Culture at Bridgewater as bad as "The Fund" portrays it? (curious to hear from ex-Bridgewater employees)
"The Fund" is a NYT bestseller that came out three weeks ago. With the level of popularity that the book has had I'm sure many here have read it.
For those who haven't read it there are plenty of interviews online of the author where he provides a synopsis of the book; here's one that I quite enjoyed:
While many already knew that the culture of Bridgewater was cult-like this book took it to a whole other level. The book essentially said that 95% of people's time was spent in meetings(that have nothing to do with investment decisions), taking polls, secretly recording each other, doing "cases" on others' mistakes etc. while only 5% was actually spent on making investment decisions.
And there were many crazy stories of what happened. There was one where Ray Dalio saw some piss on the floor below a urinal(which one sees in just about every public bathroom). He then had staffers surround the bathrooms and write down every person that went in and out(they would also take notes on how clean the person left the bathroom) while having a janitor clean up after each person to try and find who did it. Another story was one where a lady said she would bring in bagels on a specific day, then didn't, and then she was fired; James Comey(the same guy as the FBI director) was brought in to do a full-blown investigation on this.
This is a long-winded way of getting to my question: I'd be curious from those who've worked at Bridgewater, are these stories about the culture fact or fiction, what is it actually like working at Bridgewater and is 95% of one's time actually spent doing mundane tasks unrelated to investment decisions? Thanks in advance.
Have a hard time believing the 95% of time purely given their general level of success - seems it would be impossible given they are somehow apparently making good investment decisions over a long run.
Wife (a career coach) and I are going to give it a read (listen) - she hates reading. I know a former employee from a prior firm and will check w him what he thinks (he was ops there I think - super sharp guy).
Our thesis is that people love to poop on BW because it gets people going and generates clicks and book sales. The book I would want to read is about firms who have applied Principles to great success and happiness. Stop with all the negativity.
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All valid points. Respect.
1. A company can still make good investment decisions or make a lot of money despite having shitty culture: just look at any firm that had sexual assault scandals.
2. The author says that Dalio or a handful of his sycophants made all of the decisions at Bridgewater. The low level people ranking each other by how well they followed the Principles were basically irrelevant to the investment performance.
So no, I don't think BW's success alone means the claims are fake.
I haven't worked there (though heard plenty of stories, all bad). But I read the excerpts from "The Fund" and was struck by how all many of the stories were basically Ray Dalio telling employees he wanted things done a certain way, and the employee refused, but then Ray got angry at the employees for ignoring him, and supposedly that somehow proves Ray is betraying his Principles book. WTF? That sounds like how it should work at any normal company to me.
Like there was one story in the book about Ray telling the AI scientist to develop an algorithm for ranking people's credibility, and the guy presented something that gave results that seem wrong to Ray; so Ray asked him to redo it and then the guy refused in front of everyone and said "I don't work for you, I work for Peter" and then Ray supposedly humiliates the guy in front of everyone. But WTF? Ray is the CEO of the company! Yes, you *do* work for him! The CEO is your boss's boss so don't try to pretend you don't work for him. At a *minimum* you need to disagree with the CEO respectfully, not by being insubordinate in front of the staff. The CEO is paying you to produce something and he just told you that he doesn't like the thing you're producing, and you're throwing a hissy fit cause you refuse to change it? Sure, it's possible you might even be right and you can try to explain that respectfully, but the CEO is ultimately responsible for everything that happens in the company and if you can't convince him your way is better, then it *absolutely* is the CEO's right to ask you to redo the work the way he wants it. So many of the stories in the book seemed to be people acting insubordinate and then whining that the CEO didn't listen to them, but like so what.
And then that story about Ray getting mad that somebody peed on the floor, and this is supposed to make Ray look bad. But why?!? Yes, I'd be pissed if somebody peed on my floor too! Is anyone seriously suggesting that peeing on the floor should be tolerated?
The book was obviously intended to be a hit piece on Ray Dalio, and I already had a negative opinion of the guy, so I was primed to believe the negative spin. But I thought most of the stories in the book actually made Ray look...maybe not good exactly, but the problem was the employees, not the CEO.
However Ray supposedly embraces honesty, so redoing well done surveys just for him to look better is hypocritical at best and a betrayal to his own principles. His persona and principles are all signaling, an ego trip.
Additionally, his fund returns are historically terrible. He depends on Chinese money to survive.
Exactly - the whole premise was you follow the principals at all cost…..until they didn’t benefit Ray. There’s nothing “principled” about have 150+ principals. That’s just nonsense.
The programmer was telling Ray that was he was asking for was not logical. The guy created Watson I’d think he knows a thing or two about using logic.
Honesty and Openness are good
Both can be severely triggering and drive people down below the belt
Both can be used as excuses to hurt, manipulate, tear a person down, cheat, etc
In short good Principles are only as good as the people applying them and their ability to effectively Give and Receive instruction while knowing what that might DO to a person (EQ) and how to also manage THAT.
I can share an example if helpful from my home life where we effectively apply Principles in my marriage. It only works because we are smart people who know each other DEEPLY.
And what is PETER doing not looking out for his employee?? If I was PETER - I would be like Duuuuuuuuude what are you doing to US???
If BW, as a large financial services firm, could somehow achieve and scale “Urine Free Floor Status” this would be a unique and monumental achievement in humankind, worthy of global celebration, akin to landing on the Moon or curing Polio.
Nobel Prize material.
I interviewed there many years ago and the majority of the people I spoke to from the firm were complete weirdos. It sounds like a terrible place to work if you value privacy and have self-respect (or maybe it's ego? up to you). Their form of "radical transparency" involves taking some stuff right out of the communist handbook e.g. literal struggle sessions for minor relatively minor "offenses" (makes sense given how much Ray deepthroats China as the 2nd coming of Christ). I'm acquainted with a couple folks who worked on the research side for 1-2 years and left as quickly as they could specifically because of the culture. This thread has some of the best descriptions of it I've ever seen written out, favorite below.
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