Bridgewater is the worlds largest hedge fund managing a staggering $94 billion and as with many such successful things it is considered to be a bit odd.
If you want to understand Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest and indisputably weirdest hedge fund, you might start with the story of the peas.
It goes like this: In 2005, while the rest of the financial sector was busy pumping rocket-grade helium into the credit bubble, a young Bridgewater investment associate named Holden Karnofsky was complaining to his colleagues about the food at the firm’s Westport, Connecticut, headquarters. Particularly bad, he said, were the peas in the cafeteria salad bar. At other offices, a bottom-rung underling would probably shrug off such a misfortune and move on to the grape tomatoes, but Karnofsky, who came to Bridgewater via Harvard, felt empowered to post his grievance on the firm’s internal message board. “I didn’t mince words,” Karnofsky recalls. “I told them there was a lot that needed improving.”
