This is indicative of the shift of power within GS from investment banking to the trading side of operations. That shift itself is based on who is generating the most profits. Seems that trading and investment banking maybe ideologically opposing forces, from a client interest standpoint. So to remove conflicts of interest they should divest of one or the other and decide who they want to be.
Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
51–60 of 268 posts
Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
#52I keep thinking about this article and the recent Google one as well. And I wonder, is this sort of moral decay necessarily part of the current corporate world? Is it possible, over the long run, to have a tech firm, or any other firm, that empowers employees to do what is best for everyone and to hell with the rules? Or is this merely a matter of a few good leaders who get it, and everyone else eventually overcoming…
And I wonder, is this sort of moral decay necessarily part of the current corporate world?
by construction:
The documentary is critical of the modern-day corporation, considering its legal status as a class of person and evaluating its behaviour towards society and the world at large as a psychiatrist might evaluate an ordinary person. [...] corporations are systematically compelled to behave with the DSM-IV's symptoms of psychopathy
Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Currently work at Google, obviously speaking for myself and not my employer. In my experience - yes, this moral decay is a necessary part of the current corporate world. Or any corporate world. Or really, any world without the possibility of failure baked into it. I've seen a lot of idiotic decisions made at Google, many of which have been complained about on Hacker News, many more of which are hidden causes of thing…
I am not denying that corporate culture takes on a life of its own, and that the system's rationality and the participants are not closely linked. What I am asking is whether great places to work inevitable decay as the company gets large, and if that is the case, what is the point of a startup? Why not seek to make an idea that scales down rather than scales up? Is it all about personal wealth? But for those of us w…
What I am asking is whether great places to work inevitable decay as the company gets large
Odds are you will definitely lose that personal connection as you go from working for "the owner" to working for a manager that reports to a VP that reports to the CEO that reports to the Board that reports to the shareholders.
But what I've seen in a lot of these "leaving" posts isn't quite that... It's more of a "the king has no clothes" epiphany: They go to work at a place thinking it's a thing-in-itself then wake up one day and realize how the sausage is being made.
So GOOG isn't a post-grad research lab: It's a company that sells ads. So GS isn't the equivalent of a fee only financial planner.
They never were more than that.. only the people involved thought they were something more.
Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
#54"Why I left reddit" 'It changed man. The culture wasn't the same as when I joined five years ago.' These 'I said GOODBYE SIR!'s are interesting, but I'm not sure how much reliable information can be gleaned from them. What ever happened to not 'burning your bridges'? This is a resumé.
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Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
#55The gentleman era of investment banking is largely mythical. There was a long period where they were notably less scummy and cutthroat than other investment banks (compare: Salomon Brothers in the 1980s) but they were always an investment bank. The most visible (to a young person) sign of a bank's character is how it treats its employees. The 90+ hour weeks and terrible conditions in the "analyst" program (the term h…
> The most visible (to a young person) sign of a bank's character is how it treats its employees Character in a limited sense, but I don't know how much that translates into client satisfaction. Foxconn, Apple, and Disneyland come to mind. As a trader I officially had a 50 hour week. I stayed for 70+ hours because I found the work I was doing, at least initially, interesting (I was generally the last trader on the de…
Some start-ups have their employees working 90+ hours. This isn't because they're evil but because they have limited resources, a lot of work, and the people there are amazingly passionate about what they're doing.
Limited resources. That's why the long hours are not a sign of evil in startups but are one in banking. Banks could easily hire more people. Startups generally hire good people as soon as they can.
Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
FYI Executive Director at GS means the same thing as VP, which sounds much more impressive than it actually is. There are literally thousands of them. To put it another way, ED is a level up from Analyst. The real cheese begins at Managing Director -- which is the first level you don't reach through seniority, but through "skill" (or politicking!).
"Greg Smith is resigning today as a Goldman Sachs executive director and head of the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa." I could be wrong, but I don't think the number of positions heading business units across continents is that large.
There are an awful lot of Head Of X positions too. Often these have no-one reporting to them directly - they are more analogous to project managers.
Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Currently work at Google, obviously speaking for myself and not my employer. In my experience - yes, this moral decay is a necessary part of the current corporate world. Or any corporate world. Or really, any world without the possibility of failure baked into it. I've seen a lot of idiotic decisions made at Google, many of which have been complained about on Hacker News, many more of which are hidden causes of thing…
I really think that you're completely missing the point in defending Google and maybe Goldman Sachs by saying that their decisions are ok because they are made rationally. Rationality is emotionless and mechanical. It's about making a reasonable decision based on whatever information is available to you. However, rational decisions do not involve morals, culture, or feelings. This is exactly what companies like Googl…
Rationality doesn't necessarily exclude "morals, culture, or feelings". That would imply that having a rational discussion about culture, e.g. anthropology, is impossible.
Gus Levy, a former senior Goldman partner, coined the firm's then philosophy of being "long-term greedy". Taking image, "headline risk" in finance parlance, impact on recruiting, etc. into account is part of rational decision making.
What makes a seemingly terrible decision rational is usually that the time-frame invoked is too short. If a decision looks rational in the long-term but conflicts with our value system it generally means that our value system needs to be re-evaluated.
Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
#58So, Goldman used to be honest? They rated their own chapter in 'The Great Crash, 1929': http://storyoftheweek.loa.org/2010/10/in-goldman-sachs-we-tr...
Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Currently work at Google, obviously speaking for myself and not my employer. In my experience - yes, this moral decay is a necessary part of the current corporate world. Or any corporate world. Or really, any world without the possibility of failure baked into it. I've seen a lot of idiotic decisions made at Google, many of which have been complained about on Hacker News, many more of which are hidden causes of thing…
I am not denying that corporate culture takes on a life of its own, and that the system's rationality and the participants are not closely linked. What I am asking is whether great places to work inevitable decay as the company gets large, and if that is the case, what is the point of a startup? Why not seek to make an idea that scales down rather than scales up? Is it all about personal wealth? But for those of us w…
On philosophical theoretic grounds:
I believe that such "decay" processes are inevitable in the long run, following organizational growth as time goes by. Maybe in the advanced management theory someone has yet to formulate the laws/principles of corporate thermodynamics. (This is not my original thought, I've read it somewhere but can't remember the source).
On a more practical grounds, a few seeming counter examples:
- Virgin Group is a highly decentralized conglomerate of 300+ businesses all over the world and each of them is mostly autonomous (Though when you think of Virgin Group there is only one personality springing in mind - that of Richard Branson)
- Well, Apple, of course.. Though some say Apple of the 2000's after Steve Job's return is a different company entirely (in most of the aspects but those concerning mainly legal formalities around the corporate entity, its registration details, and logo design principles).
P.S.
So the point of a startup to a business is that of a birth and early childhood to a human.
Businesses (as functional organizations) and humans (as living beings) have ultimately the same fate in the end, though the time-scales differ.
Re: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The most visible (to a young person) sign of a bank's character is how it treats its employees Character in a limited sense, but I don't know how much that translates into client satisfaction. Foxconn, Apple, and Disneyland come to mind. As a trader I officially had a 50 hour week. I stayed for 70+ hours because I found the work I was doing, at least initially, interesting (I was generally the last trader on the de…
Some start-ups have their employees working 90+ hours. This isn't because they're evil but because they have limited resources, a lot of work, and the people there are amazingly passionate about what they're doing. Limited resources. That's why the long hours are not a sign of evil in startups but are one in banking. Banks could easily hire more people. Startups generally hire good people as soon as they can.
Whether they could is debatable given that many of them are aggressively trying to raise capital, even if it means laying off workers to cut costs. But let's assume they can.
That doesn't mean they should. Most bankers I knew were much more upset about losing their week-end beer fridge or a $5 reduction in their daily meal allowance than they were about putting in a few more hours. You have to remember that most analysts see their 2 years as an apprenticeship or finance boot camp - they want all the experience they can get so they have a gilded resume at the end of it.
I still don't see a good argument for judging firms where highly compensated employees with plenty of options work long hours, particularly when, as in banking, their tangible skill-set is relatively low.