It's one thing to hear about Bridgewater's strange culture, another to experience it firsthand. I interviewed for a Software Engineer position with them in 2010, and had been warned that it was "cult-like". I breezed through the initial call and programming challenge they sent me, and remember thinking "this seems pretty normal". Then they sent me an electronic copy of Ray Dalio's book and told me I was going to be quizzed on it in three days. This was where things started to get weird. I spoke with two people from management who seemed to be deliberately trying to throw me off balance. They briefly asked about the book, but I get the sense that the real test was in how I reacted under pressure, and whether I could offer "honest feedback" (read: blunt and critical to a point that would have been harmful to team cohesiveness in a work situation). They would deliberately try to lead me on to agreeing with them on things that were outright wrong, and seemed frustrated when I called them on it. They started probing pretty insistently into my personal life: what type of people did I hang out with? What do I do after work? Why? Do I really want the job? How do I know I really want the job? After about an hour of this, I decided I actually didn't want the job if that was the way the culture was set up, and cut the interview process off myself.