Employees at the world's largest hedge fund use iPads to rate each other's performance in real-time — see how it works

Bridgewater Associates via TED

• Ray Dalio runs Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, according to the principles of "radical truth" and "radical transparency."
• Employees rate each other across over 100 attributes on a 1-10 scale in an iPad app called "Dots."
• Dalio demoed the app to the TED 2017 audience in April, now publicly available to watch.

At Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, all 1,500 employees are constantly rating each other across more than 100 attributes on a 1-10 scale.

In a newly released presentation from the TED 2017 conference in April, Bridgewater founder, chairman, and co-CIO Ray Dalio explained to the audience how this approach fit into his life philosophy.

"My objective has been to have meaningful work and meaningful relationships with the people I work with, and I've learned that I couldn't have that unless I had that radical transparency and that algorithmic decision-making," he said. "I want to show you why that is. I want to show you how it works."

Dalio founded Bridgewater in 1975 out of his apartment, and today the Westport, Connecticut-based firm has $103 billion in hedge fund assets and $150 billion in total assets under management. Dalio attributes his firm's success to the investing principles he began developing in the '80s and the management principles he began developing in the '90s.

"Dots" is a proprietary iPad app that is a crucial element of radical transparency at Bridgewater, and Dalio gave a demo to the TED audience.

"I warn you that some of the things that I'm going to show you probably are a little bit shocking," he said.

Dalio pulled up footage of a research team meeting held a week after Donald Trump's presidential victory, where they forecasted economic results of his upcoming presidency.

The footage was available because nearly every meeting is recorded at Bridgewater, primarily so that they may be cited in company-wide emails or weekly teaching assignments.

All employees at the meeting had Dots running on their iPads. There are more than 100 total attributes to choose from, and measure aspects like values and thinking.

Dalio highlighted one of the employees at the meeting, 24-year-old Jen. She felt that Dalio did not hold up to his own standards in the meeting.

Dalio has long said that one of his favorite aspects of his culture is that employees fresh out of college can give him, the founder of the company, harsh critiques without fear of retribution. In fact, they're encouraged to do so, if the situation calls for it.