第一部分
How did we get here? The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.
高盛是如何走到今天這個地步的？高盛對領導這個概念的定義已經(jīng)改變。曾幾何時，領導意味著理念、樹立榜樣以及做正確的事，而現(xiàn)在，如果你能為高盛賺到足夠的錢，你就能夠得到升職，更具影響力。
What are three quick ways to become a leader? a) Execute on the firm’s “axes,” which is Goldman-speak for persuading your clients to invest in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit. b) “Hunt Elephants.” In English: get your clients — some of whom are sophisticated, and some of whom aren’t — to trade whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like selling my clients a product that is wrong for them. c) Find yourself sitting in a seat where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.
哪三個方法能迅速在高盛當上領導？ 1)揮動公司的“斧子”，這是高盛內(nèi)部的說法，指的是勸說自己的客戶投資股票或者其他我們自己極力出手的產(chǎn)品，因為它們看起來不可能有很高的利潤。 2)“獵象”。在英語中，這個字面意思的實際意義是：讓你的客戶——他們之中有些人胸有城府，有些沒有——進行一切能給高盛帶來最高利潤的交易。 算我老派吧，我就不喜歡給自己的客戶推銷一款不適合他們的產(chǎn)品。3)為自己找到一個職位。坐在這個位子上，你的工作就是交易所有流動性差的含糊產(chǎn)品，這種產(chǎn)品有一個3個字母的首字母縮略語名稱。
Today, many of these leaders display a Goldman Sachs culture quotient of exactly zero percent. I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.
如今，很多高盛領導人的做法讓人覺得，高盛原來的文化已經(jīng)不復存在。我出席衍生品銷售會議，會上沒有花哪怕一分鐘時間來討論如何幫助客戶，而僅僅討論我們?nèi)绾文軌驈目蛻羯砩腺嵢∽疃嗟睦麧?。如果您是一位來自火星的外星人并且參與到其中的一個會議，你會感覺到，客戶的成功和進步完全不是會議的議題。
It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail. Even after the S.E.C., Fabulous Fab, Abacus, God’s work, Carl Levin, Vampire Squids? No humility? I mean, come on. Integrity? It is eroding. I don’t know of any illegal behavior, but will people push the envelope and pitch lucrative and complicated products to clients even if they are not the simplest investments or the ones most directly aligned with the client’s goals? Absolutely. Every day, in fact.
高盛的人在討論如何剝削客戶時麻木不仁，這讓我感到惡心。在過去的12個月里，我目睹了5名董事總經(jīng)理將他們的客戶稱作“提線木偶”，有時也會在內(nèi)部郵件中這么說。甚至在美國證券交易委員會揭發(fā)“神奇的法布”銷售Abacus這個不良產(chǎn)品給客戶，滾石雜志攻擊高盛是吸血烏賊后，他們還這樣說。不謙虛？得了吧。誠信？早就腐爛了。我不敢說那些行為是非法的，但有誰會明知投資不可靠或不符合客戶需求，卻依然將它推薦給客戶呢？
It astounds me how little senior management gets a basic truth: If clients don’t trust you they will eventually stop doing business with you. It doesn’t matter how smart you are.
讓我驚訝的是，高盛的高層領導竟忽略了最基本的一點：如果客戶不信任你，他們最終不會選擇跟你做生意，無論你有多么地聰明。
These days, the most common question I get from junior analysts about derivatives is, “How much money did we make off the client?” It bothers me every time I hear it, because it is a clear reflection of what they are observing from their leaders about the way they should behave. Now project 10 years into the future: You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the junior analyst sitting quietly in the corner of the room hearing about “muppets,” “ripping eyeballs out” and “getting paid” doesn’t exactly turn into a model citizen.
如今，初級分析師最經(jīng)常向我提出的問題是“過去我們從這個客戶身上賺了多少錢？”每次我聽到這個問題就感到厭煩，因為這事實上反映了他們從領導身上學到的做事方式。讓我們想象一下10年后的高盛：這些整天被教導如何把客戶當作“提線木偶”、如何抓取眼球、如何賺取報酬的初級分析師，不可能成為對社會有用的公民。
When I was a first-year analyst I didn’t know where the bathroom was, or how to tie my shoelaces. I was taught to be concerned with learning the ropes, finding out what a derivative was, understanding finance, getting to know our clients and what motivated them, learning how they defined success and what we could do to help them get there.
我做分析師的第一年時，我不知道浴室在哪里也不知道怎么系鞋帶。我所接受到的指導就是要努力學習，搞清楚什么是衍生品、學著理解金融、了解客戶和讓他們投資的動因、了解他們?nèi)绾味x成功以及我們?nèi)绾巫瞿軌蜃屗麄儷@得那種成功。
My proudest moments in life — getting a full scholarship to go from South Africa to Stanford University, being selected as a Rhodes Scholar national finalist, winning a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics — have all come through hard work, with no shortcuts. Goldman Sachs today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about achievement. It just doesn’t feel right to me anymore.
我人生中最驕傲的時刻——從南非到斯坦福大學求學獲得全額獎學金、被選為羅氏獎學金在美國的最終得獎者、在號稱猶太人奧運會的以色列馬卡比運動會上贏得一枚乒乓球比賽的銅牌——都經(jīng)過了努力奮斗，沒有走捷徑。今天的高盛已經(jīng)變得太注重捷徑，不夠重視成就。這讓我再也沒有好感。
I hope this can be a wake-up call to the board of directors. Make the client the focal point of your business again. Without clients you will not make money. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm. And get the culture right again, so people want to work here for the right reasons. People who care only about making money will not sustain this firm — or the trust of its clients — for very much longer.
我希望我的離開能夠喚醒現(xiàn)在高盛的董事會領導。再把客戶重新擺在你們生意的重點上吧。如果沒有客戶，你們一分錢也賺不到。事實上，沒有客戶，高盛都不能得以存在。把那些道德敗壞的人清理出高盛的大門。不管他們能為這家投行賺多少錢。把高盛的企業(yè)文化重新擺正，讓真正的人才有足夠的理由在這里工作下去，讓那些只關心賺錢的人在這個投行無法立足，讓客戶對這家投行的信任一直堅定下去。
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（來源：nytimes.com/人民網(wǎng)）
