Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

The subtext answer to the question is: because he can afford to - he made so much money at GS that he can walk away, trash the firm, and still live quite well. Or, the aforementioned reasons plus he has multiple offers in hand with hedge funds (who already knew what he was going to say) - "hey, Greg, come work for us so we stop getting f#%@d! by broker/dealers."

What a steaming pile of horse dung.

Funny how idiots like this develop these high morals after they bank enough to do whatever they want.

Sure Greg, the derivatives you were writing were all for the clients benefit, nothing to do with the fees, eh?

10 years of following orders from your bosses, banking those year end bonuses and doing everything you can to ingrain yourself in the culture then BOOM you have an epiphany and act like some kind of saint.

If he really wants to impress people, hes should give the money he made back. If not, STFU.

The best part, to me, is that what's wrong with Goldman Sachs is that they aren't treating their insanely rich clients with enough respect. He's arguing like the head of the household cleaning staff, making sure the servants don't pinch fine silverware after dinner parties.

Homeslice seems blithely unaware that, say, the super rich clients, whose fortunes are amassed on the back of cheap, dehumanizing labor, are actually worthy of treating with much respect. The proprietor of an estate is hardly moral because they're successful. They're rich because they extort poor people. If that's allowed, why is it so wrong to extort money from the rich who are too distracted to manage their own middenous treasure.

In the biz wrote:

What a steaming pile of horse dung.

Funny how idiots like this develop these high morals after they bank enough to do whatever they want.

Sure Greg, the derivatives you were writing were all for the clients benefit, nothing to do with the fees, eh?

10 years of following orders from your bosses, banking those year end bonuses and doing everything you can to ingrain yourself in the culture then BOOM you have an epiphany and act like some kind of saint.

If he really wants to impress people, hes should give the money he made back. If not, STFU.

Well, there is something to be said for watching a company rot from the inside out. It can happen slowly and once you realize what is going on, it is too late. He may have stuck around for a few years trying to affect change prior to realizing that it was hopeless.

A similar thing happened to a start-up I worked for after it was purchased. A lot of the reasons we had been successful were slowly axed until we were just a standard PR agency. It was odd how it happened.

I would never write an op-ed in the Times about it, but if I were the face of the company, it might encourage me to clear my name and disassociate myself from what they were doing.

Is Goldman Sachs really getting away with screwing people? One would think that big hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds and what not would know if someone wasn't playing straight with them. I don't know though, high finance isn't really my area.

There's always going to be a disconnect in incentives between sales and trading guys and their clients. It's not unique to Goldman and it's not unique to the past few years. It's the nature of the relationship. It's up to the clients to wade through the bullshit.

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.

My first thoughts were "hell yeah, buddy!" i am glad to see that at least some people who work in banking have some dignity and aren't OK with leeching off off of the rest of us. My second thought was, "all of my suspicions have been confirmed". I'm sure the corporate culture is the exact same at BOA, Merill lynch, etc etc. Lastly, im thinking that the reason goldman has so many "muppets" is because it was built on solid work and customer trust. People had no reason to distrust them until recently. The reason this man is leaving shows that the short sighted idea of ripping people off only works because they trust you, and is the beginning of the end for them unless some serious changes take place.

Maybe the author will eventually realize that a career in this area has very little nobility or honor. It only has money. And people only respect the banker's money, not the person behind it in the overpriced suit. This isn't true respect in my mind. When I think banker, I immediately think overpayed, materialistic ahole. To even get into this career means your sole goal is to make $$, and many people admittedly hate doing the work. Thats why they rip people off and try to make so much, so then can finally quit their unrewarding and terrible jobs. You guys may have money, but you have no dignity or respect. Enjoy your lives as aholes, we all hate you. How you can justify your lives and lifestyle is beyond me. Suck it.

I can pretty much guarantee your situation was different. Goldman has been the same for years. The only thing that changed for our hero is his perception of the company.

If he thinks it is bad there now, the only reason he didn't see it when he started was because he was too anxious to get paid.

A number of friends/associates @ Goldman confirm this guy's sentiments.

10yrs ago, FICC took over, and the place changed immeasurably.

The vitriol in this comment is absurd, unjustified and most likely founded in ignorance of what investment bankers actually do. I don't work in investment banking and am far from a apologist for the industry but you are really off-base here. Investment banks are extremely important in aiding corporations in the process of raising capital, a key driving force in economic development. There are no doubt plenty of materialistic people in the industry who are motivated by money, but that doesn't mean that their existences are meaningless and they all find their jobs to be "unrewarding and terrible".

As for their salesmen trying to rip people off? Well no shit. Salesmen in every industry are, at some level, trying to rip you off. The issue isn't salesmen ripping people off, it's salesmen not achieving the proper balance between getting a good profit out of your sales and maintaining a trusting relationship with your clients.

I read this article and could not figure out why the NY Times would run such a piece critical of Goldman until I got to the end and saw that Mr. Smith is indeed member of the ruling tribe. Then it made sense

Same could be said from the outside about runners. I work in banking, and almost everyone I work with is a very genuine, kind person, not driven by $ but by contributing to the team's success and in general promoting our company's image (if it was just $, they'd probably be at another bank). I bet we do a lot more internal promotion about volunteering, giving back, etc. than 99% of companies.

I'm sorry you feel that way about the industry. It is basically service-driven to provide companies things they need in able to help them do business (import loans, term financing, foreign exchange, raise capital). If you'd care to delve into the details I'd gladly listen, but I don't see how spending time doing due diligence on a hedge fund client, or executing a Letter of Credit between an importer and exporter, or doing a foreign exchange transaction so an exporter can hedge its exchange rate risk, or helping a company go public so people like you and me can buy shares involves losing your soul.

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

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.

The two comments in reply to mine are good, thank you to both of those authors. To both of you and any other banker reading this, accept my apologies. I know bankers serve a function, and an important one at that. I know they arent fulfilling meaningless existences. I just have a lot of pent up feelings about that profession because I agree with the Op-Ed contributor, and feel that this profession has a (much) higher proportion of the absurd caricature i drew in my original post than other professions. For example, 3000+ employees at GS made over 700,000$ in bonuses in 2008, when GS was pushing their own clients to buy up crappy deals that they were secretly betting against. After reading his op ed, it stirred my pot and made me remember all the stories (similar to what was written) I've heard in the past few years. I will not concede my point that there is a disproportionate number of greedy people who are severely lacking in morals in this industry.

Well, I think the guy raises some good points and the fact that he did this has started an important discussion. But 12 years?!?!?! Dude made his money and built his career before he decided to take the high road.

I thought this was pretty funny:

http://deadspin.com/5893181/bronze-medal-ping-pong-god-bravely-resigns-from-goldman-sachs

Of course well functioning financial markets are important for a well functioning economy that allows businesses to manage risk and access capital, but the whole industry is way bigger than it should be. Compensation is out of control and most front office groups have dysfunctional cultures populated by a good number of sociopaths.

cmurph wrote:

Investment banks are extremely important in aiding corporations in the process of raising capital, a key driving force in economic development.

See, when you say economic development, you mean the economic development of people in the upper classes. What you don't mean is anything like something helpful for the poor people who actually produce with their hands and sweat whatever it is their capitalist owners sell to sheep like you and me.

Firstly, I am shocked that this made it through the relatively discriminating NYT op-ed filters. For example, this guy is 33, not really a senior executive by any measure, I am pretty sure he has never worked for another Wall St. firm, he joined "right out of college" so he has zero basis for comparison...how does he not know that GS is not the most ethical firm on the street or the most ethical company he will ever work for?

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.

Next, Goldman clients are a rare breed in that while they do not deserve to be cheated, they are a self-selecting bunch, adequately sophisticated to know there is someone on the other side of each trade; they deserve no sympathy. It's hilarious to think that they need this kind of warning from a 33 yr old kid.

I can identify with some of this kid's passion and feelings, it takes some serious moral courage to make a move like this. I don't think he has spoken to the press yet, so I am not going to question his integrity. However, I think it was a juvenile way to handle his complaints, it will get attention but he is too easily discredited.

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.