Where are they now: The many fascinating Bridgewater employees from the book on Ray Dalio ‘The Fund’
- The reporter Rob Copeland’s book “The Fund” named dozens of Bridgewater employees.
- Few of these employees have stayed at the firm known for its unique and intense culture.
- Many of the big-name hires from outside the firm stayed for a year or even less.
Few books, particularly those about the ultrasecretive hedge-fund world, go into as much detail as New York Times reporter Rob Copeland’s new book about Bridgewater Associates and its famous founder, Ray Dalio.
The new book, “The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend,” which Dalio and his lawyers have criticized, describes everything from Bridgewater’s investment process to internal grudges and backstabbing to sexual harassment allegations.
The story is not told solely from the perspective of the C-suite (though there is plenty of that). Rank-and-file employees, career middle managers, and high-profile external hires all contribute to the firm’s success.
Bridgewater did not participate in the book, according to a spokesman. The book, in the words of the publisher, “contains numerous falsehoods, and the overall picture it paints couldn’t be further from the true picture of Bridgewater.”
Here are the destinations for the dozens of Bridgewater employees and consultants mentioned in the book. Business Insider gathered the information from LinkedIn profiles, public databases, Bridgewater’s website, and the book.
The possible successors
Dalio has long expressed a desire for a successor, bringing in big-name outside hires and grooming highly regarded subordinates. However, the process was far from smooth, and those who emerged as serious contenders for the role had to deal with years of turmoil.
Greg Jensen was thought to be the most likely successor to Dalio, but infighting with other candidates and allegations of sexual harassment from subordinates ended his chances, according to Copeland. He remains co-chief investment officer but is no longer co-CEO. According to the book, Dalio wrote into the firm’s bylaws that he would never be able to hold that title again.
According to Dalio’s lawyer, Jensen is not formally barred from becoming CEO again.
He’s been with the firm since 1996, and it’s the only place he’s ever worked.
Eileen Murray joined Bridgewater after a long career at Morgan Stanley and a failed attempt to run a new hedge fund. She worked at Bridgewater from 2009 to 2020 and later filed a $100 million gender discrimination lawsuit, which was settled. She was FINRA’s director for a time and was considered for the Wells Fargo CEO position at one point. She currently serves on the boards of HSBC, Broadridge, and Guardian Life Insurance.
David McCormick joined in 2009 after meeting Dalio at the Treasury Department. According to the book, a distasteful joke made by Dalio about McCormick’s bride, political operator Dina Powell, at their Connecticut wedding ruined McCormick’s relationship with the billionaire.
McCormick stepped down to run in the GOP Senate primary in Pennsylvania in 2022, which he lost. During his campaign, he tried to distance himself from the firm, including Dalio’s love of China. He’s running again in 2024.
Nir Bar Dea, a former Israel Defense Forces major and startup founder, joined Bridgewater in 2015 and steadily rose through the ranks. He became its sole CEO in March.
The true believers
For more than a decade, the firm’s culture has been the subject of industry gossip, and the high employee churn proved it wasn’t for everyone. Dalio once stated on “60 Minutes” that approximately 30% of employees leave within the first 18 months of employment. Nonetheless, some people prefer the blunt style and believe in Dalio’s “Principles.”
Katina Stefanova was a favorite of Dalio’s until he ripped into her in front of his management committee, reducing her to tears. Copeland wrote that she had told Dalio earlier that day that she was pregnant.
Stefanova founded her own fund, Marto Capital, with serious backers after nearly a decade at Bridgewater, but has struggled to retain assets due to poor performance and an increased focus on crypto.
According to the book, Paul McDowell felt like the luckiest man alive after being hired by Dalio and leading the charge in implementing various internal rating systems geared toward the founder’s “Principles” ideology. After 11 years at Bridgewater, he left in 2019 to work for a consultancy used by the firm.
Bob Eichinger was a human-resources consultant who collaborated closely with McDowell early in his tenure. According to the book, he quit after Dalio rejected a prototype of an employee ratings system he had worked on, though a footnote notes that Eichinger claims he did not quit, but that Bridgewater stopped using his services. He still consults in the HR field through his company, TalentTelligent.
Jen Healy was hired from Princeton University and was described in the book as another “obvious favorite” of Dalio’s. According to a source close to Bridgewater, she is no longer with the firm, and it is unknown where she has gone.
Bridgewater’s investment committee is chaired by Osman Nalbantoglu, a former McKinsey partner who joined the firm in 2008.
Actual investors
According to Copeland’s book, many of Bridgewater’s hundreds of employees did not get close to the fund’s investment engine and instead worked on nebulous research projects or — in an Orwellian twist — simply monitored each other.
However, a few were intimately involved with the portfolio and decision-making regarding the firm’s tens of billions of dollars.
Following his time at Bridgewater, Matthew Granade joined Steve Cohen’s Point72 as chief market intelligence officer, but he left the fund at the end of 2020. According to his LinkedIn profile, he is a cofounder of Domino Data Lab, a San Francisco data platform founded in 2013.
According to the book, Bob Prince was once considered for Dalio’s seat, but after a large payout following his 50th birthday, he focused on his role and avoided politicking. He has been a co-chief investment officer at Bridgewater since 1986.
Karen Karniol-Tambour, who, according to the book, spoke out in a companywide meeting about Dalio’s attempt to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, is also a co-chief investment officer, having started the role earlier this year. She was previously the director of investment research and a co-chief investment officer for sustainability.
According to Copeland, Bob Elliott was fired following an investigation into a consensual relationship he had with another employee. According to a Bridgewater lawyer, he was fired for lying about the relationship, and his dismissal “followed an appropriate workplace investigation.”
Elliott worked at the pharmaceutical company Roivant and the fintech company CircleUp after being one of the few inside the Bridgewater investment engine before starting his own investment manager in 2022. Unlimited, his new firm, aims to replicate hedge-fund returns in an exchange-traded-fund wrapper.
The big-name external hires
Bridgewater’s soaring assets, generous salaries, and burgeoning public reputation made the firm a desirable place for longtime executives and former government leaders looking for a big payout before Dalio and his firm became household names. Many people discovered that the reality inside was very different from what they expected.
James Comey served as the hedge fund’s general counsel for three years before leaving in 2013. President Barack Obama appointed him as FBI Director in 2013. He held the position until 2017, when he was fired by President Donald Trump, who had asked him to pledge his loyalty just before his inauguration. Comey’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, which concluded that the former secretary of state was careless but did not commit a crime, was cited by the former first lady as one of the reasons she lost the 2016 election to Trump.
He has since written three books, two nonfiction and one fiction, and is in demand as a public speaker.
Bridgewater’s first outside CEO hire was Britt Harris. He lasted less than a year in the high-pressure environment before returning to the world of institutional investing. He was the chief investment officer for the Texas Teacher Retirement System before becoming CEO of the University of Texas Investment Management Co. in 2017.
Julian Mack served on Bridgewater’s management committee for less than a year after spending two decades at McKinsey. He is now a senior advisor at the private-equity firm L Catterton.
Michael Partington, who was in charge of recruitment, was another big hire from McKinsey. Dalio hoped to lead the company “to the promised land.” According to the book, he was fired in 2011.Since then, he has worked as a consultant for the executive search firm Spencer Stuart.
Niko Canner lasted more than a year and was even considered for CEO, but Dalio eventually fired him. According to the book, the billionaire gave Canner framed copies of his negative reviews as a gift at his farewell party. He is now the CEO of Incandescent, a consulting and venture capital firm.
Jon Rubinstein was Apple’s “Podfather,” overseeing the iPod division under Steve Jobs, whom Dalio admired. He joined Bridgewater in 2016 as a co-CEO but left the following year. He has served on the boards of Amazon and Robinhood.
Tom Adams transitioned from running the language-software company Rosetta Stone to serving on the Bridgewater management committee. He didn’t last long and is now the chair and CEO of Pedago, an education-technology firm aiming to be the “Tesla of education.”
J. Michael Cline joined the firm as vice chair in 2013, only to leave the following year. Cline, who founded Fandango before joining Bridgewater, continues to run his holding company, Accretive, through which he launches new ventures.
According to the book, Kevin Campbell was a co-chief operating officer and one of many who broke down in tears as a result of Dalio’s intense interrogations. Campbell left the firm in 2014 and worked as the chief operating officer of the healthcare startup Oscar Health before taking three years off to volunteer. He is now the CEO of Atlanta-based software company Syniti.
Craig Mundie was appointed as the firm’s executive chair following a recommendation from Bill Gates, whom Dalio had met through philanthropic circles. Mundie, a former trusted lieutenant for Gates, had been at Bridgewater for less than a year. According to a Bridgewater lawyer, Mundie has always worked in some capacity.
He is now advising Microsoft’s leadership and serving on the boards of several companies and non-profits. He also served on various presidential committees for Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.
David Ferrucci was the longest-serving external hire at Bridgewater, but he kept his work separate from the rest of the firm. Ferrucci clashed with Bridgewater leadership after his breakout performance as project lead for IBM’s Watson, but he still runs the spin-out company Elemental Cognition.
Keith Alexander was a security consultant who joined Mundie’s team. Alexander, a four-star general who led the National Security Agency, is now an Amazon board member and has accepted consulting assignments from Saudi Arabia and Japan.
Another management consultant was Larry Culp. Culp, a longtime executive who had recently left Danaher, did not agree with Dalio’s principles and was quickly fired by the billionaire, according to the book. He is now General Electric’s CEO and Chairman, the first from outside the company in the company’s history. According to the book, his time working for Dalio is not mentioned in his public bio.
Jamie Gorelick was hired as an outside legal counsel to review the firm’s sexual-harassment policies. Her firm, WilmerHale, discovered a “robust” and “conscientiously implemented” system for resolving internal conflicts. Gorelick is a partner at WilmerHale and the head of the firm’s regulatory and government affairs practice. She served as Clinton’s deputy attorney general and represented Jared Kushner while he was complying with anti-nepotism laws in order to work in the Trump White House.
The underlings
“The Fund” also stated that an intense culture could harm early-career and mid-level employees.
According to the book, Jesse Horwitz left the firm after a year and was considering starting his own fund when Comey began threatening him. Horwitz, who dropped out of Harvard Law School to join Bridgewater, was unable to launch his own fund, Gadfly Capital, and instead worked as an analyst for Columbia’s endowment. In 2016, he left to launch Hubble Contacts, an e-commerce company specializing in contact lenses. In 2021, he founded Agora, a direct-to-consumer consulting firm.
Samantha Holland worked her way up the Bridgewater ranks before falling into an on-again, off-again relationship with Jensen. According to the book, an investigation into their relationship resulted in a secret settlement for $1 million, and it is unclear what she is doing now.
Perry Poulos was investigated early in his tenure because of his close relationship with Murray, a rival to Jensen and others vying to succeed Dalio, according to Copeland. He is now the Marto Capital fund’s chief financial officer.
Joe Sweet, who was hospitalized for severe depression while at Bridgewater, went on to work as a manager at HBR Consulting and is now the global head of technology sourcing for Chain IQ, a procurement-tech firm.
According to the book, Tara Arnold warned Dalio about burnout from the company’s culture, which he ignored. Arnold, who now goes by her married name, Lovanio, is the chief human-resources officer at MIO Partners, which manages the pension for McKinsey partners, after nearly two decades at the hedge fund.
Leah Guggenheimer was both a “leverager” (Bridgewater speak for an executive assistant to a member of a management committee) and a lawyer. Since leaving Bridgewater, she has worked as a consultant and chief operating officer, and she is now the chief innovation officer for the litigation-finance firm Burford Capital.
According to the book, Charles Korchinski is notable for criticizing then-CEO Harris early in his tenure. Since leaving in 2006, he has worked as an investor and business-development professional at various funds, including Larch Lane Advisors and Bonaccord Capital. He is now a director at Eaton Partners, a Connecticut-based alternative manager fundraiser.
According to the book, Kent Kuran left in a blaze of glory, criticizing Dalio and Jensen in exit-interview notes that quickly spread throughout the firm. He moved from Connecticut to Asia, working as a consultant for Tractus in India, Shanghai, and Singapore before attending Stanford Business School. Following that, he worked in renewable energy in Israel, Africa, and San Francisco. He is NextEra Energy Resources’ director of business development.
