At World’s Largest Hedge Fund, Sex, Fear and Video Surveillance
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
They contacted me out of the blue and had me go through one phone interview, their culture introduction and quiz on their website, a HR round with a recruiter, and a coding project. After I passed all these, I was put in another phone interview. (Note: I am in the West coast.)
Remember, these clowns were trying to recruit me. I was at that time working as a Research Scientist in X in one of the big firms over in the West coast.
A good part of the interview was spent by them disparaging X. Then they ended the interview with "We have all the information we need, we won't be calling you."
I felt like I had been hazed by a couple of dimwits who were not even that good at it.
This article assuages my worry that I was being unreasonable.
It was really quite comical (from a third person perspective, not from mine though, :D).
I believe a lot of very good people do get hired over there (I know one extremely good person there), but the culture of "radical transparency" turns them into asshats quickly. As they subconsciously think if they are not being an asshat they are not being transparent. Shame though as Ray Dalio seems like a nice guy from his interviews and talks.
I actually prefer getting feedback about why someone chooses not to go forward with me as it helps me improve. For that reason I think interviewing at Bridgewater can be valuable as you can explicitly ask them what you did right and wrong and they'll tell you without sugar coating it.
And don't forget, the reason most companies don't give this kind of feedback is to prevent any allegations of discrimination, so they're not exactly heroes either.
Ex: Do you know every fee pulled out of your 401k? Most people I asked did not even realize there where any costs associated with their company's plans.
PS: It's not just the poor/middle class falling for this. Look at average VC returns with and without their 2/20 fee structure.
Everyone was respectful and courteous throughout, from the recruiter to the CCO who interviewed me.
The moment I'll never forget: when the CCO came back to the conference room to tell me they weren't going to give me an offer. Most people would stop there, maybe say sorry, and send me on my way. Nope. He asked me, "what do you think?" and "do you think this is a reasonable decision, why or why not?" and "how could we have improved the process" etc.
I reasoned with him. We had an amazing, rational, open conversation. I learned why they rejected me. They learned how their process could be improved.
Remember: this is with a C-level executive of the world's largest hedge fund, not some rinky-dink middle-manager. A similar conversation took place with the recruiter as she walked me out.
We complain so much, on this forum especially, about how flawed the recruiting process is. Yet we almost NEVER ASK FOR FEEDBACK. These guys are doing that, with every candidate who walks through their doors, and they're finessing their process bit by bit. It shows.
Perhaps all parts of the company aren't like that (it's quite large, especially by hedge fund standards), but I was thoroughly impressed with the side of Bridgewater I experienced.
In spite of its flaws (which company doesn't have flaws?), Bridgewater is an exceptional company.
I can also recommend a service called gainlo.co that organizes mock interviews with interviewers from big tech companies and a YC startup called pramp that matches you with a peer for free to interview each other.
(This is only speculation I have never interviewed with them and only know them through customers).
Ray Dalio won't quit and he won't relinquish power. What you have instead now is this psychotic power grab at the top with three or more people competing for the crown. Any time someone gets close to knocking him out, they get demoted or fired.
Principle #41: By and large, you will get what you deserve over time.
The basis for any oppressive religion is #41. Those at the top deserved it, and, if you are at the bottom, it's because you haven't.
Jesus man I just want to give that poor woman a hug.
In the world of work, while exceptions exist, I've always seen a strong correlation between position and competence. (I haven't worked at bridgewater so I don't know if it's true there.)
In the political/economic world, I see poor people refusing to engage in personal responsibility (i.e. having children out of wedlock, doing drugs, smoking, eating badly and not exercising, refusing to work) while the rich do the exact opposite.
So I'll ask the question that I guess makes me an awful person too: why do we think the just world hypothesis is actually false?
Moreover, why isn't it reasonable to treat it as a hypothesis that is true in many specific contexts? Should we also discuss the personal awfulness of people who believe in normal distributions as a useful principle since not all data is normally distributed? "Racists and child molesters sometimes use normal distributions to model the world!"
Yet there are plenty of poor people working two jobs and clipping coupons but never see their economic situation meaningfully improve. On the other side, someone born into wealth can be lazy, use drugs, and be a general screw up and still die wealthy.
Plenty of rich people do drugs too but the chances of them going to jail for doing drugs are negligible compared to the chances of jail time for a poor person. Law enforcement targets poor neighborhoods far more heavily, wealthy people don't buy drugs off street corners, and wealthy people can pay for far better legal representation.
Crime? White collar crime is rarely punished with jail time. Someone selling drugs on the street might get several years in jail, whereas someone who helps launder billions for drug cartels gets no jail time and their company only pays a fine.
Unethical sociopathic behavior in politics and many parts of the business world is how some people get to the top. It's not that the most qualified or deserving person got what they deserved, it was that the most ruthless, self-promoting, and deceitful person took the spoils.
The just world hypothesis is often what callous people use to justify why they have the riches and people lower on the totem pole don't. It's easy to point at poor people and say they're poor because they're lazy or irresponsible, but it's much harder to admit that someone succeeded because of either advantages they were born into, or outright immoral behavior.
http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publication...
Similarly, poor people are more likely to have substance abuse problems.
http://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/2013MHDetTabs...
Now, as you note, rich people get away with things more - so wouldn't responsible poor people be less likely to do drugs? As a responsible adult, I do far more drugs in India (a cop might want 500rs ~ $7) than Malaysia (off with their heads!).
You seem to believe the just world hypothesis is false, yet you clearly haven't even googled data which suggests it's a pretty solid statistical hypothesis in this case.
It's truly a flaw in our society that such rhetoric - describing people who hold true beliefs as "callous" and "immoral" - is causing people to hold utterly incorrect beliefs. It's kind of like the modern version of "only satan worshippers believe in evolution".
>it's a pretty solid statistical hypothesis in this case.
Certainly not on the basis of that report, it's not.
As far as poor people and substance abuse, several states implemented drug testing regimes for people on welfare and what they found in all cases is that the drug use rate for welfare recipients was less than that of the general public, in most cases, about an order of magnitude less.
http://time.com/3117361/welfare-recipients-drug-testing/
The problem with the just world hypothesis is that it goes backwards from the successful outcome, then asserts that this outcome is proof that the world is fair. Person A is rich and successful because they worked hard and people who aren't rich and successful must've failed because they were lazy or irresponsible. But the truth is that circumstances are a large part of success and failure.
Sure, when you equalize circumstances someone's personal effort, ability, and choices are what determines outcomes, but circumstances are rarely equal. When you're talking about groups of people born into massively unequal circumstances, the whole 'just world' thing falls apart. Someone born into a poor area, with bad schools, poor economic opportunities, and crime problems is simply not playing with the same deck of cards. Similarly, someone in the professional world who doesn't have the same connections as others or is not willing to bend the rules like others may be, is at a disadvantage.
It doesn't mean that working hard and being skilled won't get you forward in life, most times it does. What it means is that success and achievement are not always fair and they are almost never independent of the situation someone is born and raised in.
The problem with the just world hypothesis is that it goes backwards from the successful outcome, then asserts that this outcome is proof that the world is fair.
Ok, so you have no problem with a statistical just world hypothesis like what Dalio and I suggested? Namely, good behavior causes good outcomes, but only probabilistically?
Someone born into a poor area, with bad schools, poor economic opportunities, and crime problems is simply not playing with the same deck of cards.
It's far from clear that this is true. Consider a statistically typical American born into such circumstances. Now consider a Gujurati, born into far worse circumstances who then shifts into American "bad circumstances" at age 12.
Do you think the Gujurati will have the same bad outcomes as the American? If not, then it's not really a defensible claim that circumstances (at least as far as variation within the US goes) matter a lot.
(We know from historical experiment that the answer is no, the Gujurati will perform quite well.)
Were their ancestors forced into slavery in the USA, then Jim Crow, then systematic segregation and on-going police brutality?
You seem to be suggesting that bad circumstances at time X cause bad behavior/outcomes which then is passed down through the generations.
Lets assume this odd Lamarckian theory were true for a moment (I don't think it is) and explore it's consequences. Wouldn't this provide a specific causal mechanism for hereditary inferiority of various groups, thereby making it more likely that such theories (usually termed "white supremacist", though not by me) are true? Lets consider another group - folks persecuted by the Nazis, and hundreds of other incidents before then. Shouldn't they be underperforming?
(Let me emphasize that I'm a Darwinian, not a Lamarckian. I'm just exploring your theory and illustrating why I think it's false, and why I think you should too. Let me also point out that you made this hypothetical American black, in my comment he was "statistically typical" which would make him white.)
The historical experiment I refer to is the Gujurati diaspora. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujarati_people#Diaspora
Your last line suggests you are having a strong emotional reaction to the idea I'm attempting to convey, namely that Gujuratis engage in certain behaviors that drive success while other groups don't. (Or perhaps it's the idea of black Lamarckian inferiority that is causing you negative emotions.) Can I ask why that is?
(Tangentially, why Gujus vs Tamils? No compelling reason, Gujus just spring to mind because a good friend of mine - with whom I occasionally discuss issues like this - is Guju. But I believe that a Tamil immigrant would also behave differently and have better outcomes than an American.)
You have also somewhat misunderstood my statement about systemic, multi-generational oppression of the poor and African Americans in the US: I feel unable to compare in any rational manner this long-term ethnic and class oppression in the US to the Nazi oppression of the Jewish people in Germany. EDIT: the closest thing I can think of is the oppression and discrimination against Jewish people in society prior to the Nazis and its role in driving social outcomes for the Jewish people. For example, in the book Neuro Tribes, the author posited that since medicine and psychiatry were few of the professions open to the Jewish people in Austria, you saw a significant number in that role.
My emotional reaction came about because it was extremely strange for me to see someone blithely compare such blatantly obvious apples and oranges to make a point. I can't understand why that makes sense to you and I still don't. To make a somewhat charged statement about "outcomes": one can argue that Philando Castile had a good outcome in this society until a misguided reach for the wallet per his apparent interpretation of the officer's instructions. The multi-generational set of circumstances that led to "this" (whatever it might be) is what I think you are missing but what I feel unable to communicate clearly.
So it's more fair to compare poor Americans to poor Indians who poop in the field, have no power, get water from a communal well, and may well be living under naxalite (communist) oppression?
Actually, I suspect that latter group may also do pretty well if allowed to enter the US. Poor Vietnamese fleeing Communism didn't do too badly, nor did the poor illiterate Chinese who came here to work on the railroads.
EDIT: the closest thing I can think of is the oppression and discrimination against Jewish people in society prior to the Nazis and its role in driving social outcomes for the Jewish people.
I was deliberately hinting at this. Yet somehow American Jews have excellent outcomes, far better than non-Jewish whites, nearly as good as Asians. It's weird how their circumstances didn't hinder them.
Of course, it's not so weird if you observe that American Jews share certain behaviors with other high income Americans, with Gujuratis, and with Chinese. But they don't tend to share these behaviors with either low income whites or blacks. It's almost as if behavior is far more important than circumstances.
My emotional reaction came about because it was extremely strange for me to see someone blithely compare such blatantly obvious apples and oranges to make a point. I can't understand why that makes sense to you and I still don't.
Why is it apples and oranges?
I'm also curious why you seem to want to make my statistically typical American black. Virtually none of the things you bring up happened to white Americans, yet the Gujurati (or Tamil if you prefer) will probably have better outcomes than the typical poor white American also.
Exactly. Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan are poster children for this.
So while people in the lower economic brackets might engage in overtly self-damaging behaviors like smoking or eating poorly (in disproportionate numbers) -- or simply be too depressed to look for work in an economy that basically has no use for them, or to go to college for an advanced degree in their 40s or 50s -- folks in the bulge brackets will end up doing "responsible" things, like voting for the political class that brought us the invasion of Iraq (including 500k+ killed and the bloodshed we are seeing up to the current day), climate change denial, and the (artificially accelerated) deindustrialization that killed off the middle class jobs those (now) in the lower tiers might have had access to in the first place, a few decades back.
In the world of work, while exceptions exist, I've always seen a strong correlation between position and competence.
In a sense this is almost a truism; one simply has to ask "competent at what?" In many organizations, unfortunately, it isn't technical or domain knowledge, or even interpersonal skills that merits promotion -- but simply the art of "managing up."
Sorry for the snark, but it appears you simply aren't paying attention. Rich people don't have kids out of wedlock? Don't do drugs or smoke?
It's probably more likely that you have a blind spot toward shared behaviors between classes because you associate them as low-status.
http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/Principles/Bridgew...
Which reads like a particularly ego-centric self-help book, down to creepy formulae. "Pain + Reflection = Progress" or "1+1=3", anyone?
Or do you believe it to be true but merely creepy?
(Personally I consider it to be completely true. Most of my personal progress has come directly from pain, reflection, and then deliberate effort. Where does your personal progress come from?)
So it's obviously not "true" but at best "sometimes true."
It worked because it was only applied at senior level (80% marketing and sales) and there was extremely strict policy for not behaving like that for outsiders or underlings. Boss giving temper tantrum or bullying his workers resulted creative and humiliating punishments. Employees who were not part of luscious bonus program knew they were safe.
My theory is that forcing people to change behavior in different context was easy way to differentiate between people who enjoy aggression and job insecurity from people who are assholes 24/7.
Obvious downside was very self selective almost exclusively male club that had to exclude talent that could not adjust. But those who liked it had incredible job satisfaction and earned lots of money.
Why is that a downside? I mean, you say that they were very successful... Maybe the people they excluded wouldn't be as successful?
If you follow the naive but socially sanctioned view that making money = success, or "getting what you want from life" = success, then hedge funds can look like very successful places.
If you have a more independent view - the kind of view that someone like Dalio, for all his alleged openness, is likely incapable of understanding - then hedge funds aren't going to be the right place for you.
I interviewed there and got the strong impression that their 'total transparency' spiel was just a cover for bosses to be assholes.
They take radical transparency very seriously. They record everything, but do ask your permission first(well... can I say no?)
The people were nice. They are brutally honest and let me know what I was lacking.
Watching videos including the crying manager were too much for me.
It doesn't surprise me that fucked up HR situations occur.
The one fun event was watching the receptionist applying radical transparency(assholeism) to a delivery guy. They take it seriously!
(Disclaimer - I work there :) )
Suddenly I want to find a place where I can actually bring my cat to work..
Is there a copy of this online?
Sounds like a lot of Trumpisms.
And lots of obvious things only a dim egotist would consider to be revelations worth collecting into a manifesto.
"... if a billionaire loses $200 million he will probably be unhappy, while if someone who is worth $10,000 unexpectedly gets another $2,000, he will probably be happy".
woah, fark, really?