The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs
by Charles D. Ellis
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Book Summary Information
Author: Charles D. EllisEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-09-29
ISBN: 0143116126
Number of pages: 768
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs
Book Review: The Partnership: the Making of Goldman Sachs
Summary: 5 Stars
The Partnership - Charles D. Ellis
There are few really classic books in finance - Le Fevre's "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator", Peter Bernstein's "Capital Ideas" and perhaps half a dozen others at most. Outside of these the books tend to fall into one of two camps - "how to for dummies" books written by the several hundred people who have failed to internalise the irrefutable truth that there is no free lunch into their thinking and behaviour let alone their writing. The rest are works by various do gooding preachers who suffer not only from this condition but, arguably worse, try to occupy some unjustifiable moral high ground without mandate while seeking to exploit the market in books in the very ways they rile against.
Charles D. Ellis' "The Partnership: the Making of Goldman Sachs" is a genuinely remarkable finance book and joins the ranks of the top tier mentioned above. The quality of this work is unsurprising if we consider the breakthrough which Ellis most famous work - "Investment Policy: How to Win the Losers' Game" - the first seriously useful book on sound institutional investing - represented. There his uncanny knack of combining thorough conceptual understandings with street toughened practical experience was poured into well written, compelling prose in a manner yet to be surpassed.
So it is with The Partnership. For a start, the scope of the work is immense covering the more than a century's development of today's preeminent investment banking and financial services firm. To the reader at least, the detail of characters, accounts of events and interpretation of the strategic and commercial motivation of the myriad unfoldings is no less intense, painstaking or informative when dealing with the late eighteenth century than with the FDC a matter of months ago.
The breadth is equally staggering covering, necessarily, the development, conceptual underpinnings and means by which Goldman Sach's profited from as well as managed risk within every major financial innovation, product and transaction type over the last 120 years or more. What is invaluable here is that while numerous of the events are well known (the 1907 crash, that of 1987, the inside trading cases of the mid 1980s, the dotcom bubble and bust etc), Ellis provides the view, the exposure and the response of one firm to these events personalised through discussion of the responses of the key actors at Goldman Sachs.
For students of management and organisational theory the book is pure gold as well. Problems of creating, maintaining and growing a global behemoth, recruiting the best people on a sustained basis, managing ego and arrogance while retaining innovation are all dealt with. Analysis of the leadership styles, successes and failures, succession winners and losers are given a warts and all treatment throughout.
Are there genuine surprises? Yes. To me at least. One is the conclusion that in a competitive market where sooner or later all participants are using the same theory, the same practices, where product life is extraordinarily short and differentiation is close to impossible on any sustained basis, the key to competitive advantage lies in recruiting and training.
Another is the slightly puritanical streak which runs through the firm's culture and history. Another is just how many strongly successful leaders at Goldman Sachs were (and are) democrats or signatories to "soft" social policy - Rubin, brilliant risk arbitrageur and eventual adviser to Clinton is probably the standout here.
The book is a must and absolute testament to the excellence of "Charlie" Ellis. Is he biased? He is absolutely a fan - of that there is no doubt. But rather than sycophantic adoration, Ellis is an admirer of success and excellence. The three themes I drew from his analysis were the crucial significance of unremitting commitment to clients, constant internalisation and management of risk and ability to continually adapt through making the toughest of decisions.
The one thing Ellis does not make perhaps as explicit as it is in the Goldman Sach's story - though it lurks on every page - is the more than century long deployment of a relentless but carefully managed aggression which has been key to success.
Summary of The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs
The inside story of one of the world?s most powerful financial Institutions
Now with a new foreword and final chapter, The Partnership chronicles the most important periods in Goldman Sachs?s history and the individuals who built one of the world?s largest investment banks. Charles D. Ellis, who worked as a strategy consultant to Goldman Sachs for more than thirty years, reveals the secrets behind the firm?s continued success through many life-threatening changes. Disgraced and nearly destroyed in 1929, Goldman Sachs limped along as a break-even operation through the Depression and WWII. But with only one special service and one improbable banker, it began the stage-by-stage rise that took the firm to global leadership, even in the face of the world-wide credit crisis.
Now with a new foreword and final chapter, The Partnership chronicles the most important periods in Goldman Sachs?s history and the individuals who built one of the world?s largest investment banks. Charles D. Ellis, who worked as a strategy consultant to Goldman Sachs for more than thirty years, reveals the secrets behind the firm?s continued success through many life-threatening changes. Disgraced and nearly destroyed in 1929, Goldman Sachs limped along as a break-even operation through the Depression and WWII. But with only one special service and one improbable banker, it began the stage-by-stage rise that took the firm to global leadership, even in the face of the world-wide credit crisis.
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