Lord Blankfein's personal experience

Relying on the scholarship, Blankfein successfully completed his studies at Harvard Law School. He received a bachelor's degree from Harvard Law School in 1975 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1978. From then on, he began his career. jobs. After graduating from college in 1978, he found a job as a tax lawyer. Like many ambitious young people, Blankfein didn't find the feeling he wanted in his first job. He is looking for opportunities to change jobs. One day, by chance, he saw a job posting from Goldman Sachs. Blankfein was eager to try, so he submitted his resume. This time, this smart and quick-thinking Harvard student did not get the favor of Goldman Sachs. On the contrary, he was turned away. In 1981, Blankfein left his job as a tax lawyer and joined a little-known commodity trading company, J.Aron, as a salesman. From an ordinary salesman to a gold medal salesman, Blankfein saw the breadth of his life rapidly expand in this job in a short period of time. A breakthrough was found, which made the young Blankfein even more energetic. But he did not expect that J.Aron would soon be acquired by Goldman Sachs because the overall decline could not be reversed. In this way, Blankfein and J.Aron became part of Goldman Sachs.

After being rejected when applying for Goldman Sachs, but now he has become an employee of Goldman Sachs through this method, Blankfein seems to have some doubts in his heart, "When I first joined this company, At that time, I was thinking, how can I survive in this place? So I asked myself whether I can make the work area I am responsible for an important part of the company's development, and I care about this very much," Blankfein recalled. explain. Goldman Sachs has always given the outside world a ruthless impression. It always attracts elites at an alarming rate, and then sweeps them out at an alarming rate. Under such a severe situation, Blankfein urgently needs to quickly find his position in this huge financial institution. The business of J.Aron, which was included in the Goldman Sachs system, needs to be adjusted and restored, and Blankfein plays an irreplaceable role in this process. The company's business has expanded to coffee, metal trading, crude oil, foreign exchange trading and other fields. By the early 1990s, the profits created by J.Aron accounted for one-third or more of the total profits of the Goldman Sachs consortium. J.Aron became a place of great attraction within Goldman Sachs. Along with the rise and rapid development of J.Aron was Blankfein, whose performance during this period attracted more and more attention from Goldman Sachs executives. Blankfein's original goal was achieved. Not only did he gain a firm foothold at Goldman Sachs, he also laid a solid foundation for his future advancement.

What really made Blankfein stand out in the Goldman Sachs Group was in 2002. In this year, the fixed income commodities department of Goldman Sachs, the pillar department of Blankfein, created a total of 12.7 million. US dollars in income, while the income generated by the department in charge of Henry Paulson, then chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, was only US$9.6 million. For a time, Blankfein's name became louder and thicker. In view of J.Aron's increasingly important position within the Goldman Sachs Group, in 1997 Goldman Sachs merged J.Aron with its fixed income business to establish the Fixed Income Commodity Department (FICC), and Blankfein was appointed as the head of this part of the business. director. Blankfein's leadership has greatly enhanced FICC's trading capabilities and maintained a rapid and constant growth trend. FICC's revenue increased from US$2.86 billion in 1999 to US$5.59 billion in 2003. FICC has remained within Goldman Sachs to this day. The role of the trunk. In early 2003, Blankfein became the first and only employee to join the company's board of directors after Goldman Sachs went public. Prior to this, Paulson had two recognized successors. One was the ambitious John Thornton, who successfully expanded Goldman Sachs' business into the European and Asian markets, and the other was John Thain (2003). He served as CEO of the New York Stock Exchange and became CEO of Merrill Lynch at the end of 2007). No one paid attention to Blankfein, but FICC's successive good results and the total income of Goldman Sachs Group showed great dependence on FICC. Some observers believe that if Goldman Sachs continues to maintain its high dependence on FICC, then Blankfein will be the one. Waiting for the best candidate to replace Paulson. Sure enough, this prediction was confirmed soon after.

In December 2003, Blankfein became the president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs, while Thornton and Thain, two long-promised successors, left Goldman Sachs at the end of 2003.

Some analysts believe that there are two main reasons for Blankfein's success: First, he knows how to create profits through the company's proprietary trading rather than by soliciting high-end customers. This is Blankfein's One specialty, and another reason is that proprietary trading has become a trend in recent years, and Blankfein's expertise has officially met the needs of this trend. Being good at identifying opportunities and being able to react as quickly as possible and make full use of them is an important trait of Blankfein. In the fourth quarter of 2003, FICC's revenue reached US$1.1 billion, approximately 1/4 of Goldman Sachs Group's net income during the same period. More importantly, according to analysts, the subsidiary's contribution to Goldman Sachs' profits is much higher, about 35%. Because of his outstanding performance at FICC, Blankfein's salary reached the highest point at Goldman Sachs in 2002. At the end of 2003, Goldman Sachs announced that Blankfein's salary for that year was US$20 million, a small part of which was restricted stock. Mostly in cash. In June 2006, Henry Paulson, then CEO of Goldman Sachs Group, was appointed as Secretary of the Treasury by U.S. President Bush. Naturally, Blankfein became Paulson's best choice. On June 2, the Goldman Sachs board of directors announced the appointment of Blankfein, president and chief operating officer, as the new CEO and chairman. With his excellent trading skills, Blankfein reached the top position of Goldman Sachs Group. In 2006, Blankfein received another generous reward for leading Goldman Sachs to continue to advance rapidly, with a year-end bonus of US$53.4 million, setting a new record for year-end bonuses for Wall Street investment banks. With its outstanding performance in 2007 (the share price of Goldman Sachs Group rose by about 5% in 2007, although it seems average, it is very good compared with its peers on Wall Street: the share prices of Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, and Citigroup fell by 20% % or more), Blankfein received US$67.9 million in income from Goldman Sachs, including US$26.8 million in cash and restricted stock dividends worth US$41.1 million, making him the richest "wage earner" on Wall Street last year. At the same time, Blankfein ranked third on Fortune's list of the world's 25 most influential business leaders in 2007, behind Apple's Steve Jobs and News Corp's Rupert Murdoch.

It can be said that Blankfein today can be called the God of Wealth on Wall Street. But if you understand his background, Blankfein's struggle can also be said to be a typical "Wall Street myth."