For Its 150th Birthday, Goldman Sachs Has Given Itself a 150-Minute Ric Burns Miniseries
Dark
spots (Jon Corzine’s departure, a 1994 near-death experience, the
insider trading scandals of the late ’80s) are whitewashed as Goldman’s
image is buffed to its usual high sheen.
Goldman Sachs is impeccably predatory, elegantly selfish. It’s harder
to get into than Harvard. And when you do leave, there’s a good chance
you’ll be Treasury secretary, national economic adviser, or the governor
of New Jersey, as if the lucre were only a detour and not the whole
point. In era after era of boom and bust, Goldman’s bankers never lost
their shirts, even as all around them were losing theirs.
Goldman is an inescapable American institution, a part of history, and now, like the Civil War and New York City and baseball, on the occasion of its 150th birthday, it has its own multipart documentary series directed by someone named Burns. Unlike those other institutions, though, it paid for the documentary itself, for what has to be an eight-figure sum (it declined to say how much it spent), given the luscious production values. Among its other gifts, Goldman has always had a near-obsession for selling itself, its intelligence, its civic-mindedness. Goldman Sachs at 150 is the most expansive expression yet of this impulse.
Goldman Sachs at 150 is a strange bit of filmmaking, hard to get one’s mind around. It’s obviously a piece of corporate marketing, so a viewer starts by resisting its conclusions—but its documentary tropes are so familiar that it wears you down. Current and former white male partners are interviewed in abundance, of course, but Burns—in this case Ric Burns, younger brother of Ken—also spends time with a number of Goldman’s female partners and partners of color, some of whom are also women. (In other words, a public relations home run.) It’s not exactly hagiography, because Goldman is clever enough to include in the film a number of instances in which it really messed up—and almost went out of business. That makes the film, which is available on Amazon Prime, nearly credible as a piece of journalism, but only nearly so. More than anything it reveals both Goldman’s gargantuan superego and its immense—and justified—pride in making it to 150. (Among major American investment banks, only Brown Brothers Harriman (founded in 1818) and Lazard (founded in 1848) are older than Goldman.)
Burns’s Goldman Sachs at 150 is mostly a story of Goldman’s glory. One cannot help thinking, while watching the film, that Goldman is Lake Wobegon on the Hudson: all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average. I’ve never seen so many polished, happy, prosperous well-dressed people (of all stripes) in one place at one time. I feel certain this was not an accident.
Burns, who serves with me on the board of the National Humanities Center, in North Carolina, had a nearly impossible assignment: how to bathe Goldman Sachs in its trademark blend of glory, self-deprecation, and introspection, acknowledging its numerous foibles while staying on message that this is one fabulous firm. How to strike the right balance between Goldman’s complex history of mistakes, existential crises, and triumphs? Goldman has always tried to portray itself as about being more than filthy lucre. Its brief is about being able to make money while also providing capital and advice to corporations, governments, institutions, and wealthy people who need it and can pay a fair price for getting the best. Goldman’s mantra has always been to be long-term greedy. As I say, it can’t have been an easy assignment for Burns, who has a stellar reputation for journalistic integrity. I guess we all have our price. That’s one of the things that makes his film so interesting: why did he agree to do it? (Goldman said Burns started the film in 2012, and then updated it for more recent events.)
Goldman is an inescapable American institution, a part of history, and now, like the Civil War and New York City and baseball, on the occasion of its 150th birthday, it has its own multipart documentary series directed by someone named Burns. Unlike those other institutions, though, it paid for the documentary itself, for what has to be an eight-figure sum (it declined to say how much it spent), given the luscious production values. Among its other gifts, Goldman has always had a near-obsession for selling itself, its intelligence, its civic-mindedness. Goldman Sachs at 150 is the most expansive expression yet of this impulse.
Goldman Sachs at 150 is a strange bit of filmmaking, hard to get one’s mind around. It’s obviously a piece of corporate marketing, so a viewer starts by resisting its conclusions—but its documentary tropes are so familiar that it wears you down. Current and former white male partners are interviewed in abundance, of course, but Burns—in this case Ric Burns, younger brother of Ken—also spends time with a number of Goldman’s female partners and partners of color, some of whom are also women. (In other words, a public relations home run.) It’s not exactly hagiography, because Goldman is clever enough to include in the film a number of instances in which it really messed up—and almost went out of business. That makes the film, which is available on Amazon Prime, nearly credible as a piece of journalism, but only nearly so. More than anything it reveals both Goldman’s gargantuan superego and its immense—and justified—pride in making it to 150. (Among major American investment banks, only Brown Brothers Harriman (founded in 1818) and Lazard (founded in 1848) are older than Goldman.)
Burns’s Goldman Sachs at 150 is mostly a story of Goldman’s glory. One cannot help thinking, while watching the film, that Goldman is Lake Wobegon on the Hudson: all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average. I’ve never seen so many polished, happy, prosperous well-dressed people (of all stripes) in one place at one time. I feel certain this was not an accident.
Burns, who serves with me on the board of the National Humanities Center, in North Carolina, had a nearly impossible assignment: how to bathe Goldman Sachs in its trademark blend of glory, self-deprecation, and introspection, acknowledging its numerous foibles while staying on message that this is one fabulous firm. How to strike the right balance between Goldman’s complex history of mistakes, existential crises, and triumphs? Goldman has always tried to portray itself as about being more than filthy lucre. Its brief is about being able to make money while also providing capital and advice to corporations, governments, institutions, and wealthy people who need it and can pay a fair price for getting the best. Goldman’s mantra has always been to be long-term greedy. As I say, it can’t have been an easy assignment for Burns, who has a stellar reputation for journalistic integrity. I guess we all have our price. That’s one of the things that makes his film so interesting: why did he agree to do it? (Goldman said Burns started the film in 2012, and then updated it for more recent events.)
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To
be expected, I guess, along with the bits of introspection, there are
also moments of craven sycophancy. These are most often delivered by
three supposedly objective outsiders, whom Burns—no doubt with Goldman’s
approval—interviewed extensively for the film: Lisa Endlich, a former Goldman vice president and the author of The Culture of Success about the firm; Charles D. Ellis, who wrote The Partnership about Goldman and who runs a compensation firm that does business with Goldman; and Niall Ferguson,
who has not written a book about the firm, but has written a few books
about other Wall Street firms, and is also a senior fellow at the Hoover
Institution. There is virtually no end to the praise both Endlich and
Ellis lavish on Goldman, and at times it is painful to watch. Burns’s
film excludes critical voices: there is no Matt Taibbi, the Rolling Stone writer who famously described Goldman as a “vampire squid”; no Nomi Prins, Carmen Segarra, Tom Wright, or Bradley Hope, who have all written books critical of Goldman; and, of course, no yours truly—my 2011 book, Money and Power, is the most recent history of the firm. But hey, it’s Goldman’s party. So why invite spoilers?
That said there are enough moments of truth and candor to keep the film journalistically credible. John F. W. Rogers, the firm’s longtime consigliere, and Stephen Scherr, the Goldman CFO, deliver honest assessments about where the firm has gone off the rails over the years. And there were some unexpected surprises on that front. The film does not shy away from the disastrous decision in the 1920s to have Waddill Catchings lead the firm. He was a huge mistake, and the firm almost when down the tubes during the Great Depression as a result of Catchings’s greed, which manifested itself in the Goldman Sachs Trading Corporation. Goldman never again made the mistake of putting an outsider in charge. While it’s true that David Solomon worked at Drexel Burnham Lambert, Salomon Brothers, and Bear Stearns before coming to Goldman, he had been at the firm almost 20 years before getting named as CEO.
The film also confronts more or less head-on the sad chapter of Goldman’s role in the bankruptcy of the Penn Central railroad in 1970. Goldman had been an underwriter of Penn Central’s commercial paper, and continued to sell the paper despite becoming privy to the fact that Penn Central was going down the tubes. When the company did file for bankruptcy—the biggest corporate bankruptcy in the U.S. to date at that time—Goldman faced a slew of lawsuits from angry investors of the commercial paper. It was another moment when Goldman almost went out of business. But it was fortunate to be able to negotiate its way out of the lawsuits and to preserve the firm. The film does not mention that Goldman sold its inventory of Penn Central commercial paper soon after learning that the company was in financial jeopardy, while also continuing to sell the paper to investors.
There are other shocking omissions too. No mention is made of Goldman’s reputation-busting role in the humongous insider trading scandals of the late 1980s, involving Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Dennis Levine, Martin Siegel, and others. Whether unfairly framed or not, Robert Freeman, a senior Goldman partner in the risk-arbitrage group, was caught up in the scandal, and was led by authorities off the Goldman trading floor and later arrested in front of 85 Broad Street, then Goldman’s headquarters. To settle the various charges against him, Freeman later served four months in a minimum-security prison in Florida. He left Goldman. There have been other notorious scandals involving Goldman partners as well, including one involving Lewis Eisenberg, the current U.S. Ambassador to Italy, that are not mentioned either.
That said there are enough moments of truth and candor to keep the film journalistically credible. John F. W. Rogers, the firm’s longtime consigliere, and Stephen Scherr, the Goldman CFO, deliver honest assessments about where the firm has gone off the rails over the years. And there were some unexpected surprises on that front. The film does not shy away from the disastrous decision in the 1920s to have Waddill Catchings lead the firm. He was a huge mistake, and the firm almost when down the tubes during the Great Depression as a result of Catchings’s greed, which manifested itself in the Goldman Sachs Trading Corporation. Goldman never again made the mistake of putting an outsider in charge. While it’s true that David Solomon worked at Drexel Burnham Lambert, Salomon Brothers, and Bear Stearns before coming to Goldman, he had been at the firm almost 20 years before getting named as CEO.
The film also confronts more or less head-on the sad chapter of Goldman’s role in the bankruptcy of the Penn Central railroad in 1970. Goldman had been an underwriter of Penn Central’s commercial paper, and continued to sell the paper despite becoming privy to the fact that Penn Central was going down the tubes. When the company did file for bankruptcy—the biggest corporate bankruptcy in the U.S. to date at that time—Goldman faced a slew of lawsuits from angry investors of the commercial paper. It was another moment when Goldman almost went out of business. But it was fortunate to be able to negotiate its way out of the lawsuits and to preserve the firm. The film does not mention that Goldman sold its inventory of Penn Central commercial paper soon after learning that the company was in financial jeopardy, while also continuing to sell the paper to investors.
There are other shocking omissions too. No mention is made of Goldman’s reputation-busting role in the humongous insider trading scandals of the late 1980s, involving Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Dennis Levine, Martin Siegel, and others. Whether unfairly framed or not, Robert Freeman, a senior Goldman partner in the risk-arbitrage group, was caught up in the scandal, and was led by authorities off the Goldman trading floor and later arrested in front of 85 Broad Street, then Goldman’s headquarters. To settle the various charges against him, Freeman later served four months in a minimum-security prison in Florida. He left Goldman. There have been other notorious scandals involving Goldman partners as well, including one involving Lewis Eisenberg, the current U.S. Ambassador to Italy, that are not mentioned either.
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Goldman’s 1994 existential financial crisis, when some 40 partners left
the firm believing it might collapse as a result of relentless trading
losses, is mostly glossed over. The so-called “deep divisions rocking
senior management,” as Burns described the 1999 coup d’etat at the
firm—in which future Treasury secretary Hank Paulson engineered the ouster of Jon Corzine
as the firm’s senior partner—does a deep disservice to what was an
extraordinary moment in the firm’s history. But that would not fit, I
guess, with what both Ellis and Endlich constantly describe as Goldman’s
uncanny ability to transfer power smoothly from one brilliant executive
to another.
Goldman’s role in the 2008 financial crisis is not exactly glossed over so much as it is foreshortened and circumscribed. Yes, it’s true, as the film points out, that Goldman had superior risk-management skills, especially when compared to the rest of Wall Street. And the firm’s ongoing mantra of how it “got closer to home”—reduced its exposure to the mortgage market—gets plenty of airtime. But this is all remarkably superficial too. The truth is more complicated and dramatic and may, whether intentionally or not, have hastened the demise of many of Goldman’s competitors. But again, why spoil the party with the facts? There is no mention—no surprise—of the $550 million fine Goldman paid the Securities and Exchange Commission as a result of the whole Abacus scandal. Nor does the phrase 1MDB cross any lips.
But you’ll be glad to learn in episode 10, Goldman is the LGBT employer of choice, and Marty Chavez, the openly gay former Goldman CFO was demoted to cohead of the securities division, values greatly the LGBT “uncorrelated perspective.” And given the recent New York Times feature on the gender transition of Michael DuVally, a longtime Goldman communications professional, to Maeve DuVally, Goldman may, in fact, be evolving rapidly. “Things are changing, Bill,” one Goldman professional emailed me last week about the DuVally story. It had the ring of truth.
It’s not surprising that Lloyd Blankfein, the firm’s former chairman and CEO, who is known for his sarcastic wit, delivers the documentary’s best moment. Blankfein, of course, was Goldman’s leader in the two years before the 2008 financial crisis, and for the decade after it. (David Solomon took over for Blankfein last October.) At one point, Burns, who both wrote and directed the film, must have asked Blankfein to reflect on the crisis, and what wisdom he gained from the firm’s ability to survive in much better shape than many of its competitors. “The fact is life’s uncertain,” Blankfein says. “Nobody knows. Based on my long experience in the business, I know I don’t know. I know I can’t forecast the future, but years of experience aren’t a total waste. So for example, I know you don’t know. A lot of people may think they don’t know, but aren’t sure what the other guy knows. After all these years, I know no one knows.”
A big part of the reason Goldman has been so successful at selling securities and making deals is that it’s been superb at marketing itself. Jake Siewert, Goldman’s head of corporate communications, said the film was meant to be for internal use only. “But we decided to post it outside in the spirit of transparency, for which we have long been known,” he told me. Sounds about right if you don’t think too much about it.
Goldman’s role in the 2008 financial crisis is not exactly glossed over so much as it is foreshortened and circumscribed. Yes, it’s true, as the film points out, that Goldman had superior risk-management skills, especially when compared to the rest of Wall Street. And the firm’s ongoing mantra of how it “got closer to home”—reduced its exposure to the mortgage market—gets plenty of airtime. But this is all remarkably superficial too. The truth is more complicated and dramatic and may, whether intentionally or not, have hastened the demise of many of Goldman’s competitors. But again, why spoil the party with the facts? There is no mention—no surprise—of the $550 million fine Goldman paid the Securities and Exchange Commission as a result of the whole Abacus scandal. Nor does the phrase 1MDB cross any lips.
But you’ll be glad to learn in episode 10, Goldman is the LGBT employer of choice, and Marty Chavez, the openly gay former Goldman CFO was demoted to cohead of the securities division, values greatly the LGBT “uncorrelated perspective.” And given the recent New York Times feature on the gender transition of Michael DuVally, a longtime Goldman communications professional, to Maeve DuVally, Goldman may, in fact, be evolving rapidly. “Things are changing, Bill,” one Goldman professional emailed me last week about the DuVally story. It had the ring of truth.
It’s not surprising that Lloyd Blankfein, the firm’s former chairman and CEO, who is known for his sarcastic wit, delivers the documentary’s best moment. Blankfein, of course, was Goldman’s leader in the two years before the 2008 financial crisis, and for the decade after it. (David Solomon took over for Blankfein last October.) At one point, Burns, who both wrote and directed the film, must have asked Blankfein to reflect on the crisis, and what wisdom he gained from the firm’s ability to survive in much better shape than many of its competitors. “The fact is life’s uncertain,” Blankfein says. “Nobody knows. Based on my long experience in the business, I know I don’t know. I know I can’t forecast the future, but years of experience aren’t a total waste. So for example, I know you don’t know. A lot of people may think they don’t know, but aren’t sure what the other guy knows. After all these years, I know no one knows.”
A big part of the reason Goldman has been so successful at selling securities and making deals is that it’s been superb at marketing itself. Jake Siewert, Goldman’s head of corporate communications, said the film was meant to be for internal use only. “But we decided to post it outside in the spirit of transparency, for which we have long been known,” he told me. Sounds about right if you don’t think too much about it.
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