In July 2025, Dalio sold his final stake in Bridgewater Associates, the hedge fund he founded that helped him amass a net worth of $22 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He has since devoted much of his energy into philanthropy. Notably, Dalio and his wife Barbara provided $250 a piece for 300,000 Connecticut children through the “Trump accounts” that launched in the summer. Dalio wanted children to be put on a path toward “financial independence” as they grew up.
‘What is that going to get you?’
In the podcast, Dalio encouraged listeners to consider that money has virtually no value unless it helps a person achieve their life goals — and it helps to know what those are in starting a career.
“What is that going to get you? Does that get you better friends? Does that get you a better marriage, a better relationship with your kids? What is your definition of success?” Dalio said. “Success is you knowing your nature, and then finding the best path through that nature, so that you look back on that and you say, ‘Ah, that was the life I wanted to have.’”
Dalio said he’s heard from people who feel “stuck” in jobs they don’t enjoy or trapped working under bosses they despise. However, he believes people can break out of unhappy circumstances to achieve success in ways they hadn’t imagined before.
“They get stuck because they don’t realize there are multiple possibilities. And so some people say to me, ‘But you don’t understand. I’m in this job. I don’t like the job. I think my boss is a jerk, and this isn’t where I want to go.’ They feel ‘I have to be there,’” Dalio said. “The reality is, if you’re clever and you figure it out and you try, there are many ways to have a really happy life.”
“A lot of money is not an important thing,” he said.
‘An arc of life’
The 77-year-old also brought up “an arc of life” that people experience at different stages of their lifetime. Lately, he’s warned about a pending national debt crisis for the U.S. in the next three years.
Dalio maintained that his personal “nature” doesn’t change, yet goals can vary depending on stages of life.
“Right now I really feel compelled to pass along everything I have that is of value to other people because I’m late and I’m approaching my end,” Dalio said on the podcast. “We have different joys. We have different circumstances.”
Joseph Zeballos-Roig is a policy and politics journalist based in Washington D.C with a focus on economics. He is experienced in connecting the significance of events in the capital to the lives of everyday Americans whether its taxes, tariffs, interest rates or federal programs.
