Copyright © 2011 by William D. Cohan
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Portions of this work were previously published in Vanity Fair.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Columbia University Oral History Research Office Collection.
Jacket design by John Fontana
Jacket illustration by Serial Cut™
Title page photograph by Marco Di Fabio / Flickr / Getty Images
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.
eISBN: 978-0-385-53497-0
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CONTENTS
PROLOGUE / The Pyrrhic Victory
CHAPTER 2 / The Apostle of Prosperity
CHAPTER 4 / The Value of Friendship
CHAPTER 5 / “What Is Inside Information?”
CHAPTER 6 / The Biggest Man on the Block
CHAPTER 9 / A Formula That Works
CHAPTER 14 / The College of Cardinals
CHAPTER 15 / $10 Billion or Bust
CHAPTER 16 / The Glorious Revolution
CHAPTER 17 / It’s Too Much Fun Being CEO of Goldman Sachs
CHAPTER 19 / Getting Closer to Home
CHAPTER 21 / Selling to Widows and Orphans
CHAPTER 23 / Goldman Gets Paid
<="justify">NOTES
PROLOGUE
THE PYRRHIC VICTORY
Wall Street has always been a dangerous place. Firms have been going in and out of business ever since speculators first gathered under a buttonwood tree near the southern tip of Manhattan in the late eighteenth century. Despite the ongoing risks, during great swaths of its mostly charmed 142 years, Goldman Sachs has been both envied and feared for having the best talent, the best clients, and the best political connections, and for its ability to alchemize them into extreme profitability and market prowess.
Indeed, of the many ongoing mysteries about Goldman Sachs, one of the most overarching is just how it makes so much money, year in and year out, in good times and in bad......