Now, Charles Ellis is a, well, he was a member of the Yale Corporation and the Board of Directors, and connected to this university, but never a professor here. He wrote a book called The Partnership, just before the financial crisis, about Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs was maybe the most esteemed investment bank in the United States at that time, and very successful. So he wrote a book which was admiring of Goldman Sachs, though at times maybe it sounded a little critical. So what was behind Goldman Sachs? Number one, making money always, and no exceptions. There's a different culture at Goldman Sachs than there is at the university. And if you ever go there, you'll see it rather starkly. Nothing was ever done for prestige. Although indirectly, of course, they want prestige, because that helps their business, but it's always money, money first. The most prestigious clients were often charged the most. And then there is a sense of loyalty, absolute loyalty to the firm and to the partnership, and personal anonymity. Right, you don't go around flaunting your name. You flaunt Goldman Sachs, all right? This is the Goldman Sachs culture. It worked, this kind of thing works. So a unique blend of a drive for making money, and the characteristics of a family in ways that the Chinese, Arabs, and old Europeans would well understand. John Whitehead then became, long ago, became chairman of Goldman Sachs, and he issued in the 1970s principles that sounded a little bit more idealistic. I think companies have to assert principles, and leaders of companies have to do that. John Whitehead's principles, I think, were contrary, a little bit, to what I just said. The old Goldman Sachs, Whitehead wanted them to be a moral company. But again, they're still interested in making money. So he said, actually, the first objective is not money for Goldman Sachs, it's money for our client. We're all about money, but it's about money for the clients first. Second, our assets are people, capital, and reputation. I'm doing typos here, sorry, that's reputation. I was saying that the whole business of investment banking is about people. It's about trust, about building reputation. That's the asset. Uncompromising determination to achieve excellence. Now this may sound a little bit like manipulation in itself, but I think it's serious. We stress creativity and imagination. He lived, what is that, 93 years? He was chairman of Goldman for 38 years. More of his guidelines. Talk to the boss. Okay, you are now a young person at Goldman Sachs. It's your first job, all right? You call up some big company. Who do you talk to? You demand to talk to not the assistant treasurer, but the CEO or someone very high up. How did you get the nerve to ask to do that? Well, Whitehead wants it to be very clear. You are at Goldman Sachs, you talk to the CEO, okay? There's something about ego that is profitable in business, and you have to live up to that. You don't talk to the assistant treasurer. You never learn anything when you're talking. He wants you to be a good listener. And then you have to respect individuals' worth, and there's nothing more worse than an unhappy client. I think there is some substance to these points that Whitehead has made. The new Goldman Sachs was drifting away from some of these, notably the putting client first. And there was just a settlement in the news the other day about Goldman had to pay $5 billion for dishonest marketing of mortgage securities, so they've slipped a little bit. Well, Whitehead died. I think that leadership involves personal force. And Whitehead eventually, he lived a long time, but he eventually died. Also they lost their partnership structure, which gave it less of a sense of family. And they lost some of their principles, but not altogether, I think. There's still a lot of good people at Goldman Sachs.
