191–200 of 268 posts
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HackerNews got me - moving to a tech firm
Sign of the tech bubble? Financiers jumping to tech companies? The chemists and high school teachers turned ninja hax0r can't be far off. Someone please warn me so I can short XLK.
That's when I knew we were in a bubble.
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> Something happens to companies as they get larger... I think promotion happens. When you're a fresh grad right out-of-college and the Managing Director says "client is our #1 priority", you take it to heart. That's your new mantra now. Nine years later, when the same Director, now promoted to the Board says the same line, you groan inside because you know exactly how often he calls his clients muppets. Slowly you b…
Yeah, Goldman Sachs made a predatory loan to Greece in 2002. That is just 2 years after this guy got hired.
Predatory loan usually refers to taking advantage of someone who doesn't know what they are getting themselves into. Are you saying that Greece lacks the financial knowledge to understand what they are signing?
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HackerNews got me - moving to a tech firm
What kind of work will you be doing? I'm in a similar situation (M&A side though), and I'm not sure what kind of value I could bring to a tech firm without the coding skills that are needed in a early stage startup.
Abstracted a little, capital markets start-ups. You could add value by hybridising Silicon Valley and New York.
Go any further, e.g. to a Pinterest, and I don't know. Maybe there is a business development role? I'd guess you'd be throwing away a lot of your existing value at that point.
Call people. Most are very willing to help.
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".
I hold him in very high regard - he took care of us junior guys, gave us great pieces of advice, and in general came across as one of the more personable, friendly, and genuine guys on the floor.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/former-goldman-intern-this-is...
Now that the big bonuses, expensive sell-weekends and general prestige associated with being in finance have washed away, people on Wall St are looking around realizing the emperor has no clothes. There's no money anymore, and there was never anything ultimately redeeming about their work.
The only silver lining is that hopefully now our best and brightest will be focused on solving real problems that matter.
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I agree with your point that part of the cause is getting more senior and actually watching the lies. But I don't accept that we should condone that behavior. Full disclosure: I left Micosoft last year after I long debated the trade offs of starting my career over. I was a "top performer" and Microsoft makes a point of telling the many people like me to stick around for all sorts of reasons. Deferred compensation. Tr…
> I try to be a good person. I try to be honest. I try to stand up for people. But I couldn't help her. For a year I gave as much moral support as I could without the inner circle knowing. But the politics were too thick and toxic to touch. You "could not" help her? That's not exactly true, is it? It's just that if you had, there would have been negative consequences for yourself , and so, you didn't. Thanks for the…
I think the question isn't so much whether he could have tried to help her, as whether it would have done any good. The end result might well have been no improvement in her situation and a drastic worsening of his. In other words, negative consequences for him without any compensating positive consequences for her. In that situation, I'm not sure I would see much point in openly intervening.
The official response: We wanted to share with you the below communication which was today sent to the people of Goldman Sachs: Goldman Sachs Logo Office of the Chairman March 14, 2012 Our Response to Today’s New York Times Op-Ed By now, many of you have read the submission in today’s New York Times by a former employee of the firm. Needless to say, we were disappointed to read the assertions made by this individual…
I'd be more inclined to trust their communications, but as he cites in several parts of the letter about leaked internal communications to support his feelings. Then we also have other people stepping forward saying "Yes I worked at xxxxx, and I saw, suspected, or participated in fleecing clients." To what degree is all arguable. Are these all well timed publicity stunts of a person trying to take clients away from a firm to start his own? That's one hell of a conspiracy theory, and probably pretty unlikely. Maybe he is. Who cares.
Here's what I think. The last down turn shook Goldman to the core, and with it all the good will they had for their clients. Suddenly, the money train looked like it could derail permanently. When you got a lot of cash it's really easy to look like a genuine and generous person/firm. "Here there's enough cash to go around for all of us," they'll say.
But, when that cash dries up. Generosity dries up too. And it's all too easy for people to turn into selfish, desperate people. Remember back during the crash when Carl Icahn was quoted saying he had friends that didn't know how they were going to live on $10 Million/year? That was the desperation setting in.
Here's the thing though. S&P 500 closed the decade out flat. Contrast that with the 80's & 90's where it had multi-year straight growth. It was easy, and the money was easy. Now all that easy money ain't around. This drought is playing out all over the financial industry. Goldman ain't the only one behaving badly.
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…
What was your education before working as a trader?
So he thinks Goldman was honorable back when he was young and had no idea what was going on. Bullshit. I happen to know of some shady Goldman credit swaps from the 90s that my municipality has been trying to get out of. I'm sure there is plenty of other garbage that went on back then too. You don't hire a bunch of mostly young male type-A personalities and wave million dollar bonuses in their faces and not expect que…
> mostly young male type-A personalities...wave million dollar bonuses in their face This also characterises hackers and Silicon Valley. There are some really good people on Wall Street just as there are some real turds in Silicon Valley. If you go back into Goldman Sachs's history it was a venerable firm with a storied past of forsaking short-term profit for the client, i.e. being long-term greedy instead of short-t…