It's a little bit cultish.
Nearly everything that successfully coordinates large groups of people has 'cultish' aspects.
The trick is to recognize when such patterns of intense synchronization are beneficial, and when they are abusive.
Re:Ray Dalio AMA
by AnimalMuppet on Friday June 01, 2018 @03:02PM
(#17208841)
And a "cult" around an idea meritocracy means that most of the problems of cults won't happen, because decisions will get made on the merits, rather than on ideology.
It's a cult around the idea of meritocracy, which isn't necessarily the same as an actual meritocracy.
Re:Ray Dalio AMA
by adventured on Friday June 01, 2018 @02:36PM
(#17208573)
You see that in most things different + good; or something just plain great, even if it's not unusual. Apple, Lego, Ferrari, Zelda. You see it frequently in clothing, from bras to shoes, and in makeup. Lifestyle brands often develop cultish circles around them, as with Harley or Airstream, or Lululemon and Starbucks in the early days. Even in more plain/simple products like Lodge's iron cookware.
Sometimes they go more mainstream culturally like Zelda or Lego. Other times exclusion keeps the cult smaller, as with Ferrari.
It's rare for something to be great without developing a bit of a cult around it.
Also the way he runs Bridgewater is really interesting. It's structured with the goal to surface the best ideas and figure out which opinions are most likely to be correct. It's an "idea meritocracy" and a culture of radical transparency. Everything is recorded and made available to everyone else in the company. Employees are very candid, brutally honest, even with the CEO (Ray). He says a lot of people churn out in the first year or so, but those that get used to it love it and can't imagine working another way. His Ted Talk goes into quite a bit of detail about how it all works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXbsVbFAczg
His book Principles lays out the foundation. Excerpt: https://inside.bwater.com/publications/principles_excerpt Videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/Bridgewater