Burnin’ a bridge(water)... A new book called “The Fund” is hot business goss. In it, author Rob Copeland digs into Ray Dalio’s hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, aka: the world’s largest hedge fund, more than twice the size of its closest rival. He suggests that Bridgewater is a cult of personality built to prop up its founder’s ego by favoring employees who agree with him. Copeland also details seedier tales about the company (like: an alleged policy for hiring adult entertainers). Dalio dismissed “The Fund” on LinkedIn, calling it a “sensational and inaccurate tabloid.”
Abridged history: If you haven’t studied your hedge-fund grid in a while, Bridgewater became a biz legend post-2008. Its portfolio gained 9% during the financial crisis while the market dipped 37%.
“Radical transparency”… is a Dalio catchphrase, which he popularized in his best-selling book “Principles.” Yet his fund’s inner workings are (in)famously mysterious. Bridgewater says it uses hundreds of “signals” to make its investments, but doesn’t share what they are. It’s led some journalists to speculate: Bloomberg’s Matt Levine guessed that a computer runs the whole fund, and that its main problem is keeping the employees busy. Copeland, meanwhile, wonders whether the fund does much investing at all, arguing that its market impact is that of a “minnow” when it should be a “whale.”