The Culture of Bridgewater
More than once, I have read the culture of Bridgewater Associates as being "unusual", or the like, but always without explanation. My question is, what exactly is "unusual" about the culture of Bridgewater? Ray Dalio would seem in many ways to be a type of guy similar in background to me: blue collar "ethnic" American, and so assumedly familiar in type to myself. I have read his "Principles, etc.", and not found anything that I would describe as extreme or "unusual" therein. What, then, could be so "unusual" about a company that must surely reflect his personality and ethos? Has anybody on here worked there, and so can explain this?
not sure either.. always kept reading about their cultish culture, and how the turnover is bad. went for an interview for a first round with HR, did not find anything too weird except that the questions tended to get a bit deeper? like they probed me into why this why that, what do you feel about this/that...just felt like they tryna screen you for bs
I've gleaned from another thread, that what is described as "radical transparency" is one of the valued characteristics of Bridgewater, so that must be part of the distinction. Not sure how such "transparency" might be expressed in other than corporate correspondence, though. I also read that there are rumours about group interviews, possibly antagonistic. This seems an extraordinarily unprofessional activity for such a large and well established fund to be engaging in. Any thoughts on this?
I stopped taking dalio seriously when I heard him on lex fridman recently being a china apologist
I watched the first part of his youtube video that came out last week, and it was clear he's a china shill. I'd love to know whats going on in the background regarding his relationships / ties with china.
Is it worth listening to that podcast at all? Lex is great, I even though the Zuckerberg interview was decent. Zuck seemed human in it, came across as a tech nerd with that just wants to build cool shit but is tasked with revolution/transformation of the human race lol.
I listed to about 50 minutes of it before turning it off. I feel like I gave it a fair shake but it was just boring
I'd be more surprised if he weren't a China apologist given the way he runs his firms
Had a friend who worked there. Basically just super cutthroat (that transparency point someone else mentioned can be very toxic if you’re under performing). Tons of pressure and the like. For example, all meetings of any kind are recorded, so some senior person might randomly choose to listen to something you thought was just you and another junior person to evaluate you.
Spoke to a guy there within the last year. In regard to the "transparency" that people talk about, they have meetings to assess performance, where individuals including those higher up are given feedback from others on their team. So a younger analyst could be giving feedback to someone higher up. They would apparently not accept just positive feedback, and so juniors would have to give someone higher up a lot of criticism. So they basically wanted feedback to be 50/50 positive to negative
Very controversial culture. Most of the people that like it (or are just fine with it) are the ones who have very thick skin and would probably have gone into brokerages or trading otherwise. Many hate it because they've always won in life (top uni, top bank, etc) and everyone has always told them how great they are.
While I dislike artificiality, Bridgewater is another extreme.
"radical transparency" at bridgewater is just replacing one set of artificial office politics with another, arguably even more treacherous one
I had a boss who had spent a lot of time with Dalio and was even on Bridgewater’s advisory council for a while. Anyways, he decided to bring some of Dalio’s principles to his fund and one of those was radical transparency. While it wasn’t nearly as stark as the way that Bridgewater practices it, it was a more open (read: critical) environment than most jobs. There were real examples of success but most of the time it was just an excuse for someone to be an asshole towards somebody else.
I worked there for many years, but grew to hate the culture and left for that reason. Some examples of things Bridgewater did that most would find inconceivable at my current firm:
Through my time at Bridgewater, I really came to value the rights of privacy and individual liberty that many in this country take for granted, an appreciation that is hard to garner when you haven't lived in a place that is the exact opposite. At times, I felt Ray used money to create an authoritarian regime inside of America, where the only way to get your rights back was to leave the paycheck behind. I don't mean for this to be a bash fest on Bridgewater, there is plenty that is great about the firm and I am a fan of their approach to investing (which is what kept me there for so long). But it should be made crystal clear the principles are not for everyone, and only true believers of a regime like that will have a good time there.
Yup, you definitely worked there haha.
Only spent a summer at the firm but would second everything said -- it's a pretty suffocating environment to be in if you don't 100% buy into the culture of the firm.
Thanks for sharing.
The surveillance aspect has always seemed suspicious.
Horrifying.
No wonder Ray has such a hard on for China this sounds straight out of the Communist struggle sessions for fuck's sake. No amount of comp sounds worth tolerating this type of culture.
I like the idea of radical transparency, but all the work they put into enforcing it seems like a huge time suck. How does anyone get work done in a focused way? I feel like giving an employee a mediocre review ruins their week and can throw off their focus...then do it in front of everyone and it's even worse?
This thread had some interesting comments. I used to work with two senior people (20+ yrs exp) who had been there for a while. One was really nice, smart, and taught me a lot. I liked how he handled different situations. The other was hired to optimize/scale the firm ($5bn+ AUM HF). But instead, was pretty much useless. He used a ton of buzzwords and just wasted time in pointless meetings asking ridiculous questions, just to justify his job. In the end, he got fired within a year.
The latter sounds like a consultant. BW does love their consultants, though from the few I know there they aren’t really good LOL.
(Ignore tag, haven’t updated in a long while)
Dalio is a blue collar ethnic American 🤣🤣🤣
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