The Fund: When Strong Cultures Go Toxic with Rob Copeland 8 | 10

Office culture is a fascinating topic. It can be the special sauce that brings a team together to achieve excellence. But what happens when the culture becomes a toxic mess? What happens when a charismatic CEO becomes obsessed with cataloging people's weaknesses and broadcasting them across the company? What happens when that same CEO mandates “internal reporting” on coworkers, in techniques drawn directly from the Stasi playbook? Why would people join — and remain at — such an organization?

On this episode of the Radical Candor Podcast, Kim talks with New York Times business reporter and bestselling author Rob Copeland about his deeply researched book The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend. It's a cautionary tale about what happens when a charismatic, immensely wealthy leader decides his mission is to dictate how people should live.

Watch the episode:

Why People Joined and Stayed at Bridgewater

Under Dalio, there's no disputing that Bridgewater Associates became one of the largest and most successful hedge funds in history. At the same time, Dalio appeared to use the promise of vast riches to control and intimidate employees. Rob shares some incredible stories that illustrate the trade people were making — and how the allure of success kept them trading.

Radical Transparency vs. Radical Candor

Sometimes people confuse radical transparency with Radical Candor — and they couldn't be more different. Radical Candor is about caring personally while you challenge directly. Bridgewater's radical transparency, as Rob describes it, was challenge without care — surveillance, public humiliation, and the shutdown line, “If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?”

What “Internal Reporting” Really Looked Like

Kim and Rob talk through the specifics: pissing-contest anecdotes, “dot collectors” logging coworkers' weaknesses, and a culture of petty conflicts dressed up as truth-seeking. The conversation also gets honest about the importance of external tethers — relationships, mentors, and outside networks — for anyone working inside a high-intensity environment.

Radical Candor Podcast Resources

• The Fund — Rob Copeland
• Rob Copeland at The New York Times

Radical Candor Podcast Transcript

[00:05] Kim Scott: Hello everybody and welcome to the Radical sabbatical. You've got just me, Kim Scott here. The rest of the Radical Canter team is on sabbatical and I am talking to the authors of the books that have meant the most to me that I've read over the last couple of years. And I'm thrilled to have with us today, Rob Copeland, the author of The Fund. Welcome Rob. I loved your book so much.

[00:28] Rob Copeland: Thank you for having me.

[00:34] Kim Scott: And I loved it for a bunch of different reasons. But why don't we just just the anecdotes in your book are incredible. So for folks who haven't read the fund, it's about Bridgewater Ray Dalio's ⁓ company. And it is near and dear to my heart, because sometimes people confuse radical transparency and radical candor, and they couldn't be more different. So Rob, why don't you open with

the pissing anecdote from the book and then we'll jump in and talk about other stuff. That's right. Ha! Ha!

[01:10] Rob Copeland: There's no better way to grab an audience than saying the first anecdote will be about piss. ⁓

So I guess for anyone who doesn't know, Ray Dalio founded the world's biggest hedge fund or was the world's biggest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates. And he's become sort of uber famous as someone who preaches the ability to control your own emotions. He has these things that he calls the principles.

that says if you follow these, they are literally the holy grail, they're a way to become wealthy in life and work.

So I ⁓ was and am a finance reporter and I've been reporting about Bridgewater for a long time. And spoiler alert, I guess you could have ⁓ heard from the intro, he's not everything that ⁓ the stories that he tells. But something that I'd heard for years was that at Bridgewater, which is based in Westport, Connecticut ⁓ in a ⁓ suburban office park that looks much like any other, that there was an incident that caused

Ray to email the whole firm about pee. And what happened was that Ray was standing at a urinal one day, something I've done before, spoiler alert, you probably haven't, Kim, no? ⁓ And he looks down and he sees that there is urine on the ground under him. Now that's also happened to me before, but to Ray, that's happened to you, there you go. ⁓ And so Ray looks down and...

[02:24] Kim Scott: I've done it. Surprising. ⁓

That's happened to me before too. ⁓

[02:41] Rob Copeland: To most us we would think, okay, I missed. To Ray, he thinks this is a huge mistake. This is a chance for an investigation. And he... orders a sh... He assumes someone else missed the urinal.

[02:52] Kim Scott: He assumes someone else missed, not him. It's impossible for him to imagine this is his own urine.

[03:00] Rob Copeland: impossible

for such a great man, the author of The Principles, to have done this.

[03:03] Kim Scott: You

[03:04] Rob Copeland: And you know, it sounds funny to us and it is, but he orders this huge five ring circus of an investigation in the firm. He emails the whole firm. He says, there's piss on the floor. He assigns underlings to stand outside the bathroom, to stand inside the bathroom, to witness people. He has them measure the urinal. He has them assign targets on the urinal. He has the liquid under the urinal sent out for testing.

[03:34] Kim Scott: DNA testing.

[03:35] Rob Copeland: to see what it is. And at no point in this whole episode does this man, the paragon of radical transparency, does anyone around him feel comfortable enough to say what you just teased me about, which is, hey, Ray, it might just be yours.

So it's such a small incident in a way. It's one of thousands of hilarious things and dark things ⁓ that have happened inside Bridgewater. But to me, it just says so much about the whole mirage that he has around himself. There's so

[03:56] Kim Scott: Wow. Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah.

[04:12] Rob Copeland: little self-awareness that that email could be sent and yet there was so much secrecy at Bridgewater that it took even me, the unauthorized biographer.

It took me the better part of a decade to get to bottom of it.

[04:27] Kim Scott: Wow, wow. did the DNA testing reveal to him that it was his own urine or we'll never know. So much for radical transparency.

[04:34] Rob Copeland: Because you know, I never was able to get that. I will say, ⁓

knowing Bridgewater as I do, I almost feel like they didn't send it out in the end because they didn't want to have to confront him with the actual truth. He would have found another reason why it wasn't him. ⁓ So at Bridgewater and at so many places that claim to have an open company culture,

[04:46] Kim Scott: Mm hmm.

[05:01] Rob Copeland: that openness really only applies in one direction. It applies from the top to the bottom.

[05:04] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's it's not. ⁓ He's not looking at he's not looking in the mirror.

This was another, I mean, there so many things struck me about your book, but there were so many, so much time wasted on such petty things. There's another story you told about a woman who confronted a colleague for not bringing bagels to a meeting where he was supposed to bring bagels. then she, everybody,

[05:35] Rob Copeland: Mm.

[05:38] Kim Scott: ganged up against her and she was fired and then the case was reopened. Like it was, it was much ado of it. There was a lot of like, why, it must be pretty easy to run a hedge fund if they had, how'd they have all this time?

[05:43] Rob Copeland: Mm.

So this is the great fun and the great mystery of the book that I really loved exploring, which is how does such a hugely successful wealthy place ever operate if they spend so much time on these other ⁓ side quests, as I put them.

[06:07] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

[06:13] Rob Copeland: You're

right, know, at Bridgewater there's no such thing as a small problem. Everything, according to Ray Dalio, is a reason for an investigation. It's a referendum on you. It says something. So yes, people get investigated about, you know, whether the peas in the cafeteria were pretty enough, whether, ⁓ you know, the Chinese food ordered if it came with white rice instead of brown, ⁓ why they didn't think to order, you know, half and half, the size of the parking passes, the...

[06:30] Kim Scott: Yeah.

Ugh.

[06:42] Rob Copeland: And you know, can get, it can get almost a little funny, but you also have to remember this is real people, real lives.

[06:51] Kim Scott: Yeah, imagine that kind of pettiness being able to jump in and get you fired or investigated or humiliated in front of your peers.

[07:02] Rob Copeland: spent a long time imagining it in fact.

[07:05] Kim Scott: Yeah,

yeah, couldn't have been pleasant. How'd you how did you stay grounded as you were? mean, because these stories are Yeah.

[07:15] Rob Copeland: So there is a darkness to it. There's also just an absurdity. ⁓ It helps when you're writing. I write about finance, so I'm used to writing about very wealthy people. And what

I've learned about is...

One, the stories that a very successful, particularly Wall Streeter tells about themselves are almost all the same story over and over again. They always say that there was a lot of luck, but you know, there was also a lot of work and they really did break through. ⁓ And there was always a moment where they thought there'd be failure. And if you ask them what their hobbies are, the hobby is always the same. It always involves charity. It always involves, ⁓ you know, work, frankly, being quote unquote the best.

[07:33] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

[07:57] Rob Copeland: So what threw my jumping off point for the book and what I love about it is at the beginning of this book and frankly at the beginning of my exploration of Bridgewater,

Ray Dalio is already the best. He is the has the world's biggest most famous hedge fund. He has untold billions upon billions of dollars. You know, he has a home in Greenwich with an island, Greenwich, Connecticut. He has ⁓ multiple submarines. So you already have all of that, but what's the one thing you don't have?

You don't have the adoration of the public. You don't have the attention necessarily that he always wanted. You have people thinking, okay, you're rich, but are they thinking you're smart? Are they thinking you're special?

[08:29] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah.

[08:41] Rob Copeland: So really the story of Ray Daly, was to me the story of when $20 billion isn't merely not enough, but it's not even interesting anymore.

[08:50] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah, he's on the hedonic treadmill. ⁓ So, so what one of the things one of the big questions that you and I have talked about is, like, why did people, why were people willing to put themselves through this miserable work environment, when I when I left Google and

[08:55] Rob Copeland: Exactly.

[09:11] Kim Scott: I was, I had joined Apple, but I was sort of thinking about that, you know, the future of my career, somebody from somebody from Bridgewater reached out and asked if I was interested in being the COO of Bridgewater. And I was like, first of all, I would be the world's worst COO. I'm disorganized. And second of all, I don't know about this culture. So I call, I knew someone who worked there. I called them up.

And they told me the story about the confrontation with Katrina. So can you tell our listeners that story? Because that was so horrifying to me when I heard it. was like, why would you go work in that environment? .

[09:59] Rob Copeland: So you really hit on, I think, the number one question for

me, which is why do we always seek out these singular figures who tell us that they've cracked the code, that they have the answer. ⁓ In Ray's case, he even frequently describes.

Talking about the two sides of your brain and that the logical side is fighting the emotional side and that he alone has figured out how to conquer that emotional side. So the the tape that you're talking about is actually it's it's near and dear to my heart because it's actually how I first knew that there was a there was a book here because for years what Bridgewater did is they went out and they recruited overwhelmingly frankly new college graduates. You were pretty special. There weren't too many experiences

Urien's tires that they were going after because they wanted people who could be shaped and

[10:50] Kim Scott: They wanted, yeah, people who would put up with it. You're more likely the first year of your career after college to put up with not to know that you don't have to put up with something.

[11:00] Rob Copeland: Exactly, exactly.

And so what they would do in these interviews, there are many other things in the interviews we can talk about, but they would play this recording of Ray ⁓ doing what he called a probe. He loves to probe employees at Bridgewater. And what it actually is, is just him screaming ⁓ at a woman who works for him, calling her stupid, calling her a ⁓ lot of other worse things with a lot of other people in the room. And she starts crying and she starts sobbing, in fact.

[11:10] Kim Scott: Okay.

[11:32] Rob Copeland: This is played to every person who's interviewing a Bridgewater and they're saying what's your reaction to this? So I knew that what I wanted to do first of all was I needed to find her and I needed to figure out what's actually happening in real life in this video and What is the sort of the story of how she got there and what happens to her? ⁓ Afterwards and I guess no spoilers, but it's

[11:44] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[11:58] Rob Copeland: darker than I thought. ⁓

[12:00] Kim Scott: It's so much worse. Yeah, I didn't know all the details when I heard about it.

[12:04] Rob Copeland: It

gets worse. ⁓ And to the point where there was a point where people were telling me, you know, her name is Katina Stefanova ⁓ and that she was actually his surrogate daughter at the firm. That people said she's actually that she was the closest person to him.

And the story of how she becomes the closest person and then she winds up as the example to be ⁓ to be sort of flayed on a recording.

[12:33] Kim Scott: Publicly flayed and recorded

for all posterity. It's really unbelievable. .

[12:39] Rob Copeland: But we should stay here that there's a reason

that Ray and Bridgewater give people for why they're playing this recording. And it's one of his key principles. It's that pain plus reflection equals progress. So they would play this and they would say, is this the type of pain that you think with reflection could lead to progress?

And I think that's a really powerful pitch in many ways, because I think we would all probably agree there are aspects of life in which pain does lead to progress. I mean, you go to the gym, if

[13:11] Kim Scott: Yeah. Thank

[13:14] Rob Copeland: you're not working hard enough, you're not going to get the progress. And also there are tough decisions that we all have to make that are the right long-term decision. Of course, you can take something like that, like a logical aphorism, and just go.

know, 1,000 times off the cliff.

[13:31] Kim Scott: Yeah, it's sort of like

notes from the underground or something. You you take ⁓ a basic principle to its illogical extreme. Mm-hmm.

[13:35] Rob Copeland: Exactly.

And by the way, when they play the tape for people, they weren't telling people who she is. ⁓ They

weren't actually giving her her name. They weren't telling people it was highly edited in a way to make Ray seem better, obviously. And something that was really important to me with this book was that...

Almost everyone in this book is their real name. It's their real experience, whether they spoke to me or not. There's only one person who I gave a pseudonym to, and because she had a sexual misconduct case, I just didn't think that her kids needed to Google her. ⁓

[14:11] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm. Know that, yeah.

[14:15] Rob Copeland: But it's something I feel really strongly about is the truth, the actual truth, not what Ray Dalio thinks is the truth, but.

the truth is actually a, it can be intoxicating because it keeps me from exaggerating, you know? I have to tell you exactly what actually happened to these people and because if I don't, I mean, I'm in the wrong. You could sue me and I'd lose.

[14:26] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. So Katina, one of the things about that story was that she had.

I mean, you can give some of the background, but one of the things that I remember so vividly was that she had just told Ray before the meeting that she was pregnant.

[15:01] Rob Copeland: So this is a great, this is a reveal, and it was a reveal to me. She's crying on this video, excuse me, on this tape, and the message that Bridgewater tells, literally.

decades of playing this for people is that She's crying because she knows she's in the wrong and because her boss has her boss Ray has you know Exposed it and now she's learning and it's a painful thing. They never tell anyone that Actually, she's also pregnant. He's been screaming at a pregnant woman in front of him she's running out of the room because her body is ⁓ is obviously I'm having having the reaction and

He knows she's pregnant. By the time this, she's had kids. know, the kid, her daughter is, I believe, teenager now. It's no secret once you know the truth, but for so many people, for a generation, it was just, this is Ray doing the right thing, and she feels guilty, essentially.

[15:42] Kim Scott: Yeah.

But why here's here's a question like you you would see that video and you would say no that's you know other people you can say that Ray about your own pain but you don't get to like intentionally inflict public humiliation is not necessary for the reflection can happen in private and that's part of the problem with radical transparency is that

[16:13] Rob Copeland: Hmm.

[16:24] Kim Scott: reflection for us to beat for for us to from the vast majority of people to be able to learn from their own mistakes, they have to do it privately. Or with someone else, but not in a public setting. That just induces a fight or flight. Why did so many people accept this? It seems kind of obviously cruel on the surface of it.

[16:31] Rob Copeland: Mm.

Mm.

So that's sort of the multi-billion dollar question for me.

[16:53] Kim Scott: Yeah,

yeah. Yeah.

[16:54] Rob Copeland: There's an easy answer and I think it's cheap, is Bridgewater was a large hedge fund, is a large hedge fund, and you could make a lot of money by putting up with it. And I think there's

a truth to that for a lot of people. You're getting paid not just six figures, there are janitorial staff making mid six figures ⁓ well into the millions ⁓ for investment professionals. So there's a part of that as to what will I put up with for money. But I think it's much more

[17:23] Kim Scott: Mm hmm.

[17:24] Rob Copeland: more than that because honestly, many people that I spoke to, I was actually surprised they weren't even paid all that much relative to a Wall Street career. Exactly. also there is a point at which, you know, we all have. ⁓

[17:33] Kim Scott: Yeah, there's other ways to make money. How much better can you eat? Yeah.

[17:41] Rob Copeland: Exactly. And what.

Ray was selling and is still selling to this day is the idea of self-improvement, the idea that he has all of the answers and that you have to put up with this to become ⁓ successful not just monetarily but, you know, rich in life. He had a phrase that he loves to use which is when someone would say to him something that he didn't like, he would say, if you're so smart, why aren't you rich? And

I think that really is the answer to why anyone who would say, who might even disagree privately, it's like,

well, I'm not that smart, right? Because I'm not as rich as him. That's giving him the power to do all of this. And for this book and for years, I've just been fascinated by these self-help organizations that over and over again tell you that if you put up with XYZ, you will...

improve some aspect of your life. ⁓ And that's exactly what Ray does.

[18:46] Kim Scott: Yeah,

yeah.

It's incredible to me. There was an academic who I really respect and frankly like a lot, who is known for his ⁓ research into why it's good to be kind. He's one of these business academics who is focused on doing the right thing by people. And he was hired by Ray Dalio and he bought it.

[19:03] Rob Copeland: Hmm.

[19:17] Kim Scott: And I just, remember being so shocked by this person who is smart and not a bad guy. Like how, what is it about, how did he, how did he trick that guy? Like it was so shocking to me. I don't think in that case he wasn't working for, mean, I guess he took, I don't know. It was a, you know, a few hundred thousand dollars of money for this engagement, but.

[19:22] Rob Copeland: Mm.

[19:47] Kim Scott: It wasn't, you know, he wasn't working there. did like, how did how did it seem so obviously bad to me? Why? didn't everybody see it?

[19:58] Rob Copeland: Well, I'll be honest, it didn't even seem obviously bad to me the first few times. So I have some compassion. Well, when I saw it when I was at Bridgewater, mean, so, you know, as a reporter, I went to Bridgewater several times. I met with with Ray and with other executives there. And there is something really intoxicating about someone you've seen on TV, someone who is, you know, unquote important.

[20:04] Kim Scott: when you saw the video.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

[20:24] Rob Copeland: They're sitting you down, they're looking you in the eye and they're telling you how strongly they feel ⁓ about their methods of self-improvement or about how much they love their staff and they treat them like family. I think for many academics, look, there's like Adam Grant is a part of this book. He really bought Hook, Line and Sinker, the Bridgewater ⁓ everything. And you're being offered this lens into what is allegedly a very secretive

[20:44] Kim Scott: Mm-hmm.

[20:54] Rob Copeland: investment firm, this one of the most successful on earth, and they're telling you this is how we did it. How many of us are strong enough to say, no, you're wrong in the moment?

[21:04] Kim Scott: Yeah, the Emperor

has no clothes.

[21:06] Rob Copeland: I'll tell you in one of those meetings with Ray, thought I would, with my colleague at the time, I think we thought we'd be there for about an hour. I think we there for eight. He's spending all this time with us. He's really answering all of our questions. And we walked out of there, excuse me, right before we walked out of there, it was nightfall. And there was a woman who had been in the room who was basically Ray's assistant who was taking notes. And someone else in the room, as we left, wished her a happy birthday.

[21:16] Kim Scott: Mm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

[21:36] Rob Copeland: birthday. And it was my colleague and I as we were leaving said to each other, my gosh, we missed what was really happening there, which is Ray was droning on for eight hours didn't have to. And he did not even once acknowledge to this young woman that she he was ruining her birthday. There's so often I find it just takes a lot of time to sort of shift your perspective to look sort of at the other corner of the room. ⁓

[21:53] Kim Scott: ⁓

[22:07] Rob Copeland: I think the academic aspect of this book is, it was honestly a little depressing to me. How many researchers that I really respect ⁓ just, you know, they just wrote exactly what Ray told them to.

[22:21] Kim Scott: It's you, I guess you want to believe ⁓ that, that, and I mean, there, I guess also part of the problem is there is a grain of truth to it. Like, like radical candor is all about soliciting criticism, you know, giving praise, giving criticism and engaging how it lands.

[22:24] Rob Copeland: Hmm.

Hmm.

[22:43] Kim Scott: ⁓ and so I do think that self-awareness is hard and we need other people to tell us what they notice in order to, you know, get outside of ourselves and notice mistakes we're making. So there is. Yeah.

[22:43] Rob Copeland: Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Well, Self-Awareness, My

Self-Awareness is Hard should be ⁓ the subtitle of this book. ⁓

[23:04] Kim Scott: The understatement. Yeah. And if you have

too much money and power, you never have to be self-aware. There was one wealthy man who I worked for at one point in my career. And I was encouraged, I said something about, you know, self-knowledge. And he looked at me like I had missed something elemental. And he said, who wants to know?

[23:29] Rob Copeland: Mm.

[23:31] Kim Scott: That maybe is the ultimate power, is you don't have to be self-aware.

[23:35] Rob Copeland: Well, and the ultimate power is to convince those around you that they're on the right path, that you have set them on the right path so much that they don't even want to leave it when it is careening out of control. I don't know if you saw the HBO series, The Vow about NXIVM cult. It's fantastic, highly recommended. ⁓

[23:48] Kim Scott: Yeah. No. Okay. I'm putting it on my list.

The vowel.

[23:58] Rob Copeland: The Vow, it's actually, I'm surprised there hasn't been a great book about NXIVM yet, but it was a self-improvement cult, a sex cult. That'll get you to watch it, right? All of sudden, it just went to the top of your queue in Albany, or north of Albany. And there's an episode of The Vow where they talk about this young woman, she's actually a teenager, and she's been locked in a room for years. She's not allowed to leave the room. Her parents have given the cult leader

[24:07] Kim Scott: Uh-huh. Wow. Yeah. you

[24:28] Rob Copeland: permission. And the idea is that she's done something wrong and that she can't leave until she diaries and journals it to herself. And so she only leaves to go to the restroom for years. And the reveal at the end of the episode is that the door was never locked.

[24:46] Kim Scott: it's a Skinner's box. Yeah. Wow.

[24:47] Rob Copeland: she could have left exactly, but she, her whole life, her whole value system, her family had convinced her that the right thing to do was not to leave. So

to me, the idea that like any of us couldn't be in that situation is a little ⁓ naive. And there are so many examples at Bridgewater of people who find themselves at the fork in that road and they choose to stay for many interesting, complicated reasons.

[25:17] Kim Scott: Yeah, and it's more understandable that someone straight out of college, but there were some very powerful people who worked there.

[25:25] Rob Copeland: Mm.

[25:26] Kim Scott: who allowed themselves to be treated abysmally. Tell some of those stories. James Comey, there were some others too. Mm-hmm.

[25:31] Rob Copeland: Yeah, I'm

So Jim Comey takes up a ⁓ good portion of this book because in the sort of interregnum of his career, before he's

FBI director, but after he is a famous federal prosecutor, he becomes general counsel of Bridgewater.

and he gets paid about $7 million a year. So remember, this is late 2000s. So that's, I mean, it's a good sum now too, excuse me, but it's even more, even today for sure. You can tell I've been around finance too much that I say, well, it's 7 million. And he essentially takes, it's the Jim Comey we all know and either love or hate, no matter what. He becomes Ray's personal inquisitor inside Bridgewater.

[26:00] Kim Scott: It's a lot of money even today. Yeah. Yeah.

[26:19] Rob Copeland: and he is, you know, he's pulling up investigations on people. Something

we haven't talked about yet is that at Bridgewater, everything is taped, is everything is recorded and available for everyone to play back. And so Jim Comey is taking these recordings and trying to find a compromise on people. He's trying to trick people. Mm.

[26:38] Kim Scott: Yeah. It's by the way, it's very Soviet and

it's alarming given that every meeting has 15 AI note takers in it now. I started my career in the Soviet Union.

and in 1990 and everything I said was recorded and I remember thinking, it doesn't really matter. I'm an American citizen. It's not like I'm going to be arrested and I'm not going to allow the fact that everything I'm saying is being recorded to impact me in any way. And I thought kind of like the woman locked in the room that you were just talking about that I was being candid with myself and with others. I'd call my parents every Sunday night.

[27:13] Rob Copeland: Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

[27:23] Kim Scott: And then one time I was, I had flown to New York for a meeting until I called my parents from New York, not from Moscow on Sunday night. And I realized I was talking much more openly, much more candidly to them. And I realized that I had self-censored because everything was being recorded, even though I didn't believe there would be any, and that is the insidious nature of having. ⁓

[27:33] Rob Copeland: Mm.

Mm.

[27:50] Kim Scott: of radical transparency is that it does the opposite. It hides us, it hides candor, it doesn't actually expose it. You need a little privacy to be truly candid. Mm-hmm.

[28:02] Rob Copeland: It's a bit like, you know, not to get super political, but in New York, we just elected ⁓ a socialist mayor and

people, a lot of people that I know will say, can't believe the city overwhelmingly elected him, by the way. Aren't they scared of socialism? And my answer is actually socialism sounds great. You describe it. Like, I don't understand what's the, yeah, everything will work on time and we're all in it together. ⁓ It's like, so I don't understand.

[28:22] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[28:31] Rob Copeland: I understand why every generation would give it a try. And I understand why if I told you your workplace would be of radical truth and radical transparency and that we'd all be devoted together to figuring out what you're best at and to getting you into that so that you can make the highest impact. ⁓ Sign me up, right? That doesn't sound awful.

[28:56] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah. So how can we make sure that we don't get ⁓ swayed by these ideas that sound good but instead, but actually are so insidious? ⁓

And how do we make sure it seems like a lot of the people who are working there were like frogs in boiling water. You know, was just it was getting more and from the outside, like reading. were several times when I was reading this book, I was like, why are you putting up with this? Like, you don't need this. But and yet all these people did these powerful people. OK, excellent.

[29:26] Rob Copeland: So

So I'm going to prove to your audience that you do not edit these chats because I'm going to correct you on something. Which is that,

exactly, which is that there's actually a principle that mentions what you just said. That if you put a frog in boiling water, it'll jump right out. But if you boil it up, if you put it in cold water and boil it. So that's part of the principles. It's Ray saying I'll make slow changes that you won't even notice. ⁓ That's not true.

[29:42] Kim Scott: Okay. yes, you're right. Yeah, slowly. Yeah. ⁓ I misunderstood the principle when I read it.

I thought what he was saying is we're going to turn the heat up so fast that you know to jump out of the water.

[30:03] Rob Copeland: Oh no, he's saying like we can make these changes and you're gonna love them so much you won't even notice. Correct, and even better, it's a myth by the way. If you put a frog in cold water and you boil it, it jumps out. It'll jump out, they're not dumb. But no, but you're right, small changes are harder to track and what I will say is.

[30:09] Kim Scott: So he's admitting that he's boiling you with that principle. They'll jump out. That's good to know. Ha ha ha.

[30:32] Rob Copeland: If there's one thing that kept

people from sort falling into this with their whole life, it's people who had some tether outside of the workplace.

[30:41] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[30:41] Rob Copeland: I get really freaked out when I hear about these companies where they'll do your laundry for you. You'll have all your meals here. We do childcare. It's like you need some work is not life, despite the title of a raised book, Principles of Life and Work. And

you need that, whether it's religion or if it's family or it's just that you like going to Disney World every quarter. I don't know. Get out there.

[31:05] Kim Scott: I'm so

glad you said this, because I have an opportunity to tell my husband that he was right and I was wrong. So we both, my husband and I both worked at Google and Google offered daycare. I was like, of course we'll do the Google daycare. And my husband said, absolutely not. We will not do the Google daycare, because we both may need to quit.

[31:13] Rob Copeland: Mm.

[31:31] Kim Scott: And we don't want to have to turn our kids' life upside down if we quit. ⁓ He used to work on my husband's team, in fact. Yes. He almost lived in our driveway when Google kicked him out of the parking lot. But I think he found a better option.

[31:37] Rob Copeland: Have you seen those videos of a young man who lives in he's a Google employee and he lives in a van?

really? He's quite famous to me. He's a...

gosh, that's...

Yeah, I have a lot of questions for him. Not that I think that he's doing anything wrong, but I would wonder, yeah, if he had a similar feeling that it was like...

[32:04] Kim Scott: I

so I I I loved working at Google. I just want to say I mean Google's not perfect and there was food you did eat ⁓ your meals there although I took I did have dinner there but I didn't have it there I put it in a box and took it home so yeah no no no no I think it's okay to pick on Google I'm just I'm I'm acknowledging my pro-Google bias but

[32:07] Rob Copeland: Mm.

Mm.

Sorry, and I'm not picking on Google.

Mm.

[32:30] Kim Scott: At the same time, was really important to me to have my real friends to have dinner with people who didn't work at Google every so you know, like all the time. Not to have your whole because when your whole life is tied up in a company, it is it's very dangerous for you can you can become you can become indoctrinated, it becomes cult like.

[32:42] Rob Copeland: Exactly.

It's also, it's

not just your, in the case of Bridgewater, it's not just your compensation.

It's your whole worth. It's all your identity of I'm going to figure out what I'm best for ⁓ on this on this planet becomes really hard to to give that up. ⁓ And especially in, you know, you're living in this very small community in Connecticut. It's a big part of your social life. But I will say at least about I lived in San Francisco for a year, excuse me, two and a half years.

[33:04] Kim Scott: Yeah, it's your yes. Yeah.

[33:28] Rob Copeland: I'll give a lot of credit to the Bay Area. People do change jobs. People have friends elsewhere. They start a new company, they fail the company, and they become billionaires. There is constant churn and change. Something I actually think about a lot in the industry I'm in now, I write for the New York Times, is it's shrinking. There aren't so many other options for me outside of the Times. And I'm really lucky to be where I am.

[33:32] Kim Scott: Yeah, yes. Okay.

[33:56] Rob Copeland: You can't just be so scared of the unknown that I stay here for 30 years because there's no bigger newspaper than the Times. ⁓

[34:05] Kim Scott: Yeah,

yeah, I think one of the most important bits of career advice I ever got was don't forget to quit. And even if you don't, I'm not saying you should quit the times because the times need you. But you should know what your exit options are. Because if you know what your exit options are, then you're you're less likely to

[34:13] Rob Copeland: my gosh.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

[34:26] Kim Scott: give up your ability to say, this makes no sense to me, and to take the risk that you take on when you say that. Yes. Yes. Who we both love. Yeah.

[34:28] Rob Copeland: Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Well, there's something also so terrifying and I know you've written several books and I've only written one, but there is something that's so exciting and terrifying about it just being you. If the book is bad, no offense to our shared editor, Tim Bartlett, who will listen to this, but like it's our fault. I love Tim. ⁓

I'm well aware that the risk is not socialized.

[34:56] Kim Scott: I, you know, I tried

to persuade Tim to put his name on the book with me. He did not. Yeah, yeah. Or four years. You wrote this book in six months. You're fast writer. I guess that's your job. Yeah. Probably decades.

[35:03] Rob Copeland: Exactly, yeah. There's no one more sensitive also than an author who's just spent six months in a hole writing. ⁓

No, I did the research for it took me a long time to get people to talk to me and to find the right people and to but

but honestly more more than 10 years and I still every week hear from people so it's ⁓ but yeah sorry this guy this guy very meta this guy very us and not the tech company sorry that was an awful joke you just lost all of your listeners you just it's your your podcast ranking just went down okay

[35:26] Kim Scott: or years anyway. Wow.

Ha ha!

It's now everybody loves you, Rob. It's because your book

is great and your thank you for writing this book. I can't really I think it's especially at this in this moment in time, this sort of we're learning all this all this terrible information about all of the people who who were willing to support Jeffrey Epstein as he committed atrocious acts and

[36:08] Rob Copeland: Mm.

[36:12] Kim Scott: Ray Dalio didn't do anything quite that bad, but he did some pretty bad things and and he treated people really terribly. And so I hope for folks out there who are working in a job where they feel like they're, you know, they're being treated terribly. And this is an economy where it's scary to be treated terribly. I hope that I hope that

[36:17] Rob Copeland: Mm.

[36:42] Kim Scott: they can take your advice of figuring out like what is it outside of work that's going to keep you being you so that you don't get completely so that you don't allow yourself to be locked away you know and not even locked away you're not locked away all of us are in this room and the door is not locked we just need to open it up

[37:07] Rob Copeland: Exactly. And I think if I took one thing out of this book, honestly, it is that there is no one with more answers than you. Like we all actually have sort of an equal opportunity. Doesn't mean that you should talk to as many people as possible. There are lots of people who know more than me about lots of topics. But at the end of the day, you know, it's sort of up to you. There is a self-directed portion. This got very like very pro-America capitalism, this conversation, I feel like. I just made it very

[37:17] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah.

Uh-huh.

[37:37] Rob Copeland: individual, ⁓ but that's that is how I feel about a lot of these. There's a wonderful, ⁓ very short chapter in the book about a man who

was at Bridgewater and ⁓ was rated by the rating system to be essentially dog shit. He was bad at everything. Ray and the company told him he was bad at everything. And I don't mind spoiling this because he goes on a very

[37:56] Kim Scott: Yeah. Uh-huh. ⁓

[38:03] Rob Copeland: dark spell. And then when he leaves Bridgewater, it turns out actually he's great at exactly the thing that they kept telling him he was bad at.

and he has a wonderful career, he manages a small team, he makes much more money, and it truly came out of him just realizing, I can do it. There was no secret. Actually, as it turns out, pain plus reflection did not equal progress. ⁓ So that to me is such a lesson. I probably reread that chapter every month.

[38:24] Kim Scott: Yes. Yes. Yeah.

All right. So, so for folks listening, what chapter is that? Do you know the number? Read, read the whole book, read the absolute whole book, but read the chapter he's going to tell, Rob's going to tell you. Yes. No, don't skip it.

[38:43] Rob Copeland: Do I know the number?

Yes, it's called Feedback Loop. It's chapter 19 and you do not have my permission to skip the first 18. You must re- but you can skip it. ⁓

[39:01] Kim Scott: It's

a great, great book. And I think this is a good note to end on, because in order to be receptive to feedback, you have to be able to reject it. ⁓ Take it on, and some of the feedback you get is going to be right, and some of it is going to be wrong. I think one of the many problems with radical transparency is that the assumption was other people are right and you are wrong. And that's just a faulty assumption.

[39:30] Rob Copeland: Well, and I will end this the way that Ray would have ended meetings, is they like to say, is there anything that I could have done differently that I could have improved on? But if you were Ray Dalio, keep in mind, you would immediately start attacking me right now, no matter what. So is there anything I could have done better here?

[39:47] Kim Scott: Yes.

Well, I'm going to start with what I loved about, ⁓ about, so let's model this because I think we both agree that feedback can be useful.

[39:53] Rob Copeland: Hmm.

Mm.

[39:59] Kim Scott: And feedback is not all criticism. It's also praise, which Ray didn't seem to have a lot of room for praise. So the first thing you did right is you wrote a wonderful book. And you wrote a book that's not only a wonderful book, it's an important book to read at this moment in time. Because I think that I'm very pro individual as well. But I also think we're at a moment in time where we need to question capitalism.

[40:01] Rob Copeland: Mm.

Mm-hmm.

[40:28] Kim Scott: and what it's rewarding and why it's rewarding people who are not only wrong ethically in so many ways, but Freddie Daly was also wrong about the market a lot. He only fell up. So what is it about the market that is leading people astray? So I love the book. I love the moment in time that you wrote the book. And I love the way you talk about the book.

[40:40] Rob Copeland: Mm.

[40:56] Kim Scott: not, you you're not like overly salesy or kind of approachable. So I love all those things. ⁓ You have so many stories in the book. I think you let me talk too much and I didn't let you. So I'm going to criticize myself. I don't think I pulled out as many of the sort of unbelievably sort of the stories that had me jumping up and down and shouting and reading stuff to my husband as I was reading it.

[41:10] Rob Copeland: Mmm... Sure.

well then you're

a great salesperson for the book because I can't think of a better that there's so much more to come I feel like we're on a selling rotisserie chickens ⁓ rotisserie chicken ovens ⁓

[41:27] Kim Scott: Okay.

Yes.

[41:38] Rob Copeland: Yeah, well, I'll give you a piece of feedback, because I actually, I really love how you just jump right in. It's not like, you you assume, I love that your audience knows when you're enthusiastic that they assume that there's a reason that I'm here. So I think it means that we were able to get to a lot of topics.

[41:40] Kim Scott: Thank you. Thank you. And what would you have had me do differently?

[42:01] Rob Copeland: ⁓ I would have ⁓ I would have charged a fee for this podcast so that and it would have gone we would have split it no, I'm just kidding the ⁓ No, what would I have you do differently? I would just say ⁓ You know Keep talking about the principles I it's the number one buzzword for him and I feel like probably for most of your episodes someone has some sort of principle and to me it's just complete bullshit like ⁓

[42:02] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, the principles are bullshit. That's

the topic of this. That's the subject. Well, thank you. And I'm glad you brought up I never ever accept or charge guests on this podcast. So I'll just stay that for the record. All right. Well, thank you so much, Rob. I can't wait for the next book that you write, because you're a great writer.

[42:31] Rob Copeland: That is the topic.

No. Yeah.

Thank you.