A look into the world that Bitcoiners hope to undo. An employee at the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, filed a complaint earlier this year that the hedge fund resembled a “cauldron of fear and intimidation.” The employee filed the complaint with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. In it, he describes an atmosphere of surveillance by video, recordings of all meetings, and security guards on patrol designed to ensure employee silence and conformity. Interviews with seven former employees who have worked for or with the $154 billion firm, as well as a National Labor Relations Board filing, shed light on how the firm works internally. Bridgewater secrecy is so important that some employees must lock up their personal cell phones when they arrive to work in the morning. 34-year-old Christopher Tarui said in his complaint that his male supervisor sexually harassed him for approximately one year, propositioning him for sex and discussing sex during work trips. Since he filed his complaint, Bridgewater top managers have pressured Mr. Tarui to rescind the allegations. One manager accused him of lying. Mr. Tarui, he said, was “blowing this whole thing out of proportion.” Fearing losing his job or risking chances for promotion, Mr Tarui has kept his complaint quiet. “The company’s culture ensures that I had no one I could trust to keep my experience confidential,” Mr Tarui said in the January complaint. For unknown reasons, both Bridgewater and Mr Tarui both asked the Connecticut human rights commission to stop considering the complaint. Bridgewater’s employment agreement ensures employee disputes must be settled through binding arbitration. The National Labor Board then filed a different complaint against Bridgewater, stating the company “has been interfering with, restraining and coercing” Mr Tarui, as well as other employees, from exercising their rights. Former […]
