Sour grapes or sour dough?

1) 12 years does not a career make 2) Goldman Sachs is in the business of making money, therefore focused on money. 3) Most big clients know what they are getting into, if they don't it's their bad 4) It takes more courage to be humble and work behind the scenes to make things better 5) He has not said he was himself working in the best interests of his clients, or did I miss something? 6) We will see if he has indeed committed career suicide. 7) I am not saying he should repay anything. It's for him to decide what to do with this dirty money.

The real issue is this: This guy is ugly. He looks like he has a lazy eye and possibly a touch of downs syndrome. So what kind of backwards institution would put him in the recruiting video? That alone is proof that Goldman has some serious internal problems. I'm voting sour grapes on that basis -- GS is clearly a shit show.

I've seen a lot of anti-Greg Smith posts lately. One constant has been the visceral and angry reaction from college students aspiring to work in banking to seasoned professionals. We act as though we've been slapped in the face when, in reality, the man is not worth our time.

I remember when everyone was up in arms when a kid left the swim team and switched schools after our coach did not put him on a state-qualifying relays and his parents said nasty things about the coach and the team. We called him and his parents failures. We found every excuse to make fun of him and his family. Sadly, this was par for the course for a group of angry 16-year-old kids. We were still highschoolers, and we foolishly let one kid's decision have an inordinate amount of sway over a team with dozens and dozens of kids on it.

As adults, we handle things differently. We say, "Ok, so it takes a couple fruits and nuts to make this business work." And we move on. Or "We're sorry Mr. Smith feels that way; we just disagree." It's not personal; it's just business, and Mr. Smith really isn't important enough to justify a huge kerfuffle on the industry's part.

We might be an industry filled with folks making six or seven figures, but we act like a bunch of whiny kids. Some dude hates Goldman and wrote an essay in the paper. Ok, so what does that have to do with the price of corn options?

stanford is not ivy league. where i comes from, it be a safety skool.

Unless you study STEM, in which case, Harvard and Yale guys are a bit of a joke. Princeton less so, but not quite up to par with Stanford.

Muppet

I just can't get over the fact of what he found so necessary to include in his public letter (his resume)... the guy just looks/seems like a douchenozzle

^^^ No, he just looks/seems like a typical New Yorker.

Diamond Lil:

12 years of pain and suffering is all you could take, you tell us. For crying out loud, even those who followed orders in WWII did it for less than twelve years.

Yeah.... Holocaust analogy is a bit of a stretch I'd say. I don't really see Blankfein as Hitler's counterpart.

Diamond Lil:

12 years of pain and suffering is all you could take, you tell us. For crying out loud, even those who followed orders in WWII did it for less than twelve years. You claim that this disrespect for your great clients is new? Give me a break! This has been going on for a long time, and well documented in many books, especially those published in the 80’s. Why does your departure seem so well timed to me?

I have worked for many financial institutions. I have ran trading rooms. As an Executive Director, I had a lot of leeway as to what spread to charge on a transaction, and I believe so did you. For 12 years, it was up to you to either walk away, or cut those spreads and do for your clients that which you say Goldman would not do. You had a choice. And you chose to follow orders. And I hope your clients know this.

Isn't it more common than not for most people to leave after even just 1-3 years? I don't doubt that the reasons he listed are at least partially the cause for finance's high turnover (even if hours/lifestyle's undoubtedly a more common one). The fact that he was there for 12 years is just the only reason people listened to his letter.

Plus, wasn't his whole point the fact that GS's culture has decayed since he joined? Yes, you can disagree with that point and say that it hasn't in your eyes, but that's a separate argument.

stanford is on par with columbia perhaps. it's not in the same league as HYP.

I'd rather go to Stanford than HYP... especially for engineering/comp sci

Diamond Lil:

You talk about your Ivy League education, the fact that you were picked out of 30,000 people to appear of the firm’s recruiting video, which is “played on every campus we visit around the world”. You talk about how you single handedly managed the summer intern program. You casually mention you managed an asset base of over one trillion dollars, including the “most prominent sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East, and two of the largest hedge funds ON THE PLANET. You tell us that you got a full scholarship to Stanford, you were a Rhodes Scholar finalist, and that you won a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah games in Israel. Really?

And then, you go on to speak about the lack of humility and integrity at Goldman Sachs.

It's called establishing credibility dumbass. Yes the ping-pong thing may have been a little overboard, but I don't see your problem with the rest of the stuff.

Wait, so you're claiming this guy is a fraud and a hypocrite because he didn't leave earlier? Give me a fucking break. First of all, you have no idea how this guy did his job (ie. whether or not he personally participated in the acts he considered immoral). Second off, whether or not he participated in these immoral acts is completely irrelevant. The point of his writeup wasn't to serve as some kind of egotistical public masturbation by boasting about his superior moral fiber, it was to expose to the world what the author considered the immoral practices going on at Goldman Sachs. If you don't agree that they are immoral, or that they were always going on at Goldman Sachs and that the guy is lying, then go ahead and argue that.

Diamond Lil:

It seems to be you have learned well the lessons you claim are the reasons for quitting your job: lack of humility and lack of moral fiber. Because if you had either one of those, you would have left your job quietly and humbly.

I couldn't agree less. The fuck are you talking about? How the hell would it have been morally superior of him to leave the job "quietly and humbly"? The whole point of the essay was to raise awareness, therefore putting public pressure on Goldman Sachs to fix the shady practices it was accused of practicing. If he had not said anything, then nothing would have changed.

I'm not sure why I wasted the past 10 minutes reading and respond to this.