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Comment by gopher2 | Hacker News Reader

I’ve found Ray Dalio’s macro pontificating to be kind of useless. Remember when we were having a “beautiful deleveraging.” Now we’re in a “great sag.”

Makes more sense to me that these guys are just talking their book at a conceptual level because reflexivity.

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I think the rhetoric is a very sophisticated way to market the fund. (1) make highly generalized pronouncements that sound wise and get headlines because they make for good journalistic copy (2) make the business seem like it's driven by principles - eg, a system - and not just a few great PMs running it (founders).

Any developers from BW on hacker news? Curious to know what your experience is like.

I'm not a developer.. but did spend several years at BW working with their developers. Ask away, i will see if i can answer some of your questions.

How did the experience of shipping software compare to a "conventional" company, either a big corporation or a silicon valley type company? I get the sense the tendency to talk in big picture abstract would allow a lot of folks to bluster through. True SMEs would have to contend with the culture in order to get results in tech.

Most of my career has been with big banks, i would say BW ships software the same as they do.

SCRUM meetings, regular releases, change management.

The big difference is that people in BW work more as a collective and there is a lot less politics. This is what allows them to "get things done".

"Blustering" doesnt work well, you will get called out for it pretty quickly.

What you’re saying might as well be true, but I found his YouTube videos on the economic machine to be brilliant. I took a few semesters of Econ in college, and even then, I didn’t have my head wrapped around the bigger picture.

His management system seems similar to nonviolent communication. He uses radical honesty among employees where everyone’s rating each other. That’s extreme but it probably has benefit.

> One stylized model for thinking about Bridgewater is that it is run by the computer with absolute logic and efficiency; in this model, the computer's main problem is keeping the 1,500 human employees busy so that they don't interfere with its perfect rationality. [1]

> On this theory, the computer might have gotten fed up with Dalio -- who by even his own account can be a bit much, as a manager -- and given him some carefully calibrated hints to make himself scarce. "Hey Ray," Bridgetron 4000 probably said, "your insights are so good, you should really put them in a book. And a TED talk. You deserve it. Don't worry about the investing stuff, I'll handle that." [2]

Matt Levine -

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2016-02-05/bridge...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-10-13/the-ca...

Currently a dev at BW. Happy to answer any questions.

The "radical honesty" culture, is it true?

And what is your opinion on it?

What software and tech stack do they have there?

Yes, what you think you know about the "radical honesty" culture is absolutly true. Prior to printing his book, it was mandatory reading for ALL BW employees. At some point Ray decided to release the principles to the public, but they had been available for employees long before that.

I miss the culture, and that is the honest truth. While it has some difficulties at times, it is far ahead of anywhere else i have worked (4 major banks). It clearly is not for everyone, but if you are the type who likes transparency, it is for you.

Software/tech stack - They are mostly a windows shop... not sure that answers your question, but i dont want to get into it in detail.

Thanks, I think I will go and read the book first.

What language do you use?

Piggybacking on this, it seems like a lot of folks in finance who have reached the top of the mountain during previous economic conditions that no longer exist are trying to take that (mostly) luck, (some) wisdom, and wealth, and parlay it in to status [1] because there's not much left to grasp for when you're a billionaire (Buffet, Dalio, etc) and you want to hold on to relevance as the sun sets.

I admit I bought Dalio's book Principles (you got a free gift card for charity in the amount of the book, so why not) and I was not impressed with the ideology conveyed as keys to success.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190722191157/https://threadrea...

His iOS app “Principles” contains the book for free I believe. Great read.

His book reads like a financier who thinks he’s a philosopher, or desperately wants to be perceived as one. I suppose that’s inevitable in a world that worships money.

Going the whole marcus aurelius route, but marcus aurelius had some genuinely unique thoughts and viewpoints. Financiers are much less interesting than they think they are, purely because money attracts an audience regardless of value.

>but marcus aurelius had some genuinely unique thoughts and viewpoints.

The thing is though, Marcus Aurelius's thoughts were never intend to be made public. It was his own personal notes to himself and therefore has little to no conflict of interest. Where as Ray Dalio is selling books and influence. While the first part may be a sum that is meaningless to him, the latter part could not be easily discounted.

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