2019: $2 billion

2018 Rank: 4 ($1.3 billion)

Ray Dalio recently made headlines when he declared in an essay that capitalism is “not working well for the majority of Americans,” citing what he feels is a frighteningly widening gap between the haves and have-nots. But last year capitalism worked pretty well for Dalio himself.

The macro maven tops this year’s Rich List after his flagship Pure Alpha macro strategy posted a 14.6 percent gain, its best performance since 2011. That netted Dalio a $2 billion payday. As Institutional Investor previously calculated, that works out to about $5.5 million per day — or $228,310 per hour if he worked 24/7.

Dalio, whose Bridgewater Associates is the world’s largest hedge fund firm, with $137 billion in assets, had been bearish for about a year and a half, which helped drive Pure Alpha’s gains last year.

“We don’t know exactly how far we are from the top in the stock market and then the economy,” Dalio wrote in February 2018 on LinkedIn, his favorite forum for communicating publicly. But he recently softened that stance, writing in late February 2019 that he is less worried about a recession now that growth is plunging.

“Because the markets weakened and Fed officials now see that the economy and inflation are weak, there has been a shift to an easier stance by the Fed,” he wrote on LinkedIn this past February. “Similarly, because of weaker markets, economies, and inflation rates in other countries, other central banks have also become more inclined to ease, though they have less room to ease than the Fed.”

Dalio recently published a new book, Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises, following on the surprise success of his first book, Principles: Life and Work, published in 2017. That book is based on the firm’s famous Principles document, the driving force behind Bridgewater’s unusual — and sometimes controversial — corporate culture, which emphasizes radical transparency.