March 14th was Greg Smith’s last day as an executive director at the privately-held and intensely private investment bank Goldman Sachs. Smith announced his resignation not behind closed doors but via a scathing op-ed in the New York Times in which he called his former workplace “toxic and destructive.” He went on to describe an environment where bankers called their clients “muppets” and were rewarded for duping them. When he warned that “people who care only about making money will not sustain this firm—or the trust of its clients—for very much longer,” it was as though he had set off a bomb in the firm’s global headquarters in downtown Manhattan. Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein went on the offensive by calling Smith “disgruntled” and released Smith’s internal reviews when his book “Why I Left Goldman Sachs,” was published in November 2012. Although in the end the misdeeds Smith exposed were hardly illegal, he succeeded in putting the machinations of Wall Street back in the spotlight.
Top 10 Opinions of 2012
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2. ‘Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs’ by Greg Smith
Full List
Top 10 Opinions
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- 6. ‘Why Women Still Can’t Have It All’ by Anne-Marie Slaughter
- 5. ‘A Girl’s Courage Challenges Us To Act’ by Laura Bush
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- 2. ‘Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs’ by Greg Smith
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