Billionaire Ray Dalio’s Book Recommendations for Understanding Human Nature
Lessons from the man who predicted the 2008 financial crisis
Note: If you are interested in book recommendations from famous people, you might enjoy my previous articles on Eric Weinstein and Jamie Dimon.
Trump’s tariffs debacle has left everything in a spin, and Americans are now realizing the broader implications it has on their pension plans, grocery costs, and ultimately, the risk of recession.
His policies are now starting to draw criticism from both within the US and internationally. Among the many critics is Ray Dalio, who has been vocal about Trump tariffs pushing America to ‘something worse’. But who is Ray Dalio?
Ray Dalio founded Bridgewater Associates two years after graduating from Harvard and built it into the world’s largest hedge fund. He is also well known for his radical transparency approach — he created a company where employees rate each other constantly.
His book recommendations (based on his thought pieces on LinkedIn and elsewhere) reflect these very qualities — they explore human behavior, psychology, societal patterns, and the big economic and social forces reshaping our world.
Let’s begin!
Disclaimer: Some of the books in this list are over 300 pages long. If you don’t have the time to read them end to end or you’d like to skim the key ideas, use a book summary app. I use Accelerated for various reasons that I have discussed in this article. These apps are also useful to help you decide if a book is worth investing in a physical copy as a keepsake.
1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari
According to Sapiens, things like money, religion, and nations exist because we believe in them together as a group, and that belief changes everything, allowing large-scale cooperation and has shaped all of human history.
Read | Listen — Get the Core Ideas of this book in 15 minutes
2. Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman
The book shows how the mind runs on two systems — one fast and automatic, the other slow and thoughtful — and why we often jump to wrong conclusions, even when we think we’re being rational.
Read | Listen — Get the Core Ideas of this book in 15 minutes
3. Steve Jobs
Walter Isaacson
Another masterpiece by Walter Isaacson, the famous biographer of famous personalities like Elon Musk, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Einstein. In this book, he dives deep into the messy genius behind Apple and shows how Jobs’ obsession with design and perfection led to groundbreaking innovation but also personal chaos.
Read | Listen — Get the Core Ideas of this book in 15 minutes
4. The Power of Habit
Charles Duhigg
The crux of the book is how habits work— starting with a cue, followed by a routine, and finally a reward. Duhigg shows that changing just one part of these three things can reshape your life and lead to big, lasting change.
Read | Listen — Get the Core Ideas of this book in 15 minutes
5. The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds
Michael Lewis
The Undoing Project tells the story of how two Israeli psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, uncovered the hidden flaws in human decision-making, for instance, how people fear losses more than they value gains. Their work reshaped fields like economics and psychology, all sparked by long walks and fierce debates that challenged how we think.
Read | Listen — Get the Core Ideas of this book in 15 minutes
6. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Walter Isaacson
Another one of Isaacson’s masterpieces, this book shows how a runaway printer’s apprentice became a founding father through curiosity, grit, and constant self-improvement. From inventing bifocals to shaping a nation, Franklin treated life like one big experiment — and kept learning till the end.
Read | Listen — Get the Core Ideas of this book in 15 minutes
7. Einstein: His Life and Universe
Walter Isaacson
Did you know Einstein came up with the theory of relativity while working a boring clerk job at a patent office? While he didn’t speak until he was three and struggled in school, Isaacson shows how his simple thought experiments led to the theory of relativity, proven years later during a solar eclipse, when starlight bent around the sun just as he predicted.
8. Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World
Adam Grant
The book’s premise is that procrastinators are often more creative. It shows how great ideas don’t always come from being first, but from questioning the default and thinking differently. It’s packed with real stories — like how an entrepreneur pitched his start-up by highlighting the reasons not to invest or how a TV executive who didn’t even work in comedy saved Seinfeld from the cutting-room floor.
9. Principles: Life and Work
Ray Dalio
It would be a shame if we didn’t include Ray Dalio’s own book. This book is a required reading for all 1,500 employees, and the collection of management and life lessons serves as a sort of constitution for his firm.
10. Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail
Ray Dalio
Ray Dalio shows how today’s power shifts mirror past ones, using data from 500 years of history to explain where the world might be headed next. And it all follows a repeatable pattern — strong education, hard work, and low debt.
Final Thoughts
These days, most financial and intellectual advice seems to be designed for yesterday’s economy, however, Dalio’s reading list offers clues about what might actually work in the strange new reality we’re entering. As algorithms and AI transform the world we live and work in, Dalio’s reading choices remind us that understanding human nature remains the ultimate competitive advantage.
Happy Reading 📚
