IFR Editor-at-large Keith Mullin
… the way the global media chased the story like a gaggle of frenzied screeching teenagers and lost sight of some of the basic instincts that should suggest caution around angry people lashing out. Of course, there’s nothing like an anti-Goldman story to get the blood pumping.
I have a challenge to Greg Smith: if you feel so repulsed by the work you were doing, and by extension by the big money you were making, please get in touch and make a contribution to Save the Children
Why is everyone buying Smith’s line without question? Why is no-one second-guessing his agenda? Look: I don’t know Smith; nor have I ever worked for Goldman Sachs so have no way of really knowing what drove him or what drives the firm and how, if and what has changed over the past couple of years to the point where he couldn’t take it any more. I have no interest nor do I have anything to gain from defending either Goldman or Smith. That’s their respective responsibility.
So I come into this as a neutral open-minded observer but one who’s been made to feel pretty embarrassed by the, I guess, predictable response to the letter he knew would be jumped on in the way it was. His actions were cynical. All of the old clichés about Goldman have been trotted out; it’s all so yesterday. A lot of the stories that I’ve read could have been computer-generated.
Nothing different
Goldman Sachs doesn’t do anything intrinsically different to anyone else in global financial markets. It certainly sails the conflict lines very close to the wind; perhaps closer than many would be comfortable with. But in the industry, everyone wishes they could work there or emulate their success.
I recall meeting with a very senior banker from a rival firm – and I mean senior – who went through the usual paces of telling me how great his firm was and assuring me of his utmost commitment to furthering his firm’s interests etc, etc. I asked him: who, in an ideal world, he would most like to work for and between gritted teeth and in a quasi-whisper told me: Goldman Sachs.
For all I know – and for all anyone knows – Smith could have been lashing out because he got screwed on his bonus. He could have been lashing out because he never made managing director, and was left behind in the group of 12,000 executive directors that make up more than a third of all employees. I have no idea. But I don’t trust his motives without question.
In his 12 years at the firm, at what point did he figure that making money was a bad thing? And yes, off clients. (Who else is there?) He worked on the equity derivatives trading desk for god’s sake. Did he accept the bonuses he was offered year-in year-out, or did he figure that was a bad thing, too and hand them back? At what point did he propose to his boss that leaving money on the table was a sound proposition? In the cut-throat world of trading, any such lapse would have been jumped on by any number of competitors in a nano-second.
I have a challenge to Greg Smith: if you feel so repulsed by the work you were doing, and by extension by the big money you were making, please get in touch and make a contribution to Save the Children, for which IFR raises a significant amount of funds.
You won a table tennis bronze medal at the Maccabiah Games. Bat that one back.
