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Jeffrey Gundlach is a highly regarded bond investor, and a well-respected CEO and business leader in the investment management world.
In less than ten years, Los Angeles-based DoubleLine Capital has gone from zero to $150 billion in assets under management. What started with a team of 45 people has also expanded to more than 250 employees, while still maintaining the firm's original entrepreneurial culture of intellectual honesty and shared success.
"We have a shared success mentality, one that, 'If you do well, I'm happy for you,'“ he told Yahoo Finance recently. “So nobody here is fighting for shelf space. Everyone's pulling the oar in the same direction."
The 60-year-old executive added that one of the "most destructive" characteristics of many investment firms is they have siloed units that tend to compete with each other.
DoubleLine hosts monthly fixed-income asset allocation meetings where the team leads — and pretty much anyone who wants to attend, discuss opportunities to put capital to work.
And no one is compensated by the amount of assets their team accumulates. Instead, it’s based on the firm's performance, helping to foster a sense of intellectual honesty, the billionaire investor explained.
Gundlach, who is viewed internally as someone who empowers his employees, summed up his philosophy with a catchphrase: “No responsibility without authority, no authority without responsibility.”
It means that if something goes wrong, he takes the blame — and he professed that he doesn’t raise his voice to employees.
"[My] other thing is I never yell at anybody. I believe that if something goes right, I'm more than happy to share the credit with everybody,” he told Yahoo Finance.
“And if something goes wrong, I really think it's my fault. So that, I think people feel good that they're not being kind of kicked like a dog when things go wrong,” he added.
Rising from the ashes
What's likely the fastest-growing investment management firm in history, DoubleLine boasts an impressive track record, with many of its mutual funds outperforming their benchmarks and peer averages since inception.
Fortunately, it's been smooth sailing at DoubleLine, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary this month. The story of DoubleLine is unusual, in a way that speaks to the culture and the team's loyalty.
It was on a Friday in early December 2009, when a shockwave rippled across the trading floor at Trust Company of the West (TCW): A firm-wide email hit inboxes that informed the staff of Gundlach's termination. The investment firm had accused its rock star bond investor of swiping firm secrets, and leveled a host of other lurid accusations.