Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

wow wow wrote:

By the way, I agree with Cholly that Goldman clients are or should be well aware that Goldman puts its own interests first.

Every firm puts their interests first. Any time you see a price, read a research report, or have a meeting with Morgan Sachs or whoever, they are their because they believe it will benefit them

Its very naive to think that there cab be no conflict of interest. Scottrade has conflicts of interest. As does Microsoft. Its part of doing business. The requirement is that they be disclosed.

1) asset management clients can be very unsophisticated. For example, local government officials suddenly put in charge of millions of dollars in public pension funds.

2) anyone else think the GS guy had just seen Jerry Maguire when he wrote that thing? " I was 35 years old. I had just started my life." Exactly the same story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSi4HHNOnd0

agip wrote:

2) anyone else think the GS guy had just seen Jerry Maguire when he wrote that thing? " I was 35 years old. I had just started my life." Exactly the same story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSi4HHNOnd0

I forgot about "Jerry McGuire", which is more this guy's generation. I was actually thinking Michael Lewis and "Liar's Poker." Of course Lewis had putwritten quite a few pieces for London publications before he quit Solomon Bros and made a mockery of some of Wall Streets most successful guys. He also had a couple more damaging points and the humility to make them credible. That is, he was ripping people off and selling them crap and he admittedly had no clue what he was doing. Luckily he could also write better than your average Princeton grad.

X-Runner wrote:

This is something.

Goldman was not far from going out of business in 2008, along with a lot of other companies.

I wonder if this will shake condifence at all or if it will just be seen as a disgruntled employee mouthing off.

______________________________

CBS World News said a disgruntled ex employee.

Cholly wrote:

For those claiming he has made enough to call it quits, grow up: this guy made $500K/yr after 11 years, in London, after tax, I think he pockets $250K, and I am going to assume the numbers were considerably smaller in years 1-10. This guy will need to work again, fly coach now, and probably pay some legal bills soon. He's a Stanford grad, so no slouch, but finding work at a publicly traded company will be a challenge. $500K/yr, will not happen.

Holy shit, are you that bad at maths?

Make 250k a year AFTER taxes, for 10 years, and not be very well off?

You could (not would, but could) live on 100k IN POCKET (equivalent to making 120-150k gross), putting the rest in savings. 150k x 10 is 1.5 million. Most 5th graders can do this. 1.5 million dollars is a LOT of money. It's enough to retire on.

Now, I'm not saying that the guy did this, but let's not pretend that it's not a lot.

The MonBRO Doctrine wrote:

zman byebye wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUY7o7pX6vk

criminal znists have destroyed the usa

Please take your antisemitism elsewhere. Trolling is fine, but that really isn't cool.

The truth is not anti-semitic. The criminal z&on*sts are Jews but do not represent all Jews. You can't even call them by name on letsrun or your post will get bounced. Yime to get pur heads out of the sand about this criminal enterprise; should have been done decades ago

Cholly wrote:

My largest problem with the piece is, what is the goal? Even if Goldman was this kid's fantasy firm that he thought it was when he was drinking more of the Kool-Aid and not homesick in London (by the way, everyone in London uses the term "muppet"...we call the Goldman guys "muppets.") So what? Even 10 years ago, they were overpaid, hyper-competitive and ripping people off. Tough way to learn that there are good and bad people everywhere: on Wall St., at Goldman, at Stanford, in South Africa if I remember correctly, and even at his little ping pong tournaments.

The goal is to market your new venture on a mass scale so you can siphon off some clients. Savvy move by this guy, using the NYT to unwittingly give him tons of free press

4runner wrote:

The business judgement rule just means that-- for the most part-- the "business judgment" of the officers and directors will not be questioned. It does nothing to change the fact that the sole obligation-- in most states, inc. Delaware-- is to the shareholders.

Call me stupid, but what does "Including Delaware" have to do with anything? Is Delaware not considered a state?

Ho Hum wrote:

The point of the story is that the company has become so obsessed with short term returns and bonuses that they've lost sight of the long term. The company will eventually go under if they continue that way, and that's his point: that it's developed a toxic culture. This kind of culture is increasingly common in the financial industry and elsewhere.

Sad thing is that this is the culture with executives reaping all of the short term benefits, and when the company fails, they're too big to fail and government bails them out.

So it looks like their stock dropped $2 billion on Wednesday but mostly recovered by Thursday.

I suppose this will all be forgotten soon.

Delawhere? wrote:

Call me stupid, but what does "Including Delaware" have to do with anything? Is Delaware not considered a state?

Delaware is considered the most favorable state in which to incorporate a business because of tax advantages and fewer public disclosure requirements.

Many financial companies incorporate there, even if they don't do any business in the state.

X-Runner wrote:

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/314716/20120315/greg-smith-goldman-sachs-resign-op-ed.htm

So it looks like their stock dropped $2 billion on Wednesday but mostly recovered by Thursday.

I suppose this will all be forgotten soon.

call me optimistic, but I think this will have some sticking power. This might change the dynamic in a meeting, from trusting GS to not trusting GS. A pension fund walks in to GS, now they are wary and wondering if the sales guy is calling him a muppet behind his back.

At the least, it will make sales much harder for GS sales people. Which is good.

Delawhere? wrote:

Call me stupid, but what does "Including Delaware" have to do with anything? Is Delaware not considered a state?

The vast majority of the large corps in America are incorporated in Delaware.

If a corporate law says one thing in 49 states but another in Delaware, you can't honestly say that the law in those 49 states in the law of the land.

Junk Master wrote:

Who can run the fastest 10k of any Goldman employee? Can anyone go under 32 minutes?

A former Princeton guy ran 2:30 last year at New York. Presumably worth a sub-32.

Didn't Mr. Smith see "Jerry Mcguire?"

He needs to watch "Breaking Away" Or read "Catcher in the Rye" to be reminded that all young people how for the world to be fair and moral. But it's not and it never has been.

You just don't write these letters. It's a cliche and it never works!

It doesn't matter if you are 25, 33, 44, 58, etc ... . It never serves you to write a letter like this, period! They should teach a class like this at Stanford. You are always discredited. Always!

Now he has to start all over again. He is just now experiencing his teenage rebellion. Most kids get this out before or during college, but apparently he missed out and now he is catching up.

No matter what people say or think, the guy is smart to come out at the right time, and the way he did it, he will land a lucrative job soon somewhere else.

When the others go down, he will be soaring all over.

I am sure for him to come out so public, he might have had a number of arguments with other guys at the top.

Let's see.

Kenyano wrote:

No matter what people say or think, the guy is smart to come out at the right time, and the way he did it, he will land a lucrative job soon somewhere else.

Who the f@#K would hire him?

JPM and MS have already said they want to distance themselves from this oped piece. So he is not going to be working at either of these places.

Running a derivatives desk is a specialized skill set - not many people can do it. So all those people know each other, and they all already have an opinion of this guy, esp if they did not before.

He will never work at an investment bank or broker dealer, that is absolutely certain.

Person in the know wrote:

Junk Master wrote:

Who can run the fastest 10k of any Goldman employee? Can anyone go under 32 minutes?

Yes, of course. One of the Princeton hotshot distance girl the last few years works there now.

I can guarantee there are guys just out of college there that are quite fast.

Once they start working there, i doubt they can run fast anymore. I'm sure the lifestyle takes its toll on health of all employees.