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Working at Goldman Sachs Suuuucks, Leaked Internal Survey Shows
- throwbigdata 6y agoI understand that investment banking has always been like this. Why now, the complaints or attention?
- Tarsul 6y agoI think it's simply because one article gained a lot of interest and then other websites followed up on it. It IS an interesting topic, especially since the flavour of homeworking is added to it and how it affects the working culture, something probably a lot of people (here and elsewhere) have experienced due to corona and like to read about.
- Ancalagon 6y agoAdditionally I thought a lot of students from elite education institutions were finally wising up to these practices and big finance was hemorrhaging talent to big tech the last few years?
- ksm1717 6y agoThe GME stuff was a big thing (2008 was too early) for “introducing” the younger side of vice target audience to the outrage directed at large finance firms. Young grads are relatable to readers who are recently stirred up by state of the institution.
- smt88 6y agoYears ago, calling out the bad work culture in IB would get you branded a weakling, a loser, etc. The broader culture has shifted so that people are not considered weak for refusing to put up with workplace abuse. It is no longer a career-killer to blow the whistle on your current employer.
- PradeetPatel 6y ago>It is no longer a career-killer to blow the whistle on your current employer. I'd be careful with that statement. During my time in the reputation management industry, I was working on a joint taskforce with our social media team on a case of whistleblowing. The said whistleblower was successfully deplatformed, then promptly labelled as a hate-entity, ultimately leading to them being fired by their current employer due to the perceived fear of association. I would recommend anyone who wants to whistle to exercise caution and practice appropriate Opsec measures.
- neolog 6y agoWas the taskforce's job to make that happen to the whistleblower?
- seibelj 6y agoElite professional services businesses like investment banking, law, and management consulting have crazy hours and terrible conditions. But they all are in service to clients who actually pay the bills! The solution is to go work for the clients. Way more fun, interesting, and remunerating to be the shot caller at a corporation than the vendor providing a service.
- unlimit 6y agoAbsolutely. This is true for any professional service business not only limited to the elite. If you work for a company that works for a client then you are basically working two jobs.
- junippor 6y agoYes, but... those jobs are even harder to get into than investment banking :-)
- seibelj 6y agoThere are far more corporations requiring investment banking services than there are investment bankers. Otherwise there wouldn’t be enough clients to support a specialized firm. The other thing is cutting your teeth and rising up in corps isn’t as bad as the banking / law track. Really don’t see why you would go the services track. Won’t encourage my children to go that way if they want to make a career doing private sector business things.
- junippor 6y agoFor the question "why would anyone want to work at GS as opposed to their clients", it's not a matter of the number of corporations, it's about the number of good roles. A very large, say property developer, might hire GS for its fundraising needs, but a GS grad wouldn't want to work laying bricks. He might want to work as CFO or someone very close to the CFO, but those roles are much harder to get than working as grad for GS. So it's not just about what the grad wants, it's also about what he can get. This shouldn't be controversial. Anyone who's been in the industry knows that people move "up" from IB to their clients. Of course everyone wants that, but again such roles are harder to get than IB.
- sonthonax 6y agoI don’t understand these kinds of work environments. It’s not just difficult to do quality work on 4 hours of sleep, a decent proportion of people will start to show the psychotic symptoms of paranoia and hallucinations after a few days. I’m saying this as someone who did special operations selection and had to stay up for days on end. You feel like death, and the only reason to do it is to prepare yourself for awful situations, or to verify that even in an almost dreamlike exhausted state you can still perform a task that was repetitively drilled into you. To me this raises the question, what are these graduates actually doing?
- thedudeabides5 6y agoPowerPoint and excel.
- robbyt 6y agoYes, and reading reports. They manually scan financial reports for info so they can manually type them into excel, and manually run various formulas and ultimately past the charts into powerpoint so they can fill up a directory full of files that hardly anyone will read.
- sonthonax 6y agoSo it's like working in the middle office of a normal high street bank, but managed by psychopaths rather than depressives?
- frongpik 6y agoWhy dont they automate it? Image (text) recognition is a solved problem.
- junipertea 6y agoit is really not a solved problem
- AzzieElbab 6y agoI haven’t seen anything like that since the 90s. Back then it was pretty common with most people either burning out or technically retiring at the age of 35
- hbcondo714 6y agoAlso discussed here a day ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26521912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26521912
- usefulcat 6y agoIf it’s that awful.. I dunno, maybe quit?
- quantified 6y agoPart of the glamor is demonstrating your dedication to work and productivity. These jobs have long been reputed to be all work, no life. They want to cap it at 80 hours a week. Still not a life that most would sign up for, certainly not as societally useful as the long shifts for medical residents. On the one hand I feel bad for them, on the other it’s GS they signed up for and I feel little sympathy for anything related to GS.
- llaolleh 6y agoThese are new grads who have spent 16 years at school. They have no baseline for what a healthy work environment looks like. Turning in your first notice is a lot harder especially at an elite institution like GS.
- magicroot75 6y agoImagine moving to Florida for the nice weather, and then complaining that it's hot and humid all the time.
- billytetrud 6y agoImagine thinking that making a semi informed choice means you have no right to talk about the negative consequences that choice brought you or complain about terrible conditions related to your choice...
- magicroot75 6y agoThere's no reason for someone going to work at a major investment bank to be semi-informed.
- known 6y agoI used to work in Goldman Sachs; I can say it's a ruthless company; Ruthless = Immoral;
- zcw100 6y agoI interviewed with Goldman. I think I lot of people here are missing the point. It has nothing to do with the work. It's hazing pure and simple. Goldman has insane security and I wouldn't put it past them to leak the document on purpose because they like the image of being an insanely driven place to work. Do you have any idea how valuable it is to people that formerly worked there? "Oh wow! You worked at Goldman. I heard that place is insane. How did you survive?" Goldman gets two things. First they get the reputation that people who work there are super human but the bigger payoff is incredible loyalty of the people who make it. You're going to get paid shit when you start and as you begin to pull away from the pack you're both going to see your competitors quit and your compensation rise. By the time you make it you've won and been rewarded for it. Now when some nosy reporter comes around asking questions what are you going to do? Are you going to put it all on the line or are you going to say, "F-U" and hang up as quickly as you can?