So, Goldman Sachs posted earnings this week. On the birthday of CEO, David Solomon, no less. Reportedly, it was a tough phone call, with Solomon on his back foot at times, given the worse-than-expected results. These came right after the bank laid off 3,200 employees on what was nick-named “David’s Demolition Day.” And right before Solomon jetted off to the World Economic Forum in Davos.
One of the reported highlights of the bloodbath was that employees were summoned to work for “phony” meetings. This, unfortunately, is not an uncommon practice on Wall Street. “How else do you do it?” one senior banker at a competitive firm asked me rhetorically. “It’s not nice. But everyone is a grown-up.”
Solomon has received extra criticism, perhaps because he is such an unusual Wall Street CEO. He’s a DJ at night. And there have been reports of his many weekend breaks on board the firm’s private planes, and an investigation into whether the expense for those is justified.