Lloyd Blankfein’s Unapologetic Case for Goldman Sachs: Review (Correct)

All the annoying things about Goldman Sachs — its swagger, its conflicts, its imperishability — are in Lloyd Blankfein’s memoir, Streetwise: Getting to and Through Goldman Sachs (March 3, Penguin Press). But something more is in a book that’s often funny, mainly blunt, unexpectedly vulnerable and rarely apologetic: a subtle explanation for the annoying things about Goldman Sachs and its success. Both, the book makes clear, come from the bank’s unique paradoxes and a culture that embraces those paradoxes in full.

Two disclosures: I worked at Goldman Sachs right after college, more than 30 years ago. And though ...