The Fund - an interview with Rob Copeland S8 | E10

Summary

Radical Candor: Communication at Work
Season 8, Episode 10: The Fund – An Interview with Rob Copeland
Original Air Date: April 15, 2026
Host: Kim Scott
Guest: Rob Copeland, author of The Fund

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode of the Radical Candor podcast, host Kim Scott sits down with Rob Copeland, investigative reporter and author of The Fund. The episode explores Copeland’s deep dive into Bridgewater Associates – the world-famous hedge fund founded by Ray Dalio – and examines the differences between "radical transparency" and "radical candor" in workplace culture. Through real stories, humorous and dark anecdotes, and a candid exploration of power, self-awareness, and the dangers of cult-like leadership, the conversation challenges listeners to reconsider what healthy transparency and feedback look like at work.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Stage: Radical Candor vs. Radical Transparency

• Kim Scott opens by clarifying the frequent confusion between "radical transparency" (as practiced at Bridgewater) and her own "radical candor" philosophy (01:05).
• Highlighted is how Bridgewater’s interpretation of transparency can veer into unhealthy extremes, losing the human-centered approach that Radical Candor emphasizes.

The Infamous “Pee Incident” at Bridgewater

• Notable story: Ray Dalio’s overreaction to finding urine on the floor, conducting an extensive investigation with DNA tests and email blasts (03:24).
  • Quote: "At no point in this whole episode does anyone around him feel comfortable enough to say...‘hey, Ray, it might just be yours.’" – Rob Copeland (04:54)
• Demonstrates a lack of self-awareness and the performative nature of Bridgewater’s radical transparency.

Petty Problems, Grand Investigations

• Copeland describes how at Bridgewater, no issue is too small for an exhaustive investigation, from cafeteria food choices to bagel delivery mishaps (06:06).
• Discussion on how such environments waste massive amounts of time and energy on trivial matters, often leading to public humiliation and even firings (07:51).

Why Do People Put Up With It?

• Kim relays her own experience being wooed by Bridgewater and her subsequent decision to steer clear after hearing internal horror stories (09:55).
• Copeland explains how Bridgewater’s allure wasn’t just money—though compensation could be substantial—but also the seductive promise of self-improvement and joining an elite, secretive culture (11:50, 18:34).
  • Quote: "What Ray was selling...was 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 rich in life." (18:40)

The Katina Stefanova “Probe” Tape

• The hosts discuss the notorious internal video used in Bridgewater job interviews, featuring Ray Dalio berating then-employee Katina Stefanova to the point of tears—a tool used to screen for candidate reactions (12:00).
  • Quote: "He loves to probe employees at Bridgewater. And what it actually is, is just him screaming at a woman who works for him...She starts crying and she starts sobbing...And this is played to every person who's interviewing." – Copeland (12:00)
  • The context: It’s later revealed that Stefanova was pregnant during the incident (16:01).
  • Reflection on how “pain plus reflection equals progress” can be weaponized in the wrong hands (13:39).
    • Quote: "They never tell anyone that actually she's also pregnant. He's been screaming at a pregnant woman in front of him." (16:01)
  • Kim challenges the notion of public humiliation being necessary for learning and growth (17:00).

The Cult of Personality, Academia, and Belief in the “Singular Genius”

• Copeland unpacks why even respected academics and business thinkers can be sucked in by charismatic figures claiming to have cracked the code for success (20:58)
  • Quote: "How many of us are strong enough to say, no, you're wrong?” – Copeland, on the seductiveness of Dalio’s pitch (22:04)
• Kim emphasizes the importance of private reflection and questioning authority—radical candor vs. enforced transparency (23:22).

Self-Awareness, Power, and Isolation

• Discussion around wealthy figures who lose touch with self-awareness because of unchecked power (24:09).
  • Quote: "If you have too much money and power, you never have to be self aware." – Kim Scott (24:09)
• Copeland compares Bridgewater’s dynamic to cults like NXIVM (24:56), demonstrating how powerful psychological forces keep even high-achievers in toxic systems.

Even Powerful Outsiders Get Drawn In

• Stories about senior figures like James Comey joining Bridgewater and participating in the culture of surveillance and investigation (26:36).
• Kim likens Bridgewater’s recorded, surveilled environment to the Soviet Union, warning of the chilling effect this has on candor and authenticity (27:40).
  • Quote: "The insidious nature of having...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." – Kim Scott (28:56)

Escaping Boiling Water: The Danger of All-Consuming Workplaces

• Reference to the (mythical) boiling frog principle as used by Dalio—slowly ratcheting up norms to acclimate employees to dysfunction (30:36).
  • Quote: "He’s admitting that he’s boiling you." – Rob Copeland (31:11)
• Both agree on the importance of maintaining identity and anchors outside work; Kim relates her own family’s decision to keep non-Google daycare for this reason (32:06).

The Key to Retaining Perspective: Outside Anchors and the Courage to Quit

• Copeland and Scott encourage listeners to keep some part of their life separate from work—family, friends, hobbies, even knowing what your “exit options” are (35:06).
  • Quote: "If you know what your exit options are, then you're less likely to give up your ability to say, ’this makes no sense to me.'” – Kim Scott (35:22)

Lessons in Agency and Self-Trust

• Copeland recounts the story of a Bridgewater employee labeled as “bad at everything” who, after leaving, becomes highly successful—the lesson being: don’t internalize others' feedback as truth (38:07).
  • Quote: "There is no one with more answers than you.” – Rob Copeland (38:07)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Bridgewater’s culture of excessive investigation:
  • "There’s no such thing as a small problem. Everything...is a reason for an investigation." – Rob Copeland (06:54)
• On the seduction of “life formulas”:
  • "The story of Ray Dalio is...when $20 billion isn’t merely not enough, but it’s not even interesting anymore." – Rob Copeland (09:29)
• On the difference between radical transparency and radical candor:
  • "You need a little privacy to be truly candid." – Kim Scott (29:02)
• On the need for outside tethers:
  • "Work is not life. Despite the title of Ray's book, Principles of Life and Work.” – Rob Copeland (31:09)
• On resisting the “cult” of workplace:
  • "It's very dangerous for you. You can become indoctrinated." – Kim Scott (33:43)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 03:24 – The “pee” incident and what it reveals about power and self-awareness
• 06:54 – Petty investigations and Bridgewater’s culture of overreaction
• 12:00 – The Katina Stefanova “probe” tape, pain-reflection-progress, and public humiliation
• 20:58 – Why brilliant people and academics still get ensnared in toxic cultures
• 27:40 – Surveillance, candor, and the chilling effect of constant recording
• 32:06 – The boiling frog, company perks, and the importance of outside life
• 38:07 – Story of the once-dismissed employee who thrived after Bridgewater
• 40:00 – On accepting and filtering feedback, and why principles alone aren’t enough

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Final Takeaways

• Bridgewater’s version of “radical transparency” frequently crossed boundaries, instilling fear rather than fostering genuine candor, reflection, or learning.
• Peak self-awareness comes from humility, trust, and the willingness to question authority—not from public investigations or humiliation.
• Your sense of worth shouldn’t be defined solely by your job or by powerful figures offering secret formulas.
• True progress requires privacy, trusted relationships, and the courage to maintain agency—even if that means knowing when to walk away.

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"There is no one with more answers than you...at the end of the day, it's sort of up to you."
— Rob Copeland (38:07)

"To be receptive to feedback, you have to be able to reject it, take it on. Some of the feedback you get is going to be right and some of it is going to be wrong."
— Kim Scott (40:00)

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For more detailed stories and insights, read Rob Copeland’s book, The Fund, especially Chapter 19, "Feedback Loop."

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End of Summary

Transcript

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[Kim Scott]

Hello everybody, and welcome to the Radical Sabbatical. You've got just me, Kim Scott here. The rest of the Radical Caner 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. I and I'm thrilled to have with us today Rob Copeland, the author of the fund. Welcome, Rob.

[Rob Copeland]

Thank you for having me.

[Kim Scott]

I loved your book so much and I loved it for a bunch of different reasons. But why don't we 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.

[Rob Copeland]

Well, there's no. There's no better way to grab an audience.

[Kim Scott]

That's right.

[Rob Copeland]

First anecdote will be about Pith the 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 he 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 a, 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 told, heard from the, the intro, you know, 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 like most 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, something I've done before. Spoiler alert.

[Kim Scott]

I've never done it.

[Rob Copeland]

Kim. No surprise. And he looks down and he sees that there is urine on the ground under him. Now that's also happened to me before,

[Kim Scott]

but to Ray, that's happened to me before too.

[Rob Copeland]

That's happened to you. There you go. And so Ray looks down and to most of us, we would think, okay, I missed to Rey. He thinks this is a huge mistake. This is a chance for an investigation.

[Kim Scott]

And he assumes someone else missed not

[Rob Copeland]

he assumes someone else missed the urinal.

[Kim Scott]

It's impossible for him to imagine this is his own urine.

[Rob Copeland]

Impossible for such a great man, the author of the Priest Principals to have done this. And you know, it sounds funny to, to us and it is, but he orders this huge five ring circus of an investigation in, in the firm. He emails the whole firm. He says there's piss on the floor. He assigns underlings to you 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. DNA testing to see what it, to see what it is. And at no point in this whole episode is 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.

[Kim Scott]

Yours.

[Rob Copeland]

So it's such a small incident in a way. It's one of, you know, 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 little self awareness, you know, that that email could be sent. And yet there was so much secrecy at Bridgewater that it took even, even me, you know, the unauthorized biographer. It took me the better part of a decade to get to the bottom of it.

[Kim Scott]

Wow. Wow. And did, did it get, did the DNA testing reveal to him that it was his own urine, or we'll never know.

[Rob Copeland]

You know, I never was able to get that.

[Kim Scott]

And I will say, so much for radical transparency.

[Rob Copeland]

I. 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, you know, at. At Bridgewater and at so many places that claim to have, you know, an open company culture, that openness really only applies in one direction. It applies from the top to the bottom.

[Kim Scott]

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. 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. And then she. Everybody 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, what. Why it must be pretty easy to run a hedge fund if they had. How they have all this time.

[Rob Copeland]

So this is the great. 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. These. These other side quests as. As I put them. Yeah, you're right. You know, at. 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, they. People get investigated about, you know, whether the peas in the cafeteria were pretty enough, whether. 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. And, you know, it can get. It can get almost a little funny. But you also have to remember this is real people, real lives.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah. Imagine that kind of pettiness, being able to jump in and. And get you fired or investigated or humiliated in front of your peers.

[Rob Copeland]

I spent a long time imagining it, in fact.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah. Yeah. Couldn't have been pleasant. How did you stay grounded as you were? I mean, because these stories are dark.

[Rob Copeland]

It is. So there is a. There's 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. So what sort of 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. The attention necessarily that he always wanted. You have people thinking, okay, you're rich, but are they thinking you're smart? They're thinking you're special. So really, the story of Ray Dalio is, to me, the story of when $20 billion isn't merely not enough, but it's not even interesting anymore.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah, yeah, he's on the hedonic treadmill.

[Rob Copeland]

Exactly.

[Kim Scott]

So one of the. 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 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 called. 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, I was like, why would you go work in that environment?

[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 sort of have. They've cracked the code, that they have these. Answer. In Ray's case, he even frequently describes, you know, 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 experienced hires that they were going after because they wanted people who could be shaped.

[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.

[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. At a woman who works for him, calling her stupid, calling her a lot of other worst things with a lot of other people in the room. And she starts crying and she starts sobbing, in fact. And this is played to every person who's interviewing at 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 darker than I. Than I thought.

[Kim Scott]

It's so much worse. Yeah. I didn't know all the details when I.

[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 publicly and

[Kim Scott]

recorded for all posterity. It's really unbelievable.

[Rob Copeland]

But. But we should. 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, 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 you're not working hard enough, you're not going to get the, 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 know, you can take something like that, like a logical aphorism and just go, you know, 1,000 times.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah, it's sort of like Notes from the Underground or something. You know, you take a basic principle to its illogical extreme.

[Rob Copeland]

And, and by the way, when they, they play the, the tape for people, they didn't, 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, 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 know that. Yeah, but, you know, it's, it's something I feel really strongly about is, you know, 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 lose.

[Kim Scott]

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, one of the things that I remember so vividly was that she had just told Ray before the meeting that she was pregnant.

[Rob Copeland]

So this is a great, this is a reveal. The. And it was a reveal to me. She's crying on this video. Excuse me, on this tape. And the, the message that Bridgewater tells for 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 having, having the reaction and like he knows she's pregnant by the time this, she's, she's had kids. You know, the kid her, her daughter is, is I believe a teenager now. It's, it's no secret once you know the truth. But for so many people, for a generation, it was just, oh, this is Ray doing the right thing. And she's, she feels guilty essentially.

[Kim Scott]

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, you can say that Ray, about your own pain, but you don't get to like and 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 reflection for us to be for, for us to, for 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.

[Rob Copeland]

So that's sort of the multi billion dollar question for me. Yeah, yeah, the, there's an easy answer and I think it's cheap, which is Bridgewater had a, was a large hedge fund. Is a large hedge fund and you could make a lot of money by putting up for, with it. And I think there's, there's a truth to that. For a lot of people you're getting paid not just six figures. You can, there are, you know, janitorial staff making, you know, mid six figures well into the millions for investment professionals. So there's a part of that is, you know, what will I put up with for money? But I think it's much 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.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah, there's other ways to make money.

[Rob Copeland]

Exactly. And also there's a point at which, you know, we all.

[Kim Scott]

How much better can you eat?

[Rob Copeland]

Yeah, 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. It's, that's giving him the power to, to do all of this. And you know, 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, of your life. And that's, that's exactly what, you know, Ray does.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah, yeah, it's, it is, it's incredible to me. There was an academic who I really respect and frankly like a lot who is known for, you know, his research into why it's good to be kind. Like he's, you know, 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. And I just, I remember being so shocked by this person who is smart and not a bad guy. Like, how, what is it about? How did he be, 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, I 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 it wasn't, you know, he wasn't working there. He, like, how did, how did it seem so obviously bad to me? Why, why didn't everybody see it?

[Rob Copeland]

Well, I'll be honest, it didn't even seem obviously bad to me the first few times I. So I saw the video. Well, when I saw, when I was at Bridgewater. I mean, so yeah, 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, quote unquote important. 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, like family. And 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. The Bridgewater, everything. And you know you're being offered this lens into what is allegedly a very secret investment firm, is 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?

[Kim Scott]

Yeah, the emperor has no clothes.

[Rob Copeland]

I'll tell you in one of those meetings with, With Ray, I thought I would with my colleague at the time. I think we thought we'd be there for about an hour. I think we're there for eight. He's spending all this time with us. He's really answering all of our questions.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Rob Copeland]

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. And it was my colleague and I, as we were leaving, said to each other, oh 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. 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.

[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. 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.

[Rob Copeland]

So there's Self awareness. Self Awareness is Hard should be the. The. The subtitle of this book.

[Kim Scott]

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 incur. 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 that maybe is the ultimate power is you don't have to be self aware.

[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 Nexium cults. It's fantastic. Highly recommend it.

[Kim Scott]

I'm putting it on my list. The Vow.

[Rob Copeland]

The Vow. It's actually I'm surprised there hasn't been a great book about Nexium yet. But it was a self improvement cult. In a sex cult. I'll get you to watch it. Right.

[Kim Scott]

Wow.

[Rob Copeland]

All of a sudden it just went to the top of your queue. The in. In Albany or north of Albany. And there's a. 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 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. For years. And the reveal at the end of the episode is that the door was never locked.

[Kim Scott]

She left.

[Rob Copeland]

Exactly. But she, her whole life, her whole. Her value system, her family had convinced her that the right thing to do was not to leave. So wow. To me the idea that like any of us couldn't be in that situation is a little. Is a little naive. And there are so many examples at Bridgewater of people who are. Who find themselves at the fork in that road and they choose to stay for many interesting, complicated reasons.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah. And it's more understandable that someone straight out of college. But there were some very powerful people who worked there who allowed themselves to be treated abysmally tell those stories. James Comey. There were some others too.

[Rob Copeland]

So Jim Comey takes up a good portion of this, 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, that's. I mean it's a good sum now too.

[Kim Scott]

Excuse me, a lot of money.

[Rob Copeland]

But it's even more even today for sure. You see tell I've been around finance too much that I say, well it's 7 million. The. 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. 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. Everything is recorded and available for everyone to play back. And so Jim Comey is taking these recordings and trying to find Kompromat on people. He's trying to trick people.

[Kim Scott]

It's, by the way, it's very Soviet and it's alarming given every, 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, oh, 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. And then one time I was. I had flown to New York for a meeting and so 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, of radical transparency, is that it, it does the opposite. It, it hides us, it hides candor, it doesn't actually expose it. You need a little privacy to be truly candid.

[Rob Copeland]

It's a bit like, you know, not to get super political, but in New York we just elected a, a socialist mayor. And people, a lot of people that I know will say, I can't believe the T city overwhelmingly elected him, by the way. Aren't they scared of socialism? And my answer is actually, socialism sounds great. 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, like, I understand why every, every generation would, you know, give it, 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, you know, what you're best at and to getting you into that so that you can make the highest impact. Sign me up. Right. That's not. That doesn't sound awful.

[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, it was just. It was getting more. And from the outside, like reading. There 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.

[Rob Copeland]

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.

[Kim Scott]

Okay.

[Rob Copeland]

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, jump right out. But if you boil it up, if you put it in cold water and boil it. So that's. That's part of the principles. It's. It's Ray saying, I'll make slow changes that you won't even notice. That's not true.

[Kim Scott]

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.

[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.

[Kim Scott]

So he's admitting that he's boiling you.

[Rob Copeland]

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, they're not dumb. But. No, but you're right. Small changes are harder to track. And what I, what I will say is the, the if there's one thing that kept people from sort of falling into this with their whole life, it's people who had some tether outside of the workplace. I get really freaked out when I hear about these companies where we'll do your laundry for you. You'll, you know, you'll do have all your meals here. We do child care. We do. It's like, you need some work is not life. Despite the title of Ray's 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.

[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 and 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 and we don't want, you know, to have to turn our kids life upside down if we quit.

[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.

[Kim Scott]

He used to work on my husband's team.

[Rob Copeland]

Oh really? He's quite famous to me.

[Kim Scott]

He almost, he almost lived in our driveway when we kicked him out of the parking lot. But I think he found a better option.

[Rob Copeland]

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.

[Kim Scott]

So 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 did have dinner there, but I didn't have it there. I put it in a box and took it home.

[Rob Copeland]

So sorry. And I'm not picking on.

[Kim Scott]

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 at the same time, it was really important to me to like my real friends to have dinner with people who didn't work at Google every so, you know, like all the time.

[Rob Copeland]

Exactly.

[Kim Scott]

Not to have your whole. Because when your whole life is tied up in a company, it is, it's very dangerous for you. You can, you can become, you can become indoctrinated.

[Rob Copeland]

It becomes, 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 whole. 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. I'll give a lot of credit to the Bay Area. Like people do change jobs, people have friends elsewhere. They, you know, they start a new company, they fail the company, they become billionaires. Like, it's like there is constant churn and. And change. Something I actually think about a lot in the industry I'm in now. I, you know, I write for the New York Times, is. It's. It's shrinking. There aren't so many other options for me outside of. Outside of the Times, and I'm really lucky to be where I am. But you can't just be so scared of the unknown that I stay here, you know, for 30 years because there's no bigger newspaper than. Than the Times.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the most important bits of career advice I ever got was don't forget to qu. 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 less likely to 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.

[Rob Copeland]

Well, there's something also so terrifying. And I know you've written several books and I've only written one, but there was something that's so exciting and terrifying about it just being you. You know, 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. Yeah, I. I'm well aware that the. The risk is not socialized, you know?

[Kim Scott]

You know, I tried to persuade Tim to put his name on the book with me.

[Rob Copeland]

Exactly.

[Kim Scott]

I did not.

[Rob Copeland]

There's. There's no. There's no one more sensitive also than an author who's just spent six months in a hole.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Rob Copeland]

Writing four years.

[Kim Scott]

You wrote this book in six months. You're a fast writer, I guess.

[Rob Copeland]

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.

[Kim Scott]

Probably decades.

[Rob Copeland]

But honestly, more than 10 years, and I still every week hear from people. So it's. But yeah, sorry, this guy. This got very meta. This got 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.

[Kim Scott]

Everybody loves you, Rob, because your book is great and you're. Thank you for writing this book. Like it 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 were willing to support Jeffrey Epstein as he committed atrocious acts. And Ray Dalio didn't do anything quite that bad, but he did some pretty bad things 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 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's not locked. We just need to open it up.

[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 know, you should talk to as many people as possible. There are people, 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 individual, but that's, that is how I feel about a lot of these. There's a. 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. To be 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 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 just such a lesson. I probably reread that chapter every month.

[Kim Scott]

All right, so for folks listening, what chapter is that? Do you know the number?

[Rob Copeland]

Read the whole book.

[Kim Scott]

Read the absolute whole book. But read the chapter. He's going to tell. Rob's going to tell you.

[Rob Copeland]

It's called Feedback loop. It's chapter 19. And you do not have my permission to Skip the first 18. You must read. But you can skip it.

[Kim Scott]

No, don't skip it. It's a great, it's a great, great book. And I think this is a good note to end on because in order to be receptive to, 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.

[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 would have that. That I, 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, I could have done better here?

[Kim Scott]

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. 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 and what it's rewarding and why it's rewarding. People who are not only wrong ethically in so many ways, but Ray Dalio was also wrong about the market a lot. Like he only fell up. So what is it about. About the, the market that is. 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. Not, you know, 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.

[Rob Copeland]

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 on a. Selling rotisserie chickens. Rotisserie chicken ovens.

[Kim Scott]

Yes.

[Rob Copeland]

Yeah. Well, I'll give you, I'll give you a piece of feedback. Is I actually.

[Kim Scott]

Thank you.

[Rob Copeland]

I really love how you just jump right in. It's not like, you know, you assume, I love that your audience knows when you're enthusiastic, that they, they assume that, you know, there's a reason that I'm here. So I think it means that we were able to get to a lot of, lot of topics.

[Kim Scott]

Thank you. And what would you have had me do differently?

[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, I, 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.

[Kim Scott]

Like, yeah, the principles are bullshit. That's the topic of this.

[Rob Copeland]

That is the, that is the topic subject.

[Kim Scott]

Well, thank you and I'm glad you brought up. I never, ever accept or charge guests on this podcast. So I'll just say that, say 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.

[Rob Copeland]

Thank you.

[Kim Scott]

The Radical Candor podcast is based on

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[Kim Scott]

The Radical Candor Podcast theme music was composed by Cliff Goldmacher. Follow us on LinkedIn, Radical Candor the company and visit [e-mail] you can't reason with the sun.

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