Dysfunctional management and politics rule. Independent viewpoints are not tolerated. A deference to the founders and their academic colleagues permeates the culture. There is a culture of fear to question the investment philosophy, and a lot of external hires are truly puzzled and shocked at this when they arrive. A lot of reverse engineering goes into the investment message to try to keep it consistent with the evangelical advisors while making sense to the institutional community. This is pretty much impossible.
Incompetent managers who have caused huge amounts of harm are protected instead of being dismissed, so staff get demotivated and either leave voluntarily are are forced out. HR knows all about this but is powerless, so just provides the framework to legitimize the coverups. Its a pity the HR head who came from Wall St didn't bring best practice to the firm.
Research, trading and portfolio management run the place. Don't think otherwise. Most of the people in powerful roles have been there for a long time and come from the same cliche. So they protect each other. There is a lot of disinformation from some middle management to their seniors and a lot of back-stabbing and slandering. Would you want to work in such a place.
Dimensional does not tolerate different views about markets. And with markets broken right now, this is a shame. Most of the investment people in the company don't have any real grasp of markets, since they have an engineering mentality. The investment presentations and calls are cringy to listen to since the people don't have a feel for markets. The place has lots of processes sort of like a production line, and has even been referred to as a factory by senior investment people. The intention is to run it like a factory.
