Explosive book reveals 'toxic' culture at Goldman Sachs
Source: dailymail.co.uk
Fresh allegations about the 'toxic' culture at Goldman Sachs emerged last night as the first chapter of a devastating book written by a former executive director was leaked online.
Greg Smith reveals how trainees were forced to attend pre-dawn 'boot camp’ grillings and suffer humiliation if they got their boss’s lunch order wrong.
His book Why I Left Goldman Sachs, set to hit book stores next Wednesday, also describes how interns were forced to scramble to find small folding stools because there were not any spare chairs on the trading floors.
If they did manage to get hold of one they were forced to carry them around as a symbol of their lowly status, he claims.
Revelations: Ex-Goldman Sachs executive director Greg Smith's book, out next week, describes how interns were forced to scramble to find folding stools because there were not any spare chairs on the trading floors
Mr Smith sprang to prominence in March after he accused senior staff at the bank of calling clients 'muppets’ and treating them with contempt in a resignation letter published in the New York Times.
The allegations were hugely embarrassing to the blue chip investment bank which embarked upon a 'muppet hunt’ to investigate Mr Smith’s claims.
An internal scan of emails is said to have found 4,000 mentions of 'muppets’ but 99 per cent of them referred to a movie about the famous TV characters.
Publication of Mr Smith's book, which threatens to lift the lid on a culture of bullying and greed at Goldman Sachs, is now less than a week away and the first chapter was this week released on Apple Bookstore.
Titled 'I Don't Know, But I'll Find Out', it details how, fresh out of university, a 21-year-old Mr Smith arrived at Goldman Sachs' New York offices on a warm day in June 2000 to begin his summer internship.
One of 75 interns that day, he went on to become an executive director and head of the company's U.S. equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle-East and Africa.
The chapter maps out the often unpleasant life of an intern at the bank.
After his arrival on his first day, Mr Smith was issued with an 'innately demeaning' bright orange ID badge that marked him out as a 'plebe, a newbie and punk kid'.
He goes on to explain how interns had to carry around folding stools 'at all times because there were no extra chairs at the trading desk'.
Scathing: Mr Smith worked at the Goldman Sachs New York headquarters (pictured) before moving to the London office
Interns had to arrive as early as 5.45am for twice weekly 'Open Meetings'.
Mr Smith said: 'You came to work at 5.45 or 6.00 or 6.30 in the morning. A partner would stand at the front of the room with a list of names and call on people at will with questions on the firm's storied culture, its history, on the stock market.
'Depending on the personal style of the people in charge, the meetings could be brutal. They were always intense.'
After Mr Smith's damaging public revelation, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd C Blankfein told employees that internal emails were going to be scanned
He recalls how one vice-president ridiculed an intern who did not know enough about Goldman Sach's stance on Microsoft shares. The trainee promptly burst into tears and ran out of the room.
On another occasion, a managing director ordered an intern to fetch him a cheddar cheese sandwich for lunch, only to receive a cheddar cheese salad.
Mr Smith writes: 'He opened the container, looked at the salad, looked up at the kid, closed the container and threw it in the trash... It was a bit harsh, but it was also a teaching moment.'
Mr Smith received a $1.5million (£928,000) advance payment for his book.
When it is published next week, Goldman Sachs bosses are sure to read it, for it seems likely to contain far more explosive revelations if the title of chapter five - 'Welcome To The Casino' - is anything to go by.
In his New York Times op-ed resignation letter in March, Mr Smith said Goldman's culture had changed from one that 'revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility and always doing right by our clients' to one where mistreating clients for profit had become standard, creating a 'toxic and destructive' environment.
He blamed Blankfein and President Gary Cohn for fostering the supposed changes he described.
Typically, when Goldman employees have an issue with co-workers or processes such as the ones Smith described, they can take concerns to a supervisor or report them anonymously to human resources.
As Mr Smith is no longer at the company and his resignation op-ed did not specify circumstances or people, Goldman began conducting a broad review to determine whether his assertions are accurate.
The op-ed, and now book, was highly unusual because Goldman employees shy away from publicly criticising the bank, both because it breaks the Goldman code of silence and because of non-disparagement agreements many employees sign that bar them from speaking negatively about the bank.
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