Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

#111

Post by newstartupidea » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 2:38 PM UTC

byrneseyeview wrote: post #92

Goldman has a kind of hilarious understated response, in which they note that this guy was a VP (there are thousands of VPs at Goldman) and that the group he managed consisted of him and him alone. Plus, this was a bad year for bonuses. Nothing like a slow career and a dwindling bank account to make you aware of how morally imperative it is that you switch careers! The people I know at Goldman are generally bright an…

Good points. Something else I kept in mind when reading was that Goldman has a responsibility to its employees and clients to be able to weather the future, and regardless of current market volatility, there is a large amount of uncertainty; that uncertainty is prime motivation for focusing on making money by any practical means.

That said, these are not excuses for bad behavior, and even though Greg Smith has a good bit of motivation to spin all of this in a way that benefits him, he puts himself at risk by saying this.

Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

#112

Post by demallien » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 2:38 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #107

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15

I was an esoteric derivatives trader at an investment bank making money off clueless clients. We actualy prided ourselves, as a prop desk, on not being client facing. I went in expecting to parse global markets for inefficiency while pioneering the frontiers of 21st century finance. As time went on I found that the firm was content with mediocrity (as it could survive by simply existing in its role) and had no time f…

Some pointless pedantry: There is no singular title "Messr", because "Messrs" as the plural of "Mr" comes from the French "Messieurs". The French singular is "Monsieur", which is abbreviated as simply "M".

It's more often Mr, even in French these days...

Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

#113

Post by JerryF » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 2:39 PM UTC

The most amusing thing I find about Goldman Sachs, is their refusal to put their name on their building. They built a brand new 43 floor office building right across the street from Ground Zero to serve as their new headquarters, and their name is no where on the building.

It makes one think that they are hiding -- perhaps they're ashamed of themselves?

Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

#114

Post by lix2333 » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 2:41 PM UTC

byrneseyeview wrote: post #92

Goldman has a kind of hilarious understated response, in which they note that this guy was a VP (there are thousands of VPs at Goldman) and that the group he managed consisted of him and him alone. Plus, this was a bad year for bonuses. Nothing like a slow career and a dwindling bank account to make you aware of how morally imperative it is that you switch careers! The people I know at Goldman are generally bright an…

I thought this guy was an "executive director"? I think a lowly VP writing something like this wouldn't make nearly the splash he is making right now.

A story like this is a nightmare to GS though. They've always prided themselves on valuing their reputation above all else and this is yet another shot to what they want to be seen as. However, it is important to realize that the public's perception of GS is different than their customers' perception. They were #2 in the league tables for M&A last year and their long time clients haven't shied away from using their services.

Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

#115

Post by dkrich » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 2:42 PM UTC

It would be awesome if he pulled a George Costanza and showed up to work next Monday and pretended that the op-ed piece was a joke.

Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

#116

Post by TheFuture » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 2:45 PM UTC

jpdoctor wrote: post #93

gavanwoolery wrote: post #20

I have ranted for a long time about the corruption at Goldman Sachs, mostly to deaf ears. :) This is the tip of the iceberg, as far as I am concerned. My bigger concern is how involved GS is with our government. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/business/19gold.html?pagew... As it turns out, the human race is extremely intelligent and wherever there is an opportunity to make money (corrupt or not), people are probabl…

> My bigger concern is how involved GS is with our government. I agree: This deserves a great deal more attention. Hell, just the Henry Paulson tax giveaway should have caused civil unrest.

"tax" giveaway? It's all borrowed money anyway, not actual tax revenue. Drop in the bucket compared with the rest of the federal budget, and most of it was paid back.

Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

#117

Post by yummyfajitas » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 2:46 PM UTC

danssig wrote: post #73

steve8918 wrote: post #49

It's interesting how the tone of this article is almost exactly the same as the one about the Microsoft employee that recently quit Google. Something happens to companies as they get larger, where the culture of a company starts dying from a death-by-a-thousand-cuts, and then they start promoting the wrong people into upper management that seem to really poison a very good company culture. It sounds like Goldman Sach…

That Forbes article is a great one. Personally I think now that the cat is out of the bag, we should start to see things changing at the executive level (though it's going to take years). For a long time, many of us have speculated that CEOs were overpaid but suggesting this was met with claims of being "anti-capitalist" and other such nonsense. Now thanks to the Forbes article and the book it's talking about, we can…

Could you define what you mean by "overpaid"? Is it merely a complaint that CEOs are paid more than you wish they were, or something else?

Meanwhile the rest of us produce vastly more than, say, 20 years ago, yet wages remain mostly flat.

This claim betrays a misunderstanding of how productivity is measured, and how workers are compensated for their productivity (i.e., comp is wages + benefits, not wages).

Wages + benefits is not flat. http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_displa...

And productivity can easily go up due to factors unrelated to workers. E.g., if a company replaces workers with robots, the measured productivity (total production / # of employees) of the remainder will go up. Is this a reason to increase their pay?

Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

#118

Post by testinomy » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 2:48 PM UTC

The author must be really angry at Goldman. Didn't he get his 500k bonus, but only 200k? The other thing I learned is that corporations are out there to make a profit. Who would have thought? However, as an outsider, it's good to have some insight into the real business model of Goldman. It appears it partly relies on information asymmetry, i.e. ripping off clients without them knowing. This business model seems to have been damaged by this bad PR that aims to dissolve illusions of the clients. I hope this kids gets his bonus, but probably Goldman will just fire him after such a move. This is what happens when there are too many greedy hands wanting the honeypot, but one isn't satisfied. Not that unique to Goldman to be honest. When your business model relies on information asymmetry, whistle blowers can be a real pain. To combat that Goldman must discredit the source, and distract from the topic, which is what we saw here in their response.

Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

#119

Post by einhverfr » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 2:53 PM UTC

lrobb wrote: post #104

einhverfr wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What lessons can be learned from managing an open source community that can be applied to a formal corporation?

I served as a VP & President for a small non-profit club. Two takeaways: 1) You don't really have any power. You need to lead by example and empower other people rather than command. 2) The personality required to establish a project is often different than the personalities required to keep it going.

But on top of that, I wonder how much management could be eliminated. Management is, in most businesses, fundamentally a communication infrastructure. How much of it can be replaced through implementing IT through was that work for FOSS projects?

My thinking is to have a relatively small group of high level managers, a group of project managers, and an HR department, and eliminate all middle management. I think teams should have rotating leadership but coordination should take place in ways which include both the upper management and folks on the floor directly using things like email lists.

Maybe this is a pipe dream. But maybe it can be made to work.....

Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

#120

Post by illumin8 » Wed, Mar 14, 2012, 3:02 PM UTC

byrneseyeview wrote: post #92

Goldman has a kind of hilarious understated response, in which they note that this guy was a VP (there are thousands of VPs at Goldman) and that the group he managed consisted of him and him alone. Plus, this was a bad year for bonuses. Nothing like a slow career and a dwindling bank account to make you aware of how morally imperative it is that you switch careers! The people I know at Goldman are generally bright an…

Managing $1T in client assets doesn't sound like a job for a lowly VP. Your comment is mostly an ad-hominem attack against the author because he may or may not have received a smaller bonus this year.