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Your comment is spot on. The work Goldman Sachs does is relationship driven. As a corporate client of GS, I don't need data. I need advice. Don't confuse the

Your comment is spot on. The work Goldman Sachs does is relationship driven. As a corporate client of GS, I don't need data. I need advice. Don't confuse the work that investment banks do with the work that NASDAQ does or with high-frequency trading. In addition, the reason why GS has less traders and more developers is more to do with government regulations preventing GS from doing certain types of trading. Not because developers or AI is better. Dumb article.

popobobo 10y ago
man i can smell the 200 west from you 1000 feet away. F9 all the way to the ferry.
rl3 10y ago
>As a corporate client of GS, I don't need data. I need advice. Such as: "Buy these sub-prime assets that we've bundled into CDOs. By the way, we're actively betting against you and stand to make a ton of money when they tank."
- qeternity 10y ago
  Banks are huge, with different divisions. People who spout these types of lines don't actually understand how it works. Plus, there is the whole due diligence aspect. You can't blame anyone else. Also anytime anyone sells you something, they are telling you they think it's worth less than you do. Yet everyone is fine with that in every other industry. Source: hedge fund trader who fights banks all the time, but doesn't agree with their scapegoating.
  - cm2187 10y ago
    The Viniar explanation is actually quite good (not the "unfortunate to have on email" bit, the 20cent in the dollar bit): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccjZEvBGOuk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccjZEvBGOuk And to be fair to GS (not that it is the widow and the orphan), the "shitty deal" wasn't a reference to the collateral of the CDO, but to the fact that they didn't manage to sell a position on that transaction.
solatic 10y ago
> I don't need data, I need advice. And you will get better advice when that advice is data-driven. And you need the data because it's GS's proprietary data. If you're paying for a relationship, all you're really paying for is a smiling human face to read the numbers on the screen to you.
- dx034 10y ago
  But for many markets, data isn't readily available. Liquid equity markets have tons of data, but if you need to price bonds for highly illiquid bonds of private companies, valuation cannot easily be done by AI. Especially when factors such as the behavior and reliability of management play a role.

popobobo 10y ago

man i can smell the 200 west from you 1000 feet away. F9 all the way to the ferry.

rl3 10y ago

>As a corporate client of GS, I don't need data. I need advice. Such as: "Buy these sub-prime assets that we've bundled into CDOs. By the way, we're actively betting against you and stand to make a ton of money when they tank."

qeternity 10y ago
Banks are huge, with different divisions. People who spout these types of lines don't actually understand how it works. Plus, there is the whole due diligence aspect. You can't blame anyone else. Also anytime anyone sells you something, they are telling you they think it's worth less than you do. Yet everyone is fine with that in every other industry. Source: hedge fund trader who fights banks all the time, but doesn't agree with their scapegoating.
- cm2187 10y ago
  The Viniar explanation is actually quite good (not the "unfortunate to have on email" bit, the 20cent in the dollar bit): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccjZEvBGOuk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccjZEvBGOuk And to be fair to GS (not that it is the widow and the orphan), the "shitty deal" wasn't a reference to the collateral of the CDO, but to the fact that they didn't manage to sell a position on that transaction.

solatic 10y ago

> I don't need data, I need advice. And you will get better advice when that advice is data-driven. And you need the data because it's GS's proprietary data. If you're paying for a relationship, all you're really paying for is a smiling human face to read the numbers on the screen to you.

dx034 10y ago
But for many markets, data isn't readily available. Liquid equity markets have tons of data, but if you need to price bonds for highly illiquid bonds of private companies, valuation cannot easily be done by AI. Especially when factors such as the behavior and reliability of management play a role.