Matt Levine, Columnist

Cool Goldman and Angry Whistleblowers

Also tick sizes, Valeant, LendingClub, Uber, etc.

August 19, 2016 at 1:16 PM UTC

Matt Levine is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former investment banker at Goldman Sachs, he was a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; a clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit; and an editor of Dealbreaker.

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

Marcus!

In 1869, an immigrant in Philadelphia who had "worked as a peddler with a horse-drawn cart and later as a shopkeeper," and who was in possession of a terrific beard, moved to New York, where he "hung out a shingle on Pine Street" as a commercial-paper broker. The firm that he founded grew over the years, becoming a massive success, and then an American institution, and then "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity." Oops! Too far. His successors are trying to dial it back a bit. "Please, call us Marcus," they say, getting back to their roots. "Goldman, Sachs & Co. sounds so stuffy":