Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman & CEO, Goldman Sachs

okay thank you we're very pleased today to have Lloyd Blankfein as our special guest he is of course chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs which is one of the leading financial institutions in the world Lloyd has been the CEO and chairman of Goldman Sachs since 2006 when his predecessor Hank Paulson left to become Secretary of Treasury Lloyd had been a Goldman for most of his career but actually started out as a lawyer and before that let me give you a bit about his background Lloyd grew up in Brooklyn his father like my father worked in the post office and didn't have a lot of money but he got scholarships and did quite well in school was valedictorian of his class in high school at Thomas Jefferson High School he went to Harvard on a scholarship graduated in 1975 and from there he went to Harvard Law School graduated in 1978 Harvard Law School and then joined Donovan leisure a law firm in New York and prior to that he had actually thought about joining a firm called Goldman Sachs but was turned down by Goldman Sachs but he later after practicing law for a few years went to work at J Aaron which was a commodities trading firm that was subsequently acquired by Goldman Sachs and then worked his way up and became the co-head of Jay Aaron and later the vice chairman of Goldman Sachs and then president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs and of course CEO and chairman of Goldman Sachs and has been doing that since 2006 Lloyd is actively involved in philanthropy as well but involved as the chairman of the New York City partnership involved in the Robin Hood Foundation and has had the Goldman Sachs Foundation being very involved in a lot of really good philanthropic causes including 10,000 women so Lloyd when you were growing us 20 that's very impressive I couldn't do that without notes okay why I stayed up all night memorizing so when you're growing up in Brooklyn your father's working at the post office and I know from the experience you don't usually think when your father's working the post office you're going to wind up running to one of the most prestigious financial institutions in the world what was your goal when you were growing up in Brooklyn just to get out of Brooklyn or was it to to to do what what was her goal well I'm in Washington so I could I might be able to say that I certainly couldn't say that closer to home but I just wanted to uh you know I wanted to get out and I wanted to see the world I will I knew there were other things to do what I wanted I didn't know who I was and frankly I wanted to get out and have my eyes open so when you went to practice law did you really want to be a lawyer or did you think about getting into finance for quite a while on your career you know for me going to law I think somebody when I was when I was a when I was young someone said to me when I was having an argument somebody said you know you're like a Philadelphia lawyer I had no idea what that meant I know now what that means it refers to the Zanger trial and all that but at that point it stuck to me I said well it's fate I must have to be a lawyer and then when you go to school and you major in Liberal Arts like I did law school is kind of an extension of the liberal arts and so I got I kind of drafted it along into into the profession now did you ever think you were going to be an athlete because you were a great swimmer in high school when I went to Harvard did you try out to be a swimmer there what happened you were right I thought I was a great athlete in high school and I'd say I was a great swimmer in the context of a huge community that didn't swim so what happened you to try out for the Harvard swim team I did try yeah Oh actually I did because I was so stupid I didn't know these things and I got in and it was some long day I say what do you like to swim and I said distance the longer the better so they put me this was a this was in 1971 and the coach of the Harvard team coach gambril actually coached the Olympic team in 1972 and brought some people with him and so there was some long race all I remember was that when I got out of the pool the people I started with were already dressed and then and so I got myself out of the water and without turning around I walked an even dry myself off I walked out of the building and over to the boathouse and I said I'm gonna try something else okay and so then not only was i a bad swimmer in school I was also a bad rower at school okay so you decide not to be a professional athlete you decided to get into I had the right volume I just didn't have the right height okay it got into finance when you join goldman sachs did you ever aspire to be the head of Goldman Sachs or you join kind of through the back door as a commodities trader did you have any aspirations to be a commodities trader how did you get into that no I had aspirations each day to survive till the next one but oh you know over time you get in everything else that gets like everybody else here you get more comfortable and more interesting things to do I would say I never lived my life looking ahead at the next and next next thing and trying to plot and plan where I should be I decided that early on that I was getting too old to keep deferring gratification I had to enjoy what I was doing at any given moment and so I liked markets it basically what it was I found something that where my kind of quote you know near ad D was actually an advantage and so there was a lot of noise and there was a lot of inputs and you can watch screens all day and so I kind of liked markets and then liking markets led to liking economics liking economics led to liking business liking business led to the world that we're in now so you rose up because you hear the business that you headed up was one of the most parts of goldman sachs so you became an effect the number two person at goldman sachs what what was your expression when hank paulson called you up and said i'm going to be leaving to be secretary treasurer were you shocked or were you sure you were ready to be the CEO i think when you when you think succession in big institutions and many people here are big institutions you always think you have a euphemism for these things you think of long term succession and what happens if the person on top gets hit by a bus in other words a sudden this was the equivalent getting hit but with the CEO getting hit by a bus now i was in line i was a member of the board and so i knew i could have been in that i would have been in that succession plan but I thought that Hank was planning to say is a lot longer and the one thing that was kind of like getting hit by a bus without without it being a bus although it later turned into a bus was that there was no there was no you know transition so in other words when you when you got when you when I got that call he was saying I'd like you to join me I'm going to the Rose Garden tomorrow the day after that announcement was made he wasn't coming back to gomen sachs to introduce me to the show me where the keys were well so now let's go forward for a few moments of where we go back to there's those days when you took over today as you look at the economy that you're now running one of the largest financial institutions the world you have offices throughout the world are you optimistic about the US economy and you're optimistic about the global economy look there's always near-term short do I think you have to put things in perspective sentiment is very bad and for real reasons but by and large the world advances and gets better most of the time I mean I'm in the business of I'm in the risk management business so I'm in the business of trying to separate sentiment out from you know what's real and now sentiment or there's an iteration because sentiment helps drive reality and they iterate with each other but most of the time things do get worked out and they do muddle through and they or and they always have there's just a rhythm and a cycle to things so we can spend a long time talking about all the problems that I have to go home and worry about and risk management against and try to hedge and adjust for but by and large I am I'm optimistic partly as a personality matter and partly because statistically things do work out and you have to figure that out and I could go through just in our last in in the periods of these the markets that we share together all the times that everybody was throwing in the towel and it was just wrong well in Washington we often now talk about the fiscal cliff suppose the president United States called you up and said many people from your firm have given advice to government leaders what can I do to solve the fiscal cliff problem should I extend the Bush tax cuts should I veto them what should I do to avoid a recession what would you advise the president well I'd say that the fiscal cliff as a major uncertainty in the world is responsible for a real you know a real burden and a real diminution of value and wealth in the world just because because uncertainty makes the thing everything worth less and if anything is resolving that kind of an uncertainty and it's not just one side or the other signing it I wrote a note earlier today arguing for militantly for moderation and compromise because this is really a march of folly to have things go between two extremes first because first because nothing will get done but secondly if one side wins as one side will win you don't accomplish the certainty because immediately after one side wins and there and then takes all the other side will be plotting and planning to reverse it two years later much has happened in the beginning part of this current term and has happened after the House of Representatives won its election you you then go out and try to make it any kind of stability in our system can only be achieved if everybody throws in at least a little so that it's stable and it's that stability that helps Drive that helps things to go forward what would you recommend an extension of the Bush tax cuts or you would not wreck an extension I'm the president United States I need your advice we know let me tell you if a gun would place to you know pushed and how to do something I would almost capitulate to either side rather than have these things go on and what you would because that because everyone comes out ahead if there's a resolution but you mean certainty is what you're most interested in yes knowing that things would things can always adjust and I'll tell you something when you're dealing with tax cuts and when you're dealing with numbers there's some things in life it's either/or when you're dealing with rates you can split differences that's one of the that's one of the things that you can get across I think one of the things that's a little bit lunatic is the idea of backing yourself into a corner and saying I cannot compromise on this this is a matter of principle I'll tell you what's a matter of principle matter of principle is that this is a country and if you want to manage the country you better not leave a 49 percent minority carping at you whichever side is the one that's lucky enough to get the 51 percent carping at you and trying to undermine you and biding its time so it could reverse your majority that's that's what I in so that's what I would strive many of your predecessors have actually wound up as senior government positions secretaries of Treasury for example and vote two to two administrations on both sides I think five of your six predecessors have been senior government officials do you have any aspiration to ever go in government I'll tell you I have I have aspirations to be desired okay okay all right okay but by a fire President United States by by eighty by a president by any president I didn't limit I not going to limit it to the United States now you mentioned rates you were talking about tax rates but talk about interest rates for a moment the LIBOR scandal is one that that has caused a lot of attention around the world your firm was not involved in helping to set Libor rates right but what would you think the impact was of the problems that arose and LIBOR and the falsification apparently of what the actual library should have been well people are driving I will tell you the biggest the biggest impact that I'm feeling now you know you know you know the facts aren't laid out we don't know how much it was affected we don't know what they would have been had they not been affected you know there was a calculation he's warned so why the question you know things are coming up as a factual basis what were the motives for why it was done was done just you know people who had the good intention of stabilizing the system putting all that aside I think the big bull animals are the liability that could come from it I think the biggest impact is once more undermining the integrity of a system that has already been undermined substantially and people are in some of the words there was this huge hole to dig out of in terms of getting trust back and now it's just that much deeper and I think that that's going to be a big burden for all of us in the narrowest part of the financial industry the broader part of the financial industry business in general because in a way uncertainty is something that puts a burden on things makes spreads wide or harder to transact but also a lack of trust you know is certainly at least a cousin of that right now let me ask you you spend a lot of time in Europe you you're a very prominent firm in Europe as well are you worried that the euro will dissolve or do you think euro will survive well those actually not say yes to both I'm worried or and I think it will survive again I spend about 98% of my time worrying and trying to manage the risks of 2% probabilities or even less so I think there is a not insignificant possibility that there could be an unraveling I but I really really don't think it will happen and I would say I do spend a lot of time in Europe and I spend a lot of a night just in the last three weeks I was in Germany and I was in Italy and I know other countries as well and the one thing my big one thing I come away with and I could tell you I know all this stuff before I get there but it had such a big impact on me even so is there is the there is no doubt the intensity of everyone in all business leaders and government leaders to want to preserve the euro zone and the euro how important this is and I think people who live in the United States who grew up in our country and didn't grow up with that history can be more cynical about it than people who grew up over there and there is an absolute commitment by the wealthier states like Germany and the meteor peripheral States at the moment there's an absolute unanimity that being said by itself is not dispositive because in addition to the will you have to have the capacity and there's always a risk that if snowball starts rolling down a hill by the time it gets midway down the hill it gets too big to stop so that's a worry and another one which is that you have to have if you have the capacity you have to have the mechanisms to be effective to stop it and when you look at the governance and the structure of the euro it's flawed it's flawed that no country in Europe can borrow in a currency that's its own currency no one has its own currency and the governance and the mechanisms in place and it's a very it's a form of federalism but with very incomplete mechanisms for achieving the results that are sought and the results that you even have the wealth to accomplish so I'd say all those elements are troublesome but if you ask me I think the most important thing is that there's the will and there's the capacity and so I think in all likelihood in fact predominant likelihood that it goes I goes well muddle soothe although they'll be difficult moments now you manage money your firm does for lots of wealthy people and institutions around the world suppose I was one of your clients and I called you up and said Stiles I thought I I thought you didn't disclose who your investors were but I just said suppose I'm sorry that was an inflection I have it just doing Treasury bills but so if I was a client and I wanted advice and I said should I invest in Europe so I Miss United States or so I invested in emerging markets are like China and India what would you recommend that I do with my money I would say at any given moment list for different terms I would say if you are looking at with you know investments and others talk we're not talking about corporate investments per se or business are talking about personal investments I would say for a long time frame I think it's easier to forecast the growth market to the world in the emerging markets of the world ten-year forwards and it is to forecast them ten months forward I think the BRICS countries the growth markets there are certain things there are certain things that are going on now that are clearly cyclical but one of the great secular changes in the world today is the creation of wealth in these growth countries where that genie is out of the bottle that's going to keep on going and and they can have very high growth rates and we're going to wring our hands and bemoan and one of the things that's troubling the world right now is that China's growth rate may be going from 11% to seven and a half percent but it's seven and a half percent for crying out loud and maybe they'll have other problems but over time the populations terrific population they got the feel and the value of markets and investment and they won't go this is going to be the century of those bricks and maybe even China specifically now the 20th century was a century of America doesn't mean we owned every year in the 20th century there were some pretty bad years but if you you know there was a panic in o-7 if you took your money out you know seven you would have missed the last 93 years of the American Century well the fern someone in your firm Jim O'Neill invented the term BRICS good for Brazil Russia India China China you're very bullish I guess from what you just said what is your view on Russia you were just in Russia yes sure you wanna say mod you know let me be moderate for a second we put out you know we put out you know reports when we analyze this to death and don't forget we stare on think at things in real times you're going in and out and intimately and want to know where do you invest money for the longer term you know we could be we're bullish on all these countries for the long term and each one has a separate dynamic that might make us cautious in the short term I think at a point in time when there's global growth around the world then those country those that group of countries that have much more of their wealth and growth predicated on commodities and the demand for commodities will have a better time when the whole world is growing and not as good a time in the world isn't so with a high oil price the fortunes of Russia look good and with a lower oil price you know it's going to be they're going to have a little they're going to hit it you know have a little bit more of a speed bump along the way but on the whole their success is not predicated on that it's predicated on the you know the you know its population and and a broadening out of their economies what about Brazil what's your view on Brazil you're bullish on Brazil or you know it was you know a similar story now we're dealing with these countries they've had you know problems in their markets and there's a global slowdown and by the way historically if you know when we've had these other you know moments in time when the emerging markets called subsequently called BRIC substance called emerging markets went the second that the developed world would sneeze they would catch the biggest cold and a fever that's really not happening now but it is going to represent some kind of a slowdown because those markets are all riskier and consequently more leverage to things going well and therefore that trajectory will seem to come down more but they're coming down to a growth rate that's still still pulling up the global growth rate in other words the global growth rate today in this recession you know the in a recessionary and deflationary mindset is still three and a half percent or more for the world while the developed world is much much lower than still being pulled up by the country's now today you've received your economists foresee based on your own experience a recession likely the United States in the next year or so no they don't and you don't and I don't but you know you and you're going and you're talking about recession you're talking about a very technical whether something is you know the difference in a recession not a recession could be two quarters in a row or something where country goes by a quarter percent or shrinks with the economy shrinks by a quarter percent the point is not so much whether it's a technical recession it's whether we're in a period of you know recessionary tendency and where the trajectory of growth is not quick enough to change this change the sentiment and get people to start moving these you know these are virtuous circles or vicious circles but if people start to feel more positive they actually go out and do the things that make things more positive that creates more positive thoughts now you came out with earnings yesterday and your earnings were down a bit from before the press account said that this was due to the fact that the regulatory environment was forcing firms like yours to change their business model do you think that's a fair summary and what is your view on the dodd-frank spill sure I'd say the biggest effect and you know we're quite open in this and have been open at this in good times and bad times all of our businesses that correlate with growth we advise companies who make acquisitions or want to sell divisions and implement new strategies which don't happen and volumes of that go very low when people are insecure and not feeling good about the world we finance transactions and they're fewer fare transactions to finance but nobody's acquiring assets or investing in their businesses and we manage money in the asset management business where the with a the value of what we do and the fees that we take in are better and there's more opportunity when people are confident enough to pursue riskier assets and I could tell you you could not find a part of the cycle where all of those volumes and all those activities would be at a lower ab to me that's the cyclical part of it and that's what we're living through it wasn't that long ago you know we had no record years as recently as oh nine when as things were going down now that they're down we're not necessarily waiting of course we're not waiting but there are certain things that are psychic cycles that it's not very good for us to overreact to and of course things that are more secular which might include regulation we of course have to react to I should say by the way react to cycles too because cycles can be severe and they can last a long time and if you get killed in the bad part of a cycle because you don't manage your business closely enough when the cycle turns you're still dead in God Frank if it if it could be removed tomorrow would you be happy or sad you think it's a good piece of legislation are not good piece of legislation no I again the second question was now or in the first part of it I think it's a good piece of it's a good to address legislatively and the vast bulk of it I think is good and there are parts of it that like you know the swing of a pendulum that will go too far and ultimately I think get adjusted and I think the regulator you know a lot of dodd-frank as a bill was skeletal and a lot of the a lot of the very very important details were left to a regulatory process and the regulator's themselves are having problems coming to the right conclusions and filling those in there was a little bit of a pass to the regulators and that and that's happened happening now and so it's not all determined but if I could push a button and eliminate dodd-frank no I would not want to have that field unregulated about the Volcker rule part of it but you are you happy with that you know I think the vote I think the Volcker rule which actually came in very late actually addressed addressed issues that were not you know you know not the problems of the system and raised the rule of whether institutions like ourselves can carry a you know will be able to easily carry out all the important financial functions that that you know that are that a Frank we are needed so I think that that was a that was and again the Volcker rule has passed as an outline it remains to see how the regulator's interpret it now you joined an investment bank because it was a place that people aspire to join let's say 10 20 years ago do you think young people have as great a career in investment banking today and people graduating from the best colleges and business schools or from any college or Business School should go into investment bank and your children want to go into Investment Banking and I think that's for my children I think it's it's there's the additional complexity of getting closer to me as opposed to further away I think it's a I think kids today are don't and I'm close you know because again I have king of you do as well kids this age where they're talking and thinking they're at the age where we would be thinking of careers when we were their age I think kids now are thinking what do I want to do for the next three to five years and I will tell you that suits us because what we have provided two generations of people were great was great training in other words we bring people in we work them very hard they learn presentation skills how to think how to learn rigor and you know something there are people who join us and they think they're going to stay only three years and some of them stay thirty and some people come to us and think they're going to stay 30 and they stay three and they go to other places but for us we always get great kids at a school some of whom really intend to stay in Investment Bank and some of them it's investment banking and for some of them it's the furthest thing from their mind they come because whatever else they will go into understanding finance understanding how to become a professional to work hard to have presentation skills to have you know to stay up a couple of nights in a row to get a piece of hard work done you still find you're able to recruit the best young people and we had 12 percent more applicants than we had the year before and as far as are concerned we when we get--we last year when we gave out job offers the acceptance rate we got back was in the was in the mid or high 80s and I you know Harvard would be pleased with that yield there's about 75% so that's why I know they'd be pleased with that yield so today historically Goldman was famous for being an adviser to people allergic companies and now you've shifted more of your business towards if it'd been called that proprietary investing or trading or is that fair to say and therefore are you get the bulk of your earnings now from things where you're the principal rather the adviser is that not fair or accurate well we've always I mean we always we always distinguish and we make up you know we have these words that means something to us and don't mean it and it doesn't necessarily mean anything to anybody else but we have always been in the principal business much less so in the proprietary business and the differences all the many most of the activities we do our principal base we're taking risk and managing it the difference is proprietary would be a subset it's not when we are the other side of what other people want to do it's where we decide to put on a position because we like it we always did some of that it was never the driver of our business or what we mostly did most of the time the principal risk that we take the economic risk is you want to finance something we have to decide whether we can make a commitment you have a company that has commodity risk you come to us and you say can you take me out of my risk and we take that risk on ourselves to the traders and the quantitative strategist and the people who analyze the risk and a great marketeers it's the same thing but we're in the business of facilitating other people's activities by lending a capital on the one hand and risk profile and expertise on the other and that's always been the bulk of what we did in addition we said you know we're so you know with such good marketeer as we set up other groups in the firm that didn't interact with clients and they became proprietary traders who didn't interact and just put on risks that they wanted we've already that is something that Volker addresses quite clearly when the writing was on the wall two years ago for that we shut off that active but we're left with a substantial principal activity that we wield frankly so that other people can do their business without risks that would otherwise impede them and we shoulder those risks now you are a licensed bank b QR bank and the kind of there was an article the other day in new york times suggesting that you're going to become a larger and larger bank released a private bank is that article accurate yes it's actually that one of our one of our strategy i think it you know they focused on that particular thing so it has the risk of looking disproportionate but one of the things one of our big strategic pillars and directions to move in is saying look it's not a hypothetical at this point it's not a question of whether we want to be a bank we are a bank we have the costs and the regular meeting the regulations the burdens of all that the expenditures the compliance the features the limitations on other behaviors of being a bank so it's not a question of saying should we do banking activity what are the cost versus what are the revenues were also we already have the regulation and the expenses and that part of the business the question is what incremental costs incremental to what we're already committed to would drive what kind of revenues and from that point of view we really should extend ourselves to do more private banking now it's not our intention to compete with the big commercial lenders or the big consumer lenders in the bank we're going to stay true to who we are and so we view banking is more the banking that we want to do which will be a much smaller scale in the biggest firms to be an extension of our Private Wealth Management which is helping private clients manage their assets to helping them with the liability side of the balance sheet lending to them mortgages other kinds of financing arrangements it's that kind of private banking that we want to grow and also certain lending activities we can go into more but I'd be you know we don't have the aspiration to be a trillion dollar had a trillion dollar balance sheet dedicated to that banking but at 50 billion dollars we could certainly grow it more than we are now now when go back to where we were before when Hank Paulson left he became secretary of the Treasury you're now this Oh on chairman of the the organization and you were what you were fifty years old or something like that when you round there yeah I think at the time I was we have 50 or 51 okay all right now I'm 150 right so then the world collapse and the economy had all those problems we know about did you ever fear that Goldman would not survive or all these firms wouldn't survive and the worst parts of the of the recession or the the Parker crisis if you asked me what I thought would happen answer that question of course I was I mean I'm I worry you know we sit around and we do contingency planning for epidemics we study the path of the influenza virus because if there's an epidemic in the world we want to know how we staff our offices I mean we do we're in the risk management business we spend tremendous amounts of time planning for or contingency planning for and coming up with ways of dealing with minor risks I didn't think we were going to go under at all but I got to tell you I spent a lot of time worrying about much more remote risks than that was at the time so in other words it was not a risk that I enjoyed going it was at a level that I wouldn't have enjoyed I didn't enjoy going to bed every night with that much as much of a risk as it was it doesn't mean I believed it and so we got on our horse very very quickly so I know you had him here as a speaker so Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway we did an equity raise before tarp was before top was announced and from Berkshire Hathaway pulled in five billion dollars of preferred shares and then did a capital markets transaction with the general public for another five and three-quarter billion dollars of which we had a lot more offer to us so I would say that we didn't think we thought we were quite doing well and is quite sustainable and the external market did too because we were always able to raise money in the public markets that isn't to say that there was that the level of risk wasn't so high that I wasn't relieved that the mark that the regulator's and the legislators were taking steps you know one of the ways which I think is disappointing and I think unfair is the way the community of the official sector is being viewed in hindsight because the world didn't blow up they say gee you took these steps aha that was bad it was unnecessary well it was unnecessary because maybe it was rendered unnecessary because they did it and it might have been some you know it might have been necessary had they not done it but the situation were to rise again you had this you had to live through this again what would you recommend the government do differently and what would you do differently I'd recommend that hang calls somebody else okay do differently I think there was no look you plan and you for remote conditions but the world has a tendency of surprising you and coming up with ways that you couldn't have thought of but certain pundits in hindsight said well you should have thought of that it said or no one knew that was happening if this this won't happen again because people will have contingency planned for this in hindsight what do I wish we everyone could have done better everyone should have had more capital if you're us and people like us you needed more capital but you never would have needed it other than the event that produced the realization that you needed more capital and so now of all the things that are being done what will be the most important thing and the most effective and the least damaging to the system is the requirement that every institution like ours and others similar to ours carry more capital everything else that has to be prescriptive you can do this you can't do this you can do this if you think that all that is may turn out to be counterproductive the thing that's most is have more capital from the people who engineered the relief and I think you should cut some latitude there were a lot of people who took a lot of personal risk to interpret their responsibilities broadly and took risk in other words didn't have personal interest it's a didn't get paid a lot of money for doing it of a sense of duty and public responsibility interpreted their pay themselves broadly and didn't implemented things that worked so it's a little bit carping to kind of second-guess them in hindsight now in hindsight notwithstanding that you know they could have been more open more descriptive confiding more and the legislate you know been more open but there wasn't a lot of time to do things now after the recession is over some people criticize major investment banks Goldman received its fair share of criticism private equity firms got their share as well why do you think gold we got our fair share and some other people's fair shot why do you think Goldman was picked on perhaps more than others or got more of its more than its fair share and do you think that that was a misperception of what the roles of you guys played we went first in some analyses I wouldn't I want to put away the fact that there was some you know bad behavior by certain individuals in the country lot that there weren't issues the real thing is that was extrapolated to a you know to a very big firm with very good relationships and I over century long history of being very very important to to to Klein to know wanted so I don't want to put you know the real you know real issues that we had to deal with away but I will say I think part of the place that we held was a bit because we were a wholesale institution we weren't active in people's lives we had no consumer business we don't we didn't advertise our advertising budget was zero we had no dialogue with consumers because we simply weren't a consumer bank there's no Bank branches people didn't know what we were doing we were a little mysterious and that was a big problem and then of course in hindsight that was a mistake because consumers is another word for citizens and taxpayers and while we didn't necessarily have to have a good dialogue with consumers it turns out in hindsight we should have had a better dialogue with taxpayers and and citizens because it turns out and we should have known this we play a very big part in there and now we know ourselves that they play a very big part in all those made changes in that dress and we know we have to reach out more and make ourselves aware now we were always engaged in the public debates you know people didn't you know the general public didn't know our views of things but congressional staffs sovereigns around the world big companies came to us used us for advice look at the number of people and this became a liability to us shouldn't have the numbers of people at Goldman Sachs at the height of their careers who would leave our business or our firm in our industry and go into public service because they had that kind of mindset and that kind of commitment and so we were always very much involved in the big public issues and debate and a very big resource for public policy decision makers but we weren't known to the general public for that and that was you know more than inconvenient it was bad and it was a misstep what would you like to see as you know when you are finally finished as being the chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs which presumably as many years in the future have no plans to leave I assume that's correct so what would you like ultimately to be your legacy at Goldman Sachs you've had a lot of distinguished predecessors is there something you would like to say this is what you did for Goldman Sachs look I'd like to be thought of somebody who you know brought the firm through you know who in you know good times did you know better than our competitors made big contributions to the growth of the world when things were very very good and when things turn bad I'd like to think of someone who led a very important financial institution made a contribution to remind people about the reality of things and not let people to dissolve into and succumb to bad sentiment and make sure that we're resilient have proved ourselves to be resilient and come out as a firm stronger on the other side financially and in terms of the contributions we make and frankly with an with an enhanced reputation which is not something you know with the general public which is not something that would have been an aspiration before because we didn't realize the relevance of that to us so no regrets about giving up the practice of law you're very happy with what you did and you're very pleased with your situation today in terms the role that Goldman's playing in the role that you're playing at Goldman right I think that I am not altogether sorry that I gave up the practice of law although I did enjoy the practice of law but I you know we can't be you know we're not satisfied with where we we could never be satisfied with law you know all of us were all strivers and so let me tell you if the birds were chirping the Sun was shining we'd find new things to do in new places to do them in that's you know our you know this is growth you know this is not a zero-sum game that we're in we're not competing against each other for a pie our job is to grow the pie and make everybody wealthier not for the venality of trying to get richer and more wealthy but wealth in the sense of making the you know the world stronger and healthier and no for lack of a better word better and that's what we you know that's what we strive to do well Lloyd I appreciate very much for giving us your perspective and I think um it's a great oversight of what your perspectives are and I want to thank everybody for coming today and loyal thank you too much video gift I have a gift to give

Channel: The Economic Club of Washington, D.C.

Views: 124,714

Keywords: Lloyd Blankfein (Organization Leader), Goldman Sachs (Business Operation), 2012 - 2013 Speaker Series, Chief Executive Officer (Project Role), Economy, Economic, Economic Club, The Economic Club of Washington, David Rubenstein, Chairman (Organization Committee Title)

Id: wsbebAJ40DQ

Length: 41min 5sec (2465 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 06 2014