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- Ray Dalio's Bridgewater is notorious for its strict adherence to what it calls The Principles.
- New hires got a 90-page printout of The Principles, and staff were tested on it, a new book says.
- Take a look at some questions from the exam, published in "The Fund," out Tuesday.
How many of your coworkers would steal if no one was looking? Would you?
Hedge fund Bridgewater asked employees questions like these, and many more, in an hourslong exam testing their knowledge of the firm's famous Principles, according to a new book out Tuesday from New York Times finance reporter Rob Copeland, called "The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend."
Bridgewater handed new hires a 90-page printout of The Principles, a slew of ever-changing rules to live by from billionaire founder Ray Dalio, and the firm required that the staff watch daily videos of Dalio's various teachings, called Management Principles Trainings, and take accompanying quizzes, the book said.
Dalio even had a team put together a five-section, closed-book Principles Test that was mandatory for all employees, Copeland wrote. "The Fund" published a handful of questions from the exam.
One of them was "Which of the following definitions of arrogant is what we mean when we use it at Bridgewater?" The right answer:
"A person who has an unjustified and exaggerated confidence that his/her opinion is correct."
In a yes-or-no part of the exam, one question posed, "Should we have truth at all costs so that if a person lies they should always be fired?"
One string of questions asked:
"About what percentage of the Bridgewater population would steal if they could get away with it?
Are you one of them?
Did you answer the last question honestly?
Looking around you, what percent of the people you have contact with do you think will need to be sorted for Bridgewater to remain excellent?
Do you think that maybe you should be one of those people?"
Employee performance on the exam was based on how well their answers matched with Dalio's own, as well as the Principles.
Dalio founded Bridgewater in 1975 and stepped down as CEO in 2017 and as chairman at the end of 2021. He remains a member of the operating board and a senior investor and mentors the CIOs and Investment Committee. In 2017, Dalio published his own book chronicling the lessons he learned throughout his career, called "Principles: Life and Work."
Bridgewater did not comment directly on Copeland's account of how "The Principles" were implemented at the company, however Dalio posted a general response to the book on LinkedIn. He dismissed "The Fund" as "another one of those sensational and inaccurate tabloid books written to sell books to people who like gossip."