The New York Times bestseller
From the long-tenured head of Goldman Sachs, an institution legendary for its culture of success, comes a candid memoir of global leadership in an age of extreme turbulence.
"Funny, mainly blunt, unexpectedly vulnerable and rarely apologetic.” —Bloomberg
“No one has gotten inside the secret walls of Goldman Sachs and told the story of everything about it, warts and all. Now the man who ran it tells all—and it’s incredible.” —Jim Cramer
"Lively and insightful." —The Wall Street Journal
When Lloyd Blankfein was attacked as a Wall Street fat cat, he had to smile, thinking of his precarious childhood in the notorious public housing projects of East New York, Brooklyn, and attending a high school so chaotic he didn’t feel safe leaving class to go to the bathroom in his time there. Harvard University was a total moonshot, and his outsider status never wore off, there or at Harvard Law. When he struck people as street-y, it wasn’t Wall Street they were thinking of. But if the chip never quite left Blankfein's shoulder, neither did a wry, resilient spirit and a lucid, democratic intelligence that saw through airs and found talent and ideas in unlikely places.
Streetwise is a delightfully honest, sharp and often very funny reckoning with the author’s education—in finance, human nature, and the workings of the world. It abounds with lessons about leading teams of brilliant, aggressive, competitive people and harmonizing them around shared goals; changing when times are hard and when they’re good; managing risk; and knowing a crisis is at hand before it swamps you so you can guide your team to the further shore. Blankfein is famed for his calm hand on Goldman Sachs’s tiller during the global financial crisis, and that story is told in full here, among many other decisive episodes.
Suffusing Streetwise is the author’s deep and abiding respect for the partnership culture of Goldman Sachs. We follow the never-ending work to protect and preserve that culture through all sorts of tumult—the challenge behind every other challenge. He is open about when he and the firm got it wrong, which was often enough, but the creative, risk-taking spirit was never snuffed—even as the fail-safes put in place to protect the firm and its clients held when they were needed the most. A powerful blueprint for the wise stewardship of a cause that is larger than yourself, Streetwise will inspire and inform readers throughout the global business community and beyond.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Preface ix
1. Advantages 1
2. Getting Out 16
3. Glimpses Beyond 32
4. Lawyer, Briefly 40
5. Gold Mettle 49
6. From Gold Man to Goldman 64
7. Breaking Through 74
8. De-Vals and Re-Vals 83
9. Innovation 92
10. Howdy, Partner! 106
11. Paranoia Is a Job Requirement 114
12. My First “Crisis of the Century” 124
13. How I Earned My Reputation for Being Difficult 133
14. Lloyd of London 141
15. To IPO or Not to IPO 149
16. The Unforeseen 173
17. Succession 187
18. Is He Completely Housebroken? 198
19. A Modern Merchant Bank 211
20. The Partnership Culture 223
21. The Storm Before the Storm 240
22. Don’t Get Dead 260
23. How to Survive a Crisis 279
24. How Did You Do It? 291
25. Just a Few More Calamities 315
26. Notes on an Illness 327
27. Goodbye to All That 337
28. Risk Is Risky 344
Epilogue: Life After Goldman 359
Acknowledgments 365
Image Credits 369
Index 371
