“I believe that turmoil of 1994 scarred the firm in such a way that it believed it needed a steady source of capital, permanent capital, that something like 1994 should never happen again, ... and that the way to keep something like that from ever happening again, one of the ways, was to take permanent capital from public shareholders.”
“Goldman Sachs' name got dragged through the mud in this. Goldman Sachs was written about in almost every major news publication in a negative light because of their involvement with Robert Maxwell.”
“It had no customers for the next five years. It made no money for 15 years. It's almost unthinkable in today's terms that an investment bank could exist for 15 years without making any money. But they did.”
“Early in the morning before school started he would have high school seniors come in to the trading floor and play cards with him, ... poker, bridge -- any sort of game where there's a strategy involved, the way that was remembering the cards, where he could watch people's minds and see how they thought and see how analytical they were. And those who were good players got hired as traders.”
“Last year I know it was the most profitable privately owned company in America. And this includes Levi Strauss, the United Parcel Service. This includes household names. Goldman Sachs was more profitable than any of them.”
“Being a partner at Goldman Sachs, ... is the highest accolade on Wall Street. It is something people aspire to. It has allowed Goldman Sachs to recruit and maintain the very best people in the industry. Because there is nothing else like it.”
“It's a stone tower with really nothing flashy about it, ... No fancy art, no expensive, you know, Chinese rugs. I mean it really is very discreet -- and very pedestrian.”
“There's no doubt in my mind, ... that the firm's culture and its partnership are what have set it apart from the rest of the industry to this point, and without the firm's partnership it will become much more like every other firm in the industry.”
“Bob spearheaded some of the more risky trading businesses, the proprietary trading businesses in which the firm did so well in the 1980s and the 1990s, ... Those brought a lot more risk to Goldman Sachs and with it, an enormous jump in profitability.”
