Ray Dalio became globally famous as the head of an innovative hedge fund and his Principles, which he purported would lead to inevitable success when followed. But behind the scenes at Bridgewater Associates was a bizarre, dysfunctional workplace culture.
I vaguely remember hearing about the utter weirdness of Bridgewater Associates before, but Wall Street is not really an area of interest for me. I picked this book up though because of this review by J, which whetted my appetite with promises of crazy workplace drama and comparisons to Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, which I enjoyed very much.
And dear reader, The Fund has certainly delivered. Between Ray Dalio’s penchant for micromanaging and his unwavering faith in the exceptional nature of his Principles, which seems to consist mostly of that belief and very little actual Principles, Bridgewater Associates is a case study in what happens when one man is given free reign to shape the lives and worldviews of a captive audience according to his ego. I appreciated that Copeland brought together the stories of employees on multiple levels of the business, relating how perfectly reasonable people could become absorbed in the delusion.
I will admit that, as someone with very little understanding of the stock market and the economy (I got a C+ in Microeconomics in college, which was the second-lowest grade I got in four years), I found myself getting rather tangled up when it came to the actual business aspect of the story. This is a bit tough, because it meant I couldn’t really follow what made Bridgewater’s practices so strange and shady. Copeland didn’t really help with how he seemed to assume his readers would be familiar with the basics already, and therefore didn’t explain them.