This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Daria Rose, a 27-year-old lawyer and creator who interned at Ray Dalio's hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, in 2017 and 2018. Her employment has been verified and the following has been edited for length and clarity.
The first time I ever watched the "Black Mirror" episode "Nosedive" — about a world in which people constantly rate one another — I thought, wait, I've worked for a place like this before.
The summer after my sophomore and junior years at Harvard University, I interned at Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund. Its intense culture is not for everybody. Founder Ray Dalio once said around 30% of employees quit within the first 18 months.
And while I definitely see parallels between my time at Bridgewater and that "Black Mirror" episode, I look back fondly on my time there. If I hadn't gone to law school, I 100% would've returned to work there full-time.
I was drawn to Bridgewater's tenet of meaningful work
In my sophomore year, I heard about Bridgewater from another student in a social club I was in at Harvard. She'd been recruited as an investment associate and was looking for other people interested in working there.
I did some research and was drawn to the fact that one of Bridgewater's main tenets is about meaningful work and meaningful relationships. She told me about a management associate position and helped forward my résumé.
After applying, I had to take a Myers-Briggs Personality Type test and several other screening tests. Next, we had a full-day interview at the Bridgewater campus in Westport, Connecticut.
Authenticity is a big thing at Bridgewater, so I went into the interview wanting to be completely myself.
I was first put in a room with other applicants for a moderated debate-style interview. The rest of the day was spent in multiple rounds of interviews with managers. Some were case studies — kind of similar to consulting — and others involved deep intensive questions about who I was as a person. How did you grow up? Are you an only child? How do you think this affected you? How do you think this impacts your working style on a team? What wakes you up in the morning? How do you deal with criticism?
The interviewers I had were incredibly empathetic, and our conversation felt real and vulnerable.
About a week or two later, I got a call that I got the job. When I saw my offer package — I was like, whoa, this is a lot of money — and the great perks like housing, transportation, and a signing bonus, it was really a no-brainer. I thought, I'm 100% working there.
The internship was incredibly fun
Most of the interns lived together in dorms for the summer, which was really cool and special. To help us bond, we did fun activities like group dinners, our own version of Tough Mudder, and a scavenger hunt.
Every day, we would arrive at the campus by around 8 a.m. and leave around 7 p.m. I was a management associate intern in the office of the CEO, and we did basically any special project the CEO needed. I worked on a lot of diversity initiatives, figuring out how to make Bridgewater more streamlined and accessible to employees.
At the time, Dalio's book "Principles: Life and Work" wasn't out yet, so one of our tasks was to read the manuscript and give feedback on it.
Ranking each other was a big part of Bridgewater's culture
We ranked people daily using numbered "dots," a real-time check-in of how everyone was doing.
In each meeting, we'd each have an iPad in front of us, showing a list of everyone else present. Throughout the meeting, we'd give people dots for things like humility, composure, willingness to touch a nerve, openmindedness, and assertiveness. By the end of the meeting, our whole screen would just be filled with dots — some red, some green. It could get distracting sometimes — like, who gave me a three? — but we'd try to ignore it and stay in the moment.
Because we were constantly being evaluated on what we said, people were way more conscious when speaking. Instead of talking just to talk, people tried to make their points succinct and easily understandable, or they'd get a negative dot.
This criticism wasn't just limited to peers or supervisees. We were also encouraged to give dots to our bosses, managers, and even CEOs.
Dot outcomes went onto our "baseball cards," which had information about each employee's role and their strengths and weaknesses, to create a more vivid picture of what each of us was like.
Everything was recorded
Radical truth and radical transparency were very important at Bridgewater. Everything was recorded. If I wanted to go back and see why I got a certain dot, I could go back to the recording and listen to what I'd said. I could even look up my friends' dots and see how they were doing each day, even if I wasn't in the meeting.
One time, my friend threw her water bottle in the trash rather than recycling it. I don't know who saw her, but someone gave her a negative dot. It made me realize, wow, people really do care on a microscopic level and they're paying attention to you.
Pain + reflection = progress
Getting so much constant feedback was difficult at first. At times I was like, oh, that's harsh. It's never great to hear that you didn't do something right or that someone didn't like something you said. We had a button on our iPads that we could press whenever we felt pain, and then we'd write a reflection about the situation. The idea was that pain plus reflection equals progress.
Depending on the severity of the pain or what had happened, sometimes we'd have a diagnostic session to get to the root of the problem, such as if someone's ego got in the way of them asking for help. These sessions could sometimes be uncomfortable, but ultimately were really helpful and led to growth and better day-to-day operations.
I was really good at receiving constructive feedback and was always really high on the humility scale. I like to improve and have a growth mindset rather than taking things personally. On the days when I felt a little bit more sensitive or more emotional, I didn't want to hear the more critical feedback. But when I was able to look back at it from a less emotional standpoint, I was like, oh, okay, they had a point here.
Dalio wanted us to try to take our egos out of our work as much as possible and really look toward a higher self. From time to time, we'd have to do something called "force rankings," where we ranked our team members based on who was the most and least helpful. It never felt good to be at the bottom of that scale, which happened to me multiple times.
A lot of smart people who go to elite schools are used to being the best at everything and being on top all of the time, but that's not realistic. There are going to be days where you're super on it, and then there are days that you might not be.
At Bridgewater, there was no hiding that fact.
Gossip was not allowed
It was a no-gossip environment. We weren't allowed to talk about other people behind their backs — a huge principle was that you speak up, say it to the other person's face, dot them, and be transparent.
If you were talking about someone in the context of work, you'd have to send that tape to them afterward. When I got my full-time offer to join Bridgewater, my manager sent me the tape of them deliberating and I got to hear what they genuinely thought about me while I wasn't in the room.
I think that's really valuable, especially these days when some corporate environments involve fakeness and niceties to your face and people aren't upfront about what they actually think about you and your work.
At Bridgewater, there was none of that. It sounds counterintuitive, but the constant recordings did encourage us to be more open and put everything on the table — there's no incentive not to.
I really appreciated the candidness. Now working in law, we have so much going on sometimes that we don't necessarily get direct feedback all the time. As with most companies, feedback usually happens during an annual or semi-annual review, and sometimes by that time, it's become a bigger problem.
With the dot system at Bridgewater, if there was an issue, we'd know that day, and it'd be diagnosed that week. I miss that part about it.
The best ideas won
We were really encouraged to push back on supervisors and superiors, because one of the tenets was that we were an idea meritocracy and the best idea will rise to the top, not based on the seniority of the person who put it forth.
Because debating and disagreeing with each other was encouraged, I learned so much from my colleagues. I had my viewpoints challenged and I challenged theirs. I can't imagine another workplace like that that allows for that type of growth and honest feedback.
My experience made me who I am today
I think Bridgewater's culture might be a little bit different now, especially because Ray Dalio isn't there anymore. But I can't emphasize enough how transformative and eye-opening my experience was. It helped shape who I am today, especially how I think about feedback, work, and the relationships I have at work.
I've never worked with a more brilliant group of unique people. There were poker stars, musicians, and people who wrote comedy. We all did so many different things but were united under this Bridgewater umbrella and really brought our full selves to work and gave it our all.
The experience prepared me for life, even more than just for a corporate career. It helped me grow a thicker skin; not a lot fazes me now.
A few years after working at Bridgewater, I was on "The Bachelor." People scrutinized me and said so many mean, horrible things.
My Bridgewater experience prepared me to understand that everyone will have judgments or perceptions about you, but you don't have to take them all in. We'd always say, "It's just one dot."
One dot doesn't make up the whole picture. You're going to get thousands and thousands of dots; take that criticism for what it is.
A representative for Bridgewater Associates declined to comment.
If you experienced a uniquely demanding workplace culture and would like to share your story, email Jane Zhang at janezhang@businessinsider.com.