up within a company, distinguishing between a mentor and a sponsor, the latter of which is someone senior to you that will take a chance on you in a new role. She said she had several sponsors that helped her become the controller at Morgan Stanley in her early 30s.

It made her the one of the few women at that level in all of finance, she said, something that people would assume she would take pride in. In actuality, that she was nearly alone at that level frustrated her — "I'm not proud of that, how can I change that?"

Murray warned students from underrepresented backgrounds about trying to go at it alone, even if there aren't many people who look like them at their company. She said the biggest mistake she made was when she thought she knew everything when she was in the controller role at Morgan Stanley.

"The biggest mistake I made was I didn't, early on, ask people for help," she said. She worked 20-hour days, and her family eventually had to intervene, telling her that she was working too much.

"I just made myself crazy. I didn't have the wisdom and common sense to say I don't know everything," she said.

"In life, you can't get an A on every test." 

SEE ALSO: Bridgewater's Ray Dalio struggled with finding his successor. For billionaire hedge funders, it's a growing concern.

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• Ray Dalio is the billionaire investor who founded Bridgewater Associates. He currently serves as co-CIO and chairman of Bridgewater.
• Dalio authored "Principles: Life and Work" and has shared additional principles throughout the years.
• We've listed the best insights, recommendations, and advice we've heard from Dalio.
• Business Insider regularly features interviews with investors and experts like Ray Dalio. You can read them all by subscribing to BI Prime.

Ray Dalio's life and career speak to the principles underlying his success — and Dalio has been more than keen to share the wisdom he's learned along his journey with the rest of the world.

Dalio is the billionaire investor who founded Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund with more than $150 billion assets under management. He currently serves as co-CIO and chairman.

Dalio authored the best-selling book "Principles: Life and Work" and released an app containing the book for free. He's also shared additional insights directly with Business Insider, and more widely with his network.

Here's a compilation of the best recommendations and advice we've heard from Dalio. 

Dalio reflects on his life's milestones: 'Pain is a great teacher': How Ray Dalio, the world's most successful (and mysterious) hedge-fund founder, came back from financial ruin

The investing strategy he used to build his wealth: Ray Dalio revealed to us the one key investing strategy he's used to build his $18 billion fortune

Understanding Bridgewater's system of radical transparency: Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio is sharing the apps behind the hedge fund's 'radical' culture with the public. They feature real-time employee ratings and a 'pain button.'

On constructive conflict at Bridgewater: How billionaire Ray Dalio uses 'constructive disagreement' to build the culture of $150 billion hedge fund Bridgewater

Dalio's applicable understanding of power:How Ray Dalio's unique understanding of power can be used in everything from group decisions to trade wars

Advice he wants to leave behind: Bridgewater's Ray Dalio shares the piece of advice he wants to be his legacy

The relationship between conflict and success: Billionaire investor Ray Dalio says inviting conflict is one of his keys to success

A book that changed his life: Billionaire Ray Dalio says a 70-year-old book about mythology changed how he thinks about success and failure

The 15 books Dalio recommends to understand current affairs:15 books billionaire Ray Dalio says you should read to understand today's world — and have a fulfilling life

Book recommendations for college students: Ray Dalio thinks every new college grad should read these 3 books — and they have nothing to do with finance

On learning from current events:Ray Dalio says anyone who wants to understand today's world should read a 32-year-old book about empires

How to guarantee life-long success: Yes, billionaire Ray Dalio is mentoring hip-hop mogul Sean 'Diddy' Combs — and these are the key highlights from their unexpectedly personal meeting

SEE ALSO: 'Pain is a great teacher': How Ray Dalio, the world's most successful (and mysterious) hedge-fund founder, came back from financial ruin

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• Ray Dalio serves as co-CIO and chairman of Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund.
• He's recommended quite a few books over the years, crediting them to changing the way he thinks about certain concepts, like success and failure.
• Here are three he talked about with "The 4-Hour Workweek" author Tim Ferriss on an episode of Ferriss' podcast.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Ray Dalio stands out in a crowd of investors.

His firm, Bridgewater Associates, is the world's largest hedge fund — with about $160 billion in total assets under management — and it's run according to a culture of "radical truth" and "radical transparency."

Dalio has built a workplace according to his vision of the world, and that entails meetings that are filmed so they can be analyzed, and an iPad app where employees rate one another's performance in real time.

Dalio is the co-CIO and chairman of Bridgewater, though he's stepped away from daily office management. He's also written a best-selling book called "Principles: Life and Work." It's both a short autobiography and an expanded version of his intensive list of management principles that every Bridgewater employee reads when they're hired.

During his book tour, he spoke with "The 4-Hour Workweek" author Tim Ferriss for an episode of Ferriss' podcast. Ferriss asked Dalio which books he would recommend to any new college graduate, and Dalio responded with three titles he thinks everyone should read. The books, which have nothing to do with finance, can help anyone at any stage of their careers.

SEE ALSO: Bridgewater's Ray Dalio shares the piece of advice he wants to be his legacy

"The Lessons of History" by Will and Ariel Durant

The husband-and-wife team of Will and Ariel Durant wrote 11 volumes on Western history published from 1935 to '75, ending with the Napoleonic era only because they died weeks apart from each other. They won a Pulitzer Prize for the 10th volume of that series.

Dalio recommended their brief 1968 book "The Lessons of History," an overview of recurring themes they found through analyzing thousands of years of history.

Find it here »

"River Out of Eden" by Richard Dawkins

Dalio told Ferriss he thought evolution was "the greatest force in the universe."

"I think the purpose of everything is to evolve," he added. "I think individuals are just vessels for our DNA evolving."

He recommended "River Out of Eden," from 1995, by the prominent English biologist and New Atheist thinker Richard Dawkins.

"It just really puts things in perspective," Dalio said.

Find it here »

"The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell

Dalio told Bloomberg that several years ago his son Paul, a filmmaker, gave him Joseph Campbell's 1949 classic"The Hero with a Thousand Faces." By studying the greatest myths throughout all of human history, Campbell discovered narrative structures that resonate with the human spirit.

When Dalio read it, he said he put his own life into these perspectives, and that he thought it was useful for others to do so as well.

He decided he was about to enter the third stage of his life in which he would pass on the lessons he learned throughout his career. It's why he reluctantly is a public figure, who wants to give a "parting gift" to the world through his new book and the upcoming second volume, he previously told Business Insider.

Find it here »