高盛高管辭職信全文：我爲什麼離開高盛？

Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
我爲什麼離開高盛？

Greg Smith is resigning today as a Goldman Sachs executive director and head of the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Greg Smith曾是高盛執行董事，高盛的美國股票衍生業務在歐洲、中東和非洲的主管。

Today is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.
今天是我在高盛的最後一天。我在高盛工作了12年，最初在斯坦福讀書時夏季來做實習生，然後在紐約工作了十年，現在在倫敦。我想我在這裏工作了足夠長時間，能夠理解其文化發展軌跡，理解其員工和身份。說實話，現在的環境是我見過最有毒和最破壞性的高盛。

To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.
簡單一點來講就是，高盛的運行模式和賺錢理念把客戶的利益放在次要位置，但高盛是世界規模最大、最有影響力的投行之一，它與全球金融的相關性太高，不能夠這樣做。從我大學畢業入職高盛至今，這家投行已經發生了轉變，現在我不能夠問心無愧的說我同意這家投行的立場。

It might sound surprising to a skeptical public, but culture was always a vital part of Goldman Sachs’s success. It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our clients’ trust for 143 years. It wasn’t just about making money; this alone will not sustain a firm for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization. I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm for many years. I no longer have the pride, or the belief.
文化曾經是高盛取得成功的重要原因，這一點對公衆來說似乎有點出乎意料。過去高盛的文化一直圍繞着團隊協作、正直、謙遜，以及永遠爲客戶的利益考慮。文化是高盛之所以能成爲一個偉大公司的祕訣，幫助我們在過去的143年一直贏得客戶的信任。過去高盛的文化不僅僅圍繞賺錢，因爲這一點不足以使一個公司在這麼長的時期裏屹立不倒。高盛的人一直爲公司感到驕傲，對自己所從事的事業充滿信仰。然而，在過去很多年，我環顧四周，發覺曾經使我熱愛這份工作的文化已不復存在，我不再爲它感到驕傲，我不再對自己從事的事業充滿信仰。

But this was not always the case. For more than a decade I recruited and mentored candidates through our grueling interview process. I was selected as one of 10 people (out of a firm of more than 30,000) to appear on our recruiting video, which is played on every college campus we visit around the world. In 2006 I managed the summer intern program in sales and trading in New York for the 80 college students who made the cut, out of the thousands who applied.
但情況並不總是這樣。十幾年來，我面試並招募了一批批新人，悉心指導他們。我和另外9名同事被拍進一段招聘視頻短片，在全球各大高校播放。2006年，我從數千名應聘者中挑選出80名學生同事進入夏季實習計劃，訓練他們買賣和交易。

I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.
我知道，當我認識到自己不再能看着學生們的眼睛，告訴他們在這個地方工作有多棒，這時候就該離開了。

When the history books are written about Goldman Sachs, they may reflect that the current chief executive officer, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and the president, Gary D. Cohn, lost hold of the firm’s culture on their watch. I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.
當歷史書中描述高盛時，它們可能會顯示，高盛在首席執行官Lloyd C. Blankfein和總裁Gary D. Cohn的管理下，失去了對公司文化的掌控。我的確認爲公司道德品行淪落是對高盛長期生存最大的威脅。

Over the course of my career I have had the privilege of advising two of the largest hedge funds on the planet, five of the largest asset managers in the United States, and three of the most prominent sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia. My clients have a total asset base of more than a trillion dollars. I have always taken a lot of pride in advising my clients to do what I believe is right for them, even if it means less money for the firm. This view is becoming increasingly unpopular at Goldman Sachs. Another sign that it was time to leave.
在我的職業生涯中，我有幸爲全球兩大對衝基金、美國五大資產經理以及中東和亞洲的三個最具影響力的主權財富基金擔任過諮詢顧問。我的客戶擁有的總資產基礎超過了1萬億美元。我一直以來都以爲客戶提供對他們有利的建議爲榮，即使有時候這意味着高盛能從中得到的利潤相對較少。然而我的這一觀點在高盛越來越缺少擁護，這也是現在對我來講是時候離開的另一個原因。

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.
高盛是如何走到成今天這個地步的？高盛對領導層的思維方式已經改變。曾幾何時，領導意味着理念、樹立榜樣以及做正確的事，而現在，如果你能爲高盛賺到足夠的錢，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”，這是高盛內部的說法，指的是勸說自己的顧客投資股票或者其他我們自己極力避免購買的產品，因爲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。你可能覺得我守舊，但是我不願意把我覺得有害的產品賣給客戶。 3)爲自己找到一個位子。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品，這種產品有一個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，而僅僅討論我們如何能夠從客戶身上賺取最多的利潤。如果您是一位來自火星的外星人並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.
冷酷無情的人們在討論着如何榨乾他們的客戶，這讓我覺得很噁心。在過去十二個月裏，我見過5名主管將他們的客戶稱作“提線木偶”，有時也會在內部郵件中這麼說。吸血鬼？不人道？就是這樣。誠信？早就腐爛了。我不敢說那些行爲是非法的，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？事實上，在高盛這一幕每天都在上演。

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，高盛的高層領導對以下這一點甚至記在心上：如果客戶不信任你，他們最終會不再跟你做生意，無論您有多麼地聰明。

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，因爲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年後的高盛：這些整天被教導如何抓取眼球、如何賺取報酬的初級分析師，不可能成爲對社會有用的公民。

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，我不知道廁所在哪裏也不知道怎麼繫鞋帶。我所接受到的知道就是要努力學習，搞清楚什麼是衍生品、學着理解金融、瞭解客戶和讓他們投資的動因、瞭解他們如何定義成功以及我們如何做能夠讓他們獲得那種成功。

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.
我一生中最驕傲的時刻：從南非拿全額獎學金去斯坦福大學，獲得國家羅氏獎學金，在以色列“猶太人奧運會”馬卡比運動會拿到乒乓球比賽銅牌，所有的這些成就都是通過我的努力，我沒有走捷徑。今天的高盛有太多的捷徑，對成功卻永不滿足，這已經不是我覺得很棒的那個高盛。

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。不管他們能爲這家投行賺多少錢。把高盛的企業文化重新擺正，讓真正的人才有足夠的理由在這裏工作下去，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。