PREPARING BRIDGEWATER TO SUCCEED WITHOUT ME
做好桥水没有我也能成功的准备
Since I was a kid, I’ve learnedby doing. I’d just dive in after things I wanted and try to survive long enoughto learn from my mistakes and improve. If I changed fast enough to becomesustainable at whatever I was doing, then I would build on that to flourish.I’ve always had great faith in my ability to
figure things out, andover time my need to figure things out made me better at doing so. As a result,I tended to hire people who were the same way—who would dive right intochallenges, figure out what to do about them, and then do it. I figured that ifthey had great character, common sense, and creativity, and were driven to achieveour shared mission, they would discover what it took to be successful if I gavethem the freedom to figure out how to make the right decisions. I knew thatmicromanaging and handcuffing them wouldn’t work because neither of us wouldlike it. If I was the one telling them what to do, I wouldn’t be getting anyleverage from them. Besides, I didn’t want to work with people who needed that.
But starting in the1990s, I began to recognize the emotional barriers most people had to lookingat their problems and weaknesses forthrightly. Rather than embracing ambiguoussituations and difficult challenges, they tended to get uncomfortable whenfacing them. It is the rare bird who has the right mix of common sense,creativity, and character to shape change. Almost everyone needs help beforethey can get there. So I wrote down my principles and the logic behind them andshared them, hoping they could be used by those who thought they were good anddebated openly by those who didn’t. I figured that over time we would all getinsyncabout howparticular situations should be handled.
But while almost allof us quickly agreed on the principles intellectually, many still struggled toconvert what they had agreed to intellectually into effective action. This wasbecause their habits and emotional barriers remained stronger than theirreasoning. The training and the virtual-reality tapes helped a lot, but theystill weren’t enough.
No matter how mucheffort we put into screening new hires and training them to work in our ideameritocracy, it wasinevitable that many of them would fall short. My approach was to hire, train,test, and then fire or promote quickly, so that we could rapidly identify theexcellent hires and get rid of the ordinary ones, repeating the process againand again until the percentage of those who were truly great was high enough tomeet our needs.
But for this to work,we needed people with high standards who wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate peoplewho couldn’t cut it. Many new employees (and some older ones) still werereluctant to probe hard at what people were like, which made things worse. It’stough to be tough on people.
Of course, most of thepeople who come to Bridgewater are adventurous types; they know what they’regetting into. They understand that the chances their job will not work out arehigher than normal, but they embrace the risk because the upside of succeedingis huge relative to the downside of having it not work out. In the worst casethey learn a lot about themselves, have an interesting experience, and leavefor other jobs; in the best case, they become a part of an exceptional teamachieving exceptional things.
New hires typically gothrough an acclimation period of about eighteen to twenty-four months beforebecoming comfortable with the truthfulness and transparency that is such anessential part of the Bridgewater culture—especially accepting one’s mistakesand figuring out how to deal with them. But some people never adapt to it. I’vebeen told that joining Bridgewater is a bit like joining an intellectual NavySEALs; others describe it as going to a school of self-discovery run by someonelike the Dalai Lama. The people who thrive say that while the period ofadjustment is difficult, it is also joyous
because of theexcellence they achieve and the extraordinary relationships they make. And theones who can’t or won’t adapt must be cut; this is essential to keepingBridgewater excellent.
For a long time, I hadbeen the one responsible for establishing the culture and upholding its highstandards. But in 2010, I was sixty years old and had been running Bridgewaterfor thirty-five years. Though I expected to be good for another ten years orso, I was ready to put my energy into other things. While I always wanted to bedeep into the markets, I wanted to spend more time with my family and friends,to help policymakers, and to pursue a few growing passions (like oceanexploration and philanthropy) as well as whatever else interested me. My planwas to step out as CEO while helping my replacements as a mentor, remain in myinvestment role, and take the time I gained from no longer managing the companyto suck the marrow out of life while I still could.
As with allorganizations, whether Bridgewater would succeed would come down to the peopleand the culture. People who run companies are faced with important choicesevery day. How they make those choices determines the character of the company,the quality of its relationships, and the outcomes it produces. When the buckstopped with me, I was responsible for most of the important decisions. Nowthose decisions would be in the hands of others. While they would have awell-established culture and agreed-upon principles that had worked fordecades, the proof would be in the pudding.
译文：
从我是个孩子开始，我已经通过做来学习了。我沉浸在我想要的事物中，竭力挣扎以便于长期的从我错误中学习并进步。如果我改变的足够快可持续我正在做的事情，那么我会把事情做到辉煌，我一向对我的能力有巨大的信心。
勾勒出事物的形状，一再的勾勒事情的形状使我在做的时候能表现的更好。结果我试图雇佣那些和我一样这样做的人—那些能勇敢面对挑战，勾画动作，然后照做。我把那些画出来-仿佛他们有伟大的个性，通识，创造性，都由我们分配的任务而驱动。如果我给他们如何做出正确决策的勾画自由，他们会发现成功是怎么发生的。我明白那些微观管理和限制不会起作用，因我们都不喜欢。如果我告诉他们该如何做，我不会从他们那里得到任何帮助。另外我不想和需要哪些的人工作。
但是从1990年代开始，我开始意识到绝大多数人在看自己的问题和弱点时存在情感障碍。面对不确定的情况和困难挑战时则相反，当面对困难时人们容易感到不舒服。其少数幸运的人有正确的混合常识，创造力，善于改变的个性。差不多所有人都需要帮助，在他们取得这些能力之前。所以我写下我饿原则和原则背后的逻辑并分享他们，希望那些原则能被认可的人使用，至于那些不相信的人只能祈祷了。我们都能得到这些一致的原则—不论情况多么特殊都能应对。
不论我们在甄别上花费多少努力，新雇员和精英化训练他们和我们的思想保持一致，不可避免的他们当中有些人会短期内退步。我的行动是雇佣，训练，测试，然后就是要么辞退或者快速晋升。这样我们就能快速识别雇员中优秀的，并辞退平庸的，一再重复这个过程直到得到那些能真正伟大和足够满足我们要求的人的真实百分比。
但当差不多我们所有人理性的很快认同原则。从认同到有效的行动还需要做很多。这是因为他们的习惯和情感障碍依旧比理性更强大。这时候训练和虚拟现实字条能起大作用，但这还不够。
但为此而工作，我们需要人有高标准—不会犹豫淘汰那些不能适应的人。许多新人（还有一些老人）依旧很厌恶探查他人的喜好-而这会把事情弄糟糕。而这会更加加重那些原本就拒绝探查的人。
当然，大多数来桥水基金工作的人都是喜欢冒险的；他们知道他们要从事的职业。他们明白因为工作没有成效而出局的机会远远超过普通工作，但他们依旧喜欢冒险因为成功的正面价值同因为没有成效的负面价值相比巨大的反差。在最糟糕的环境下他们对于自身学会了很多，拥有一项有趣的体验，离开寻找别的工作；最好的情况，他们会成为一个有特殊才能团队的一员，并获得额外的收货。
新人通常在适应桥水基金的根本性的文化-诚实和极度坦诚之前会度过一段长达18-24个月的获取认同的阶段—尤其接受他人的错误并指出如何应对。但一些人永远不能适应这一点。我说过加入桥水有点像加入一只理性的海军特种兵部队；其他人形容像加入一所自我发现的学校-由类似宗教领袖管理的。因此而受益的人会说那个自我矫正的阶段非常困难但也非常有趣。
因为他们更优秀和额外的友谊。并且那些不能或者不愿意适应的人必须出局；这对于保持桥水优秀很关键。
很长一段时间，我都是负责建立公司文化和坚持文化高标准的那个人。但到了2010年，我已经60岁了并且已经带领桥水35年了。尽管我期盼可以再干上十年或者更多，我已经再准备投入其他事业了。同时我总是想要深入市场，我想更多时间陪伴家庭和朋友，帮助决策者，经营一些增长中的兴趣（比如海洋探测和慈善）还有哪些我感兴趣的事情。我的计划是退出ceo ，而退居辅导者的角色。保留投资角色，不用继续管理公司而把时间用在品尝生活的甘甜。
就像所有的机构一样，不论桥水基金会继续成功也总归要落到人和文化上。掌握公司的人每天都会面对重大的选择。他们做出怎样的选择决定了公司的个性，联系的质量，产出。责无旁贷，我为大多数重大的决策负责。现在那些决定将交到另一个人手中。当然他们已经有了架构良好的企业文化和一致的已经工作了几十年的原则，事情的好坏都需要实践证明。
读后感：
再伟大的企业家都逃过不时间，盖茨53岁退休，马云明年54岁退休，而雷达利奥60岁退休，已经很了不起了，能放下自己建立的公司，放下喜欢的事业，放下狂野的心，开始考虑陪伴家庭和朋友，这是急流勇退还是识时务选择时机退出。
桥水已经有了良好的文化和制度，还有允许良好的原则（程序），相信桥水离开雷还能很好的走下去，但程序不能代替人的直觉和灵感，也许桥水还会不错，但可能不会那么惊艳了，慢慢会趋于平庸。