World's Largest Hedge Fund Employees Rate Each Other With Blockchain-based App

Bridgewater Associates is using the Dots app to have their employees rate each other.

From Yelp and Google reviews to missives in gossipy text messages, everyone rates people. The world’s largest hedge fund has its employees doing the same thing. The only difference: they’re rating their coworkers using an app called “Dots.”

Learn all about the outcome and the nifty blockchain tech they used for this experiment.

Rating Technology in the Workplace

Black Mirror creator and writer Charlie Brooker described the episode “Nose Dive” as “basically the world we live in”. Bridgewater Associates–the world’s largest hedge fund–proved this statement in a recent venture with Dots.

On every company issued iPad that every Bridgewater employee receives, you can find pre-loaded apps including Dots. This app allows employees to rate others in various categories such as:

• Empathy
• Strategic thinking
• Work habits
• Holding people accountable
• Community-mindedness
• And more

In fact, there are more than 100 attributes from which employees can choose. The system utilizes a numeric rating of 1-10 followed by short statements to provide elaboration and context. Bob Prince, the co-CIO of Bridgewater, gave Business Insider scope regarding the process and volume of ratings. For reference: Prince probably around 11,000 dots next to his name on the app.

Transparency & Believability

The firm believes in something called “believability-weighted decision-making.”

Prince believes that a person’s “believability factor” is increasingly more important in everyday life. He looks at his team as a sports team using Dots to celebrate natural talents and find ways to improve.

“In a meeting, it is relevant to things like how you self-regulate your own engagement in a discussion, how the person running the meeting manages the discussion, and in actual decisions. At all times a person should be assessing their own believability so that they can function well as part of a team.” To work in tandem with this philosophy, Bridgewater Associates employees also have to read Ray Dalio‘s book: Principles.

Bridgewater is not a place for anyone shy about admitting fault. The inherent environment of meritocracy works alongside values of radical truth and transparency to create a distinct company culture. This two-pronged approach to corporate team management is unique to Bridgewater for now.

Human-Focused Company Culture with an AI Manager?

Coincidentally, as Bridgewater continues to test its Dots app, it is also developing an artificial intelligence. This AI would act as a manager for the hedge fund, handling hiring, firing, and other strategic decisions.

Considering the work of IBM, Google, and other companies on management algorithms and AI, a robot hedge fund manager doesn’t seem that far-fetched for the near future.

As a part of Industry 4.0, does this combo of using employee rating apps and machine learning sound like a dynamic duo or something less-than-desirable?