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Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World
The bestselling author of the acclaimed House of Cards and The Last Tycoons turns his spotlight on to Goldman Sachs and the controversy behind its success.
From the outside, Goldman Sachs is a perfect company. The Goldman PR machine loudly declares it to be smarter, more ethical, and more profitable than all of its competitors. Behind closed doors, however, the firm constan...more
From the outside, Goldman Sachs is a perfect company. The Goldman PR machine loudly declares it to be smarter, more ethical, and more profitable than all of its competitors. Behind closed doors, however, the firm constan...more
Paperback, 672 pages
Published
January 10th 2012
by Anchor
(first published March 29th 2011)
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Cohan has done a remarkable job by providing a blow by blow account on the history and influence of Goldman Sachs ever since the firm's birth about 142 years ago. The company's history is filled with conflicting interests, events, and intense emotions. “Goldman Sachs has been both envied and feared for having the best talents, the best clients, and the best political connections, and for its ability to alchemize them into extreme profitability and market prowess.”
The saying "It takes a lifetime...more
The saying "It takes a lifetime...more
Great book about an amazing company. I have read two other books about GS and this is superior in terms of (i) comprehensive coverage of the firm's history, (ii) balanced and yet undiluted accounts of the bad behaviours in the firm's history and (iii) clear description of the firm's culture, its evolution and the personalities that shape it from the founding family, Sydney Weinberg, all the leaders up to the current CEO Lloyd Blankfein.
Reading this book educated me about the Street's history as...more
Reading this book educated me about the Street's history as...more
I read Cohan's earlier work on Lazard Freres and greatly enjoyed it, so I decided to take the plunge on his investigation into Goldman Sachs, arguably one of the most powerful financial institutions that ever existed.
This is not really a Goldman "bashing" book but there is plenty of hard reporting that lead one to wonder how Goldman can get away with proclaiming itself to be a temple of team play and a firm where customer interests always come first. Team playing culture? Cohan gives you detail...more
This is not really a Goldman "bashing" book but there is plenty of hard reporting that lead one to wonder how Goldman can get away with proclaiming itself to be a temple of team play and a firm where customer interests always come first. Team playing culture? Cohan gives you detail...more
This is a company history of Goldman Sachs, brought up to date through the financial crash and its aftermath up until about 2010. In the first three quarters of the book or so, the story parallels that of the Charles Ellis book on Goldman (The Partnership). During this stretch, the overlap is about 80% or so with Ellis and the story makes for a very good read, whether you like Goldman Sachs or not. The last quarter of the book is fairly effective in discussing the role of the firm in the trouble...more
Cohan’s latest book provides many valuable insights and stories about how Goldman works, though the title is misleading: it deals almost entirely with Goldman’s business strategies, and very little with its political/policy strategies (i.e., not very much on the “power” side). And, as usual, he focuses almost entirely on the internal workings of the firm. This is both a strength and weakness: a weakness because the book’s scope is very narrow, a strength because of the window it provides into th...more
Good, but it could be better.
The writing is quite good, and the book is a detailed narrative on the history of Goldman Sachs. Interesting that they have been cutting corners, screwing clients and competitors, and skirting or breaking the law for decades.
However, the book's shortcoming is that the author is WAY to kind towards GS, exhibiting little outrage over their nefarious, greedy behavior. Cohan seems to assume "that's just the way it is," and evidences little moral judgment or condemnation....more
The writing is quite good, and the book is a detailed narrative on the history of Goldman Sachs. Interesting that they have been cutting corners, screwing clients and competitors, and skirting or breaking the law for decades.
However, the book's shortcoming is that the author is WAY to kind towards GS, exhibiting little outrage over their nefarious, greedy behavior. Cohan seems to assume "that's just the way it is," and evidences little moral judgment or condemnation....more
When I first began reading this book, I thought it would be another complimentary bromide like a well known book on GS 'The Partnership'. Thankfully, this book(though somewhat boring at times) draws on history, interviews and analysis to show that though Goldman Sachs is now accused of putting clients interests last, using sacrificial scapegoats, leveraging Govt/Board relationships etc; all these have been a DNA of the firm for atleast the last 30-40yrs.
The book did get boring towards the end(i...more
The book did get boring towards the end(i...more
I'd forgotten I'd read an earlier book by this author,
it was a dog too.
Over 600 pages with the story starting in the 1840's.
Half the book is about stuff from more than 20 years ago
when GS was an entirely different company.
A partnership instead of a stock owned company,
an investment bank that advised clients and raised money for companies.
Now GS is a blood sucking vampire squid that sucks the money out of America mostly by trading for its own account.
At the expense of anyone who happens to...more
it was a dog too.
Over 600 pages with the story starting in the 1840's.
Half the book is about stuff from more than 20 years ago
when GS was an entirely different company.
A partnership instead of a stock owned company,
an investment bank that advised clients and raised money for companies.
Now GS is a blood sucking vampire squid that sucks the money out of America mostly by trading for its own account.
At the expense of anyone who happens to...more
After reading this book, I am not sure how Goldman Sachs has any clients left. Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World is the history of this white-shoe firm from its inception through 2008. As the investment bank that other firms aspire to be, this book is a peek behind the curtain of how Goldman Sachs really operates.
In the late 1970s, a partner named John C. Whitehead developed the “14 Principles” that purportedly guides the company still today. The first principle, “Our cli...more
In the late 1970s, a partner named John C. Whitehead developed the “14 Principles” that purportedly guides the company still today. The first principle, “Our cli...more
Great history of one of the key players in the US/world banking industry. An informative inside look both at how the industry operates, including the many conflicts inherent in the related and competing businesses, as well as the personal side of how such a competitive and high-flying firm actually operates - and how that has served it both well and poorly when going through different experiences in Wall Street history.
Jun 27, 2011
Amanda
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
business,
non-fiction
As someone who has been indoctrinated by the GS ethos in the past, I can empathize with the characterizations of those who are successful there and those who are not. The history was important, the sphere of influence was frightening and the firm's ability to make money in both boom and bust was nothing short of impressive. Unless you like reading about the sometimes questionable practices of top banks and understand how little the little people matter in high finance, this is probably not the b...more
Fasinating story of Goldman Sachs and its influence in the U.S. Particularly helpful in mapping the political/financial revolving door and the characters who continue to make money thanks to the government bailout of Wall Street. Hard to take any thing this company proports to be their ethics seriously. They are one for us and all for us. As much as we can get.
A well written, well researched and tough history of one of the great American investment banks. And to be clear, it is a tough portrayal of the firm, going back a century to bring to light all the warts, failures and crisis' experienced by Goldman Sachs
I am amazed at how William Cohan can take a topic as dry as the finanial crises and make it read like a novel. I'm up the part where Jon Corzine takes over. But now that I've finished the book I have to say that I guess I just wasn't that interested in Goldman Sachs.
Overall this book was extremely interesting, and managed to truly paint Goldman Sachs as neither an "evil company" or one "doing God's work", truly leaving such determinations up to the reader based upon the provided information and context. For me it was a very revealing light into the machinations that are our banking and finance institutions. And though there were a great number of tedious parts, considering the subject matter and my relative ignorance of it, I think both the author and narra...more
Having read Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone I was a Goldman Sachs hater. Cohan's balanced presentation of the story helped me to see it from the other side. Well written, worth the read.
Long long book that chronicles the full history of goldman sachs. I found many parts of it very boring, and wasn't sure i'd make it through to the end. After about half of the book, however, it became much more interesting to me as it focused on the last 20-30 years which is much more relevant to the existing banking system.
The chapters on how goldman avoided the massive pain from the financial crisis were awesome. Cohan used excerpts from a ton of internal goldman e-mails to narrate the mortgag...more
The chapters on how goldman avoided the massive pain from the financial crisis were awesome. Cohan used excerpts from a ton of internal goldman e-mails to narrate the mortgag...more
This is an intriguing account of the rise and rise of Goldman Sachs. I am only 50 pages in so I will say more once I've finished reading it.
A lot of detail. Maybe a little too much. But I now know a lot about the history of Goldman Sachs now.
After reading most books based on Goldman Sachs, it doesnt live upto my expectations
Excellent history of Goldman. Goes inside their thinking and financial shenanigans.
Takes endurance but enlightening as to the evolution of big banking.
Investment banks is a synonym for mafia and Goldman Sachs is the Don.
It wasn't particularly well written, but it had great information.
Good detailed History. It tailed of towards the end though.
Interesting history of Goldman.
Really interesting.
Eye opening.
I now undertand how this company can sell junk mortgage securities to customers at the same time and unknown to the buyers that it was betting against (selling short) them. It is a money making machine and in this well researched book it tells how the company has evolved away from it's "14 principles" of ethical behavior. It is very well written and you get to know all the main players in the company and the close connection to the government.
Nov 16, 2011
!Tæmbuŝu
marked it as to-read
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
business-n-finance,
ebook-available
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May 08, 2012 06:43am