This is a very, very good read. Thanks for sharing.

In any situation with a broken status quo, openness by those that disagree will just get them squashed. In practice, change occurs in the dark: The people that have a different idea hide in a corner, bake the idea in secret, build allies in secret, and only reveal it when they cannot be squashed down. It works with different ways of investing, with tolerance to LGBT, interracial marriage... instant openness in an environment that is against you will ruin you unless you are powerful.

The principles, as applied, lead to an appearance of openness, where people have to toe the party line and only disagree when they know they can win politically. Otherwise, the powers that be will find you and make sure your disagreement can't go anywhere.

And how do you get power? In practice, by toeing the party line. Only by agreeing with the people above you, those that have been blessed as the smartest, you can get any credibility. And yes, this is something that is actively codified in Bridgewater's culture.

I wish external researchers had access to the internal ratings and surveys that Bridgewater employees fill in all the time. The patterns in them are the definition of a dystopia and groupthink.

You make some good points, and I especially like this one.

I get the feeling his wife never asked if she looked fat. Or he always made the mistake of saying yes. Talk about missing out on reality.

For those who've built tech companies up from the 10 to 1000 people range, there's a lot in that link that's very easy to recognize.

If you interpret back from the more traditional business lingo, you will recognize key 'iterative development' ideas applied outside engineering.

This allows a sizable 30 year old enterprise to handle new ideas much more as a tech startup would.

On the main article topic, instead of the article's quote, “like trying to make Ray’s brain into a computer”, I'd say as an engineer imagine if you could "run a company under a debugger." Frame it that way, and I think you could imagine some neat possibilities.

If you're very good at software development / distributed systems engineering, and think self-driving management or a self-driving fund might be even more interesting than yet another self-driving car, we're always hiring. Hit me up via profile.

While there are some articles out there bashing Bridgewater's work culture (similar to how Amazon's work culture got attacked in the press), the people I know who work at Bridgewater like it and find the work interesting and feel they are well compensated. Though, no one I know who works there had any finance background before taking the job and that seems to be OK.

Just curious if you have any thoughts on if previous finance experience before working at Bridgewater is a good thing or bad thing or irrelevant? And is there any connection between those employees that succeed at BW and whether they have previously worked in finance?

I think software engineers from more fields would do well and have fun in this environment than they imagine. You do need to be good, but you don't need a background in finance.

You can read in the link above the idea that people come to the table with values and skills, where it's hard to change what you're like, easier to adapt your skills.

Couple that with the observation that for open minded people who like to learn, effective engineering values and skills seem to translate pretty well across problem domains.

This means it's less about the kind of tech stunts interview folklore attributes to Google, more about trying to understand how you think about problems and get things done.

Sounds trite, but if you think well and do things (need both), you can succeed.

Is this accurate?

I'm reading Principles.com and I'm blown away by how similar it is to my own model of the world but without the same confidence and experiences to back it up the way Ray did.

I think perhaps I was being too judgemental about Ray by reading the WSJ article. But to be fair, I'm constantly trying to grasp reality. Perhaps it's better to go in without strong opinions at all...#2017resolutions

Read Epictetus, Aurelieus, Minsky (Society of Mind), GEB, even Thoreau. Get inside your thinking machine. Feelings are okay. Thinking is okay. Orient around what you will create. Learn to meditate a little. Read Tolle if you are set on it, but I say most thinking people are better off with more original sources that challenge and ask more of their readers.

The Enchiridion, Meditations, Society of Mind, Golden Braid. Left out Thoreau because that seems like a natural survivalist and it had 4/5 reviews on Amazon.

The only way I'll read books is if there's a monetary sunk cost. If I pirate ebooks, unless it's super essential, won't get around to reading it.

> You must be calm and logical. When diagnosing problems, as when identifying problems, reacting emotionally, though sometimes difficult to avoid, can undermine your effectiveness as a decision-maker. By contrast, staying rational will serve you well. So if you are finding yourself shaken by your problems, do what you can to get yourself centered before moving forward.

This reads like a parody of the DSM criteria for Asperger's Syndrome.

Nobody likes working for megalomaniacs, and the WSJ article suggests that it's a pretty toxic place to work when people breakdown in bathrooms.

The truth is that money is a powerful incentive if significant enough that overrides all personal principles and creates a subversive mind.

In other news, Gordon Gekko feels that greed is good for his own personal gain at the cost of the personal morals of his followers and profiteering off their transgressions & weaknesses.

There's a movie script somewhere in here. Exaggerate the narcissism, advance the science 50-100 years and we've got an eccentric billionaire that causes an artificial intelligence uprising. Like something between Transcendence and Westworld.

A few other thoughts from reading the article:

• Dalio seems like a classic case of someone pursuing immortality in whatever way he can. His coming out of retirement, his efforts to leave a legacy of "radical transparency" and to make his company an "altar of openness", etc. He is also 67 years old. He may feel as though he is "running out of time", and I've seen an uptick in media mentions surrounding him and Bridgewater. There's quite a few religious themes here.

• Bridgewater might be an excellent case study in radical changes that result in success, but it also might not. In particular, there are two challenges. First is the culture of Wall St, which lends itself more to a "show me the results" manifesto and can probably tolerate a culture of open criticism more than most other companies. The other is that Bridgewater is a single datapoint. We know almost nothing about the inner workings of e.g. RenTech, but they are just as impressive (albeit with lower AUM) and have a more "academic" culture. Does the culture matter that much, or is the success a result of a confluence of other factors? Someone who appears to pride himself on his contrarian decision making like Dalio might see his culture as the defining differentiator responsible for his success.

• I find it much more likely that Bridgewater's culture of open criticism (and elements of quantified self?) is like Zappos Holacracy and Valve's "no managers" manifestos, rather than a new set of principles to be brought down from on high. Each of these companies prides itself, and to some extent claims is the reason for its success, on a culture that was deliberately implemented instead of organically grown. After you see enough of these I feel you start to become "culture agnostic", and from my point of view I don't feel any of them has a causal relationship with profitability or productivity.

• A nitpick here - it seems hypocritical to reduce a culture of "radical transparency." If you decide to change the status quo from radical transparency for 100% of the staff to radical transparency for 10% of the staff, then what is so radical about it? Equally, what does it mean to only dole out radical transparency to those "responsible enough" to receive it? That sounds like...transparency.

* I find it much more likely that Bridgewater's culture of open criticism (and elements of quantified self?) is like Zappos Holacracy and Valve's "no managers" manifestos, rather than a new set of principles to be brought down from on high. Each of these companies prides itself, and to some extent claims is the reason for its success, on a culture that was deliberately implemented instead of organically grown. After you see enough of these I feel you start to become "culture agnostic", and from my point of view I don't feel any of them has a causal relationship with profitability or productivity.

I've been wondering the same about Silicon Valley's obsession with culture. It seems cargo-cultish in so many ways - correlated but not necessarily causal, and almost certainly a victim of survivorship bias given the group think about culture among the startup crowd. Thiel's advice that your startup should be like a cult felt like that too.

But then I did a startup, and saw many others close hand, and realized that Thiel is right, at least initially it needs to be a cult. In the early stages pre-traction you simply don't have the bandwidth for deep philosophical disagreements among the team about fundamental product direction and strategy.

That part has got to be like a cult where everyone is on the same page and you can focus like a laser on developing your team's ability to work together and execute like a well-oiled machine. That capability is not to be taken for granted, and does not just happen, you have to make it happen with intent, and unless you get really lucky with initial hires who just gel right off the bat, every early startup goes through it.

One of the main pitfalls for early stage startups is emerging disagreements over product strategy and direction among the co-founders or leadership team. But this is exacerbated by slow execution, leaving more room and time for self-doubt and second-guessing. Thus developing execution capability early on is the most important strategy. Execution both helps you get to a point faster where you can see whether your product strategy is right or wrong, and helps you pivot faster if wrong. If you're going to deliberately implement a culture, make sure its focus is on execution ability. Joel Spolksky's "smart and gets things done" or PG's "relentlessly resourceful" should be a good enough template for 99% of startups out there.

Aside from basic inspiration, the plot bears almost no resemblance to the actual hedge fund or Cohen himself.

It's way overweight U.S. Treasury bonds (55%) and underweight stocks (30%). And what's with 15% in gold and commodities (which produces no interest or dividend income)?

I've seen chollida1 comments in other finance-related threads and I think he knows his stuff. On this one though I agree with you, that portfolio has some serious issues and I would not feel comfortable recommending it to the average person as is.

Here is an article talking about Ray Dalio recognizing this "all weather" portfolio was bad and they needed to make corrections: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-08-14/dalio-pat...

Honestly, I think that this is probably the only thing that makes me think there could be something worthwhile.

All portfolios are broken in some way. It's refreshing to hear a proponent of one admit it and try to fix it.

(Also, I highly recommend Lewis' "The Undoing Project" if you think this is a problem)

I should have said more clearly, it is hard to recommend that portfolio at this time because the creator of the portfolio, Ray Dalio, has subsequently said there are problems with it and he is still working on fixing those problems.

Especially considering the portfolio is described to regular non-professional investors as a type of "set it and forget it" longer term investment portfolio. One that doesn't need active monitoring and works all market conditions. It is dangerous to recommend as is.

For sure there are merits to the all weather portfolio! Its risk parity structures were a ground-breaking, genius move by Ray Dalio that made him rich and famous (famous in the investing world at least). I have a ton of respect for Dalio, I've read his principles more than once. He is quite private, his achievements and contributions are not as well-known as some other old billionaires of the investing world but he is just as skilled.

Basically, the Tony Robbins/Ray Dalio portfolio has potential. In its current form it offers many lessons to a lay investor just by reading about it and the theories behind it. But before one invests their hard earned money in the portfolio, consider that some major changes have happened to the portfolio recently and other major changes may be in the works. It could turn out great or it could be scrapped and turn out not to work as thought. So a potential investor might want to hold off following that outdated portfolio strategy and re-evaluate once more info about an updated version is available.