What's the hype over Dodge & Cox?

I've seen the name Dodge & Cox mentioned a couple of times on WSO, usually with great comment. Some people rate them as a top AM exit and I've seen some posters saying they would take Dodge & Cox over EB or prestigious HF roles. However, a cursory internet search reveals that while the culture is great and the office views are amazing, moving up to an analyst position from associate is very difficult (you also need a MBA). Returns aren't so great either although that's probably a factor of their strategy. On the WSO salary database, the research associate pay seems to be $130K (including bonus). Not bad but nothing to write home about - it falls short of IB comp and even comp for ER and S&T, which have similar hours. Unless I'm missing something, what is giving Dodge & Cox so much prestige on this forum?

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Landing an investment management role is solving for an equations of variables including but not limited to:

You solve for what matters to you. Despite performance, Dodge & Cox has big scale and is long-term investor, which means good lifestyle, relatively lower stress and high stability, which are valued by a subset of aspiring junior investors. While too many use compensation or prestige as their only yardsticks, some value other things.

 

Thanks for the response, but wouldn’t any decently good LO AM (T Rowe Price, MSAM, Prudential, etc) have those things you mentioned about Dodge and Cox?

 

So what’s the mystique over Dodge and Cox then? I don’t see people rave about MSAM or State Street the same way I hear people talked about Dodge and Cox on this forum?

 

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