达里奥和桥水，摊上事了… | 经济学人财经
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Finance and economics | Buttonwood
财经板块 | 梧桐树专栏
英文部分选自经济学人202311118期财经板块
Finance and economics | Buttonwood
财经板块 | 梧桐树专栏
Ray Dalio is a monster, suggests a new book. Is it fair?
震惊！新书揭露瑞·达里奥魔头本色，是真相还是中伤？
The founder of the world’s largest hedge fund comes under scrutiny
全球最大对冲基金创始人被推上风口浪尖
The tome opens with Ray Dalio laying into an employee he apparently knew to be pregnant. He calls her an “idiot” over and over, until she runs from the room sobbing. The founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, was supposedly “delighted”. His “probing” of this woman was evidence of his commitment to “truth-seeking” at any cost. The meltdown, which had been recorded, was uploaded to a library of firm meetings. He had it edited into a clip to be shown to future employees.
这本大部头开篇就说到，瑞·达里奥（Ray Dalio）曾明知一名员工怀孕，还对其大加斥责，一遍又一遍地骂她“白痴”，直到对方哭着从房间里跑出去。而这位全球最大对冲基金——桥水公司的创始人据说“很高兴”。他对这位女士如此“刨根问底”，表明他一贯坚持不惜一切代价"求真务实”。那位员工情绪崩溃的情形都被录了下来，还被上传至公司会议资料库。达里奥将其剪辑成一个片段，以便展示给未来的员工。
注释：
1.tome：Atome is a very large, heavy book. 大部头的书
2.lay into：to attack forcefully 猛烈攻击
3. meltdown：Themeltdown of a company, organization, or system is its sudden and complete failure. (公司、机构、系统等的) 突然崩溃
This is just the first of many damaging titbits in “The Fund”, a new book about Mr Dalio by Rob Copeland, a reporter at the New York Times. The book’s narrative builds to two points. One is that Mr Dalio’s “principles”, a philosophy he described as being centred on “radical transparency”, are really little more than time-wasting tools which he uses to bully employees. The system requires meetings to be recorded, for employees to rank one another and for them to upload complaints onto a platform. This is supposed to foster an “ideas meritocracy” but instead leads, at best, to petty gripes about how the peas in the cafeteria are too “wrinkled” and, at worst, to a culture of fear. Mr Dalio is supposed to have manipulated this system so that his opinion always mattered most.
在《纽约时报》记者罗伯·科普兰（Rob Copeland）关于达里奥的新书《基金》（The Fund）中，这只是众多具有杀伤力的内幕消息中的第一条。这本书主要阐述了两个论点：第一，达里奥所谓的“原则”，也就是他本人口中以“绝对透明”为核心的理念，只不过是他用来欺压员工、打发时间的手段。这一理念体系要求所有会议全部录音，让员工之间互相评级排位，并开放平台供员工上传投诉。这本是为了打造“创意择优”的职场环境，但充其量只能收到“食堂的豌豆皮太’皱‘”这种鸡毛蒜皮的抱怨，甚至可能形成一种人人自危的恐惧文化。据称，达里奥一手操纵这个体系，所以他的意见总是最重要的。
注释：
1.titbit：You can refer to a small piece of information about someone's private affairs as atitbit, especially when it is interesting and shocking. 趣闻
2.meritocracy：Ameritocracy is a society or social system in which people get status or rewards because of what they achieve, rather than because of their wealth or social status. 贤能社会
3.petty：You can usepetty to describe things such as problems, rules, or arguments that you think are unimportant or relate to unimportant things. 不重要的表不满
4.gripe：If you say that someoneis griping, you mean they are annoying you because they keep on complaining about something. 不停地抱怨
5.culture of fear：英国社会学家、作家和公共知识分子，Frank Furedi研究恐惧现象，尤其是现代社会中对风险和安全的过度关注和担忧，以及这种担忧如何影响公共政策和社会文化。他在1997年出版了著名的书籍《Culture of Fear》（《恐惧文化》），引起了广泛的关注和讨论。
The second is that there is “no secret” to Bridgewater’s success. Mr Dalio’s hundreds of research staff write reports he does not even read. Mr Copeland claims Mr Dalio made all the investing decisions himself, or with some input from lieutenants. Far from having a codified set of rules, as he tells clients, he uses hunches and simple “if then” statements such as: if interest rates fall in a country then you should sell its currency. These worked, the story goes, for a while, but the rise of high-frequency traders and quantitative funds, which often follow market “momentum”, eroded his edge. Returns for Bridgewater’s flagship “Pure Alpha” fund have been pretty paltry for the past 10 or 15 years.
第二，桥水的成功“没有秘诀”可言。达里奥手下有数百名研究员撰写研究报告，但他看都不看。科普兰声称，达里奥的所有投资决定都是他自己做出的，或者听取其助手的一些建议后做出的。他总向客户夸口，桥水有一套严密的投资规则，实际情况却远非如此，决策所依据的不过是他的直觉和简单的“如果那么”条件推理。比如，如果一个国家的利率下降，那么应该出售其货币。书中说，这些做法一度颇为奏效，但随着追逐市场“动量”的高频交易和量化基金不断崛起，他的策略逐渐失去优势。在过去10到15年里，桥水的旗舰基金“纯阿尔法”（Pure Alpha）收益寥寥。
注释：
1. hunch：If you have ahunch about something, you are sure that it is correct or true, even though you do not have any proof. 直觉; 预感
2. paltry：Apaltry amount of money or of something else is one that you consider to be very small. 微小的; 微不足道的
The conclusions of the two intertwine: the cult of Bridgewater is pointless. Bridgewater’s employees have time to waste on nonsense because the investing process is simple, really. Mr Dalio might have been a gifted investor—since 1991 he has earned $58bn for those who have bought into his funds—but his efforts to codify investment rules and culture were a waste of time. His legacy will fade.
这两个论点相互交织，得出的结论是：盲目崇拜桥水毫无意义。桥水的员工之所以有时间浪费在无谓的事务上，是因为基金的投资流程实际上非常简单。达里奥或许确实是一位天才投资者，毕竟1991年至今他为桥水客户大赚了580亿美元，但他对投资规则和文化的系统性概括则纯粹是浪费时间。他的传奇终将落幕。
注释：
Intertwine：缠结在一起 vt. to unite by twining one with another
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intertwine
Mr Copeland’s deep reporting unearthed damning tales, but they seem to have been told so as to place Mr Dalio in the worst possible light. Take, for example, a passage where Mr Dalio invites Niall Ferguson, a celebrated historian, to Bridgewater. Mr Dalio supplied Mr Ferguson with a copy of his book, which offers a sweeping theory of economic history and a model of “the economic machine”—only for Mr Ferguson to tell the assembled staff that there was no way of modelling history since models could not account for the “caprices of decision-makers”. Mr Dalio began shouting at Mr Ferguson, who soon left. Mr Copeland writes that Mr Dalio then sent round a poll asking who won the debate (Mr Dalio triumphed).
科普兰的大作深度揭露了一些令人震惊的故事，但他讲故事的方式似乎有意从负面刻画达里奥的形象。例如，书中有一节写道，达里奥邀请著名历史学家尼尔·弗格森参观桥水，达里奥向弗格森展示了一本自己写的著作，其中介绍了一套关于经济历史的全面理论以及“经济机器”的模型。然而，弗格森却告诉在场的员工，历史无法建模，因为模型不能捕捉“决策者的无常”。后来，达里奥开始对弗格森大喊大叫、激烈驳斥，弗格森很快就离开了。科普兰写道，达里奥随后进行了一项民意调查，询问谁在争论中获胜（民调认为达里奥大获全胜）。
It is one of many anecdotes that are supposed to reveal that Mr Dalio is unprincipled. Far from listening to unfiltered criticism he uses his power to silence others. But apparently Mr Dalio later solicited advice asking whether he had behaved inappropriately. His employees implored him not to invite people to Bridgewater just to shout at them—advice to which he is said to have listened. Mr Dalio’s radical transparency might be strange and misguided, but perhaps he is not a hypocrite.
书中记述了诸多揭示达里奥毫无原则的轶事，这只是其中之一。他非但不接受直言不讳的批评，反而会纵权压人。但据说达里奥事后征求了大家的意见，询问自己是否行为不当。他的员工强烈建议他不要一边邀请专家来访、一边对人家大喊大叫，而据说他也听取了这些建议。达里奥推崇的绝对透明或许看起来奇奇怪怪、不大对路，但也许他并不虚伪。
注释：
1.Anecdote: n. a usually short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident 轶事
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anecdotes
2.Solicit: to try to obtain by usually urgent requests or pleas vi.恳求；请求
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/solicit
3.Implore：to make an earnest request to (someone)
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/implore
The book’s arguments about Mr Dalio’s investment process are harder still to swallow. Macro funds that follow trends are a dime a dozen, and few come close to touching Bridgewater’s record. As for the erosion of his edge, the earliest momentum funds were established in the 1980s, before Bridgewater set up its first funds. They grew in the 1990s and 2000s, when his edge was as sharp as ever. How Mr Dalio achieved what he did is something of a mystery. Perhaps some of the magic could have been codified or captured. It was worth trying, anyway.
书中有关达里奥投资方法的论点更加让人难以接受。随势而动的宏观基金数不胜数，但若论战绩，鲜有能与桥水一较高下者。至于策略优势遭到削弱的问题，最早的动能基金成立于20世纪80年代，当时桥水还没有建立第一批基金。这批基金在20世纪90年代和21世纪初发展壮大，当时达里奥的投资策略仍然具有显著优势。达里奥到底是如何取得这番成就的，也一直是个谜。或许其中一些奥妙原本可以系统地归纳总结，“魔法”也有迹可循。无论如何，这是值得一试的。
注释：
momentum fund：动能基金或趋势基金，是根据证券市场趋势，特别是股票走势操作的基金。
a dime a dozen: so plentiful or commonplace as to be of little esteem or slight value
Mr Dalio dismisses Mr Copeland’s book out of hand. He has written that it is “another one of those sensational and inaccurate tabloid books written to sell books to people who like gossip”. The hagiography of Mr Dalio already exists: he penned his own tale in 2017. Mr Copeland seems to have written its foil, which can find only the ill in Bridgewater’s founder. The book is worth a read—but only with that in mind.
达里奥对科普兰的书不屑一顾。他写道， "这又是一本哗众取宠、言过其实的小报作品，专为卖给嗜好八卦的读者而生"。达里奥的“圣人传”早已著写完成：2017年出版的自传《原则》。科普兰这本书似乎成了其自传的陪衬，只能从中看到桥水创始人身上的毛病。但这本书仍然值得一读，只不过读者要对这一点心中有数。
注释：
tabloid ：featuring stories of violence, crime, or scandal presented in a sensational manner
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