Ray Dalio is an American investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. Dalio is the founder of investment firm Bridgewater Associates, one of the world's largest hedge funds. Raymond Dalio was born in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York. He is the son of a jazz musician, Marino Dallolio (1911-2002), who "played the clarinet and saxophone at Manhattan jazz clubs such as the Copacabana," and Ann, a homemaker. Dalio began investing at age 12. At this young age he bought shares of Northeast Airlines for $300 and tripled his investment after the airline merged with another company. Dalio received a bachelor's degree in finance from Long Island University (CW Post) and an MBA from Harvard Business School. After completing his education, Dalio worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and traded commodity futures. He later worked as the Director of Commodities at Dominick & Dominick LLC. In 1974, he became a futures trader and broker at Shearson Hayden Stone. In 1975, he founded, out of his apartment, the Westport, Connecticut based investment management firm, Bridgewater Associates which in 2012 became the largest hedge fund in the world, as it is today, with over $160 billion in assets under management, as of October 2014. Dalio has said that he could continue improving his returns by solidifying recurring lessons into "principles."