None of what I have read here surprises me…

The more I work on Wall Street the more I realize this country is doomed. Most, i stress NOT ALL Ivy League kids are now products of group think universities. That’s why people like Peter Thiel from Clarium Capital and Pay Pal (founding member) are offereing 100k to students to NOT go to college or to drop out. This is a revolutionary idea that I agree with. Obviously on the condition that you work 2 years to start your own company.

I think I have a very quick interesting story about Bwater that no one else here has. Post a reply if you would like to hear it.

First off, bear in mind that most things that get discussed the most here are barely relevant to whether the company does well. Forget about the cult(ure); the new trading floor; the new offerings; how much BDQ sucks; how BDQ’s underlying databases suck even more; how long the next Trading director will last (hint: think short); how long the next CTO will last (hint: think shorter); whether Ops’s issue-log meetings are probing deep and hard enough; how many leveragers the Principles say are required to screw in a lightbulb; what widths the traders are getting on bond futures; which departments are having crises and drilldowns; or whether it was really necessary for everyone to get locked-down iPods just so they could take the Principles anywhere. Above all else, forget about Ray’s 1001 Management Principles and Other Nietzschean Lessons on Life, the Universe, and Hyenas. The only things that really matter are whether Research comes up with good ideas and, relatedly, whether clients have confidence to invest with the company.

1) The Research department has good insights into how economies and markets work. When Research has more good ideas than bad, the company does well; when Research has more bad ideas than good, the company does poorly.

2) By and large, the CS department keeps clients happy, although with as many clients as BW has, you’ll find some spectacular failures in P&I. Keeping clients happy is certainly easier when Research does its job well, but even then it can be a surprisingly tough job. The client advisers have to be able to say intelligent things about BW’s views on the markets, synthesize BW’s ideas about portfolio management into the clients’ traditional mindsets, and shepherd skittish clients through downward blips and the occasional lousy trade (Google: “Bridgewater depression mode”). As I say, I think it’s a tough job, but BW gets good results.

3) BW’s basic ideas about separation of alpha and beta, about liability-hedging, and about the appropriate use of leverage are all great. If more people thought about portfolio management this way, the world would be a better place.

4) Ray comes under fire for a variety of reasons, but he’s ultimately a decent guy. I think few people on this board would have anything to say against Ray personally.

5) Bridgewater is not Bernie Madoff. Contrary to the speculation of John Testo and a few others on this board who also don’t know what they’re talking about, BW is very serious about compliance and accounting, will not be the subject of SEC/CFTC discipline or client lawsuits any time soon. On the other hand, litigation with former employees over onerous non-competes has happened before, and could happen again.

6) Also, you’re right that there’s a bunch of ex-McK people at BW. (Maybe it’s a breeding ground for “conceptual thinkers.”) So that’s good if you liked working with McK people, or bad if you didn’t, but for me it’s neither here nor there. Some of them are fabulous, others are stereotypical consultants.

7) Many of the entertainment committee’s events are great.
The big company parties used to be cool, but now they just prove that money can’t buy fun.
The guest speakers are a mix of the good (e.g., John McCain’s stump speech and Q&A), the bad (e.g., Ambassador Ji Chaozhu, whose genuinely fascinating life failed to come through amid his rambling tangents into traditional Chinese naming conventions, wheat vs. rice, etc.), and the kooky (e.g., David Lynch and the Maharishi people).

Most things that get discussed the most here are barely relevant to whether the company does well. Forget about the cult(ure); the new trading floor; the new offerings; how much BDQ sucks; how BDQ’s underlying databases suck even more; how long the next Trading director will last (hint: think short); how long the next CTO will last (hint: think shorter); whether Ops’s issue-log meetings are probing deep and hard enough; how many leveragers the Principles say are required to screw in a lightbulb; what widths the traders are getting on bond futures; which departments are having crises and drilldowns; or whether it was really necessary for everyone to get locked-down iPods just so they could take the Principles anywhere. Above all else, forget about Ray’s 1001 Management Principles and Other Nietzschean Lessons on Life, the Universe, and Hyenas. The only things that really matter are whether Research comes up with good ideas and, relatedly, whether clients have confidence to invest with the company.

1a) The Research department has good insights into how economies and markets work. When Research has more good ideas than bad, the company does well; when Research has more bad ideas than good, the company does poorly.

1b) BW’s basic ideas about separation of alpha and beta, about liability-hedging, and about the appropriate use of leverage are all great. If more people thought about portfolio management this way, the world would be a better place.

2) By and large, the CS department keeps clients happy, although with as many clients as BW has, P&I is bound to report on a couple spectacular failures. This is certainly easier when Research does its job well, but even then it can be a surprisingly tough job. The client advisers have to be able to say intelligent things about BW’s views on the markets, synthesize BW’s ideas about portfolio management into the clients’ traditional mindsets, and shepherd skittish clients through downward or flattish blips and the occasional dunderheaded trade (Google: “Bridgewater depression mode”). As I say, I think it’s a tough job, but BW gets good results.

3a) Ray comes under fire for a variety of reasons, but he’s ultimately a decent guy. I think few people on this board would have anything to say against Ray personally.

3b) Bridgewater is not Bernie Madoff. Contrary to the speculation of John Testo and a few others on this board who don’t know what they’re talking about, BW is very serious about compliance and accounting, and Bridgewater will not be the subject of SEC/CFTC discipline or client lawsuits any time soon.

4) Also, there’s a bunch of ex-McK people at BW. (It must be a breeding ground for “conceptual thinkers.”) So that’s good if you liked working with McK people, or bad if you didn’t, but for me it’s neither here nor there.

5) Many of the entertainment committee’s events are great.
The big company parties used to be cool, but now they just prove that money can’t buy fun.
The guest speakers are a mix of the good (e.g., John McCain’s stump speech and Q&A), the bad (e.g., Ambassador Ji Chaozhu, whose genuinely fascinating life failed to come through among his rambling tangents into traditional Chinese naming conventions, wheat vs. rice, etc.), and the kooky (e.g., David Lynch and the Maharishi people).

you might be the best guy around who rules the world…. here you cannot. just cannot. love it or leave it, its the revenge of the nerds. if you dont like it, work on the street (You could be selling watches or bags on 5th avenue & beat buffett – not here)

I am glad places like these exist.

Could you maybe link to others entry level opportunities that strike you as similar to bridgewater? It is really hard to search the site to “find similar jobs”, (i’m thinking like how when you buy stuff in amazon it suggests similar stuff too)

Myself and a billion other young jobseekers out there thank you deeply.

i’m not on the east coast, so for my first round i have a phone interview there, i gather its going to be just a fit interview so hopefully no problems. do they then call you back in a couple hours if they want you and then fly you over for the second round?

also any idea how Portfolio associates fit in with the IA and MA positions described in the comments here?

I am sure the SEC will be raiding their company soon, same as to the other Hedge funds in the area!

The interviewer asked me to tell him about myself, as I did he started to play with his phone and not really listening to what I had to say. Right then I knew this was not the place for me as they are a bunch of children “brainwashed” into following some dumb rules.

They live on bullying people with intimidation and fear. If you mess up something, they live on publicly humiliating you. They record all of their meetings so when the time comes they will broadcast it to everyone to hear the reaming, screaming that you get. They call it learning.

I found out every year there is a 35-40% turnover of employees. Within the first 18 months that you are there they will see if you can crack and push your buttons.

It is not a good place to work, nor will any of their “teachings” be transferred over to real companies.

BW says that they are looking for strong willed, highly intelligent people — but actually the opposite is true. After being told many times that my honesty was appreciated during the interview process, when I turned it around and started to question their culture, things took a very bad turn. It started to feel more like Amway than a hedge fund.

My opinion is what they are looking for are intelligent people who have suffered some type of tragedy or event in their lives that would make them susceptible to being drawn into their cult. Ray Dalio is an insightful economist and investment manager, but some (not all) of the people who interviewed me came across as a band of misfits that would never be able to sustain what he has created in the long run.

To quote another prospect, “Cults don’t have happy endings.”

A decent amount (relatively speaking) of Bridgewater’s top people were at some point or another McKinsey people. As for colleges, Dartmouth undergrad and HBS are their biggest funnels; from lateral company hires, they view McKinsey as one of their top 3 desireable places to grab people. One McKinsey alum who is now a very important top guy in particular: Matthew Granade. He will most likely do your interview if you make it that far.

As for the SMA position, the real “players” at Bwater are basically divided into two groups: Investment Associates (IA’s) and Management Associates (MA’s). The basic differences should be self-explanatory from the name. You should know, IAs and MAs have a pretty big rivalry at Bwater, and IAs look down on the MAs, and sometimes it’s pretty palpable. MAs have the reputation for being all thinkers, no doers. You sit around and think about ways to think outside the box about a thinking problem. Managing people. Etc. It seems like a pretty interesting position (and its DEFINITELY stressful, and the turnover rate is ridiculous; MAs were considered one of the weak links by Ray, and if they dont think you are the right fit, you will NOT get a lot of time to adjust or figure it out; its right in his principles). That’s another thing: if you cant think of ways to incorporate the principles for approaching things, you will be out. Basically, if they like your style and you fit in, you can do great (and the pay, for that kind of job, increases pretty well as time goes on, relative to that at other places), but the odds are very high that either you wont like it, they wont like you, it will be too stressful, the work/life balance will suck, etc.

Check out this statistic (note- this was the stat from when I left around 2 years ago, and I heard it was the same relative number a year ago, so while it could have changed, odds are, not significantly) – for “experienced hires”, SIXTY SIX (66) percent are not with the company come their 1-year anniversary. Think about that before you make any big life-changing decisions (like moving a family or wahtever).

Can anyone tell me more about the Senior Management Associates group? I’ve had it described to me as “the special forces of BW.”

Also, this board is pretty negative about BW as a whole – is it really that bad? I’ve heard that a lot of ex-McK folks work there, can anyone confirm?

Thanks.

quick P.S.: another HF guy, you sound incredibly arrogant and jaded in general. Like it or not some of the smartest people out there work for McK. Did you not get in or something?

Bridgewater, while obviously not for everyone, seems like a place where one can challenge and be challenged. Hopefully I can one day be a part of this company.