Why I Left Goldman Sachs: A Wall Street Story

by Greg Smith

An insightful and devastating account of how Wall Street lost its way from an insider who experienced the culture of Goldman Sachs first-hand.

On March 14, 2012, more than three million people read Greg Smith's bombshell Op-Ed in the New York Times titled "Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs." The column immediately went viral, became a worldwide trending topic on Twitter, and drew passionate responses from former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, legendary General Electric CEO Jack Welch, and New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg. Mostly, though, it hit a nerve among the general public who question the role of Wall Street in society -- and the callous "take-the-money-and-run" mentality that brought the world economy to its knees a few short years ago. Smith now picks up where his Op-Ed left off.

His story begins in the summer of 2000, when an idealistic 21-year-old arrives as an intern at Goldman Sachs and learns about the firm's Business Principle #1: Our clients' interests always come first. This remains Smith's mantra as he rises from intern to analyst to sales trader, with clients controlling assets of more than a trillion dollars.

From the shenanigans of his summer internship during the technology bubble to Las Vegas hot tubs and the excesses of the real estate boom; from the career lifeline he received from an NFL Hall of Famer during the bear market to the day Warren Buffett came to save Goldman Sachs from extinction-Smith will take the reader on his personal journey through the firm, and bring us inside the world's most powerful bank.

Smith describes in page-turning detail how the most storied investment bank on Wall Street went from taking iconic companies like Ford, Sears, and Microsoft public to becoming a "vampire squid" that referred to its clients as "muppets" and paid the government a record half-billion dollars to settle SEC charges. He shows the evolution of Wall Street into an industry riddled with conflicts of interest and a profit-at-all-costs a perfectly rigged game at the expense of the economy and the society at large.

After conversations with nine Goldman Sachs partners over a twelve-month period proved fruitless, Smith came to believe that the only way the system would ever change was for an insider to finally speak out publicly. He walked away from his career and took matters into his own hands. This is his story.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Finance, Economics, Biography, Memoir, Biography Memoir

380 pages, Paperback

First published October 24, 2010

About the author

There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This one is Greg^^^Smith.

Reviews

[Yan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is terrible. A quick summary would read like this:
I did really, really good in school and got into Stanford.
I did really, really well at Stanford and worked really, really hard and got an internship at Goldman
I worked really, really hard at Goldman and got promoted.
I worked really, really hard at Goldman, aligned myself with the right people and got promoted again.
I kept working really really hard... and aligning my self with the right people, and I didn't really like where the industry was going, so i resigned in the NY Times.

[Daniel Clausen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I sometimes read business books as a way of getting a business education on the cheap. This is a book I picked up for 100 yen and decided to read on a whim. And what an investment! (No pun intended).

I finished it in three days on the bus to work. The book is a fantastic read for anyone who is about to begin their career or who is interested in working in finance. The book is an honest and plainly written look at a career in the making. Though the book also tells the story of the decimation of Goldman Sach's legendary client-oriented culture and the degradation of fiduciary responsibility on Wall Street, I think the book works best as the memoir of a young professional.

In many ways, I think these stories mid-level professionals -- the non-Steve Jobs of the world -- are more important than big name biographies because they point to how normal people struggle with the conflict between career advancement and staying true to values.

Well done, Mr. Smith.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book evoked nostalgia for me. As a senior at Princeton I remember having received my offer from Goldman Sachs and not knowing what doors the opportunity would open but knowing full well that I would embark on the next phase of my journey with the firm. My pathway mirrored Greg Smith's in some ways - we both worked in the securities division - he in sales and I in trading. And many of the firm's characteristics I could relate to. And I recognize Greg's frustration. But Greg's frustration ultimately comes down to who he is as a person - and in some ways reminds me of some of the problems I have faced in my own career. Greg, ultimately, does not care about his function as a financial intermediary as it aligns with the firm's own interest, which is maximizing the firm's value to its owners and constituents. Ultimately, Greg cared about idea generation and content. How else to explain his desire for a Rhodes Scholarship while at Goldman Sachs? How else to describe his relentless pursuit of excellence in his writing and communication of ideas internally? The gross credits and compensation served as yardsticks of his performance, and his competitive drive propelled him to excel. Both those formed his extrinsic motivators. Intrinsically, the ideas and panoply of the securities and trading business appealed to him and serving as the nexus of the flow as an equity derivatives salesperson at Goldman Sachs represented the apotheosis of his achievement. Ultimately, his own intrinsic goals conflicted with the firms intrinsic goals as they had for many years, but only came to the fore after a decade at the firm.

Smith's main critique - that the firm lost its noble pursuit of serving its clients in favor of serving itself - feels vapid and trite. Most for-profit corporations strive to maximize profit for their owners constrained by legal and ethical guidelines. If Goldman - or any other firm - truly wished to serve its clients and held that as its utmost goal, a potential course of action would have been to transfer all of the retained earnings of the firm to its clients to operate in such a manner to continue functioning but without enriching its own owners. Goldman had never done this, no company does this today, and no for-profit company should be expected to do this. Smith feels frustrated, and I empathize; but I don't sympathize. He was never meant to generate wealth for Goldman Sachs because that was not his ultimate concern.

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Despite the largely mediocre reception this book received, I was nonetheless exited to read it. I thought that Smith was brave to do what he did. My usage of the term 'brave' is contextual; ultimately, I don’t allocate much of my empathy to a man whose primary interest for the time period depicted in the book was receiving an annual $1mil bonus. However, any criticism of Smith runs the very real risk of holding him to a standard that no other Wall Street executive is held to. I’ll concede that there is value here in what appears to me to be a genuine attempt represent the organizational dynamics of Goldman Sachs. I agree with another reviewer who holds that the book is best viewed as a memoir of a young professional; I think new graduates in particular will benefit from this. Unfortunately, the book's value for me really ends there.

Fundamentally, the book just isn't worth the space it consumes. For starters, it’s hampered by a lack of clarity around the intended audience. The prose is nowhere near lucid enough for laypeople to get any grasp of the complexities of the US financial system, yet Smith (or his editor) makes sporadic half-hearted feints towards explaining the terminology that someone within the industry wouldn’t require. These attempts are not in any way grounded with the key knowledge that would be required for the layperson, nor are they even consistently provided throughout the text. It's a massive indictment of this book that its author emphasizes the values of communication and the generation of original content repeatedly; these areas are precisely where Why I Left Goldman Sachs fails.

The text's hagiographic leanings are poorly disguised. The prose is written in an affected, blandly neutral tone in what I assume to be an attempt to pre-empt criticism that Smith’s departure was driven by much more base emotions following the author’s comparative lack of career success. If I’m correct, his attempt is unsuccessful. The book is literally all personal anecdote. I'm not even necessarily opposed to that – there is the potential to be mine biographic experience quite fruitfully, but this book doesn't hit any of it. The text is strongly misallocated in tone and real estate; the reader treks through pages and pages of bland mythologizing, personal biography and trite office gossip. We’re treated to endless onanistic yapping about some bloody emails that Smith wrote to his clients, and how this made him a superior employee. I get that the test results that Greg Smith achieved on 13 July 2001 and the time he reckons he almost trounced someone at ping pong is important to him. What I don't think he understands is that it's not important to anyone else. The book was obviously written to capture the attention that Smith received in the wake of his 2012 New York Times op-ed, but perhaps the haste in which it was produced resulted in such a decidedly subpar product.

In one completely unironic aside, he recounts his outrage at Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi's description of Goldman Sachs as 'vampire squids' although he doesn’t in any way inspect this reaction, or try to consider why some of the public might be sympathetic to it. Smith seems to fail to understand that Taibbi is one of the few journalists who translated the drivers of the Global Financial Crisis in 2009 to the public (I would strongly recommend any reader who is looking to understand this matter consider Tabbi’s work). In the epilogue, which is just about the only time that Smith gets anywhere close to mentioning the ideological purity that allegedly spurred his titular departure, he proudly proclaims that that is he is capitalist. I don’t think he bothered to find out that Taibbi, who was based in the Soviet Empire as it fell, is one as well.

We do not hear about Goldman Sachs’ involvement in the Great Depression, the dot-com boom, the subprime mortgage crisis, or the 2008-9 energy crisis. Smith does not bother to refute the arguments that Goldman’s critics have levelled; in fact, these arguments simply don’t merit any consideration, discussion or mention at all (beyond the aforementioned outrage that Tabbi’s article provoked). Furthermore, for all his bravado and bluster, Smith is at pains to repeatedly claim that Goldman Sachs were unlike other Wall Street firms, that for really reals did some bad stuff.

In the years following the publication of this book, we’ve had the chance to find out more about Goldman Sachs through the gradual release of information regarding their involvement in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal and the Greek national crisis. Any member of the public would be better informed by any news article detailing these scandals than Smith’s book, which repeatedly insists that the organisation did nothing wrong. Smith doesn’t bother to provide any explanation as to why they did nothing wrong, but we’re assured that they didn’t. I am not being hyperbolic when I say this explanation is completely absent. Just about the best reason he offers for his resignation is that the London office refers to its clients as ‘muppets’, which is allegedly a microcosm of its deterioration at large.

If anything, Smith’s myopia and narcissism is, in and of itself, much more telling about the nature of investment banking than this book could hope to be. It is a genuine and deep-seated lack of respect for the public that causes a former Wall Street exec to release a general interest book a mere four years after the Global Financial Crisis plunged markets globally into collapse, and not to bother to engage with it.

It’s a symbol of the poor state of discourse that Rolling Stone is left to produce some of the most lucid and accessible analyses of Wall Street firms for the public. Go read that instead of this – Smith certainly doesn’t deserve any more of your money.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this is a story of a young man’s career in finance, it is also documentation of change in organizational culture in a premier American institution. It may be a representation of what happened on Wall Street in a brief 12 years.

Greg Smith had served as a GS intern and was thrilled to be among those selected for employment. He described the extensive training program, the long days, the Open Meetings, his peer group, the dress code and licensing tests (& how he took his on Sept 11, 2001). Smith recognized how his mentors conveyed GS’s Number 1 Principle: the client come first. He was proud of Goldman, its mission, its research capabilities and the long term relationships it nurtured.

Through the description of his experience you learn how things work at Goldman, about trading, the hierarchy, the international reach, the career paths, and the personalities of traders, VPs, partners, and “quants”. He clearly describes complex financial instruments, how the hand signals work in the Chicago futures markets, how clients are courted and ranked and how mentors are found. He describes his life which may be typical of the life of a young and rising financial professional. He hunts apartments, dates and almost marries, connects and reconnects with friends from college; he has family ties in the US and abroad.

2008 was a bad year for financial markets. Risk takers had essentially destroyed their own firms (Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch) and clients wanted to know if Goldman was next. Trading wasn’t as lucrative and the pressure was enormous. As layoffs began, GS managers and traders sought work In more stable sectors of the company, leaving others behind and some out of a job. Those who produced $ became more prominent than those who put the client first.

Smith shows how the firm began selling junk and trading against long term clients. Everyone was looking for the “elephant trade” (yielding $1 million for GS) and sometimes that requires selling out a GS client: a pension fund, sovereign wealth fund, a bank or a wealthy individual, which has wide-spread effects (bank clients, retirees and future retirees, Greece, US mortgage holders, etc.). Smith shows how this affected the people who remained at GS whom he had known over the years. Some embraced the golden goose, others who preferred the former culture went along. Not too many stepped outside like Greg Smith.

He takes you through GS's Henry Paulson as Treasury Secretary, the hearings, the bailouts. the minimal fine and the the GS internal review.

If you have an important story to tell, and wonder how to get it into the New York Times, Smith shows you how to do it. This is a epic in and of itself.

The book is substantive and readable. Because this it defines an era like no other piece of writing I know of, it may become a classic.

[Paul Sharpe · Rating 3 out of 5]

First up, books like this are important. We need more insiders to come out and tell those of us on the outside what happened internally and why the markets crashed. We do need courageous people like this to speak out and explain to those of us deeply affected by the decisions of the elite few, exactly what happened and exactly how they managed to tank the markets and the economy in 2008. Also, they need to explain why we are still poised on the brink (with sovereign debt in the US and Europe still a major concern). So I commend Mr. Smith for his courage in coming out and sharing his experiences with the world.

Second, he does give an interesting perspective on how Goldman Sachs changed from an investment bank into a hedge fund and how they shifted their strategy from caring about the customer to caring about their own margins. He outlines the difference between the way clients were treated after 9/11 and the 2008 meltdown. He argues that after 9/11 Goldman Sachs was willing to take the hits to their own profit margin and cared more about the client than their own P/L statement, whereas after the 2008 meltdown senior people at GS were only concerned about their P/L and were willing to sacrifice relationships and reputation to protect their margins. He also discusses in summary the many difficulties with the highly complex derivative products that were sold to clients without the clients fully understanding the products. He also argues that there were certain gullible customers that Goldman targeted and (by implication) preyed upon to boost their own revenues even though they knew that some of the products were not good for the client.

These behaviors do need to be exposed and I do commend Mr. Smith on having the courage to do this. I am sure that writing this book (and the original editorial) must have been difficult for Mr. Smith and I am sure he burned many bridges and compromised many relationships by trying to bring out the truth of what was behind the strategies that effected the world economy in such a drastic way. That said, I do have some issues with the book and things Mr. Smith writes about.

While I do think books like this do need to written, they need to be analytical and rigorous and spend time explaining to people exactly what caused the meltdown and exactly what was going on. Mr. Smith does do this to some degree but wastes a lot of time and space on inane, mind numbing details that don't really contribute to the conversation at all. I mean is the canteen crisis in the new Goldman building really adding to the conversation? Does a description of the banning of all participation from the Goldman gym really need to be told (apart from telling us that these are entitled, spoiled grown ups). Do we really need to know that when he had certain important conversations he was standing behind a urinal? These types of inane subjects just seem to be space fillers and do not contribute much to the conversation of the financial crisis and the moral bankruptcy of the investment bank culture.

Also, Mr. Smith's own self promotion seems to be at odds with the humility he is trying to project: I was the best table tennis player, I only ever made one mistake on the futures desk, I started to write summaries and was highly commended for them. Stuff like this seems to be self serving and self promoting in some ways and is a display of false humility (intended or not). I have no doubt that Mr. Smith is a smart man. I have no doubt he worked hard and the success that followed him was in no doubt because of his hard work and determination, but this type of self promotion is completely unnecessary. Also, his complete sense of privilege is also shown by his "subway stories." He lived an entitled, privileged life and yet seemed to think taking the subway was a sacrifice rather than the day-to-day existence of most normal people.

The other disturbing feature about the book is how he was only concerned about HIS career, HIS future, HIS finances and HIS family during the crisis. I must say this is very honest, but very disturbing. I personally knew many people outside the finance sector who had nothing to do with investment banking who showed more care and concern for the long term effects this crisis was going to have on everyone, and did not think only about their own well being. Mr. Smith earning upward of USD200k a year from his early twenties should have worked harder at securing his financial future through saving and living a more normal life.

The last area that really disturbed me about the book was that Mr. Smith tries to come across as an innocent victim in the whole financial collapse. He comes across as someone completely ignorant of what was going on and tries to present himself as a wide eyed innocent, but I simply reject this. Yes, I know he cannot be guilty by association with those who did tank the market and those who did design dangerous derivative products, but I cannot believe he was completely surprised by the collapse. Once again I personally knew a few people in corporate finance that were predicting the meltdown and there were many others who were predicting the sub-prime mortgage crisis before the meltdown happened. Did Mr. Smith really have his head so deep in the sand that he could not see the impending crisis?

All in all this long, protracted resignation letter is an interesting read, but not a compelling one. I do commend Mr. Smith for taking the time to do it but I do hope further efforts will be more revealing, perhaps something along the lines of Andrew Sheng's "From Asian to Global Financial Crisis". I am sure Mr. Smith will find a new and prosperous career somewhere on Wall Street and I do wish him well in the future, but I did find his long resignation letter a little too self serving and tedious.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a thoughtful, honest, and engaging read about a world I don't know about, nor plan to know about intimately. Smith's story is clear and easy to understand for for financially illiterate people, which I very much appreciated.

I think that this books requires an open mind in order for it to be appreciated. I looked at some of the negative reviews and those reviewers read this book with a predetermined hate for Wall Street, which defeats the purpose of the book. (In fact, those people are the ones who should be giving the book a positive review since this book speaks out against the immoral practices of Wall Street.)

The poor reviews are probably because the title is a bit misleading. This book is NOT a controversial expose of Goldman Sachs. Smith walks the reader through his entire experience of Goldman Sachs starting with the internship. He brings the reader with him in his journey with the firm, sharing his young enthusiasm as it slowly turns into anxious discontent.

Yes, this is much more a biography than an op-ed, but I think that his message against Wall Street requires the entire background story for it to be justified.

This book won't be considered one of my all-time favorite books, but I want to give it five stars nevertheless because I want to make up for some unfair reviews. Once the purpose of this book is understood, it is quite the enjoyable read.

[Philip Clark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, it wasn't the schadenfreude cum finger-pointing telling all that everyone hoped for after readying Greg's blistering op-ed in the Times. Replete with useless anecdotes about his girlfriend, parties, etc., the book ends up embodying the very thing that people dislike about Goldman and Wall Street: a highly privileged person sells you something that doesn't end up having the value you thought it would; you're left frustrated, and they make gobs of money.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was going to be a cynical account of Greg's time at Goldman and an expose of corruption, but it was a very insightful look into what made Goldman Sachs great, and how that got lost along the way. I detected no bitterness or anger, but mostly an almost idealistic longing for Goldman to return to the purer pre-IPO days.

[Fred Forbes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evidently when my sister gifted me this book, she assumed I would be interested in the upper echelons of the financial services industry where Goldman Sachs has long reined supreme. Greg Smith tells of his years there and the change in their culture in his not so humble opinion, from trusted client servants to rapacious rip-off artists as the world went through the meltdown and turmoil of the great recession. I originally got into the financial services field 35 years ago when I discovered the Certified Financial Planner designation and studied to become a practitioner as I felt clients really needed someone on their side of the table when dealing with investment and insurance firms and have enjoyed the career and am not surprised at his conclusions. One thing it drives home is that from a financial product perspective, the simpler the design, the more transparent the costs, and the easier it is to understand, the better it is for the consumer. If you are being pitched something that does not fit those criteria, run!

[Kiridaren Jayakumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book depicting how stressful and how ill can a job be, the author gave us a sneak peek into the life of a worker in Goldman Sachs,his life and struggles and so on.

In Malaysia, we have a few bank employees or fund managers like Izzuddin Yussof who left their job, however they have probably set passive incomes aside before they leave.

This book hits me directly as showing my personal choice was taken and how I'm going to utilise it now.

This book is sold, I highly recommend you guys to get this. Especially for those who are sick of their jobs and want a new life landscape.

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely brain dead read

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

In March last year, Greg Smith published an article in the New York Times that outlined why he felt he could no longer work at Goldman Sachs. It went viral, becoming a trending topic on Twitter and there was even mention of it here in our own local newspaper. I remember it vividly because at the time I was deeply impressed - it is seldom that you see or hear of someone with this level of personal integrity. Smith’s article revealed the unsettling changes within his organisation, his growing disenchantment with Goldman’s corporate culture, and ultimately, his reasons for walking away from a lucrative career in investment banking.

‘Why I left Goldman Sachs’ enlarges on that article, describing Smith’s career – from his early days in 2000 as an intern, to the Spring of 2012 when he resigned as head of Goldman Sachs’ US Equity Derivatives Sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It covers a turbulent period in time - from the 9/11 terrorist attacks to the 2008 global financial crunch and the subsequent recession.

Smith relates how, as he saw it, Goldman Sachs went from an organisation that had 14 Principles to describe its fiduciary responsibilities towards its clients, to a cut-throat industry where the clients were ‘muppets’ and all that mattered were the GCs (gross credits – the term used for how much revenue each sales person was bringing into the firm from each client).

‘Why I left Goldman Sachs’ is a compelling read, giving a great insight into the workings of the finance industry and Wall Street, as well as a bit of inside information about the current state of the World. Although a newbie to the concepts of hedge funds, derivatives, and futures etc., I found the book highly readable and a frankly, bit of an eye-opener. Thankfully a glossary of terms is provided, because there were quite a few unfamiliar words and phrases in the book – one being Proprietary Trading, which I got a little mixed up with Insider Trading. But of course you can go to prison for Insider Trading. Anyway have a read, see what you think – I’m sure you will gain a few insights too.

[Utkarsh Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great account of the author's (and the company's) journey as he joins GS as a Stanford graduate and climbs the rungs of corporate ladder, his fascination and awe of the GS culture and principles, and the eventual disillusionment as the company's and its people's fundamental priorities undergo a change. The narrative doesn't get boring at any point, I finished the book in couple of days. A great read for everybody who wishes to know more about the company.

[Shrut Patel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very succinct introduction into the transition that many trading floors went through between the late '90s and today. The author is very evidently biased towards his views which deters from the effectiveness of the book, however an enjoyable read nonetheless.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cautionary tale!

[Priyam Roy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I honestly went into this book with almost zero expectations, and I was still somehow let down. The author is clearly a narcissistic toolbag, he misses no opportunity to reflect on his own self-worth and praise himself. If you take this book seriously, Greg Smith is the perfect employee, the perfect student, the smartest person in the room who is unable to ever make mistakes, and the best ping pong player in the world (lol I'm serious). I grew tired very quickly of Smith continuously banging his own drum and separating himself from his colleagues. He's also dimly nationalistic, at one point he attempts to justify the Iraq war, so clearly, sound decision making and intelligence aren't his fortes.

Everyone knows Goldman Sachs' role in defrauding the public of their money and being a strong player in the Great Depression. Reading the title of the book, you would expect their brutal disrespect for their clients and their role in literally causing millions of people to lose their homes to be the reason why Smith left the firm. You'd be wrong. Instead, Smith glosses over all of their criminal wrongdoings. The 2008 recession isn't even a major theme in the book, it's a minor hurdle at best, and Smith actually believes that Goldman was somehow better than all the other banks in that regard. Rather than just being plainly wrong, Smith also chooses to leave the firm because he finds out that some employees in the London office refer to their clients as "muppets". That was where Greg Smith drew the line. How dare they disrespect clients in this manner? Defraud them all you will, steal their money and their properties, use their taxpayer bailouts to increase executive bonuses but *never* refer to them as muppets.

This book is shit, I hope I saved at least one person the trouble of having to read it.

[Skye · Rating 1 out of 5]

I grew tired of the book prior to reaching its main idea. It is about time for someone working in Wall Street to produce an exposé that truly deserves the title, rather than merely being advertised as such.

Why l left GS gives the impression of a highfalutin autobiography, with the main topic only being introduced on the last 20% of the book, let alone the op-ed being far from earth shattering. The first 80% on the 10 years of his tenure from an intern to a middling employee is informative at most, and adds no value to the so-what factor.

To sum up, the reason behind his departure is set against the backdrop of the SEC investigation on GS' sale of CDOs in 2010. Greg discovers that clients mistrust GS, yet they still continue to work with them because of the long-standing and reputable relationships. Meanwhile, teamwork has gone out the window as sales are constantly promoting products with high gross credits (the yardstick for their bonuses)/ margins, when GS itself doesn't even think it's a good investment and trades with the proprietary strategy on the reverse position - colleagues are now more focused on generating profits, which conflicts with the notion that the financial industry should be driven by client needs (fiduciary duty). One aspect that struck Smith is how openly this attitude is displayed, and is contradictory to what he believed the industry once stood for. He deems that to build a client case, sales needed to establish genuine relationships, not exploit unsuspecting individuals.

[Marko Mekjavić · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic introduction to the World of finance - Greg takes you on the journey into the heart of most prominent financial institutions and shares his perspective from the other side of the table, from the highs of the internet bubble, to the lows of 2008 housing crisis and European melt-down in 2012. The book provides marvellous explanation of the roles Investment Banks had played / play / and will play - from taking their clients' interest to heart to now forgetting and abolishing their fiduciary responsibilities. It personally helped me connect the much dispersed dots regarding the roles of mutual wealth funds, hedge funds and other institutions in today's World of finance.
The realisation how moms and pops money is being constantly endangered due to asymmetric information system where the banks can initiate proprietary bets at their clients' expense is unpleasant but most certainly vital.

[Monzenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shelve this under the "the industry was so good back then" section of Wall Street books. Not to say this is incorrect, but for a book that is supposed to be about the loss of culture in the industry, it sure did spend a lot of time to cushion the blow, such that a statement such as "banks on their core are/can still be good" would still fit a scathing book such as this. Still, the details are notable, the connection from the tech bubble to the global financial crisis to the European sovereign debt crisis, was interesting. It was even able to loop in the Facebook IPO, sort of an apropos ender to a story that started with a tech bubble. The narrative could have been tighter, but the information is still great to read.

[Kalle Wescott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read /Why I Left Goldman Sachs: A Wall Street Story/, by Greg Smith:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100008...

South African Stanford grad Greg Smith interned at Goldman Sachs while in college, and then joined the firm upon graduation.

He eventually wrote an op-ed piece about why he was disillusioned with the firm and quit.

Essentially, Smith highlights Goldman's practices of selling axes to its whales (which @ Goldman they call muppets).

The best part of the book (from my viewpoint) detailed what it's like to be an intern for a summer at Goldman, because that information is not freely available anywhere.

[Csparrenberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting book. What appealed to me was how he dealt with the corporate politics. Anyone who has ever worked for a large company will immediately relate to the multiple bosses and politics of trying to advance in the corporate world. Oh, and how to position yourself to remain employed when the layoffs start because business is down through no fault of your own.

[Inga · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Solid book, relatively well written, about one man's experience and career at Goldman Sachs on Wall Street. I (a total novice when it comes to finance) learned a lot about the industry, the jobs people do there, and how firms are run. It was also interesting to read an insider's view of the 2008 financial crisis. The writing is nothing special, but the book held my attention and for the most part I followed necessary explanations of financial jargon.

[D.T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was assigned to read this for Business Law & Ethics.

Not bad though there is A LOT of filler, and, surprisingly, his NY Times op-ed is not included. But I liked how simple financial terms and Goldman Sachs practices were described.

[Jacques Estola · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Experience shows that if we serve our clients well, our own success will follow. "

Pumped me up at work.

[Jack Oughton · Rating 4 out of 5]

More fascinating insights into life inside one of the main drivers of the financial machine

[Jon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read Mr. Smith's NY Times Op-Ed, I looked forward to reading his experience in detail through this book. Unfortunately, I have been left ultimately disappointed as the book is light on details. No investigation as to where the turning point in the culture was, no explanation why he went along for the profitable ride for so long and how Goldman even justified its actions (could it?).

That said, there are certain demographics who should pick up this book. The first are aspiring bankers and finance students. There is much to learn from an insider within what remains as the flagship institution within the industry. The second are executives under pressure from shareholders to maximize short-term profits. Mr. Smith reminds us that profits over people can only run for so long and the damage on reputation will far outweigh any immediate rewards. Finally, the investment community may need to refresh themselves that there is more to growth and rewards than the latest quarterly statement and profitability ratios. There are soft aspects to companies and their culture; and perhaps these may need to be evaluated better in the future.

Why I Left Goldman Sachs: A Wall Street Story is book #6 of (hopefully) 52 books in 2013. While I won't review or comment on each book, I plan to continue sharing what I gain when possible. I hope we'll all continue to learn and grow in 2013!

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trying to learn, albeit later in life, what the world of investing is all about, I listened to Jack Bogle's Little Book of Common Sense on Investing -- twice. After that as introduction, I thought I'd give Greg Smith's audiobook a hearing as a follow-up. Why I Left Goldman Sachs turned out to be a very complementary companion read. The story is autobiographical, told by a gifted, recently graduated (Stanford, circa 2000), covering his 10+ years with GS.

Smith is quite candid about both what inspired him in the early years and what soured him in the later ones. There are many other accounts critical of Wall Street's unethical and even illegal activities, especially during the past decade. I found Smith's take on it more accessible. He writes in relatively simple English, calls it as he sees it, but with the understanding, experience and authority that derives from one who was truly an "insider," privy to the inner workings of the system.

A bonus of hearing the book on audio: it is read by the author himself, who hails from South Africa and speaks with an interesting, sort of "soft" British accent. But it's not just the accent. He writes with the fresh perspective of a young foreigner who falls in love with the United States, who is genuinely grateful for the opportunities he receives, and who remains a firm believer in the promise of America and of capitalism. In the end, it took some courage, I'm sure, to leave GS, "kicking the dust from his sandals," as it were. By the time he left in 2012, he was earning a high six-figure salary. All the more credibility to his story, at least to this reader/listener.

[Df · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read this book thoroughly three times and would like to premise my review by saying that I am interested personally in the success story of Goldman Sachs and the aura surrounding the firm. However, I have no personal connection with Greg Smith or his former employer.

I have read so many reviews of the book where people state that Greg Smith "fails to provide specific examples" in the book. I want to address this comment only and the reviewers and interviewers that continually harp on about this specific issue. For these people I want to answer your question with one word, legality. Sure, Greg Smith could have published the real names of co-workers in the book or specific examples of derivatives that he chose not to sell to his client. However this would constitute as defamation and would breach confidentiality agreements that Greg would have with his previous employer. You absolute fools.

To my second point, I am concerned about the whereabouts of Greg Smith. What is he doing now? Where is he working? What does the future hold?

To Greg Smith, congratulations on the book. I am from Australia and read your book whilst I was interviewing for summer internships in investment banks. As a result of your story and those of some relatives of mine, I am now pursuing a Medical degree, MD.

Congrats again man. Keep writing. I hope to see you lecturing at Stanford one day, or Goldman Sachs on business ethics. HA, wouldn't that be ironic. Peace.

[Erwin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Made it 75% of the way through, but this book was terrible... Yan (another reviewer here) wrote:

A quick summary would read like this:
I did really, really good in school and got into Stanford.
I did really, really well at Stanford and worked really, really hard and got an internship at Goldman
I worked really, really hard at Goldman and got promoted.
I worked really, really hard at Goldman, aligned myself with the right people and got promoted again.
I kept working really really hard... and aligning my self with the right people, and I didn't really like where the industry was going, so i resigned in the NY Times.

Completely agree... This book was a self serving waste of time.