An Odd, But Successful, Hedge Fund

Via Ritholtz, New York Magazine looks at Bridgewater Associates:

Dalio, a tall, gaunt 61-year-old man with a swoop of gray hair, is an adherent of �radical transparency,� a management theory that calls for total honesty and accountability. He’s also a longtime practitioner of Transcendental Meditation and has built its precepts on self-actualization into Bridgewater’s office culture. (He’s even brought in David Lynch, the film director and unofficial TM spokesman, to lead a seminar for his staff.) Dalio expects employees to openly criticize not just the cafeteria fare but also each other; behind-the-back gossip is strictly prohibited. �Issue logs� track mistakes ranging from significant (poorly executed trades) to small (one employee is said to have been issue-logged for failing to wash his hands after a trip to the bathroom) and can result in �drilldowns,� intense sessions�one insider compares them to a cross between a white-collar deposition and the Spanish Inquisition�during which managers diagnose problems, identify responsible parties (�RPs,� in Daliospeak), and issue blunt correctives. Other employees can withdraw recordings of these proceedings from the firm’s �transparency library.�


Should Bridgewater employees need a refresher on the house rules, they can consult their copy of Principles, the 110-page manifesto Dalio has written to codify his philosophies about life, work, and the pursuit of greatness. The book used to be given to all Bridgewater employees in paper form and is now distributed via a custom app. Dalio’s axioms are studied with Talmudic intensity at the firm, and conversations with employees tend to be sprinkled with company jargon: �ego-barrier,� �probe,� and the ultimate Bridgewater insult, �suboptimal.�

Manifesto is a word that carries a lot of baggage.