I do think there's a downside to this culture, or at least something to guard against. It works when there is a clear intention to improve, but there can also be a tendency towards negativity and downright cynicism. Sometimes, "brutal" feedback becomes a mechanism of maintaining the status quo rather than fostering growth. It reminds me of the Oscal Wilde quote to the effect of "a cynic is someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing." It creates a lack of psychological safety, where people are afraid to speak up with different ideas and the culture stagnates.
That’s a great hypothetical that may apply in some places. What made Bridgewater a one in a million company is precisely that we all opted in to operating in this transparent and “harsh” way.
I never worked at a place with as much “psychological safety” as BW because the culture was explicitly “you must say what is in your mind”. Every other place that I heard talk about psychological safety has so much walking on eggshells that real problems couldn’t be called out.
> What made Bridgewater a one in a million company is precisely that we all opted in to operating in this transparent and “harsh” way.
I find this very hard to believe. I can buy that everyone knows, and even accepts, the risks coming in, but that doesn't mean that everyone opts into it, except in the weakest possible sense of opting in (the sense in which I opt in to cookie collection, for example, but weaker—because I just want to get to a website, whereas the people 'opting in' to this feedback system have to get a job, and may not have the resources to pick and choose).
// whereas the people 'opting in' to this feedback system have to get a job, and may not have the resources to pick and choose
That's just not what it is in practice. The kinds of people these companies hire have a lot of choices. Nobody is in position where the only company that will hire them is the world's premier and most selective hedge fund.
In reality most people who entered BW, were either "poached" from top-tier financial firms (and more recently FAANGS) or were graduates of top schools who had other offers. Materially nobody faces the choice between unemployment and "living the principles" - people opt into BW from among their choices because the culture appeals to them.
By your own admission though, BW is considered the “premier” hedge fund. So I’d be willing to bet some people dislike the culture but find it a worthwhile tradeoff for the status of working at BW. I’ve witnessed a similar dynamic at organizations like NASA. In private, people will talk about how they don’t much like the culture but find it hard to take a different job because it feels like a step down on the status ladder. Human incentives and biases can’t all be distilled to a simple model of “it must be a great culture or else people with options would leave”
I have a hard time imagining that it's truly brutal in both directions. Is the executive team really made to justify a large bonus for themselves when the rest of the staff is asked to accept lower than inflation adjustments, as an example?
I'd bet it's "brutal" but with a lot of information asymmetry preventing the sorts of feedback I described.
I've worked at a small place with "radical candor" (it's a book) and how I think about it is like working with power tools while walking on a tightrope. It's really easy to screw up and cut off someone's hand, and I think bridgewater fires a lot AFAIK or has a lot of turn over as a result.
Another thing is that it can easily make people pretty defensive, and you need very mature and forgiving/accepting people or rough and tumble culture (think Linus Torvalds) for it work properly. It's very easy to hide emotions with intellectual rationalizations unfortunately.
I also think it can be very useful and push to excellence, but most IMO don't have the emotional maturity to pull it off properly. I think it's the same reason why a lot of startups die because of cofounder conflict.
Can you clarify? I took the GP comment as asking whether subordinate employees give leadership negative feedback. That's a very different animal than general public feedback. I think that distinction is important because internal feedback tends to be much more relevant due to the amount of non-public information employees have. I suspect the GP point was that "brutal" feedback tends to flow downhill within an organization.
Would you expect a custodian to be able to talk to Dalio and say something like, "You know, your desk looks like a pigsty and a cluttered environment can lead to a cluttered mind and cluttered thinking."
// Would you expect a custodian to be able to talk to Dalio and say something like, "You know, your desk looks like a pigsty and a cluttered environment can lead to a cluttered mind and cluttered thinking."
Absolutely!
Take a look at rays Ted talk for a few examples. They are representative.
You have to understand why someone would find this surprising though right? Its counter to all human nature I have observed. It's like telling me you have water running uphill on your property, I'm right to have questions, the most reasonable explanation is some sort of trickery is at play.
// It's like telling me you have water running uphill on your property, I'm right to have questions, the most reasonable explanation is some sort of trickery is at play.
Skepticism is one thing but it's good not let it blind you to exceptionally good situations you can learn from.
Instead of your water running uphill analogy - I'd use marriage. Most marriage ends in divorce today, but if you see a couple that has been successfully married for decades, do you go "that must be bullshit" or do you go "I wonder what they are doing that others aren't doing" and seek to learn from that for your own life.
FWIW I am a Bridgewater alumni and can attest to the absolute ease of giving negative upward feedback - but you can also look at the outcomes. World's most successful hegefund across 4 decades, a highly desirable place to work, and a place where alumni "graduate" from to be massively successful elsewhere. Does that sound like "just another place where my cynical world view applies" or does it sound like "a place that has actually figured out something special and is able to stand out against the backdrop" - and thus is worthy to learn from?
It's funny to have to say this in a thread about explicit feedback and psychological safety, but:
Nobody here was suggesting that your question was foolish or that it was not asked in earnest surprise. Clearly, this is something that surprises you and that's fine. Good on you for asking questions to better understand!
Encountering something that is "counter to all human nature I have observed" is a good clue that you've been carrying a big a blindspot of your own. There are many traditional cultures and modern communities that are quite forward about feedback and criticism in a pervasive way. Often, in these groups, continued authority is earned exactly through one's handling of open criticism from their subordinates.
Do you process it in stride and contextualize it? Acknowledge the person for sharing it? Hold strong in your own self-assurance? Fold it into your future decisions? Or do you defensively fly off the handle and repress those who you see as threatening you?
I'm sorry if you're only familiar with that last strategy, but it's not nearly universal. In this case, the water really does flow uphill in a lot of places.
I am not the person you're replying to but I reached the same conclusion that they have. When someone claims as impossible that which you have experienced (and in fact, experienced consistently across decades) - at some point you have to conclude that they simply lack the experience that would make this as obvious to them. It's not a bad thing but it's just kinda real.
It's like the opposite of survivorship bias. Because you have only seen things go badly, you conclude the good is impossible, something like that.
I did not read the original comment as "claims as impossible" but rather "not very generalizable". One of the important things about receiving feedback IMO is to steelman the feedback as much as possible.
I don't know if I agree with the first statement, but I agree that leadership plays a big role.
I think psychological safety is the opposite of what you described. According to Adam Grant, it's the ability to give candid feedback without interpersonal risk. Related to my original comment, it's the ability to share ideas, even half-baked ones, without fear that they will define you as a person. The downside to "brutal" feedback is when people conflate the idea with the person sharing it.
