"Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s David Solomon vowed his firm would try harder to ensure junior bankers get at least one day off a week after a group of analysts raised an alarm about increasing burnout among the group."
Do y'all believe him?
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No, that's such a bullshit vow lmao
Literally the laziest thing he could've said.
lol they always say the same things when something like this comes up like what happened with Apollo recently and the 20hr days (also rip Leon Black stepping down). Reminds me of Rich Handler talking about the "great culture at Jefferies" when in fact he has no idea how badly the analysts get treated (likely doesn't care either). Also Solomon was furious when some junior employees came up to him during lunch over summer out in the Hamptons during a workday so as if anything will really change
Rich Handler's account is most likely run by his daughter to appear cool and hip to the finmeme account followers. "How do you do fellow kids?"
No, Rich's account is actually run by him.
Yes, it is actually that bad.
🐛🐛🐛
Did D-Sol actually get pissed when some juniors went up to him? Thats such a good look for the fearless leader of a multinational company smh
he's been using the story as his go to example of why WFH doesn't work and complains that junior employees are all running amok and not chained to their desks all day lol
My understanding of the story wasn't just that he was pissed that some junior employees "went up to him" he was just absolutely FURIOUS that they were having lunch at a nice restaurant during a workday and weren't chained to their desks waiting for the next "pls fix" emails. I saw numerous articles that he brings this up to people all the time as to why WFH isn't working. Nevermind that he himself was also having a leisurely lunch and takes the Goldman company jets away for personal vacations on weekends.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-14/goldman-ceo-s-year-o…
To me this speaks fucking volumes not only about DS but the general culture of GS.
DJ DSol is in the caribbean!
Yeah 100% agreed. For those who don't know, the "Hamptons incident" was when Solomon was out at a restaurant, he got approached by some GS juniors also out at having lunch. He then apparently proceeded to berate them and asked their superiors later to reprimand them, for being out at lunch during a workday (he apparently didn't see anything even slightly hypocritical with that approach).
Obviously I don't know anything about the guy personally, but from what I've read he seems like the stereotype of the out of touch banking MD - pretends to be "cool/hip" being a DJ, which really just means partying with his wealthy friends like Will.i.am in his super-wealthy Hollywood/celebrity bubble. Doing pointless virtue-signalling (praising the analysts for "raising their concerns") whilst doing nothing to change the internal banking culture, and actively encouraging it in fact.
I've met a lot of MDs just like this, and sadly they genuinely think they are "the good guys" because they occasionally write an email or make a speech on the importance of analysts speaking their mind/getting free time. When at the same time they will get analysts constantly working all through the weekend on a pitch that isn't even due until the middle of next week. These are obviously very intelligent guys to get to where they are, so frankly I'm amazed at their capacity for self-delusion (an innate human defense mechanism maybe - no person wants to think of themselves as the villain).
Was Lloyd Blankfein a better CEO compared to Solomon?
yes
Were the junior employees who approached him at the restaurant analysts or associates?
Associates apparently (at least according to Bloomberg)
he VOWS his firm will TRY HARDER to get his junior bankers OFF one day a week in the SEX DUNGEON at the 200 WEST basement to keep [Lloyd BIankfein] company
sex dungeons are in tribeca and midtown learn the canon
They did the bare minimum when analysts were jumping off roofs (literally). They'll do fuckall once again
Not sure when people are going to pick up on this scam of 'one protected weekend day' when the amount of work that needs to be done remains the same so you just reallocate the hours you would've worked on your protected day to the remainder of the week.
That's true only to a certain extent. I know for a fact if I didn't have protected Saturdays, my VPs would create more bullshit work that didn't need to get done, or ask to see things on Saturday and then not bothering reviewing till Sunday evening. Usually, if there is an actual need to work on Saturday, we will work on Saturdays.
Fair enough - can never account for the sociopathy factor I guess.
Typical post-MBA industry-exited VP smh
/s
But this is only half sarcasm. If you were never an analyst (not that I know OP was or was not), you would never realize the shit some VP's pull.
True, but a lot of people like the idea of one day per week completely off and not having to think at all about work
The amount of work doesn't remain the same, it simply expands (or contracts) to fill the time allotted. Especially true for an environment like IB where a meaningful portion of the work is unnecessary in the first place. The "scam" of the protected weekend is that at many places, it is rarely enforced.
See: Parkinson's Law
I bet it’ll be Saturday and not Sunday (Shabbat versus Lord’s Day)
Hoo boy.
I bet you're right lol
News came out, I was lol.
Also, in response to the other guy, “Christian raised” doesn’t mean you're practicing, just as “Jewish raised” doesn’t either. Sunday is the universal rest day for 99% of people in the western world.. if in the finance world people prefer saturdays, that says a lot about who calls the shots in this industry, am I right?
Literally like 95% of raised Christian analysts and associates would prefer Saturday off. Who the fuck cares about Sunday off.
"try harder" is no guarantee
Complete lie. This guy has already said he hates work from home (probably coming from a place that he thinks people are slacking), had the Hamptons incident where he got mad because his employees weren't tied to their desk, etc. Culture emanates from above
David Solomon straight up sucks
What's funny is that he's promising to give people what he already promised to give them.
"Sure, I'll make it better! What if we promise protected Saturdays? Crap... we already did that? Well, then let's renew the vow to give them protected Saturdays."
If you talk to any Goldman analyst and ask them what their Saturdays look like, it'll sound an awful lot like what most Saturdays are like at any other bank when you're not staffed on a live deal. Solomon is full of himself and he clearly doesn't care about the mental health of his junior employees - he just wants to appear caring to the media so he doesn't hurt the company's stock price.
but...but....he used to be a DJ so he must be hip!
At least he's not a square!
Haha what a hilarious load of lip service. The guy politicks his way up Goldman, and can’t even take some obvious steps to help out overworked, disengaged juniors without bitching of how those beneath him ruined his prestigious Hamptons lunch
Really disappointed by this reaction, especially since his own workforce already wrote solutions to rectify the problem. They are as follows (note, the last one is already an existing policy as others have pointed out):
I dont belive that you are in investment banking.
Elaborate?
Honestly, the only one of these that can ever be enforced is a max hours per week, and even so people would be pressured to underreport. The other stuff will never fly with MDs...you aren't going to tell a rainmaker he can't schedule a meeting a few days in advance, and pencils down 12 hours before the meeting is a nice idea but if something "needs" to get changed it will. It doesn't always make sense to meet "ASAP" after a meeting is scheduled if everyone is busy on a live deal. I see these more as suggestions to improve the culture but D Sol could never make these guidelines mandatory
Yeah, they couldn't be enforced as written, but the underlying concepts behind the problems they are supposed to address, can't be solved by a Saturday policy.
ASAP literally means as soon as possible. As possible is the keyword here. Seems like people in finance usually forget that bit.
bla bla bla fucking bullshit fuck off
never liked DSol. comes off as a total birchbox. Blankfein I had a lot of respect for.
No one in the industry will believe this bullshit of a lie because everyone in the industry knows that’s not how things are done in IBD. It’s easily a lazy statement from him to save face in the media because they clearly don’t know the work that analysts have to do on a day-to-day basis.
Nothing will change whatsoever as long as for each analyst that does not like the conditions, there will be 100 others (if not in EU/US, then in China/India for sure) that will take the job immediately.
I disagree. IBD is already seeing issues with securing top talent vis a vis MBB and, now, Big Tech. Sure IBDs can go pick up their pick of the lot of mouthbreathers from Long Island U or whatever, but that'd only hurt themselves in the long run, especially when it comes to cultivating future MDs and not just excel monkeys.
And yet, with more competition from big tech for top talent than ever before, life for investment bankers has gotten even worse. There's just a little too wishing in this response.
Lol just dug up a 2018 article about D-Sol telling analysts to go home early if he thought they were working too hard.
This reaction is the equivalent of "don't stay up all night working on this but please have finished by 8am, thx"
Further evidence that investment banking is a Ponzi scheme / scam career.
'Try' is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence
Funniest shyt ever
There has to be proactive hiring to support this statement. As far as I am aware they hire 1 person to do the work of 1.5-2 people and pay them higher than industry salaries. That is their model and most people are attracted by the salary. Unless they fix this fundamental level thing, you cannot expect culture to change overnight. Hire 3 people when you need only 2, this way your employees will have some breathing space. Also it gives a chance for employees to innovate.
Unionize
Imagine busting your ass for 20 years or so before you finally get to rest and just hangout as a senior member then some kids mouth out on new online platforms and suddenly want that privilege immediately in their first few years. Yeah, aint shit changing lololololol
They have been saying they would ease up on hours for junior bankers for years. I read the same thing in 2013.
A lot of what I hear on the news is that this was from a TMT group and this spike of work was due to SPAC boom. How true is that?
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