Interest in the subject matter is a minor consideration. Unlike a lot of firms, we look at what someone is like rather than what they did before. We are first interested in people’s values, second interested in their abilities, and least interested in their precise skills. We want independent thinkers who are willing to put aside their egos to find out what is true. Did the candidate come up with a new idea and build it out? Like if when he was 15 he mowed lawns and developed that into a business by getting others to mow lawns with mowers he bought them. –Ray Dalio, “How To Get Hired At Bridgewater” [BusinessWeek, Related: "Firing people is not a big deal"]
wildebeests
Bridgewater Likes To Hire People Who Have Something To Fall Back On When They’re Fired
By Bess LevinA Wildebeest Leaves New York Traveling North At 10 MPH. A Hyena Leaves Westport Traveling South At 15MPH. At What Time Does The Wildebeest Get Eaten?
By Bess LevinAs many of you know, Bridgewater Associates is mega-successful, multi-billion dollar hedge fund guided by Principles, a company handbook written by founder and Mentor Ray Dalio, which instructs employees to go on radical truth seeking missions in order to better themselves and in turn the firm. Bridgewater takes the principles very seriously and each member of the staff is given spiral bound copies to read, highlight, and imbue their souls with. While the idea of Truth above all else is the overarching idea, there are literally hundreds of principles (such as 31a. “Ask yourself whether you have earned the right to have an opinion,” 130. “…Firing people is not a big deal…” and 184. “Use checklists”), which span 123 pages and are broken down into outline form after being explained at length. Though familiarity with them has always been an essential part of the job, there has never been a formal test determining that all employees met the required level of efficiency. Until now. Read more »
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birds
This Is A Story About The Obstacles Ray Dalio’s Former Assistant Faced In Shipping A Bird The Boss Had Stuffed And Mounted After It Was Shot By A Client
By Bess Levin
It was a particularly windy day in Westport, CT and I delicately placed the mounted bird in my passenger seat, gingerly wrapping the seat-belt around its midsection without mussing the feathers. Carrying the bird in and out of the post office and several shipping stores became more hilarious each time. People stared. I smiled back. Finally though, when I’d reached the last place in the area that I could try before getting back to the office on time, I wasn’t going to take ‘no’ for an answer. The clerk gave me a look of disbelief when I placed the bird on the counter and I said, “I need to ship this to Japan.” He just laughed at me. I then looked at him sternly and said, “This is no laughing matter. This bird needs to make it to Japan in flawless condition or I will lose my job.” The guy looked back at the bird and then back at me. By then I had used my acting skills and summoned some tears. Finally he agreed to try and crate the bird for shipment. I still don’t know to this day if it made it past customs, but I was satisfied that I had not given up on my task. [Dealbook, related]
Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates clocked in as the hedge fund of choice among public pension plans, in a recent popularity contest, with 21 out of 150 PPP’s investing with the firm. If they can’t get a piece of Ray, the funds people will settle for are: Read more »
Bridgewater Associates Determines Which Employees Opinions Are More Valuable Than Others Based On A “Believability Matrix”
By Bess Levin
The latest issue of AR Magazine features a lengthy profile of Ray Dalio’s mega-successful Bridgewater Associates, with much space devoted to the “culture” of the firm, as defined by Principles, a handbook of sorts written by Dalio, which we shared last May. In sum, the firm requires its employees, 30 percent of whom leave within two years of being hired, to “trust in truth” and to “pursue the truth” relentlessly, in everything they do. Criticism is “both welcomed and encouraged” and rather than “depersonalizing mistakes” or saying “we didn’t handle this well,” the staff are told to “connect specific mistakes to specific people.” It’s an environment unlike any other hedge fund and those who’ve experienced the program firsthand seem to be divided into two camps, at least among those interviewed by AR**: Dalio and the Bridgewater officials (senior staff are referred to as “culture carriers”) who think it’s great and former employees who describe the place as “cultlike,” “sinister,” “eerie” and something out of George Orwell’s 1984. Here’s what one former exec had to say:
My fundamental belief is that Bridgewater is a cult. It’s isolated, it has a charismatic leader and it has its own dogma.” It was so stressful, he recalls, that one employee couldn’t sleep all night and then, in the morning, threw up before meetings with Dalio. (The incident could not be confirmed.)
Another likened being an employee at Bridgewater to being an abused puppy. Read more »
We all have our own ways of getting in the zone– for Bill Gross, it’s shaking his money maker, for the Bridgewater founder, it’s 20-40 minutes a day of om. Read more »
Yesterday we discussed Bridgewater Associates’ “Principles,” the meanderings of founder Ray Dalio, which serves as the hedge fund’s unofficial handbook. While clients probably have no problem with it, not everyone counts themselves as fans of the Tao of Dal, which includes operating “like a hyena, attacking the wildebeest,” “probing” ones colleagues and having their meetings taped all in an effort to get to the “truth.” Today Ray got in touch with us to a) clear up some perceived misconceptions, re the T of D, b) respond to the characterizations of the of the firm made by a friend of BA and c) provide an up to date copy of “Principles” (yesterday’s PDF was a draft from last fall), which you can use yourself, should you be interested in starting your own little B-water (they also make great stocking stuffers).
So, you’re going to work for Bridgewater, are you? Contrary to what various know-nothings will tell you, our nation’s greatest hedge funds are not soulless, interchangeable institutions that you can just bounce through like a bunch of cheap whores. They are delicate flowers that need to be finessed if you wanna make it past day one. If you’re not familiar with what makes Hedge Fund A (where crotchless panties and a mastery of BJ skills are required) different and unique from Hedge Fund B (where failure to really get in touch with your feelings re: 1-stock funds is seriously frowned upon) and Hedge Fund C (where it’s ALL ABOUT THE CHICKEN), the various company policies can come as a shock. For instance, if you didn’t know anything about the Bridgewater’s Tao of Dalio, which requires all employees to “probe” their colleagues (boss’s included), you might find yourself asking “WTF is this shit?” What this shit– the Culture of the Probe– is, is the secret to B-water’s success, the tenets of which comprise “Principles,” the hedge fund’s unofficial handbook, written by founder Ray Dalio. Some people, who were not familiar with the “Principles” prior to joining team BW, would not count themselves as fans of the Tao of Dal.
Ray encourages employees to live by the “Principles” and everyone is encouraged to quote them and use them in the day to day goings on of the company. “Culture carriers,” as he likes to call them, are those that commit the 200+ principles to heart and quote them in meetings and emails. The principles are pretty cult-ish, as is the culture of the whole company. At one of our town halls he handed out personally signed copies of them to everyone. The firm castigates anyone who doesn’t worship Dalio.
Most management meetings and department meetings are recorded, both the business and tech side, as are individual quarterly reviews or any meeting at managements discretion. Often if a manager or Ray thinks something is worth educational value they will email out a meeting recording company wide, these usually involve the individual getting shredded publicly for the greater good of the company. An example would be like when former COO Hope Woodhouse was shredded in front of the management committee and the sessions were sent out to the company to learn from (she was brought to the point of crying in the recording). Everyone is encouraged to given open and honest feedback so meetings often resort to public shaming and the demolition of people. 360s end up being everyone’s chance to totally dig on and destroy other individuals and say whatever things all year you’ve hated about people, 90% of feedback received in 360s is negative.
From the outside people think it’s a nice wholesome principled place that wants to cut through the corporate BS but it’s anything but. Ray’s hyper realism (in “Principles”) is insane. Once you read it you’ll get the idea– it’s all about adherence and indoctrination.
But that’s just, like, his/her opinion. Some of my best friends love the Principles! Regardless, that’s not the point. The point is that because there will apparently will be a quiz on these bad boys, we should probably take a look see. Read more »
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