The CULTure is absolutely insane. On paper, Ray Dalio's principles sound like a great ideas, and they were a big part of why I took the job. The reality is that not all people are hyper-logical and able to show no emotion when given criticism, especially if that criticism is politically motivated. The place is trying to grow way too fast, and Dalio's concepts can only really work in a small group setting. They will never scale to a larger company, and the reality is that the place has all the usual politics that any organization of similar size will have.
Noone trusts anyone, and their absolutely paranoid approach to both physical and technological security is holding them back from making progress in the IT department, which is easily the worst disaster I've ever seen or heard of in my career. Nothing is automated, and every last trivial decision gets "probed" endlessly, making the simplest decisions take forever. There is a "shadow culture" among the consultants, too, and this is sad: they hire "subject matter experts" and then don't trust them, since they aren't employees. I talked to a lot of old-time geeks like myself who were there to do what was asked of them, take the $$, and get out, even if they thought what they were doing was strategically wrong for the company. This was especially true of the IT consultants.
BW is reinventing every single IT wheel, and most of them are coming out square.
If you're considering this place, read all the reviews posted here on glassdoor.com, and read the ENTIRE principles document on the BW website. Those are just good ideas, they are the law in that place, and the degree to which you will be successful at BW depends on the degree to which you can live these principles, with no exceptions. You need to be sure you understand what "radical transparency" means, too. Be prepared to have your weaknesses documented and exposed for the entire company to see. if you're lucky, you might end up being a case study video that everyone is required to watch for further indoctrination.
If you have a conflict with someone senior to you, they can get rid of you pretty easily by getting you to admit that you have a problem with one of more of the core principles. This is politics as usual, and precisely why I only lasted a few months (which is not that unusual).
For someone who can drink the kool-aid and adopt the culture, the place might be a great fit (lots of the people there for the long run did seem pretty happy with their jobs, but maybe they just came to terms with it, in order to take home the $$).
