The Fund by Rob Copeland

Author:Rob Copeland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

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HOLLAND CALLED the most famous attorney she had likely heard of: Gloria Allred, known for representing victims of sexual harassment. Allred took her as a client almost immediately. A lawyer from Allred’s firm spoke to Dalio on the phone at length, taking him through his and Bridgewater’s potential liability. Not only had Dalio ignored all standards of procedure for investigating such workplace misconduct by investigating it himself, outside of human resources, he was told, but he’d potentially impugned Holland’s reputation. The Ethics Committee might have a catchy name, but it was a legal nightmare. In no universe, Holland’s attorney said, was it appropriate for three older men untrained in such matters to question a woman about her relationship with the CEO. Allred’s firm assured Dalio that they wouldn’t hesitate to go public with a lawsuit.

When the call ended, Holland’s phone buzzed from Allred’s firm’s line. The lawyer told her that Bridgewater was offering roughly three years’ salary for her to leave quietly. In exchange, Holland would drop any potential claims and agree never to speak publicly about her experience. If she did, the lawyer reminded her, Bridgewater would be sure to go after her.

Holland took the deal. That afternoon, Bridgewater security guards stood at her desk and watched as she packed up her things. The guards escorted her past silent coworkers, into the parking lot to her car. After the better part of a decade at Bridgewater, Holland never went back. She bought a Land Rover with some of the settlement money.

Bridgewater, however, followed her. Though she couldn’t tell her former coworkers why she’d left, they seemed to hear some version of what happened. Every few months, she would receive a flurry of notifications from LinkedIn, the professional social network where she kept a profile, telling her that a bunch of strangers at Bridgewater had suddenly clicked on her account. She resigned herself to some level of private infamy among those in the know.

Restricted from telling potential employers the real reason she left her last job, Holland found herself launching into such generalities during job interviews that she gave the impression of just another flunk-out who couldn’t cut it at the world’s biggest hedge fund. The woman who’d early on been recognized by Bridgewater as an up-and-coming talent couldn’t get another job for years. When she finally did, it was at a fraction of her former salary.

Holland left Bridgewater in mid-2014 with a settlement worth $1 million and change. That year, Greg Jensen was paid $400 million. The two never spoke again. Jensen kept his job, but Dalio had helped bury a problem that Jensen would be desperate to keep secret—and Jensen had to know there would be a price to pay.

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