SA banker is anti-establishment hero

Greg Smith, an unassuming guy who went to King David School in Linksfield, Joburg, has become an unlikely anti-establishment hero after his resignation letter appeared in The New York Times.

Smith did not hold back in his letter when he called the environment at banking giant Goldman Sachs “toxic and destructive” and said the firm’s policy was to put money-making ahead of the interests of clients.

On Wednesday, the day of the letter’s publication, his former company lost more than $2 billion (R15.3bn) in revenue as Smith’s rejection of the company went viral. The letter has been so popular, it has been remade into a Taiwanese animation, but more significantly it has sparked debate about the culture of Wall Street.

Smith grew up in Joburg, where his father was a pharmacist and his mother a housewife. He attended King David School, and after matriculating in 1996 with eight distinctions, he received a scholarship to study at Stanford University in the US.

Smith's former headmaster, Elliot Wolf, said it surprised him that the banker would have taken such a public stand. “I can’t say that is what I would have expected from him because he was quiet and didn’t try to shake society… he never presented a moment’s trouble at school,” said Wolf. But he added that Smith was highly principled, which may have spurred him on to take such a stand.

Wolf said Smith was conscientious and highly intelligent, which caused him to be admired by his fellow pupils, but was also very quiet and kept to himself to a large extent.

Smith played for the SA Maccabi junior and senior table tennis teams, and won a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel.

“He came from a pretty ordinary family but really wanted to make something of himself and had said for some time he wanted to move to America. I’m surprised he has done what he's done and I hope he is okay,” said his former coach Rainer Sztab.

Goldman Sachs’s two top executives responded to the resignation letter in a statement: “It is unfortunate that an individual opinion about Goldman Sachs is amplified in a newspaper and speaks louder than the regular, detailed and intensive feedback (employees) have provided the firm.” - The Star

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sutekj said:

I hope this has catastrophic implications for Goldman Sachs.

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buyeye said:

The sigh of the times

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