CHAPTER 6

RETURNING THE BOON:

2011–2015

It seems to methat life consists of three phases. In the first, we are dependent on othersand we learn. In the second, others depend on us and we work. And in the thirdand last, when others no longer depend on us and we no longer have to work, weare free tosavorlife.

I was beginning my transition from my second to my third phase. Both intellectually and

emotionally, I was no longer as excited about being successful as I was excited

about having the people I cared about be successful without me. 

I had two jobs atBridgewater to transition out of: overseeing the management of the company aschief executive officer, and overseeing the management of our investments as achief investment officer. I wasn’t going to stop playing the markets, becausethat’s a game I’ve loved playing since I was twelve and I will keep playinguntil I die. But I didn’t want to beneededin eitherrole, because of the key-man risk that would create for the company.

My partners and I understood that transitioning from the first generation of leadership to the

next in a founder-led organization with a unique culture is difficult,especially if the leader has been in place for a long time. Bill Gates’s transition out of the CEO role at Microsoft in 2008 was the most recent example of that but there have been many others.

The biggest question I wrestled with was whether I should leave management completely or stay involved as a mentor. On the one hand, I liked the idea of stepping out completely

because it would give the new leadership the freedom to find their own ways of succeeding without me looking over their shoulder. My friends urged me to do that—to “declare victory,” collect my chips, and move on. But I wasn’t confident that the transition would go well, as I hadn’t done such a thing before. I do things through trial and error—making mistakes, figuring out what I did wrong, coming up with new principles, and finally succeeding—and I didn’t see why my transition should be any different. I also didn’t believe that it would be fair for me to dump the heavy workload I was carrying on those I was passing my CEO responsibilities to. I knew that Lee Kuan Yew, the wise founder and leader of Singapore for forty-one years, had transitioned out of his leadership responsibilities to be a mentor, and I had seen how well that went. 

For all those reasons, I decided I would stay on as a mentor. That meant I would either not speak at all or speak last, but always be available to provide advice. My partners liked the idea. We agreed we should  begin as soon as possible, so those replacing me could gain experience and we  could make adjustments as needed. Since what we didn’t know about transitioning was greater than what we did know about it, we knew we would need to be careful. We expected that transitioning well would take a number of years—perhaps two or three, perhaps as many as ten. Since we had worked together for many years, we were optimistic that it would be on the shorter end of that range.

On the first day of 2011

I announced to the company that I would be stepping down as CEO, with Greg

Jensen and David McCormick replacing me. On July 1, I handed over my management

responsibilities to Greg, David, and the rest of the Management Committee.

Simultaneously, we explained our “up-to-ten-year transition plan” to our  clients.

译文：

生活对我来说分为三个阶段。刚开始，我们依赖别人，我们学习。第二个阶段，别人依赖我们，我们工作。第三个、最后一个，当他人不再依靠我们，我们也不再去工作，我们已经自由享受生活了。

我开始从第二个阶段到第三阶段的过渡了。智力和情绪两者兼备，我不再对成功感到兴奋，而我对使那些我关心的人没有在我的情况下成功而兴奋。

我为离开桥水而做了两份工作：作为首席执行官监督公司的管理，作为首席投资官监督投资活动。我不会停止市场研究，因为那是我从12岁开始就在玩的游戏，我会继续直到死亡。但我并不想在任何一种角色中被需要，因为关键人风险机制会为公司创造出来。

我的合伙人和我都明白从第一代领导人过渡到下一个创始人领导的拥有独一无二的文化的组织是非常困难的，尤其如果领导人已经在位太久了。2008年比尔盖茨从ceo角色中退休就是最近的典型案例：其他方面已经有太多这样的例子。

我需要考虑的最大问题是我是应该彻底离开还是作为导师保持参与管理。另一方面我倾向于彻底退出因为这样可以给新的领导班子自由度去发现他们自己的成功方法，而没有我的监督。我的朋友催我那样做—去“宣告胜利”收集我的勋章然后继续。但我对于完美过渡信心不足，之前没坐过此类的事情，我都是通过试验和错误做事情的---犯错，刻画出出错的情形，涌上新的原则，最后成功—我看不到过渡会有任何不同。我也不相信我将那些ceo职责的繁重的工作压力转移是公平的。我明白李光耀，那个睿智的新加坡建国者和领导人-整整41年，已经从领导人职责变成了导师身份，我也看到了过渡是如何完美。因为所有那些原因，我决定作为导师身份留在桥水。那意味着我不能什么都不说也不能最后说了，但要保持随时提供有效建议。我的合伙人喜欢这个主意。

我们同意我们应该尽可能早开始，这样那些接班人会尽可能获得经验，我们也能按需做出判断。既然关于过渡我们不知道的远大于我们知道的，我们认识到我们需要更加小心。我们期盼顺利过渡可能会持续几年—也许两到三年，也许会是十年。既然我们已经在一起工作多年，我们对于缩短这个过程都很乐观。

2011年第一天我向公司全体宣布我将从ceo推下来，而乔治詹森和戴维麦克考米克接替我。7月1日我将管理职责交给了乔治，和余下的管理委员会。同时我们对所有客户解释了我们的“最高十年的过渡计划”。

读后感：

2011年雷62岁了，是时候收手了，放手让那些年轻人接班吧 ，自己退居二线，作为精神教父和导师存在，这样对桥水更好。

桥水因为有大量根据雷的各种原则建立的程序和大数据分析系统，所以领导人的职责更多的倾注在方向和预测上，而系统给与的多种数据和分析能帮助他们做出更准确的决策，而雷也终于放心退休了。

桥水在离开雷之后发展的不错，这归因于基础太好了，而雷还在，能时不时的给与指点。

以后会怎样不知道？万事万物都是盛衰有时，不过那就不是雷关心的事情了，他已经很好的完成了他这一代人的任务。