Bridgewater Associates reviews

Probably the phoniest place you will ever work at. Principles-touting, confidence-shattering, fake-humility-flaunting bullies at every single corner. Every person who has been at the firm more than a year now has a little Kool-Aid stall of their own: everyone knows how to sidetrack any real conversation using rhetoric, counter-arguments, and personal attacks masquerading as constructive criticism. Management is terrible, most people are over-valued monetarily and then made to do the most ridiculous tasks ever, and the firm is many years away from realizing that emotional safety is an incredibly important factor for productivity at the workplace. Gender: even by finance standards, the gender disparity is egregious. There are murmurings of discontent around the firm about this now, but no real action to counter the fact that almost all managers are men, all strategists are men, all engineers are men. Women usually mill around "leveraging" them (fancy Bridgewater speak for begging irresponsible managers to come to meetings on time). While this itself might be representative of a lot of the rest of the corporate world, the Bridgewater "culture" itself is so perniciously aggressive and abrasive that it ends up supporting brash, unapologetic, and insensitive masculinity. Growth: Chances are, as a recent college graduate, unless you are an IA and love the markets, you will learn absolutely nothing professionally. Any review talking about how to learn to be introspective: that's what therapists and solitary walks on the beach are for. Not your day job. All you will learn, if you are so inclined, is to learn slippery speech that can allow you to detract feedback and BS your way through the thousands of meetings you will attend each week. Otherwise, nada. Leave, and get a real job.