Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the Wor… (2024)

This work sets out to write a definitive history and given its expansive ambition, we end up with a very long work. Does it achieve its aim? I guess so. Largely. Obviously, material is hard to come by about the early years and we should be grateful for what we do get i.e. stories about GS people rather than about GS. Of course, when Cohen hits the period after the great war, the book becomes more data dense.

Having said that, what of the reading experience. For most people, at the end of the day, any interest in GS is really about its role in the Sub Prime Crises. I mean, did they create a crises when none existed and then make billions of it? Did they inside trade across business verticals? Are they personifications of everything that is wrong with High Finance worldwide (including India, I will have to say). Does Cohen answer these questions?

Well yes and no. If you are looking for a smoking gun, then clearly no. If you are looking for insinuations and circ*mstantial evidence, than clearly yes. He puts together the facts "as appear on the outside" and then puts the inevitably conclusion into the mouth of someone he interviewed. Which I suppose is how one says it and avoids being sued for billions in defamation.

If high finance is your drug of choice, just do it. If its not but you do want to know how dirty the real world really is, get rid to flip the pages with the tedious detail and still read it.

Cohan has done a remarkable job by providing a blow by blow account on the history and influence of Goldman Sachs ever since the firm's birth about 142 years ago. The company's history is filled with conflicting interests, events, and intense emotions. “Goldman Sachs has been both envied and feared for having the best talents, the best clients, and the best political connections, and for its ability to alchemize them into extreme profitability and market prowess.”

The saying "It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation but you can lose it in a minute" seems to apply flawlessly to Goldman Sachs' leaders' controversial decisions before and during times such as the global financial crisis (2007 – 2012). Their conduct has brought not only the firm, but Wall Street culture out into the open which “traditionally has been seen as an engine of growth betting on America's successes, and not its failures”. Reformation cannot happen overnight, but by displaying the facts for the general public to see, we are catalyzing progressive change on Wall Street.

Cohan goes deeply into the firm's history and does an extensive and brutally honest analysis on the world's most powerful investment bank. A job well done.

Great book about an amazing company. I have read two other books about GS and this is superior in terms of (i) comprehensive coverage of the firm's history, (ii) balanced and yet undiluted accounts of the bad behaviours in the firm's history and (iii) clear description of the firm's culture, its evolution and the personalities that shape it from the founding family, Sydney Weinberg, all the leaders up to the current CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

Reading this book educated me about the Street's history as well, from the vantage point of a market leader - how they became one and remained one especially in the recent subprime crisis, where they demonstrated risk management, innovation and cultural strength to ride it out as a winner. The following PR nightmare (investor suits on their CDOs, SEC's settlement, media crucifixion) stole the vindication though, and placed the credit not on the above factors but rather on their alumni network in Government (Hank Paulson, Bob Rubin, etc) who bailed them out via AIG and on their front-running / extortionist trading (cutting value / marking to market of mortgage securities aggressively and calling margin calls on them on their counterparties that arguably triggered the subprime mortgage itself). The balancing argument of course is that they were just protecting themselves and happened to be smart enough to be early in the game in recognising and taking action on the deteriorating mortgage markets.

I suspect this book will not get a five star from non-finance readers, due to the presence of many stories that require some financial context to appreciate. But for me it's an amazing account of an amazing organisation filled with brilliant people and even more brilliant culture, which has become perhaps too successful and forgotten its role in serving its clients instead of its own Interests, first.

This is a company history of Goldman Sachs, brought up to date through the financial crash and its aftermath up until about 2010. In the first three quarters of the book or so, the story parallels that of the Charles Ellis book on Goldman (The Partnership). During this stretch, the overlap is about 80% or so with Ellis and the story makes for a very good read, whether you like Goldman Sachs or not. The last quarter of the book is fairly effective in discussing the role of the firm in the troubles over subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, etc. - in particular the duality of the firm in handling these toxic securities and betting against them to protect their positions. Regarding the book's tone towards GS, the author tries for balance between being critical of the firm and understanding and sympathetic towards it. GS has always had a duality for me, in that it is the ultimate professional firm -- highly capable, competitive, well run, etc. -- while at the same time appearing to be almost too good, arrogant, and occasionally out of bounds on matters of propriety. Cohan brings this up and balances it fairly well. He puts much focus on the GS approach to conflicts of interest and whether to avoid or embrace them (GS embraces them.).

In terms of inside information, don't look for much. People from GS are notorously close lipped and the book depends a lots on materials developed elsewhere. Cohan is thorough, however, and it is a very capable account. It is more of a journalistic account, however, and a bit more explanation of how the business works and how the firm is organized would have been helpful. The Ellis book is better on this account. These are not troubling concerns, however. If one is interested in the business, this is a useful book to read and an entertaining read as well.

I'd forgotten I'd read an earlier book by this author,
it was a dog too.

Over 600 pages with the story starting in the 1840's.

Half the book is about stuff from more than 20 years ago
when GS was an entirely different company.

A partnership instead of a stock owned company,
an investment bank that advised clients and raised money for companies.

Now GS is a blood sucking vampire squid that sucks the money out of America mostly by trading for its own account.
At the expense of anyone who happens to be in the way.

Mostly for the purpose of paying employees a million $$$ or more a year.

Too bad they weren't allowed to go bust like Bear stearns & Lehman

This book, published in 2011, does a great job of illustrating the prevailing sentiment towards Wall Street at the time. Unfortunately, it does not do that on purpose, but rather through its style. Mr Cohan cannot hide his anger with Wall Street and Goldman Sachs in particular and he views all Goldman employees as guilty until proven innocent. The book reads as a rant against the bank where the conclusions are usually not based on the facts laid out. I found the author's use of insinuation (as already pointed out in some of the other reviews) and often outright hostility towards its subject (e.g. Goldman bankers would „gobble“ down their breakfasts) to be at best distracting, but more often than that – counterproductive.

One example of this that got stuck in my head was when Mr Cohan was trying to illustrate the way how Goldman treated its female employees in the 70s and 80s. One of the first women senior bankers was late to a company dinner organized in a yacht club because she had problems getting in due to club's men-only policy. To make the story short, she bribed one of the employees to let her in, but her direct supervisor called her out on it without wanting to hear her side of the story. However, in the next sentence, Mr Cohan goes on to explain how Goldman's senior partner at the time found out what happened, publicly admonished her supervisor for booking the dinner at a men-only club and even fired him. To me, this sounds like a great example of how sexism should be treated in any organisation! I think that sexism of the era is well known, expecially on Wall Street, but in his zeal to paint them as devil incarnate, the author somehow managed to make Goldman look progressive compared to its peers.

Furthermore, the book was repetitive and way too detailed (especially in the second half, where the author copied too many internal emails and too many numbers). It could have easily been half the length without losing any substance.

As a positive (and the reason why I didn't give the book a one star), the history of Goldman Sachs is a good proxy for history of Wall Street and capital markets and as such the book was educational on that topic. Also, Mr Cohan did a good job with how one rises through the hierarchy of such a bank, as well as becoming the leader of the firm (the power struggle between Hank Paulson and Jon Corzine is especially interesting).

Overall, if you truly believe that Goldman Sachs is the giant vampire squid and want to read a book that shares those views, then this is for you. If you're looking for objective review of Goldman Sachs or an impartial analysis of their actions, then you better look elsewhere.

After reading this book, I am not sure how Goldman Sachs has any clients left. Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World is the history of this white-shoe firm from its inception through 2008. As the investment bank that other firms aspire to be, this book is a peek behind the curtain of how Goldman Sachs really operates.

In the late 1970s, a partner named John C. Whitehead developed the “14 Principles” that purportedly guides the company still today. The first principle, “Our clients’ interests always come first. Our experience shows that if we serve our clients well, our own success will follow” is laudable, but now laughable. [Note: I plugged this principle into Google and it is amazing how many companies have copied it word for word as part of their core values or principles.] There is evidence throughout the book that this was not true, as Goldman’s clients were duped throughout history, but never more so than during the financial crisis of 2008. In many meetings detailed in the book, the clients were not even mentioned and when they were, the discussion was more toward how Goldman could make as much money from them as they can. The mission of Goldman seems to me to be that it is not sufficient to beat everyone—competitor, partner, client—in the great game of the financial markets, but, in the case of partners and competitors, to destroy them.

I still do not understand how it can be legal to trade on information gleaned from nonpublic client or potential client information.

The first three quarters of the book when it describes the early history of the firm reads more like a novel and the part that I found the most interesting. The latter part of the book that depicted events leading up to the Great Recession, I believe, did not flow as well and that may be due to the author having access to actual written conversations via email, many of which were included in the book. There was also the issue of dealing with the alphabet-soup of financial products: CDOs, CDOs squared, CMOs, ABSs, SIBs, ad nauseam.

Subsequent to reading this book, I read an article of why clients stick with Goldman. The first reason is that Goldman is viewed as the best and many CEOs and CFOs wish to be associated with the best. Another reason, and the one I found most interesting, is that since the tenure of CEOs and CFOs of Fortune 500 companies is short, clients do not have the institutional memory and may not realize or care how Goldman has treated them in the past.

Greed helps to forget.

Overall, this is a well written and fascinating book and I highly recommend it.

Goldman Sachs (GS) has become iconic, attracting both superlatives and expletives. To members of Wall Street they are the pinnacle; to Rolling Stone Magazine they are “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.” According to business author William Cohan, “The firm’s inexorable success leaves people wondering: Is Goldman Sachs better than everyone else, or have they found ways to win time and time again by cheating?” Cohan answers in a comprehensive, compelling, and insightful book that lets readers know where the firm has innovated and excelled, and where it has misstepped, entered into conflicts of interest, or simply lost its way.

Far more to-the-point than Charles Ellis’ long-winded (and almost sycophantic) book, The Partnership, each major character is introduced with a short biography Neither does Cohan have an axe to grind like Greg Smith in his 'tell-all' autobiography, Why I Left Goldman Sachs. Without either of his fellow authors' baggage, Cohan is more objective and provides valuable perspective on Goldman's ethical lapses and regulatory trouble.

For example, in telling Goldman Sachs’ history Cohan explains the investment trusts that were popular in 1929 - at the height of that stock market bubble – and then draws parallels to the both the 2008 sub-prime shenanigans and to centuries old events such as the South Sea bubble, illustrating that both investors’ herd mentality and the investment banks’ complicity are time-honoured traditions.

The first one hundred years of Cohan’s book focuses on the rise of GS, the (good) relationship they had with their clients, and their increasing stature amongst their peers, but from subprime onwards, it is a story of profit and antagonistic or conflicted relationships. With a shift of this magnitude, it’s no surprise that Smith chose to air his views publicly.

Cohan writes at length about the inner workings of Goldman’s subprime mortgage machine which, along with Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Too Big To Fail (which focuses on the government and central bank’s roles) and Michael Lewis’ The Big Short (which highlights the outsiders who would bet against and profit handsomely from the machine's output), gives an excellent understanding of the 2008 financial crisis. It is almost surreal to read Cohan’s play by play of Goldman trader Fabrice Tourre’s (‘The Fabulous Fab’) coordination of the ABACUS structured products that then became part of The Greatest Trade Ever for John Paulson.

Despite Goldman’s reputation for having turned a profit on the subprime mess - at times betting directly against its clients - it's interesting to read of the internal confusionthat reigned at the firm. Goldman, however, was able to take action. As Cohan writes, “… even if Goldman Sachs had a conflict, and even if they were the first to cry wolf, it seems all of the other Wall Street firms just stared at the wolf, ignoring it, and blaming Goldman Sachs for calling it a wolf. Goldman Sachs was the only firm to run from the wolf, even though that wolf was a frankenwolf created by their own sheep herd.” Reading about Goldman’s internal conflict with clients and external competition with peers makes one wonder how the crisis might have played out had GS not had such large financial incentives in creating sub-prime products and then later in betting against them.

Cohan has written the definitive book about Goldman Sachs, leaving readers to judge for themselves whether it is the pinnacle of finance or a vampire squid.

I read Cohan's earlier work on Lazard Freres and greatly enjoyed it, so I decided to take the plunge on his investigation into Goldman Sachs, arguably one of the most powerful financial institutions that ever existed.

This is not really a Goldman "bashing" book but there is plenty of hard reporting that lead one to wonder how Goldman can get away with proclaiming itself to be a temple of team play and a firm where customer interests always come first. Team playing culture? Cohan gives you details about the unusually sharp knives that came out frequently in succession struggles from earlier days - Gus Levy clashing with Sid Weinberg - to more recent events - Hank Paulson ousting Jon Corzine - and paint a picture quite at variance with Goldman PR.

Whether you like it or not Goldman executives - past and present - play larger than life roles on a global stage. Cohan gives you engaging details about the real person behind the persona. Did you know that Robert Rubin dropped out of Harvard Law to bum around Europe and persuaded the dean of the school to hold his admission for a year by getting a psychiatrist to testify that he was making a "reasonable" decision?

Cohan does a splendid job of describing how Goldman grew from a small but influential investment bank - and a partnership where the partners were liable to the full extent of their personal net worth - to the titan that it is today with the ability to shake the central banks of major nations, with reach into the inner political circles of many countries, and where Croesus may envy the amount of filthy lucre the senior leaders rake in with limited liability.

I found the sections where Goldman shorted all of their and their competitor CDO bets fascinating. Goldman's actions in this regard raise many ethical questions about "insider trading" and the ruthless tactics that the firm executes to earn it's vast reward (ROE of 31%????). The fact that they were so far ahead of everyone else in finance in this regard makes their claim to have the "best and the brightest" seem more plausible. It is possible, indeed likely, that Goldman is actually the "good guy" in the field in which it plays and that its competitors are far worse in morality and tactics. And that, my friend, is the really scary story.

Anyone who is interested in Wall Street, modern Finance, the mortgage meltdown, and a plain old soap opera will enjoy this work. Definitely worth your time.

Cohan’s latest book provides many valuable insights and stories about how Goldman works, though the title is misleading: it deals almost entirely with Goldman’s business strategies, and very little with its political/policy strategies (i.e., not very much on the “power” side). And, as usual, he focuses almost entirely on the internal workings of the firm. This is both a strength and weakness: a weakness because the book’s scope is very narrow, a strength because of the window it provides into the firm’s decision making, strategy and execution.

That said, there are things I found especially maddening, starting with its poor editing and multiple redundancies. Most frustrating, though, is the woefully inadequate documentation. For a work of over 600 pages, Cohan provides no bibliography and only 16 pages of notes. And those notes make it virtually impossible to track down citations in their original sources. News citations most often do not provide article titles or reporters/authors – just, for example, “NYT, November 19, 2007.” Worse, while Cohan relies extensively in the later chapters on the many internal Goldman documents available now thanks to Senate committee investigations or the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Cohan gives zero specific references, instead prefacing a chapter’s section in the notes with a blanket statement that quotations are “from nine hundred pages of documents released in April 2010” – and with no further specific sourcing. Gee, thanks.

I am amazed at how William Cohan can take a topic as dry as the finanial crises and make it read like a novel. I'm up the part where Jon Corzine takes over. But now that I've finished the book I have to say that I guess I just wasn't that interested in Goldman Sachs.

If History is written by winners, then memories are also biased towards its survivors. In a hundred years from now, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual and Wachovia will cease to exist in the footnotes to the history of the 2008 banking crisis. Instead, people will remember Goldman Sachs as the bank that profited while other Wall Street titans perished. Indeed, the evidence eight years after the near-implosion of western capitalism suggests the process has already begun. So why does the most successful and envied investment bank of all time have an image problem?
William D. Cohan tries to answer this unique question while not forgetting this is an unusual conundrum for one of the most consistent winners over the last one hundred years. The toughest, smartest and most successful agents of history are often remembered with fondness, yet Goldman appears to be the exception.
A chronicle of any financial institution will have its ups and downs, but Goldman Sachs has a knack for getting under the skin of the SEC. As Cohan shows throughout the 610 pages of his excellent study, this process has been ongoing since 1947, when Goldman Sachs (along with sixteen other investment banks), came under investigation in an Anti-Trust Lawsuit. Allegations of maintaining a closed shop to new entrants and infiltrating the boards of America’s biggest industrial companies caught the public imagination, but resulted in no fines or reprimands. Nonetheless, people were less forgiving in 1970 when the firm encountered its first existential crisis since the Great Depression as the lead underwriter of Penn Central’s default on $87 million worth of commercial paper. A $23 million federal lawsuit from embittered investors could have been the end, but is the best example of how Goldman claimed no responsibility for wider events beyond their control and escaped the worst of it.
Numerous examples of this instinct to dump losses on investors crop up time and again and make depressing reading throughout the book. This is not exceptional behaviour and is widespread across the finance sector, even to the point where people accept banks will always put their own interests above the customer. But from its inception Goldman Sachs has been different. Ever since John Whitehead instituted a 14-point Code of Conduct in the 1960s, the bank has been indoctrinating its staff in the wisdom of being client-focused and remembering that ‘our assets are our people, capital and reputation.’ This may sound good on paper and there’s no doubt Goldman’s loyal employees believe in the rhetoric, but Cohan shows this to be an honourable yet unachievable aim. In reality, Goldman Sachs is like all other banks – they will never pass up an opportunity to make a quick buck, even when it’s unethical to do so.
The list of misdemeanours in the last four decades is too extensive for the holier-than-though delusion to continue, and it’s easy for the reader to lose perspective and get caught up in the excesses. Goldman’s dubious behaviour during the Dot.com bubble in the early twenty-first century can be seen a microcosm of what is wrong with investment banking these days. Allegations of ‘spinning’ (selling hot IPO stock offerings to 21 of the bank’s most profitable fee-paying CEOs) and ‘laddering’ (favouring investors with sought-after Dot.com stock on the condition they agree to buy more block shares on the first day) are symptomatic of the tendency to act like a cartel. But the alleged existence of a ‘good behaviour’ list of hedge funds and wealthy investors that had access to the over-subscribed Dot-com stocks in return for attending Goldman roadshows and paying various commissions leads Cohan to an even more alarming thought. Did Goldman Sachs help to push up the IPO stock prices and contribute to the Dot.com crash? The $40 million settlement with the SEC in 2005 for charges of laddering does nothing to assuage the guilt, neither does the $110 million fine Goldman Sachs paid for allowing its investment banking division to influence the firm’s research analysts’ views on lucrative IPO prospects during the Dot.com boom.
Amongst this litany of sins it would be easy to forget the individuals that created and turned this mammoth bank into the giant of today. Fortunately, Cohan remembers his duty as a historian is to the academic, not the polemic, and furnishes the reader with extensive biographies of the firm’s legendary leaders. And like all powerful institutions with an impressive heritage, Goldman Sachs has its pantheon of heroes and iconic figures that loom large over each generation – none more so than Sydney Weinberg and Gus Levy. The former is the ultimate example of meritocracy, the ex-porter who became Senior Partner three decades later and earned Franklin Roosevelt’s trust as the most important voice on Wall Street. Levy is portrayed as the most innovative arbitrageur of his era, dragging Goldman Sachs into the cut-throat world of Proprietary Trading in the 1960s and away from the gentleman’s club of underwriting IPOs and company bonds. And of course there’s the diligent and entrepreneurial Marcus Goldman, the firm’s founder who started the business in 1869 buying up discounted commercial paper and pocketing the difference at the maturity date. His son, Henry Goldman, is credited with turning the bank into a force to be reckoned with on the eve of the First World War only to be ostracised for his pro-German views.
Cohan’s writing achieves its most vivid style in these biographical interludes; the big-screen is on his mind and penetrates the reader’s imagination. But perhaps the most intriguing person throughout the book is Hank Paulson, one of the few non-Jewish leaders of the firm before he took up George W. Bush’s offer to become Treasury Secretary in 2006. Cohan paints an image of a man who never doubted his ability, but sometimes questioned his own ambitions to become leader. As the most successful Investment Banker in Goldman’s Chicago office, Paulson had little knowledge of the trading desk, but few equals in the world of Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A). The Machiavellian way he ousted John Corzine (the joint successor to Steve Friedman in 1994) is as intriguing as his success in building diplomatic relations with China. This last point is something Barack Obama might regret in his haste to put distance between the White House and Goldman Sachs; no other American is as well-connected and influential in the Sino sphere as Hank Paulson. Comparisons with the British East India Company’s reach in South Asia in the eighteenth century are striking, but Cohan chooses not to join the dots for fear of succumbing to the ‘giant vampire squid’ stereotype immortalised in the July 2009 issue of Rolling Stone.
Though a dispassionate account is impossible (and unmarketable), one gets the impression Cohan is trying to counter the scandal and controversy by looking away from the noise and into other areas where Goldman Sachs has escaped opprobrium. For instance, he is explicit the firm should take more blame for the firestorm that raged in the mortgage-backed security market in 2007 when it marked down estimates of the securities on its balance sheet. Goldman knew this would have a negative impact on the averages reported by other investment houses and its decision to mark its securities at 50 cents to the dollar in May 2007 when other firms were reporting no lower than 98 cents played a direct role in bringing down Bear Stearns and capsizing the entire finance sector. But why doesn’t the author have the courage to accuse Goldman of crashing the market to benefit its huge short positions against the US housing market? It’s one thing to blame the institution that brought the madness to an end, but is it criminal to give an honest assessment of the securities on your balance sheet when every other bank is stewing in false optimism and financial neurosis?
Another instance of Cohan’s admirable but gung-ho narrative is the $550 million fine Goldman paid in 2010 for misleading investors in its controversial Synthetic CDO offering of 2007. After a whole chapter of extraordinary email correspondence and implications of clear mendacity in selling products that are designed to fail, the author devotes only one paragraph to the recklessness of the Goldman customers that betted on the continued strength of the US housing market. And it turns out Goldman did not lie and reassure investors Hedge Fund Manager, John Paulson, was taking the long-side of its ABACUS CDOs even though they knew he was doing the exact opposite. Yet this is buried amongst the moral outrage and obscured by John Paulson’s subsequent profit of $1 billion on the greatest short-selling bet ever placed.
The fact Goldman earned a net profit of $11.4 billion in 2007 and offset its losses on writing down mortgage-backed securities with a $4 billion profit on its own short position is the real reason the US Government, the SEC and the ‘99 percent’ aimed their anger at the bank. Here is the only Wall Street institution that profited while others took their eye off the ball and allowed their superficial Return on Equity mark-ups to give the illusion of lucrative earnings. Indeed, one comes away marvelling at the efficacy of Goldman’s Risk Management culture and its super-efficient decision-making procedures. You might even acknowledge the bank’s plucky decision to disassociate itself from the herd if it wasn’t so complicit in blurring the lines of insider trading.
In its present structure, Goldman Sachs is a financial powerhouse like no other bank in modern history. Cohan does a good job of explaining this evolution and highlights the dangers Goldman might encounter in the near future. Their disruption of Société Générale’s $17 billion bid for Paribas Banque in February 1999 is a telling illustration of their unhealthy market dominance. Enraged at being left out of the advisory team preparing the bid, Goldman spearheaded BNP’s successful counter-offer in May 2000. Though not illegal or even frowned upon in the industry, it’s astonishing that Goldman was allowed to continue as the lead consultant reviewing Société Générale’s investment banking business and strategic initiatives while playing for the other side. The message was clear then and still rings true today: leave us out of a lucrative Acquisition and we will lead your rivals in a counter-bid. A more crude analogy is allowing a servant to cook your dinner and then eat it off your wife’s porcelain plate.
Much is made of the ‘Chinese Walls’ that keep the conflicting interests apart at Goldman Sachs, but the worry is the M&A bankers advising on company takeovers may abuse their access to confidential information and pass it to their own Trading Department. This is not ‘God’s Work’ but insider trading.
As Cohan states one two occasions in this book, no financial company has ever survived a criminal indictment. And though hard to envisage due to its profitability and influence on governments around the world, this might come to haunt Goldman Sachs one day.

This is meant to be a history of the iconic investment banker. And it is. But it seemed to be a run-up to the mortgage-backed securities meltdown. Before the other large banks, Goldman realized that much of the value of mortgage-backed securities was very likely to evaporate. They acted quite rationally - selling as much of their inventory as they could, shorting the asset class, buying insurance from AIG to protect them if the credit behind the securities went south, and marking down the asset values on their books as accurately as they could. Goldman recognized reality and acted on it. Other firms didn't see the reality or continued to kid themselves. As one observer indicated, if more firms followed Goldman's strategy, the rapid meltdown would not have occurred.

As they were selling the securities they deemed worth much less than the prevailing rate, should they have been announcing their view of the world? Weren't the buyers on the other side sophisticated enough to see that Goldman was happy to unload the product? I wish the author had spelled out exactly how he thinks Goldman should have acted. I'm quite prepared to accept that Goldman behaved unethically, perhaps illegally. But I don't think the author made a case one way or the other.

Much has been made of the revolving door between senior GoldmanSachs partners and the US government - Robert Rubin working for Clinton and Hank Paulsen working for Bush. But I did not see anything from the author that showed how Goldman benefited form their alumni. Again. I'm not a Pollyanna. But the author did not take a stand one way or the other.

A fascinating peek into the world of high finance. These guys worked ridiculous hours under incredible pressure and made millions of dollars.

I listened to the audio book. The book is long and it provides a detailed account of the history of Goldman Sachs up to about 2009-2010, right after the 2008 Financial Meltdown.

The book talks about the managing partners and details each managing partner in chronological order and even talks about their upbringing. In each of these narratives new GS people are introduced during the timeline and sometimes the chronology starts over with the new GS managing partner or partners making it sometimes hard to follow.

GS started out as a struggling firm and then began to make money and bought a seat on the NYSE and became a market maker. Then the managing partners were granted seats on the Boards of Directors of companies for which they were advising and then the wheels came off despite their 14-point code of ethics.

The book details former GS employees and competitors that say the GS Code of Ethics is trash and no longer abided and that the business practices of GS since going public are not ethical nor legal.

One thing that is indisputable is that GS knows how to make money and makes a lot of money, sometimes at the expense of their clients, and certainly at the expense of the average homeowner during the financial meltdown.

One interesting point that stuck with me is that there is a culture in the firm of most or all employees working 110 hours per week all the time or at least until they become partner. This only leaves 58 hours per week for sleep which is 8.28 hours for sleep, and other things per day.

The book was too long for my liking and mostly dull and I cannot recommend it. The Big Short by Michael Lewis is a better book and essentially mostly the same story.

This was a pretty comprehensive telling of how Goldman became Goldman, starting with one person arbitraging commercial paper and growing into what it is today. Much of how the firm grew, how the business lines became more and more important to it (the i-banking side of the house being key to its name in the market and with trading become ever more important to bottom line results), how the political ties to US government have been helpful in its growing influence, and how it benefited from the housing crisis. Goldman also has, by virtue of its banking and trading arms, often been on both sides of deals or even sold to clients what it was shorting in the market. This was the root of much of why it was demonized in 2008, as it packaged unhealthy mortgages and sold them to overseas investors while at the same time shorting them via CDS transactions. Their role in how the value of those securities were marked (there wasn't a liquid market for them so the firms who traded in them provided a numeric value which was averaged) and how the GS lower marks forced others to mark down their value (likely accurately, but still controversially) ended up being one of the dominoes to fall for Bear Stearns, as two of their hedge funds were heavily invested in these packages and the massive leverage they were using left little capital to pay Goldman when the market turned on them.
Goldman is also unique in its frequent use of two people as co-heads. Interesting how they are one of the only major companies to do this, but it has been quite a successful strategy for them.

Выдающийся в плане объёма перелопаченного автором и переработанного материала труд: тщательно, в деталях живописующий происхождение, рост и установление лидирующей позиции на рынке одного из самых знаменитых инвест.банков - в этот раз (очевидно) еврейского происхождения: да ещё и близкого к структурам власти - от минфина до ФРС.

В книге тщательно выдержана мера между здоровой критикой и прославлением компании. Даже если она и была инспирирована изнутри, об этом почти невозможно догадаться, субъективная позиция автора в этом смысле вне подозрений. Знаменитые истории рейдерства и недружественных поглощений 80-х, кризис 2008-го года, время и генезис самого рынка инвест.услуг, трейдерства, работы с банкротами и схемы IPO - включая пампинг (изобретение которого автор тоже приписывает Голдманам) - всё это в подробном изложении.

Здесь же: как работать в большой и сложной команде. Как удерживать и мотивировать, настраивать на работу и отбирать самых лучших сотрудников. Как удерживать обратную связь, горизонтальное управление и не сваливаться в шапкозакидательство. Как терпеть, принимать и отбивать потом убытки.

Стиль напоминает "Добычу" Даниила Ергина, "Взлёт Samsung", немного книги Майкла Льюиса и классическую "Варвары у ворот".

По-моему, это твёрдые 9 баллов из 10 - здесь поставил 5, потому что 4 мало.
Книга обязательная для всех, кто занимается финансами, оценкой бизнеса, инвестициями. У кого есть хоть сколько-нибудь на фондовом рынке. Для риелторов. Увлекающихся политикой. Ну и интересующихся управлением и орг.строительством в целом.

I think William Cohan tried to write a book which shows how Goldman Sachs became the end all and be all of Wall Street powerhouses but it just comes up short. With the examination of the last several pages more than 90% of this tome is written with an almost giddy admiration of the Goldman culture. For every sentence written about how ruthless Goldman is we see 3 to 5 about how they only hire the best and the brightest and how their culture is only for winner. Basically Cohan becomes a cheerleader/apologist for Goldman and really tells us what one would think Goldman would want us to hear. It is quite obvious there are no first hand sources and that employees who left and other journalists are the sources here.

This is a long book which is a corporate biography trying to pass as an explosive investigation. It is dull and bland and tells us nothing and summarizes what we've already heard from other resources. Go ahead and pass on it!

The story of Goldman Sachs...an important book for investors to read to understand what goes on behind the scenes and all around. Particularly interesting is the uncovering of tiffs and tussles between the socialist versus capitalist mindsets.
It is important to understand that socialism (which survives on cash earned by capitalism and paid as taxes to the Government to run their social programs) can not survive without capitalism. On the other hand, the power of socialism is, at least in large parts, derived from democracy (here I mean, the equal right to vote for everyone). Hence, democracy powers socialism; but, socialism needs capitalism to survive (and to thrive). This dilemma, poorly understood, is reflected by dozens of authors in their books on these topics.
Socialists should, hence, stop criticising (and being jealous of) the capitalists, and together, they should find a way to co-operate mutually for co-existence.
Enough said!!

Many of the chapters got into the finite details of how deals or financial devices were created. They were necessary but hard to read. I thought Cohen nicely mixed this information with great quotes and anecdotes, telling stories about many of the firms famous executives.

Really thorough dive into GS actions during 2005-2008 — reading the actual emails sent by employees was mind blowing and hilarious at times.

For all it’s comprehensiveness, I would love to hear more about its international business. Cohen mentions how the US bailout of Mexico benefited GS, but I was hoping to hear about how they structured Greece’s debt to enable the country to get by the Maastricht treaty regulations. The book was published in 2011 but an updated version that provided information on the firms dealings with Malaysia and Jho Low would certainly be worth the read.

This is a detailed and comprehensive history of the top Wall Street bank, Goldman Sachs, from its inception in the 1860s to what it is today after it weathered the 2008 financial crisis.
William Cohen describes in great detail the investment banking business, the succession wars and the progressive overturning of the ethical principles that Goldman partner John Whitehead authored in the 70s in favor of all out greed, as the firm IPOed and grew to be the top firm on Wall Street. It is at time chilling to see the cynical, greedy and fraudulent decision-making of the top executives and the consequences on the firm’s clients and on the global economy.
The book has it’s lengths, and the style is quite stuffy at times so it’s a slow and sometimes painful read, but I powered through it. Definitively did not give me confidence in doing business with this bank!

A very long history of Goldman Sachs, beginning with the company's inception by a Jewish immigrant turned banker, up through the end of the 2008 housing financial crisis. Honestly, I skipped a large swathe of content in the middle of the book, because it seemed superfluous. I wanted to learn about the company's origins and present situation. For that, I thought the intro and discussion about the financial crisis was very good. For my own interests, I would like to hear an updated account of GS activities from 2008 through the COVID-19 pandemic. But if you are looking for a detailed account of how GS navigated the significant financial events in the history of the U.S. since the early 1900s, then this book is a great reference.

I read the first 200 pages thinking, maybe the next page will enlighten me, and that swiftly changed to the vein of thought "what is not being said is more interesting than what is being said" which made it more of a page turner for me. The 2008 crisis, at last, showed the author's true element or level of interest in the subject, (insert love interest at one point at the end which was most disconcerting) and I got the feeling that last chapters were a reworked journalistic article, which meant that the beginning of the book was padding for the story at the end. Nonetheless, I felt vindicated at the end for having put in the time at the beginning.

The thing about reading 600 page books is that even when you have read 350 pages, there is still a long way to go. This is where your endurance and the author's prowess comes into play.
This is a wonderful account of the Big Kahuna of Wall Street, Goldman Sachs. I would recommend it to be read by all those who love financial history. The writing is crisp, less preachy and definitely not a PR activity. This is a biography of an institution which has continued to rule and the book will certainly go down to be one of the better books written, ever! Its a 4.5 star for me, but since that isnt an option, I am giving it 5!

This is an exceptional dive into the foundation and profound levels of head-scratching success that Goldman Sachs has had year in and year out since it began, regardless of bull market or bear market. This detailed reporting is as insightful as it is jaw dropping, dissecting nuanced financial detail and the highly addictive, enigmatic Kool-Aid sipping culture that distill down to the esoteric market structures Goldman constructed and constructs with its clients, investors, and partners that ensure the deck is always stacked in their favor. For the historians and economically interested bibliophiles, definitely recommend, 4/5

Every one should read this book. This is not just a book about Goldman Sachs, but also about how things work in the economy around us, and how the people outside of the system but are forced to abide by the system's rules are being duped by these large institutions, banks, investment banks, and the monetary system in essence. No matter who you are or what field you're from, this is a must read kinda book - something you read once and leave the book with a sense of urgency to have the basic financial intelligence to protect yourself financially.

At over 600 pages and filled with a lot of trivia about each person who climbed the ladder at Goldman Sachs, my eyes glazed over so many times I lost count. Did we need to know Henry Paulson was raised in a middle class home and was a Christian Scientist? This book could have used a good editor to hone the main themes. I would have given it 2 stars but the author clearly did a lot of research (and included all of it.) I liked the Godfather-like ending, perfect for the vampire squid of Goldman Sachs.

Gave up 200 pages in after a strong prologue had be hopeful. There would be multiple pages about someone's grandfather that didn't even more in the firm as a way to set up some GS executive. Then, we'd follow that person for like 40 years before jumping back in time to where we left the company off. There was also a limited context of the wider world of finance and society, which I think would be helpful for me understanding why decisions were being made. I was really hoping to get to the cocaine 80s but I am bored.

William Cohan's accounts of brokerage firms in the 2007-2008 crisis are second to none, as seen from his other book about Bear Sterns. In this Money and Power, the part about Goldman before and during the crisis was told in a livid manner. Other parts about the firm were as not as good, perhaps because Mr. Cohan had to use materials from other books - he surely did connect the dots to try to tell intriguing stories, but still, they were not as good as the part about the 2008 financial meltdown.

In the field of enterprises histories, this is a must read one. First I thought it was going to criticize the way of doing business of Goldman, but I found that it narrates the whole history without bias. And believe me, the sagas are amazing. To the ones from financial company, this history is a success case but with many obstacles, and the way they dealt with they is enriching and useful for even our activities.

Great corporate history of Goldman Sachs with a very detailed account of the culture of the company, its business and practices. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the inner workings of financial institutions today. The book is surprisingly insightful with respect to the role corporate culture and history has on the ways the firm recruits, operates and views itself.