Bridgewater just released a series of videos that looks like something Facebook or Google would produce

Bridgewater isn't holding back.

"This series of videos that we've prepared for you are to give you a window into what it's like to be here, to scare you away if you're not the right kind of person, to potentially attract you if these ideas — if this way of being — is attractive for you," Greg Jensen, Bridgewater Associates co-CIO and 21-year veteran of the firm, said in a new video on Bridgewater's website, relaunched last week.

The video series reveals a surprisingly extensive amount of footage from within the company and even shows brief clips from recorded meetings, marking a big shift for the usually secretive hedge fund. Founder and co-CIO Ray Dalio even admits that its 18-month attrition rate is as high as 50% for new employees.

The relaunched site portrays Bridgewater in a new light: not scary and removed, but highly competitive and intriguingly unusual. The material has the feel of something a Silicon Valley giant like Facebook or Google, rather than a secretive hedge fund, would produce.

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Bridgewater is as well known for being the world's largest hedge fund — with $150 billion in assets and 1,700 employees — as it is for a unique culture that Dalio describes as being based on "radical truth" and "radical transparency."

Employees are encouraged to regularly dissect each other's thinking to determine the root of decision-making, to rate each other's performance using iPad apps, and to send an audio file to any person mentioned in a meeting — all meetings, with few exceptions, are digitally recorded with either audio or video. "Pain + Reflection = Progress" is a guiding phrase.

Dalio founded Bridgewater out of his apartment in 1975 and laid the foundation for its culture through the '80s, but it wasn't until he formalized his management approach in his guide, "Principles," made public in 2011, that the firm began regularly appearing in the media and facing scrutiny.

Critics have accused it of being "bizarre" and like a "cult;" in July, The New York Times published a story that highlighted a harassment claim by a former employee, including his allegation that the hedge fund was a "cauldron of fear and intimidation" (the employee later withdrew his complaint and moved to a new firm).

Dalio has consistently replied that his firm's culture is misunderstood, specifically calling that Times report a "distortion of reality."

The new recruiting material may be Bridgewater's biggest statement yet to defend how it operates.