A massive new history of Goldman Sachs fails to ask serious, important questions about the firm, says Nomi Prins-and just continues a troubling trend of adulation.
I started at Goldman Sachs after a nine-month interview process. A few months later, I got some advice from a former partner, who then ran the mortgage department: "Don't worry about how much time you spend with clients. If you want to do well here, remember that senior management are your real clients."
Related story on The Daily Beast: The Beginning of History
That's the firm I knew, and unfortunately for all us, seems to be the reporting strategy that William Cohan pursued in churning out his new Goldman history, Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World, that pulls off the seemingly difficult feat of being both incredibly windy and exhausting (nearly 700 pages!) yet completely non-illuminating.
Cohan heavily touts his access to the big boys.
I started at Goldman Sachs after a nine-month interview process. A few months later, I got some advice from a former partner, who then ran the mortgage department: "Don't worry about how much time you spend with clients. If you want to do well here, remember that senior management are your real clients."
Related story on The Daily Beast: The Beginning of History
That's the firm I knew, and unfortunately for all us, seems to be the reporting strategy that William Cohan pursued in churning out his new Goldman history, Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World, that pulls off the seemingly difficult feat of being both incredibly windy and exhausting (nearly 700 pages!) yet completely non-illuminating.
Cohan heavily touts his access to the big boys.
- 4/25/2011
- by Nomi Prins
- The Daily Beast
This has to be the best detail from the emails published as exhibits for the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations hearing on Goldman Sachs. (The “Timberwolf C.D.O. squared” refers to a hybrid cash/synthetic collateralized debt obligation Goldman Sachs derived from other mortgage-backed securities, naturally.) A senior executive in Goldman Sachs sales expressed concern about what representations might be made to clients about the Timberwolf Cdo squared, but other Goldman personnel urged the sales force to treat Timberwolf securities as a priority. An email from Dan Sparks, head of the Goldman Sachs mortgage department, urged Goldman personnel working on a potential Korean sale to “[g]et ‘er done,” and sent a mass email to the sales force promising “ginormous credits” for selling the securities. A congratulatory email was sent to an employee who sold a number of the securities: “Great job trading us out of our entire Timberwolf Single-a position.
- 4/27/2010
- Vanity Fair
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